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Now that is an excellent point I didn't really think about. Initially this was supposed to be a slower paced shooter taking place in a network of metros (literally inspired by the Metro series). It was supposed to feature more puzzles and the ability to use stealth. However I didn't manage to get the AI to feel right and was running out of time, so decided to lean into the telekinesys as a combat tool.

I have a gif on the Discord server where I first showcased the TK ability and you can see both the player and enemies move much slower, there's weapon ADS, crouching and a much smaller jump height.

Anyway, I'm glad you did find it fun even if you're not into shooters. And thank you for the geniune feedback.

Happy that you liked it. For the wall run I don't do a good job of explaining how it works. When you jump, if you touch a wall on the upward part of the jump, your horizontal velocity becomes vertical and the cat runs up the wall. Nothing happens if you touch it while falling. 

Really glad you liked it. And you found the easter egg too :)

I'm glad you liked it, and that you found the easter egg :)

The wall mechanic is very reliable and precise once you get the hang of it. The problem is I don't do a good job of explaining in the game how it works.

When you jump, if you touch a wall on the upward part of the jump, your horizontal velocity becomes vertical and the cat runs up the wall. Nothing happens if you touch it while falling. 

This is why, if you're right next to the wall and jump the cat drops back down quite quickly, because it has little to no horizontal velocity to convert into a wall run, and why the stairs are such tricky to get right. I will look into revising that specific behaviour soon.

I really like the concept of a card battler. The implementation is really fun. I like that each card has a category and once you pick the first you can only play other cards from same category. Also, touch controls for mobile were a really nice...touch :)

Two things I feel would really elevate this game:

- tighter cat movement. Too slidey. Faster acceleration and deceration would make it feel better. As it is I keep sliding into bookshelves and have no way to avoid enemies as they home in on me while I slide around

- more juice during battle. The system is so cool but there's no visual feedback when I deal damage, or manage to block an attack

This has potential to be a really good game and the kind I would play on my phone.

Thank you for the feedback, glad you liked it. And sorry for the high sound volume. Really should have added a setting for that :)

Oh sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant Doom doesn't have ADS because it would slow down the pace of the game. You are correct, the raycast goes from screen center.

I tried doing a multiplayer FPS many years ago in Unity. Shooting was actually better in that one but never quite managed to get the netcode right and eventually dropped it. A video relic of it exists on youtube

The rules state you can use third party sound effects and music samples to make up your own music, but not whole songs.

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my project, and even decompiling it.

- there's a reason why guns shoot from the firepoint at their tip. Initially I had ADS implemented, so if you wanted to hit more or less where you aimed (minus the weapon spread) you had to aim down sight. After playtesting I didn't feel that would fit with the fast paced gameplay. There's a reason Doom doesn't have ADS, right? :).

- headshots kill the enemy, but also if you aim down low in the legs area. You saw the code, there's no damage difference on where you shoot them. The reason body shots take more is purely because you're hitting their weapon. Getting the layers right is what I failed. You'll notice that for example the weapon layer collides with the player, but the player doesn't collide with the weapon. This also applies to boxes and ragdolls. This is to prevent those from becoming effectively walls for the player. Using a rigidbody and forces to move the player would have circumvented these problems, and would have made the character movement feel more natural.

I don't usually make 3D games. This was my second time doing it with Godot (technically third, but one of them was a 2.5D game). I did not enjoy the process. Nothing wrong with Godot, I just realized I don't like making 3D games :).

The art style is really nice. The music is also pretty good. The controls need a bit of acceleration and deceleration as they are too snappy and make platforming difficult. There's also a bit of subverting expectations. After I got the clarity dash I was expecting any roof edge to be climbable, but it seems some were and some weren't, and there was no way to tell.

Otherwise not bad, would like to see more.

I really liked the controls and the map layout. It was very fun, especially because I was able to find ways to go out of phase. The gym was a nice touch. Well done.

Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you liked it.

I am terrible at art of any kind, 2D or 3D. I did not know how to make it look good so it ended up like that :(. I tried playing with light a bit, but could not get much better and was running out of time.

Enemies spawning in large quantities is actually trying to cover up the fact that they...erm...suck :). Also, it gives player the opportunity to really flex TK. Combined with the fact that enemies die at the slightest touch of a body or box, you can really mop the floor with them by grabbing bodies and tossing them into groups.

But I do agree, better balancing and fixing some of the bugs would have made it a much better experience and wouldn't need to abuse the spawn rates.

Thank you so much for all the feedback!

- you are correct about the movement, it is instantaneous. I was concerned about floaty movement so didn't add any acceleration or deceleration, but in retrospect I agree with you, it would have made it feel better. As for the ramp bug, I honestly didn't know how to fix it, so I just left it in and hoped players will just jump. Thank you for telling me how to fix it, much appreciated!

- enemies will try to get within a minimum range that helps with the effectiveness of their weapon. they also try to back away if you get too close to them, and they chase you if they can't see you.  However, because of a bug enemies will fire at you if they see you even if they are way outside the effective range of their weapon.

- enemies will trip and fall sometimes when hitting their dead buddies or boxes. The velocity threshold is very low because the velocity calculations on impact seem to be buggy, with velocity being much smaller than expected. Plus my son found it hilarious when enemies would trip and fall on their face, so I left it in :)

- the hit detection is...funky, and this leads to a handful of issues you mentioned. When you shoot at enemies or they shoot at you, if the weapon is hit no damage is passed to the holder. I probably could have addressed that but ran out of time and I was already in physics layers hell so it ended up like this. You can see that when damage is dealt (either to you or enemies), red particles are spawned, otherwise they're white.

- the room you mentioned and the room you get TK from are infinite respawn rooms, with enemies coming out until you do the objective for that room. The pile thing you mentioned can happen if you kill enemies inside the tiny rooms where they respawn. Whenever an enemy dies, a new enemy spawns. Now, if an enemy is dead exactly where another one spawns, what happens is for one frame you'll have: enemy spawns -> touches another body -> dies -> new enemy spawns -> touches body -> dies. This happens until the physics engine gives up and kills all rigidbodies. I assume you saw eventually all bodies dissapear and the game is back to normal framerate.

I didn't spot anything wrong at the fox shop (except for the ripoff exchange rates :)). Also, I didn't try, but what happens with the gnomes you can sell to them? My heart didn't let me click on that button

Omg, how did you get that time??? Would love to see a video of the run. Well done!

Hey Santa! Thanks for playing, I'm glad you like it

Thanks for the feedback! I'm so glad you like it. Keep an eye on it, we have more maps, more features and polish coming up in the new year

This entry was the best interpretation of the theme for me. Everything is so juicy and polished...except for the circle movement. That's the only thing missing. Otherwise this is pretty much a perfect entry. Congrats!

Glad you enjoyed it. It was important to get the controls right for this kind of game so I'm happy to hear you found it snappy and responsive. Saw your time on the leaderboard, not bad :)

Really solid metroidvania. Lots of content. I like that despite the limited color scheme, areas look so distinct and recognizable. Combat was easy but the puzzles kinda twisted my brain. I didn't finish it yet. I don't have any constructive things for this one. Everything fits and works well, at least as far as I played. Congrats!

This looks and feels almost like a complete game. Art is amazing, music is spot on, the controls are pretty good. My only complaint is enemies are very aggressive and they don't really have a tell so I can time my dodges. It was usually a frantic jumping around, dashing and attacking hoping to take them out before they did. Also, having jump as middle mouse button with no alternate key was criminal. Good thing I had a controller :)

Overall this is by far the most complete entry in the jam. Well done putting in so much effort and making such a gorgeous game. I will be coming back to this one.

There is some odd behaviour when you're touching a wall and try to jump while having little or no horizontal velocity. So to go fast past the stairs you have to carefully juggle jump and direction inputs. Or, simply find an alternative (faster but more dangerous) route.

OMG, that was insane! Well done! Let's see what the community comes up with.

Extremely polished entry. The gravity puzzles are real mind-benders. Lighting is really good. The wall grappling + jumping is really tight. Only thing I have is I felt the ground movement was too slidey. I feel a slightly faster acceleration and deceleration would have made ground control tighter. Otherwise well done, I really enjoyed it!

I really like the look of the character. Also, brilliant way to show the health as percentage of red color on their body. Holding down to charge jump is a nice idea. I wish the controls were a bit more responsive. There's some interesting platforming but the sluggish movement gets in the way a bit.

Good job! Would like to see more done with the main character, it has potential.

What an amazing trip! Filled with fun and joy as well as sadness and introspection. Well done!

I am glad you liked it! I hope to see you back trying to crack that 30 seconds time :)

Thank you so much for playing the game and for the very detailed feedback!

The hit registration bug is caused by the fact that you're hitting the enemy weapon instead of their body. This also applies when they shoot at you and will hit your weapon or the object you're carrying if you have telekinesis. Whenever a damageable part is hit you'll see red particles on impact. Otherwise the particles are white.

The enemies spawn and despawn based on the area. For example, when you enter the building with telekinesis upgrade, enemies on the top floor spawn. When you get close to the floor below, where the upgrade is, the enemies on the top floor despawn and the ones below spawn. Unfortunately it's not a great system. If you push forward doom-style, you won't notice it most of the time. But if you play more defensively and fall back it becomes visible.

I'm glad you liked the telekinesis ability, it is the core of the gameplay. I wish I had gotten to do more with it, but it is what it is.

What a cute lovely game! I only managed to save 3 gnomes, though some of them were just left behind rather than dead. I hope they make it too :)

There is a bug on the final page where it said "3 out of 3 initial gnomes made it". It should have said "3 out of 24"

I always create web builds for my jam entries so you should have no problem playing it on a Mac

Your sprite work is amazing! Your kitty is now the main character in my speedrunning platformer: https://sl1ngshot.itch.io/run-kitty-run

I'm up for it. 2024 was bad for me wrt Secret Santa Jam and ended up dropping out, but this year I was able to make a game.

Thank you for playing it and for the feedback. The effects being over the top was on purpose, but based on feedback it seems I went too far :).

Thank you, glad you liked it. And yeah, it didn't help I procrastinated for most of the jam period, hence the lack of polish

Thank you for playing the game and the constructive feedback. 

I agree, the mixing is very off. The hitboxes are indeed problematic. A lot of it comes from me layering the weapons incorrectly so when you shoot/throw at an enemy, if it hits their weapon no damage is passed to them.

The bullets taking a lot of screenspace visually was a design choice along with over-the-top shaking. I guess it didn't work as well as I hoped :)

A very unique idea for a metroidvania. The tools are nice and interesting to use. The lyra in particular was a nice touch. I'm not very good with puzzles, so I got stuck at one of the music walls and couldn't figure out what I need to play. Nice game.

Very nice gameplay loop, and one crazy background story too.

The game seems huge. Well done for cramming so much quality content in a game jam entry. I wasn't able to get to the end as I got stuck in one area and couldn't figure out how to proceed. Nothing to do with the game, I'm just not good at puzzles :)

As others already mentioned, some background music would have taken the atmosphere to the next level.

Overall very well done!

Oh, now I got it. Yeah, it can be a bit much when there are lots of them shooting at the same time.

Characters look AMAZING! I like the concept behind it. 

There were a few things I didn't understand however. I couldn't figure out the combat system at all. I also ran into some bugs, one of them game breaking. After I get the grow ability and have to return to the burrows, the plant where there are two ants can't be grown. 

The controls are a bit floaty. The platforming section to get to the grow ability was quite difficult because my character kept sliding off into the water.

A combat tutorial would have been really useful. I'd love to see the concept developed further.

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. I was planning on adding a red/green light on weapons to show if they still have ammo but it slipped through the cracks of last-minute scramble to get everything wrapped up :(

I love your ideas of grabbing enemies while they're still alive as well as throwing weapons and have them shatter. 

The enemies doing too much damage is an interesting one. I spent quite a bit of time trying to balance damage, number of enemies and heal rate. I guess what I didn't account for was that as I was playtesting, I got better at the game. I was going to add a difficulty setting in the menu but that also ended up on the cutting floor.

Enemies are quite inaccurate at long range. In close quarters try to use dash and duck in and out of cover. Also once you unlock telekinesis boxes and other enemies can shield you from some damage