itch.io

Gameplay

How fun/engaging/challenging the game's mechanics are and how well they support the intended experience.

• There simply aren’t enough mechanics implemented to call this a game yet, so I have nothing meaningful to say about moment to moment gameplay.
• With that said, the genre generally relies on interruptions to the core gameplay loop, like events and customer interactions, to break up the experience. I think that would be a good next step, rather than worrying about deepening mechanical depth or balancing the player economy.
• The game notably features a save system that actually functions on browsers, something that deserves praise as it is not common among first time developers and because it’s a relevant feature to specifically this game genre.

Presentation

Quality of the visuals, audio and general juiciness.

• Individually each piece of pixelart is quite nice and detailed. Across the sprites there’s a clear style and tone being communicated that supports a cosy theme.
• The different assets of the game use dramatically different pixel sizes, hurting the visual cohesion of the game a lot. This is a technical fault that is more easily fixed than the style itself, and if all art fit the same pixel grid while being drawn at the current quality level, I am confident the result would be a great looking game.
• The game lacks sound effects and juiciness in general. Atmosphere from guests talking in the background and effects like a pop of coins when the player earns money are some examples, but much can be considered for implementation.

Experience

How well any intended emotions, themes, narrative, atmosphere, or fantasy are conveyed.

• The art alone is quite good and sells exactly what the game is trying to be, before any gameplay is even shown. That clarity is a big strength and should remain a focus if the project is continued.
• Some background music could do a lot to support the emotional tone of the game.

Cohesion

How well the gameplay, presentation, and experience support each other.

• Overall, the sparse experience makes it hard to comment on overall cohesion. I think I can see the vision, but we’re a ways off from having enough of a game to really evaluate much.
• With that said, the project has clear strengths and an understandable premise. At no point was I confused about what experience the game was trying to give me.

Gameplay

How fun/engaging/challenging the game's mechanics are and how well they support the intended experience.

• The web swing mechanic is very satisfying to use, making good use of momentum conservation to let the player build speed over consecutive swings.
• Likewise, reversing gravity is a novel solution to letting the player walk on all kinds of surfaces, with the mechanics for handling slight angle changes and curved surfaces working well.
• There is clearly some form of dynamic checkpoint system that tries to respawn the player where they were instead of only preset locations. It works very well and does a lot to reduce frustration when you fail a tall jump, by resetting back to the top.
• There is very limited guidance or traditional gameplay structure beyond collecting the data items, and the experience is more of a tech demo/sandbox than an ordinary game.
• The two “challenge rooms” with lasers do a good job exploring challenge and mechanical potential in constrained environments.
• The open city similarly allows the player to explore movement and momentum with collectibles clearly out of normal jump reach.
• There are a lot of non-obvious mechanical opportunities, and even after 20 minutes of gameplay I was still figuring out new potential solutions. Seeing data items far above the city kept me thinking about what part of my toolset I was not using fully, to be able to get there.
• The ability to keep gravity reversed gave me some extreme mobility once I figured out I could fall horizontally across the city that way. Both flying straight up to hard to reach data and also across the city using a web swing right at the end to convert my fall speed into huge jumps. (I’m not sure if this use was intended, but it was fun and effective.)

Presentation

Quality of the visuals, audio and general juiciness.

• The bot itself has a good art style, supported by the really nice physics-based disassembly when killed.
• Similarly, the bot has a very impressive and satisfying degree of dynamic movement animation on its legs that really lift the visuals.
• Some dynamic stepping sounds every time a leg is placed would also be a great way to draw attention to the walking animations.
• As it stands, the world is a grey-box and doesn’t have much to comment on yet.

Experience

How well any intended emotions, themes, narrative, atmosphere, or fantasy are conveyed.

• There’s an ultra short description on the itch page giving a context for the game and nothing inside the game itself, but if a narrative isn’t really important to the game I think it’s acceptable to simply not have one at all.
• According to that description, it’s a utopian city but I don’t really get that sense from the current greybox.
• Even just looping some background music could do a lot to communicate a theme and set the atmosphere.

Cohesion

How well the gameplay, presentation, and experience support each other.

• Viewing this game as a developer sandbox for exploring mechanics and technical solutions, it’s quite impressive. As a full game experience, it’s lacking a lot especially in terms of helping new players learn.
• Most players are not willing to sit down and figure out how to play a game through trial and error, though for players who do enjoy that experience, like me, Spyder is quite a fun game for simply posing a challenge and asking the player to figure it out.
• I managed to find 11/12 data.

Gameplay

How fun/engaging/challenging the game's mechanics are and how well they support the intended experience.

• The core idea of combining pinball with rogue-lite is really fun and I immediately experienced the satisfaction of different upgrades being synergistic.
• The pinball level seemed a little cramped and full of bouncers for the size and speed of the ball. It felt like there were a number of instances where the ball is bounced toward the hole so fast it becomes impossible to react or anticipate.
• Unfortunately I ran into a number of bugs that I could only figure out how to fix by fully resetting the game:
  • No new balls spawn at level start.
  • The plunger stops working.
  • The wall to the plunger doesn’t disappear when the active ball is dropped.
  • The ‘next level’ and ‘shop’ buttons don’t appear after last ball is lost.
• Resetting is obviously not desirable when a core mechanic is rogue-lite progression, and so I’ve only fully finished one run.

Presentation

Quality of the visuals, audio and general juiciness.

• “Ka-bum” is a genuinely funny voice line for dropping a ball without being too much and becoming annoying in the long run.
• The picture-in-picture tracking the ball is a good addition that makes the movement of the ball feel much more visceral and powerful.
• The art style isn’t entirely pixels and pixel sizes relative to each other are inconsistent, hurting the visual cohesion of the game. Especially UI buttons with text look out of place.
• The shop has a basic greyed-out effect for items that are too expensive, but it’s not very clear when a lot of the game uses grey already, so more clear UI borders and effects would help.
• The art for the shop, items and score screen are all quite good with shading and high amounts of detail.
• Notably absent is a soundtrack, because all other parts of the game have reactive and satisfying sounds, especially the pitch shifting upwards as the score streak increases is a great feature.

Experience

How well any intended emotions, themes, narrative, atmosphere, or fantasy are conveyed.

• The game comes across as a theme of hell and damnation combined with gambling and the wild west. It’s a fun combination that comes with a bunch of built-in atmosphere.
• The way a burning glow emits from the hole and fires spew up when a ball is dropped both evoke falling into hell and really support the theme.
• Having the shop look like a saloon and selling items that look like smokes and similar likewise supports a the overall theme.

Cohesion

How well the gameplay, presentation, and experience support each other.

• Gameplay seems like the clear focus, and barring errors that lock progress, it has a very strong experience built up already. With polish and additional levels, I could see myself playing this for a while, even though I do not normally play pinball games.
• While the quality and consistency of art and UI is noticeably weaker than the rest of the game, the theming is impressively cohesive and clear with everything working together to sell a compelling fantasy.
• With pinball already having an association with bars and gambling establishments, the theming feels very appropriate and relevant to pinball, rather than a random visual theme thrown onto unrelated gameplay.

Gameplay

How fun/engaging/challenging the game's mechanics are and how well they support the intended experience.

• Up front, playing this alone is obviously not intended but it is how I was able to play.
• Differentiated movement mechanics are a fun addition, though the witch does seem a bit limited. Having the single jump character go higher in total while the double jump character goes further could give the witch a bit more to actively do.
• High-scores and total timer are very welcome additions, though I prefer timers counting up for a relaxed theme, as that timer can still be used for high scores without putting pressure on relaxed play.
• There are a few curved and complex colliders that don’t play nicely with the movement mechanics, making the gameplay feel a bit rough in places. Similarly, a bit of “coyote time” would improve the feel of the movement. 

Presentation

Quality of the visuals, audio and general juiciness.

• Visually the game is impressive and immediately appealing, drawing me in.
• Level backgrounds are impressively detailed and even have some animation while still being distinct enough from foreground platforms to not be confusing.
• There are some minor elements with inconsistent art style, especially foreground trees stand out in the environments, feeling slightly out of place. Consistent art styles are extremely difficult thing to master, and overall the consistency is still very good.
• With how strong the general visuals are, obviously repeating surface textures and very flat, boxy level geometry stand out as negatives. However, both are very work intensive and difficult to fix, so this is a very minor criticism.
• The UI is themed fully and suits the rest of the presentation.
• Feedback on jumping stands out for not having sound or visuals with how well the game does on presentation in general. A subtle visual effect and sound effect for jumping would add a lot.

Experience

How well any intended emotions, themes, narrative, atmosphere, or fantasy are conveyed.

• The game instantly communicates its cutesy theme and then delivers an experience that matches the expectation throughout.
• The music suits the game well and the ambiance deserves special praise for selling the feeling of being in a forest at night.
• The core theme is not overcomplicated by subverting expectations, and that suits the game well by communicating the atmosphere effectively.

Cohesion

How well the gameplay, presentation, and experience support each other.

• The movement is a bit slow, suiting the general feel of the game and preventing the experience from becoming too focused on fast mechanical execution.
• The game isn’t mechanically or emotionally challenging, giving a consistently cosy and comforting experience where gameplay and presentation suit each other well.
• Overall, the biggest challenges left are the consistency of sprite styles and tightening the mechanical implementation of platforming.

Hey, I've had a look at your updated version and edited my original comment to reflect the current version.

Overall, very solid game and impressive effort!

Updated on 24-06-2026 
 
Gameplay

• How fun/engaging/challenging the game's mechanics are and how well they support the intended experience.
  • Normal mode had a good difficulty progression, easing into more advanced and difficult fights with the final boss being great for using  fair patterns with clear punish windows. Losing felt like it was on me, and i always knew what to fix for the next attempt.
  • Gauntlet mode builds on top of the normal mode difficulty nicely, letting the player get a sense of how each enemy acts and how to counter them, before asking the player to execute a longer fight with more limited room for error.
  • Enemy attack previews fit the visual style of the game and significantly improve the flow of fights by letting the player learn how and why an enemy attack connected with the player.
  • The combat system is top down melee and deliberately simple. Given the scope of the project, this is reasonable and therefore not a real criticism, but it does place some constraints on gameplay depth.

Presentation

• Quality of the visuals, audio and general juiciness.
  • The art is gorgeous, especially the UI
  • Sprites and animations are equally great
  • The intro animation is excellent, with a clear and cohesive art style suiting the game.
  • Limited sound is a major gripe for me, especially with the high quality and cohesive art, it stands out. A bit of walking audio, enemy impact and attack sounds etc. would still lift the experience a lot.

Experience

• How well any intended emotions, themes, narrative, atmosphere, or fantasy are conveyed.
  • The game story and visuals together support each other for a great overall theme.
  • Exile combined with a dark atmosphere works well and creates a very compelling experience for such a small game.

Cohesion

• How well the gameplay, presentation, and experience support each other.
  • Judging by what's on offer right now, all three elements fit together well and support each other to build a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.
  • This game is technically excellent barring one crash on loading gauntlet mode, and visually one of the best student games i have ever seen, without any exaggeration.
  • My biggest criticism now, after the game has seen a major update, is the simplistic combat system because there is almost nothing else left to criticize. It is noticeably a bit stiff and limited in options, but also very difficult to expand without changing the core design. Therefore, this is a minor complaint that's only relevant if the game expands to become a much longer experience.