Well hold on don't go too easy on me! I do write software for a living, and art as a hobby, so it's not like I started from 0 here haha. But thanks for your praise anyway
I received similar feedback from the majority of players (just check the other comments on this page), so it's not just you. Apologies if my long reply made you think you were forcing my hand in some way... I just wanted to broadcast some of the thoughts that have been percolating in my head since I released the game :)
Chances are I'll let Gizmo rest and not change the game. I think there's some beauty in letting a project stay flawed, a product of its short development time. But I'll be sure to take the lessons to heart for my next jam!
Wow! Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. Reviews like this make the whole game jam experience worth it :) Your criticism is all, of course, valid here. I hope you'll forgive me using your review as a diving board into some of my post-mortem thoughts.
I received a lot of feedback around the falling block and lantern mechanics, and I think the root issue with the game is that it doesn't quite know what type of game it wants to be: A methodical puzzle game, using the falling blocks to your advantage to navigate towards the exit--or a mad rush to the exit a la Spelunky. I think the game would be way more fun if I had pushed it more towards either direction, squatting in the middle as it is now, the mechanics fight with each other and leave a pretty tepid impression. The changes you describe would push it in more of the puzzle game direction, a direction that I agree this game desperately wants to be.
As for the decisions and circumstances that lead to the current state of the game... I think my initial vision was more in the Spelunky direction, and I never reexamined those initial decisions and assumptions. Or, to be honest, I ran up against the time limit pretty hard and didn't have time to do that thinking around what the game actually wanted to be. At the start of the final day before the deadline, I hadn't built any levels, didn't have the shop or lantern implemented, and essentially didn't have a game. That Sunday was spent in more or less in a state of panic haha
The lessons to take from this are pretty clear though. In my next jam, I need to spend more time on early prototyping and play testing instead of polish. Spend the time upfront to make sure I'm not polishing a turd. If I have particle effects and camera shake implemented before prototyping a single level, I've done something wrong haha
At the end of the day, to partially fix Gizmo I would:
- Remove level timers, increase lantern size
- Rework levels to be more puzzle-y
- Add a couple of tutorial levels to introduce players to block mechanics
...and some more comprehensive changes that I think would resolve Gizmo's identity crisis:
- Take a second look at upgrades. Possibly remove incremental upgrades in favor of tools that allow for new puzzle mechanics.
- Possibly remove ores/gems or find another purpose for them
Thank you so much again for playing my game and sharing your thoughts. I feel like I've learned a lot from my first jam, and I'm excited to make more games! Also a side note, I really enjoyed my time with _your_ game last night :)
Love the game! But, I do have to report that it has issues on high refresh rate screens. At 170hz, the game's physics run so fast that it is impossible to control. Playing on my laptop that has a 60hz display it plays perfectly. Very imaginative game and I love the art. Keep up the great work!
Solid little game! Enjoyed my time with it. I like that because you can't jump, you have to strategize your path to get to the shovel upgrades. Great job!
Fun game! Got stuck on level 5 with that tricky jump to get the key, but the previous levels had a good time! Good graphics, but it was sometimes hard to keep straight which wall patterns/colors had which behaviors. Great job overall <3
Wow! Beautiful visuals, and very soothing soundtrack. I couldn't figure out what to do with items after I had collected them from the environment, but I enjoyed my time regardless :)
Thank you for the extremely kind review! I'm very glad you had a good time playing :) Particles can be quite a time-sink, but very satisfying to implement :)
I had a similar problem on my game! Because I was rendering my canvas at 320x180 I couldn't use any built in primitive drawing or text drawing methods without it looking super blurry and gross lol. Not entirely sure for Godot, but in my case I think it's the antialiasing that's turned on by default for those drawing methods. No way to turn it off using html5 canvas unfortunately... I ended up having to use a weird html5 canvas API that allowed me to copy sections of the frame buffer, and manually tweak pixels, and shove it back on. To get text to work I had to make my own font and font rendering. The lengths to which we will go for pixels... yeah?
Anyway I thought your water was actually really nice. But particles would have spruced it up I agree :)
Teff is very cute, but man... missing those jumps was rough. Some of them were pretty tight timing-wise, and missing it sometimes sent you all the way back to the start. I thought the art was very charming, and I would have liked to help Teff escape from Understone had I not fallen 5 times in a row lol. Great work, keep it up!
Cute art! It's pretty grindy though. As a player it's difficult to stay invested when your only reward for performing the same action 10 times, is to do that same action 20 times more... I really did love the animations on the boat though, very clean.
Wow! I sincerely enjoyed my time with this game. Great direction, art, and music! Solving the final puzzle of the game was really satisfying. I always appreciate games that take pixel art seriously and put the extra effort into making it pixel-perfect. The extreme low res style was very charming and it was fun to move my guy around. Overall, great game. Keep up the great work <3
Nice game! I didn't encounter any game-breaking issues, and it was fun to run around and mine/shoot. I thought the sprite work was very charming, pick man himself especially so. Grappling hooks are always fun, and it was nice to know no matter how far I went down, I always had a fairly quick way of getting back up. I did find myself getting stuck from time to time on geometry, but could always shake myself loose. I thought the controls were a bit slippery, and could benefit from some more ground friction. I also found the mining sound a bit loud and abrasive. Overall some good work!
Thanks for your detailed review! Polishing is my favorite part of game development, I had particles implemented before I even built the shop page lmao. I have to say you're giving me too much grace for the lack of music, I confess I just ran out of time to find or make anything fitting...
I'll see if I can fix the bugs you've described. Very fair criticism around the falling blocks and light mechanic. I didn't think too deeply on the incentives that the light mechanic would give the player, I was thinking more along the lines that it would be cool aesthetically and add a bit of tension around finding the exit. Thinking back on it now, the leniency around restarts breaks the light mechanic and causes it to work exactly how you describe. C'est la vie, lessons for next time.
Thank you for the kind words! I agree that the logic for when a black block falls and doesn't is pretty opaque. The rule is that it must have a grounded block next to it to not shake loose. I wont change it to maintain the spirit of the game jam, but I will take your feedback as a lesson for next time to explain mechanics better through gameplay or tutorials. As for gizmo getting stuck on blocks, I'll see what I can do to fix that up, I have a hunch it started happening after some last second change's to gizmo's physics. Thanks for helping gizmo find the treasure :)
Breaks the rules of the jam, not 1-bit. Seems to pretty much play itself, you can get pretty far sitting in the center of the arena holding the left click button and letting the game aim for you. Obviously AI generated cover art and description, almost certainly was programmed by an AI as well. Lacking passion
