Chill game. Movement speed felt really slow though. Also I'm not sure what happened, but once I got 22 out of 23 the little arrow guidance thing pointed me out of the map. So I never did find that 23rd thing. Lovely game though. Would have tried again if the movement speed weren't so low.
I really really enjoyed this game a lot! It feels almost like a mix between The Last Campfire and Disco Elysium. With narrative themes similar to The Last Campfire, but gameplay closer to Disco Elysium.
The visuals and audio design are both gorgeous. The narrative is so well written too. It's really such a cohesive package, I'm in awe.
I didn't quite finish it. I got the rock tower memory and the garden stones memory (best I can do to describe how I got them). I couldn't figure out the chimes or lanterns. I fell into the water and decided to end there since I was stuck on everything else that I found anyway.
The only other bug I encountered was that clicking on things sometimes didn't quite work as intended or if two things were too close together it would sometimes click on the other object. The garden stones puzzle where you click on the stones to roll them around is where this really stood out. Sometimes nothing would happen, sometimes Duster would bark at me, and on rare occasion the next rock over would roll instead of the one I was trying to click on.
My one bit of constructive criticism would be that I suggest Duster be made so he doesn't collide with the player. Just let the player walk through Duster. My first attempt I walked about 5 paces and got myself stuck between a rock and Duster and had to restart. lol. And then on my main attempt I kept bumping into him and having to jump over him to get around at times. Not a huge deal, just a minor nitpick that could be smoothed out.
You've made something beautiful here. I could easily see this being made into a full game.
*Edit: After playing and rating all the games in the jam, I'm coming back to say this is my standout favorite. I adore this game.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I gathered the three gems and put them back in the spots they were, I even made sure they were in the same order they were before, but nothing happened.
Also, the ambience didn't loop. It just stopped after a bit. Other sounds still played so I think the ambience just wasn't set to loop.
I see screenshots of a dungeon and mentions of a boss in other comments, but I couldn't even get through the introduction area. I encountered a lot of issues unfortunately. I can see what you were going for and respect the attempt, but the game needs a lot of work still IMO.
Settings button on the main menu doesn't do anything.
Credits button on the main menu freezes the game and I had to alt+f4.
Typo "sparbar" instead of "spacebar" in the introductory dialogue. lol
No pause screen that I could find, so no way to exit the game or restart once playing. Had to alt+f4 to close the game.
Text shouldn't resize to fit the box as the letters are being typed out. It makes it nearly impossible to read until it's all done being typed out.
Stealth kill prompt was very inconsistent. I'd be spamming E and it wouldn't stealth kill the enemy. It would also pop up when I was in active combat with an enemy.
Default camera zoom is too close to the character. Thank you for letting me zoom out with the scroll wheel. But the camera zooms in way too much while crouched and is locked at that distance while crouched. Turns out crouching didn't seem to matter as I could just sprint up behind enemies and stealth kill them. So I just never used crouch.
The enemy health bars rotated with the characters. If the enemy wasn't facing me directly the health bar was unreadable.
Sometimes I would hit enemies, the hit sound would play, but they would take no damage. An archer that was supposed to go down in a couple hits took about a dozen to go down for example.
There is an archway directly ahead of where the player spawns. I ran through it as it looked like a path I could take. Turns out it just goes outside the map.
The game was brutally difficult. I turned down the difficulty to easy after 2-3 failed attempts and it didn't seem to make much difference.
After about 6 attempts to get through the first enemy camp I gave up and ran around the side to avoid the enemies and go up the stairs at the back of the camp. I then fell through some stairs that didn't have collision and was stuck in the rocks.
It's an ambitious project for a game jam and there is a lot here to like, unfortunately it needed a lot more polish. Maybe aim for a smaller scoped project for your next jam (this coming from me is pretty rich as I overscoped my own jam project, but still).
I enjoyed the little bit of narrative in the intro and the sound design and level design were pretty well done. I like what you were going for and I'm sad I didn't find it more enjoyable. I think with a little extra polish I would have loved this game and it could have been one of my favorites of the jam.
Neat game. Game could really use some coyote time though. It was very difficult. Even after reading about the checkpoints I never figured out how to do it, but then I don't think I got far enough to even try. I only averaged about 5-6 jumps per life. lol. I think I gave it about 20 attempts before calling it quits.
Everything about this game was great... except for the camera. I quite enjoyed it overall. Just a few notes:
Interacting needed a progress bar. I was beginning to think it was bugged because I kept failing to pick things up. If the player needs to hold a button down for a set duration, it should have a progress bar indicator.
The camera collided with everything and got sucked into the floor when my character got too close to the floor. I really enjoyed the game, but the camera was easily the worst thing about it.
It felt like the grapple didn't always shoot where I was aiming. Like if I aimed at something the grappling hook would latch onto a specific set point on the object and not where I hit it. This was most noticeable with large objects. I think it also happened with the floor. I tried to pull myself along the floor and instead shot straight down I think. At least I think that might be what was happening.
I'm glad you got the issue sorted and we can now play the game, because its good. Great job!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I've got a list of bugfixes, AI improvements, and quality of life additions that I've already started implementing that will be released after the jam ends. I don't think I'll be adding more story content to this game, but I will definitely be taking what I learned while making this game forward into my other projects.
Solid game. Really enjoy the concept. I do have a few notes though. Nothing major, but just some little bits of polish I think could improve it. (I played the download version if that makes a difference)
The first bug I encountered quite a bit was that after switching back from bow mode the icons for what citizens wanted from me weren't appearing. They would eventually start appearing again, but I'm not sure what triggered them to reappear.
The second was some citizens had a red outline instead of green. I'm not sure if this one was a bug or not. I shot the red citizens and got deducted points, so I'm not sure why some were red. I'm also red/green colorblind, so telling friend from foe wasn't a simple task for me. Maybe the citizens weren't red, but they looked red to me.
I found the bow handling to be... lackluster. It was very difficult to hit my targets. The dropoff on the arrows was brutal.
Another thing that I'm not sure if it was a bug or not: some citizens wanted gold, but when I gave them gold it didn't take the icon away. I kept spamming them gold and eventually some of them accepted it, but I don't know if that is because it finally registered in code or because there was a desired amount they wanted that wasn't displayed to me.
Among the crying sound effects for mourners there was one sound effect that sounded more like a cry of pain or terror. Which I guess fits with there being archers, but it was a little jarring.
I went in expecting a whimsical sort of goofy game, but it ended up feeling pretty serious. Not a bad thing, just between the name and bright color palette I expected something a bit more whimsical. idk. Maybe that one is on me.
Great game. Excellent polish. I didn't encounter any bugs or jarring design decisions.
My only note is that I played the whole thing and aside from the one shoehorned in line "this is a world without laws" I didn't really see how it tied into the theme. It wasn't until after I finished playing when I double checked the game page and read the line about the AI overriding the 3 laws of robotics that I understood the theme. I feel like mentioning that somewhere in the game's intro would have made the theme a lot clearer.
Lovely game. Good narrative and sound design. Solid gameplay.
Thanks for the kind words! And yeah, I left the AI in about as barebones a state as it could get and neglected updating it until it was too late and I was out of time. I really should have done combat OR puzzles. Trying to do both was too much. I still think it came out pretty great in the end, but the enemy AI definitely leaves a lot to be desired.
I think not having lives for the jam game was probably the right call. Makes it easier on the player if something else in the game is frustrating for them or accidentally too difficult. But adding lives after the jam is a good call with all the quality-of-life updates alongside it.
I think the easiest way to improve the platforming on the moving platforms would probably just be to make the platforms bigger, if you don't want to do a bunch of character locomotion tweaking.
Edit: Also, was there one of the glowing orb things that tell the player about double jumping? I don't remember running into one. I had no idea double jumping existed until after I quit. Would have made the platforming at least a bit easier had I known it existed. lol. I kept trying to use the glider to extend my jump and it never worked out great.
Really enjoyable. I would have really liked a more arcadey feel to the driving, snappier acceleration and braking for example. But the concept was great and the execution well done. Great job!
I had to restart a couple times because I kept thinking that I had to grab the suitcase and move it somewhere as a platform and then could never let go of it. Other than that I had no issues and really enjoyed it.
Beautiful game. Audio and visuals were very nice. Gameplay felt pretty good overall.
I think an issue with the crystal lasers is that the only way to tell if you've dodged it is by watching your health bar. There is no difference in the visual effect of the laser whether it hits or misses the player, it tracks the player the whole time. The visual effect of the laser should miss the player if the attack misses. That would clear up a lot of confusion I think. Also, it needs a signifier to inform the player that they are about to be shot, like a charge up sound, lock on sound, or just some sort of precursor audio or visual effect to let the player know they are about to be shot at. The only way I could time my dodges was based on the timing of the shot that came before it.
I realized dying had no real consequence other than placing me back at the start so I just started ignoring the crystal lasers, tanking them while I gathered the loot. And started killing myself to reset my health or reset me back to a high point to try and reach more skyrings or glide to somewhere else high up. It felt like I was cheesing the game a bit. lol.
I got the runestones, skyrings, 100 musical notes, and the key, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to reach the door. I could see it on top of the hill at the far end of the map, but I couldn't reach it. I saw the floating platforms, but could not reach some of them and found platforming across them extremely difficult.
The last cache of musical notes tucked on a ledge in a corner was very hard to find and I almost gave up. I only checked that location because I thought the cubes next to it might have been something.
I also found a few "caves" at the perimeter of the map while looking for Maxx, but all I found were a few ways to get out of bounds of the level. lol
Fantastic entry. Wish I had been able to finish it.
*Edit: I just watched your Sentinel Crystal Strategy video and... I never realized there was a double jump. I did all that without double jumping once. No wonder I found the platforming so difficult.
Nice little game. I didn't realize that the pulse cost fuel until I was almost out. I was spamming it before then. Looked pretty. Simple gameplay, though difficult. Never was able to finish it.
Neat vision mechanic. I'm not sure if the "enemies" were a threat or not. If they were they were very easy to stunlock before they could do anything. Twice there was a loud stinger sound, but I have no idea why. I turned around and saw a chair rocking, but I wasn't looking towards it when the sound happened, and the second I have no clue why it happened.
Very cool idea though. I could see this kind of mechanic being used in a full horror game.
Got 37,724. Fun little game loop. Though if it is a world without death, how did I lose? It sure seemed like the game ended when I died. Does the character respawn or grow a new body? I'm a little confused on that part. Nice little oldschool style game.
I'm pretty sure speed was slowed when entering a low gravity area, but there were times it seemed like my speed slowed for no reason. I rescued all the citizens and then found one battery marked on the minimap. I only spotted one other battery very high up in the sky, but struggled to reach it.
Good concept. I enjoyed the narrative bits. Much more polished than a lot of entries.
Loved the game, but I kept getting stuck in the level geometry and unable to proceed. I restarted twice and it kept happening. I'd attack enemies and get a little too close to the building walls and be unable to move.
Loved the game, but I kept getting stuck in the level geometry and unable to proceed. I restarted twice and it kept happening. I'd attack enemies and get a little too close to the building walls and be unable to move.
Nice game. Performance was a little rough at times, but I pushed through it. I kept finding shrines for the same colors and I wasn't sure how many of each I was supposed to find so when I stumbled across the portal again I just entered and got the ending screen. So I assume just needed 1 of each and there were extras? I enjoyed it though. Nice use of theme. Good visuals. Good use of narrative.
Yeah, that is exactly what happened. I assumed it was marking my objective location. I just tried again and found the repair points, but failed the quick time event and couldn't repair again in time.
My favorite part about this game was just how smooth and polished the upgrade selection screen was. The whole thing was very well polished, but that upgrade screen was very nice.
I enjoyed the grappling hook. It was pretty smooth navigating the level once I got the hang of it. (playing via web browser) I don't think I could repair the ship though. I got a repair kit and stood where it told me to stand, but nothing happened. I did not see a progress bar. Overall I enjoyed the game though.
I enjoyed that quite a lot, even without audio. The checkpoints were very generous, thank you for that. I'm not usually one to play these types of games, but the checkpoints were so generous that I decided to go all the way to the end. The final screen had me laughing pretty good. Good one.
Thank you so much for the kind words. And thank you for the constructive feedback. I will be updating the game as soon as the game jam has ended. I'm in the process of overhauling the combat and adding subtitles. I'll look into improve the redirection cube handling as well.
I 100% agree with your criticism. I felt the same way after getting the game into a playable state from start to finish. But my goal wasn't exactly to be inventive with this project, it was just to create a robust product that was complete as I haven't completed a project in several years. So I used this jam to get back into the habit of completing things.
I'll polish up the issues with this project and then I'm hoping that completing this jam project will give me the motivation to keep going and complete my other projects that have stagnated.
Thanks again! The constructive criticism is extremely helpful. I can't wait to start playing everyone else's games this weekend!
Yes, unfortunately this is a known issue that sometimes occurs. It will be fixed as soon as the jam ends. I apologize you didn't get the full experience. I hope you enjoyed what you did get to experience though.
What door did you clip through and did it cause any issues? Did you do it intentionally or by accident? I plan to fix any issues people come across and update the game after the jam ends.
I do apologize about the robot being both dead and alive. I honestly don't know why that happened. I only ever had it happen once in my own playtesting and it never happened again so I assumed whatever I did at the time fixed the issue, but I guess not. Its a very rare bug that I haven't been able to replicate since, but I'll try to find a fix for it and update the game after the game jam voting ends.
