itch.io

Reflecting on this feedback a little, I also think something that hurt this game's controls is that I  initially envisioned it on a gamepad, but realized later on that most players would experience it on a keyboard. So controls that might make sense on a gamepad (hold a button like RB and then press a face button correlating to the attack), didn't make any sense on the keyboard (square to fireball, triangle to fire blast, circle to fire armor, cross to meteor slam turned into left click to fireball, right click to fire blast, E to fire armor, space to meteor slam which was super janky and disjointed, and on top, the layout means adding an extra button to hold would always be awkward). The gun button was Left Trigger, which became Left Control, another really bad mapping - but again, on controllers, this made some sense - left trigger for the gun, tilt finger up to LB too to aim.

I think at that stage is when I should've re-evaluated the control scheme closer and switched to a system of selecting an ability and casting them all with one button, and switched to gun-by-default.

What I was going for was a third-person shooter/beat em up with some mild parkour elements in there to make movement more engaging (then about half way through making levels realized some extra movement track sections would break up the action). Definitely don't want to go down the road of making a parkour game - but they do need to be fleshed out more. X was a stupid key bind for abilities and using Tab to cycle through them is a needed change. Ctrl should be rebound to dodge, and E should be rebound to switch modes between melee and ranged I think rather than removing melee entirely as it's a lot more fun than the shooting IMO.

Thanks for the feedback, it's being taken into account!

Cool idea and visuals, has a bit of a pacing issue. Liked it

 Outer Limits was a great TV show (both times)

I like the soundtrack and the visuals, the only complaint for me I guess is the movement feels a little hard to control, especially when there are tight gaps 

I had to spend some time with it to get used to it, I don't want to repeat what others have said but that movement is pretty rough, IMO directions should be relative to the screen and not the wire especially when the wires don't really have clearly defined directions visually. Nice art and great concept, cool levels, I like it.

Yeah, the lack of those really hurt the project. There's certain things like the tutorial and the settings menu I should've done first, as unfortunately by leaving them for last they got bumped out by other IRL obligations.

 I've added them in for the post-rating-period patch (which also includes rewrites of the enemy AI into C++ so later waves aren't so laggy and a tutorial), hoping to turn this demo into something substantial over time :)

Fun controls, cute visuals, satisfying sounds and mechanics. Not much to complain about here - what it does it pulls off perfectly except maybe that dive mechanic, i didn't feel like it was noticeably faster, have to add some kind of quick impulse and animation to make it satisfying

Will note some weird UI scaling on the game over screen, did not effect the experience or enjoyment so wont impact the score I leave but figured I'd let you know if you hadn't already been made aware

Did you try the time trial level that gives you all the abilities right off the bat to play with? Does take some getting used to, but once each individual mechanic is down the sum total begins to make more sense.

If any one mechanic is giving you trouble feel free to ask about it!

NOTES

1. Please read the full controls before playing! I ran out of time (preoccupied on the last night here unfortunately) to include a tutorial in-game and it's quite a complex game so I recommend doing that to familiarize yourself. The game starts with fireball and fire blast unlocked (X + LMB, X+ RMB respectively), the other abilities are unlocked as it goes on (or from the start in Time Trials only).

2. I fully intend to keep fixing this on my own time until the rating period is over and then replace it will a lean, polished, optimized version and continue building from there into a real full multiplayer game, I will post a Devlog tomorrow with the full plans as the vision is laid out quite comprehensively.  Please follow the game page to stay up to date!

3. Have fun! 

1. voting for a theme has started

2. voting for a game starts on the 27th

3. you are welcome to create and submit an original 3d game for the jam, please do not just re-upload the same game (red cube) that you submit to every jam that passes that you did not make for the jams

Get it looking flashy early on in development then send lots of progress videos in the discord as both marketing and continuous feedback gathering is my usual approach. Basically have to when it's a download-only

Get it looking flashy early on in development then send lots of progress videos in the discord as both marketing and continuous feedback gathering is my usual approach. Basically have to when it's a download-only

Yes, Love is Blind has been used before. There are some more open ended themes that encompass old themes too - Strength In Numbers (Stronger Together), Sands of Time (will end up being the same as Rewind in most cases). I hope we don't get Love is Blind, as the more variety of games generated by this event, the better.

I picked Sands of Time because out of all of them the best idea unfolded in my mind the moment I read that one.

mmmmmmm dog

Thank you!

hey, can you edit your comment to remove the use of the term "r*pe"? Thanks!

The soundtrack is admittedly not everyone's cup of tea.

Hey! I agree that the first level is far too dark. This was something I wanted to fix, but couldn't find a balance between atmosphere and visibility personally. It's unfortunate, but at least the 2nd level and further are lit brightly.

enemy telegraphing - Enemies have a blue indicator over their heads just before they attack. Unfortunately their animations don't have enough wind-up. The mech has no indicator, but the mechanic is that he always attacks predictably (whenever you are in range he instantly attacks), so I felt he did not need much telegraphing. Good to hear the feedback though! If I release a post jam enhanced edition, I'll include better attack telegraphing for enemies.

Thanks! Will play it soon, at work rn :)

It's not really very chaotic or anything, but it works decently as a Papers Please! clone. However, it's missing a lot of the things that made that game good at what it did (the emotional weight of the story, the constant reminders of the protagonist's life, shocks, etc), so it's like you took the basic premise of papers please and never expanded on it. The stuff with kicking out illegal passengers is a good expansion though but it just doesn't do enough and the interaction doesn't add any fun.

It does the job, the visuals are quite pretty, but it doesn't really capture the theme (the turmoil isn't chaotic, the multitasking isn't very chaotic when it boils down to just hitting a button when something isn't very obviously wrong) and the gameplay just isn't there.

Game design: 2/5

Fun: 1/5

Innovation: 2/5

Theme: 2/5

Graphics: 3/5

Audio: 3/5

Weird. It's set not to use VR and this didn't happen with either my Vive CV1 nor my Quest 2 when testing. Besides turning on the VR set, how did the gameplay feel?

those damn loafs of bread

I like to give detailed feedback, so give a read:
SUMMARY
Gave this one a play because I was excited after seeing it in the discord. Music is a little too loud although that's not really an issue, just turned the audio down. I think it's a little disappointing that all the levels are the same, and the poor animations/lack of sounds on the hammer make it extremely unsatisfying to use (also, the fact that the hammer is attached to the player when thrown makes it trivially too easy to wipe out anything and survive infinitely). 

The AI is simplistic and seems to just run directly at the player and have no other behaviors, and the combat isn't fun because there's no combat besides clicking when something gets close. The final boss is a cool idea, but meh in execution. Still, I commend it for adding some good, solid difficulty to the game, and it took me a few tries to do. I really do enjoy games where I have to master their systems to get better at them, and there was a little hint of that.

GAME DESIGN: 2/5

The gameplay is present but it's very simple, and not very fun. You just click a button when something gets close and use your movement keys to train them in a circle, in essence. You don't need to really be mentally present. 

Also, you forgot to normalize your movement input vector, so you can just move diagonally to run at double the speed and basically cheat the entire game.

GRAPHICS: 2/5

Nice art style, but the animations for things truly take what is a 4/5 in models alone and downgrades it hard. The style of certain animations makes the game less satisfying than it would have been without them (or with 2 keyframe poses), which is unfortunate.

There could be more stuff like particles etc too, to give more of a chaotic flare.

INNOVATION: 1/5

This game doesn't do anything new. There are no innovative mechanics to speak of; even if innovation is seen as things that might be new or ambitious for a jam, or new ideas, or however it is interpreted, this game does not have them.

THEME: 2/5

It's not actually all that chaotic. There's destruction (in a sense) but it never really maximizes its potential on that front; trees just kinda fall over and go away when hit, which doesn't really add anything mid combat. IMO to bring this to the next level it needs actually chaotic gameplay with a lot of things going on to manage, and visuals that supplement that (not necessarily high quality, just having particles and other visual effects that drive the point home).

AUDIO: 3/5

There's music

FUN: 3/5

Despite how scathing my criticism has been so far, it's only to help you see where things can change and could maybe be better. Overall it still has its fun moments regardless of its flaws.

Hey, I do recommend turning the volume down when you play this game.  As for the difficulty, yeah, you have to practice abit  in that first level for sure but the game is designed to be incredibly easy, for example dodging makes you completely invulnerable so you can just dodge when enemies show their lasers or the big neon blue indicators on their heads.

Can you describe in detail what happens so I can reproduce it, or send me a video clip on Discord (Alex!#3319)? Looking to patch this, planning on releasing a big patch with some fixes and new levels in a couple weeks.

Interesting. The camera has smoothing applied to its following so that it moves as fluidly as possible behind the player. Are you referring to the camera shakes on impacts and while sprinting?

Thank you!

Can you be more specific with what you mean as the "camera was very laggy" so I can look into it? Do you mean the dampening when you sprint?

Thank you! Sorry to hear about to motion sickness :(

You actually can destroy the pot at the start - you can destroy all of the pots and they release enough pickups to almost fill your healthbar. Unfortunately, there is a bug where light attacking them doesn't break them, but if you heavy attack, throw your staff, or ground pound, they'll shatter into a million pieces dynamically.

Thank you!

I didn't realize sliding would be hard for left handers - I'm left handed myself. The game has full controller support if you want to give it another shot with a control scheme that might be more suitable for you!

The music is good, the graphics are a little questionable though as the background doesn't tile seamlessly. Enemies sometimes didn't respond to hits and the controls feel very slippery. Pretty alright game though besides those things!

Thanks for posting! Here's my game: https://winnitude.itch.io/wukong-birth-of-the-monkey-king

I'll rate yours now!

I loved the voice acting, it has a lot of charm! The graphics do too. The tutorial was really well done as well and I honestly have no complaints. 546 score.

A well-done platformer but with some level-design pitfalls. I think there needs to be more contrast btwn the background and foreground and some more thought put into platform placement, but it feels nice. 

The player sprite and animations look really cool and have a distinct style, although the lack of actual attack animations felt awkward. I'm not a fan of the completely fixed camera here where it's just glued to the player, but that's a minor nitpick and is all personal preference.

There's some level design issues, like my first time playing Level 2 I basically was able to skip half the level right off the start, but with just a little more care to the design it would be pretty great overall for level design.

Combat was cool but I found the enemies trivial since you can just run straight past them. It would be good if they also did damage on contact or something and stunned the player so you couldn't just do that, and the dash is overpowered.

It reminds me in a strange way of Jazz Jackrabbit 2, with the fast and snappy movement controls, ranged weapon, square design, etc. and that's a really good thing!

Well, your game is basically a Helicopter clone in essence, fly while the screen scrolls and avoid obstacles, so why not copy the controls from that? Hold down to go down, hold up to go up, release to stay still - or even in most variations, hold to go up, release to go down, which I find makes a more fun and engaging experience but might not be as chill as this game seems to be aiming for. Tapping to get a quick hop of height would be like flappy bird and far too hectic and difficult, but holding to get gradual height then releasing to get gradual decline would feel nice, and so would basically keeping the current scheme, but rather than tapping to start and stop ascent and descent, it would be nice if pressing it down started the ascent/descent and releasing stopped it, so when no keys are held you always fly straight basically.

Helicopter is a game that has had longevity all the way from DOS-based machines to Flash to modern mobile adaptations, it's adored by many, and since this game is designed very much the same in essence, it wouldn't hurt to give some Helicopter implementations a play to see what makes them work for people.

Graphically, the art is beautiful, but the gameplay itself can be a little annoying. Unresponsive and slow controls severely hurt what would otherwise be a total top contender for winning based on even the art alone, but it's nothing that couldn't be fixed quickly after the jam. There are some GREAT ideas in there, though!

The flying is just awkwardly designed - stop and go style controls don't really work for this kind of thing IMO. It would have been nicer as hold-and-release. The music was pretty okay, although it got super grating and tedious after enough time.

Overall, I think it's a game with amazing graphics and a lot of potential, but one that's hurt by just a small few design decisions that unfortunately have a big effect on the gameplay.

This was really, really cool - I like the random generation and it definitely captures the tone of the myth!

I don't have much feedback, but that's only because I don't have much to complain about. Controls are maybe a little awkward, sword feels a little jank, but besides those little jam things that don't really matter too much in the context of a 7 day game, it rules.

I found the font super annoying to read, but other than that, the game is really visually pretty. The graphics work well, and the combat feels nice.

It's very repetitive though, and I'm not sure how mythological this is.

thank you!