itch.io

Really fun one, and tough for sure, I got properly stuck a few times :)

One thing that might be worth a look, the checkpoint seems tied to the room you’re standing in rather than the furthest room you got to. I wandered back into an earlier room, died there by accident, and it restarted me at that earlier room instead of where I’d worked my way up to. Losing ground I’d already cleared felt worse than the deaths themselves.

Music and visuals are on point, and it’s a great take on the theme, though I might be biased as another vampire game maker :)

Was the backtracking something you wanted players able to do, or did the rooms just end up open in both directions?

I got to experience your game through your stream, that was a fun way to see it. The music and SFX are really good.

The bit that got me was blowing the Count’s hair right off and then him powering up like Goku, that escalation is the best joke in there. Nice touch too that the bubble count sits along the bottom the whole time, watching that number drop is the theme right there without anyone needing to explain it.

Did you have a particular part that was your favorite to design?

That’s fair, and you’re right that it should hold up inside a single age instead of leaning on the higher ones to fix it. The climb ramps harder than the dive does and that’s on me, I built the dive first and the ascent came together late. Making that curve consistent within each age is going on the patch list, thanks for pushing on it :)

Really glad the atmosphere landed, that was the thing I was most worried about going in. Anything you’d suggest I improve or take a closer look at? I’m working on a post vote patch so any feedback helps.

Ha, they really do :) Thanks for playing it. Anything you’d suggest I improve or take a closer look at? I’m putting together a patch for after voting closes.

I couldn’t read the text so I was mostly guessing at what I was supposed to be doing, but that number going down told me everything I needed to know. A number reads the same in any language.

Yeah I had a ton of fun brainstorming ideas, the shower thoughts, etc. quickly jotting them down and seeing which make the cut. I’ve still got a lot planned that I couldn’t achieve in the 4 days and some bugs to fix, so I’m working on a big patch now.

If you’ve got any ideas for improvements on Dawnfall, I’m all ears and perhaps fangs :)

Saw your link go by in zyiaah1’s chat the other night so I had to come give it a go :)

The freeze is the good bit. First time I stopped something in mid air and just strolled past it I actually laughed, and that’s the thing I’d build the rest of the game around. The 3d look is nice too, you got further with that in four days than most people would.

Fair warning on the rough edges, I clipped through walls a decent amount and had a few deaths I couldn’t trace back to anything I’d done, and the character control needs a pass.

This really feels like it wants more than four days.

Took in your game while watching the M3zik youtube stream and giving a review based I what I watched.

The bomb going “boom” out loud got me. It’s such a daft little noise for something that’s actively trying to kill you, and it makes the whole thing feel a lot friendlier than a game about being chased by exploding ground has any right to be.

One thing worth flagging from my run, and it might well just be me. I sat on the start screen for a good minute or two thinking the game hadn’t loaded. I tried clicking it, I tried Return, neither did anything. It was Space the whole time. It does say press jump to start, right there on the screen, I just didn’t read it.

Smaller thing while I’m there, pressing Space on Exit seemed to lock the game up rather than do anything. Might be worth a look if you carry this on.

Was the start screen meant to make you actually read it, or did that just fall out of using the same button for everything? :)

Curious if you had a preferred part between the descent or ascent? Any feedback that I might be able to incorporate into a future patch?

I watched your game and gameplay during Flizz’s stream today. It’s a really cool game where the solution can be very simply but part of the fun is have we can over complicate things.

Really like what you’ve done with the color. Everything’s greyscale except the blood, so the only thing on screen with any color in it is the one thing you’re not meant to be comfortable looking at, the blood.

The ragdoll is the star though. The Count flops about like there’s no bones in him and you’ve clearly gone out of your way to kill him right in front of his own coffin.

And I see the Options button sitting there doing nothing but letting you know that option isn’t available :)

What was your favorite part of designing the game?

Really nice pace on this one.

The bit I actually want to flag is the volume slider in game. Sounds like a small thing to praise but it really isn’t, I’ve played a stack of jam entries this week and nearly all of them have me reaching for my speakers instead, and I noticed straight away that you’d bothered. I’m putting one in mine because of yours, honestly.

Same goes for being able to just start. No menu to work through, no setup, I was playing within a few seconds of the page loading. On a game this fast that matters more than it would anywhere else.

You mentioned on the page that this wasn’t the first thing you tried, what were the ones that didn’t make it? :)

Really straight forward game to pick up and get started. I knew what I was doing within a couple of seconds and after a death or two, and the penguin has a lot of personality for something drawn as simply as it is. :)

Curious what changes you made to balance the game or to give off the correct visual warnings?

Appreciate you checking it out. The music was certainly a vibe for me as well. Did you have a particular part that you like or disliked? I’m planning a post vote patch and getting things ready.

Give it a shot on a higher age (difficulty), the second easiest age (Count) is already a big step up for the climb.

Really nice change of pace, this one. I’d played a stack of jam games before I got to yours and nearly all of them are keyboard games, so sitting back and playing something that’s all mouse felt properly restful. That’s not nothing after a week of this.

The loop clicked for me the moment I got the upgrades that speed up nectar collecting. Before that I was going through the motions a bit, after it I could feel the days getting more productive and I kept wanting one more. That’s the moment the game sells itself, so if you’re ever looking for somewhere to put more juice, I’d put it right there and make that first speed upgrade feel like a bigger deal than it does now.

Which upgrade path were you hoping people would go down? I went straight for collection speed and I’ve got a feeling that wasn’t the interesting one :)

Curious if you had a favorite or least favorite part of the game? I’m working on a post vote patch, so any feedback is welcomed.

Really enjoyed this one. I had it worked out inside a few seconds which is a big deal in a jam, there’s nothing to sit and read, you just start playing.

The thing that stuck with me is that every shot costs you a beat whether it lands or not. So missing isn’t just a missed shot, it’s actual life gone, and I noticed I was aiming a lot more carefully than I normally would in a game like this. Small decision, but it changed how I played the whole run.

Best moment was getting a build going with multiple piercing hearts, I felt pretty overpowered for a bit there and it was great :)

I did manage to beat death in the end, so I got a proper look at the whole thing.

If you carry it on past the jam, more enemy and boss variety is what I’d want most, the core loop is strong enough to hold a lot more than it’s currently carrying.

Was that piercing setup always meant to be as strong as it is, or did your playtesters find something that beats it?

Thanks for putting it on stream, twenty minutes is a good chunk of your last jam day to give a game and I really appreciated it :)

Sorry about that music bug turning up twice on you as well, that one is already on the fix list. Glad the escalation landed, that was the bit I was most unsure about.

I went ahead and submitted my review / feedback on your game a few minutes ago.

Anything you’d suggest I improve or take a closer look at while I’m still patching?

Hey, thanks again for putting Dawnfall on stream, that was a good chunk of your last jam day to give to someone else’s game and I appreciated it for sure :)

Best moment for me was getting a command in at the last second and using it to get away. That little gap between finishing the typing and the thing reaching you is where the game lives.

One thing I want to call out, I had to mute at one point and the game still told me everything I needed. You can see danger getting closer without hearing it at all. That’s a nice thing to have got right, whether you planned it or not.

On the audio, the intro and how to play screen had a lot of reverb on it for me, though I had my sound turned way up so that could easily be on my end. And I don’t think there’s any music in it, which might be worth a look after the jam, either something to push the intensity up or something flat and calm underneath to play against the panic.

The other thing I got tangled in was the terminals, I’m fairly sure I was typing the right commands into the wrong ones for a while. Could just be me not reading carefully enough while being chased.

Was it always going to work this way, where clearing a command makes your life worse, or did an earlier version reward you for getting through them?

That decode effect on the menu items got me before I even hit play, “Play”, “Armory”, etc. scrambling into place is such a small thing to bother with and it sets the tone right away. The green on the controls screen is spot on too.

Then the game itself is quick and tight, and so are the controls. Moving from one enemy to the next and grappling out between them has a really good rhythm to it once it clicks. I bet someone could get really good at this, there is a lot of ceiling in it. I did unlock the Steve, which felt like a small victory :)

One note from my run, I couldn’t tell whether the abilities have cooldowns on them. I’m guessing not, and that it’s on purpose to keep the pace up.

Thanks for giving Dawnfall a look as well, that was appreciated for sure. Are there plans to keep developing this one after the jam?

Thanks for the feedback and those are certainly areas that I’m working on as a post vote patch. You have two choices when you get to the crypt, FURY or FORGIVNESS. FORGIVNESS essentially ends the run an restarts the dive, it’s the more “Peaceful” of the two options. Choosing FURY has you climbing back up.

I’m certainly working on the boss fight and the audio issues. The boss fight was certainly one of the more rushed items.

Appreciate you coming back and sharing more feedback with me.

Hey, thanks again for playing Dawnfall on stream, watching someone go in cold was really useful, so I owed you a proper go at yours :)

The art got me first, those cardboard cutouts look weirdly real, like someone actually built the set and took a photo of it. And it teaches itself as you go, I never had to stop and work anything out, I just kept up with the show.

Best bit for me was noticing my own muscle memory kick in. Partway through I was hitting all 4 lights without thinking about where they were, and that’s when the lighting guy thing really clicked, you’re not the one on stage, you’re the one making the show work.

One thing I wasn’t sure about, once I had the 4 spotlights with the biggest light I could just put all 4 out on the stage and kind of coast from there. Could easily be that I wasn’t playing it right, but if not, difficulty tiers might be a fun option for the post jam version, something that keeps making you move the lights around instead of parking them.

Also had my hand end up above the sound board at one point and had to restart, looks like a couple of other people ran into that one too.

What was the most difficult part in making the game?

You could certainly have a timed mode for those that want to make it competitive and have a timer free version for the folks that want the relaxed vibe and something like Kenny G plays :)

Thanks for making the return trip!

Remixed is exactly the word I was hoping to hear, everything you learn on the way down is supposed to get flipped into something new on the way up, so it’s great to see it read that way.

Funny that both our vampires spent the jam running from the same sun, yours heading for the coffin and mine for the crypt.

I’ve got some patches lined up, but is there anything you’d suggest I improve or take a closer look at?

The all pink terminal gave me flashbacks to the old green screen days, in the best way. And I have to confess, I tried to brute force the files and got terminated by quality control, which honestly made me respect the game more. You thought of the lazy path and you punish it :)

The Messages area was my favorite touch. Ify saying they hate pink, hate the numbers, and don’t want to do this anymore got a chuckle out of me, whoever writes those deserves a raise from whatever horrible company this is.

A thought for after the jam, some corporate elevator jazz would complete the office purgatory vibe.

Thanks again for giving Dawnfall a spin on stream. Is there more Ify lore hiding in later shifts? I need to know if they make it.

The premise got a smile out of me before the first shot and then it drops you straight into the fight. The whole run took me about 5 minutes, which feels perfectly on brand for the title :) Big moment for me was realizing I could hold the button left mouse button instead of clicking, after that it was over for those alarm clocks and honestly everything else on screen. I earned my 5 more minutes of glorious sleep.

One note from my run, I wasn’t always sure what actually needed shooting versus just clearing the whole screen to be safe. And if you build on it after the jam, a fire rate cap or a reload could add some nice difficulty layers on top of the hold to fire chaos.

Do you have plans to develop the game further?

Thanks for coming by! That music cutout on the descent is a new one for my bug list, appreciate you flagging it.

Glad the rage section landed, the difficulty spike there is intentional so I’m happy the checkpoints kept it feeling fair. And you read the climb exactly right, the way up wants patience where the way down demanded speed, everything flips at the bottom including what keeps you alive.

Curious did you have a favorite or least favorite aspect of the game that I should inspect further?

Enjoyed my shift at BS Insurance by the way, hope the Count makes it to the weekend :)

Thanks! And that’s the plan, there’s a post vote patch already lined up and a phone version is on the longer term list. Glad you enjoyed it :)

Did you have a favorite or least favorite part of the run for me to consider?

Thanks again for having Dawnfall on the stream, being in chat answering questions while you played was a highlight of my jam week. And I can’t believe we almost collided on the concept.

Your playthrough notes are already on my post vote patch list too, the font, the zoom, and teaching players up front that speed is the weapon. Pink Noise is queued up for tonight, see you on your page :)

Five objects and flicker-swapping explains so much, the feathers being lines is a genuinely elegant workaround. Good luck with the collision fix!

Thank you! The precision falling is the heart of the dive, so I’m really glad that clicked.

You also caught two things I’m actively working on. For the boss, the trick is patience: dodge its dives and the standard tires itself out, and when its heart is bared and beating, that’s your moment to strike. A patch after voting makes that read much clearer and gives you more room when it charges.

The aspect ratio fix is already done for that same patch too, fullscreen will hold the tall well shape instead of stretching.

Also, thanks for sharing the details of your game creation and having to follow the 2600 constraints.

Thank you! The tension between speed and playing it safe is the whole engine of the dive, so hearing that the balance works is the best kind of feedback. And the bonus points are gladly accepted, the 1951 Wilhelm session was one of my favorite finds of the whole jam :)

What was your favorite moment in the run? And thanks for the thorough answers over on Just in Time, I’m still thinking about those chained super jumps.

Dash recharging on a hit for quick chaining and landing as the reset, is clean design. It solves the cooldown tracking problem by making the dash’s state something you can see in the world instead of a meter to watch. Thank you for thinking it through this far :)

You’ve got something potentially very addictive here. The loop is simple, side to side, bash, jump, slam, but the balance is what sold me. The number of runs I had that came down to the last 15, 10, 5 seconds before ending in a death is a testament to the tuning. My final score was 1253.

Those weak boxes though, I have never hated and prioritized something so much at the same time, they led to so many of my deaths :)

A couple thoughts if you keep building. A small tutorial covering the buttons and the box types would smooth out the first run. And I could see extra modes doing well here, something like a slam only mode, or boxes that make the raft list to one side when the weight stacks unevenly.

What’s the top score you’ve seen so far? Trying to figure out how proud of 1253 I should be. Also, do the different boxes have different weights or is it just the amount of hits each one takes?

This one clicked fast, no hand holding needed, and the loop is a good time. It plays a bit like a round of Clue where the payoff for solving the case is pelting the culprit with garlic, which is a very satisfying way to close an investigation :) The hairball description on one of the villagers got a real laugh out of me.

One suggestion from my runs, the clue text was tough to read with the screen moving and it disappears pretty quickly. Letting the player click the clue away at their own pace would keep the hunt fun without the speed reading.

Which villager description was the most fun to write?

Hold on, is this a real 2600 ROM running in Javatari? Because if you actually built this within original Atari hardware constraints, that’s one of the cooler flexes I’ve seen in this jam. The loading screen took me right back.

Made it to my pillow, though I died more times than I care to admit, those dogs run a tight patrol. I liked that it drops you straight into the gameplay, no ceremony, very period correct.

Couple notes from my run, I clipped into walls a few times and got stuck inside a dog once, and WASD support alongside the arrows would feel nice on modern hands. Some music under the SFX would be great too, unless the silence is part of the 2600 authenticity, in which case carry on :)

What was the hardest 2600 limitation to work around?

A fellow vampire dev checking in, our Counts have very different work weeks :) The approve or deny loop is easy to pick up, find the criteria that doesn’t meet the policy and deny, and just when I thought I had the rules memorized they started changing on me mid week. Nice catch me sleeping moment. Also I got myself a pay raise, so clearly BS Insurance recognizes talent.

One small readability note, the gothic font on the countdown and Start Shift screens took me a second, I initially misread the days til the weekend line. Totally on theme, just worth a squint test.

If you build past the jam, more policy types feel like an easy expansion, RV, motorcycle, boat, the underwriting possibilities are endless.

Are there different pay range percentages that one can achieve through excellent BSInsurance policy work?