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Mr. Punchman's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Game Design Document | #39 | 3.005 | 4.250 |
| Artistic Style | #43 | 2.652 | 3.750 |
| Overall | #48 | 2.104 | 2.975 |
| Community Choice | #49 | 1.326 | 1.875 |
| Theme Implementation | #50 | 1.856 | 2.625 |
| Playability | #50 | 1.679 | 2.375 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EZOqkgAMw1pKPRmrLGBvukmqNl1dsRwqRbMLN3xfw5I/edit?usp=sharing
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes
Summarize your game!
A retro game where you chain together abilities to climb a tower and punch the guy at the top.
Please explain how your game fits the theme.
From a gameplay perspective progress must be earned with each run revealing new information that brings the player to the top. From a story perspective the game has a CEO atop a massive tower surrounded by soulless machines that he relies on rather than people, with no care for those below. There are those in society who would call this progress.
Did you use Generative AI to make any assets in your game?
No
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Comments
I also have to agree with previous comments. 1 and space bar are not comfortable keys to spam in combination.
And taking damage from touching enemies does feel overly punishing. You're already punished from falling.
I'd suggest taking in the feedback. What feels natural and easy as the creator is often very different for other players.
I agree what's already been said. If it wasn't for what you said in the comments, I would have never been ablet to clear the first layer of bad guys as pressing 1 acts for a jump, but then i found out that space bar and 1 are 2 seperate controls. Once I got this i was able to glide through the game, but even then it was still difficult. Without seeing your comment to someone else I would have never been able to reach the top. Maybe having a clear tutorial, getting rid of health or combining the 1 and jump button into once while increasing the 1 jump height will imrpove the game a lot as when you get going it does get fun.
Out side of that I don't see how it fits the theme.
I like the gameplay concept but as it currently stands it is incredibly frustrating.
Why does the punch give you just barely enough height to reach the next level of enemies? It is so unsatisfying to smash the punch button and just whiff because the guy didnt go high enough. The only way to progress is to smash the 1 button in a group of enemies and hope it propels me high enough and towards another group of enemies.
Why is the punch button 1?! why not something sensible like left click or even just space? This added to the feeling of frustration while playing the game because of how unnatural it felt.
Why even have the player take damage? Trying to line up and chain punches with off screen enemies is difficult enough, why have the player die when making contact with an enemy?
I was only able to reach the 2nd upgrade once, and I didn’t even know it was an upgrade until many failed attempts later led me to read the GDD to see if I was doing anything wrong.
Honestly, I think this game could be fun but it is borderline unplayable in its current state. I think you should remove the damage system, make the player always get propelled high enough to reach the next layer of enemies after landing a punch, AND allow the player to jump off of enemies heads as they’re falling. That seems like an obvious and intuitive mechanic that would allow the player a chance to recover from a mistake instead of falling all the way to the ground every time.
Maybe also consider lowering the force of gravity a bit so it’s less brutal
1. The up punch has more than enough to reach the 1st lair of enemies, but if you're having trouble I'd recommend pressing the jump button first.
2. The punch button is 1, because there's 4 other punch abilities. It wouldn't make sense for the 1st punch to be mouse and the others to be the number keys or some other variation. It's the control scheme that makes the most sense.
3. The player takes damage as a punishment for mistiming punches, additionally if you get high enough on the tower there are enemies that will actively chase the player and try to deal damage to them, as well as the boss fight. If I took your suggestion and made it so the player didn't take damage then I'd have to remove several enemy types.
4. I understand there isn't a lot of hand holding in this game, but at the bottom there's the 1st upgrade that unlocks the up punch, then the 2nd upgrade looks exactly the same except the arrow is rotated slightly. The idea is most people should be able to realize it's an upgrade by looking at it, but if enough people have this problem I'll definitely add some extra instruction and maybe a tutorial.
A final point, the game is fully playable in the current state. I tested it and was able to get all the way to the top. Granted it took over an hour and I understand you probably don't have that much time and might not usually play games like this. As far as recover, the very next upgrade you would've unlocked was the down punch upgrade and that's effectively what it is.
Idk man it seemed extremely difficult after my ~20 minutes of playing. Maybe you should post a playthrough video on the itch page to show how its meant to be played because I think most players will struggle