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The Friendliest Skunk's itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- This is an awesome entry!! The jumping mechanic is weird and hard to get right, but it's not so obscure to the point that it becomes frustrating. I felt like I eventually got the hang of it and could jump fairly consistently! There were a lot of mechanics that added new dynamics to the puzzles and changed the way that I utilized my stink, so that was really cool. The dialogues were really cute and I loved the sound that your friends made when they died (is that bad?). The dialogue sounds reminded me of the cat videos where they put subtitles of cats meowing at eachother... if youve seen them haha. My one frustration was that the box mechanic sometimes felt a little tedious, like I could only move a tiny bit at a time before having to go back in my box. I don't really have a suggestion along with that, so I guess I can't complain about it too much. Overall I thought the game was really well put together from the art to the music, dialogue and mechanics. Really good entry!
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zr8oyH1wzgQ015fpeWQ2l57eqQgS2oqMhzUn4FcvxWI/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
Summarise your game!
Controls:
A+D to move
Space to jump
E to interact
R to reset
The game is played by timing your jumps with the beat of the music. If you do it right, you get a double jump. Skunk wants to make new friends and needs to learn how to use his power correctly.
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
It’s easy to take this theme at face value and immediately picture moving firearms. However, we wanted to explore it on a deeper level. A weapon isn’t just something used to harm others or defend oneself—it can also take on a social meaning. If you struggle with anxiety, you might unconsciously build a defensive facade that pushes people away, even when you long for connection.
Our game plays with the intersection of these two interpretations. The playable character is a skunk that desperately wants to make new friends. The only problem? He can’t control his stinky spray—a metaphor for his social defenses. Before he can approach others, he must collect a flower to mask his scent, symbolizing his effort to overcome his own anxiety.
At the same time we play into the joke of the skunk being a literal weapon. His signature move, the spray, interacts with the surrounding for better or worse. It can help him to clear obstacles or cause him to attract unwanted visitors. It also causes potential friends to just
drop dead when they smell it.
So in short, the game's goal is to “deweaponize” yourself if you don’t want to be lonely forever. Because, in the eyes of everyone else: You are the weapon.
Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?
* PLAY THE GAME WITH THE SOUND ON!
* There are 9 levels that each highlight a new mechanic
* Funny dialogue
* Player movement should feel fluid
* Special camera tricks like ledge and fall detection
* Beautiful handcrafted art and animations
* Almost everything moves with the music
* There is a bug in the WebGL build that rarely causes your jumps to desync from the music when a level reloads. If this happens just press R to reload it again
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Comments
Randomly came across this game while scrolling through the jam and saved it cause of how nice the art looked.
The game’s art is amazing! The design of the maps, as well as the interaction with the character is great. The animation felt really smooth, together with the interaction with the environment, such as spraying on a friend.
I tried the game on the WebGL build, and the music was really soft that I could barely hear it. This made jumps really difficult, as I had to go off timing instead of music. And with how this is a rhythm game, it was really hard to complete. The game would do well with a settings menu so I can turn up/down the music based on preference. The standalone app would do way better than a browser version of this game.
The box level’s main idea was to hide in the box so you don’t spray on the plants, but I managed to complete it by spraying on the plants, and hiding in the box as they were about to chomp. Not sure if the i-frame when entering the box was intended, but it was a nice touch. I also liked that the spray doesn’t travel through walls, as the owl was in range when the range of the spray was increased.
The overall level design and gameplay mechanics are great! Only thing I had some issue with was the leaves, as spraying on them destroyed them. I had to find way to make sure my spray didn’t touch them, while at the same time making sure I managed to jump up onto it. It seems a little hard compared to other mechanics in the game.
For a 2 week game jam, the game is amazing! It felt really complete, and only really needs some polishing. The only sad part was that the game seems to be more suited as an app rather than a web browser game, so it’s full potential can’t really be realised in this jam. Nevertheless, great job!
Thanks! This is some very elaborate feedback, much appreciated! One of the tickets currently on our trello board is to take apart the different music layers and make their volume levels configurable. Completely agree that this needs to be much more customisable for the rhythm aspect of the game.
Thanks for playing!
This game has the cutest art and design. Love the hand drawn plus pixel art aspect so much. The timing aspect for the platforming adds a unique difficulty I enjoy. The timing took me a bit but I enjoyed learning. The interaction between the characters if you don't get the flower is sad and hilarious. Gameplay/jumping felt good and had no hang ups. Overall great work ya'll!
Thanks a bunch! I’m glad that the learning curve felt good for you :D. Congrats on submitting yourself!
Thank you so much!! Super glad to hear you made it through and enjoyed our little characters :D
A nice improvement would be to indicate visually when you are about to fart. I love your take on the theme, it's refreshing to see peaceful games ! Overall cute game, congrats.
Thanks for playing! We’ve talked about a visual indicator, and I’m still considering it. But I’m not sure if it would overshadow the need to pay attention to the sound… something to try out! :D
Thank you!! Good to know. Maybe having more idle animations to the beat in the background would help get a sense for timing!
There really should be a big indicator that sound is strongly recommended when the game starts. I had other music on and jumps were impossible (for me at least).
Cute and polished game. I like it!
We considered to slap some text on the main menu. Or it could be nice to have the first friend tell you to turn up the sound :D. But yeah, without the sound it’s really hard to time the jump hahah. Thanks for playing!
Really fun game — took me a while to figure out how the jumping mechanic worked. Great polish! Well done mate!
Thanks ! Yeah the jumping is quite a challenge to get right !
As someone with a similar interpretation, I genuinely loved this! The bounciness of the initial menu, and the rhythm based mechanics were really great. I really struggled with the tomato level until I realized I could just stand on the box, lol. All in all, I really loved it, incredibly charming and well thought out!
Thank you ! A lot of work went into the game ! And yes the tomato level is quite the puzzle ! Thanks for persisting and playing our game !
Thank you!! That level is definitely the most puzzling one. I was making last minute pixel art while the level designing was going on, so I got to test it was well hehe. I ran into the exact same realization after awhile, but It was fun to feel the accomplishment!
I'm glad to hear you enjoyed! :D
Sound design in this game is music to my ears. Every piece of it is in a right place and doing its job perfectly.
As for gameplay, somehow I couldn't get past 3rd level: I enjoyed rhythm jumps and level design, but got lost in 3rd level: a level with a box and a sign that says box could be launched somewhere in the sky with the help of enemy-plants (hope I get that right).
Please let me know what did I miss, I'm keen to finish the game, but I'm not sure what else I could do at level 3.
When I'm inside the box it doesn't move, and I feel that it should move in some way, probably with the help of the rhythm, although I just am not sure how to move it properly in that way.
Looking forward to hearing from you, keep it up!
Thanks for the kind words! I’m glad to hear you like the concept! More people are struggling with the box, we clearly need to work on that xd.
The idea is that you push it past the plants, and hide inside just in time to avoid being chomped. Get out, push, hide, repeat. Hope that makes it more clear!
Like this: https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMzI1Mzg4MC8xOTYzODg3MS5naWY=/original/Q1eYiI.gif
Thank you so much for noticing our hard work ! Look at the image Yal liked, but your are not the only one who was stuck on this level haha !
Really cool game. I really loved the mechanics. I wish the timing was a little more forgiving. But it was really fun and the mechanic was really innovative. Fun game :)
Your right the game could use some more cue's as to when to synch the jumps. Thank you for playing !
This is a really nice game! The art and sounds are fantastic! The gameplay overall feels very smooth. The only thing that really threw me off was the box. Interacting with it feels like it throws my timing off. Level and puzzle design was great, and really liked that I was helping out all of the woodland creatures (even though they think I'm stinky). Very fun, great work!
Thanks for the feed back and kind words ! The box come back often as a difficult part I think we where so used to it in the past week of play testing it became second nature for us !
I had fun with this, the box levels are hard to figure out what to do
Agreed it's a comment that come's back often the box could be explained some more.
Thanks for the feed back !
Rhythm games are super hard to make, especially in a short time, so congrats on the work! The art is super cute, I love the shading on the pixel art sprites. I thought that the game explains the mechanics very well, it took me a while to get the hang of the jump timing , but that's the challenge and part of the fun in it!
Our progammer Yal did a stellar job timing everything!
And yes part of the challenge is too get the perfect timing. Thanks for playing our game !
Beatiful presentation. From Graphics to music and sound. But I have one complain it's hard to hit timing right, for example for jump, there is no visual indicator when it is going to enter "poof" mode, and because it's rhhytm based game , music is not filling the gameplay is it doesn't help you to hit the jump. Similar problem is with flowers, I cannot really understand when they attack and when they not. Regardless of that everything was very good.
Thanks for the feedback! It’s true that there is no visual indicator at the moment. That’s something we’ve been thinking about! I’m not sure I completely understand your point about the music. The jumps should be in sync with the beat!
As for the plants, they attack if you “poof” on them :P
Thanks for your kind your kind word :) !
Combining a rhythm game with a platformer is such a unique idea! Absolutely love the dialogue with every new friend, and the art is so cute. All the mechanics that were introduced felt really different from one another and fun to work out. Super work by the whole team!
Thank you ! We did have a very good team !
Thank you so much!! :D
Very cute game! I really loved the intricacy of the platforming and how the different scents you got would then alter the music. Made for a very focused play experience. Had to pay attention to quite a bit to do some of those jumps. The art was also gorgeous and the level design was pretty novel. Great work!
Thanks for the kind words! And for picking up on some of those smaller details! <3
This is a very fun game! It took me a bit to get used to the controls, but afterwards it was pretty self-explanatory. The mechanics are very interesting, and I really like the dialogues. Very cute and fun!
this is such an adorable game!! T o T
the mechanics are so unique and challenging
the sound effects and art is so stinking cute as well!
Thanks ! I really tried to match the cuteness of the art on the sound design side of things!
Very cute artwork, I love it! I’m shocked how many different mechanics there are and the dialogue is an excellent touch. Great job!
Thanks for the kind words! Our artist really did an amazing job!
Adorable game, and surprisingly tough! I got so used to the skunk's iconic catchphrase "OKAY!" that I was taken aback at the end. The mechanics could easily be fleshed out into a longer puzzle game if you wanted to continue with it after the jam.
Thanks for playing it through to the end! Makes me really happy that at the very least 1 person noticed that little 🦨 dialogue at the end😂
The jump mechanic is unique! I got stuck on the level with the box, i went under it but couldn't move.. not sure how to get through the plants. Good job! Keep making games!
Thanks for trying it out! In that level you need to push the box little by little to avoid being chomped :)
What a fun game! I love the unique take on the theme. Very cute style and fun to play.
Yeah! Our first player :D
Thanks man! Really appreciate it