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Ochre Heart's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Metroidvania | #1 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Enjoyment | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Sensory | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #3 | 4.021 | 4.021 |
| Execution | #6 | 3.583 | 3.583 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Unity
Team/Developer
Adam Wilson, Jaco van Hemert, cannice
External assets
Some free sound effects used.
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Comments
Awesome music (especially Main Menu) and overall great sounds, although I think they could fit the visuals a little better. With music, I would have liked for the instruments to be less modern on the Overworld ost, but I really enjoyed it anyway. Some minor things with the sfx: stereo sounds for game objects don't work too well (especially footsteps, or flippersteps...) and having a stereo reverb muddies up the landscape where your music can't sit very well on the mix anymore. I also would have liked even the tiniest sfx for water movement, and I would add a bit more low layers on your Enter or Exit water sounds. I like to limit the frequency range near the end of the master chain to mimic retro system's audio better, same with dynamic range. And lastly, I would have loved for sfx to go through a bit of reverb, and EQ'ing everything when you enter water. All this said, I still enjoyed both music and sfx a lot, and they helped me immerse in this beatiful landscape.
Art direction is insane, probably the best one in the jam. It looks great, the animations are beautiful, and the tile sets bring a great level design to shine. It really feels as if this game was already one of the classic metroidvanias back in the day. Great great stuff!
Movement feels nice, teleport is super fun and the hidden rooms are cool to find. Very clever level design! The amount of content you guys made is also very impressive!
Sorry for posting my review so late, I did rate your game among the highest (if no the highest) entry for the jam, I really liked it. Congrats!
Hello from the art department! Just wanted to say thank you for playing and for sharing your thoughts on the art! I've done very little with pixel art and Aseprite in the past, so to receive such high praise is super encouraging, especially from someone whose own project had such beautifully designed assets. Really appreciate your taking the time to circle back to let us know how you enjoyed the game. <3
Thanks for playing and sharing your feedback, Ryan! Great note for us on getting stuck after teleporting through the leaves. We have realized there are some areas like this (I got stuck inside of a tree somehow a couple times, lol). If you wanted to resume, the game does save your progress, so you can free yourself by quitting and loading in again (from the pause menu [Esc]) and it should respawn you at the last statue you rested at.
Also DAAANG look at all your hearts! Nice work finding those!
Wow! Made it to the end, missed one heart. Not sure what the empty vessels are about. The only very minor things of note where:
I was a little concerned with the spike boss but it only had to go down half way, not all the way so not an issue. Good checkpoint placement, I didn’t feel like I wasted time redoing sections after dying.
The level design, art, music, everything was so nice! All the movement felt good, nothing felt janky. With slight exception of the precision spikes, everything felt fair, deaths were my fault. I should have gone to bed but instead I had to play to the end, well done, would love to see more!
Hey pdil, thank you for the detailed feedback! Seems like it is very important for testing purposes for me to purchase an ultrawide, noted (lol). In all seriousness, thank you for reporting, it’s a great thing to add to future testing checklists.
As for the vessels, they can alter the outcome of the game if you find one before obtaining each ability. Just gonna leave that there. :)
Totally hear you on the precision jumps and spikes, thanks for the notes. Despite that and the resolution issues, we’re stoked to hear you made it to the end and generally had a good time. Thanks for playing!
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, Francois! We really appreciate having this kind of feedback in case we decide to do any further work on this one in the future. To a couple of your points:
Ah yes, I did miss exactly that connection. Played a bit more now, beat the (first?) boss, got the spit power and another 2 hearts. Keen to come back another time and play more :)
Great to hear, sounds like you've almost finished the game. Thanks for playing!
Really great job!! The world feels so fleshed out and thought through for the timeframe given, and everything feels very polished and fun. I loved exploring this cavernous world, and the platypus character is a super cute and amazing. The water sections are very fluid and fun, so good job on breaking the "water levels are the least fun" curse. I don't really have any notes, the map is well-made, the abilities are unique and well implemented, and the enemy designs are quite nice. Very well done!! :D
What a wonderful review to receive! Thank you for playing, and I’m so glad we could deliver a water-filled map that you actually enjoyed haha!
So, fantastic job, the artwork, music, and game design are on another level! I didn't have a problem with the gravity, I thought it felt true to a cool little platypus jumping around. Which by the way how do you even think of that? Very cool.
Although not what my hands are used to, I didn't have a problem with the controls until the cat boss when I had to do multiple things at the same time in an unfamiliar schema, so my brain started to take issue lol. I'm sure everyone has their own opinion, but for me I would have preferred wasd movement, jump on space, and teleport on L shift, with the attacks on right handed inputs: either LMB for attack and RMB for shoot, or keys like J/K/L.
But that's honestly still pretty minor in the scheme of things. The teleport is actually really interesting, it adds a whole new dimension of movement that we take for granted so often. If not over, then through! Awesome job, I really enjoyed this a lot!
Thank you for your feedback! I'll let my colleague speak to your controls feedback (I think I'd like the schema you suggested, actually), but I wanted to give credit for the platypus idea to my spouse (not in the jam technically, but helping from the sidelines). I was trying to think of a protagonist for a bioluminescent cave environment, and he happened to know platypuses can actually glow under UV light. Also, I personally like to think (though this is not canon) that his fast fall is due to his juicy platypus booty. But I digress.
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed! <3
Haha that's awesome, I didn't know that about glowing platypuses! Honestly is there anything a platypus can't do? XD
What an amazing entry! I don't have a lot negative things to say about it which already haven't been said so I just wanna say you all should be proud you made something this competently! The art is absolutely beautiful and stunning! And I fully don't fault you for some sprite stretching since we both know how bad Unity is with pixel perfection! I personally didn't mind the jump and the higher than usual gravity applied to it, just took a few mins to get used to!
Had a lot of fun!
That’s beautiful, really, amazing artwork, the transitions of colors, the water effects, the animations, music, sfx everything it’s amazing.
Strong winner candidate.
I’m a simple guy, I love beautiful pixel art, and your gone deep in my heart, thanks. Just nee some adjusts on controls, and jump, but overall amazing game. I’ve reviwed this game on my youtube chanel the video will be released tomorow, maybe a have droped a tear on camera, sorry I’m soft.
Thanks so much for playing, and for the kind words!
I note you mention controls and the jump as issues. Can you elaborate?
Nevermind3476 below mentioned the jump felt like it fell incredibly fast after the peak of the jump is reached; is that the same issue you encountered?
As for controls, did the particular mapping feel awkward in terms of hand placement, or did you have another concern? (Also, did you use a keyboard, or a controller?)
Of course, about the jump it’s the same issue but it’s not a big issue at all, just a minor detail, just adjusts on the jump curve to fall a little bit slower, but keep faster than the jump.
And about the controls, it’s just the 2 hand on keyboard and ‘z’ instead of ‘space’ to jump, I’m not used to this configuration, but’s more a personal impression, I’ll try it with the controller that I belive that gonna fell a lot better.
Just wanted to also say "hi!" from the art department, and thank you so much for your compliments and descriptive feedback and suggestions. I really enjoyed watching you play on your channel (sub'd!) and I hope you'll enjoy the other biome's vibe when you find it if you play again :) Cheers!
Thanks, certainly I’ll play more, I really enjoyed the game
WHYYYYY is the player jump like that. Why do they just plummet like a rock instantly after reaching the peak of their jump. What is this. Any other issue I had with the game is just nitpicks compared to this, dear god that jump arc is an abomination.
Having a teleport is awesome, one of the best metroidvania upgrades out there and it's used well enough here. I'm not a fan of having it bound to space though, I never like having to hit space quickly and frequently with arrows + zx controls - its awkward to keep my thumb on the space bar with my other fingers so low on the keyboard. Would be nice to have rebindable controls.
Map is nice. I wasn't a huge fan of it aesthetically but ultimately that doesn't matter - it's a good map, I always appreciate ones that actually show terrain and pois.
Visuals were kind of awkward. There's some stretched out sprites here and there, and the pixel art on the sprites themselves is pretty messy. I found the game a bit headache inducing honestly.
also platypus protagonist is awesome. please please fix that jump though
I'm not sure what was happening with the jump on your end; the gravity scale is indeed higher on the way down (to avoid a floaty jump), but not so much that it feels particularly crazy to me. Perhaps not having a terminal velocity is the culprit? Or perhaps you're not used to variable jump height in platformers (i.e. that releasing the jump key sets Y velocity to zero)?
Controls are always difficult to perfect for me; I can see where you're coming from with the awkward hand position. I just hate pinky-based buttons, so didn't want to use Shift or expand the ZXC to include a fourth pointer finger, but perhaps that would have been better. For interest and my future control schemes, what button setup for the keyboard would you have preferred? (The game also supports controllers, which may feel better?)
As for visuals, we like the style we ended up with here a lot, but I understand it's impossible to meet everyone's tastes. The stretched sprites are an unfortunate side-effect of trying to triage the remaining outstanding art assets in the last couple of days of the jam.
Thanks for playing and for the extensive feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed some of it at least.
I don't think it's necessarily the variable jump - even when holding the jump button for the full time, the increase in gravity feels a little too high. I think you might be overcorrecting for "floatiness" a little and could stand to reign it in a bit. That said... going back to the game, yeah a lot of the awkwardness is coming from how you've implemented the variable jump. Resetting the y velocity to 0 is just flat out not a good way to implement variable jump - it completely disrupts any sense of a jump arc and just feels incredibly unintuitive. My preference is to cut the velocity in half on the key release, but a lot of games do have the gravity scale increase happen on button release instead so since you already have that mechanic it might be worth using here.
Visuals are largely just not my taste I think, seems that some other people enjoyed them. I do understand that the stretched out sprites are a time constraints thing, but they stood out as particularly awkward looking to me.
For controls I'd probably prefer shift to teleport, yeah, though ideally they'd be freely rebindable (I know unity can make this a pain though so it's understandable that it's not an option here). I unfortunately don't have access to a controller so I can't judge how the controls are there, I'd imagine they're probably better.
Gorgeous!! Amazing job ❤️
THANK U FRENNN
Nice game! Some of the platforming challenges were a bit frustrating, it took me quite a while to get used to the player movement :P
Still very good overall tho!
Thank you for playing and sharing your feedback with us!
What amazing feedback to receive, thank you!