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A jam submission

The Variant PhenomenonView game page

A puzzle platformer where past versions of yourself hunt you down...
Submitted by CookiePanda579 — 2 days, 6 hours before the deadline
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Play Variant Phenomenon

The Variant Phenomenon's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Judges' Pick - Best Solo Game#1n/an/a
All Judges' Picks#1n/an/a
Judges' Pick - Best Game Design#1n/an/a
Enjoyment#24.0484.048
Overall#93.8573.857
Impressiveness#113.5713.571
Presentation#114.0004.000
Creativity#213.8103.810

Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

  • "Brilliant game. Amazing design and superb gameplay. Really well thought out. It completely encapsulated the theme and keeps you hooked. Very well done — super impressed. The execution was spot on. Suggestions: Games are all about the experience you provide. While the team has certainly done an amazing job creating it, certain tweaks could really enhance the overall gameplay. For starters, the mechanics should have been limited to just the arrow keys. There was no need to add the jump function to the space bar — removing it would have made the gameplay more streamlined. Secondly, each level should have included icons at the top indicating how many replays are remaining. For example, if there are 3 replays, once the player reaches the endpoint for the first time, the first icon should light up. This would help users track how many replays are left. Thirdly, the color of each replay should have been different (think of Pac-Man). That would have significantly improved the overall experience. Some animations could also be added — either to the endpoint or the main character — to enhance the visual appeal and user engagement."

Number of team members
1

Please credit all external assets you have used.
Tile-set, Characters, & Color Palette - 0x72
Background Music Track(s) - Sourced from Pixabay.com by XtremeFreddy
Misc SFX - Sourced from Pixabay.com

Please credit any external plugins/packages you used.
No external plugins/ packages were used.

What engine or toolset does your game use?
Godot 4.4

Please provide a full playthrough YouTube video for your game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnXfCUxGPs

Please provide a link to a 30 seconds gameplay YouTube video of your game.
The timestamp range is in the description of the video.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Really enjoyed this! You managed to strike the perfect balance with the difficulty of the platforming and the speed at which the level resets to let you try again. I banged my head against the wall trying to nail the jumps on level 10 and did not get frustrated at the game only my poor timing. 

Also the game is very clean and easy to understand. I didn't have to look at the tutorial to get what was going on,  I just needed to play. Love it!

Submitted(+1)

Really liked playing this one! I enjoyed the smart level design with the ghost mechanics, really nicely done. The art was very fitting, nice and simple, and the music was nice as well, although I found it getting repetitive around level 4.

I think the pacing was really great. The only main problem I encountered is that there's no visual indicator for the range of the bouncers, which makes it frustrating because, sometimes when I think I'm in range, I press space, but then I can't jump and fall to the floor (or into spikes in the case of level 10). Combined with their animation of shrinking and growing, it becomes even more confusing and frustrating. An easy way to fix this would be to add a simple circle around the bouncers, showing when I can and can't interact with them, and I think that would make them a lot more fun to use, especially in level 10, which is all about timing those jumps.

Also, I'm not really sure if this is a real issue or just a common problem in ghost player games, but I could basically wait around in the corner for like 20 seconds and then continue, which made my ghosts much easier to deal with. Again, not sure if there's a way to fix that or if it's just a design quirk. It didn’t really hurt the gameplay, it just made it a bit easier for me.

Great job with this game! I really enjoyed playing it.

Submitted(+1)

Great game. I have really enjoyed the mechanics.

Submitted(+1)

This game is so cool! The gameplay and puzzle design is great and I love the visual! I really enjoyed playing this! Amazing work :D 

Submitted(+1)

Cool game! I always enjoyed the sections from Mario Galaxy and Celeste that were like this, so a puzzle game dedicated to that was unexpected but enjoyable! I think my only pain point are the double-jump cubes, the timing is a bit tight so it's really easy to miss them. Good job!

(+1)

I played this before the reviews opened, and I really enjoyed it! It was an excellent blend of a puzzle game/platformer, the visuals were charming, and it generally felt good to play. 

My biggest gripes were the fact that the music got a bit old after a while, and that the hard mode levels felt a bit too long. If you ever came back to it, I think extra platforming/obstacles/some secret third thing would be a great addition and really bring everything together. Even without that, though, I enjoyed the game a lot, and spent a good while getting through the levels and working out how to optimize my movement.

Excellent work!

Submitted(+1)

Interesting concept for a platformer!

Really good level design. Only issue I ran into was I couldn't reset the level or get back to the menus after my clone hit me. Worked when I hit the spikes, though. Other than that, really good job!