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Phantom of the Idol's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation (Aesthetics, Audio, etc.) | #7 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Engagement/Fun | #9 | 3.455 | 3.455 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.576 | 3.576 |
| Theme Interpretation | #11 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Gameplay Polish | #15 | 3.091 | 3.091 |
| Magical Girl Concept | #15 | 3.545 | 3.545 |
| Originality/Creativity | #16 | 3.455 | 3.455 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
Our game focuses on a badger turned magical girl who uses the power of music to fight animated theatrical props.
Which theme(s) do you pick?
Phantom Pain & Snake Eater
How does your game fit those theme(s)?
Our shmup game is a sapphic retelling of Phantom of the Opera, in which our shy Phantom character is an adoring fan of our magical girl Idol character. The Phantom’s pain manifests into dangerous magic that corrupts things that the idol must defeat to protect her fans, her secret, and the music! Our main characters Melanie and Scarlet are anthropomorphic versions of two animals known to eat snakes: Badgers and Scarlet Kingsnakes.
If you follow any of the optional challenges, elaborate as you like.
N/A (they got cut for scope)
Were the assets for your game made during the jam? Elaborate as you see fit.
All assets (art, scripts, designs, audio) for the game were made during the jam. All were created by our team members, without any use of AI.
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Comments
This was super fun! I really enjoyed playing through it, the theme of music was super cool throughout and it had really good music to go with it(and art too).
Super cute game 😇
The stages got a bit repetitive near the end(just due to the same types of enemies popping up) but I enjoyed playing it all the way through
I love the fact that singing is a weapon and that it makes a singing tone when you shoot, though I'm not gonna lie I was incredibly dissapointed that in a game so themed around music that the sound of her call/singing didn't change note depending on the music & chord progression; having her sing along with the song would have made me instantly rate this game 10/10 and my heart broke the moment it didn't happen 😢 I would have literally played it just to make different rhythms with pressing and unpressing the shoot button & it would have melted me to the bone
(also I can't help but imagine how sick it would have been if the music part of it somehow made like a rhythm to shooting so that you could control something like spread/burst using different beats to the track It would have jammed so hard)
I'll check it out once you guys update it again, looking forward to it being fleshed out more (especially the story stuff)!
The theme is very consistent throughout.
I do not play many games in the genre so I do not know how [un]common the mechanic is, but I really enjoy the graze system as a concept. It has such a large impact on gameplay, able to influence the entire playstyle and even the player’s frame of mind, from panic to seeing a wall of projectiles to excitement at acquiring so much charging potential.
Some notes, possibly bugs:
On the second level regular attacks disappear. Considering the boss for the area looks like the protagonist and has a mic, this seems to be intentional; but when I activate the skill, the projectiles sometimes reappear and sometimes don’t. One of the two is probably an error?
Occasionally I take multiple hearts worth of damage from one hit. Sometimes all 5 hearts. There is nothing to indicate a special attack, they seem like average collisions/hits.
In level 2 some enemies spawn in the middle of the screen and immediately die (I’m supposing they’re falling onto the stage from above?). In combination with the multiple-heart-hit bug mentioned earlier, it can cause an instant game over if the player happens to be there. If we could have a telegraph of the drop/attack, like a growing shadow one second before impact as a warning, this would work great.
Thank you so much for your feedback! I'm really happy you enjoyed the graze mechanic and the gameplay. The graze meter bar mechanic isn't unique to our games, but I don't think it has a lot of use and I really wanted to feature it for the exact reasons you listed. <3
We do have some known issues, especially in the second level, that we are hoping to correct in the next couple weeks. The random teleportation of enemies is not on purpose, and we we absolutely telegraph it if it were. We initially had enemies coming up from the bottom, but ran out of time to make multiple visual/audio assets to telegraph this to players, so that got cut from the version we published.
If you have a moment, could you tell me when you were taking the multiple instances of damage? Did you notice it on multiple levels, or just one? Again, thank you so much for the feedback!
I had only seen similar to the graze mechanic in racing games, it translated very well to this genre.
The damage happened on every level, in almost any scenario; teleporting enemies, boss attacks, regular attacks. In trying to replicate it, I found what was happening and can describe it more accurately: It’s multiple attacks in very close proximity hitting at once, and all dealing damage. Instead of taking the first hit, becoming temp-invulnerable and respawning, I take all 3+ hits for 3+ hearts before respawning. If the teleporting speaker does its 6-shot ring attack right as it spawns in on top of me, that would be the instant kill I mentioned, taking 7 damage at once. I put a short clip in discord and pinged you.
I really liked it. I'm normally not very good at shmup games, but I had a lot of fun with this one. I also really appreciate the option to play with a controller :D
It's a good baseline shmup and I'd like to see it built-out. I found myself craving more bullet patterns to dodge later in the game. The first boss was kind of challenging since it so often came down low on the screen and I couldn't shoot it - maybe make it so it can't go down all the way? Regardless, this is really good to get done in just a month.
Lots of Toho vibes, I couldn't get the skill to work?
I wish there was a harmony that would play through the sfk when firing, that would be cool.
Thanks for the feedback! Could you be more specific about the skill? Were you unable to use it despite having the graze meter full, or is it possible that the graze meter mechanic was not clear? (Either way, this is very helpful to know!)
Awee very cute shump here :) The music and style works really well with it too! Maybe a bit more visual work might be needed for when enemies get hit though, I kept shooting and the flying musical bar and couldn't tell if it was doing anything or not!
Very lovely effort though :)
Thanks for your feedback! There is an HP bar for the boss at the top of the screen, but it's hard to see. We will be making it bigger and brighter/more visible in an update. Glad you enjoyed.