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PopRocks's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #2 | 4.446 | 4.446 |
| Fun | #3 | 4.185 | 4.185 |
| Controls | #7 | 4.123 | 4.123 |
| Overall | #8 | 3.941 | 3.941 |
| Accessibility | #12 | 3.585 | 3.585 |
| Graphics | #27 | 4.031 | 4.031 |
| Originality | #30 | 3.754 | 3.754 |
| Theme | #61 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
Ranked from 65 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.5
Wildcards Used
Cozy vibes and autumn-like atmosphere
Use only once location
Use a restricted color palette
Game Description
Time your pops perfectly, stack combos, and watch the music expand in this popcorn powered rhythm game!
How does your game tie into the theme?
PopRocks embodies expansion in both sight and sound. Kernels literally expand as they pop, while the music itself grows with the player’s performance. Each combo multiplier (1x–5x) adds ascending arpeggios that climb the scale, building harmonic tension until the 5x motif resolves and expands the track into a fuller soundscape. Because these musical layers are tempo-locked and triggered by the player’s timing, every run creates a unique, expanding performance.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
fresh.js, shabs9000
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
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Comments
What a damn cool game! And a functioning leaderboard for a game jam?!?!?!?! Now you're just flexing :D Really well executed idea, nice work!
The game is very well polished: impeccable music and sound effects, instant feedback that I love to read “Perfect,” and bravo for the leaderboard.
I miss seeing how much time is left or a progress percentage during the music, or maybe I just didn't see it. All that's missing now is some caramel popcorn, chocolate popcorn, popcorn with... OK, I'll calm down now.
Very good work.
Thanks for the kind words! It means a lot.
There is a progress bar at the top of the screen, though it might be easy to miss in the chaos of it all lol.
Wow, this one is really challenging! My first score was around 600, and I can’t believe there are people hitting 3000. Even though I kind of suck at it, the feeling when you actually catch the beat is amazing. On my second try I really felt like I was killing it, but still only ended up with around 1100.
I’m a huge fan of rhythm games, and I can say this one is executed very well. It feels polished, and the starting animation plus the graphics gave me nostalgic vibes of old flash games (that’s definitely a compliment!). Well done!
Yeeaahhh this is the best game in the jam lmao, the rating count doesn't shock me one bit. I absolutely suck at these games and I still couldn't put it down! And the JUICE. Everything here feels so polished and satisfying, from the sound effects to the particles to the camera bounce, it all just works. The leaderboard is a great touch too, good incentive to keep playing. It's just a damn good game, man. Great work, you two! ^^
“Couldn’t put it down” is the best response I could’ve hoped for, tysm! <3
I am so bad at rhythm games, but I couldn’t stop trying to beat my score in this one! The art is super crisp, the music is super jammy, and the Perfect hits on the kernels are so satisfying. This is a top-notch game and it feels great to play. My one issue is that whenever the middle kernel pops, it falls down the same path that the unpopped middle kernels come up, so it blocks the view (lost a few combos to these guys). Otherwise, zero friction while playing!
Brilliant!
Very very fun! I am so impressed !
Ayy that was fun! Simple but well executed! Nice job both.
there's really not much things to say, (you can see you are the most rated game and I think that is not "by chance", totally deserved) I hope I don't repeat things from previous comments!
First things first: the menu theme is a banger, great track, really, I love the way it breaks. from musician to musician: congrats.
Second: the sfx are just right on time and pitch, very sweet.
Thrid: reeeally rewarding with the "perfect" sounds, and specially the ending screen with the leaderboard and what you achieved in the run, it makes you feel like it was worth it, and most importantly: it makes you feel you can do better, and I think that was your intention all along, so, mission accomplished. (I'll ask you about the leaderboard, I'm really curious about it)
I think you are a team that works together just fine. you can see you made a whole "product" where everythings rows in the same direction.
And to finish, as an "things to improve" or whatever you may call it:
I didn't feel that music was "scaling" with my combos further than the sound of the combos itself, ,there was times that music had more layers or suddenly it became more "quiet" but I don't know if I can atribute that to my "performance" that was unclear to me, and I didn't feel that "complexity" being achieved by maing it better.
Also I felt like every note I hit was a whole note (a black one, I'm bad with the names in English XD), I didn't feel like there was "different rythmic patterns", or crazy syncopation (again don't know if this is the word).
Aaaannd to finish, and I think this is more important the rest of the stuff: you are giving the most gentle and kind comments to everygame, and you can see you are taking the time to play and feel those games. Really really appreciate that level of personal kindness. I hope you end up really high in the Jam leaderboard!!!
See you in the arcades!!
I am going to write something far more substantial soon for you Mr Pistacho, but I just want to acknowledge the incredible amount of effort you’ve put into writing a single comment on our page. What a guy! And of course you deserve a full response in kind. But I’ll need a moment first!
Couldn’t just let this sit here unaccompanied. You’re a legend! Expect to hear from me shortly.
Cheers for such a thoughtful comment mate, honestly. It means a lot that you took the time to write all that out. From one musician to another I really appreciate you noticing the little touches in the sound design and the music. Hearing you enjoyed the menu theme and the way the SFX land bang on time is especially nice, because those are exactly the kind of things I spent ages tweaking. Feels brilliant knowing that effort comes across.
On the music scaling side of things, you are spot on with what you picked up. Right now it is not the actual track that shifts, but the combo FX. Every streak you build pushes the motif up one step in the scale, and when you hit the top multiplier of five it resolves neatly at the peak. Everything is tempo locked, so you are right that you do not hear syncopation out of those FX. The system is designed so the combo only keeps alive if you are tight on the beat, which is why it always stays steady and on grid.
That said, you are right to want more variety and complexity. Fresh and I have already chatted about ideas where the gameplay track itself evolves as you go. Imagine hitting 50, 100 or even 200 notes in a row and suddenly a new layer of percussion or texture kicks in, then drops out the second your combo breaks. That sort of reactive layering would create the kind of growth you are describing, where the whole tune feels like it is building with you. We have also talked about messing with the FX so they are not always straight whole notes, which could bring in more interesting rhythms. Your feedback gives us even more reason to push further down that road.
I am also glad you mentioned the leaderboard and the mission accomplished vibe at the end of a run. That was exactly what we were going for. We wanted players to feel properly rewarded for a run, but also walk away with that itch to beat their score next time. Hearing you say that shows we managed to land it. And your point about us rowing in the same direction is spot on too. It was just the two of us, Fresh handling all the core design and myself on the audio, but we really did put our heads together to make it feel like one complete product. Lovely to hear that comes through.
And just to add, your kind words about how we chat with the community are hugely appreciated mate. For us the jam was never just about throwing a game together, it was about connecting with people who love games and music the same way we do. Knowing that comes across in how we talk to everyone really makes it all worthwhile.
So yeah, thank you again for the encouragement and the constructive bits alike. Both are massively valuable to us. We share your excitement for giving players more control and influence over the music, and it is an area we are keen to keep building on. Hope to see you climbing those leaderboards again soon!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this <3 the feedback especially is most welcome.
I definitely wanted to switch things up with more complex patterns like half beats but I ran out of time and didn’t want it to feel half baked. Stuff to work on after the jam, including your other comment about scaling! Right now it is indeed limited to the combo noises as you pointed out.
As for the leaderboard, it’s a lot simpler than you’d think! We used SilentWolf, which is free and has a Godot plugin, although limited, I may not use it for future projects.
Thanks again :) I feel really lucky to have gotten such awesome responses so far. Best of luck to you as well!
I loved this. It reminded me of Jak 2's Onin mission. Lots of fun
Now that sounds like a deep cut. Off to youtube I go!
I loved the way you implemented the theme, it's a very creative way of going about it. The music was catchy and absolutely superb aswell. However, the only critique I have is that the game was too hard. Like at first I felt as if I was a baby bird being thrown off a tree without properly knowing how to fly yet, so if you're willing to expand the game, maybe add a difficulty system like most other rhythm games have. This jam entry was pretty much perfect imo (other than the difficulty, overall though, I had a really great time! Good luck with the jam!
Thanks for the feedback! I getcha, the game kinda throws it all at ya after the first few seconds, it’s a sharp transition. I’d have liked to tweak that more given time, so very fair.
I’m glad you otherwise enjoyed it though! It really overjoys to me to hear that ^^ and best of luck to you too!
This game is really fun to play! Great job on the music and sound effects, they work well with the visuals and provide good cues for the gameplay. Adding in the leaderboard was also a cool idea.
First time seeing a rhythm game in a jam and really great execution! The visuals, SFX and music work well together and the game feels nicely balanced with the slower rhythm sections intermixed in the song to provide some relief. Well done!
Loved this. Incredibly fun and polished.
Really nice! A lot of people underestimate how difficult it is to make a rhythm game this solid. I'm curious how you guys went about syncing the audio/video/gameplay and storing the chart.
Visuals were also wonderful, I really liked the UI. Adding a leaderboard was a nice touch too.
I only wish there were a harder alternative track / chart.
And that’s all done by Fresh, and Fresh alone! What an absolute whiz. I’m very blessed to be part of his team.
I’m glad you’ve mentioned that! When you say a harder track, how hard are we talking? If you have a moment to skim through these, let me know if any are close to what you’re envisioning. Would be a great help!
House Techno DnB
I think any of those would be fine; I think even the slightly more difficult chart for the same track would be fine. I've just played a lot of rhythm games, so it would be difficult to make something too crazy. Having a range of difficulties would have been really cool, but totally makes sense to be a lower priority for a jam, where hardcore rhythm gamers are probably not gonna be a huge portion of your players.
As a musician I know exactly where you’re coming from. I would personally love to have a wide range of tempos and difficulty options added to the game eventually. There are of course other ways to increase difficulty as in your example, so I guess pot-jam it’s about trial and error, finding what clicks.
Thanks for all the help!
Thanks for the kind words! It was a challenge for sure. There’s a great plugin for Godot called Rhythm Notifier which takes an audio player and a bpm and sends signals at that cadence. Popcorn spawning and animations are all connected to that signal, so everything is sync!
The beatmap was something I wish I fleshed out a bit more were it not for lack of time. Right now it’s a resource with a customizable list of “time windows” where I can manually define patterns and spawn frequency. So slower segments can get a spawn every 4 beats and faster segments get a spawn every beat, plus customization on how many get spawned at once (it’s a bit rng). Not perfect, but it works.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The most enjoyable game I've played in this jam so far!
The rythm of the music, combined with the satisfying rythm of your button presses worked SOO welll!
Incredible job! Also really cool use of the theme :)
The MOST enjoyable? Now that’s saying something! Credit where it’s due, Fresh is the only dev on the team and absolutely put some shifts in to get it this polished and streamlined. We weren’t sure if our interpretation of the theme would be clear enough, so glad to see it translates!
Wow this was a blast!The soundtrack is a BOP and the game was so juicy and satisfying to play with all of the little details like the screen pulsing and the combo sounds lining up with the music! And the leaderboard at the end was a really nice touch 😆
Ah wow thanks! really nice to hear people are vibing with my music and sounds. Definitely making me motivated for sure :)
Nice one ! Loved to try to be better and better, the automnal ambiance is also really cool :)
Maybe a different color for the corn (or the background) could be nice as sometimes it's difficult to see the pop spawning between background and particles of exploding corn
Owh and also, nice music !
The color contrast is definitely something to iron out 😅 thanks for the feedback. And glad you enjoyed it!
Well damn, this was fantastic! To make such a tight feeling rhythm game in such a short time is really impressive! Loved the art and visuals and the music was absolutely perfect for the theme and also for the style of game.
I thought it came out of the gates pretty hard and hit me with a bunch of tough combos before I’d had a chance to get my head in the game - but that only made me want to back and play it more! (see cartmouse, cartmouse2 and cartmouse3 on the leaderboard XD)
Just awesome - I had an absolute blast with this!
We were able to craft SFX perfectly matched in tempo, rhythm and even key! That means that during each playthrough you’re creating a new and evolving piece of music! I really want to add even more levels of tonal sfx to this, to the point where PopRocks players are creating and playing their own music!
So glad to see you had fun with it :)
That’s such an awesome concept! I’d love to see more of this if you get round to expanding it - that’s right up my alley of interest :D
I can see it’s up your alley of interest looking at the leaderboard… 😉
🫣
Haha it does ramp up quick at the start xD but I’m glad it engaged you! Having anyone replay a game is the best compliment I could hope for, so thank you!
Nice game, but i suck at rythm games, don't even looks like i am a guitarrist.
I still struggle to keep time and it’s my song! Tbh I’ve had better luck just staying faithful to the beat and tempo, the eyes can deceive!
Art was great, vibes were amazing, audio was even better. I sucked at it but I still loved how this turned out. Executed this idea perfectly, genuinely just an overall great game. The UI feedback of hitting the notes was amazing, you absolutely cooked with this one
I can only take credit for a slice of this delicious goodness! Aside from audio, the entire project (from concept to final build) was the brainchild of Fresh. What a talent! SO glad he handles everything else tbh, gave me so much room to perfect audio and music.
Thanks so much for all the praise! I’ll have to come by your neck of the woods and see what Al-Pigeone has in store for me 😂
Honestly the way I see things, without either of you, this project wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it was! You both executed your roles perfectly and this game was the result of all that hard work :) You both did an amazing job on this, I think it may be one of my favourites of the jam so far honestly!
You're welcome and thank you for considering checking out our lil pigeon game :)