Play GameJam
PalslaP's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality & Innovation | #2 | 4.086 | 4.086 |
| Visual Style | #17 | 3.829 | 3.829 |
| Theme | #18 | 3.543 | 3.543 |
| Audio | #19 | 3.257 | 3.257 |
| Fun & Game Design | #33 | 3.057 | 3.057 |
Ranked from 35 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Recruit your pals (all 2 of them!) via combat and face off against the dark lord through the power of friendship.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 4 days?
Yes
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Comments
the art on the story graphics is soooo cute!! there's this weirdly timed pulse at the start though but yea, very cute style. the overworld style is less polished but in a charming way at least. i like the border and shadow stylization on the boxes. i would've liked the viewport to be bigger so i could see everything better, particularly action text with the key inputs and hp/ap info were hard for me to process and remember so i had to look closely at them every time. wish the key inut boxes that appear on obstacles could've been used for the action circle too.
the controls are, hard, and don't feel great to play for my toopid brain. i feel like just the one input for a character to dodge would be difficult enough from managing multiple at once. but it's also kind of weird that Z X C V correlate to different characters in one part and different actions in another, my brain has to switch gears every time and i end up not feeling like trying different actions because they felt awkward and i didn't fully understand what they did. my strategy ended up being try to group all the characters together so i could just try dodging them all at the same time, but that didn't work for long and doesn't seem like the sort of loop you're going for.
after talking to the shadow monkey in overworld i thought the game had freezed but i guess the dialogue box was just positioned partly off the screen so spamming keys got me out of it. still the game does crash a bit much, i kept trying to play it a few times so i could make a more comprehensive review but when i crashed again sometime during shadow monkey fight i wasn't really feeling the gameplay to defeat buff all over again. thanks to your description though i can give you more points for the apparent solution to the boss fight being quite indicative of the theme.
oh yeah and i was expecting the game to be more of a slap-off, per the name "palslap" which, besides being a palindrome, i don't particularly understand what it means.
Thanks for your comprehensive feedback, much appreciated! For sure, the controls seem to be a sticking point. I feel there’s some variation of them that can work but as you mention I think they need to be massaged in some way to feel more streamlined and/or less disorienting!
Sorry about the crashes! I forgot to check if a character is KO’d when they collide with an obstacle, so if your dead body happens to hit an obstacle on the way out, it tries to kill them again and…yeah, crash!
Thanks for playing! (And I didn’t have a name until I went to submit so it was the first thing that came to mind 😅)
the mechanics were a bit tough to get the hang of, but it’s very creative I enjoyed it once I learned how to play
I like the style of the combat system. Tho at times the input felt like it didn't register. With a bit finetuning it could turn out great.
For sure, thanks for the feedback, appreciated!
FIRE!!! Very interesting take on the theme, and very good concept for turn based combat!
Like the gameplay, really fun to fight like this but kinda hard aswell ^^ aspecially bcs i couldnt hold down the char button and dodge or whatever than^^ ... also Z is a bday key for us qwertz keyboard users xD
I know, I’m sorry 😭 Literally as I clicked submit the thought flashed in my mind ‘Ah crap what about azerty etc’ My bad, I’ll remember keybinds in the future!
haha its fine still a good game ! :D
So, I really enjoy the idea of the battle controls. I have myself been thinking about innovating the turn based combat for a few years now, playing with various different things. And I do like what you came up with quite a lot, but I am having a very hard time getting the characters to do what I want them to.
Still that is understandable with just 4 days of dev time, I do believe with a bit of polish to make the characters more responsive it's an awesome idea, and I really enjoy the art style !
Do you find this happens once you have control of two characters, while the controls are fairly easy to use during the tutorial fight? Or even there, with only one character, do you find the controls unwieldy?
Many thanks, I really appreciate the feedback!
I have already in the tutorial been unable to evade the saws at all, I could jump over the block fairly easily, but even restarting a few times I couldn't for the life of me time the saws. Then of course when another character was added I would now struggle with it on both ^^
Aw sorry to hear you didn’t have a great time with it! You can dodge the circular saws quite far in advance, this ain’t no dark souls parry thankfully! 😅 But this definitely gives me food for thought about some design assumptions I’ve made, and how I might improve them in the future so thanks!
I was a bit confused at first (I didn't read the last control sentence), but after figuring out that you had to hit the characters' button while attempting a dodge of some kind, the game sort of clicked. Ignoring my inability to read, I like the game's art style and the unique gameplay. (*Edit might have sent the same comment multiple times :/)
I really wanted to like this game but the controls just never worked for me. Like the inputs just worked at random, which made the game unplayable unfortunately. Really cool concept, but for an action rpg like this, hit detection has to be solid and precise.
At random? Huh, certainly shouldn’t be doing that. If you’re willing to try again, you don’t have to be so precise. In combat, buttons can be held down, they don’t have to both be pressed together at the same time. I.e you can hold Z and press Down, or vice versa, hold Down and press Z. No need to try and time it to hit both Z and Down on the same frame!
Okay, I tried again, and i see what the real issue is now:
Why would you make such a complex control scheme where you have to press two buttons to do one action?
Why press two buttons (i.e. Z and Down) to do one action when you can simply press down to go down?
This kind of control scheme is very unconventional, have you not played any other games?
Also, why do I have to press Z to talk to people, then spacebar to continue the conversation?
You have too many buttons when you only needed one. if you want to use Z to talk, that's fine, then stick with Z. If you want to use spacebar, use spacebar. heck, you can even use both, but don't make me change them mid conversation! it makes no sense.
There are too many buttons that do too many things, and I'm not sure why...
One button, one action.
I think this simple change could really make the game a lot better.
Right now, with the current control scheme, it's going to be unplayable for me,
but i'd be willing to try the game again post jam if you make a patch that addresses these issues.
Well atleast the first part of that can be answered. if you do continue playing you would be able to have two more playable characters in the combat part all of whom have to be controlled separately at the same time. Thats where the two buttons for one action comes from.
But even if there are more characters added, is there no way for them to each be controlled separately without holding a button down? idk something just feels wrong about this control scheme. like why not just press a button once to switch between characters then? why exactly are we holding it down?
Thanks for trying it again, even if it didn’t seem to click for you, no worries! Part of why I like entering game jams is to try unconventional things, especially with control schemes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s an interesting discussion to have though for sure. How many games could you levy ‘One button, one action’ at? How much do you simplify something before it’s too simple to be intriguing? All games are about friction in one way or another. Appreciate the feedback either way.
Look, I gave it another shot because i actually want to enjoy the game and want it to succeed.
Look at the other comments on this game, the vast majority of comments are complaining about the controls.
" Had some trouble with the inputs "
"But... I had a lot of trouble with input"
"for some reasons my input wasn't detected."
"the controls are a bit awkward and tough"
"The controls were just too difficult for me "
"I was a bit confused at first"
"Dialogue progression and interact can share the same button, that might make it nicer."
Please, please stop trying to be defensive and take an honest look at things, it's not gonna help out if you continue to ignore feedback.
I've seen to many people care about their "artistic vision" and claim that their work is "experimental", so it's not prone to feedback or change.
I've never seen those people get too far.
Once again, I'm commenting, and giving feedback, not as a personal attack, but because I saw some potential in your work, and was looking forward to a version with a better control scheme, as I'm sure as the many other people who have played this game are.
I loved the concept of the battles here. choosing between attacking or advancing, and dodging as well. Super interesting. The controls were just too difficult for me to control especially when there were 2 things to dodge at the same time.
Also the intro was very nice x
Thanks for the feedback!
Cool game but the controls are a bit awkward at times. Dialogue progression and interact can share the same button, that might make it nicer.
the combat system was fun! and the art is lovely, sadly an error didn't let me finish the game, but i still enjoyed the part of it that i did get to beat!
i love the game but for some reasons my input wasn't detected. But i love to try playing it again if you rework it! But besides that rly nice artstyle and gameplay!
Was the game in focus? If you make sure to click inside the game window that might fix it. Unless you were on another control scheme besides keyboard? I didn’t have time to do mobile or controller :/
Pretty solid and polished game overall! For some reason, I kept on getting this weird error that wouldn't let me carry on playing.
Many thanks! Sorry about the errors, can you remember roughly where it happened?
Holy combat, this one is a banger! It's pretty tough, but it's just the type of challenge I like!
Wow so cool, serious Undertale vibes, the controls are a bit awkward and tough, but it's a very pretty game and really cool mechanics, that would be awesome in a full game with some more exploration!
The combat system has a ton of potential! Seriously, I would love to play a polished version of this.
But... I had a lot of trouble with inputs. I had trouble dodging back-to-back attacks, and dodging with two characters. Also the game crashed when I lost to the dog D:
Thank you! Yeah, that’s been the main issue for people so far. I’d love to go back and tweak the combat timings so that things feel a little tough but fair, and not just borderline impossible in certain cases! Thanks for playing though, sorry about the crash!
I can see the vision :) the finished assets look soooo good
Really cool and well done!
Combat is really cool, oozing with style and polish. Had some trouble with the inputs during combo being inconsistent which was a bit frustrating but it's seriously too cool. Love the work, really sick!
Thank you! I made a last minute decision to have the button order (z,x,c,v) rearrange dynamically as the party order changed which may have not been a good idea! Appreciate the feedback 🙇