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A jam submission

BLOCKView game page

A minimalist puzzle Metroidvania.
Submitted by Neopolis (@wondersableye) — 1 day, 9 hours before the deadline
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BLOCK's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Execution#24.3274.327
Enjoyment#34.0004.000
Overall#34.0424.042
Relevance to the theme#44.4234.423
Sensory#233.7123.712
Metroidvania#243.7503.750

Ranked from 52 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme interpretation and application
The game is minimalist in several ways. Outside of the logo and credits, the game contains no text, there's no HUD or anything. The game can be played entirely with the 4 directional keys (or stick/dpad). The graphical style is minimalist as well, relying largely on simple shapes. It is also minimalist as a Metroidvania, relying on getting depth out of a very small amount of upgrades.

Team/Developer
Neopolis, lizengel

Reference info
neopolis001 & lizengel on Discord

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Comments

Viewing comments 33 to 14 of 33 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Played the Windows version.

This was the most enjoyable 2D Jam game for me, as learning the mechanics comes naturally as you progress, the clever solutions to puzzles, etc, I honestly don´t have feedback to give except congratulations for such an amazing design, experience, and minimal game! Took me a while to get the last block but...hehe that was so clever :D

Time: 00:44:24

Deaths: 56

Secrets Found: 2/2 (Although I only remember finding one, I think I forgot how I unlocked one of these, haha).

Submitted

(Note: This is a review of the browser build, I went back to check and I think the Windows build is slightly different?)

Great game and cool implementation of the theme, not really much negative to say about it! The art style was simple but effective, and I liked the use of sparse background elements to give rooms more personality. The music seemed a bit disjointed at first, but it did grow on me over time. It did such a good job staying in the background that I'm not actually sure if there was more than one song, so I think a bit more "kick" in that area definitely could have helped!

As someone who's pretty bad at both making and solving puzzles, I thought the puzzles in the game were quite creative and just the right amount of mind-bending without ever taking too long to figure out. I also appreciate that the backtracking never got too bad, with the warp mechanic definitely being a big help there. I think my only issue was that some of the bounce timings were pretty strict and took a lot of attempts to pull off. I actually had to remap my controller to have the transformation ability on another button to pull off the various tricks comfortably. I think the deadzones on the analog stick might also have been a bit low, as trying to use the stick often resulted in jumping or transforming by accident. While I appreciate the dedication to the directions-only control scheme, I think more mappings for the jump and transform would definitely have helped!

I actually went back and played it in an incognito tab to make sure, and all the "powerups" indeed seem to be available from the start (at least in the web build, I think in the Windows build, the square form and the warp aren't unlocked by default?). The "Metroidvania" is purely based on player knowledge, which I think is super cool and great for replayability! Some mechanics and reveals were pretty easy to figure out by accident, like the bounce ability. Others, like the various checkpoint shenanigans, were genuinely jaw-dropping, and I think the game did a great job helping you discover them organically!

Either way, I had a great time and managed to find both secrets according to the credits (I'm guessing the frog at the start was one of them, honestly not sure what the other one was)!

Developer(+1)

I don’t think the browser build and Windows build are any different? The Windows build has a fullscreen and a quit button, but that’s about it. In both builds, you need any 1 block to get the block ability, but that’s it. And even that’s mostly because if you could skip the first block, it’d be possible to softlock yourself by having nowhere to warp to, haha.

For what it’s worth, I did add some redundant button mappings to up and down, A and B buttons should work for those without any rebinding required. Good shout on the deadzone though, I’ll be sure to adjust it a bit since the movement is at fixed speed anyway so there’s no need for it to be low.

Thanks for the detailed write-up, glad you enjoyed it!

Spoilers The frog is indeed one of the secrets, the other is the hidden map room behind the turret in the start row. Having a "secret found" jingle would probably be good...
Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I see, thank you for the clarification!

Spoilers Checking out that first turret was my first impulse after the parry ability was revealed, so maybe that's why I didn't realize it was a secret. Regardless, it was a cool touch to have those secrets in the first place and I loved the frog!
Submitted

I liked the game, the gameplay feels very intuitive and the puzzles i had the chance to experiment were very well build. But i got stock on one of the first ones, so i will not be able to give a good feedback for the game.

Just sharing were i was stuck so you can consider to use this feedback on the puzzle design.

HostSubmitted(+1)

I feel like our fundamentals (squares/boxes and puzzles somewhat involving physics) were similar but we went in different directions :D

Lovely entry, it gets a lot right. The level design implicitly and explicitly teaches you about the mechanics (an explicit example is the downwards arrow, an implicit one is when arriving in the area that asks you to die to solve the puzzle, it because a recurring piece of solving the others after). Aesthetically very pleasing, excellent interpretation of the theme. I fully enjoyed my time.

Submitted(+1)

Enjoyment 5/5 - Really enjoyed this one. Good feel and vibes all around.

Execution 4/5 - some puzzles might have been a bit obtuse but most of the game was good

Sensory 4.5/5 rounded to 5 - I liked everything except the title theme, down to the squishy lil shape.

Metroidvania - 4.5/5 rounded down - It's at least MV-adjacent as Leap Year--maybe a bit more since there's technically one upgrade with many facets, and Leap Year just gives you the whole from the start. Pretty close but not quite the full thing to me. Scratches the exploration aspect itch though.

Minimalism 5/5 - Good use of the everything.

Submitted

video from my stream (you were there ofc)

Submitted(+1)

Okay this is an excellent entry. Finished it with apparently one secret found (no idea what that was supposed to be haha) and another missing.

The first think that hit me was  how well this game silently teaches its mechanics. I had originally written down that this quality  disappeared later on as I would collect squares with no idea what new ability they gave me... but then I realized the squares probably never gave me any ability to begin with. I now assume everything was available from the start. So that's the part that could be clearer, probably by making sure the "tutorial rooms" are not the same as the "square rooms". But hey, I eventually figured it out. Speaking of innate abilities, I discovered two of them on my own and even used that knowledge to bypass one puzzle, so that felt good. 

I like how each "branch" was dedicated to one mechanic. The one where you have to find increasingly convoluted ways to kill yourself was amusing. On the other hand, I could never pull out the "super jump" reliably, so that was more frustrating.

I almost gave up the game at the last two squares because I had no lead to explore. I wished I was able to freely look at the map rather than being restricted to snap from one "square room" to another. It makes it way harder to survey where I could go. I finally unstuck myself when I  found a better map, to remain vague (you know what I mean). And then the last square was brilliant, the perfect note to end the game on.

Again, incredible work with this entry! Congrats, I wouldn't be surprised to see it win! ;)

Submitted(+1)

Really great entry! Hit credits, but didn't find any secrets. A lot of solid puzzles and it's always fun to have "knowledge gates", feels very cool. And I think you did a great job with the theme by getting so much mileage out of "one" ability. I don't want to say too much and spoil anything.

Minor issues, the sound effects were so much louder than the music, that I could barely hear the music in order to have the SFX at a comfortable volume. And having to figure out both (?) hidden techniques so close to each other, was a lot of frustrating trial and error in a short span of time, maybe they could have been spaced out a little more. They were very cool though!

I think my biggest struggle is just the structure of the world / game. Each area is mainly a puzzle gauntlet, through which you gain some knowledge that can be used to access the next puzzle gauntlet. And there's not much reason to go back through those old areas. As a result, the game felt pretty linear. It did open up a tiny bit at the end to find the remaining blocks. And this is certainly not an easy fix while creating this style of minimalist puzzle game. But I just missed the sense of world and exploration you get in a "normal" metroidvania.

But this is a really good game, you could easily expand / polish it a bit and it's be ready for sale. Tremendous work!!

Developer(+1)

You can change the volume for sound effects (🔊) and music (🎵) separately in the main menu and pause menu, but with the lack of text on-screen, I can’t blame you for missing that one. And yeah, I definitely had to cut down on the amount of player freedom (a lot of truncation, very limited branching, etc) in order to keep everything palatable, which does hurt the “Metroidvania” of it all. Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

This entry was the best interpretation of the theme for me. Everything is so juicy and polished...except for the circle movement. That's the only thing missing. Otherwise this is pretty much a perfect entry. Congrats!

(+1)

The controls feel very intuitive, despite the lack of dialog i understood what i was supposed to do most of the time, which is a real positive feeling for me, feeling like i am in control of the character is one of the most important things for a videogame.

It took me a couple of attempts to understand that i was supposed to hide the key inside my cube form so it didn’t disappear, but after i did t i it felt like a real smart puzzle.

After advancing for a while and solving a couple of more puzzles, i reached the room with no way to go through, and since there was some odd colored squares bellow that black square that i didn’t know what to do, i immediately tried to groundpound on it to find the solution, just to be absorbed by the black square and learn those things were teleported, that was a great feeling moment, that made me open my mouth and say “Ooooh!!!” out loud, im ever increasingly surprised at the level of “Show, don’t tell” that this game features, where im constantly being taught things without being treated like im dumb.

However, my only gripe so far is that the teleporter  where there is spikes bellow is a little too tall, so it took me a couple of attempts to manage to get back into the teleporter.

…Hold on, spikes? I just learnt that i can break through blocks with the groundpound even if there is spikes on top, there is no way i can… or could i? Writing about my gripe about the teleporter made me think about it, so i tested it out and… Boom! I was right! There is a path to follow in there!

After advancing for a little longer, i managed to reach the new part, where red turns back to blue, and i really wish there was a way to look at the full map, because even in teleporters, i could only look around to the closest maps in the teleporter, not at the whole thing, which feels like something i wanted to do considering the intention is for me to explore and backtrack.

After finding absolutely nothing, i went back to the room, thinking about what to do, i can’t break the floor on this room, so there was nothing do do here.

Wait, can’t i? I felt like i didn’t get enough height to do it, but looking at it, there was a space with a solo block that i could break, so i spent a while trying to get it, and at the end i did indeed managed to do it.

However i would say this was a badly designed room, because i kept hitting the floor, and thus not being able to get enough height to groundpound, this doesn’t feel like extremely precise movement was an intended feature of this game, so i will have to put that as a negative on the overall game.

Advancing more and more, i found a new teleporter, that it was out of reach because i broke the blocks, so i could not touch it, but i could touch the checkpoint, so if i died, i managed to activate it, it took me a while of exploring to go back and think “Why was this a thing? What did i learn from this?”, after another roam through the map, i went back and looked at it, what i was missing? There is the place, the color of the blocks didn’t seem to explain much to me, is there something else? Just a grave, some spikes, some grav- wait, a grave? On the room where im supposed to die? Are the background objects intended for me to learn what each thing means everywhere? Yes! The Spikes meant i had to groundpound there, and the graves meant i had to die to reset the ground! Thanks to that information, i could backtrack to the place i didn’t know how to break the floor, die and BOOM! The broken floor was back, perfect for me to advance to a new zone!

Following through, the next zone was some puzzles that used this new learnt mechanic to make me break blocks, get the checkpoint, die and respawn on the checkpoints with the blocks back in place, real good use of learnt mechanics on there.

After reaching the end of that zone, i found the 6th teleporter, and i go back to the start, thinking i have finally finished the game (i didn’t) and thanks to a slip of my fingers, i learnt about a new mechanic that im pretty certain i wasn’t supposed to learn yet, so i will mention it when we reach that part, but i did manage to find a little secret thanks to this, tho.

No, the game wasn’t over, so i went back to the last teleport and looked at the room, what was this trying to teach me? There is nothing that stands out on the room, just a jump to get into the teleporter, a little too tall… Ah, i know what this is trying to teach me, the inertia from groundpound is saved between teleports! This was something i already noticed before, but i didn’t see any place to use it, so i looked through the teleporters that i already had unlocked and there i found one with breakable floor! To the next zone i went, purple time it is!

And here i see that the next puzzle was the exact thing i accidentally learnt a minute ago, when i groundpound, if i change back from square before touching the floor, instead of a groundpound i bounce real hard, basically making me obtain a high jump. However, instead of advancing here, i decided to go back to where i was before, i swear i saw a small hole while i was falling to the purple zone… and i found another teleporter! Was this intended or did i just skip progress accidentally? Can’t say right now, i guess i will learn after i continue.

However it was intended or not, i learn that if i transform into the last second, i parry the bullets, something to remember for the future, and while advancing through the assumed intended path, i also see a room that weirdly reminds me of the starting zone, two things for my mental checks to remember for the future.

And i see that i made a loop to where i thought i wasn’t supposed to be, it does indeed seem that i skipped a little bit of progress accidentally, whoops! No matter though, i decide to go to the starting zone and see if my assumptions are correct, and they were! one last teleporter found!

And it seemed like it was indeed the last teleporter! and at the starting zone, a weird glow appeared, instinct tells me that it’s the ending, so before interacting with it, i want to see what happens to the right, if i parry the bullet at the start… Ah, a map of the whole zone, just at the end, how cheeky!

My overall experience with this game was extremely positive, with the exception of the two specific complains i have put, my only other gripe with the game is that i wish there was a little more song variety.

Personal Score: 9/10, i would honestly consider this a full game that i might have bought on steam.

Submitted(+1)

Really strong. entry, 

Possibly the best I have played so far in terms of really embracing the theme, and such clever level design, and design over all... even from the start screen it feels special.

If I am going to nit pick (and I need to really nit pick to find things that could be improved)  occasionally the timed elements combined with the quick movements needed could feel a little frustrating, once the problem itself was solved... but massively enjoyable.

Submitted(+1)

This is a great game! I noticed that both WASD and the arrow keys work for movement, which is a really nice touch. The attention to detail really brings the game to life! The map design is also clever that it guides you to use new abilities!

Submitted

great game  ! nice job

Submitted

This is a masterpiece.

Submitted(+1)

Teaching the player the mechanics they secretly had access to the entire time sure was a teaser for me to replay it and see how I could break/speed through! I did have a little trouble with the bouncing, I think I just need to git gud though lol

Submitted

Nothing to say other than: awesome game. 

Submitted(+1)

i like it 

Submitted

Good job! I liked the style of the pixel art!

Submitted(+1)

Now this is a good concept. I'm a huge fan of the minimalist controls. Its very smooth to play with well thought puzzles and creative ways to use abilities. Just top execution overalll.

Submitted(+1)

It took me quite some time, and yet it was the perfet game for this jam, simple, fun, enjoyable, extremely polished. Congratilations to the devs!!

Viewing comments 33 to 14 of 33 · Next page · Last page