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A jam submission

anoVita [Jam Version]View game page

Calm this chaotic quantum world
Submitted by LowQualityRobin, mouse99 — 4 days, 7 hours before the deadline
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anoVita [Jam Version]'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Relevance to the theme#184.0034.167
Execution#243.3633.500
Overall#283.4753.617
Sensory#333.4433.583
Enjoyment#373.2033.333
Metroidvania#453.3633.500

Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme interpretation and application
The setting of anoVita is about as minimalist as possible, taking place across a few molecules. Your movement abilities are minimized by the rail shooter gameplay. Further, anoVita uses minimalist models, textures, and animations, which was aided by a personal restriction to make all the visuals (barring the title and font) using nothing but the Godot engine.

Team/Developer
LowQualityRobin, mouse99

Reference info
Discord: lowqualityrobin_16628

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Alright, this is a really cool idea. Unfortunately, the project suffers from a lot of navigational issue. It's hard to tell where you've been and where you should go. It's also difficult to be able to tell what each object does. If you could manage to improve on those points, I think you'd have a good game on your hands. 

I made it to the organic zone (mostly by luck) and I stopped there. Maybe the solution is to have a map that indicates the links between the different loops better as well as adding landmarks to each loop.

Developer

Thanks for playing.

These are all fair criticisms. There's a few navigational hints in the game (mainly the colour-coded halos and pointer particles on warp-points), but they aren't well explained.

I kinda wanted to make a mini-map that showed the rails of each room. Didn't do it due to a lack of time, but I also don't want the player to be constantly switching between the game and mini-map. I'll probably just have to do a full redesign of the organic zone. It's easily the worst area anyways.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

this kicks ass. I got to the third area and got my first death bc of accidental overuse of <UPGRADE 2> it was awesome. I think if the movement was aligned to the rail more cleanly (reset to center of rail unless pressing directional input) it'd probably feel better but otherwise I ain't got no notes. Fantastic job on this. I stopped playing after aforementioned death because I ain't got too much time but I'll probably come back and finish this at some point it was dope. I really like your take on the theme!

edit: wait I do wanna add that some more visual clairity on the warp point barriers would be Pretty Awesome; would have to give them a more visual identity which doesn't wholly fit with the theme I guess but you could probably figure something out.

Submitted(+1)

This entry feels very polished! The intro sequence is great, and combining a rail movement system with shooting mechanics feels like a really unique twist for a Metroidvania. I did find navigation a bit challenging, even with the map, which limited me to the second area. I also struggled with the visual cues for items—it was hard to tell at a glance which objects were HP pickups versus hazards. This is a solid start, and a bit more visual distinction and clearer navigation would really help the gameplay flow!

Submitted(+1)

The way you implemented the metroidvania formula withing a rail-shooter is really interesting. I like that despite being on rail you actually have great freedom of movement and you need to figure out where to go and how. But I struggled to locate myself in this world: I wished it had big landmarks in the middle of the loops, so I could quickly recognize where I was and where I was headed. I took a long time to find the way out of the first zone.

My other complaint is the lack of affordance for most of the gameplay elements. I was confused during most of my playtime, having no clue what the different things were or did. I always appreciate a little mystery, but my confusion would often persist after interacting once or twice with an element, which was frustrating. Sometimes it was clear (going through a red circle alerts new enemies, got it) but other times I wasn't sure how cause and consequence related to each other.

Despite the game's repeated warnings, I played with a gamepad because the mouse & keyboard controls were just too complex for me. It was fine, though I would have preferred the acceleration/deceleration to be a boost while you hold the button rather than two buttons you have to constantly juggle between. But it's a pretty minor gripe.

I gave up in the Organic level because the difficulty ramped up too fast for me. I just couldn't shoot down all the enemies while avoiding tripping the reinforcements while also looking around to identify where I was and where I should go (the rails became much longer and twisty between level 1 and 2). That being said, I'm no expert at those kind of games, so take it with a grain of salt.

Again, very interesting entry, with a nice feel to it. I could see it growing on me if I had more time to dedicate to it. Good job! ;)

Developer

Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback.

The organic zone is definitely the worst designed zone imo. It's the first zone I made and I don't have a ton of experience making metroidvanias so I was learning a lot about area design during this jam (the only other metroidvania I've made was for MVM 26 and it was a complete dumpster fire). I wanted to do a full redesign, but only had time for some minor adjustments at the end of the jam. But since most of the tracks in the game are loops you should be able to focus on defeating all the enemies in a room first, then find somewhere safe to look around (eg, the first room in the organic zone has a track with a save point and no enemy bubbles, which is also a pretty decent look-out spot). Aiming with a controller also sucks, which is why there were so many warnings. In hindsight I probably should have made some kind of aim assist system for people using controllers.

If you don't mind me asking, what elements specifically confused you? There aren't a lot of objects in the game, and the only one that's meant to be somewhat mysterious are the beacons. But I'm also not very good at world design since most of the game's I've made are smaller arcade style games that don't have much to figure out. Thanks.

Submitted(+1)

It took me a while to understand why some spheres would warp me and others would damage me and whether or not I could change that and how. I also wasted quite some time firing on the bubbles containing red and white spheres in the middle of the loops, and they did light up, but I don't think it ever did anything...? There was a golden sphere at some point that dissolved when I went through it and later reformed but it wasn't one of the gold warps or the gold targets you can fire on (which all look somewhat similar but serve vastly different purposes). Speaking of the gold warps, I initially assumed they would warp me to different places according to which side I came from (because all other warps point to their unique destination but those have two trails coming out of the center). The enemies I quickly understood haha (same with those with shields).

I suspect all those symbols would benefit from having a clear visual language (both shapes and colors) you could learn to quickly get an idea of what they do (eg: spiky red-ish symbols are always dangerous, bright/golden lozenges could be stuff to collect or interact with, blue-ish spheres for warps, stuff like that).

I did activate one of the beacons but I don't really know what it did. I assumed I would find another one in the second level and would understand more about their purpose then. So in that case the mystery worked as intended.

And aim assist would be a great addition, yes!

Developer(+1)

That all makes sense.

Balancing the visual language and theming was a massive struggle while working on this, since everything is supposed to be on a subatomic scale. Just to clarify a few things, the gold sphere is an energy recharge and the blue bubbles with red and white spheres are supposed to be decorative atomic nuclei.

I have been thinking of ways to improve the visual language since I'm considering revising this for the super mvm jam, so this feedback is incredibly useful. Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

I think the idea of an on rails shooter metroidvania is really interesting, and the aesthetics were cool.

I'm not sure if its just because I'm not used to playing games like this, but my problem is that it was super difficult to navigate around and know what to do (which I think in this case the art style maybe made it even more difficult by simplifying stuff even more).

I managed to reach the the 3rd area (lattice zone?). But I just couldn't get past it and it was really bright so it was even more difficult to see.

Some other small stuff I noted: probably make locked "gates?" more obvious, it took me a while to figure out what they were, as they only had a subtle bubble around them. Maybe make your projetiles a bit bigger too? It was a bit difficult to aim to enemies, specially because they were kind of small (could also be I'm bad, my only experience is star fox 64 which did that)

playing it was super interesting, and seems hard to pull off this idea, which makes it cool to see if you can improve on it.

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for the feedback!

I think I know which room you're talking about. I kinda agree that it's too bright, but I guess I just got used to it. You don't actually have to go to the lattice zone first though, the game's pretty non-linear. And if I am right about which room you're talking about, there are two tracks you can take after entering it. It doesn't really matter which one you choose though, since they both have the same exits, and there's only one exit you can use at that point in the game. The other rooms shouldn't be as bright.

For aiming, that's something I've had a hard time getting right in general, so I'm not that surprised to see it's an issue here (unfortunately). I did try to account for it though, there's a square reticle that appears over unshielded enemy weakpoints if you're aiming at them.

Also I see where you're coming from on the gates. It's not really explained, but locked gates don't point at their partnered gate, while unlocked gates do, so that's another visual cue you can look for.

Submitted(+1)

This game is super cool! I have to say the menus and UI are really well made and look good. The overall look of the game is pretty cool, I can definitely see the minimalist theme, its got a cool kind of star fox but neon look. The movement was a little bit hard to get used to, I'm not super familiar with rail base shooters so that could definitely be why. It was definitely a learning curve getting used to what visuals correlated to what purpose in the game (except for the magenta enemies that was pretty easy) but once I got it down it was pretty fun teleporting around the map, though I did get lost a little bit. The intro animation sequence is so cool though, I have no idea how you were able to make all of that in such a short span. Overall pretty cool game.

Developer

Thanks for playing!

If you don't mind, what zone did you get lost in? I'm considering making a brief walk through of the first part of the game, so knowing would definitely be useful.

Submitted

I totally cleared out the first zone, but I kind of just got stuck teleporting back and forth not knowing where to go. I am also colorblind so that could play a role.

Developer(+1)

Ah, that's unfortunate. A lot of the key objects in this game are colour-coded, and I didn't have time to add accessibility features.

When you get to the organic zone, go right. You should eventually find yourself in a dead-end room with an ability and mini-boss. After getting the ability, there's a fairly obvious zone connector you can access which is the most straight forward direction to go in (but you don't have to).

The only colours you really need to distinguish are purple, green, and cyan, since those are the colours of locked warp points. However they're weapon activated, so really you can just throw whatever you have at them and if they don't open then you don't have the correct weapon yet. The halo effect around warp points was added fairly late in development so that it would be easier to distinguish warp point pairs, but another way to do that is by looking where a warp point is pointing, since if it's usable it'll always point to its partner.