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Botanica's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Relevance to the theme | #67 | 2.866 | 3.444 |
| Enjoyment | #98 | 2.126 | 2.556 |
| Overall | #98 | 2.145 | 2.578 |
| Metroidvania | #100 | 2.034 | 2.444 |
| Sensory | #101 | 2.126 | 2.556 |
| Execution | #108 | 1.572 | 1.889 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme interpretation and application
First of all, we are a small mouse, and everything around us is small as well. I think my environmental design fits the theme. Besides that, we have a backpack, and when we put more than necessary into it, we slow down and become unable to overcome most obstacles. Because of this, an NPC encourages us to adopt a minimalist approach. In this way, I tried to stay true to the theme.
Team/Developer
YUSUFDARK
Reference info
karaoglanh478@gmail.com
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Comments
Great graphics and the combat works very well!
I managed to reach the porcupine after the cave.
I loved the colorful moving text, it made it more fun to read.
I liked the idea of carrying items, but I don't know if that part was implemented; it seems like it wasn't. But the idea is quite different.
There are plenty of checkpoints, which is great and avoids frustration.
The attack sound is very loud; it even scared my cats, haha.
More air control would improve the platforming, the character keeps a lot of momentum after the jump.
The biggest problem for me was the fact that the little mouse dies instantly when it touches the thorns, and there are many thorns that are difficult to dodge. Since the character has a health bar, it would be better if it lost health and remained invulnerable for half a second to give time to get out of the thorn. Its constant death on the thorns was the most frustrating thing in the game and prevented me from getting very far.
The character falls at a very high speed; it's not a problem, but in some sections it makes it difficult.
Right at the beginning there's a hole with spikes, it's impossible to see where the character will land before jumping (despite having a function to look down, but it's not easy to do that while moving quickly across the platforms because the blocks break so fast).
The blocks that break are very fast (very very fast), I only managed to get past the beginning of the cave part after memorizing the path. They also break if you bump into them from the side or underneath, which happens quite often and unintentionally.
It could have variable jump speed (halving the speed when releasing the jump button). In some parts with spikes on the ceiling, this is quite detrimental.
Going to the left at the beginning of the game, the map is incomplete.
Pressing down scrolls the screen down, but it never returns to its original position.
The character get stuck in this wall after some deaths:
This entry has a nice visual style and satisfying controls! However, I ran into a bit of a bottleneck after getting the dash. I realized I needed the stick and rope to progress, but backtracking to find them was difficult because I kept hitting spikes and being sent to a faraway checkpoint.
In terms of balance, the spikes felt much more punishing than the enemies since they are instant-kill and placed everywhere. I think the platforming would feel much smoother with variable jump height and a level layout + camera that makes hazards more visible at a glance, as I frequently fell into spikes I didn't see coming. Great work on the core feel, though!
Also, I went all the way to the left side of the map, thinking there was something there, and fell off into an infinite grey area.
This entry has a nice visual style and satisfying controls! However, I ran into a bit of a bottleneck after getting the dash. I realized I needed the stick and rope to progress, but backtracking to find them was difficult because I kept hitting spikes and being sent to a faraway checkpoint.
In terms of balance, the spikes felt much more punishing than the enemies since they are instant-kill and placed everywhere. I think the platforming would feel much smoother with variable jump height and a level layout + camera that makes hazards more visible at a glance, as I frequently fell into spikes I didn't see coming. Great work on the core feel, though!
Also, I went all the way to the left side of the map, thinking there was something there, and fell off into an infinite grey area.
Interesting risk-reward style game with the weight for deliveries, lets the player choose their own difficulty! It was incredibly difficult though, I think there was an issue with the checkpoints not being reactivated since I would travel back a far distance and it would set me back to the furthest point I unlocked. There were a lot of thread-the-needle type dash segments that had me raging, I gave them all a hearty amount of tries before getting through. Combat also had a slightly weird feel to it, like a cooldown that would happen sometimes and not others, I would just not be able to swing and then wait to hear the audio cue to know it was back, so maybe something more readable in the middle of combat could help.
Thank you for playing our game! Overall it's a nice game and the visual style is really fun and charming, but the bugs really distracted from the other parts of the game. Gameplay wise, many of the enemies towards the start (the worm looking things) weren't really doing anything and felt more like just a moving rock rather than an obstacle, and some of the UI was difficult to understand, particularly in the dialogue where some of the prompts could have been clearer in how to act on them.
Thank you very much for your feedback and for taking the time to share constructive criticism. I truly appreciate it.
The points you mentioned are very valuable to me, and in my next project I will pay much more attention to hooking the player within the first few seconds.
I’m sorry for the bugs and issues you encountered. I developed this game on my own, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to test every part thoroughly, so some problems were missed or couldn’t be fixed in time.
From what I understand, you may not have spent a very long time with the game. This game is designed to slowly open up with new enemies and mechanics. If you didn’t feel like continuing, that’s completely understandable and simply means the game might not fit your personal taste. Still, your feedback is extremely helpful to me.
I also noticed some movement-related bugs after the game jam submission period ended. If you encounter them, restarting the game will continue from the last save point.
You can return to the save point by pressing R, and delete save files with Ctrl + R.
I hope you continue playing and enjoy the game.
I’m also sorry about the sound and music — due to time constraints near the deadline, I wasn’t able to include audio at the quality I wanted.
A fun and pretty-looking game, but it's also a bit buggy and really hard. Some of the sprite work is genuinely really nice, especially the grass and sky background and the thorns, but I think the gray rocks are a bit too gray and could use a hint more of brown or blue to make them pop a bit more and look a bit less "stock." I also love the design and animation of the main character, I think they're really adorable and the idea of lugging a giant backpack around is really neat!
The chained attack combo is pretty cool and satisfying, although the cooldown after finishing the full combo seems a bit unnecessary, and the large forward momentum often makes you run into enemies or pits. However, the health recovery from killing enemies does offset that last issue a bit, which is a nice touch! Speaking of enemies, I like the variety of designs and behaviors, each type really feels unique. I think you're already aware of this, but some sound effects and perhaps a bit of knockback for the player getting hit would be a nice addition. ;)
I found many of the platforming challenges in the game to be very difficult, and I was close to giving up many times. A few of them, like the blind drop into a dash through a 1-tile gap right after getting the dash ability, felt downright evil and like something from a rage game or a romhack. The breaking platforms give you very little time to breathe, and the instant-kill spikes can be frustrating at times. I think a big part of the issue is the jump physics, as it seems I always jump to the max height no matter how lightly I tap the button, compared to most platformers where you can jump higher or lower based on how long you press the button. That said, the generous checkpoints and the save feature are definitely very appreciated, as I certainly wouldn't have been able to finish the game without them!
Going left from the start eventually leads to an endless void, which I assume is unintended but still quite funny! Going into and out of the first NPC's house was a bit confusing at first, and the wobbly text on the NPCs feels a bit excessive. The tooltips for various objects in the world also seem a bit buggy - the tooltip for the dash ability had a bunch of glitchy characters that seemed like it was meant to be formatting markup, and the tooltips for buildable ladders appeared very far away from the actual object. Some of the areas felt a bit empty and repetitive, but some of the spike sections with the dash were actually pretty tight and cleverly designed (even if frustrating).
The beetle boss was a cool final challenge, though it took me a while to figure out he could only be attacked from behind. (And funny coincidence, since I also have a beetle boss with a similar mechanic, and I imagine similar problem!) He wasn't that hard once I figured out the strategy, though again I sadly didn't get much use of the combo attack against him, since it felt like doing more than one attack at a time just led to me taking damage. After the boss and the last NPC, I climbed some stairs and saw what looked like more level above me, though I couldn't figure out how to get up there, so I guess that's the end of the game for now?
All in all, I had quite a lot of fun running around and even started to get some masochistic enjoyment out of the difficulty. The idea and setting is quite charming and a clever interpretation of the theme, and I love the main character!
Öncelikle, oyunu sonuna kadar oynadığınız ve bu kadar detaylı ve faydalı bir inceleme yazdığınız için çok teşekkür ederim. Beni gerçekten çok mutlu ettiniz - okurken neredeyse mutluluktan ağladığımı söylerken abartmıyorum.
Oyundaki sorunlar için özür dilerim. Oyunu tamamen kendi başıma geliştirdim ve maalesef düzgün bir şekilde test edecek kimsem yoktu, bu yüzden bazı sorunların gözden kaçması kaçınılmazdı. Anlayışınız için teşekkür ederim. Geri bildiriminiz benim için gerçekten öğretici oldu ve bir sonraki projemde çok daha dikkatli olacağım.
Görseller konusunda, özellikle arka planlar ve kayalar konusunda kesinlikle haklısınız. Bazı kısımları aceleye getirdim, bu da oyunun biraz fazla sade ve sıradan görünmesine neden oldu. Notlarınızı ciddiye aldım ve gelecekte buna çok daha fazla dikkat edeceğim. Sırt çantasına gelince, insanların bu kadar beğeneceğini gerçekten düşünmemiştim, bu yüzden bu fikri beğendiğinize çok sevindim.
Kombo bekleme süresi ve ileri ivme hakkındaki görüşleriniz de tamamen haklı. Geriye dönüp baktığımda, bu tasarım kararlarından bazılarını ben de sorguluyorum. Daha iyi çözümler kesinlikle mümkündü, ancak zaman çok kısıtlıydı. Ses efektlerinin olmaması da zaman kısıtlamalarından kaynaklanıyor; kötü sesler yerine hiç ses olmamasını tercih ettim. Ancak, nasıl hissettirdiğini görmek için kesinlikle geri tepme eklemeyi deneyeceğim.
Zorluk konusuna gelince, yine haklısınız. Seviyeleri tasarlarken kuralım "eğer ben yenebiliyorsam, tamamlanmıştır" şeklindeydi, ki şimdi bunun bir hata olduğunu anlıyorum. Ayrıca, geliştirme aşamasında Super Meat Boy oynamamın zorluğu istemeden etkilemiş olabileceğini de itiraf etmeliyim 🙂 Zıplama hassasiyeti sorununun farkındaydım, ancak o zamanlar kötü bir tasarım kararı vermiştim ve bunu gelecekte düzelteceğimden emin olabilirsiniz.(I’m sorry that some sections felt like they came straight out of a ROM hack game. Some of those sections were unintentionally unfair due to my inexperience, and this is something I’ve learned a lot from and won’t repeat in future projects.)
Soldaki sonsuz boşluk aslında daha fazla içeriğe yol açmak için tasarlanmıştı, ancak ne yazık ki zamanım yetmedi. Sonun kendisi de aslında tam anlamıyla bir son değil; devamı çok fazla geri dönüş ve tekrar içeriyordu ve hikaye bitirmeye değer olacak kadar güçlü değildi. Bu yüzden orada durmak dürüstçe söylemek gerekirse yanlış bir karar değildi.
Tekrar teşekkür ederim. Bu yorum benim için herhangi bir ödülden daha değerli. Oyunumu oynamak ve bu kadar düşünceli geri bildirim paylaşmak için zaman ayırmanız benim için inanılmaz derecede önemli.