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A jam submission

Gigi Against The ClockView game page

A Gigi Murin Timed Platformer Fan Game
Submitted by Ash Games — 2 days, 5 hours before the deadline
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Gigi Against The Clock's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
References / Humor#293.3913.391
Theme#343.3913.391
Overall#502.9572.957
Gameplay#602.6522.652
Ambience#662.8702.870
Innovation#722.4782.478

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

When I realized that pushing onto the edge of a ledge mid-jump launched Gigi in the air with some good momentum, the speedrunner within me awakened and I really did feel the "Gigi Against the Clock". I enjoyed playing!

Submitted

good effort. Its a bit too.. floaty? if you move at full speed at an incline you gain a decent amount of air time.

its a bit unwieldy, but you could still make a full platformer with these mechanics.

Submitted

Lore accurate Gigi.
A point of improvement would be to add coyote time, allowing Gigi to jump after she walks off a platform, within a span of a few milliseconds. It will make the jumping feel a little more responsive and easier.

Submitted

Floaty Gigi is best Gigi ^__^

The Dead Beats were tough!!! And their placement made for some good levels.

The story and conept were pretty good, too.

Great entry, congratulations :D

Submitted

Interesting game. My main problem is camera too slow. You can't see where you run and it's very uncomfortable. Overall nice platformer and writing. 

Jam Judge

Short and sweet game experience.

I like the cute gigi animations and the way you used DDOLBANG's portraits.

Interesting time limit mechanic. I like the philosophical explanation to it.

Dialogues were well written too!

At first, I was going to suggest tuning the floaty jumping but... after clearing the game I can tell it's part of the charm. The ramps launching Gigi into the air and hitting ledges also giving her a little boost were interesting side effects. Maybe you could consider designing your levels to have "speedrun" routes that make use of these unique platforming moves!

Good game!

Developer

Thank you for playing! I'm really glad you liked it. I like the idea of embracing the janky movement and turning it into a mechanic for speedrun routes. I'll keep that in mind when I continue to work on this project!

Submitted

Good start for your first jam project!


Nice and short, and you didn't try to take on too much (at least it doesn't feel like it).

I will second some other comments I've seen on the camera, I think increasing the follow speed a bit so you don't end up on one end of the screen when running at full speed would help a lot, body checked a couple deadbeats cause I couldn't see them coming due to that.

I also think a little bit of coyote time would help a lot with the platforming in general, especially with the vertical jumps, so you don't have to be a super precise as right now to be able to make them.


But otherwise good work, and nice dialogue, definitely felt like conversations Calli and Gigi would/did have. Good work!

Submitted

Honestly not bad for a first platformer, great excuse for the dialogue. Like the others mentioned, the floatiness doesn't help, but I managed to clear the game nonetheless. I will say, the 'running ramp jump' could make for a good mechanic with some tweaking. Something to think about if you choose to continue this project.

Submitted

Not too bad as a start to a platformer. I think this is the first time I've played a platformer where running up the stairs sends you flying upward and hitting an edge makes you float up. The jump is way too floaty and the two vertical sections felt more like playing jump king than a normal platformer, which I don't think is great. With some improvements to the physics and camera, this could be a fun platformer to play around with.

Developer

Thank you for playing and for your feedback! This is my first time making a platformer so the movement physics are something I'm still learning. I agree that the vertical section needs refinement and I plan to iterate on the physics and the camera after the jam to improve the overall feel of the gameplay. Thanks again for taking your time to try my game and share your thoughts!

Submitted

I remember seeing a tutorial for making a platformer in game maker ver. 7 (which was from 2 decades ago) explaining how to make the camera lag this way. I've also played a few 90's dos games that made the same mistake. I think this might be the first time I've seen it done since then. Let me be very clear: letting the camera lag behind the player is bad, and if you got that from a tutorial stop trusting that author. Unless it's a moment where the only important thing is emphasizing the character's speed (like a cutscene in a sonic game), that will always be more of a nuisance than anything else. If you don't have a good reason to do otherwise, just keeping the camera centered on the player is typically the best choice. And even then the 2 first things to consider as alternatives should be not having the camera always go up when the player jumps and having the camera centered a little in the direction the player is facing (like Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario World do) so the player can see more of what they're running toward.

Other than that, I would advise making paths in levels more clear unless you can make the game runs far quicker than this. Trial and error gameplay needs to be really quick to not game frustrating. It's also a good idea to make sure any required leaps of faith or drops are completely safe and consistent (referring to the drop after the key in the first section, which can land on a skeleton). Otherwise you erode the player's trust that you're not just messing with them.

Also, I highly recommend against repeating elements in sequence, and especially when it emphasizes awkward and janky parts of the mechanics. When I got to the part in the vertical section where the platform start being on the left, I just stopped. 

Lastly, in case you decide to make a platformer again, be it for a jam or otherwise, here's some advice: the very first thing you should do is make a test level with platforms of about the size you want for the game then create and tweak character movement. This includes setting gravity, initial jump speed and the increase in gravity when the player releases the jump button, and also making sure all of that feels good with the horizontal movement. All of that should also take into account the size of the character on screen and the actual character sprite if it's available soon enough (because the nature of the character and the size of their legs can affect the feel). It's also a good idea to ask someone else if it looks and feels good to them really early on. The reason this is so important is that moving is always the thing the player will be doing most in any platformer (and most other action games), so nothing else will feel good if the movement doesn't.

Developer

Thank you for playing and the feedback! This is my first platformer game and my first game jam so a lot of this is really new to me. I did watch a tutorial video for camera movement and your points about physics, camera behavior, and level clarity are really helpful. I plan to keep working on the movement and the level design more after the jam to make everything seem more smooth and consistent. I really appreciate you taking your time to explain your reasoning in detail, and it gives me a clearer idea on what to focus on and improve on in my future projects!

Submitted

That was pretty fun! The knockback from the dead beats were pretty frustrating, they made me lose a few times. Nice work!

Version 3's web build is failing for me:


Developer

Thank you for playing! I am glad you enjoyed it. I'm sorry that the web build wasn't able to work for you :( 

Could I ask what browser you're using, whether it loads at all or crashes instantly, and how much RAM your computer has?

Submitted

Ah, yeah it might be my browser's fault... I'm using Brave and it doesn't load, 8 GB RAM.

Submitted

Really well made. I really love the Gigi and Calli sprites and dialogue.

The Edge grab (at least i think there is one) makes the floatyness a bit more forgiving.

Also i now have a personal Vendetta against one Deadbeat in particular :)

Developer

Thank you for playing! I'm glad you liked the sprites and dialogue! There actually isn't any edge grab mechanic, I think it's just the collision physics helping out. I'm glad it made the floatyness more forgiving for you though.  I plan to keep working on the physics more after the jam to make everything less floaty. Good luck on your vendetta!  ;)

Submitted

Fun little platformer, and a nice race against time.

Some minor feedback: The jumping is a bit too floaty, and the camera hugs the character a bit too tightly at times, making it hard to see where you're jumping to.

Developer

Thank you for playing! I appreciate the minor feedback and plan to work on the floatiness and the camera movement after the jam to improve the gameplay. Thanks again for trying my game out!

Submitted

Neat little platformer, with a nice setting to go with it! As others mentioned, the jumping feels quite floaty.

Submitted

Short and sweet game!  My main feedback would be the floaty controls.  It's not bad, but you could increase the gravity when the player is falling down to make it feel a little more snappy.

Submitted

I like that it's short and not overly hard. Sprites are really cute. 

I do wish controls were a little tighter. The physics feels a little too floaty for me personally. 

This game was so fun!, had me raging at the second checkpoint when you need to go up... LOVE THE GIGI SPRITE