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Pearl it up's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Relevance to the chosen theme(s) | #32 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Creativity | #36 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Enjoyment | #39 | 2.667 | 2.667 |
| Overall | #43 | 2.700 | 2.700 |
| Gameplay Polish | #45 | 2.267 | 2.267 |
| Genre Interpretation | #47 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Sensory | #63 | 2.067 | 2.067 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit either (or both) genres?
Attempted to do more, but only the main character resembles a magical girl, the game is a platformer with ability unlocks bosses and backtracking.
Chosen theme(s) and relevant explanations
Mostly Python, boss + upgrade. One boss is a construct and the final one is the unity of the two. The main character Pearl collect pearl currency
Optional challenges explanations, if applicable
NA
Team/Developer
Ellaris
Premade content
Free font on windows version
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Comments
Reminds me of old flash games, I loved figuring out how the movement worked. The level design is pretty well done too.
I had troubles with the pure WASD controls (as opposed to A/D or left/right arrow keys to move left/right + a separate action key to jump, such as space bar), esp. as many places require to chain jump left then back to right immediately. I’m okay with up to jump with more casual platforming, but this isn’t the case here (jump is crucial to dodge and attack, since there is no attack anyway).
For this save point at the beginning, I don’t even know if I was supposed to reach it via double jump only (no ledge grab). I tried many times to reach it (the second time I luckily got it after few tries, but I can’t really explain why. It seems that pressing left when wall jumping adds a huge velocity that is then hard to cancel with the opposite direction due to limited air acceleration).
There’s also this place, but I think here you have to combine wall jump and ledge grab and that works indeed.
Since you’re limited to 1 wall jump you cannot just get some coins, I suppose you unlock double jump later on. When you ledge grab with the wall jump skill unlocked you can see both icons and it’s unclear whether the ledge grab jump counts as a wall jump (but apparently it doesn’t, allowing you to have an extra wall jump).
I died and had to restart from the start several times so I gave up on this as I don’t know how much left I still have. The healing stations should probably just be save points (and easier to access for some).
I wasn’t sure about jumping on the blocks in Python boss fight, in fact I thought you had to jump on the falling blocks (because I designed something similar for my own boss for another game) and that looked impossible. Reading winterbraid’s comment I understood you had to wall jump on them and they wouldn’t hurt you as you’d usually think when a boss makes things fall from the ceiling, so that looked smart (makes sense since they use the same shape coding as normal walls, with a flat surface on the sides). However hurting the Python by touching its head from the bottom didn’t feel consistent with the rest of the game where you hit enemies from above. Fortunately the pearl incites us to go there anyway the first time, then we understand it’s a weak point.
For the lower floor boss, I admit I got a bit hasty and thought about killing it by immediately jumping above it after every hit instead of doing a full turn with wall jumps to get back above as expected, I suppose. That would hurt me a bit every time but it was so tempting. I didn’t know about cheesing to heal yourself at the nearby station so I just died in the process every time…
So I haven’t beaten any boss but I’ll try to give a rating on the overall experience anyway.
Our entry has many rooms and several enemies but no striking features and no boss, so I note how in your game, every room serves a purpose and you managed to fit all the bosses!
Thanks for playing.
Thank you for the details feedback.
I don't play that much platformers, but now I know why they use a separate jump key.
That healing shrine wasn't intended to be reachable before getting the edge grab, I did most of my testing when the player was a larger green square so I had to make some adjustments afterwards, this one must have slipped through the cracks (though it's not that bad).
Yes the wall jump shows up on edge grabs as well (which probably shouldn't but it wasn't a priority), but I don't think it gives you extra wall jumps as those reset when you have ground below you.
Thanks for giving it a try.
The python boss ... I came up with the mechanic first, then I tried to fit the theme onto it and that is the way I managed to, I do agree it's not the best, both in terms of consistency and logic.
I didn't know about the cheese either, I was using the power of teleportation (dev privileges).
I'm glad you found purpose in every room, that's what I was going for, although I think the room on the right is a bit lacking and could use a shortcut, and the final boss wasn't meant to be what it currently is, a fusion of the other 2.
Ah, I had that feeling I was doing an exploit doing that wall jump with a ledge getting in my way, but since it was a heal point it looked like I was supposed to be able to reach it (at first I didn’t know it though, I just saw a sword looking like Excalibur and thought it was a new, important skill to learn).
Actually sometimes I ask devs for a debug build specifically to try more things like unlocking all skills and warp directly into boss rooms so I can test them and give more feedback without giving up on the way. In fact, I should have probably unlocked cheat keys in our build since it’s a playground anyway.
Debug commands can be useful, but people can also give up too early and just use them without experiencing the game, it makes it faster to test but also can pollute the feedback, if you use cheats you don't know how hard it is to get the unlocks.
Like if I mentioned that I moved the teleport cheat from "t" to f12, I might have gotten different feedback, but would it be higher quality?
Hm that’s something to take into account when playtesting prototypes indeed.
I think it’s okay if the cheat is just temporarily here to replace a feature that’s missing, like checkpoints. I suppose that in this case the cheat would be to directly face bosses in a “boss rush” manner, so as long as players use it after dying many times and feeling they will be better at boss fight that platforming between levels (and dying due to stupid mistakes because they’re in a hurry because they have to redo the same paths due to the absence of checkpoints), and just giving feedback on the bosses, it would make sense.
If the players learn a lot from platforming and minions (such as the good timing for wall jump) it wouldn’t give the expected boss experience indeed. But I was more thinking of this as a patch to replace unimplemented checkpoints, for players who have reached them already but just happened to die and restart from zero, and not learning anything new on their way to the checkpoint. If players use the cheat just to cheat, that’s another issue, but between game devs I think it’s okay to trust them on this kind of thing (but have them write down clearly if they used it or not).
Fun fact, I just told another dev team not to upload a debug build made in Unreal because it was so huge. Well, cheat keys may be enabled in Release build too so that’s not an issue.
Pretty cool game! The bosses were actually pretty challenging and had some interesting attack patterns, especially the Python. I especially liked the use of falling blocks as wall jump platforms to hit the boss. Though I think the player could be a bit faster, and I do wish dying didn't reset you all the way to the beginning. I think instead of being able to cheese by leaving the boss fight and healing, a proper savepoint system would be a nice addition. Regardless, good job!
Thanks for playing it.
A save point system could be nice, I wasn't concentrating on it and didn't find the time so I just quickly added a restart.
Although I'm not sure that cheesing is too much of a problem, not everyone likes it or has to do it or even notice it, but it does allow to play through the mage on "easy" mode and find alternative methods to "skill".
This game is so fun!
It could use some polish here and there, but I kinda like the almost flash game aesthetic to it. It really made me want to keep playing just to see what happens.
The bosses were all fun to fight and figure out how to avoid their attacks. It felt like a really solid metroidvania with all the paths that looped back on itself. Even simple things like not being able to reach the heal station at the start until you get the double jump felt really solid (I spent a good while trying to wall jump to it at first!) The dialogue and sound effects were all really funny too!
All the upgrades felt like they added something new and interesting to the game and made me want to find more/collect enough to get past the rocks. My only issue was the wall jump sometimes felt a little rough, like getting pushed away the wall in an uncontrollable way. But it was manageable.
Overall, this was a really fun game that kept me wanting to play it until the very end!
Had a fun time with this one! There are some things that could be improved though.
The walljump actively pushing you away feels a little weird imo, but other than that the movement feels fine. Add some music and polish the graphics a little more and i can see this becoming a pretty good game! :D
I was sort of fine with the first and 2nd boss, cheesed a little bit by going back for heals and standing on the wall to avoid the venom. but I noped out on the 3rd one. (edit : I gave the 3rd boss a second attempt, it was manageable actually)
Wall jumping off the falling wall to land a hit was a cool idea.
Giving player coyote jump would be good probably.
Thanks for spending your time on this. Oh yeah, I think I heard bout the coyote jump but didn't remember when polishing the mechanics.
very nice! The art isn't exactly the game's strong suit, but the mechanics are functional and fun. With some visual polish and actual music, this could turn into a really enjoyable project. Great job!
Thanks, I thought about music at some point and wanted to add a short tune, but forgot about it and didn't even notice the lack of music after adding sfx, do I had a weird feeling something was missing.