Pressing left to confirm was certainly an unusual choice. Considering the focus was on time, I would think simply pressing the direction once would be the way to go, simply using WASD without a confirmation, but I also get it's more meant to be like a joystick in that you are supposed to hold the direction and try adjusting while pressing to confirm. But considering how tight the corners are, I'm not sure this was the type of level design to go for that style.
It being left arrow can mess with your perception of direction even if you are trying to stay focused on WASD, I think space would have been fitting.
As others mentioned, it's pretty difficult, but I think that is in part because it's not the usual kind of game most are familiar with with these kinds of movements. I think you may have been able to get away with less pressure by having a timed amount of moves instead, making the focus more of a puzzle solver where you have to path correctly in a limited number of movements. Or as others have mentioned, a bit more leniency on the easy mode.
On the topic of art, I certainly enjoyed the art you did for it, though I do wish you had some basic sounds even for the movement, or at the least a simple background loop. Overall I felt the love you put into this, it can shine through even if I suck at the game itself.
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Heart of Corruption's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme usage | #4 | 3.708 | 3.800 |
| Uniqueness | #5 | 3.220 | 3.300 |
| Overall | #5 | 2.858 | 2.929 |
| Art Style | #6 | 3.123 | 3.200 |
| Gameplay | #6 | 2.537 | 2.600 |
| X Factor | #6 | 2.635 | 2.700 |
| Performance | #7 | 3.416 | 3.500 |
| Sound Design | #10 | 1.366 | 1.400 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Interesting concept! But too difficult IMO. The life drains super fast even on easy. Give me a chance, man :D
Very difficult, but once you persevere, it's fun! I got stuck on level 12 when playing on Normal, so I switched to Easy and was surprised at how subtle the difference was, but it definitely helped. My brother also played through the game on both Easy and Normal, he did very good: he managed to beat normal with only 453 deaths! He loved the game and wished to see more! It'd be awesome if this game had sound effects and music!
Thanks for the comment!
My playtester actually used NecroDancer music with carefully selected BPM to get a good rhythm for the inputs, but it held him back since in easier places it's possible to spam inputs faster. Adding music, I think, would literally change the genre of the game; and that would be super cool but I'd have to rebalance everything around that
The controls are... bizzare to say the least.
Plus the difficulty even on easy is extreme.
Thanks for the feedback! Which part of the controls annoys you the most?
If it's the fact that, to simply just move, you have to press another button while holding a direction, then that's the core of the game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If it's how it forces you to use left hand for directions while some people prefer to have them on arrows, then I'd be willing to create a simple hack that allows the player to flip hands in future jam games.
If it's that binding actions to arrow keys is counterintuitive, then I agree, but also it's almost like playing a 3d game where arrows replace the mouse, and it's unbelievably comfortable once you get used to it
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