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A jam submission

ShiniesView game page

A small game about finding shiny objects for your crow's nest
Submitted by abbottj83 — 7 hours, 45 minutes before the deadline
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Shinies's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
I appreciate the art/visual style#333.5733.795
I appreciate the mood/atmosphere#513.1623.359
I appreciate the sound design and/or music#692.5352.692
This game was intuitive and self-explanatory#692.6552.821
Overall#712.4382.590
I appreciate the game-feel (responsiveness of interactions)#722.1972.333
I would buy a longer/commercial version of this game#841.4731.564
I find this game's challenge/puzzles interesting or compelling#881.4731.564

Ranked from 39 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Jam Entry Confirmation
Indie Game Clinic COLLAB JAM '26

The Team
Jonathan Abbott - programming

Lauren Abbott - sound effects and art

Brooke Aldrige - art and animations

Chase Keaten - project management

Phoenix Keaten - music

Maddie Keaten - concept art

Brayden Turner - concept art

Other Credits
Caw, Flap, and Cloth SFX from Zapsplat

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Comments

Developer

Updated the controls to make them more consistent and streamlined and fixed a bunch of the little issues that came up in the feedback. New version uploaded now that the voting period is over.

Submitted

Lovely art and music. The concept is easy to understand. It should have only one control sheme for everything.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. Definitely going to tighten up the controls going forward

Submitted

Really cute art and vibe! The textured backgrounds are great! Feels like layered paper cutouts or a scrapbook.

Ran into a weird bug where I flew off screen in the lake area and couldn't return, I was just stuck looking at the lake background.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. Our artists were great and I'm very happy and impressive with what they put out. 

Ya, lots of minor "going off screen" bugs that came from me just not thinking to put in enough protective colliders. Will fix that after the voting period.

Submitted

I think I got stuck in the screen where there are three boxes, and the crow looks at your cursor.

Developer

Oh ya, that's the inventory screen. It's not explicitly stated but you are supposed to just be able to hit tab again to back out of it.

Submitted

This is very cute, I liked the art and the concept a lot! At first I was a little confused as I approached the bird on the nest and it prompted me to press tab, so I did, but then while I was in that screen I think it showed a tutorial graphic on the other screen that I didn't see, but nonetheless I picked up the idea fairly quickly. I also picked up more than three items at first, and I was confused when only three items were presented when I returned to the nest. But other than that, this was a fun little game to mess around with for a few minutes :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and the feedback. Had not considered what might happen when more than three items were picked up at a time; so the inventory UI code doesn't really account for that. Joe had some good feedback about a different way to handle inventory when he played it on stream that may also fix that issue. Excited to improve the game.

Submitted

It's a nice premise and the art is very cute, I really liked it, even though it could have been a bit more cohesive (ie: using line art on the assets for the cafe area, but not for the lake area). 

Unfortunately the controls were quite confusing, as other people have mentioned, and once I visited an area on the map, I couldn't figure out how to leave it again and had to refresh the game and restart. I don't know if it's a bug, but I didn't seem to be able to fly in the lake and cafe areas? I assumed I would have to fly upwards to get back to the map, but I wasn't able to do that, so ended up wandering off the edge of the screen and not being able to come back. 

As someone else has mentioned, for me the game only showed up in the top left hand corner of the screen, and like them, I'm also a Mac user. I'm not sure what causes it but it's an issue I've encountered with other games made in Godot. 

Lastly, I think putting more work into the sfx and music would also go a long way to improving the game feel and atmosphere.

Good job to your team on making your first game!

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. I've been going in and adding a lot more boundaries/colliders to help make sure people aren't falling off the edge of things. Gonna update the controls and tighten things up and hopefully get that updated after the voting period. 

Uncertain what would have caused you to be unable to fly in the lake/cafe areas; unless we just didn't communicate the controls you're supposed to use to take off and switch between walking/flying well enough. Another thing I definitely want to improve going forward.

Very lost on what is causing the only the top left hand corner showing up. Possibly a Mac thing, I think both people that mentioned it were Mac users. 

Will hopefully get more SFX and music added in throughout the game to make their existence more consistent, especially once our music composer no longer has to deal with being in school and has more free time LOL.

Submitted

I liked the idea, vibes, and crow control. It felt a bit random in what I was brining back to the nest? It could be improved by having some other queues of what I was supposed to be looking for. I think I stumbled upon the right solution?

Here's a playtest

Developer

Thanks for the feedback and the video. I can definitely agree that we didn't do the best job communicating what your mate wanted and why and what your goals were. I feel like it's me trying to make excuses; but in self reflection that's probably a combination of lack of experience,  shortage of time, and a tiny bit the nature of the prompt. Of course I think communicating those things well without words WAS the point of the whole thing. We are definitely gonna continue working on it and hopefully can make a better version in the future that fixes those communication issues.

Submitted

Well, and I say this as obviously a completely unbiased person, crows are obviously a superior type of being, and collecting shinies is one of the highest callings there is. So a game based on it appeals to me :)

You've done better as a group of first-time game devs than many efforts I've seen. I imagine there was a lot more planned or envisioned than you ever would've gotten around to. But you also cut the game to what you could do, and made what you did present fairly nice.
 
 . . . the flying in the map section is an off break in controls. Why move to mouse control after the rest is keyboard control? Even with text/explanation, it's an odd decision. 

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. Ya on the map I think I just was like "Oh you maneuver a cursor around a map with the mouse" as like an internal assumption without thinking about how it adds another unnecessary layer of control complexity. When I get to work on the game more will definitely take that consideration into account.

Submitted

So nice I played it twice! 

Developer

Thanks :)

Submitted

Lovely art, very confusing controls that don't feel very responsive. As others have said, it's really unclear how movement works from one place to another, and I pretty quickly got my crow stuck off screen and couldn't do anything anymore.

Game feel would also be improved a lot by more tween animations so menus and the like don't just pop up - the base art is nice, but it doesn't feel very intentionally implemented yet.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. Never really encountered the getting stuck off screen because I as the person making it knew where to go and wasn't really poking around at the edges. Guess that's why we have playtesting :). I'm not really familiar with tween animations; so will try to learn about those for future projects.

Submitted

Cute premise and art style, would have been even nicer with some music. The controls feel odd, in one place you use WASD to move but have to press space first to fly instead of just W, in another you move with the mouse, but still select with E instead of clicking. A more unified control scheme would make more sense.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback. There actually is music, but only in a couple of scenes, the cafe and the lake. Our composer is in 7th grade and school is still in session; so limited ability to get things done. I think the control scheme suffered from the "I'm familiar with it since I designed it" issue and definitely could have been better.

Submitted

I liked the art style. idk what happened but the game only showed in the top left quarter of the itch page screen? I'm testing on Google Chrome on a Mac if that makes a difference. I got stuck on the map screen and couldn't get back out. Also couldn't figure out what buttons to push.

Developer(+1)

Huh, not sure why it was doing that. I do think a lot of the errors that have popped up have been due to some resolution and sizing issues, it's a part of publishing the game that I feel quite unfamiliar with

Submitted

could be! So many things we learned as well as part of the jam and doing web builds of the game 

Submitted (1 edit)

there are too many commands it seems and allplaces you need to do something else.

I suggest you guys restrict the actions. left right E, tab, mouse, that's too much for a game where you are supposed not to have instructions... feels like I have to guess at every screen what keys to use.

Like the others, I got to the map, then moved the crow with the mouse to the city, then pressed E.

you also should put some feedback, like a visual queue for example if you are over the city and the player is supposed to click or press E, then maybe turn on the lights on some windows, so the player knows there's something there, otherwise it is just guessing and trying to press everywehere and every key.

Developer

Thank you for the feedback. I can definitely see what you're saying, tightening up the controls would be a good call. And we actually have a lot more we wanted to get done in the project, but most of us were on vacation to a board game convention during this majority of this last week; so we didn't accomplish as much as we wished. But definitely need to add some more feedback for letting players know what to do and that they are doing the right thing.

Submitted

Tried this game with Firefox and Brave and I wasn't able to get past the map screen :(

Also tried to find a way to fullscreen it as it could maybe fix the problem but also no luck in that.

My bugs are the same as reported below

Developer

Thanks for trying it out and letting me know about the bugs. Gonna see if I can fix them.

Developer(+1)

I've got a hotfix done that hopefully allows you to continue with the game. If you get the chance would love for you to try again and hopefully you can get to all the locations. I do still notice a delay in loading the lake scene as opposed to the others though, so it takes a second or two to go through to it.

Submitted

I replayed it again and was able to complete it :)


I've found a bug in the village screen, I just walked all to the left and went out of the screen and then I couldn't go back to the screen, had to reset.

It's a very little game with a certain feel to it. The puzzles are very simple and one dimensional, which ends up feeling like you were trying things and trying to make them work first, which is fine. There's a lot of room to expand more of this concept you've created.

One design aspect, I didn't understand why lady crow didn't like some of the offerings, it felt random. I didn't receive any prompt from her saying "I want this, go find it". Not sure if I just moved too fast and didn't queue the prompt bubble. We see this prompt when we first go into the nest where she "says" that she wants the green thingy. That didn't happen again during my play. Essentially, I felt that my purpose was "collect everything and bring it to her" instead of a "treasure hunt for the shinies"

Hope this helps you all :)

Developer(+1)

Ya the lady crow rejects items that we intend for you to take and then trade for items she does want from other creatures at the other locations, we just didn't get the trading mechanic added in in time.

Submitted

I love the art style and general feel of the game, but I was not able to complete it. I will try again, but I ran into the bugs noted below. Overall, I think you created a nice atmosphere and environment to play in.

"Bugs" (not sure if they were or perhaps just user error"): 

  • After getting in the nest, I went left off screen and couldn't come back on screen.
  • I left the nest and double clicked on the pond on the map, and after the bird scaled down and disappeared, nothing happened, and I wasn't sure what to do.
Developer

Oh, the map bug you're reporting is different then what I encountered when I was testing the upload and what I was assuming was being talked about by the other comments. Will have to see what I can figure out. Thanks for letting me know

Developer

I've got a hotfix done that hopefully allows you to continue with the game. If you get the chance would love for you to try again and hopefully you can get to all the locations. I do still notice a delay in loading the lake scene as opposed to the others though, so it takes a second or two to go through to it.

Developer

The various walking off the left side of the map issues are just me not thinking to put in enough collider boundaries lol

Submitted

I find the game really pretty and cute! I couldn't get past the map screen with the mouse controls, and I didn't hear any music. Wasn't sure what the left/right arrows were when talking to Mama Bird. I also fell through the ground in the birdhouse. Would love to get farther in the game to see the rest of the art!

Developer

Ya i noticed the map problems when i was getting things uploaded. Thought id fixed it by changing the resolution. Will have to continue looking at it.

Developer(+1)

I've got a hotfix done that hopefully allows you to continue with the game. If you get the chance would love for you to try again and hopefully you can get to all the locations. I do still notice a delay in loading the lake scene as opposed to the others though, so it takes a second or two to go through to it.

Submitted

It's working better now! Thanks, it was nice to hear the music and see the rest of the cute art :).