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WHATKEY's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| I appreciate the sound design and/or music | #5 | 4.266 | 4.266 |
| I appreciate the game-feel (responsiveness of interactions) | #7 | 4.219 | 4.219 |
| I appreciate the art/visual style | #9 | 4.359 | 4.359 |
| I appreciate the mood/atmosphere | #9 | 4.219 | 4.219 |
| Overall | #13 | 3.788 | 3.788 |
| I would buy a longer/commercial version of this game | #15 | 2.812 | 2.812 |
| I find this game's challenge/puzzles interesting or compelling | #17 | 3.312 | 3.312 |
| This game was intuitive and self-explanatory | #49 | 3.328 | 3.328 |
Ranked from 64 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Jam Entry Confirmation
WHATKEY
The Team
Nicholas Black—Coding, Music, Game Design
Michelle Pepino—Art, Game Design
Thank you to the following communities:
- Bentscrew
- RVA Game Jams
- Maj7
and people for helping make a ton of sounds for this:
- androo
- Smitto
- T-Odd
- Tyler Rhodes
- muur
- Colonel Mustard
- msb
- Dee Bee
- ihaetschool
- Ryan Bass
- Jake
- Samps
- Alex Niemeyer
- direkitteh
- Zack Frank
- Abby
- Theo
Other Credits
Soundly
Godot Shaders for frameworking some shaders.
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Comments
Absolutely loved this game! I didn't get very far, but I was just grinning the whole time! What a delight!
Like some others have said, the spacebar to start wasn't something I immediately noticed, but I must have just been keymashing enough that I hit it anyway. I think making it just a rectangle rather than an oval shape would make it read more spacebar and less UI.
Didn't get far enough to figure out what was going on with the paddle looking UI thing on the right that was making a shape. I thiiiink it was going to eventually make a full shape upon winning or getting far enough? But I wasn't too worried about it cause the experience was so fun!
Loved the sound effects and the music ramping up :D Wonderful little game!
I love this, I don't feel like I _entirely_ understood what I was supposed to be doing, but I imagine that's kind of the point. Music and sound design were absolutely amazing and hilarious!
Really interesting idea! It took me a bit to realize that pressing space would start the game, I think something about how the space bar is designed a little bit different from the rest of the keys (with the hole in the center) meant it didn't quite register as a space bar to me. Then it also took me a while to realize that I had to press keys randomly to find the ones that effected the pieces in play, but I appreciate that you made sure to add enough pieces that this had to be understood before the game started, so solid tutorial :) Unfortunately I don't think I ever got to the point at which I wasn't mostly just pressing randomly, what really threw me off was how many keys worked on the same type of piece, but only on one of that type of piece currently in play. Maybe in an expanded version, each key could be bound to a unique type of piece, and you introduce the new types more slowly over time. Almost like Cook Serve Delicious somehow. I loved the art, and the music was really really good too, though it was often overshadowed by the SFX playing from the keyboard. Overall I really enjoyed it though, and it was definitely one of the more unique ideas in the jam, but not so unique that it backfired. The solid UX and consistent feedback went a long ways in making it self explanatory. Great job!
Thanks! Yeah the space bar not being obvious was mentioned in a couple other posts, and in hindsight I agree. I think it could have been more actionable, kind of like how I have it pressing down during the game over screen to start another round.
Also, I wanted to have a lot more modules and introduce them slowly as you said, but I barely got the ones in that made it in haha. That was a victim of over scope.
This is super creative. I found myself kinda stressed, but I think that's the point. Love the art and music!
Frantic, chaotic, stressful, overwhelming - and really creative and surprisingly fun. I spent a lot of time on this, and tore myself onyl when I had to admit to myself that I really wasn't sure if there was an end in sight or what exactly it was I was trying to achieve on time.
But I really enjoyed the challenge of staying on top of each individual module, which took some time to figure out but the initial button mashing is so amusing that you stick with it long enough to get there and have that 'aha' moment. It's such a cool and fun idea, and definitely brings a smile to my face. The feeling of mashing buttons is so well translated into a game mechanic here and it's great how you work that confusion to your advantage and incorporate it into the gameplay.
I dind get the games goal but thoroughly enjoyed mashing the keys to the beat
I was so good at pressing buttons that I closed the window.
Lol absolutely hilarious, although I couldn't tell if I was progressing - that said, I love the concept and this was really well done!
Excellent responsive feel, juice, art, design. Perhaps it wasn't the point at all, but the challenge / intuitiveness of the goal (not the point?) was hard for me to get hooked into / find. Could totally be a me thing though (I've got the attention span of a goldfish). Loved the warm, gradual walk-up into more colors, visuals, and sound--very welcome, unique experience.
The visuals and juice on this one was incredible. I didn't understand the game at first, and thought it was just about mashing keys, and I was having fun doing only that. I was surprised to see that there was actually something to do, and eventually sorta got the hang of it. I like the constraint where one icon can get reused, and apply to slightly different situations. I'm not sure if the sounds/keys were randomly generated, but I had to press a searchglass key over and over again, and it made the sound I wanted to hear least :D
Really strong style, seems like it could go right onto steam as a dirt cheap game, with just a little more content
Here's a playtest!
Wow! Thank you for the kind words. I had half a mind to rework it a bit so that it was less physics based and more like tetris. A bit more strategic. Thanks for the push!
Fun and hectic game! Great sound design and a very fun and original concept. I do wish beginning the game was clearer, with the pieces in it the spacebar seemed more like a slider and I didn't realize what I was meant to do. Once started though, the puzzles are very intuitive and fun to do under pressure.
Really interesting game, not something i think ive seen before! and satisfying too, very well made
Loved this!
J and M were my favourite sounds. Great music.
I was wondering if it was like that.
One was some kind of fart noise.
I would happily donate a sound if you ever took this game further. Would be a good way of cross promotion.
Total banger in every way, including me banging on the keys!
My very first thought when seeing the screenshots was: Wait, since the rules permit key labels, could you actually make a typing game somehow? But then I quickly realized this was much more clever :)
Thank you for playing, hope the keyboard survived :)
The game was so good, I loved it
Very creative use of the keyboard and really nails that figure it out as you play vibe.
And I do love the physics. The art has great vibes!! I see that mushroom in the background
The exploration is what we were going for! Thanks for playing.
Probably the best I've played yet!! Really polished final product which is chaotic but enjoyable. Music was great and all the different sound effects added to the fun chaos. Trying to quickly find which button I need to not lose quickly turned into spamming every button as quick as possible which sometimes worked!! Great work!
Thank you for playing!
Noooice!! As a musician, I spent about 5 minutes just jamming with the samples before even realising there was an actual game attached it. My favs include the piano (one summers day?), balloon-thing, purr (and well, all the mouth noises really). Hella fun music dude, I'm a fan :D
Good ear! My friend contributed that one and he's a huge Ghibli fan.
As another musician, same. At first I didn't even figure out what I was supposed to do, I was just having fun pressing the keys to the beat to make some music lol. Then on a second playthrough I started noticing the gameplay aspect and figured out what to do. This is one of my favorites out of this jam so far.
I'm glad my fellow musicians are enjoying the goofyass soundboard lolol.
Nice little puzzle game concept, quickly got overwhelming for me but well done!
It became a bit too chaotic for me, but I still enjoyed it! Fun game!
The music and sound design was delightful. It was clear enough from experimenting what the game wanted of me, I just got bored of it very quickly. For a game jam game, I think it fulfilled the "5 mins of gameplay" very well, so that's not even a knock against it :)