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FOLLOW suit ETERNAL's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Art Style / Visuals | #15 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Boss Battle | #19 | 2.357 | 2.357 |
| Overall | #19 | 2.643 | 2.643 |
| Theme | #21 | 2.786 | 2.786 |
| Audio / Sound Design | #22 | 2.429 | 2.429 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Theme & Boss Battle Edition?
FOLLOW suit Eternal is a boss-focused pixel art game where the player experiences both sides of the conflict.
First, you play as a fragile Suitman trying to survive and reach the Sacred Tree while collecting ancestral fire through a dangerous forest.
Then the perspective changes completely: the player becomes the Forest Protector itself, an ancient boss creature defending the forest against humanity’s greed.
The game explores the endless cycle between destruction and protection, turning the final boss battle into the core narrative experience.
Game Engine?
Game Engine / Tools (Other)?
Aseprite, Photoshop, ChatGPT, Codex
Self-made & used stuff?
Have you joined a game jam before?
Roughly how much time did you spend developing? (in hours)
45
Anything else you'd like to share about your game or development process?
This project was developed under a very tight schedule and became much bigger than originally planned during development.
The main goal was to create a boss battle where the “monster” is actually protecting nature, while the player slowly realizes the true threat may not be the creature itself.
A lot of effort was put into atmosphere, narrative tone, and environmental changes during the boss fight.
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Comments
Hey very good game!
I liked a lot the player's animations, plus the controls (the jump mechanic expecially) are a bit different from all of the other platformers so it feels unique. My only critique is the artstyle, the which leds to a disconnected environment. Also a volume slider would be nice.
Aside this small criticism the game is very enjoyable. Great work! 👍👍
P.s. I'm a bit short on ratings i would really apreciate it if you could rate my game (if you haven't already) 🙂
Thank you a lot in advance, and sorry to have asked.
Hey buddy, congrats on your game.
If I can give you a feedback: I think that SFX was a little too much for the game.
Also, few sprites don't match with others, should be nice some consistency on this.
But overall it was a fun game and I loved the death animation of suitman
Thank you so much for the feedback, smlzin!
About the SFX, I believe I did not have enough time to better refine the volume and balance of each sound, so some of them may have felt disproportionate within the game. I’m not sure if that is exactly what you meant, but it is definitely something I will pay more attention to in the next fixes. There were also some visual effects, such as camera shakes and scenery objects reacting, that would have helped bring more drama to the scenes and maybe made the sounds feel more coherent with the impacts. Even so, I really need to refine and possibly replace some sound effects.
I’m very happy that you liked the Suitman’s death animation. The idea for him was to be more simple, especially because I’m not an artist, but that allowed me to create some animations and adjust them according to the gameplay needs, and that part was really fun.
About the sprite consistency, I agree with you. Some assets I used ended up serving more out of the need to finish the game than exactly matching the visual direction I would have liked to present. At some moments, it really felt like trying to put together a puzzle with pieces from different games, haha. But because of the short deadline, I chose to follow that path so I could finish the project.
Thank you again for the feedback. It helps me a lot to understand what I need to improve.
The game fits really well with the theme and I love the suitman's sprites, however I think the game itself needs a bit polishing. The controls and hitboxes feel weird man, and when I've done exploring and dying and noticed the game itself continues with a boss battle when going something like 15-20 minutes had passed. The platforming seems both as good as punishing, you've surely enjoyed a lot hiding those ancestral fires lol.
I think with some more dev time the game will shine. Good work, you're going in an interesting direction!
Thank you so much for the feedback, Larry Perez!
I’m laughing here, but honestly out of joy, because yes, I had a lot of fun hiding some ancestral fires between trees, mountains, and small spaces in the level.
Unfortunately, I had an issue with the HUD in the final build: it became huge and went off-screen. The idea was to show an Ancestral Flames counter, something like “4/30”, along with a 3 minutes and 33 seconds timer, which would help suggest that there was a place to reach and encourage multiple runs through different paths. That short time limit was meant to show that the player probably would not be able to collect everything on the first attempt, encouraging repetition, learning the paths, and reinforcing the loop feeling. The 3:33 timer itself was also meant to strengthen this idea of something strange and cyclical.
About the bossfight, there is an algorithm in the Suitman that adjusts the difficulty when the twist happens. The more ancestral fires the player collects, and the less health they lose in the first part, the stronger the Suitman becomes in the final fight. So, the better the player performs at the beginning, the harder it becomes to face him as the Forest Protector, bringing a bit more dynamic variation to the fight instead of too much repetition.
I completely agree about the controls and hitboxes. I still need to improve that a lot, especially the movement polish, platforming feel, and combat. I will work on fixing the mechanics that had issues and also improve some ideas that were already on my board.
Thank you again for the feedback. I would be very happy to receive another opinion after future updates.
The game idea is really cool and I think it fits the theme quite well. However I did have a number of issues with it on a personal level.
Lets start with the good though (And I won't go over it all because there is too much good stuff in here to go over it all).
Your game sticks to the theme really well, realizing that your actions have consequences at the end when you realize that you are the main villain is great. It makes you think back to all of the shrooms you killed on the way there.
Here are some areas you can work on for next time. The gameplay and controls, and the visual effects.
1. Gameplay and controls: An issue I had with the game immediately was that the player controls felt floaty and difficult to control. This is likely because the tuning for your accelleration and deceleration were off by a little bit which made this game feel more like it took place in space than "Earth". Not to mention that when it came to the boss fight, the hitbox on the player is so small that it was nearly impossible to actually hit them (Or at least it felt like it)
2. Visual Effects: the artstyle by itself is cool, but without lighting or anything adding to the scene, it just looks cheaply thrown together and out of sync with itself. I also noticed that in your tags you added AI Art as a tag (Which I assume was done in the tileset.) This in itself can make the art look good, but in this instance it just doesn't look cohesive and instead makes the background visuals look out of place compared to the rest of the game.
Some other things you could add to juice up the game would be particles. A simple burst particle coming out of the mushrooms, or a trail of the purple fire sprites moving while being collected would make the game feel a lot better.
But overall great game, great submission, and amazing coherance to the theme!
Thank you so much for the feedback, OwenBrandon! I’m really happy that you liked the idea and noticed its connection with the jam theme.
The intention was exactly to create that feeling of consequence: at the beginning, the player controls the Suitman invading the Ancestral Forest, collecting fires and defeating creatures along the way, but in the end realizes that he was the true villain. The better the player performs in the first part, the stronger the Suitman becomes in the final fight. If he reaches the end with low health and only a few ancestral fires, the bossfight becomes easier. If he reaches it with a lot of health and many fires, he becomes faster, more aggressive, and harder to defeat.
It is also important to mention that, in this fight, the one truly at risk is not exactly the Forest Protector, but the Ancestral Forest itself. The protector’s role is to stop the Suitman from stealing all of its ancestral energy. At the end, the ranking system calculates factors such as health lost during the level, number of fires collected, bossfight duration, and the remaining health of the forest, generating a score of up to 10 stars. However, since the menu Canvas ended up completely out of place because of a mistake on my part, it became practically impossible to properly use that experience and feel the motivation of beating your own achievements.
About the controls and movement, I completely agree. I still need to study acceleration, deceleration, character weight, and impact feel more deeply. The Suit’s hitbox was intentionally meant to be difficult, but the Forest Protector was supposed to have two additional powers: one that would cause confusion and make the Suitman slower or stunned for a few seconds, and another that would allow him to extinguish the fire on the tree and restore one stage of the tree’s health. That would have made the fight more dynamic and intense, with more possibilities.
About the visuals, thank you very much for pointing that out. I still have little experience with art, lighting, and visual direction, and I understand that some elements ended up not feeling very cohesive with each other. I want to improve on that, especially when it comes to connecting backgrounds, characters, effects, and atmosphere. I also agree that simple particles, such as impact effects on the mushrooms or effects on the ancestral fires, would help bring much more life to the game.
After the jam period, I intend to fix some of these points, especially the things that were already partially implemented but ended up not working correctly in the final build. Thank you again for such detailed feedback. It really helps me understand where to improve and continue growing in game development.
I like the artstyle, although it would benefit immensely from some form of lighting to make the scene feel more consistent. I also have to say that the AI art sticks out a lot, I'd really suggest investing in your own art skills or finding an artis to work with, as even more novice art will actually make the overall game look 'better', as you'll learn how to tie the elements together better. I'd recommend having a look at Sharp Shore from this game jam, as they're able to really make an artistically cohesive and satisfying game with relatively simplistic drawings.
Overall I did like the combination of the background and music, for a nice peaceful aesthetic, and the gameplay was entertaining. I would say that some form of jump counter would be helpful (or perhaps less jumps but with more velocity might make the gameplay feel more natural), but all in all, good job on your game!
Thank you so much for the feedback, VertexEnthusiast!
Starting with your recommendation, I found Sharp Shore’s concept very interesting and fun, and seeing how they managed to deliver such great gameplay with a simplified but beautiful art style is truly inspiring. I really have very little experience in most areas of game development, but I carry a strong desire to keep learning. I appreciate you bringing this reflection, and I hope that in a future opportunity I can better connect the feelings between backgrounds, characters, effects, and sounds.
About the jumps, I noticed after submitting the game that it ended up having a triple jump. At some point during the final adjustments, I had a bug, and the fix probably caused this other issue. The correct behavior was supposed to be only two jumps, which would make the player aim and better control the height between platforms.
Unfortunately, the HUD also did not appear in the final build. I believe it was probably an issue with the Canvas configuration itself, because inside Unity everything was working correctly. I may have made a mistake with something like the scaling, or perhaps it happened during the build process itself, but that is something I should have tested before submitting. I worked on the game until around 8 AM and had to submit it by 9 AM, so after making the build and publishing it, there was no time left to fix these points, even though they were relatively simple adjustments. Next time, I will leave more time to make sure everything is working properly.
Once again, thank you very much for the feedback and suggestions. They really help me learn and improve for future projects.
I like the art style, however this game needs a tutorial, i felt so lost and when the boss battle started, it took me a while to understand what I had to do and I thought I was actually in a cutscene, so I kind of just stood there for a little.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Wibswaty! It really helps a lot.
The movement and controls tutorial was planned to appear on the start screen, together with the menu icons, but I had some issues with the Canvas after making the build. It was a huge learning experience: test the build in advance and never leave the submission for the last minute.
Since the game was designed around a quick loop, my initial idea was for the player to learn the paths through repetition, improving their gameplay time and the amount of points collected with each new attempt. Because of that, I ended up not making that part as clear as I should have. But it is very important for me to understand that this was felt as something missing from the gameplay, whether in clarity, tutorialization, or polish. I will definitely pay close attention to this in future improvements.
About particles and visual feedback, I really did not have enough time to polish them. Also, some effects that worked inside Unity did not appear correctly in the final build. There were camera shakes with different intensities for fall damage, damage to the life trees, damage to the boss, and important moments during the fight. In the boss scene, there were also supposed to be pillars that deteriorated as the environment lost health and shook to reinforce the feeling of destruction, but this also ended up not working in the final build.
After the jam period, I intend to study what caused these issues and fix these points. Once again, thank you so much for your attention and feedback. It really helps me learn and grow in game development.
Pretty nice game! The movement is cool and the pixel art is really nice, especially the boss. I think that's probably one of the best pixel arts in the game. The music was also pretty nice.
Here are some points of improvement I had:
- I think a tutorial would be really nice, because I didn't know you could attack with J until I actually read the start menu😅. But just teaching the player simply by saying press "J" during the game would be a great addition.
- I think camera offset in some sections would be great, because there are times where I'm jumping and I just can't see what's below me but when I move a little more down I see ground. If there's a slight down offset that'll help convey that below me isn't nothing :D.
- It would really benefit the player if you could have it be more apparent when the player gets hit by the boss. Because I didn't know whether I was hitting or not😅. So maybe some extra camera shake or some particle effects could really help.
But other than that the game jam entry was really nice so good job :D
Hi, JustSomePikachu! First of all, thank you so much for the feedback and for pointing these things out. They are very valuable, and in this case, it is completely fair that these issues affect the evaluation.
This was the first game I started and actually managed to “finish,” and it was also the first time I went through many new steps, including making a build. It was a huge learning experience, bigger than anything any course or tutorial had given me so far. I honestly did not expect so many things to behave differently after the build.
Unfortunately, the Start screen, Victory screen, Game Over screen, and Ranking screen had their Canvas displaced, which made it much harder to see the small tutorial on the start menu and to navigate through the menus. The gameplay HUD also disappeared because of this screen size and Canvas displacement issue. It was supposed to show the 5 lives as little ties, the ancestral fire counter, something like 4/30, and the phase timer set to 3 minutes and 33 seconds, reinforcing the loop idea behind the name “FOLLOW suit Eternal.”
Your point about camera offset was excellent, thank you very much. Initially, I wanted the path to be not too intuitive, so the player would take risks, learn the level, and try to optimize each run. Some ancestral fires were hidden in secret paths or behind trees that the character could pass behind, unlike other trees where he walks in front of them, precisely to draw attention to that possibility.
About the final fight, one important detail: it is not exactly the Forest Protector who dies, but the Ancestral Forest. As the Suitman collects the flames of the Ancestral Force, he gains power and becomes stronger. The game does not have an easy, medium, or hard difficulty selection. The difficulty is built through the run itself: the more ancestral fires the player collects, and the less life they lose before reaching the Ancestral Tree, the stronger, faster, and slightly smarter the Suitman becomes during the boss fight. If the player has a more casual run, collects fewer fires, and loses more life, the final fight against him becomes easier.
The timer was added to prevent the player from exploring everything too comfortably. The idea was that, with each new attempt, the player would learn new paths and fire locations, allowing them to collect them faster. There is also a ranking system with up to 10 stars, calculated proportionally based on how much life the player lost during the first part of the level, how many ancestral fires were collected, how long it took to defeat the Suitman, and how much life the Ancestral Forest lost before victory. This system creates a first, second, and third place ranking, which resets when the game is closed and opened again.
About particles and damage feedback, I really did not have enough time to polish them as much as I wanted. Also, some effects that helped make the fight feel more impactful did not work correctly after the build. There was fall damage with camera shake proportional to the height of the fall, a shake when the Suitman destroyed the tree after the third hit, a softer shake when the Forest Protector hit the Suitman, and also a dramatic shake when entering the boss room, together with the music change and the Forest Protector standing still for a moment to create the feeling of a grand encounter.
I explained all of this because I am happy to share what I managed to build in such a short time and with limited experience. Since this is my first finished game, I feel very proud of it. I also learned that I need to reserve time to test the build after exporting the game, because several mechanics were working perfectly inside Unity, but did not behave the same way in the published version.
I joined the competition mainly for the adventure. At first, I clicked almost just to see how it worked, and suddenly I was already registered. From there, I started preparing for the jam, and it became a huge experience. I am really excited to join more in the future.
I will attach some images of the gameplay HUD and the boss scenario, where there were also pillars that would shake along with the camera to reinforce the feeling of impact and drama. After the evaluation period, I intend to fix these issues as soon as possible and finish some ideas, including a brief way to tell a bit of the lore at the beginning of the level.
Congrats on finishing your first game! That's a great milestone, you do learn a lot of stuff when you finish a first game :D. You definitely put a lot of thought into the design so that's amazing. And yes testing is super important because you never know how it plays with people who have no idea how it was made. Well Goodluck on fixing these issues and your next jam!
Pretty good on physic but the movesets on the boss only able to hit with one single move keep it up great work