Play game
Animal Connections's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #39 | 3.795 | 3.795 |
| Fun | #49 | 3.867 | 3.867 |
| Theme | #51 | 4.398 | 4.398 |
| Music | #54 | 3.723 | 3.723 |
| Overall | #56 | 3.904 | 3.904 |
| Mechanics | #61 | 3.843 | 3.843 |
| Sound | #62 | 3.566 | 3.566 |
| Aesthetics | #191 | 3.590 | 3.590 |
Ranked from 83 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Only Music : Kim Lightyear - https://pixabay.com/users/26697863/ GeoffreyBurch - https://pixabay.com/users/geoffreyburch-5739114/ Phat Phrog Studios - https://www.phatphrogstudio.com/ Melody Ayres-Griffiths - https://pixabay.com/users/melodyayresgriffiths-27269767/
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Nice submission!
I like the retro art style. You did a great job packing a lot of personality into it in such a short time. The mechanics are interesting, and retraction is neat. The dialogue and UI widgets are well executed.
Reminds me a bit of lemmings!
Adjustable difficulty or a slower ramp-up in complexity might be worth considering for a future update.
Look forward to seeing what you come up with next.
Thank you for playing! The idea of pemmings were definitely originally inspired by Lemmings, in a previous jam that I did.
I'm hoping that after fixing some of the less fair enemy locations the game will feel like a more gradual increase in both complexity and difficulty.
I love penguin so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is my favorite game amongst the entries so far. And I give it 11 out of 10. (Bonus point for the penguin) I love the character of the Pemmy so much and my favorite part is where you have to dodge and shoot inside the Electra eel. The story entertain me throughout the entire game. Your jokes are really funny and I enjoy it soooo much!! Sorry if I sound too excited lol haha
I appreciate the excitement and that you played all the way through to the end! Thank you so much!
Penguins are great, aren't they?
Yes they are haha xD
Fun game, character dialogues are superb.
Thank you for playing, writing the dialogues was definitely my favourite part. :)
this game is so charming, i loved the dialogue and laughed a few times! and the mechanics are super fun too, great job!!!
Thank you! I'm glad the dialogue got a few laughs, that's great to hear!
Awesome game. Really loved playing it and was hooked to it. Very apt challenging and fun. Music and sfx can be experimented with a little.
Thank you for playing! Glad to hear you found it fun while challenging.
All the music and half the sounds were done on the final day, some were a bit rushed for certain.
This was really fun I liked how each new animal introduced expanded the gameplay, and the dialogue was fantastic. I also really liked the way the sockets tied into the level clear. It took me a bit to get it in the first level but you set things up well enough that it was easy to figure out through some experimentation.
Thank you for playing! I'm glad it was intuitive enough to figure out. I tried to limit what there was to do in the first level so that, if it wasn't obvious enough, players could hopefully stumble upon the answer just by moving around. It seems to have worked for some people and not others.
You're right, I had never heard of Anteater! Thanks for expanding our video game horizons of the past with this one. I had a lot of fun playing it, and I think it was downright charitable of you to stick in those Tigey upgrades at the end to help a struggling fellow out. This game has everything: fish, penguins, betrayal, friendship, and self-electrocution to destroy your enemies. You know it's a good game when you're having fun just playing around with the mechanics. Really enjoyed this one, thanks!
Bearshaman, thank you for playing!
I hadn't heard of Anteater, either. I knew about Oil's Well, and in researching that I found out it was a clone of an earlier game.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. :) I had a clear vision of what I wanted to do early on, and managed to get there (with some jank and bugs) shortly before the deadline.
This game was ridiculous XD So I got stuck on the level with the forgotten jelly fish! llloooolll!! But let me tell you... i was so determined to solve these puzzles just so i could meet the characters and experience their interactions. Beyond the clever puzzles that were meshed to work so perfectly with each mechanic revolving around the characters and their personality I was purely motivated by cutscenes and dialogue. I didn't even care about the points (there is so much going on in this game~ those points meant nothing to me- but not in a bad way. There could be an entire different motivation to play this game alone based on points). I may have spent like more than an hour on this... losing track of time for sure, which when I first started playing I was hmmm... I kinda had "Dig Dug" Vibes but realized it was nothing like that. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep playing, but I was like yooo... what is this dialogue between these characters... this is really happening right now? I had to knoowww!! I wish I didn't get frustrated at the jelly fish level, I just could not for the life of me deal with the timing of releasing the pemmings and then navigating through level to do what I believe was this crazy maneuver with a race against time and all these enemies colliding into me to try to reach the next "clam port" so I could drop that sassy behind pemming down.
I do have to say though your mistakes are very unforgiven, I died a lot, and through this and memorizing some of the earlier level patterns, was able to cheese those level because the enemies would not spawn until some time after the level starts. So within that time before enemies started spawning in, I was able to get to get to a clam port and plug into a socket and release a gate, then get to a second one and do the same without encountering any enemies. I was moving so fast in the path I learned and retracting at the right time that I didn't have to worry about enemies XD
I don't know who has beat the Jelly Fish level, but holy cow, your brain must have been cooked. And whatever is beyond that level, I am scared for you. lol!!
I really enjoyed this game.
The scene transitions, the art, and the music. I was not feeling it at first, but it grew so quickly on me because of the characters. This was a cleverly devised project even though the puzzles get increasingly difficult. The point system is easy to overlook. I feel like you are so focused on solving the puzzles that the points are pointless.
Thank you so much, I'm really glad you found so much to say about this! :)
I am sorry that the jellyfish level stopped your progress, that's definitely the high point in difficulty. (It's funny you mentioned Dig Dug, I used that as inspiration for a jam last year, where I first came up with pemmings, but that one lacks a story.) I should have kept in mind that a game jam isn't the place for punishing difficulty, it's a good lesson for me to learn.
It's great to hear that the characters won you over, I know my art isn't amazing. :D And what's beyond the jelly fish stage is like a whole new game, where the points come into play.
The art became amazing in its own way though. To me, it's clunky, but it all comes together (the art) making sense as you play. And it has this atari vibe?? not sure that is the right term, I did not play atari. my point being, it feels like an old school classic game and the art is part of what makes the project stand out. And also other note because I can just keep typing all sorts of details. I love orange and blues together and the image you used for the "Run Game", with its repeated pattern and orange to blue gradient is Chef's Kiss XD
That's good to know the points won't be for nothing! Because you are likely kill so many enemies trying to solve those puzzles, even if you don't play for points, you will get them XD
The dialogue is funny and charming, honestly kept me very engaged. The mechanic is interesting and its fun to play around, although I couldn't quite get past level 4,,,, I would say the game would benefit a lot from its movement being changed to being grid-based, since very often i would get stuck or have difficulty moving because i'd bump into the sides and edges of blocks, and it could also help prevent some glitches i have encountered (i do not think the swordfish going through a wall was a feature at least ahaha). You have a fun game in your hands tho, good job!
Thank you for playing!
The swordfish should definitely not be going through walls, I'll need to give them a talking to.
I agree that a grid based movement system would have been a better approach. I had concerns that the stages with open areas wouldn't work how I wanted if the player was stuck on a grid, but I think this was a mistake on my part. It would also have solved a lot of problems I had with the eel segments such as how the jellyfish interacts with them. Next time I'll know better!
For sure, but don't be too stressed about it, minor issue but the game still holds up!! :)
easy 10/10 just for the dialog alone. I was giggling the entire time! The retraction could be a bit slower, but who cares, I was enjoying myself too much anyway
Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed the dialogue!
I get what you mean about the retraction speed, stopping at the desired point is too difficult because I wanted the player to be able to immediately react to threats a long way from their current position. I could have two speeds, a normal, precise retract and then a panic version which pulls the player all the way to their safety area.
It was such a small quirk, it only had to happen once for me to get the hang of it. Great game
In a game chock full of hilarious dialogue, this was the moment that for whatever reason finally made me lose it and start cackling over here.
Besides the best writing in the Jam I've seen yet, I've never come across the games you borrowed these mechanics from so it was totally fresh to me. Very interesting. An electric eel to connect circuits, seems obvious but I've never seen such a thing before. I appreciated the late gameplay twist too after wondering about the score early on. Difficulty felt good in terms of the puzzling, and there was a nice flavoring of skill in there with sneaking up on the fish.
My main critique, if you're interested, would be that the respawning fish coming in from the screen edge combined with mandatory circuit routes that take you so close to the screen edge combined with the limited health led to some frustration where I knew what I had to do but kept failing the level because of aquatic sneak attacks. Couple ways you could address that, but ultimately this was minor and did not mar my experience which was just stellar. Loads of fun and I'll always remember that time I walked to the right.
Thank you so much! I'm really glad the jokes resonated with you.
I'm definitely interested in critique! All of the levels could use a lot of polish and more thought than I made time to give them. Some areas definitely shouldn't spawn fish at all, and it would probably be a good idea to track the ones which are off screen with a little balloon or something, to indicate where to expect them from. Or I could even put the spawners within sight of the camera, with a counter or graphic displaying when they're imminent. Generally though, as you say, it would be best if levels didn't rely on being so close to the edges of the screen in the first place. (The score should also have been used in the early levels to increase Electra's health, giving a greater risk/reward for excessive pellet consumption.)
I liked the concept of the game although I couldn't finish the first level.
The sounds are nice and well implemented!
Thank you for giving it a try, at least! :)
Super underrated and damn near perfect game. The writing is hilarious, I love the characters and Pemmy's obsession with all things walking to the right. It was challenging but not unsurmountable, the music and sound fit in perfectly, my only note is I think the art needs some more polish but it was still super endearing. 9.9/10, loved it! Truly an unqualified success.
Thank you, I really appreciate this! (Maybe you're being too kind, but I'll take it!) I improved a bit on the art as I went, so I should have made the main character last instead of first. 😅
very interesting take on a connected pacman logic .. but I wouldn't see myself returning to this game, it's a bit barebones :D
Thank you for playing! Maybe I could get a nice suit for the bones later...? 😅
Nice and funny little plot and the level design scales nicely. Well done!
Thank you for playing! It's good to hear the levels scaled well, it's hard to tell when playtesting whether that's the case since I can't go into a new stage with fresh eyes.
the whole game has a ton of charm. the dialogue is genuinely funny, and the gameplay somehow feels like pac-man, snake, and its own weird thing all mashed together in a really satisfying way. the transitions and little presentation details also add a lot - it feels way more polished and "complete" than most jam games.. or even a few games put up on steam in general. the final section dragged a bit.. but by that point the player is already completely invested in the game's vibe anyway. really a great submission overall
Thank you for playing to the end!
I did hope that anyone who cared enough to get to the final stand would want to push through to the end. That's no excuse for making it as long as I did, but I'm relieved to know it wasn't a quitting point.
Wooo… I did it(at the expense of rating other games)!
It is amazing how your game feels like pacman, snake, and frogger all smashed together.Then it completely switches genre when you enter Electra’s stomach.
Btw, there may be a bug in the level where Clara first appears. If you wait long enough, she eventually disappears completely until you retry the level.
Congrats, and thank you for playing!
Clara probably found a way to escape the level completely, she seems to be responsible for a lot of trouble... it's a good thing I saved that introduction for last.
The creation of this game was an unqualified success! Good job on this game. I probably had a good chuckle with the diolgue... and by a "probably" I mean "most defintely" ;D
Thank you for playing! I'm glad you probably enjoyed the dialogue, I most definitely enjoyed writing it. :)
Beat it all! :V
Fun characters, fun story, fun gameplay -which could definitely be expanded on- and so much content! :V
I wasn't a huge fan of the ending fight though, as it became just tedious and I could have started farming points to infinity, which would just become a tedious venture at that point since I upgraded the pellets to max and I just had to go from left to right constantly. But I'm also not a huge fan of Horde Survivals for that exact reason! :V Still enjoyed it though!
Thank you for playing, and getting through to the end!
I sincerely apologize for the length of the final segment, especially in the case where you don't like that sort of game to start with. Poor choices were made as the deadline loomed.
I'm glad you found the story, gameplay and characters fun! I definitely had fun putting it all together. :)
Wow that was a lot of polish on the transitions and stuff! The game was actually fun to play and intuitive enough for me to figure it out without using too much of my brain. Awesome work!
Thank you for playing! I'm glad you didn't have to use your brain much! (I think?) 😄
lol yes - I just mean it was intuitive enough for me to understand without having to read everything super carefully, your UX skills are good