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Curse Catchers's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #9 | 4.480 | 4.480 |
| Overall | #15 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| NES Feel | #18 | 4.160 | 4.160 |
| Audio | #23 | 3.840 | 3.840 |
| Gameplay | #35 | 3.520 | 3.520 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
This was pretty fun! I can't say I was the best driver (and definitely not the most economic), but figuring out the movements and enjoying the visuals along the way was a real treat. Playing on a gamepad was pretty brutal though, given that the vacuum was bound by default to my "select" button, so I ended up needing to play with the keyboard to really have any success here (I later saw you had options to rebind buttons, but it was a bit late at that point).
I love this! The art-style, music and sound effects are fantastic and you did a really great job on the fake-3D scrolling effect. Rad Racer on the NES was one of my favourite games and this feels just like it.
The sprites are perfect and this really feels like I could have been on the NES. I found it very hard, as others have said, but honestly the difficulty doesn't feel out of place as that's exactly how NES games used to be! I'll be coming back to this one to try and beat it!
"CONGLATURATION !!! YOU MADE IT TO THE END OF THE ROAD YOUR EARNINGS $5400 CURSES CAUGHT 10/9"
Performance on my rig isn't great whatever the version, in full screen it's plain unplayable, so since it seems to depend on the scaling I would have appreciated an option for a smaller one, and secondly and the real thing I wanted to say thanks for giving me another reason to insist on playing the game by commenting on mine as I had a ton of fun playing.
It was great! The game looks, sounds and plays great and looks sound and plays like it would on a console. Every part of the difficulty is pretty much perfect for the jam, maybe except for the very minor caveats below. It was satisfying to win the game.
Given you always need the fuel then the default option for fuel should definitely be to pay so that you don't unintentionally choose to refuse it, and I don't like that running into the fuel station get you back into the middle of the road, I think it should allow you to buy fuel.
I'm not sure the suggested fuel conserving controls do anything, when I missed a station I tried to lower my speed but I didn't seem to go any further.
Exactly 10 ghosts is a bit of a weird choice, both exactly 9 or as many as you can catch would possibly make more sense, more a note than a complain, it's just weird but it doesn't really matter.
Overall loved it, thanks for sharing!
Oh, haha, the game spawning a tenth ghost is a bug. Didn't expect it to come up, though it might actually a bit easier with slowdown. (The current version isn't very efficient for browsers cause it spawns all the cars and obstacles at the same time. I reworked that completely for a post-jam update so hopefully that'll run a bit better.) Thanks for the feedback!
really sick style and vibes
Very challenging. It's hard to keep the car steady while sucking up the ghosts! I think the graphics are simply amazing. The city in the distance looks good against the night sky and the bumps in the road gives such a realistic feeling for an NES game. No problems with the music either. The game is very original and the only thing I could think of to compare it to was the Runaway Five bus in Earthbound going through the tunnels with ghosts and scaring them away with their music. Thanks for sharing your game!
The game is graphically impressive! Though about the gameplay: I hate the fuel in old racing games, and idfk how do i catch curses(or how they even look) so i didn't progress much
But the nes feel is nailed tho
I admit how to catch the curses (it's the ghosts that appear on the road sometimes) isn't that well explained, especially since you have to use the select button (shift on the keyboard) for it cause I ran out of normal buttons for the NES layout. ;) Basically you have to drive under them and then hold select to suck them in while staying close to them. Turned out a bit too complicated... Anyway, thanks for trying out my game and leaving feedback!
yo so the game is def pretty unique with the racing in fake 3d with nes vibes, the graphics were pretty cool and the music was nice too, now tbf i didn't feel there's much going on with the game, like when you capture more ghosts does anything change? also i felt the interaction range for the gas stations was a lil bit too small, making me basically having to try to get as close as possible, which isn't really a huge problem but also i sometimes just miss the gas stations because there wasn't enough time to fully stop and then try to get close to refill, which is def a lil problematic, also i felt it was a bit hard to catch the ghosts, like they keep moving a bit to the left/right in a way that i can't catch them fully and therefore them escaping, which could be a design choice but i just wanted to point it out, other than that if you just polish it more and continue working on it, it could be something really cool!
also if you have some free time maybe you can check out my game and drop some feedback there :)
Yeah, catching the ghosts is a bit harder than intended, because the car will drift out of curves but the ghosts aren't affected by them at all, so they escape really easily at that point. I've already fixed that and the balancing around refueling for a post-jam update. ;)
(The only thing that changes after catching a ghost is that the next one will be slightly faster, but it's not that noticeable one-to-one.)
I'll finally have decent time to try out more games now since it's the weekend, I'll check out yours soon!
ohh makes sense yeah, cuz i felt the car was the one that drifts away cuz of the road and therefore the curses escape :') but it's good to hear most of the problems are fixed :), and yeah you can try to add even crazier effects if you want every 2 curses catched too so it makes the gameplay more interesting, and i'd love to see the actual full game if you wanted to work on it more since i remember you saying there were actually 3 game modes lol
I love the way this game looks and how you did the road was awesome. At first I really didn’t know how to shift gears but after reading the description everything made sense. The furthest I got was 2 ghost before my gas would run out I didn’t really know how to refill it that might just be a skill issue on my end. Overall great game!
I'm not experienced in driving games but the presentation is fantastic! I wish the Ghostbusters game on NES looked half as good as this!
Gameplay wise, the gas makes it frustratingly difficult. I have yet to get past 3 curses after dozens of attempts. Often times, even if I slowed to a halt and tried to inch up slowly to the thing, it would act like I hit it and then not let me get any gas. Very frustrating, because it basically means the run is over then and there since I know I won't survive to the next gas station. There also seems to be no way to pull out of a gas station without just running into it, I think it would have worked best as a large pitstop you run through. I did really like that the game punishes you for not slowing down in time though, I wouldn't want to remove that element.
I also think a lot more warning would be helpful: Maybe adding road signs like "Gas Station in 100 Miles" or something, and then adding a "distance traveled" meter to the UI.
There was also a little talk about it in the Discord, the ghosts are already hard to catch so mapping it to the Select button requires difficult hand positions). But I can pretend I'm playing it with an NES advantage or smth
The actual implementation of all the driving elements though is very impressive, having parallax and hills are crazy work and I think you really nailed it. Shifting is fun too, everything feels and looks great.
Overall awesome entry!
and great music too ;)
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback! I absolutely need to tune the fuel mechanic a little more. That's a good idea with the signs, maybe I should even add a marker on the progress bar. (I also want to make the tank a little bigger, right now you need to stop at almost every gas station, I think it should be save to miss at least every other one.)
honestly really cool recreation of the nes driving games. quite difficult indeed, but also very satisfying when you do manage to catch one without, uh, major incidents.. i suck at driving. the controls were also surprisingly complex, though i’m not sure if that’s something i would actually change. just takes some getting used to. one thing i would appreciate is a better indication of the ghost being affected, since i was pretty sure i was under it for quite some time before it actually got collected. otherwise everything was smooth (except my driving)
Love it, love it, love it! I'm seriously impressed with what you got done here for a jam! Another banger! Not too much to critique aside from maybe making it a bit more obvious how to get more gas/repairs.
Authentically difficult :) The graphics are on point, as is the gameplay. Even bumping into obstacles or other cars doesn't feel too punishing. And it happened a lot. The music doesn't seem to loop properly, minor thing though. It would be nice if alternative buttons to ZX would be available as that's quite the split on a QWERTZ keyboard layout 🐶 Or if the mapping was on the physical key, not the letter itself.
Thanks for the review! You can actually change the key mappings to your liking in the options menu. :)
Ah, should have checked the settings! Did not expect that to be there :)
I am so terrible at your game, but I was never good at driving games and especially when they involve shifting gears. To be clear, that is not a criticism on your artwork, creativity, or overall game. I like your game very much! I wish I was better at it ... lol. The graphics, controls, and gameplay are on point! I got Pole Position vibes. Great job!
Thanks for playing! I meant to add an automatic transition option, but it kinda fell under the table when I was scrambling to finish in the final few days/hours. Something for an update after the jam...
Nice driving game, the gear up/down really felt like releasing the clutch to change gear! I could not catch any ghosts because the pressing select button limited my driving capability, so in the end I mostly enjoyed driving, nice entry nonetheless, had fun!
I think I made it a bit too difficult to hold on to ghosts in curves, cause the car drifts out of them and the ghosts don't. Gotta touch that up a bit after the rating period. Glad you enjoyed the driving, though!