Play Jam Game
RelicQuery's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #7 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Sensory | #14 | 3.727 | 3.727 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.491 | 3.491 |
| Execution | #21 | 3.273 | 3.273 |
| Metroidvania | #23 | 3.455 | 3.455 |
| Relevance to the theme | #45 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme interpretation and application
Controlled Side Effects
Team/Developer
thornsy (Thorrin), flinigan, bucket-face (Bucket), poiuygfd, peanutcultist (Ste)
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Comments
Excellent visuals and a cute little game. Music is also great. Looks like something I could find on a 90's NES cartridge.
I think I found a bug as well :D
If I pick up the shrinking stuff, then I go back to a previous scene and die there, the shrinking pickup won't be reset to the podium and I cannot take it again and got stuck.
The art style is AMAZING!!! The colors and sprites are really cool! But I would adjust the player position when changing screens while jumping. But besides that really cool game and very well executed!
The art and sound design are cool! But the last room broke me, it was too hard, especially the way back. I found some problems with hitboxes, and some of the dangerous objects are not readable as dangerous (I thought the purple plants in the last room were just decorations, but maybe that's only my problem).
The puzzles are good too, playing your game was fun, thank you!
Thanks for playing!
Sorry you found the last room too hard, it was supposed to checkpoint you, but we didn't get to add it in time due to checkpoints being tied with our door system. Should've just had the relic in it's own room...which is what I've since done! Once this jam is over we'll push that version, which I also redid the hitboxes for, so they're a lot more intuitive in that version.
We're also adding some stuff we missed out on, fixing softlocks, and making the rest of the escape sequence more of a unique challenge than it currently is.
Originally it was for the NES jam, so I wanted to be fairly restrictive in how much animation and effects were used, which would've helped making the spikey thorns more obvious as something that wasn't just in the background.
Now that it's over, I can consider doing some more stuff to help the visibility of them.
Thanks for the feedback!
Super cute tileset I love the art.
If you're going to have death respawn you back in the same room, you need to make it not take your items. The game seems basically unbeatable in its current state - I died in the first room after getting the final artifact and had both the artifact and the key to the final room disappear and I have no interest in getting them back, if that's even possible which other comments suggest it might not even be. Don't understand how this wasn't caught as it seems like an inherent and massive flaw in how the respawn system currently works.
The game was pretty fun up until that point. I liked the gimmick of collecting different items with both positive and negative side effects, but that gimmick completely disappeared in the back half of the game which was really disappointing. I also don't think it really counts as a metroidvania - you never actually gain any permanent abilities over the course of the game, and in spite of its ostensibly interconnected format in practice the world is just a linear sequence of discrete stages.
I encountered a bug at one point where, after dying and losing a key in the green area, I tried to turn around and reenter the previous room to try to retrieve the key from that side, but instead it just took me right to the next area despite clearly entering the wrong door? I think that transition might not be set up correctly, though it did save me a lot of pain with that key.
Hitboxes were also really frustrating especially in that final room. I'd be standing directly on spikes without taking damage one moment and then the next one of the fireball things would hit me while there was a visible three pixel gap between us. The movement cycles of said fireballs also felt like they were aligned in an extremely tedious way that regularly required just sitting and waiting.
The visuals are really nice, you did a good job creating something appealing within the technical limitations. The music was also mostly pretty nice, though I found the final room's song to be really grating after only a few tries. All of the others worked great, just that one needed a little more to it I think.
I’ve been quite curious about “metroidbrainias” recently where there are no permanent character abilities, but new paths are still unlocked by learning more about the world’s mechanics. Sadly we had to go for a super linear level layout due to time constraints. We wanted swimmable waterfalls and small mushrooms and similar elements across the map which you would only be able to use by carrying a shrink or floating relic from another room etc, but alas. Live by the jam, die by the timer lol
Also sorry for the respawn bugs. The whole game only really became completable like 3 minutes before page edits were locked (from the NES jam), so yep, very unfortunate that those slipped through. In most puzzle rooms it works as intended to reset the whole room, but once an item leaves the room the tracked changes get messed up. I do agree that it needs a post jam fix.
Thanks for playing the whole thing despite the bugs though, most would probably have abandoned it earlier 😅
I really enjoyed the gameplay for this game, you made some very well designed levels and its clear you spent you time well during the game jam, the art style is stylish and makes in game objects feel very distinct providing lots of visual clarity when solving the puzzles, simple wet very effective. great game!
thanks for playing and the kind words!
Loved the game! specially the art, color palette and mechanics! Also it's rare to have a game with good audio, so that's something that I have to compliment too! But unfortunately I had some problems with late input on controls and two specific bugs on the second puzzle when you have to use both size abilities in the mushroom area that made me get stuck during my playthroughs.
1. After being launched by a mushroom pad it seems like the character gets a little stuck on air, so most of the times landing would be on the edge of the poisonous area, making me always lose a heart;
2. In the times that I could land well in the green floor, without touching any purple poisonous areas, I would still lose two hearts, tested it sometimes and it seems that it happens after getting the "get tiny" ability, don't know if that's intended since I got tiny, so maybe my life shortens, but it continued to be only one heart even after retrieving the ability.
I reloaded the page and tried playing again your game, sadly those events still happened.
But hey, from all of the games that I played in this jam, I think yours was the most creative, smart and polished! Even if I got stuck it was an incredible game and experience, the puzzles were trully unique and challenging, creating interesting and fun puzzles for a game is already an achievement by itself, it can fry oneself's brain, me, I'm that oneself, love thinking on puzzles, it's hard to make something that's fun and engaging! Your game made me inspired to try doing something like your project someday and I will recommend playing it to my development partners, I'm sure they will have fun and appreciate it too!
Thanks for the great feedback and kind words!
Sorry about the bugs you encountered, It was very near the end of the 'submit by' time that we were able to add the mushroom bounce mechanic in properly, so it's not quite as smooth as we'd have liked it to be currently. Hopefully it'll allow more reliable air control later. We also didn't quite have time to add in a satisfying 'pop' sound when the mushroom comes back up(though one had been made for it), so look forward to that as well
As for the second issue with the tiny ability, it is partially intended. I ended up putting together most of the puzzles the last day/night with the mechanics we had in place, so it wasn't till a while after I realised the very first mini puzzle you do while small could be made entirely irrelevant by damage boosting through the enemy. So we made a quick fix to change the health bar while small, but in our haste didn't properly fix it so your health returned to what it was originally when reverted. We'll definitely patch it once we can.
Puzzle making is a lot of fun! I'll be honest, I didn't think I was capable of making satisfying to solve puzzles either, but to be honest, it's just really hard to make puzzles with a blank canvas. Once you start putting tiles down, and running around and trying what works it becomes a lot easier. So much of puzzle building is about taking your core mechanics and asking yourself 'what does this allow me to do? what are the limitations of this mechanic, and how can it interact with the rest of the game/ other mechanics in a way that feels meaningful? It feels a lot more intimidating when it's all in your head, but create some pieces and tools to work with, and just play around with them and you might surprise yourself with what you can come up with! (also don't forget the most important rule 'generally avoid trying to introduce more than one mechanic at a time'. Like the very first pedestal room in the desert area, It's not much of a puzzle by itself, but it's there to make sure the player knows how to pick up a relic and that they can be put down on a pedestal again, and in fact need to otherwise they'll burn to death with that specific one. It's a simple thing but it's needed in every single puzzle going forward, so I made sure it was the first thing we covered.)
You're welcome! I really liked the game so I wanted to help with any way possible that I could, which is normally by giving feedback and complimenting what you loved haha. And hey, it's ok, we also had to fix some problems that came out of nowhere near the submission time, so I totally get it haha, literally was finishing the menu art on the day that we had to submit, I still had a lot of ideas and art that I wanted to implement and make, but couldn't. Also, everything that you said makes a lot of sense, we too could list little fixes here and there that we want to update later, I think that's something normal that happens on game jams, since even if you have a month anything could happen during development and in your life, affecting on how much time you really have, specially depending on how much experience you have with game jams and the mechanics/art you want to make.
Also, thanks for the tips with puzzles! it really is kinda scary on a blank canvas, that and map making depending on the game's genre, I know that you just have to explore and have fun, but it's hard sometimes with time that you have or getting stuck, so really, how you folks made it and how fun it was should really be appreciated. The one gimmick rule is an incredible tip too! Totally forgot that, I'm gonna write it down!
Also, thanks for sharing all of this, makes me like the game even more and feel the kindness that our community can have for loving games, I can see how much you guys were passionate and tried your best with this game jam, that's incredible, keep it up, hope to see the update soon then, it will be a great game, I would even pay for it haha. Wish the best for you and your team, you guys have potential and know how to make a fun game, I have been playing more of the jam and yours continue to be my favorite. If any of you feel inclined, please play ours too, I would appreciate and be extremely happy to see any of you on the comments too, but no pressure, really! Please do send a message after updating it if you remember so I can revisit it, but I'll keep an eye out! Good luck to all of you!
The game is fun and has challenging precision platforming. I noticed that if you died with items like keys in different areas you can softlock yourself. The abilities (fire, shrink/grow) were used really well for puzzles and the different levels/areas looked great. Nice job!
thanks for playing! and sorry for the softlock, i’ll have to give that a post jam fixup
Really great! I had a lot of fun, the color palette and music were great, the gameplay was fun and inventive. I loved the shrink powerup! Nice work
glad you enjoyed it :) turns out trippling the amount of player sprites needed isn’t super time efficient lol, but it is definitely my fave too