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A jam submission

SkyFactoryView game page

Invade the sprawling factory in the air
Submitted by Cardvark — 1 day, 3 hours before the deadline
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SkyFactory's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Relevance to the theme#253.3813.381
Metroidvania#273.3333.333
Overall#293.1333.133
Execution#313.0003.000
Enjoyment#363.0483.048
Sensory#522.9052.905

Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme interpretation and application
I chose the theme "Absurd Side Effects". The player gets absurd side effects from the upgrades.

Team/Developer
Cardvark

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Comments

Submitted

Bit of a rough experience for me, though half of that is likely because it didn't run the best with my laptop. It wasn't too unplayable, but the glitching effects and other particles definitely did a number, even when turned down or even completely off. I think its neat in concept, but hard for me to judge fairly as I can't tell what is the typical game jank of a jam game vs potential performance issues holding things back. I also just flat out never got any sound despite doing every trick I was told to try and fix it. I don't know what was going on there. At the very least though, I applaud you for making a 3D game for this. From my experience, trying to make anything play nice in a 3D space is quite the hurdle to get over, and the fact that you've managed this and put in what seems to be a good bit of polish (my performance aside, talking strictly in all the animations and little details and the surprisingly expansive settings in the pause menu) and thought into everything is quite impressive. You certainly got my respect for making this. Great work!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing anyway! I hope to fix the sound effect bugs after the jam.

Submitted

Shooting felt pretty good and overall a good demo. I got some heavy lags once many projectiles were spawn from the enemies and was not even sure which ones damaged me.

Submitted

Shooting felt pretty good and overall a good demo. I got some heavy lags once many projectiles were spawn from the enemies and was not even sure which ones damaged me.

Developer(+1)

Thanks! For some reason, mortar enemies will cause lag, so I added settings to disable them. Also, some projectiles will deal splash damage through walls since I didn't have time to fix them

Submitted

Pretty nice little demo! The side effects were a pretty clever implementation of the theme, though the screen glitch when getting hit was a bit excessive (fortunately, it seemed to turn itself off after getting the AI update).

The basic pistol was quite satisfying to shoot and I liked the feeling of making it more powerful with upgrades. I don't know if it was intended falloff from the bullets or just the pistol being inaccurate, but the enemies often spawned so far away that I couldn't seem to be able to hit them, yet their projectiles had no trouble reaching me. Also, some of the waves seemed a bit excessive and some of the enemies were really bullet spongy.

The level design and graphics were pretty basic, but had a few interesting moments. Unfortunately, it was very hard for me to navigate the level and I gave up some time after beating the first boss and finding the carbine. I kinda wish that instead of moving the platforms around freely, they simply moved along predetermined paths, and that it was clearly shown where each platform is able to go. Having to stand under cranes to attach to them was also a bit counterintuitive at first, since I expected to be able to latch on to them by aiming at them.

Still, good job getting the demo out!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for your feedback! The pistol does have damage falloff to encourage using the carbine, but you can also use it to shoot down enemy bullets. After the finding the AI upgrade, you can backtrack to where the carbine was and use the upgrade to progress further. The platforms are contained in fixed areas with invisible walls, but I can understand how an indicator of where to go could be useful. Thanks again for playing!

Submitted

I really enjoyed what I was able to play but I didn’t make it very far. I got the carbine, then the next island with fire rate and health upgrade but couldn’t figure out where to go after that; there was a really small platform but I couldn’t move it close to any other island than the one I jumped down from. Showing invisible walls didn’t seem to do anything and I did a lot of wiggling but obviously it’s hard for me to know what’s intentionally blocked vs buggy. Again, I really liked what I did play and would love to cleaned up version. Also would have loved gamepad controls.

Developer

Thanks for playing! After getting to the small platform island, you move away from the island with health and rate upgrades. Below you, there should be another island with four pillars that you jump down to.

Submitted

Ok, I had jumped down there but somehow didn’t trigger the boss the first time, or maybe got impatient, it did seem like it took a few seconds for the boss fight to start. Got much farther, hit at least one 100% real bug: getting to the islands with the pipe connecting them, one of the battles spawned a guy too far away for either of us to hit each other, even with the carbine zoomed. I also had a battle on the first island keep triggering, I think due to saving, which is a bummer. Eventually I get the grenade launcher and think I’m stuck again. Taking the double decker essentially back to the start, I took a biiiiig leap to the “O” platform that is really low with two pillars on each corner. Once down there, nothing happens.

Having skysickness definitely limits how much I can play, which made me think it would have been nice to choose to actually take the upgrade or not. Again, great job! Even with the issues it was still a blast! Now that I’ve used all the weapons, they all feel unique and well suited to different tasks. I do wish they remembered their ammo when switching, I also got some weird bugs where sometimes the particles would, for no apparent reason, spawn basically right in front of my face, but that only happened a few times.

Developer

Thanks! I am aware of the enemy but I could not find where they spawned, which is partially why there is the option to kill all enemies in the pause menu. I should have made it clearer, but the grenade launcher can destroy the pipes and let you advance to the last upgrade. Once you get to the last island, you need to jump through the hole in the middle to reach the final boss. I'm glad that you had fun despite the issues!

Submitted

Oh man, you even had the kill all enemies noted, ugg! I just got so wrapped up, I totally failed reading multiple times! Finally made it to the end, I really appreciate the level looping. I don’t know if it was intentional, but reloading does not spawn you at the checkpoint, but at the start, but it’s never hard to get back to where you were so it didn’t feel like an issue real issue. I think the last suggestion is to have the enemies die faster, fall away quickly. After the final upgrade with the two minibosses encircling, I took one out but since it just floated there, I think it then blocked my shots to the other one. Again, take the fact that I’ve kept messaging you as sign of how much fun I’m having and determination to see it to the end.

Developer

Thanks, I'm really happy that you were able to get to the end! Reloading at the beginning is a bug, but respawning from the last checkpoint seems to fix it. I will also make it so that large enemy corpses no longer have bullet collisions

Submitted (1 edit)

I like the setting of the game, and I like that you went for a first person shooter! Moving platforms around was a very cool idea for an upgrade, and I don't think it's something I've seen before in a game like this. I also like the sky setting. I liked the enemies floating off and exploding, too - it was a nice bit of polish where you could have easily just put some explosion particles and called it a day.

I did wind up having some issues with the game unfortunately. I think the fist boss is a health sponge if you don't get all the upgrades before it, and I found that a lot of the upgrades were easy to miss. I also had trouble getting the crane mechanic to work consistently. I restarted a few times thinking I had soft locked myself on the platform before I could get the prompt to attach to the cranes to appear. After that I enjoyed the crane mechanic, but thought it was a little underutilized. I reckon there's a bit more puzzle juice to be squeezed from them there cranes, and I want to drink it up. 

The beginning was definitely the roughest part for me, and I enjoyed the mid game much more. Collecting new guns was fun, and there's really something to seeing a chest on a platform and trying to work your way over there. The game has enough variety in pickups that chests retain some mystery, too, and that really emphasizes the previous point.

I was impressed by the amount of content you managed to get in the game within a month. In most of the jams I've participated in 3d games wind up very short by their nature, and this is a sizeable project. I'd be interested in a version with a bit more polish!

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you liked it! I will decrease the health of bosses after the jam. Cranes are sometimes inconsistent, especially since the attachment point is slightly off-center. Initially, I planned for the game to have more puzzles, but I ran out of time. I'm happy that you liked the death animations, since I tried to make them unique for each enemy type. Thanks for your feedback!

Submitted

Boss seems waaaay too tanky. I slipped off the platform when it was at about half health and don't really want to try it again as it already took what felt like forever to get to that point. Dunno if I'll come back to this to finish it out properly, I'd like to see the other weapons but I don't really want to do that boss.

Up until that point I was having fun, though - this is a pretty solid little fps. The movement and shooting were simple but all felt plenty fluid and engaging. I did experience a bit of stuttering but that might just be typical web build lag. I do agree with the comment on the page that moving the platforms around would probably make more sense to be bound to WASD, since you can't move the player while doing that anyway - would save having to move my hand over to the arrow keys. I also thought the glitch effect as a damage indicator was neat in concept, but in practice I found it really hard to distinguish how much health I had, and even harder to tell when I'd just gotten hurt - I think some extra indicator at the moment you're hit might help.

I don't have a lot to say about the visuals, they're alright. Polished enough that they caught my eye from the submissions page. The sound design is really good, the shooting sounds are nice and satisfying. Music is a bit of an unusual choice but it did end up working! Good job making that fit.

Dunno how I feel about the theming, interpretation is a tad trite and from the one upgrade I got it didn't seem like the side effects had much of anything to do with the ability itself. I guess it's possible they get more interesting from there, but I wasn't especially feeling the "absurd" part from that one :P  I'm giving the benefit of the doubt for my rating in that category for now though, since there's clearly a meaningful effort to incorporate the theme.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! The bosses are definitely too tanky. You can kill them in the pause menu. I also agree that the damage indicator should be improved. I purposefully made the first upgrade have a tame side effect, after the boss it starts to get weirder. If you play again, I hope you have fun!

Submitted

This was pretty cool! Driving a huge platform around is a very cool idea. I didn’t realize I could climb up cranes until much later on, but it was a cool realization.

The SFX and VFX felt quite harsh, I had to take my headphones off for most of combat, but I appreciated how rich the options menu was. I got to a point with where I got a new “platform” ship, and drove that to two platforms that were connected by a white bridge, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to the second platform (the white cylinder didn’t seem to have collision, but was still able to block my ship). I was almost certainly doing something wrong, but I’d love to come back to this and finish it. (if you have any hints, let me know!)

The visuals and gunplay are quite good! And driving a big platform around is very fun. Nice job!

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! You can use grenades to destroy the pipes

Submitted

The shooting and action felt great and the genre fusion of FPS with metroidvania was unique and well exectuted. The level layout is cool, like a floating factory in the sky, but actually navigating was a little difficult. Being able to drive platforms is a nice idea but in practice it kinda took away from the FPS action since there were long drawn out pauses where I was just moving a platform around. Maybe adding a traversal upgrade like a jetpack could help keep the pace of the game up while still allowing the player to travel around the sky factory. Regardless it has a lot of amazing features like the different weapons, upgrades and enemies. Great work!

Developer

Thanks! I considered giving the platforms weapons and having more enemies attack the player while driving, maybe that could make traversal more fun

Submitted

love the game and hello fellow Gdeveloper :3

Developer

Thanks, good luck!

Submitted

u too :3

Submitted

What an insane game! Took me a while to understand how the navigation worked but after that, it was a lot of fun!

Developer

Thanks! I plan on changing the controls for the first upgrade after the jam

Submitted

An fps metroidvania! I would say you took a risk there and I would also say you nailed it with the execution, esp given the time frame! Super fun game, congrats!

Developer

Thanks, I'm glad you had fun

Submitted

this game has a really cool style to it, though I feel like making the controls for the consoles move from wasd to arrow keys is kinda unnecessary

Developer

Thanks! I switched the controls to prevent players from walking off platforms if they press E again by mistake or if it does not register

Submitted (1 edit)

needs epilepsy warning for sure. edit: found the particle effects slider

Developer

Thanks for letting me know! I updated the description to warn about that

Amazing job guys! I love the settings and depth of the game! 

Developer

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!