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Ball X Chain : A Platformer's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #248 | 3.920 | 3.920 |
| Creativity & Theme | #306 | 4.080 | 4.080 |
| Overall | #413 | 3.744 | 3.744 |
| Audio | #494 | 3.520 | 3.520 |
| Visuals | #718 | 3.720 | 3.720 |
| Seriousness | #993 | 3.480 | 3.480 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Game Engine
Godot
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Comments
really fun! i feel like you could have taken away all of the parkour without the ball and it might have been even better. cool that you had the time to make this many levels and even speedrun times! i don't think i beat any of the times but still, this was awesome!
i enjoyed this quite a lot! although the movement without the spinning ball definitely pales in comparison to the movement with it, and it shows on several levels. i also think that the ui is kind of fighting itself, with the in-game hud elements and timer fitting the feeling of a fast-paced 3d platformer very well, while the level selection and main menu feels very unceremonious in comparison. ultimately the ball feels really fun though, would've loved to see more levels with it, or more mechanics that complement it. good job!
Much thanks for the kind words!
I kinda get what you mean with the UI, we were going for a sleek almost neon white-ish vibe with the main menu / level selection a serene vibe to get you locked in before taking on the levels - like a lion waiting to pounce type thing hahaha
Def agree with the non-ball movement kit feeling lacking! We had a lot more ideas with it where you went on and off having the spinning ball (or stalling midair, recatching the ball in some way) throughout a level but couldn't fit it in the jam. Perhaps if we continue working on the game!
You can slap speedruns on anything and I will enjoy it. I beat the author time in several levels.
I enjoyed this entry. The idea of spinning and flinging a ball to get places is very Thor's Hammer ish. Unfortunately, while charging the spin is fundamental to moving, the spin itself didn't feel integral to the gameplay. You could just as easily have made the player pump up a balloon and blast forward on that, and it would have been the same. If I had to time the release, that would have fit the theme better, but it also might have been annoying haha.
The physics felt a little off, and the platforming sections without the ball were a little boring. It could use some polish. But like I said, throw a timer on it and it's very fun, wonky physics and all. Once you get a feel for it, the controls are good enough to speedrun, and the presentation is very simple and clean.
Nice job!
Thanks for playing the game! Extremely happy to know you went ahead and beat some of the author times!
We had this initially, for the first day or so - but I felt it increased the barrier of entry a little too much for a game jam game. Even with increased leeway on what points of the throw would send it forward, I feel a lot of players would have tried to throw the ball while it was in front of them, instead of to the side as you swing it forward (even I forgot sometimes while working on it on the first day hahaha) - so I decided on making it always swing camera forward to get the ball
rollingworking in most player's hands from the get-go.Def agree that it takes a little bit away from how relevant the spinning is to the theme, but I feel like it helps provide the fantasy of spin-throwing a heavy ball as a platforming mechanic right away to the player - which I felt was more important in a game jam setting.
If we were to expand on the game, def looking to revisit this mechanic in some way! I feel it adds a lot to the physicality and fantasy of the idea.
Yeah 100%! We got quite a bit of feedback on the base movement abilities, we had a lot more ideas for it but couldn't quite fit it in for the jam, so we jumped into game making after making a semi decent kit for both the base movement and the ball throwing - so there is a lot of jank in there.
Awesome! A 3D platformer! I thought this was a lot of fun blasting myself into the air. Only issue I ran into was the camera occasionally snapping into another direction while I was in the air. It seemed it tended to happen when I was trying to aim for the next platform. Nice touch including rankings for times as well.
With a little more polish, I would love to see this expanded on. Nice job!
Much thanks for the kind words!
Camera snapping is most likely due to wonky collision detection on the camera on our end! Def need quite a bit of polish on that front, amongst other things hahaha
dropping mid-air reminds me of that white bird from angry bird lol such a fun game. i do feel like the control needs a little more tuning tho, i also think one bigger, maybe a little floaty, jump would work better with the spinning ball than current double jump. anyway, love the physics, love the art, congrats!
Much thanks for playing!
Yes ! At first I was going to turn off the mesh tilting when midair but then I saw the visual of falling off the map hahahaha
Also def agree on the controls! Wanted a lot more ways to stall in the air on top of a floatier jump (as well as recatching the ball midair!), but never fully got around to it. Perhaps if we continue the game!
this is one of the best games in this gamejam, but ill never forget your score in bazooka boy...
This is so cool! I really like the protagonist. Young, small boy with a giant weapon is such a good combo. Kinda similar to the protagonist in my game too! I want to see more of this game. Concept of a boy flying across building and building is just perfect!
Yeees I had a lot of fun designing the character, quite glad with how they turned ot
Also gotta check out your game for sure!
Really cool game, did my best to speedrun all the levels and had loads of fun. Reminds me a bit of Mirror's Edge for some reason. Either way amazing job!
Much thanks for playing the game, it's an honor to have you speedrun the levels!
Def quite a bit of mirror's edge influence ! I really like how they communicate their visual / level design, it helps with really making the game quick to parse, and intuitive to learn on the fly.
At first the controls were a bit confusing, but I got the hang of them quite quickly :) I really like this, it sort of gives the vibes of an offshoot of Jet Set Radio, but with a ball in a way. The mid-air ball throw chaining is super fun :D
YOOOO Big fan of your game! It's an honor to have you play ours! I almost 100%'d your game in one run but I couldn't find the final suit collectible till after watching the video. That final one was a doozy! My colorblind eyes had a hard time finding a distinction in the leaves 😔
Good to know the controls were quick to learn, perhaps with a more dedicated tutorial we could onboard the player much better hahaha. Glad to see that the Jet Set Radio inspirations are coming through! Def looking to expand on that vibe if we keep on working on the game.
AWESOME concept but needs to be optimized a little bit. Was SUPER laggy on my laptop but the gameplay was definitely fun and I think the game has a lot of potential to be successful!
Much thanks for playing the game!
Yeah, there seems to be quite a few people experiencing lag on the game! Curious if it was an overall laggy / slow type of thing, or if there were particular sections that were problematic? Would be helpful to know :)
I was trying it on a slightly lower end laptop so it might be hardware related! I can try tomorrow on a better PC and see how it goes. I really feel like with some minor tweaks you genuinely have a great game here. I don't typically play the style of game but I would absolutely help with playtesting if you keep developing it
I see, taking note of this!
Definitely on a little bit of a crossroads atm if we're to continue working on the game post jam, we had quite a lot of fun working on it hahaha
Damn one of the best games I have tried on this jam so far!! Amazing visuals and graphics and the idea behind the spin mechanic is awesome. My only issue is that while I love the idea of having levels were you need to play without the ball the player feels a little too heavy on its own making the levels a little bit frustrating.
Overall a 10/10 experience keep doing such amazing games !!
Much thanks for the kind words!
Yeah some of the other comments have brought up the weight of the base movement kit, and I def agree hahaha definitely needs to be revisited.
With more polish and an expansion on the base movement kit I would really love to revisit the levels where you spend more time without the ball ! It would be so cool to explore the push and pull of having and not having the ball throughout a level.
I would love to try out your game again if you ever made revision to this system ! Good luck on that I am sure you can do it as you already did a really nice job !!
Pretty fun, feels like a mirror's edge x shot put, very good, impressive that you made so many levels in so little time
The running and jumping could be more polished, it feels pretty stiff and it's hard to master, but overall good game!
Much thanks for playing!
In hindsight, yeah, I think I went overboard on the gravity for the jumping, among other things. We were looking to add a lot more ideas to the base kit that we weren't able to get around to - so maybe if we continue working on the game!
I don't really know what to complain about, it's fun, polished
Thank you for the kind words! Pretty glad about how the game turned out.
I initially assumed platformers would just not pull the theme off. Well done killing that assumption. Game was a bit laggy on my end though but might be my PC. Enjoyed it a lot.
Thank you for the kind words, glad you enjoyed the game!
Curious if it was the game in general being laggy or if it was any specific moments? Could help us learn how to optimize the game :)
Nah I think there's clearly something wrong with my setup. Though if I need to point out moments it would be those when you spin the ball but that didn't affect the gameplay because the ball was always released in the camera's forward direction. Initially thought there would be some timing to it (like, the ball is released in whatever direction it was last pointing at when you player was spinning) but turns out this game is surprisingly forgiving!
Fun fact for the first day or so the ball did actually have to be thrown at the right point of the swing! We even had a thing that made it a little more forgiving where a certain window would still generally send the ball in the camera's forward direction.
But after a little bit of testing, it added an extra layer of learning that I felt wouldn't feel as good in a game jam (especially since we kind of let the early levels just tutorialize the player in a less handholdy way). So I simplified it to just go in a camera direction despite looking jankier hahaha.
Am glad that this decision worked out for a wider variety of players! Def worth revisiting a timing related mechanic in some form if we continue working on the game though.
Feels like watching Naruto while drunk, excellent work my friend!
Much thanks!
Decided to go for the naruto run since I wanted to get the animations over with as soon as possible ! That way I didn't have to animate swinging arms - turned out well enough I think hahahaha
Ball Movement feels great and speedy, ground movement is fine, the double jumps though lacked that tiny bit of punch to them, I always felt like they ran short.
Thank you!
Yeah, definitely went a little overboard on the gravity strength on the base movement. We had quite a few more ideas to allow for air stalling / air movement but ultimately wasn't able to get around to it. Perhaps if we continue working on the game !
Really impressed with how this game looks and feels. All criticism I can think of is polish. Light balancing issues on the audio and gameplay side. But overall, it's super impressive that you've managed to get so much done in just a week.
Thank you for the kind words!
Def still much for me to learn on the audio! I keep on telling myself I'll get around to properly learning sfx / audio but I still haven't hahaha still kinda just slapping a bunch of sounds together till it feels good. Not the worst tho! Kinda glad with the ball swinging sfx at the very least.
Played your guys' game as well! Sound on that one was giga crisp.
It's definitely not bad in terms of SFX. It's just a matter of some music playing at the same time and the volume between different things. All the audio itself sounded great! It can get a bit complex to not have things overlap and sound weird but keeping things organised really helps with that, I think. I use Yoolean sound meter to check the volumes on everything because you can become deaf to volume differences if you're doing audio for hours at a time.
Yooo taking note of this, much thanks for the advice! I'll be sure to check out the sound metering :)
Thats a really cool concept and visuals
Thank you!
Thankfully the art style we went for had a lot of very prominent references, so it felt like we had a lot of inspirations to draw from to create a simplified version of the style.
Awesome concept, I really like the idea
yoooo, thanks for playing!
I am glad this was added to my queue. Very polished game with amazing gameplay
Thank you! Glad the RNG gods led you to our game hahaha
Quite happy with the amount of polish we were able to infuse into this game, feels good to work on relatively longer jams especially now that we're getting a better hang of Godot after switching to it last year.