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A jam submission

samsaraView game page

A Micro-Metroidvania about reincarnation
Submitted by iris — 1 day, 8 hours before the deadline
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samsara's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Seriousness#504.3484.348
Audio#744.1074.107
Overall#824.1394.139
Enjoyment#2123.9613.961
Creativity & Theme#2234.1694.169
Visuals#3394.1124.112

Ranked from 178 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

Viewing comments 80 to 61 of 117 · Next page · Previous page · First page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

WOW, it felt like I was playing Animal Well again, where you don't have a clear objective, but it's still incredibly fun to explore and play. The mechanic is really interesting and has a lot of potential. Definitely one of my favorite games so far! Really good job :D

Submitted(+1)

HOLY AMZING GAME, this game was really well polished and put together. Other than a few minor bugs that I discovered (its a GJ what can you except) everything felt very smooth and the puzzles were really well put together. I am so glad I got the chance to play this!


Ps. that mole is definitely a frog :P

Submitted(+1)

This had "Animal Well" vibes. Really great puzzle platformer. It took me awhile to figure out the piano mechanic, and that is my only criticism, it needed to be a little more clear on how to play it. But other than that, great visuals and sound. Love the 1 bit style. All the little details like the water movement, water drops and the rope movement all added to the atmosphere. 

Great job, this could potentially be expanded into a larger game. 

Submitted(+1)

it take me a lot of time to figure out what was the fourth animal (the mole) but it was a cool and short experience, i like it 

Submitted(+1)

This was really cool but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what was the frog's ability and what the human should've played at the piano. But i kept trying and trying because this is so freakin' cool. Well done, you've done an amazing job!

Submitted(+1)

I reallyyyy love the vibe of this game, but i think im too stupid to figure out any of the puzzles 😅

I gave you a high rating based on the vibe alone, because it feels like a professional game - tone, atmosphere, animations, concept - but I only got as far as getting the frog to the surface and dying because I couldn't figure out how to at least get the human to the piano. 

I WANT to suggest adding some subtle visual hints to make the game more palatable, but my suspicion is that you want to have the players make their own discoveries and feel rewarded by figuring things out - so take that advice with a grain of salt based on your preference.

Developer(+1)

if you'd like a hint, read on. if not, thanks so much for playing as much as you did !


the human can stand beneath those small rings in the ceiling, and do something cool with X :)

Submitted(+1)

I’d like to praise the game, but it left me incredibly frustrated. It’s a decent Metroidvania with a good atmosphere, (Reminds me Animal Well). But the mechanics involving the wheel are very frustrating. It felt like there was a 40% chance I’d get “The Human” when I needed all the others, and I had to die over and over again. I think this problem could have been solved by only rolling for characters you actually need to progress to a certain point in this particular moment, even if that would have taken away some of the randomness.

In any case, I beat the game anyway and my overall impression of the game is positive, because I love Metroidvania-style games and your minimalistic pixel art

Submitted(+1)

Incredible game - I really do love when a game places perfectly spaced breadcrumbs for me to follow, and I could not put it down.  The only issue I have is that it took me quite a while to figure out the mole, but mostly because I didn't know it was a mole until I just spammed 'x' everywhere I could until something happened - which felt less like discovery and more like brute force. Thats probably just my lack of imagination though :)

Well done on creating this!

Submitted(+1)

I really enjoyed this game. It flowed really intuitively to me the moment I figured out that different specific objects in the world react to different specific forms when you press X. After that I figured out what each character can do specifically, and it just flowed from there. Oh I now need this guy for the next step, so before I reincarnate, can this guy do his thing else where. It clicks in a very satisfying way. The audio was amazing, probably the best out of all the games I played in this jam.

I do have one suggestion, please ignore it if you don't like it. The only pain point I had was at some point, all I needed was a specific form to proceed. I understand that you can stop the wheel early but I couldn't really get the one I want even with that. Instead of leaving the next reincarnation to the wheel, perhaps you could lean into the Samsara more, where rebirth into the next life is based on the actions of the previous life, i.e. if the player dies in the water, the next rebirth will be the frog for example. Or maybe have both, random and deterministic? Idk just putting whatever came to mind.

Overall, this was a nice short game, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Developer(+1)

thankyou! yea i think the game would be quite dramatically improved if the player could just.. pick which creature they wanted, and tbh i only really put in the wheel because i thought "the cycle of samsara isn't obvious enough for theme relevance, i need to add a wheel" lol.

i like your game too ! handshake for having similar names :)

Submitted(+1)

Was getting a bit too hard for me so I left and when I came back it all sort of made sense. I sped through it and I hate you for the ending lol. A very creative mechanic that has a lot of scope for expansion. My only gripe is it doesn't really  fit the theme. The only spinning in the game was the starting spinner and even that you could stop at any time. Not really "Spin to Win" now is it. Also the controls could have been a bit more intuitive but that isn't really an issue once you read the instructions. Would like to see it released as a full game. Maybe a successor to games like Undertale

Submitted(+1)

Too difficult for me, but that's probably a good sign.

Submitted(+1)

Unbelievable game. If you told me this was a super popular indie game that just released and all the streamers were playing it, I wouldn't doubt you for a second. Super work. 

Submitted(+1)

I really like the style and aesthetic of this game. It's really polished and I wouldn't have guessed that you had made this in only a week, if not for the jam. I also like how different areas are sort of "exclusive" or have different paths for different characters, which makes the game a lot more interactive.

Submitted(+1)

Incredibly unique take on the theme! Probably one of the most well-paced metroidvania games I've played in any jam. I think letting us know that we can stop the wheel ourselves was definitely the right choice, at several points there was only one creature type I wanted (and if I got another I had to find a spot to die :( ). Very effective use of minimal sound, especially loved it when the piano played back to you on a successful unlock. 

Mostly unrelated but I spend most of the game wondering why the "big frog" got the small symbol and the "small frog" got a big symbol. It took me way too long to realize that the "big frog" is probably acually a mole(?). 

Great work!

Submitted(+1)

Wow what a game! It took me way too long to figure out the X in the piano is also pressed WHILE the notes you wanted to play were also pressed, every time I pressed it the screen closed which was very different from what it said it'd do. The concept is awesome though great work.

Submitted(+1)

Huge animal well vibes from this! The idea is super fun and can be extrapolated into an entire metroidvania game with ease. One thing that screwed me over is the fact ropes can't be deleted and recreated since I made a very short rope at one point by mistake and had to reset my save. 

Also, kinda funny the fact you can go through this hallway before the door is open, which I don't think should have been the case.


Some extra animations for the characters would have been nice, otherwise, 10/10.
Developer

yeah that was in my list of known bugs but i never got around to fixing it since i thought it didn't matter too much. similarly you can jump up to that platform from below it if you're in the right spot lol

Submitted(+1)

I tried to play notes on the piano as a human, but nothing happened :c Great game nonetheless!

Submitted(+1)

Why was this so far down on my list of games I need to play and rate?? Might be my favourite of the jam.

Very cool take on a metroidvania-ish-like-sort of game. Figuring out who can do what was a nice curve and I enjoyed the puzzles. 

I didn't mind the spinning to decide the next life thing, but do agree when you landed on a creature you didn't have any use for it felt a bit off to just kill yourself and go again. I'm not exactly sure how you would do it or if it's possible, but having "something" to do every time would be so nice. I don't think it could be progress because you can't have infinite things to do, but I dunno some kind of incremental interaction you could go boop with each character?

I got distracted, but anyway, great job!

Submitted(+2)

Just extend it a little and ship it dude, no jokes!

Submitted(+1)

I second this. Feels like a spiritual heir to Animal Well.

Submitted(+1)

DAMN! THE VISUALS AND AUDIO ARE ON POINT! I found the spinning mechanic very unique once I understood it's actually somn I should use to get the correct animal and that the level doesn't reset upon death. Enjoyed it thoroughly <3

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