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Sunset Twist's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #115 | 4.432 | 4.432 |
| Audio | #215 | 3.811 | 3.811 |
| Creativity & Theme | #305 | 4.081 | 4.081 |
| Overall | #315 | 3.838 | 3.838 |
| Enjoyment | #648 | 3.541 | 3.541 |
| Seriousness | #1296 | 3.324 | 3.324 |
Ranked from 37 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 nice game! I loved the retro presentation and the visuals, they fit the style perfectly. The movement mechanics are unique, and it was satisfying once I got the hang of them.
Very hard game. I couldn't even start moving because I didn't know I have to press Z repeatedly. After one press it starts spinning fast, so I was expecting that that's enough to move. After a while I noticed the jumping Z key probably means that I have to press it repeatedly. Maybe a text next to the jumping Z button would help?
After I started moving it was great, thanks!
Really interesting game! I love the artstyle and the way the mechanics work. Unfortunately, I did find the mechanics superrr duperr hard at the start which a tutorial or a much simpler level could have been beneficial. I would say its quite creative, and the audio is really cool! I would say its kinda serious as well! Overall, cool game but introduction to mechanics may need a bit more work! Great work on the game though!
I really love the art style and music!
Unfortunately, even after more than twenty attempts, I still couldn't get past the first level or really figure out how to control the direction. (I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the goal is to eventually stop on the spinning target?) Because of that, I didn't think it would be fair to leave a rating.
Still, I really enjoyed the spinning-top vehicle's animations, bouncing off the walls, and the cat's subtle facial expressions. Nice work! :D
Thank you so much for trying! I'm sorry it was a bit too confusing to understand.
If you're willing to try again sometime, I hope these tips might help:
If you're still struggling, or would rather wait instead, I do have an Assist Options Menu nearly ready-to-go once jam submissions are unlocked. It comes with a bunch of options that could help you out and even change your movement entirely!
Thanks for trying it out, and thanks even more for withholding your rating! 🙇
This is an amazing game! Really polished and the visuals are top notch! It does require getting used to it but the mechanics are cool!
Really incredible game!
Visuals and music are peak, and the theme use is somehow both very direct and creative.
I feel like the controls could probably benefit from some adjustments, they were a bit difficult to get used to, and I also found I could cheese a lot of levels by essentially hugging the walls since I'd never lose speed doing that. But controls aside the movement mechanics are really interesting, and the levels made great use of them!
I love the style and music, but needs a bit clarity with the speed up, it took me a bit to notice how to use the walls for speeding up, since i thought they would have done the opposite, also i noticed the direction arrow of the shadow on the last level so i’d recommend to maybe put it as a UI element. But overall enjoyed it once i got the hang of it
Yeah I hope to make a more in-depth tutorial going over the movement and it's unique physics sometime after the jam uploads re-open.
The idea for the arrow was that I wanted a way to declutter the UI by making a more diagetic UI element. I feel that the shadow being under the player lets you keep your eyes on the gameplay while also still knowing what exact direction you're moving in. However this comment helped me realize it's a bit subtle at times, so I added an option to resize it to a new Assist Menu I'm working on!
Thanks so much for playing and I'm really glad you still enjoyed it!
Wow! I suck at this type of game, but I enjoyed playing it a lot! Congratulations!
Haha yeah I'm sorry if it's a bit difficult to understand at first!
If it helps I do have an Assist Menu I'm working on right now (take a look!) (just gotta connect changes here to the actual game manager).
Regardless, Thank you so much for playing!
once i got a hang of the controls and mechanics this game was amazing :)
Yessss that's exactly what I was going for, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Incredible. Beautiful, totally cohesive art style. Adding the shadow as the arrow was a great touch, but once I got used to the controls I found I barely even needed to look at it. The game feels great, looks great, sounds great. It would fit right in in a "new retro" collection like UFO50. I see in your screenshots there's a parallel tutorial, but I don't remember ever seeing that in game, but exploring the controls was fun in its own right. Very glad I got to play this :)
Thank you so much for the compliments! I really wanted this game to feel great once you learned how to play it, some of my favorite games to grind in UFO50 have that same exact feeling (Campanella is definitely one of those).
'parallel' and the edge-boost is actually found on an alternate path you're hinted at while looking at the final note. It's hidden in the level the game sends you back to after you close the credits 😉.
Thanks you so much for playing!
I was struggling quite a bit to get the spinning down, but in the end I figured it out and managed to beat the game! It was very fun, but a little frustrating especially in the tighter areas where you just bounced around like crazy. I think the spinner also stopped a little too fast, making it so you lost as soon as you mad a small mistake. Maybe some boostpads in the big open areas could be an option to make it easier in some levels? Hard, but still a fun unique mechanic. Also game looked great!
Yeah it takes some practice but I feel like the game feel really clicks after a while, I think in the current state the spinner slowing down is encouraging more calculated risk-taking instead of launching and praying.
BUT I can't lie, I do have dev-knowldege on all the levels so I could very much be biased on that. Honestly, I should have some friends create levels for me so I can have the blind-player's experience and see if I feel the same way.
I do have some boost-related ideas for a future release but we're pretty far off from that for now.
Thank you so much for playing I'm glad you had fun!
It took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to play. The randomness of the spinning top's path combined with the control when reaching the finish line is brilliant—but a detailed tutorial would absolutely make it addictive for most players!
Yeah I really should've worked on a more intuitive tutorial, it's a common criticism I've been getting and I really want to take some time to really teach the player more if I ever get around to a full-release.
Also fun fact, you always have control! It's just a bit difficult to understand I suppose, haha.
Thanks for playing though and I hope you had a good time!
Wow, that was amazing, I think one of my top 3 games of the jam so far, intense and difficult at times (funny enough i felt like the first levels were some of the most difficult, but I think because I was still fully understanding how to play), challenges you at every corner, and keeps the intensity the whole way, those deaths very close to a wall or the winning chip are maddening, but getting to the win just feels like an achievement, actually the last few levels felt too easy maybe intended :D, but amazing amazing game, and visually stunning and the mechanics of it, love it, amazing work ♥
Thank you so much for the compliments! I'm glad you enjoyed the movement and how the more you played the more it clicked. The final levels were easy partially for a reason, but also because I ran out of time to think of new level-designs.
On a revisit to this game I'd love to put a little more effort into the whole concept!
Hey, that was fun! Game looks really stylish, love the pixel art. Found the secret exit in "again" my first time accidentally, ended up playing the game a few times, looking for more secret exits, found another one in "grasp" so far. The controls were kinda hard to get used to first time playing, second playthrough they were more intuitive. The last bit in "auto" is really hard!
Only thing I would suggest is making the arrow shadow a bit more obvious so it's easier to tell which way your going. Maybe just a regular arrow that rotates around the player? Also I got stuck, pinned against a wall by the boss thingy in "home" (I think it only happens when you have walls to the left or right..?), but found out you can press L to restart pressing random keys... so managed to unstuck myself and finish just fine.
Anyhow, that was really neat! Good job.
Thank you so much for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it! The secret exits in 'grasp' and 'lucky' are there as a way to speed through the game once you're more confident with the controls. "Auto" is hard for a reason 😉 (all in the title)
I have an assist menu in the works that lets you control a bit more of how you play, including an easier movement mode, shadow choice and shadow settings. Sorry about the softlock btw but WOW, you reminded me I left a debug restart button in the game 🤣. I completely forgot about it and even wrote a more fleshed out version to a dedicated keyboard/controller bind after the uploads closed.
The game is very polished. The control is hard as they say, but it's doable. I don't think I can find the home secret athough the drawing in the end looked similar to a certain area at rooms (I may be wrong).
"Holding a direction and praying is probably a bad idea. " What about auto?
Thank you so so much for the compliment!
You're close! The secret you're looking for is actually in the level they send you to after the main ending :)
> What about auto?
Well that's not holding a direction now is it? 👀
Okay, I found the secret, but I got softlocked by the giant eye tops as well.
But
Welcome homeThis game has a TON of great qualities. The art, audio, level design, and core movement (build/lose momentum, turning, speed boosts) are all fantastic; I love the arrow shadow and the level names in the top left. The game feels a lot like golf with a spinning top, which is a fun premise!
However, (and I may be playing wrong) it seems like the only way to maintain spin is to hit walls, and that was not super fun for me. I found the optimal strategy was to run into a wall and then sharply rotate myself to keep smacking the same wall while traveling along it; this allowed me to travel long distances and find the goals, but it didn't feel great to do.
I would love to try a version of the game where, instead of hitting walls for momentum, there's actually a couple of those goal-spinners strategically placed around the map. Essentially changing your moment-to-moment goal from "what wall should I hit" to "what spinner should I hit." I absolutely ADORED the spinning goals and the way it built up my momentum; they're just tricky enough to get started and very satisfying to spin out of. If those were around the map, and I had to strategically conserve my momentum (and avoid walls/obstacles) to make it between each one, I think I'd have more fun. But also maybe I just want it to feel more like golf, which may be completely outside of your design philosophy xD
There's a really great game here, good luck if you continue to build upon it!
I'm glad you liked the presentation of the game, I really wanted to make sure it felt good!
Sorry you didn't enjoy the concept of hitting walls to build momentum, I did my best to make it feel good once you get used to the movement. My goal was to make a game where you don't need dedicated speed boosters to move faster, just your own choices and the walls around you. Speed boosters and even enemies that you could defeat for a speed-boost were a concept I had, but in the end I didn't have enough R&D time to incorporate those in an non-rushed way.
If it helps, a good way to gain speed & speed boosts is to try to keep your angle in such a way that is near-parallel to the wall you're bouncing off-of, then letting the speed boost go without input until you need to turn or need more speed. Once you get a good feel for that you can feel a lot more in-control.
I still have an assisted movement mode that makes it a lot easier to control that I'll drop as an option once the game jam uploads are unlocked. But thanks for playing and for the criticisms, I'll keep some of those ideas in mind :)
That gif is epic, so I'm clearly just whiffing the controls haha. I tried it again while trying to move parallel to the walls, and I'm happy to say that it was more enjoyable than my last attempt! I made it to the last corridor of "auto," (the 180-degree flips when hitting the walls in that room are bruuutal) which I'm pretty content with. Thank you for the extra guidance, I'd love to play again once the assisted movement mode is in!
All good, glad a second attempt was a bit more enjoyable for ya, I definitely should've introduced a more in-depth tutorial on what the goals for movement are.
"Auto" has a trick to it (in the title) but the assisted controls would also make it a lot easier 😅.
It is hard, as promised 😂 It's a great idea, but I will have to have another try in the evening with an actual controller, as my keyboard tries were unsuccessful. 😂 Loved the graphics and very fitting sounds and music!
Thanks for giving it a shot!
If you're still struggling and are willing to wait, I have an assisted movement option ready to go when the game-jam uploads are unlocked 👍
Awesome, thanks! Looking forward to try with that as well! :))
This is one of the best looking games I've played this jam so far! Great work with the aesthetics! The gameplay is fun too but I was a bit confused early on, so maybe a tutorial section would help.
Yeah the lack of a tutorial was definitely a scope-issue, I spent way too much time ironing out the movement before realizing I only had a few days left to implement the rest of the game. I would love to craft up a more fleshed-out tutorial once uploads are unlocked.
Thanks for compliments and thank you so much for playing!
Best game I played this jam, the art is so pretty and fits together perfectly, excellent use of theme too. Very fun, basically a 5/5 from me. Only thing is I didn’t immediately get that bouncing off walls give spin and how useful the brake button is, but that may very well be on me. Underrated entry, good stuff <3
I did not find the secret route btw :p
Omg a 5/5 is such a high compliment, thank you!
Yeah I forgot to teach that bouncing off walls was important to both building and maintaining speed haha and I'll be honest I often forget about braking myself during testing. The idea behind braking was that rotation speed is faster when you're slower, so if you could manually control your speed it could angle yourself faster.
(the secret route is hinted in the final note you get)
Hi! I've played trough your game and liked it very much!
I'm a sucker for this type of graphics.
The audio was fitting, but nothing too much.
It has some interesting lore buildup, but ultimately I didn't find any explanation :( Maybe I forgot to look somewhere?
The arrow shadow is very genius and subtle way to help the player orient.
A level selector (or at least a way to restart) would've been very useful! I got soft locked in the "home" level by the moving eye creature and had to restart from the beginning :/
A bonus for chaining super bounces would be nice too.
Overall this my new favorite game from this jam, I can see lot's of love was put into it :)
Maybe check out our game? It works right in the browser even on your phone :) https://blujuice.itch.io/tour-billion
Woah you made it home?! I think you're the first non-playtester to make it there! Congrats!!!
It's more of a 'up to your interpretation' ending for now, but I am considering a more-finished version with more info regarding our little UFO-ling.
I agree I wasn't a big fan of my music but it was all I could pump out in such short time, it used to be a single looping song the entire game at one point 🥴.
I'm super happy about the arrow shadow, I made it in attempts to help my wife understand the game better (didn't work lol). But I liked the idea so much I kept it in!
There are currently a few secret exits scattered in some the levels if you're willing to look (but since it's a game jam I'll just say they're in
grasp and lucky). And sorry about the soft-lock, I already have an update ready to go that addresses that and also adds an Retry button for any more hidden soft-locks I'm not aware of.Thank you so much for playing! 🙇