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Ball Knight's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #2 | 4.472 | 4.472 |
| Overall | #11 | 3.861 | 3.861 |
| Theme | #16 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Audio | #25 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Fun | #26 | 3.722 | 3.722 |
| Graphics | #30 | 4.111 | 4.111 |
| Accessibility | #32 | 3.278 | 3.278 |
| Controls | #48 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
Ranked from 36 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.7
Theme Interpretation
It's inspired by a retro game (Breakout), and it has retro graphics and audio.
Wildcards Used
M is for Mega
Include something disproportionately large
Cartography
Have a map of your world
Discord Username(s)
OgelGames
GWJ Participation Level
This is my first GWJ, but not my first game jam.
Team Size
I'm a solo game dev.
Generative AI Disclosure
I confirm that this jam entry does not contain any AI-generated content
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Comments
I love this game! The really tiny sprites and the music both fit the game super well. It was a fun challenge to try to avoid all the enemy bullets while also trying to get the ball to go where I wanted it to! I do think having more control of the ball would be nice since it was a bit tedious to clean up the last few blocks sometimes. Maybe by making the bounce direction at least partially influenced to the player's aiming direction instead of pure reflection or something (wouldn't want to make it too easy). I'm also still not sure what all of the stats on the left side of the screen do lol. I ended up winning on the last level because I had two stacks of mitosis, and not all of the balls got cleared out after I beat a room, and then I bought a third mitosis at a shop - that made the balls multiply exponentially and lag the game super hard until it told me I had beaten the big square XD But it was so fun I played through it again and beat it legitimately.
Great work!
This is brilliant! I love the palette you used. The game looks and feels very polished - pretty impressive for a solo endeavour.
this game is really cool and a great original concept! for me it was extremely difficult to have any control whatsoever over the ball, unless i trapped it in a corner/against blocks with my paddle, which definitely seemed to be the best strategy. it was also how i killed the boss which happened in probably less than a second. i liked being able to pick up items that increased my stats but i had no idea what each of the stats did and there didn't seem to be any difference no matter how they changed. the graphics and audio were great and the gameplay was fun despite my issues with it. great job!
There are a lot of things going on here, but let me tell you what I liked the most:
There is clearly a lot of work behind this game. Great job!
great contribution! I love the mishmash of retro genres that creates something fresh. would love to see it more fleshed out into a proper roguelik/te. BUT: it sucks to play with an old thinkpad mousepad :))
What a great game! I love the dynamic of having dungeon crawling plus classical retro game.
This is so fun but oh my god I'm so bad
This was a very clever concept. It had the vibe of a good PICO-8 game. I did run into a bug where I managed to sneak out of bounds and couldn't get back in, but thankfully I wasn't too deep in when it happened.
A really cool and clever concept, that I'm surprisingly bad at. I'm always surprised how some gamejam games manage to expose my flaws.
It's really cool tho. And you are a solo dev? And it's your first gamejam? No way
Solo dev yes, but not my first game jam, just my first Godot Wild Jam.
I just had an interesting idea for the game! Of course, it's just an idea; something for you to experiment with:
The breakout ball can now damage both you and the enemies. The enemies also slowly spawn more breakout balls into the game, instead of the bullet pellets it does now.
That's it! A relatively small change that could make the game feel a lot more intense. Your paddle becomes both your offense and defense, and the sheer number of balls at the end of any level will probably take care of stray enemies. What do you think?
I feel like that could get chaotic very quickly, but it's an interesting idea. I could also add an item that turns your paddle into a shield.
This one nailed the retro style. I really loved the visuals and the music. The concept is pretty fun and I liked playing it a lot!
Very nice! Very retro, and a cool mishmash of retro games. I just wished there was a faster way of clearing out that last remaining block.
Thanks! Yeah, few people have mentioned that, it's at the top of my list of things to improve post-jam.
I beat the big square!! really fun game I loved upgrading and seeing my character get stronger. A few nitpicks: I will say it can be a bit boring to get the last few blocks in a room. Also I was not sure if I was doing damage to the final boss because there was no visual feedback for the hits. But overall great job!
Thanks! There should have been a boss bar, but it can get covered up if the drop item prompt gets stuck. I did forget to add the hit feedback though, like the other enemies have.
Really great job! This nails the retro theme while also feeling fresh and new. Having to dodge the bullets and aim the ball bounces is brilliant. It is tricky to master, and destroying the final few blocks in the room can feel kinda like a slog, but still super fun overall and the right amount of challenging
Really nice concept, well executed
The instructions/controls hiding the upper part of the screen are quite annoying though, especially during fights (it hides the upper line of bricks) but that's the only weakness I have seen
Yeah, I think that might be the worst bug out of the 11 I've found so far.
Really cool concept and the art is amazing.
Great job!
I enjoyed watching your progress updates in Discord and was excited to try this! Great job. Combining the classic breakout with a lil dungeon game is very original! It did feel a tad slow with only one ball. The early rooms took a while try to hit the final corner block for a while.
Overall well done. This was fun to play,
Very polished and interesting idea ! I have to admit it took me a bit of time to realize I had to hover an item with the mouse before I could interact with it, I was trying to get close to it and press 'E' :D
I also had the feeling I was chasing after the ball at times, especially at then end of the fights when the enemy blocks are more sparse. Maybe having the ball rebound exactly in the direction of the mouse cursor would make its move more predictable and makes it easier to clear the enemy blocks ? or some kind of comb bonus where the ball gets faster each time it bounces on the knight
Really cool game! I like the art and concept!
Awesome concept! I too looked for you directly because of the progress screenshots you sent on discord. To be frank, I found the game a little frustrating at times. It felt like I was trying to chase the ball around instead of really wielding it as a weapon. There was also a bug that made "press Q to drop" stay on screen permanently after hovering over some of the items I had (I think it happened when I was moving while hovering over the item with my mouse). Despite that, I still love the mashup. Some sort of redesign to fix the feeling of "chasing the ball", and this could genuinely become one of my favorite roguelikes.
Thank you! Yes, I was worried the gameplay might be a bit frustrating, and it could definitely be improved. Perhaps I could "rig" the physics in the player's favor, like how arcade racing games don't have realistic driving physics to make driving more fun.
Oh yes! There are so many interesting ways in which the physics could be tweaked. Perhaps the ball gravitates towards the player if it's close enough? I don't know. You'd have to experiment!