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Duplexity's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #696 | 3.881 | 3.881 |
| Audio | #1005 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Creativity | #1276 | 3.952 | 3.952 |
| Artwork | #2904 | 3.452 | 3.452 |
| Narrative | #7959 | 1.857 | 1.857 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
The score counts down instead of up. The targets also have a timer which counts down.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Mechanical Plastic Click 04 by SmallConfusion -- https://freesound.org/s/751082/
Decline Buzz/Beep by TannerSound -- https://freesound.org/s/478262/
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Frank
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Comments
Neat take on pinball. Couldn't make it past 6.
I felt like the theme addition really worked against the game here. The timer on the targets was way too strict. There often wasn't even enough time to get the ball to the next one unless randomly just bouncing around in ridiculous mach speeds. And it felt really unrewarding that missing the target due to bad rng, you punish by taking away progress. All too often I made it to somewhere like 7 and then got hit by a string of bad luck and slowly regressed back to 10 without really actually failing. It's like if Dark Souls every time you died it put you back always one bonfire back instead of the one you rested at previously.
I'd say the timer could at least be doubled. Maybe it could get faster towards the end though. And the punishment negative score could be limited to just one from your max so you wouldn't constantly be fighting this tug of war against rng.
I also feel like the gaps between the bounce pads and the lower paddle were too wide. Classic pinballs of course have that same gap (in the middle too though it's very rare) but they have those safety pushups there for a reason. There were a bunch of times when even the initial spawn was something that would lead to failure with nothing you could do about it. Obviously that wasn't a huge issue as there was nothing but few seconds lost there but still annoying. More curated spawn points might be a better way to go instead of full random.
The game looked and sounded great! Really simple and clean yet stylistic look. Liked how you managed to do a lot by very little and accomplish a cohesive looking style. The music was chill and great, fit the mood very nicely. Sounds were top notch too. Really liked the sounds/confetti on the personal record, felt nice and rewarding! I felt like there was a missing sound effect on ball hitting the paddles. Seemed odd that it was completely silent while bouncing to anywhere else made a sound.
Couldn't play full screen as my mouse cursor was offset there by a lot. I think you're running some weird calculations relying on specific aspect ratio. Also something funky going on in the leaderboards name entry. At first it somehow glitched for me. The cursor was blinking on the input but it didn't accept any letter presses to it. Started working again after a full refresh though.
Anyways, good job! 🎉👍
First off, thank you so much for taking the time to write this critique. I'm still working on the project (it's a delight to work on and I have tons of ideas), and that kind of comment is super valuable. I do have some questions though.
Hitting a target lowers the score, and then the next target, if its timer runs out, increases the score once. There is actually no way to regress back multiple times like in your exemple, from 7 to 10... Unless I've missed a bug somewhere? But honestly I don't feel like I would have missed a detail that obvious and important.
Increasing the timer and making it stricter as your score lowers down is a good idea. I like that.
As for the fullscreen issue. What is your monitor size? I'll have to fix that up for sure.
It's probably not screen size but the ratio. I'm on ultra wide. Game itself looks file but just all the click spots etc are offset to left by 500 pixels or so.
Tried to replicate that regression issue but didn't manage to do so. Maybe I was just hallucinating and was constantly just not making it past 9. Or if it's a bug, it's a rather rare one. But did manage to improve my top score though (twice). Kinda sucks that the game doesn't recognize looping around as better score than 0.
Had to go for another run with an intentional death to get a leaderboards spot...
Another thing that would improve the experience would be to lower the death area. There can be situations where you still have it on the bottom paddle and could save it but the y-axis being too near the edge, it just counts as a loss. Doesn't feel great.
Oh yeah, the left and right edges too! At least when playing not full screen, moving the mouse off the screen doesn't update the mouse spot accordingly but just kinda remembers the last spot often leaving a gap there. Gotta be real careful to stay inside the window.
I definitely did not consider ultra-wide monitors. I'll have to fix these issues for sure, thanks a lot.
I love that you took a video. You totally got the hang of it now it appears.
Genuine question: did you notice what the score updated to when you hit a target when you were at 0?
Edit: PS: You're the very first person other than me to get a score of 0!
Yeah, it looped back to 11 and started counting down from there again. So basically it should have been a score of -7 on leaderboards 😅
Did trying to lock-in a score of 11 not cross your mind? Or maybe it did but you didn't feel it was worth the effort of trying again? This is very good insight.
Not at 11 (wouldn't the be the very last spot though) but did try after failing at 5 there but it did not accept the score probably because my top score was "a better" 4.
Interesting! Getting a score of 11 (or higher) is how you "beat" the game. I should make that more obvious.
Thank you again for all the replies, this has been very helpful.
Yup, absolutely wasn't clear that was the goal. As normally lower scores were better...
And there we have it! 🎉 Kinda sucks that you have to intentionally lose to score...
WHOA this was a slick submission !! what a fun unique simple gameplay mechanic, the ui is great, the smoothness, effects, polish, sound all great ! nice job :D
Thank you very much !
This was a fun little game. I like the visuals and the simple, yet surprisingly difficult gameplay.
Such an enticing little game, which appears simple in its controls but is nuanced in the way the physics interact with each other, you've got so much out of such a small concept, which speaks volumes about a game designer. The leaderboards add so much to the replayability, too.
This game is really addicting, one of my favorites so far! Simple but very satisfying, this did an excellent job of making me feel like I was pulling off some really cool moves when it was probably luck most of the time. The mismatched movement of the paddles was really interesting too, there was many times I messed myself up trying to do something with the other paddle. I feel like the simple art style worked really well for this type of game as well!
I do think I found a bug, in some rounds the score counter would count back up when a timer hit zero, but other times it didn't. Not sure what I was doing differently to cause that to appear, it also changed mid-run sometimes. Overall though, I had a ton of fun with this one, great work!
Thank you so much! This is not a bug, the targets timers only increase the score when it is less than 10. Otherwise you would easily be able to reach score 11..!
I definitely had this happen in the lower numbers, on one of my first few runs the count up didn't happen at all until I hit zero. I wasn't going quick either, the timers definitely ran out. I was really surprised when it went back up to 1 on that run because I hadn't seen that yet and assumed it was a sort of "final boss" of the game, but then in my subsequent runs the same didn't always happen! No idea what I was doing that broke it.
Still had a ton of fun with it though, just letting you know in case you plan to work on this again after the jam!
Interesting, I'll definitely check this out. Thanks for letting me know!
This game is really difficult but I really like it. I only ever gotten to 8 and I have to give up.
Graphics is clean and audio is satisfying to listen to. The physics feels hard to control but it's not unfair. Great game
Thank you so much. Yes, it really is difficult! You do get used to the controls after a while but it does take some time.
noooo I was on 0 and it went back to 1 and then i died
it feels so eevvil but addicting at the same time, really enjoyed it,
only on rare occasions at the start the ball spawned so that right at the start i falls directly trough the gaps and i think i only had once a target spawn below the lower platform but that didnt really bother me based on how fast you can restart. ITS really fun and i think ill play again to get that 1# because being on 0 and then falling back to 1 is so aaaaa it could have been me xD
Oh nooo !! I just want to say, I don't want to spoil anything but I can say with confidence you that it did not go back to 1!Try again and you'll see. Something great will happen, you can trust me :)
Edit: Whoops. I misunderstood. It went back to 1 because of the target timer right? I incorrectly read that you hit a target at 0 and it went back to 1.
yeah the timer ran out when i was on score 0 so it went back to 1 ;-;
when i drop the ball at 0 before the timer runs out will it be score 0 too ?
Yes it will :)
My monkey brain can't really deal with this but It's so well put together, lovely stuff!
Thank you so much! It is indeed very challenging at first.
this is such a cool concept and made so well!!
One of the best games in execution! loved the leaderboard (I did one too) juicy gameplay!
Thank you! Hell yeah, leaderboards do add a little something special to a game.
This is peak, very entertaining and quite an original one. I was expecting a flipper or something at first, turns out this game is much better. Scoring points here takes a lot of skill. Awesome game really. Couldn't make it past 7 tho
That's very kind of you. What made you expect a flipper game? The thumbnail probably?
Yes the thumbnail and the description mentioning "two paddles one ball"
Ah yes, of course. It does legit have some similarities with the flippers too.
I actually love this, I got my highest score 5 on my first game and tried to so hard to beat it. Visuals and music and sfx are perfect and controls are weird and interesting in the best way. Nice one!
Thank you so much!
Super hard game but it's definitely super fun! Feels like a simple mechanic but used quite well to make a nice gameplay loop. Great job!
It is indeed pretty challenging (at first!). Thank you :)
Back to play again! Love it!
Thank you so much! Do you mean you came back to play again?
YES! I really like it
Well, this just made my day! How low of a score did you get?
7 :l But I find it really fun I will probably be back lol
The hardest game I played so far for this game jam. It is quite discombobulating, nothing to criticize here.
It is indeed pretty hard at first! I hope you got some enjoyment out of it though !
This game is quite difficult but once you get the hang of it it becomes quite fun! Good game :]
Exactly! Thank you :)
Damn this game was hard, but I am persistent and even though I spent like 30 minutes on this game, every minute was worth it. Very great game!!!
30 minutes! That's a lot , considering the context of the jam. Thank you so much! How low did you get?
I was hard stuck trying to get a good score for a while. I ended up getting 11 and am one of two people on the elite leaderboard. It was really fun, even though it was the same gameplay the whole time!!
That other person is me. You are the very first person that beat the game!
I’m adding new effects to the game as we speak. I have a ton of ideas and the development is really really fun. I’ll let you know when I update the game if you want. I might release it on Steam.
Anyway. Congrats on reaching the elite leaderboard!
(ps: you can get even better than 11…)
Yea please let me know the game was pretty addicting!!
Love the artworks. It was super challenging! :D
Good job! :)
Thank you!
Oh yeah! Love the asynchronic (dont know if thats the right word) paddles, and the fact that you can gently guide the ball on the paddle or yeet it into stratosphere with mouse movement.
I think the word you're looking for is asymmetric movements, maybe? Anyway, thank you a lot. Nice job getting 6th on the leaderboard!
When I discovered that you can change the color in the background when you press space, I kept pressing it. Simple game but addicting, great job, keep it up
Whoops..! Completely forgot to remove that debug feature. Oh well!