Play The Very Cool Game
Space Sonata's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #2 | 4.350 | 4.350 |
| Mechanics | #4 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Overall | #6 | 3.570 | 3.570 |
| Fun | #8 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Sound | #8 | 3.300 | 3.300 |
| Art | #21 | 2.850 | 2.850 |
Ranked from 20 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?
It's all about a sentient ai preventing asteroids from being absorbed in black holes (singularity)
What Game Engine did you use to make this game?
Godot
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Comments
Playtime: 15min
Difficulty: Medium to Hard
Complexity: Low
Nice phat bass slapping beat! I got an P rank on 4 levels until my allotted review time ran out. Maybe some day I might finish it to see what P rank shows on the final level. XD
This game has potential to enable controller support and power-ups. Personally I could place this in my collection of Geometry Wars.
Troubleshooting: In the background it makes 1000's of requests for PNGs from "blob:https://html-classic.itch.zone/" and this may be the a cause for the performance issue. I am not sure what the root cause is, but as a community we surely can figure it out.
Great game! Took me longer than I'd like admit to beat this game(I didn't beat the last level though because I refreshed the browser) but I did manage to p two levels
Gg, this is quite a bit harder than planned so congrats and thanks for playing the game
Finally got to play the game by the famous seldon. Very challenging indeed. Expecially with not so good mouse reading base, lol. Will play it later again. the game is simple but so good.
Ahahaha thanks a lot
Yes it is quite a bit more hard than planned but we'll get that fixed for the postjam jam
thanks for the review and really glad you liked it :>
Very nice game! Personally I found it incredibly challenging with my sweaty ahh hands so I couldn't beat the final two levels, but the game is very well done!
I do want to point out that despite being called a rhythm game, there's not much for rhythm in the gameplay, but otherwise it's a very fun, simple game that's perfectly game-jam coded!
Yeah the rythm part is there especially in the last level but we need to improve on it
The game is supposed to be hard but maybe we made it a bit too hard
Thanks for the review :)
I kinda have trouble talking about games like these, because they are not bad so I can't complain but also there isn't anything super extraordinary that I can glaze, so feedback becomes hard to land on.
obviously would like to note that I did enjoy the game, the theme usage is clear and simple but the gameplay is fun enough to aid the simplicity. the art and audio are fine. not much to say about them, they both fit the game fairly well and the game is decently pact with stuff.
I think my only major complaint is the difficulty. I think the asteroids going offscreen is annoying because a big part of the game is well, looking at the asteroids and what type they are. I think the green ones suffer from this the most, I've had many green rocks fly across my screen before I could react which became really punishing when multiple started to swarm. Now obviously this isn't a super hard fix and yk it is a game jam not gonna get that upset over game balance but I would just like to point it out.
everything else is solid I don't got much else to say about it. keep up all the cool work!
Thanks for the happy?? review
I think if you zoom out the asteroids spawning offscreen is not a problem but understandable
The game was made to be hard but the balancing could have been better i guess
thanks for the review, i hope you liked the variety of content and music
Oh I was trying to lock in with the track pad, I glossed over the zooming thing I'm crying
oh yeah playing with the trakpad must have been a bit hard
the concept is pretty cool, this would make for a very awesome rhythm based game
ohhh punduch made that i wasn't even aware that could happen gg
does that um... matter?
Awesome submission! Destroying the asteroids was very satisfying. The movement mechanics of them were done well too. The only critique is maybe locking the camera to center rather than following the player. That part felt a bit jarring at times.
Nice job!
Thank you, we wanted the camera to be a bit responsive but i understand
It was fun!
Perhaps a few too many levels though, as the gameplay was generally the same across all of them.
I liked the green and red asteroids the best because those felt like they were actually in time with the music sometimes, the other ones just felt kind of bad when you missed them.
The music was a bit dissonant and repetitive at times and not really in sync with the obstacles, so while i think you guys made a lot of content, I would have probably preferred it with half the content at some more polish (especially music and art).
Good job!! Definetely one of the top contenders in terms of fun so far:D
EDIT:
Omg you guys also had an excellent tutorial. Really good job on that one! Though… I guess you could perhaps have explained yellow and green less, since people would have figured that out themselves. But i liked the format because I had something to do while the text was there:D
Hey, i feel like the levels are different enough by their section, the big ahhh comments resume it pretty well and it's also nice to have content i feel like
I do understand the music being repetitive but to me it helps go into flow state to manage asteroids better
I do understand wanting less content and more polish but to be fair it would've been hard to do it that way since less music/levels does not mean us (dev) got more time since composition and dev were entirely separate person
thanks a lot for the review anyway,, your game was hella fun too
and thanks for the tutorial
love the idea of a black hole going critical!! had a tonne of fun defending the universe (and failing a bunch, sorry guys) amazing work!! fits the theme amazingly well, the music is also such a good listen!! was jamming along the whole time
very cool game, The mechanics and theme fit perfectly.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed :>
thanks a lot, happy to see you liked it
I'm making a more in-depth review here just because I really enjoyed the mechanics, gameplay loop, and the music. There are a lot of thoughts in my mind, and it was really hard to structure... Take everything I said below as if I didn't consider too much of it as a jam game. If you add that back in its good.
Gameplay Loop
It's well made with the simple premise and thematics of trying to prevent a blackhole from going critical. That lends nicely into objects (asteroids) falling into it, and blocking them is the main core of the game. It's solid with the steering not being too immediate/fast, but responsive enough to have that control.
The one thing I noticed that struck me on this topic, is... the lack of clicking. I'm not saying its a bad thing and it kind of gave the game an easy onboarding, but its really funny a rhythm / timing game w/o the actual rhythm clicking. Its a really hidden but strong strength the game has. I'm still on the fence if having clicking mechanics is even a good or bad thing the game should have (like: clicking when the asteroid hits gets you bonus score, or certain asteroids require it), since I feel like the constraint is what breeded some creativity, and going further with the constraint would be even more beneficial. (Edit: yeah after going through Last Singularity a couple times, I don't think adding click timing in base would be a good idea, its a bit too hectic).
Overall, solid and has a surprising easy onboarding.
Variety and Level Design
From there its really easy to expand from existing concepts, theres the slightly tricky to track yellows, the avoid to hit reds, and the very tricky to follow greens. Each of the variants is solid in giving the game distinct modes on you should approach them. Greens especially breaks up the pattern of only caring what's closest, and requires the player to be aware both near and far to the blackhole, which is well done. The asteroids themselves have a bit of character as some are big some are small some are fast and some are slow. Some pop out far while others is close and that's enough to make it hard to tell the exact path which is nice.
Random stuff
The main menu music can be... better, its a bit chaotic disoriented for my taste, and the intro sound (the thing you hear every time the game puts you back in the main menu) is jarring.
Yeah the game end screen was triggered to early.
The little text on the bottom is fine, and i like the little shake it does, a better indicator would've have the blackhole change dynamically in some capacity (I expected it to grow and shrink), but its okay and the relief on seeing the green "Core stabilized" put me at ease, while locking in when it does fail.
The asteroid sound was nice.
There is a weird dissonance with the pixel and realistic assets, not a bad thing but the only one I feel like should be realistic is the rotating thingy.
The Covers were okay, can be better.
The effect of the shield is a nice touch.
The deadzone was a good touch actually, it prevented the player from camping at the black hole since less mouse distance = more responsiveness, and you have to physically turn around the blackhole to do it well.
Specific Music and Levels
Neru's Kingdom
Oh My! - the level is not bad, hitting with the reds at the start and a general mix of asteroids is okay. The music, is not bad, not great, and I feel like a call-response structure would make it okay as the first level.
Cytoplasm - Starts of withe oms asteroid - red hits, and then really introduces greens... at the last part lmao as a teaser to the next level. The music funky I like the vibe, its fine and serves its purpose.
Fall Empire - The greens here were tricky but its not bad. The main instrument though was... something lmao, its goofy but a bit off...
Sticky Eyes - This is where I see the game starting to pick up and died a couple here. Its short and sweet with the knowledge and preparation of the greens and with a really nice red section. From here the music starts to pick up and a lot more well spread out for a lack of a better term in "placement".
Purple's Adventure
Tutorial - Not bad in introducing the mechanics, the color coding was clear and got time to at least see the telltales and movements on each one. The music is solid for something basic and what I thought ish the starting levels would be at.
Stellar Ballad - This is when the major colors really shine and while you have your greens and reds, this was when the yellows start really being difficult which was nice to see. For the music, its really nice and probably my favorite in terms of composition, with especially the middle part allows the keys to evolve out. The only thing that was off is in the flute and the main backing not working with each other, but how everything is placed with the musical ideas, its really close to being really good, and only missing in evolving certain "motifs" or proper mixing/layering. Nice.
Spacetime Rift - Really a nice calm before the storm track and it was so nice to finally get a SS then a P, its nice and good, nothing much. The music is my favorite in terms of atmosphere and everything just feels like its building up, and once those keys came in, eargasm. Solid.
Last Singularity - Best one of course I could tell with the effort. DYNAMICALLY CHANGING COLORS FOR EACH SECTION was so nice and really aaa. This is where you are really tested and I only got into A at most. The music is solid and takes well with the music ideas with what it introduces and runs with them, that eguitar and those break like drums really nice. The sections are such an experience and yeah it is the best. Be proud of this one. (EDIT: GOT AN S LETS GOOO).
Specific Sections: The red sections were pure dopamine, you get insane combo and the main danger are the big ones. Grey-Yellow, these are by far the hardest, and really tests your skill in predicting which one is first and tells where you position. Green - These are calm ish but precisely deadly, it acts as a semi break from the hard hitters but its a different kind of difficulty that demand the player to be precise.
Overall well made yall, this is probably the most I spent in a jam comment review, and yeah. I liked the game.
First of all i can't thank you enough for this review, i read it thoroughly and it makes some really great points. I wouldn't have tought anyone would put that much effort into our game X)
Now for some answers and fun fact there were actually 2 more asteroid types planned but we didn't have enough time, blue ones that you would need to hit twice and comets who would act as long notes like in OSU
Thanks for noticing everything really it makes me really proud and happy
I agree with the main music but at some point we were limited in time for new music which is why i added a setting specifically for main menu music
the core stabilized and critical mass was actually the last feature implemented and we couldn't really test it a lot so i'm glad it was fun
for the pixel art dissonance, it was voluntary for the mouse and player to make them stand out a bit as for the covers /ui our artist couldn't do something else than pixel art so that's why we went for it despite the change in art style
We tought about making the asteroid grow and shrink but it would've been too much effort for how much it added to the game, it might had been too confusing for the player too
i feel like the deadzone should've been an option but glad you liked it
for the specific level designs i didn't do the composition nor the level design so i can't answer as much but i'm really really happy for all you said, purple said that got her tears
Thanks a lot and gg for getting S in last singularity, that thing is hard, only punduch the other dev managed to P rank it
THANK YOU SO MUCHHHH, it was actual pure dopamine reading how all of the asteroid types, song charts and visuals that I spent so much time designing and coding made you enjoy the game more!
Honestly really nice feedback! Seldon already answered everything so I'm not going to do it again. Hope you can get a P rank on last singularity! (Its very very hard, but I somehow did it, so you should too)
Oh actually Seldon didn't really answer about level designs, well I'm going to since I charted all of the songs the day before the submission lol
I pretty much fully agree on how you identified the functions of the asteroids - it is exactly how I've chose to use them! Ones that I'm not so sure about are the grey ones (regular asteroids), from my point of view yellow/green asteroids are much harder and while regular asteroids sections may appear harder its probably because I used them in much much higher quantities. Outside of that I would still pretty much put them on the same level as Red asteroids... but that also changes from level to level.
I'm really happy that you noted the dynamic colors in last singularity! I thought it would be a very nice change for once, it was worth spending my time on that in the end it seems.
As Seldon said in his comment, we were planning to add a lot more time and from all the downsides you've mentioned it was just out ways of distributing work and pumping into the game as much as we can for this gamejam!
We might continue developing it? idk ;P
peak review :3
I think my one hindrance is the blocker not moving when going through the black hole. I love the sound effects and overall very fun to play. if you play a couple times you get the gist and gets more enjoyable. after doing a perfect tutorial I can't seem to unlock the other levels in purple's adventure though. Maybe I'm not navigating correctly.
Yeah you first need to complete the other album fully!
Sorry if the progression is a bit weird lol, but I'm glad you liked it!
Hope you can try out more levels, there was a lot of effort put into them after all.
glad you liked it, the blocker thing was added after playtest but in retrospect it should've been an option
Ah! okay, the initial map after tutorial was pretty hard for me, but once that was done the proceeding ones felt almost easier. this was fun!
Yayyy! Yeah the difficulty spikes are all over the place, I had to rush charting the songs quite a bit, so we didn't really have time to adjust the progression, but for what it was worth I think it turned out pretty good!
Whew, fast paced! Really well polished, the one pain point for me was the deadzone when the cursor passed over the blackhole, but that may well just be a skill issue lol.
There wasn't but playtesters wanted me to add that, maybe it should've been an option X). Glad you liked it tho
Great execution! Thank you.
The one thing I can comment is that the view of the black hole makes it easier to see when asteroids are coming from the sides. But if they come from up/down the visibility is lower and it's much more difficult. I'm not exactly sure how that could be handled... The naive solution would be to zoom out - that may decrease the difficulty however. The other option is to make the view round too? I guess it would also be zoomed out but that way the visibility would be the same in all directions (360 degrees). Anyways, the game is great as it is.
yeah that was indeed a problem, that's why we allow the player to zoom out as you said, we also make the asteroids hit sides more often as the angles aren't random. We use that to manage the difficulty better so i guess it's fine
thanks for the review :)
Oh, that's awesome!
One more thing - the tutorial is on page "Purple Adventure" but the first level is on the page to the left. It's a bit confusing. Ideally they would be in the same page. Or you can also just make it clear where to go after the tutorial.
that is fair, we wanted to have one campaign per composer but yeah it ended up a bit weird that's true
I didnt expect to see a rythm game here ngl, really creative
thank you, we had 2 composers on the team so we wanted to make a rythm game, i think it turned out great :)
It really did!
This could be a pretty solid mobile game - single control, twitch reflexes, plenty of content. The scoring needs a little more juice, think DDR combo meter!
Hey thanks for the review, we're pretty happy with what we did but yeah it could be a nice addition to juice up the scoring system