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A jam submission

Shell ShotView game page

Defend the oyster from crabs using your pearl shooting ability! Power up and earn the highest score possible!
Submitted by Kevin Johnston — 2 hours, 55 minutes before the deadline
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Shell Shot's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Sound#173.4293.429
Fun#243.2863.286
Overall#413.1143.114
Innovation#472.8572.857
Theme#603.1433.143
Art#682.8572.857

Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Neat game! The core mechanics are solid, and the sound effects are funny as others have mentioned.

My thoughts on specific parts of the game:

  • The artwork is pretty nice, but I would've liked more stylistic consistency. The sprites differed a lot in amount of shading, amount of detail, presence or absence of outlines, etc. Consistency can make even incidentally poor art feel like a conscious choice in art direction.
  • The sound effects are pretty loud (especially that spitting noise) and aren't universally applied. Would've loved SFX for UI and player/enemy movement. The ones that are there are pretty fun though.
  • The controls are good! The movement system is responsive enough to give you control but not so tight as to make dodging enemies trivial. I would suggest some sort of buffer for shooting though so that you can buffer a shot if the cooldown is just about over.
  • The gameplay mechanics are solid as aforementioned, but there isn't a whole lot to them. Once you've played the game for a couple minutes, you've seen all there is to it. Of course, it's a 3.5-day jam, but a full version of this game would do well to have more enemy variety, more upgrade variety, and some use of the shell theme beyond just visuals.

But all and all, solid stuff, especially given the time frame. Good work!

Developer

Thank you for playing and all the feedback. I’m glad you enjoyed the core mechanics and sounds. 
I will say that I did create everything except the music myself within the time slot. I had to draw, animate, voice and sound record as well as code everything. Not to mention the art just for the thumbnail and having to create the itch page and game trailer. Although my game seems simple, there are pages of notes before I started to code and pages of code within the project. And while I agree art consistency is key, I think that putting cutsie characters with somewhat realistic looking nature is widely accepted. Referring to my art as incidentally poor is just rude and not constructive by any means. I don’t claim to be or want to be an artist, but I prefer to draw my own things rather than take someone else from online. Thank you again for playing and feedback.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Wait, I did not mean to say YOUR art was incidentally poor! I'm really sorry for not being clear about that; I was just saying that in general consistency can help even a game with what might be considered poor art, not that I would describe the art in this particular project as bad. As I mentioned, I enjoyed the artwork (particularly the main character & the crab); just thought consistency would've further improved the game's artstyle.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for explaining that. Sorry for misreading or misunderstanding- I normally don't get defensive at all, but this review just came on strong as I was working as much as I could during the time frame. I apologize for taking it the wrong way, and I do really appreciate genuine constructive feedback.

Submitted(+1)

nice game, sound effects are fun haha

Developer

Thank you, I'm glad you liked the sounds! :)

Submitted(+1)

Simple & fun, nice work!

Developer

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed! :)

Submitted(+1)

Really fun little game, shooting pearls at crabs is way more satisfying than I expected lol. Love the art and sound effects too.

Developer

Thank you so much for the kind words and for playing! :) 

Submitted(+1)

I always love to see someone doing voiced sound effects for their own game!!! I did the same for this jam, and it's always so much fun. The gameplay was solid and fun to get the hang of. Great work and keep it up!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! I saw that you made everything yourself and forgot to give you kudos for that, so kudos! Thank you again for playing and the kind words.

Submitted(+1)

Great idea! I liked the addition of the extra upgrades to add a little more gameplay to it, also the sound effects were great I loved them lol. Awesome job!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! Really glad you like the sound effects, because I had a blast making them. Thank you for playing! 

Submitted(+1)

Very cool! The game reminded me a lot of Asteroids so it was kind of nostalgic because I played that with my dad growing up. I had a lot of fun playing it's a simple but addictive gameplay loop. 

Developer

Thank you! Asteroids was a huge inspiration for the movement system actually! Thank you and I’m glad you enjoyed it. :)

Submitted(+1)

A solid and funny game in every aspect. Congrats!

Developer

Thank you so much! :)

Submitted(+1)

LMAO the sound effects

Very similar to .io genre games (and ofc vampire survivors) but i think this was done very nicely. Nice job! :D

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the kind words! I loved doing the sounds for this one, they were a blast. Thank you for playing! :)

Submitted(+1)

Very cute :),  i love the sound effect for trying to shoot with no pearl xD. The movement felt a little weird, but once I got the hang of it it was really fun dodging the crabs (or failing to dodge lol). 

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you. Glad you noticed those; I had fun recording them. The movement is definitely tricky because I wanted to go for drifting underwater vibe, but I think it was a bit much. I'm glad you enjoyed it once you got the hang of it. Thank you for feedback and playing! 

Submitted(+1)

love it, reminds me of that tank .io game. Great!

Developer

Thank you for the kind words and for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Final Score: 1650!
This game was a bit frustrating initially but after getting used to the controls I felt like I was getting the hang of it. The simple design choice of preventing you from constantly shooting and only being able to shoot in the direction you look actually made the push and pull of the loop really nail biting. Also the sound made me chuckle great work!

Developer (1 edit)

Great score! It definitely has a learning curve for the controls, and I will continue to think of ways to improve upon the movement. Thank you for playing and the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

The controls feel weird but overall fun

Developer

Thank you for playing and I’m glad it was fun overall!