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Looking for general feedback on spirals v1.1

A topic by hiki☆/HIKIRO created 11 days ago Views: 193 Replies: 9
Viewing posts 1 to 4
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Me and a friend (shoutout Pixelator for most of the art) worked on this game originally for the Very Serious Juniper Dev Game Jam, but we missed the submission due to the server crashes, so we ended up releasing it a bit later with some bug fixes. Today we released v1.1, which added some new content and fixed a big amount of bugs. I'd say I'm personally happy with my end of work now, but I'd love feedback on our game. Whether it's the music, the wheel system, the difficulty, the map design etc etc, I'd love some feedback for any future projects I work on!

You can give it a play here: https://confused-jellyfish.itch.io/spirals

(+1)

Hi! Enjoyed playing through the build—the hack-and-slash mechanic feels really satisfying to play!

A couple of quick playtest notes for you:
1. It’d be great to have a separate SFX volume control in the options menu since the attack sound effect is currently a bit loud.

2. The DevTools console throws a minor uncaught screen.orientation.lock() error on desktop startup—wrapping orientation locking in a feature check will clear that up.

Logged everything in a Notion QA report if you ever want the full breakdown! Looking forward to seeing future updates!

(+1)

Thank you so much for the detailed playtest notes — really glad to hear the hack‑and‑slash feels satisfying!!

A separate SFX volume slider is definitely on my list; a few players have mentioned the attack sound being loud, so it’s super helpful to have that confirmed. And thanks for pointing out the screen.orientation.lock() error — I’ll wrap that in a feature check so desktop builds stop throwing it. Also THANK YOU for the Notion QA report- If you're comfortable with sharing it we'd love to take a look!

Really appreciate you taking the time to dig into the build - I plan to make a new update soon enough, but we're both VERY busy on a seperate project so it might take a little time.

(+1)

That’s great to hear! Here’s the link to the full Notion QA report:

🔗 https://artistic-manicure-660.notion.site/Spirals-3e5c9a246e9582b288a781c4a22ca6...

Good luck with your other project! Whenever you get around to updating this build, just let me know and I'll check it out again.

Thank you SO much for sharing the full report — this is unbelievably helpful!

The level of detail you put into this is incredible. We really appreciate you taking the time to dig into even the tiniest of details so thoroughly!

We’ll go through everything you logged and use it to help shape the next update. Some of the issues you found are things we definitely wouldn’t have caught on our own, so this is genuinely valuable.

Thank you again for taking Spirals seriously enough to make a whole QA document — that means a lot to us. As stated previously, we are very busy right now with another project, but this should hopefully make the update come out even faster than expected!

(+2)

Thanks for the kind words—that really means a lot to hear!

I’m glad the report was useful and that it’ll help speed up the next update! I really enjoyed digging into the build and testing out the mechanics.

Absolutely no worries about the timeline—good luck with your other project! Whenever you do drop the new update for Spirals, feel free to reach out or ping me. I’d love to take another QA pass for you.

The music and SFX are pretty good, and the movement and slashing work well. However, some technical issues and design choices made it frustrating to play over time:

Technical issues:

  • The audio volume was very inconsistent, to a point where after a spin I could barely hear anything and after another it was painfully loud. I don't know if you're familliar with this or not, but it happened quite a lot.
  • If you stand too close to an enemy it can damage you way too quickly. I lost about 1/4 of my HP in a split second during the boss fight because of one small enemy. An invincibility window after taking damage would help a lot.
  • In one of my spins the character became invisible (just a minor bug)

Design:

  • I don't like the idea of making the player weaker/slower knowing that there is a boss waiting at the end of the run. At some point if I had my damage halved I just refreshed the page and started all over.
  • There is no incentive to explore and kill enemies (unless I missed something entirely). Once I realized it didn't matter I got to the boss in a minute or two.

Overall there is a good foundation here, just needs some work with those points.

P.S the Juniper game jam was an absolute banger

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed breakdown — this kind of feedback is honestly super helpful!

Really glad to hear the movement and slashing felt good, and I appreciate you pointing out the audio inconsistency. We’ve had a few players mention volume spikes (and I've kind of noticed it myself lol), so we’ll be revisiting the SFX mixing and adding proper volume controls in a future update.

The damage‑tick issue is also on our radar - I accidentally shortened the invincibility window at some point and forgot to extend it again, so I plan to extend it at some point.

The invisible‑character bug is one we’ve seen once or twice, so thank you for confirming it still happens.

As for the design notes: totally fair! The wheel’s negative effects are meant to add chaos, but the I've personally noticed getting a debuff before the boss definitely kills off some of the fun. We’re experimenting with ways to make exploration more rewarding and to make negative spins feel less like a “run killer.”

Also — I played your game you made for the Juniper jam and it was genuinely my favorite one out of the entire jam.  The vibe of the game show and the minigames have still stuck with me for a while. It’s really cool seeing someone whose game I loved also take the time to give such thoughtful feedback on Spirals.

Thank you again for the critique — there’s a lot here we can use to strengthen the next update. We’re currently busy with another, much larger project, so changes might take a little time, but this kind of feedback really helps us move in the right direction.

Hello Hiki, I've just played Spirals and enjoyed it overall. I agree with the previous points and comments, but I'll add one: are you supposed to be able to pick up / interact with the magnifying glass/ question mark icons on the map? Because I expected to be able to pick up objects or interact with other things than the green monsters, but the E key had no effect, no matter where I positioned the character. I really felt that I was missing something... are these upgrades for your ability/weapon? I died during my first play not finishing the 3 levels, but I got to the boss and killed it during my second go. Is this the end of the game for now? During my first go I ended up in a corridor filled with the green monsters and couldn't slash them all 😅 Are the maps generated randomly? Anyway it was a fun moment, but I wish there was a bit more at stake in terms of story ;-)

(+1)

Thank you so much for playing!!

The magnifying glass / question‑mark objects (which is a tie and lollipop, for... some reason. Not sure what game jam me was thinking) were originally meant to be interactable items (armour and healing items), but we didn’t have time to finish that system during the jam. Right now they’re just little references to Juniper Dev’s attire from the game jam announcement video, so you weren’t missing anything — the E key doesn’t do anything outside menus yet. I really want to make them proper pickups in a future update though!

As for progression: yes, the boss is currently the end of the game. We’re planning a small mid‑game section and more story/lore for a future update, but we’re super busy at the moment so it’ll take a bit of time.

About the corridor level — that was actually meant to be a secret challenge stage! You weren’t supposed to get it on your first run 😅 We’ll be adding conditions to access it properly when the Mac and Linux builds release.

The maps aren’t fully random yet- there are about seven variants that shuffle around. I’m hoping to add a more dynamic system later on once we figure out how to implement it cleanly.

Thanks again for playing spirals and for the feedback — it really helps shape what comes next!!!!!