I kept this session to about five to ten minutes so I could play more jam entries and give more developers useful feedback. I played with mouse and keyboard, although I can definitely see why a controller is recommended.

The movement system is genuinely neat, especially the spinning, and it gives the game an interesting puzzle-platformer hook. The overall vibe is surprisingly chill, the music fits well, and the sound effects do their job. I would like a little more animation from the fish while it is idle, though. It is in water after all, so some gentle floating, fin movement, or current response would help it feel more alive.

Platformers are not normally my thing, so take the difficulty criticism with a grain of salt, but even the first level felt fairly demanding. Be careful with the visual perspective too, especially where the waterfall overlaps the map, because it looks cool but also makes it seem like I should be able to travel upstream. I would also let Escape return to a pause menu during gameplay. Finally, if fish colors are purely cosmetic, showing little stat-style ratings beside them is confusing because that presentation strongly implies gameplay differences. There is a cool idea here, and with more polish and clarity, I would absolutely play it again.

If you have two minutes, swim over to BEAT BAES and test-drive the spinning mechs. I would be happy to trade catches.

Swim into BEAT BAES · Send the catch report

Hi I'm LatinaStrike a streamer. This is my feedback about your game. If you would like to watch my stream where I played your game, I will leave the link below.

VOD Link on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2864977399

Timestamp for your game starts at 1:21:51

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed the game! I really like the visual style, especially the colorful look of the game and the intro screen. I’m a big fan of colorful games, so the presentation immediately caught my attention.

The movement took me a little while to get used to. At the beginning, I found it a little difficult to get the fish moving out of the starting area. Once I got the hang of the controls, it became easier, but I did feel that simply moving forward was more difficult than it probably needed to be. I’m not referring to the jumping mechanics  specifically just the basic forward movement.

That being said, the difficulty is also one of the things I enjoyed most. This is definitely the type of game that can make you want to rage quit, which I think is great for players who enjoy the extra challenge. Personally, I like games like that, and my community also enjoyed watching me play it.

I really liked that there are different types of fish as well. Having different fish that provide an even greater challenge is a great feature for players who want to push themselves further.

Pros

• Colorful and appealing visual style.
• Fun and challenging gameplay.
• The difficulty makes you want to keep trying, even when you fail.
• Different fish options add additional challenges and replayability.

Cons / Issues I Experienced

The biggest issue I encountered was a glitch near the top of the level.

The first time it happened, I thought maybe I had been disconnected or something had gone wrong on my end. Because of that, I played through the game again and made it back to the top. Unfortunately, the same thing happened again.

Both times, the game appeared to freeze and I experienced crackling audio. I’ll leave the VOD timestamps below so you can see exactly what happened.

Glitch timestamps:

• 1:29:33
• 1:37:46

I would definitely recommend watching those sections of the VOD because it may give you a better idea of what caused the issue.

Some parts of the VOD were muted by Twitch, I guess for copyright reasons on the music, I'm not sure.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I had a really good time playing Fish Scales. I genuinely wanted to continue playing and see what else the game had to offer, so it was disappointing when the glitch prevented me from continuing.

I could definitely see this becoming a successful game, especially for players who enjoy challenging games and don’t mind failing and trying again. The death counter is amazing addition in my opinion.

I’m giving this feedback from the perspective of a regular streamer/gamer. I don’t have any background in game development, so I can’t provide in-depth technical feedback about the game’s mechanics or development. I can only speak about my experience as a player and what I noticed while streaming it.

From my perspective, the game may need a little more polishing, particularly with the glitches I encountered and possibly the basic movement, but overall I really enjoyed it. The challenge was fun, the game looked great, my community enjoyed watching it, and I would definitely be interested in playing more.

Disclaimer: I’m using voice-to-text/speech-to-text to write this feedback, so I apologize in advance if there are any grammar, spelling, punctuation, or wording mistakes. I wanted to provide my feedback as naturally as possible based on my experience playing the game.

Not a great player myself, so it was a sweet kind of frustrating, but it kept me playing and I finished it. Liked the vibe a lot. The only thing: the camera pan gets a bit annoying at times, a small amount of freedom to pan would take it to a better place I guess. I think it can become a full game as it is, but I'd keep it short, something like 60 to 90 minutes feels right for it imo. 

Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!

This is a really fun game. Like, this is REALLY fun. Every time I made it to the next pool of water, I was so excited! Then it suddenly ended and I was sad (which I did in just over ten minutes). I really want more of this!

In terms of feedback I can give to improve the game, I honestly don't have much. This game has good visuals, good in-game humour (You did not lie about there being nothing at the beginning and that cracked me up, especially when the "Told ya" appeared), and it's just a fun idea. I do have a few ideas, though.

For starters, I think having a sort of guide to show the angle the fish is going to fly up to a certain distance away would be good. That way, the player has some sort of idea about where they're going before they launch. A lot of my failures were because I kept making the exact same shots when I thought I had made a tweak, and a guide to give me an idea of where I'm going would help solve this problem.

I also feel like there should be a better way to swim in water besides just spamming one button. Perhaps a second button that exists only for swimming in water that won't let them shoot out of it? That way players can hold that second button until they're position instead of needing to spam the same button they're going to use to fire into the air?

Honestly, this is all I can think of. I can't wait to have more of this to play!

Edit: I forgot one thing. When I downloaded the game so I could play it off browser, I noticed that part of the window is cut off on the bottom. Something tells me that's not intended, or at least that the game needs the ability to be put into full screen.

I played this and really enjoyed it!  I like this game's grapic,Because my game's grapic is bit similar 

One small thing: when a fish touched land, I ended up waiting quite a while for it to get back into the water, and I wasn't sure what to do during that wait. I think shortening it a little might help the game keep its pace.

Nice work, and good luck with the jam!