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A jam submission

Starward: To the ends of space (Demo)View game page

Can you explore space, without fighting back?
Submitted by lostforthought — 2 days, 17 hours before the deadline
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Starward: To the ends of space (Demo)'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Recent Work/Making Progress#53.5003.500
Fun#53.7503.750
Onboarding/Intuitiveness#63.5003.500
Overall#63.5833.583

Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Improvement Summary
music, art, name chage, added npc's, made a load screen

Devlog
https://lostforthought.itch.io/starward/devlog/1644530/work-this-month

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Comments

Submitted

I really liked the dialogue and movement of the character. It felt like a very precise platformer which is better than one that feels too easy or floaty. Dialogue was funny and engaging. Music was pretty good, there was a few levels where I had no music which felt odd. There were also a few platforms that the character would slide off I assume due to the platform moving to fast at an angle. I still really liked it and played all the way until the end, good job!

Submitted

Stupid floor made of soap!

The running and jumping is nice enough, I liked the tone of the dialogue. It was funny alright, but also frustrating to get to the every-trap-in-the-box level :D But I lived. Eventually.

Obviously the game can use a more assets. Even if this aesthetic is what you#re going for, the contrast isn't always great (the first spinning blade I avoided by accident and only afterwards wondered what that shower of sparks was I just ran through because I didn't see it). Personally I am no friend of pixel fonts, but that's your choice, really. Overall, fun!

Jam HostSubmitted

This was a decent platformer. It has a cool story. It changing between runs is cool but as someone who wants all the story it is annoying.

The movement speed was a bit fast making jumping onto single blocks difficult.

It would be nice if you had a full hard reset so that you can see the full story, trying out different choices.

-T

Jam HostSubmitted

I think that your move speed is a bit high as it makes landing on small platforms and between spikes hard.

The beeps in the beginning music are a bit unpleasant. The beginning music is repetitive.

The music ends when Ping leaves you.

Pressing space when it tells you too in the dialog does not work to continue.

I feel like some of your levels have too little of a starting area before you, for example, fall into a pit of spikes.

I feel like your first moving platform is a bit though to get on, so maybe have it be two tiles thick instead of one and go down a little further.

I feel like the final level is a bit much of a jump in difficulty, especially with the jump up area that has two spikes with one tile of gap where you need to get your positioning perfect.

I found the dialog when you lie about loving your ship twice funny.

The art could use some work, the ground is one solid color, while everything else is at least shaded so, I feel like there should be some texture on the ground.

Overall this seems like a decent platformer game.

-R

Submitted (1 edit)

I must start by saying that I am not your target audience and don’t really play a lot of platformers.

Overall the game did well when it comes to platforming. The platforms were also decent.

One thing I would change is the grey ground. Maybe some textures would be nice!

I would also like to point out that I have no way of grading your progress because devlog is too short.

HostSubmitted

I don't play a lot of platformers these days outside of jams. This one seemed decent overall. There were some spots that were frustrating, including one where I stopped, but overall it was pretty simple. Having full control of movement in the air made it pretty easy to position where you needed to be. On the ground it did feel a little bit slidey at times for certain sections, but overall it was fine.

I like your menu screen having a mini level to let the player practice the controls.

I found the room with the 2 long stretches of spikes on the ground, followed by small jumps with 1 or 2 spikes, to be a tough room. I kept having trouble with sliding into the spike after landing from the jump. I got the message asking if I wanted help after 10 deaths. I kept trying and was able to complete it. I don't think it was overly hard, just that for me that combination of the long jumps followed by the short ones with limited space was causing me trouble.

Some dialogue says to press Space, but it does nothing. I had to click to advance the dialogue. The start screen does say to click for dialogue, but the dialogue itself should probably be updated to either support Space, or remove those comments.

Typo in the text "I will distroy him." It should be "destroy". "employie" should be "employee". "I belive you" should probably be "I believe in you". I'm going to leave off with typos/mis-spellings after these, but you should probably double check all the dialogue.

Starting the room that has that bit of story by falling into a trap is unpleasant. The fall is fine, but give a small spot to start on so after losing you can be ready to start again.

I got to the point where you go under a full diamond/double-ended spike, and have to jump over a spike, landing between it and another. With enough tries I could make it, but I did not feel like going through the rest of the level that many times. Breaking this room up, or otherwise giving a checkpoint before that area would be nice. Of course, it looks like that my be one of the final challenges of the room, in which case it wouldn't make sense to have a checkpoint right before it.

On your page you say "The physics are exact". I would not describe the game that way. The jumps are not what I associate with physics based jumping. You have full control of your movement while in the air. With this being a space game, maybe you have directional thrusters, and your jump is a small jetpack capable of limited thrust up, but able to quickly recharge. There are plenty of ways to explain it in story, if wanted. My point is mainly towards setting players' expectations. With physics based jumps I expect my movement before and at the time of the jump to have significant impact on the jump, and to have limited control of movement while in the air.