Came for the great name, stayed for the great game. Awesome work!
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NEKOKUROMANCER's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #8 | 4.375 | 4.375 |
| Overall | #12 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Quirkiness | #27 | 4.188 | 4.188 |
| Graphics | #30 | 4.469 | 4.469 |
| Gameboy Soul | #44 | 4.188 | 4.188 |
| Gameplay | #47 | 3.938 | 3.938 |
| Secondary Theme Interpretation | #82 | 3.594 | 3.594 |
Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game meet GBJam's theme
The protagonist has to travel on an old train full of ghosts and ghouls while collecting her stolen gold
Comments
I love this concept and an endless side scroller. The switching of abilities from human to cat was so cool. The puzzles and thinking process to make sure you got all the gold was nice! The pixel art is well done and the music is a lovely touch! Great work!
Submitted
One Last DigThe art is really nice and very polished! The movement and transformation mechanic was also quite cool. I do agree with the other comments that maybe the tutorial rooms should be skippable after the first run, since it takes time to run through them again after every death.
I played this on stream today (recording here) in case you’re interested in watching someone play your game. I had a great time, good job!!
Submitted
Olden RetrieverReally stylish entry. Swapping between human and cat form changes how you approach the platforming.
The art and music are excellent too, especially the little cat noises worked into the soundtrack. The tutorial also does a great job teaching everything without stopping to explain it. Really impressive for a first full project!
Submitted
Kota ChompYou really knocked it out of the park for a first complete project. I am Gateau's number 1 fan lol. It's excellent across the board, but if I had any quick nitpicks, a short pause right when you enter the door for the next train car (just before it pans over to the new room) could add some zesty gameplay feel.
Submitted
Black Gold Co.The amount of polish in this is quite impressive. I'm shocked how much content you were able to pack in! Honestly I can't think of any notes the transformation mechanic is so interesting especially after I realized how the cat works!
Submitted
One Last Tokengreat game with stunning graphics and sound. I found that the levels with timers and puzzle logic a bit hard… it’s one thing to run quickly through levels with enemies, but figuring out puzzles with time pressure is hard. especially, if you have to start from the beginning. what’s the checkpoint good for then?
Submitted
Gold FlowYeah I realized that the logic behind the flag comes off as "checkpoint" where the original intention was for a room where you can take a breather and it tracks your completion progress. For the timers, they were kind of a last second jam addition, and you can totally see that, haha! The funniest thing about this project is seeing how us developers found the levels not too challenging and having the complete opposite reaction happen upon release, so definitely a learning experience for sure. If you have any cool feedback on how to improve these systems, levels, or over all just ideas we would be so happy to hear them :D
This was a fun game, and absolutely incredible for your first full game project! Well done!! I have a lot of disparate thoughts and feedback, here they are in no particular order:
- The tutorial levels are really good at explaining how each of the mechanics work, but I wish they took less time or were skippable on repeat playthroughs. It's a good 30-60 seconds per run gone on the same few screens.
- I adore the cover art and palette choice for this one.
- The ranking system is completely off. I got through 10-15 rooms on my second run without even fully understanding the game yet and I scored an S rank. I think this game could've really benefitted from the ranking requirements being clearer to the player, and also much more difficult, so that there's something to strive for once they've seen a few rooms and finished understanding the mechanics. As it is, there's nothing that asks a player who enjoyed the core mechanics and is looking for more to master the mechanics enough to continue playing, which is one of the key features of an endless game IMO.
- It felt weird to have a sidescrolling platformer where you have no way to attack the enemies, but the more I play, the more I vibe with the choice. The human form's controls are on point, while cat form's extra mobility feels distinct enough to not invalidate or be invalidated by the human form, while being just versatile enough to not feel like an one-note gimmick.
- The parallax backgrounds are peak.
Submitted
Island of the Cursed HandThank you for enjoying the project and I am glad you liked it :p
Also the feedback is very much noted, a lot of the same thing was being said about the rank system and I see that the way I implemented it was not the best of ways. For clarification the rank system takes the amount of gold collected and then divides it by the amount of rooms you have been through, so that is why the S comes earlier on if you die. I would love for more feedback on how something like this can be changed so it works best with the endless runner feel. But thank you for your feedback and I hope you enjoyed it :)
> But thank you for your feedback and I hope you enjoyed it :)
I definitely did, and I might come back for another playthrough depending on how busy I am :)
> For clarification the rank system takes the amount of gold collected and then divides it by the amount of rooms you have been through, so that is why the S comes earlier on if you die. I would love for more feedback on how something like this can be changed so it works best with the endless runner feel.
Yeah, that's one of those things that makes perfect sense on paper while completely falling apart in practise. It's a perfectly understandable decision to make in the time crunch of a game jam with so many other things to worry about which is why I don't hold it against the game at all, but since you asked, here's some more feedback. And just to preface what I'm about to say, most of my experience with ranking systems comes from playing a lot platformers and racing games that used them back in the day - there are a lot of other genres that implement these (rhythm, character action, etc) which I haven't actually played many of, nor have I played many endless runners, but hopefully what I'm about to say is general enough to apply.
The point of a ranking system is to motivate repeat playthroughs and encourage skill expression by showing the player that they could do better, and also as a benchmark for progression once the player decides they want to engage with said system. Some games base your rank off of your clear time, and these are games where going fast, controlling your character at speed and knowing the level layout are the entire point of the game - which is why the ranking system encourages this. Other games are more complicated, the early 3D Sonic games come to mind where you need to be fast, precise and thorough to be able to get enough base score, ring bonus and time bonus in one run to be able to get the A rank. In those games it's easy to run through a level carelessly and drop all your rings or go super slowly and scour the level without taking risk, that's why the ranking system only shows you the big rewards for doing what's hard.
So to figure out what ranking system would work for a game, just ask yourself what sort of gameplay you want to encourage. In this case I think it's pretty clear in the genre name - it's called an 'endless' runner for a reason. Progression should be the main component in determining your rank, because the whole point of an endless game is to see far can you get before you lose. IMO, doing the ranking backwards to what you have now - the number of rooms you've been through divided by the amount of gold missed (with a little bit of forgiveness for collecting almost-but-not-all of the gold) would have been an excellent starting off point that would just need a bit of tweaking to be a really satisfying system. It would punish dying early, as well as skimming through the levels while ignoring the mechanics or having to skip gold because you were too slow, which are both natural consequences of not having enough skill for this kind of game.
Hope this helps!
love this game! it controls so well and swapping between cat and human form feels really satisfying when you get it right. lovely presentation too, the music in particular is fantastic
Submitted
Churro Will Survive!God this game is stylish, really really impressive. I think the humanoid controls were tighter than the cat controls (bit disorienting to walk upwards using left or right), but that wasn't a problem once you get used to it. I impressed when I found on my second run that the carts vary! very good way of making use of your levels, and I'm impressed that it doesn't feel jarring.
TLDR: Nice work!
Edit: Oh I also have to comment on the awesome character art, I really liked those character portraits.
Submitted
Worth Going Back ForVery cool game! The time crunch makes the wagons feel more exciting even if they might be easy at first glance, it being an endless runner also adds an immense amount of replayability despite being a fairly simple game.
Submitted
Billy's golden surfboardLove the ambience of the game, the changing music stems in between wagons is a very nice addition. The pixel art is super duper good too, and the puzzle/gameplay part is very well executed!
Submitted
Gold Rusher : Drilly's AdventureWoah, the similarities are crazy! Really awesome presentation and story, communicates its mechanic and controls instantly with the first three levels, great art and music. The main character is really cute as well. It's pretty difficult to get far, but it's fine because of how much I love the game over theme. It might be train bias but this is my favorite game of the jam so far. Outstanding work!
Submitted
Memory TracksThis was fun! The western + train setting is nice, I like the art, and I especially want to compliment the music. I like the scoring system; very generous to make it percentage based and have S be so achievable even before you deserve it. I thought some of the timed puzzle rooms and enemies were a lot more interesting than the others, and I wish the transformation was a little snappier / more forgiving. But overall great!
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PfrogoI was wondering how her being a cat girl had to do with running around on a train, and then it became a fantastic platforming mechanic! So fun. I love the aesthetic, top-tier train. I did have one level repeat a ton (maybe that was intentional?) but other than that this was really really well done. Love the sound design, too! (especially the little meows!)
Submitted
Whistful
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