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Escaping Home's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Art Style / Visuals | #27 | 2.392 | 2.476 |
| Overall | #46 | 1.990 | 2.060 |
| Theme | #47 | 2.070 | 2.143 |
| Audio / Sound Design | #52 | 1.794 | 1.857 |
| Gameplay / Fun / Engagement | #54 | 1.702 | 1.762 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game interpret and use the theme?
Escaping Home is a pixel art action and survival game inspired by the Game Jam theme “A Long Way Home.”
What starts as a simple punishment at school turns into a nightmare when a zombie apocalypse forces the protagonist to escape and begin the journey back home. First, they must find the key and escape the school, but the real challenge begins on the road: a long path filled with zombies that they must survive using rulers, scissors, and books as weapons.
The goal is simple: survive and make it home.
Devlog Challenge?
Easter Egg Challenge?
Easter Eggs
The Easter egg appears right in the school scene; among the zombies, there is a zombie that references Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil. It is easy to find; you just have to walk through the hallway near the bathroom and the Leon zombie that chases you comes into action.
Did you use Farclip and want to be considered for the Farclip Award? (optional)
Game Engine?
Self-made & used stuff?
Have you joined a game jam before?
Roughly how much time did you spend developing? (in hours)
120
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Comments
Cute!
Gameplay wise it was fairly simple but decently fun. I enjoyed the top down shooter style, but I found the controls for aiming and firing to be little clunky, and I think the game could have done a better job at demonstrating the state of the player, like it was pretty confusing what was happening when I tried to pick up and item with an item already equipped, I think having simple popups would go a long way. Also a bit more feedback when it comes to dealing/taking damage, as there isn't any indicator when you deal damage to enemies or even when you take damage, which makes the game feel a bit lifeless.
Visually the game cute, but I think the models/textures for the zombies could be a bit more stylized as they stand out a lot compared to the rest of the game.
Audio was pretty lacking all things considered. The sound effects in the game, were balanced pretty poorly and a lot of the SFXs varied in volume and were uncomfortable to listen to. Tweak the volume of the sound effects, and some nice BG music and the game would sound great!
I liked the theme use a lot! I thought applying a zombie outbreak twist on the theme idea was a great choice! Well done!
Overall cute game, that just needs some polish in a few places.
WOAH, THIS IS SUCH A FUN ZOMBIE TAKE ON “THE LONG WAY HOME”! 🧟♂️🏠🔪🔥
Turning a simple trip home from school into a full zombie survival journey is a really cool concept. I especially liked the pixel-art style, the character animations, and the idea of using everyday school items like rulers, scissors, and books as weapons 😂. The changing character visuals after taking damage are also a really nice touch, and the Leon Kennedy Easter egg was a fun surprise!
For improvement, I think the combat could use a little more feedback and polish clearer hit reactions, stronger weapon impacts, and more forgiving hitboxes would make the action feel much better. A small in-game controls reminder would also help, especially since there are several weapons and actions to remember. The foundation is already really solid, and with another polish pass this could become a much bigger and more satisfying survival game.
120 HOURS OF WORK FOR THIS IS SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE! 🧟♂️🔥🎮 Great job to the whole team on the visuals, concept, and amount of content, and good luck with the jam! 🏠✨
Cool visual style!
Some of the animations could have been stronger. The slingshot rotating around the player and the compass popping out of nowhere doesn’t look great. But the style works for sure.
Overall, this was a pretty fun little prototype. You could polish this up some more and make something really cool and unique.
I love the art style, the idea each time you take damage your character visual changes is hella cool.
Nice game, full of humor and original ideas! I believe it could use some polish, mostly around the hitboxes that make death feel a bit unfair at times. You could also juice up the hit and weapons.
E very game should now have Soup as a weapon this was so fun!
Really cool looking art! I loved the player character and the animations especially after he's eaten by zombies :D The monster character sprites are also really well done, fits into the whole zombie survivors vibe but also gives it a casual look. The sound effects are also nice, and the background music goes well with the the atmosphere. On the gameplay side, the idea of the combat is good, but its lacking in feel a bit especially on player hitting enemies and vice versa. Also the margin for error for the player is quite less. I think that at least till you get out on the road, it should be VERY difficult to die since its an onboarding for the player. Plus the controls are confusing - ideally it should be one button to attack - regardless of which attack it is. Overall well done on the game, its a really cool concept which fits the theme and looks really good with all the animations, a little more polishing in the combat and difficulty scaling should improve the feel by a lot :)
Very entry.
Very good artwork, maybe try to check th order in layers cause some times the munition appears down of the floor so you can see well the shoot sometimes.
Nice mechanic with the different guns and the survival, maybe check a little with the colitions cause some times i get hit by a zombie already dead.
Good sound control and effects.
Well done with this game.
Thanks, Bro Melee.
Yeah, a layer issue with the sprites was the reason why some things aren't behaving quite right visually.
Where exactly does the issue with the dead zombie happen?
After the zombie entry in de dead animation after disapear can still hurt you if you get near, or dont know well x3
With a bit more juice, this would feel great. As it stands, its decent.
Visuals are great, the zombies and player character have a fun design.
The controls are pretty tight, but the player movement is a little floaty. Also I'm not a fan of having 3 different buttons for my 3 different attacks. Would prefer one attack button, and some way to switch between weapons.
Hit detection, particularly on ranged weapons with the bigger zombie felt off. His hitbox seems to be somewhere near his feet? I was aiming for his head and upper torso but the projectiles never seemed to make contact unless I aimed lower.
Could do with a bit more visual/audio feedback on things like weapon impacts (the juice!).
Overall this feels like a good little prototype.
Greetings, Tekamutt.
We appreciate that you enjoyed the game and, of course, that you took the time to point out our mistakes.
Yes, following other comments and feedback, this issue was raised—specifically the lack of UI implementation across the scenario. Given the variety of weapons and interaction methods, UI is a fundamental aspect of the user experience, and we will certainly keep this in mind for future projects.
Regarding the hitboxes, the situation isn't exactly as you described. Damage output varied depending on the weapon and the specific body part hit. Also, the large zombie has the most health; some weapons simply weren't powerful enough to kill them on their own, so using explosives was one way to take them down.
You are right, though—we really should have implemented visual and audio feedback for the weapons or upon impact with the zombies. That would have made it much easier to tell when a zombie actually took damage or when a weapon had fired.
Gameplay / Fun / Engagement: ⭐⭐⭐
Art Style / Visuals: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Audio / Sound Design: ⭐⭐⭐
Theme: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The art is probably the strongest part for me. I really like the pixel art and the school + zombie setting looks great. Easy 5/5 visually.
Gameplay has some cool ideas but I ran into quite a few problems. I forgot which button picks up weapons and after the tutorial there wasnt really anything reminding me. Id put a small prompt near an item like "press E" or show the controls somewhere in the pause menu. Its really hard to remember everything from one tutorial.
Combat also needs more feedback. A lot of the time I couldnt tell when a zombie hit me or even if my attack actually connected. Some proper enemy attack and hurt animations would help A LOT. Maybe knockback when something gets hit too.
I also had bullets sometimes go through zombies, and outside the projectiles from my pen became invisible for me. At one point I died even though I felt pretty far away from the zombie so the hitboxes might need another look too. Fixing those things would make the combat feel much more fair.
Audio is 3/5 for me. Some background music would help a lot and stronger hit sounds could make the fights feel way better.
Theme is definitely 5/5 though. Escaping the school and fighting through zombies just to make it home fits really well.
There is a good game here but I think another pass on animations hit feedback and bugs would improve it massively :)
And if you guys have some free time please check out my game too! Id really appreciate a rating and some feedback from you :)
The issues you mentioned are indeed errors occurring in our game, and we deeply appreciate you bringing them to our attention, as this helps us make significant improvements for future development. You are spot on—the problems most likely stem from the zombie hitboxes. It is also probable that these issues arose because, at some point during development, we had to rescale the entire environment; the zombie and player sprites had already been implemented at a specific scale, and failing to account for this from the start was a mistake. Consequently, there may be errors with the colliders in the Animator or the prefabs.
We will also take the UI into account; we know it is a fundamental factor in the user experience. Since our game is a side-scroller and quite long, you are right that players might forget the controls. We will keep this in mind for future development.
Best regards, Tsukuyom.
A very unique game. In the sense that it was weird but fun. I really like the art—you can really tell a lot of effort went into it. There are some odd things, but they’re nothing compared to the overall gaming experience. Maybe I would have liked it if the slingshot had a limit, but other than that, it’s great. Good game. :P
We really appreciate your feedback... Initially, the game was going to be pixel art, but in the end, everything was designed using vectors; we then lowered the quality within Unity to achieve that slightly pixelated look—partly for the aesthetic and partly for optimization reasons. As for the slingshot, we had considered a design closer to what you described, but it didn't fit well with our camera/player scale. That was a detail we carefully considered, specifically to ensure high quality across the board—balancing the vector-based environment with the overall gameplay experience.