itch.io

(v0.3.0) Really good n awesome so far! I like a lot of what's going on and am excited to see what other classes you add! As an Etrian Odyssey Liker, I kind of wish exploration had more of a soundtrack but I also understand that the Ambience Sound is much more in line with the overall tone/aesthetic you got going on so I can't complain lol. Really like the battle songs. I ain't got any real complaints! Took down the first "FOE" at level 5 which felt good to do lol.

Actual issue I ran into (pictured):

Managed to lock the battle in whatever state this is while taking this screenshot and then somehow hitting some button on the controller while also switching window focus? Unclear what happened really lol. I could still open the "pause" menu and quit to title, and the options menu still worked so the game hadn't frozen, just became stuck in a state.

awesome game. after much philosophical debate and study with the roommate along with too much playtime we have concluded the following tierlist for oops all dupes (not normal gameplay so not relevant unless you're into being Funny lol):
S++++++ Tier: Aegis (Basically anyone with Large Tokens will be stupidly strong relative to other characters bc they're used in conjunction with Rush lol)

A Tier: Patchy, <SPOILER>, and <SPOILER> (Heartbeat, the Buff, and the SUC are all pretty good when stacked. First spoiler also has Buff and works fine solo, third Spoiler simply has Large Tokens and Rush so not having Respawn isn't as big of a deal as it is for the bottom tier lol)

B Tier: <SPOILER> and Veil (They're Fine but need to be built in specific ways in order to not stagnate on specific levels. They both utilize Virus so they just function better in Not Dipshit Mode lmao)

C Tier: <SPOILER> (her summons are too random and don't do enough damage to actually clear the end game without portal luck stacking. Sh)

Nearly impossible or outright impossible: Cyber Sakura and <SPOILER> (Both have the same problem of being able to clear all tokens which is a Problem when you don't have Respawn+ talents. You will VERY LIKELY need to grind the entire party to max level and get super lucky to clear. Cyber Sakura 4 stack might legit be impossible i didnt want to spend 20 minutes on The Wurm to progress lol)

in terms of actual normal gameplay , all of the characters are pretty solid, with Aegis being kind of The Strongest in general due to her powerful Rush stacking. I already told you about the incredibly goofy ass self-inflicted problem (also mentioned above) but other then that I don't think there's any real balance issues? 

Good fun game. I like it :)

You're missing (rot13) funqbj ornz  (which would make the final area much more doable in that version lol) (ill be uploading a v1.1 after the jam voting period has ended that does something relating to that) and sybng zntvp .

Im aware of the slide jump glitch but i never encountered it during testing so I never ended up fixing it lol. No plans on fixing it either bc i think its funny. Thanks for coming back and beating it!

nnnnnoooo its not supposed to lag like that, that's weird behavior i didn't notice during development. 

Not very metroidvania-y, feels more like a solid prototype for the concept then a finished game, but that's fine because that's the main purpose for game jams babyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!! 

That out of the way, I really like the direction this one feels like it goes once you have all the upgrades. I also really like the textures, they feel very N64/PSX type shit (i see the spyro soundfont mention and I see the vision).

Two issues with the platforming specifically that I have that I think you should consider/think about:

• Over-reliance on ledge grabbing to make jumps. It makes it much harder to parse if a jump is actually going to clear or not, especially wrt to jump height. I feel like the jump length and height should be tuned such that the ledge grab should be more of a saving grace then a requirement (less so for vertical jumps, but definitely more for more horizontal jumps).
• Slipperiness. I actually do not mind the lack of coyote time, BUT rather than add that, I think a relatively simple fix is having a "sticky" landing where your forward momentum halts briefly when landing. You could keep forward momentum if you're in the charging state but I think stopping when you land would (likely) make a lot of the more precise platforming feel a lot better.

Overall, really solid, could be built up into something really cool! I like the protag design (i imagine Moni wouldn't have the stick until getting the upgrade that lets her use it). Any further nitpicks I have would, I imagine, largely be fixed by more development time and whatnot lol. Best of luck in further endeavors!

I liked the hidden cat pictures.

I think bonking your head on the ceiling should be a little less punishing (probably don't have it immediately zero out your vertical movement) but otherwise very well executed game concept.

it does work thank you! yeah unfortunately the pause menu does not mention left shift at all lol

Visually very pretty and the music was nice, but I didn't like how the game felt to play. You simply drop too fast (ESPECIALLY when hitting your head on the ceiling) to be able to reliably react fast enough to do some of the precision platforming required, making it much more frustrating then it needs to be. I didn't like that I was able to cling to/slow fall along walls from the start but never got the ability to actually jump off them. It felt weird and kind of clunky. You also move forward a bit too fast for aforementioned precision platforming. It was very difficult to land on ledges in front of spike walls. There's no reason to ever fight enemies outside of ones that physically block your path. It all combines into an overall experience that's just kind of frustrating.

The boss fight is fun though. I liked learning how to deal with it.

(I think I would otherwise really like this project but right now its left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I do think you can definitely improve it further by ironing out the player physics a bit more and adding actual exploration/goodies to find; I understand that the game jam doesn't leave a lot of time to do those during the jam but yeah.)

Really awesome the visuals are really good I love the enemy designs it feels good to play (there's like, some nuance to complain about wrt to wall jumping and stomping but its also like, very vague to talk about), and it really makes me wish I had implemented bump combat into my own game so i could've cut it down to 2 buttons lmfao

If there is a way to do so on keyboard it is not listed anywhere and unfortunately it did not seem to work even after I plugged in my controller v_v

I liked this one. It's very solid I don't have much to say or add. I think having ball mode be on a different key would be nice since the middle mouse button on my mouse seems to have fully broken at this point lol.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WOOOOOOOO I LOVE TO SCHMOOOOOVE!!!!!! Once I got the gloves I was pogging at what I was able to do it was great. I think you should definitely develop more of this. 

Stuff I liked in more detail:

• I REALLY like the idea of using the slide as a form of attack, as it incorporates movement into combat without just doing the classic "jump onto enemy" type stuff and gives it a meaningful difference from the dash.
• I really like how the wall grabbing works. It's not FREE vertical movement but it reminds me a lot of how Super Metroid's wall jumping works in how freeing it is to work with once you understand how to use it. I really REALLY like this and it's something I think you could definitely build upon level-design-wise in a fuller game.
• i really like the vibes of the terrain visuals. It's kind of noisy and abstract but in a way that's perfect for the game jam's theme and combined with the title screen really evokes a sort of vibe that I don't quite know how to describe but I'm into it. It's saucin'.
• I accidentally discovered the stomp attack while playing and that shit also rips. Having it as a tool to combo my schmovement into feels really good. 
• You just overall REALLY nailed the movement in this game I think. I do see that other comments noting the slipperiness but honestly I think it's fine. It's not really affecting the game and you're not doing precise enough platforming for it to truly matter. If you REALLY need to stop you just jump and slam into the ground with the aforementioned stomp attack.

Stuff/Issues that I'm kinda nitpicking out that would probably be fixed/a non-issue in a full release

• I don't like slide/dash being on CTRL/Shift but mostly because combined with WASD its a sort of awkward to press but this is less of an issue with the game and more of a personal thing lol. Not a problem with rebinds obviously, but I understand not having time to implement that when you got better things to be doing during a game jam (like schmovement code).
• The costumes are a bit silly but like not in a negative way I think they're cute. Fun thing to collect.
• The music did not play when I re-loaded my file after accidentally escaping (lol). I assume this is because the music only actually starts if you go from the starting tunnel to the main hub area (I reactivated the music this way).
• Enemies and hazards aren't really doing anything so there's no real like, tension or anything but again this is more because of the game being more of a tech demo then anything. I think there's a lot of cool shit you can do with enemies specifically if you focus in on how they can disrupt and interact with your movement.

Anyways really sick game would love to see more!!

Not having a variable height jump was a little awkward but if that was a possible upgrade to get it would be VERY funny.

Other then that I think the player moves/falls a bit too fast to control easily but I otherwise didn't have too much of a problem outside of the camera moving too Slowly sometimes when falling.

I didn't fully explore the game but did notice that you're spat back out at the entrance after getting the swim upgrade so I definitely know there's More Game To Explore if I felt the desire to but I'd like to see a bit more polishing up of the audio and gameplay before really diving into it. Cool game overall!

i see the vision please keep cooking and never give up

it was like I was playing as Glover's ball from Glover for the N64. This is the highest praise anyone could ever say (it is not clear what she means by this.)

anyways banger game. Some minor issues I ran into is the mouse not working on some menu buttons via the title screen (notably, credits and end game, and backing out of the options menu; it might have something to do with that region of the screen specifically), and the Gyro Ball sometimes incorrectly colliding with frozen water causing it to kill you (thus leading me to misunderstand the relationship between the ice and gyro ball for a hot minute). 

Overall, really good and fun! There's definitely room for some more stuff done with level design (it'd be awesome to have more cool skateboard-ass halfpipes and shit)  and possibly, not like, Enemy enemies but more hazard types that pinball you around or something.

very funny final ball upgrade 10/10 no notes. I pogged when it did exactly what I thought it would (not the laser part).

once i got the Key i was pogging the entire time with the type of shit it enabled absolute BANGER concept of a game. Very excited to see what a final version of it would look like.

this kicks ass. I got to the third area and got my first death bc of accidental overuse of <UPGRADE 2> it was awesome. I think if the movement was aligned to the rail more cleanly (reset to center of rail unless pressing directional input) it'd probably feel better but otherwise I ain't got no notes. Fantastic job on this. I stopped playing after aforementioned death because I ain't got too much time but I'll probably come back and finish this at some point it was dope. I really like your take on the theme!

edit: wait I do wanna add that some more visual clairity on the warp point barriers would be Pretty Awesome; would have to give them a more visual identity which doesn't wholly fit with the theme I guess but you could probably figure something out.

I didn't play very far in unfortunately because I simply did not like trying to get through the cave area with how it was designed which is a shame because I really like the idea you got here and would like to see it further developed! I like the idea of having to find funny creatures and studying them to get your upgrades that's fun. I also spent an embarassing long time realizing there was a sprint button lol.

My two primary suggestions for stuff to focus on should you decide to polish this more:

• You'll want to work on sharpening the physics a bit though, the player feels too slippery for how heavy they are (my recommendation is lowering the horizontal acceleration sothe player is less likely to launch themselves directly off the edge of platforms). Jumping feels "too fast" but its hard to gauge whether that's because gravity is too heavy or the upward velocity is too much (you can tweak this as you please though, its tricky to get something that feels "just right" for what you want!)
• The cave area is too spacious without actually having anything going on in it aside from too much platforming that isn't doing anything other then "make this one tile jump under a ceiling then get pushed off by this creature who can just snipe you if you time it badly". I think that sort of platforming challenge just isn't really the right call for this sort of game (would probably be fine in other games for the record).

Keep at it! I think you got something Cool here, even if I didn't stick with it. 

I liked it it's cute and a good concept! I think you should put the controls on the page it took me a Hot Moment to figure out the E key was the interact/disengage button.

I liked the backtrack message lol.

This was also Ada's idea and i laugh every time i think about it its great

Yeah the clairity of "using the card matching the character is More Powerful" can be a bit hard but I think Just Doubling Values is kinda boring BUT if you're willing to go the extra mile, the cards could simply have Extra Effects (which could just be Double Value lol) when used by the matching Character.

Quick n Simple: cool and fun I'm interested in seeing where you go with this :3

More specific thoughts:
- The Memory cards feel impossible to use with the pre-made deck because you have to draw the memory generating cards to get a chance of even using them. I assume this would be less of a problem once the concept of relics and building a deck are introduced but something to keep in mind. 

- Stuff that targets enemies should have enemies shake to indicate that they're the ones needing to be targeted.For clarity purposes, you may need to have faint lines pointing from the card to valid targets? Or something. I imagine a tutorial will likely ease a lot of pain points in learning (not that I struggled with it at all personally and the text on the page explains it but yeah obviously its a prototype tutorializing isn't important yet.)

- Having ONLY 4 actions (by default) to work with is cool and fun I think. Having to work within restriction is fun and I think part of the appeal of card games is "cheating out" stuff/manipulating rules to do More.

- I kinda feel like having Commands do reduced values for being used outside of class doesn't feel greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat but I do like the presence of "Neutral" cards so it might actually be fine. Ideally the values displayed on the card would change depending on who you hover over while targeting with it but yeah. Another thought related to this is that using Commands outside of associated Character could cost Memory but that's like a whole design tangle to think about. 

- I think the symbols/icons were very clear on what they meant at a glance (at least to me who is video game literate so idk how much that's worth lol) so I think its pretty good there!

- good art style big fan you already knew this but I feel its worth stating.

- oh if there's gonna be multiple characters there's a possiblity of having them split into "classes" and then have the cards be for "classes" instead of owners? Idk if that necessarily aligns with what you have in mind but that's something to keep in the back pocket I think.

Apparently I had comments turned off when I uploaded this???? what the fuck was 2017 me even thinking

Finished playing the demo! Here's my thoughts:

- Feels good to play! A step animation for when the player taps left/right while on the ground to inch forward would be really nice I think, but otherwise the Player animations are wonderful!

- Visuals are fantastic! Big fan of the visual style. I think there's potential for some stuff to blend against the background though (the snails kinda blend into the purple background of Hana Sol's stage) but it wasn't too much of an issue for me, just something to keep in mind!

- The flower vine platforms that move in and out could use a bit more visual flair I think; Perhaps having the flower shake briefly before retreating, and maybe have the flower sticking out of the wall slightly or even become a bud when not active would be nice and let the player know where they need to jump to next. I DO like the spiky dangerous version though, I think it was pretty cool!

- (Bug?) Beehives seem to keep spawning bees with no limit after respawning and slightly off screen, or there are bees there that seem to also respawn with the hive, causing an abnormal amount of bees to appear. (Assuming this is not intentional; I didn't really test this further but is worth looking into.)

- I think the stage music should stop when the boss hp bar fills up. Possibly also during the cutscene but there might be plans for pre-boss music? If not that's fine. I THINK I heard an alarm sound effect play but it got drowned out by the stage music?

- Boss fight against Hana Sol and Char-Wuf were a lot of fun! I think you nailed it here. I especially like that you could bounce off of Char-Wuf's bouncy balls to dodge her frankly terrifying melee attack.

- Char-Wuf's stage is a lot of fun. I game over'd and it was great. Bouncy Cannonballs are a nightmare obstacle in this style of game it's great I love it. I don't have anything else to add here it was pretty great all the way through. You could possibly have a segment where the player gets to play with the bouncy cannonballs more but other then that I think it was fun!

- Special Weapons are cool! I think the powered up slide from Char-Wuf's weapon could consume a LOT less energy though, I kinda burned through the weapon energy immediately upon testing it.

- The transition to an already cleared stage is a bit too instant. This isn't really a problem but it's something to consider polishing when the time comes.

- I would consider starting the player with 3 extra lives (3 > 2 > 1 > 0) rather then the 2; The stages are a bit long so I think having an extra starting life would benefit a lot of people. Changing the starting lives can also be a potential difficulty setting option if you choose that route too.

Overall I had a really good time! I don't really have any strong criticisms or issues with the game, and I think ya'll did a FANTASTIC job! This is exactly the sort of game I crave constantly and I'm extremely excited to see it finished!!!

should be fixed in v1.1d now!

DAMN, THATS A NEW ONE LOL THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW!! glad you had fun at least!!!!

Thank you for playing!!!! Version 1.1a makes Yukari much less likely to body you with her spellcard, and the game gives you a tip on how to better manage the battle against Alice now. But yeah we overtuned it for the jam version oops (im pretty good at this sort of game oops!!)

hhuuuuuuuuuhh I'll have to look into that bug I havent run into it myself thank you for letting me know and thank you for playing!!!!!!!!!

I look forward to your adventure!