itch.io

The way it works is there's a hub world that all the levels connect to. In the hub world when you reach a level's entrance (one of the smaller black domes) it sets your time limit in the hub world to that levels completion time, which is 1 second by default until you beat that level. The gameplay loop is basically beat the level your on then navigate to the next one in the hub world, and if you don't have enough time in the hub world beat the level your on faster. 

I didn't add a way to reset your progress, and there's not much reason to go back to old levels but you can go back to them manually in the hub world after beating the current level. 

Sorry if I made it confusing, I should have made it more clear where you and where to go at any given time. 

Thanks for playing and reaching the end!

I was worried the mechanic might not matter enough, I think I definitely should've designed levels more with it in mind. Maybe making them less linear with multiple paths and shortcuts or something. I could've been more strict on the time limits too, I made them intentionally lenient for most levels in an attempt to balance the difficulty but I think that was the wrong way to go about it. 

Also yes I did make the music myself! Glad you like it!

Banger idea. The visuals have a lot of juice and are nice to look at, the tutorial and boss intros are very charming, and it's a good time all around. The final boss, specifically the second phase, uses the health bar gimmick in an interesting way I think (though the fight itself was a little frustrating, partly because I didn't find only dodging and not attacking as fun, plus it was pretty difficult), but I feel felt like for the earlier fights the mechanic is not very meaningful, I kinda just played them normally and if I was doing too well just waited for an attack to take damage on. They're still fun fights though with a solid difficulty curve. Also I really like the little jump you do when you land an attack, it's funny and makes timing your hits more interesting 

That's what I like to hear

Thanks for the kind words and detailed feedback! Glad you liked it enough to stick with it, even though it ended up being a little more difficult than I realized lol. The ending is a bit rushed for sure, I agree that it could stand to be more satisfying. 

Btw the pillar breaks after a minute into the start of each loop, reaching it in under a minute makes it climbable. You might've heard thunder and a change in the lighting when it breaks, though I checked back on it and realized I messed up on the sound design a bit (you can't really hear it if you're too far away from it, and there were supposed to be additional thunderstorm sounds leading up to it but I accidentally didn't include those). 

Thanks for playing! Love seeing the over the top damage and hp numbers lmao. And yeah sorry about the aiming mechanic, it felt right in the moment but in retrospect I probably should've changed it to just be left click for shooting. 

Haha nice, I was wondering if anyone would find it on accident 

Thanks! I like how the dart enemy turned out as well, it was a fun one to animate 

Really charming game, I loved the opening lmao. Figuring out how the bug works and what I could do with it was a cool "aha" moment. It was definitely tricky to get the hang of, which is maybe a good thing since it makes it feel more like a bug than a mechanic 

The visuals and gameplay are janky but oddly enough because of the narrative I think that works in the games favor. And I like the structure of experiencing the game one patch at a time, going from exploiting the first jump to a new jump that fixes the exploit was creative way to display that. Sadly during the glitching section I fell out of bounds and couldn't read all the text 

Man what a wild ride, I had no idea what was going on half the time and I kinda like that about it, it was definitely a surreal experience. The ever increasing swarm of knives bit got a good chuckle out of me 

Thank you ! :)

Lmao nice

Wow I'm glad you enjoyed it that much! Thanks for playing! :D

Yeah idk why I kept the aiming mechanic like that, there's really no reason for it in a game like this 

Really like how this game makes your turrets a double-edged sword, forces you to be more careful about what turrets you pick and where and when you place them. I found that trying to limit your turrets and dodge around all the projectiles, while a fun way to play, wasn't a great strategy, and that surrounding yourself with as many cheap turrets as possible to create an impregnable wall of death was much more effective and the only way I made it past wave 10. Anyways game's fun, I liked it, also please enable the fullscreen button for the web build. 

Were you holding right click? I made it so you need to hold right click in order to fire (kinda pointless in retrospect), or if you're using a controller the right stick. Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough, if that's not the issue though it's probably an unintended bug. 

The map design here is really good, I loved getting lost in this world you created and seeing what I can find. I appreciate that some abilities can be found in different orders, I think that kind of non-linearity is the soul of a good metroidvania. The various challenges are fun too, the wind room was one of my favorites, even if it's a little too hard for something so early on. I would've loved for there to be a similarly difficult challenge towards the end that requires the use of the various abilities together. 

I like the spirit arrow ability, but it felt a little off to use sometimes. I think it could stand to go a little further than it does before disappearing. Also this is pretty inconsequential but I think it'd be cool if your momentum was kept after teleporting, then you could chain a jump into it for some cool movement tech. 

The combat, compared to the platforming, left a little to be desired. The dash being your only attack for most of the game is fine for when there are just stray enemies out and about during platforming sections, but the combat encounters that locked you in were not as interesting to get through. And them retriggering whenever you backtrack through them was a little annoying. 

This was really fun though, the controls felt nice, and the final ability being so busted was a neat reward that made backtracking for secrets a breeze. Awesome job making this! 

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! There were lots of things that still needed a sfx or vfx but I couldn't get around to adding them all in time. 

I agree about the punch, I wanted to make it a cool high-risk, high-reward type of attack, but none of the enemies justify using it. It can definitely use more time in the oven, as well as encounters that it'd work well against. 

For the mushrooms were you using the downward slash to bounce off them or trying to time your jumps on them? The latter is a bug that ended up confusing a lot of those who played, as I never taught the player about the downward slash or that it can be used on the mushrooms and enemies. 

Huh, going back in game to check it out it's on me for not paying enough attention to the ability tutorial lmao. I do like it being timing based, it's a cool mechanic imo and I think you could definitely make some interesting puzzles and challenges with it. Having a sound cue for if you get the timing right and one for if you get it wrong I think would make it more clear, especially for dummies like me who skim past tutorials. 

No worries lol, I didn't add the tips till after you first played it, and I really should have taught it to the player in game. 

For the warp I use a pair of raycasts and if either hits a wall it warps you to the collision point minus a short distance. It feels off cause I had to make the short distance fairly big to avoid clipping, and also because they collide with the rocks on the ground, which in retrospect I think I should just let the player warp through. A shapecast would probably work better though, I'll try that. 

As far as lighting goes, I usually use a default world environment and a straight down directional light (really dim for indoor scenes, brighter for outdoor scenes) that casts shadows if I can get away with it. I also like to place omnilights, or sometimes spotlights, of varying size and intensity with no shadows in places of importance or wherever it makes sense. Using textures to fake lighting can be effective too, for the walls here I use a repeating gradient texture I made in krita. Also for most materials I like setting the specular mode to disabled. 

Anyways thanks for giving it another chance and I'm glad you ended up enjoying it! 

The abilities being learned from analyzing fossils is a neat idea, and the zap ability is a pretty cool and unique. I like the platforms you need to time a jump on especially, and the ledge grab sections were pretty fun too. The platforms that carry you longer distances were a little unresponsive, it usually took using the zap a couple times before they would activate. Also it took me a while to realize you need to continue zapping them to make them keep going. 

This is pretty cool, the gameplay is a bit janky at times but it's fun nonetheless. And the artwork is really good, though keep in mind with pixel art not having everything use the same pixel scale can make even great pixel art look a little off. 

This was fun, it can be hard to make first person melee combat feel good but it works well here. I like the enemy's attacks, especially the ones that dash at you, having the option to dodge them or do the cooler thing and hit them while they're dashing is nice. The boss fight was a fun and tense battle as well. 

During the platforming sections I kept jumping too late (skill issue), some coyote time would help make it feel more intuitive I think. Though I get why that might not have been high on your priority list, it's pretty minor all things considered. 

The movement, visuals, and sound design are all very polished and well done. Every action is so juicy and has so much impact. The bucket's a neat idea, it does a lot for something that seems quite simple. And I like the concept of a metroidvania with a roguelike gameplay loop, it's interesting. 

The boss fight was cool but it felt a little unfair at times, there were multiple moments where I'm in a position that makes getting hit seem unavoidable (skill issue). And running out of runs and having to get all the abilities again made it all the more frustrating to die to it. 

The teleport was the bane of my existence lol, it kept teleporting the player out of bounds, and my attempts at trying to fix it made it feel inconsistent when you teleport close to a wall. For that mushroom section, were you using the downward slash to pogo off them (intended solution I neglected to teach) or trying to time your jumps on them (this is a bug actually)? Also I don't recommend using the teleport on that section, I think it's easier without it. 

Thanks for playing though! 

Thanks! For the last area you use the fist arm to throw or punch a bomb across

Yeah I should've made a tutorial for the mushrooms lmao. For getting past the cliff you use the fist arm to throw or punch a bomb across. 

Anyways thanks for playing and for the feedback! 

Thanks for playing! For that mushroom section, were you using the downward slash to pogo off them (intended solution I neglected to teach) or trying to time your jumps on them (this is a bug actually)? Either way you're probably right about it being too hard for a required obstacle so early on. 

This was fun! I like how the abilities combo with each other to create some interesting movement options. Music was solid, the songs fit the vibes of each area well, especially the water area theme. The art is nice too, and recoloring the same assets for different environments is a pretty efficient way to make them stand out from each other. 

My main complaint is that the crouch blocking other inputs got kinda annoying and made it feel a little clunky to play at times. All in all though it's very well made game and I enjoyed my time playing it!

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I actually know about that bug lmao, kept it in cause I thought it was funny and mostly harmless for something of this scale. 

There's good weapon variety, each one's interesting in it's own right and having to roll for them keeps the fights interesting. 

The narrator introducing the bosses is a neat way to hype up the fights, but it gets old having to wait through it each time you respawn. 

It would be nice to have some air control, I think it would make the movement a lot more intuitive, especially since you implemented wall running (very cool btw) and designed the last arena with moving around a lot in mind. 

I like your pixel art, the character designs are interesting and your skills will only improve with time. Miau especially is very cute! Be careful in the future to make sure the pixels are all the same size, it'll make your art fit together a lot better and feel more cohesive. For a first game though you did a great job, hope you keep at it :)

I love the way this game looks, the spinning background and self-building bridge are real trippy. The slash effect can be a bit disorienting, but honestly it might be cool enough to justify itself, and you clearly accounted for it by making the player invulnerable during the animation. The music also fits the game real well. Overall good job :)

There's some good ideas here, and I think with some tweaks and polish it could be pretty solid game. 

The first boss is quite hard (as many have pointed out), and while it was frustrating and I do think difficulty tweaks are necessary, it felt doable and I found it to be engaging. Rolling fatigue or boss buff honestly didn't change the fight much in my opinion, but rolling double down felt like an auto loss. Fighting two of the same simple boss at once is generally a good way to make a fight more interesting, and would work here if the difficulty is toned down. And while it's very on theme, I'm not a fan of a boss' difficulty being determined by which random buff it gets. I'd say if you want to keep the spinning mechanic make the different ones more comparable difficulty wise but unique in how they affect the way you have to approach the fight.

The second boss was less difficult but still pretty challenging, and it's a unique concept for a fight that I haven't seen done before, but the time spent just waiting for the coin to fall made it less engaging for me personally. Also idk if it's intentional or a bug but the damage zone on the bottom does two hits of damage which I felt was overly punishing, though the coyote time did help remedy that and was a nice touch. 

The third boss is where I gave up, I just couldn't envision myself beating it. The double cherry attack felt particularly unfair, especially when paired with other attacks. 

Anyways I've yapped enough, the game has potential, and there's lots of little details I like, such as the cards as health and the little cane spin you do when you stop moving. Good job :)

Gambling but awesome 

Thanks! Your game's also one of my favorite entries so far :)

Simple, dumb fun at the most primal level, just smashing robots and blowing them up, sometimes that's all a game needs to be enjoyable. 

I like the idea of spinning the mouse to spin your weapon, incorporating the theme into the control scheme is always nice, but I pretty quickly gave up doing it and ended up just holding left mouse most of the time. Also is there a strategy to beating your doppelganger? I managed to win eventually but it felt like it was just up to luck no matter what perks or weapon I had equipped. 

Anyways the game was a good time overall, and the customization was a nice touch :)

Thanks for playing :)

Thanks for the feedback and for playing! :)

Making it colorblind accessible was something I thought about but never took the time to do. If you don't mind me asking, were there any particular parts where the directional colors were muddied or was it just in general? 

Really good use of such a simple mechanic, each boss has it's own unique way that interacts with it, making the fights pretty interesting and memorable. It's more of a nitpick than anything, but I think a sound effect or visual indicator on the boss for when the damaging phase is about to end would be nice, I'm usually too focused on hitting the boss to notice how much time is left on the hourglass and occasionally take damage cause of it (skill issue). 

It's a very well made game that I had a lot of fun playing. And the subtle music changes were a nice touch. Great job!