itch.io

Alright, I managed to avoid the softlock the second time simply by getting good and not dying!👍 Having only two phases on that boss felt maybe a bit quick, but considering it was again the same attack pattern twice, maybe it was for the best.

I really liked how the map looped around to the beginning near the end. I think I managed to find all but two health upgrades, based on my health bar. The final boss honestly felt easier than the second one, but it was still a fittingly climactic conclusion.

The ending was pretty sad, but I guess it was to be anticipated based on the lore up until that point. I had only hoped that maybe the robots could carry on even if the humans couldn't, but I guess they had fulfilled their purpose.

Overall, like I expected, it was a really good and solid game from start to finish, and felt complete enough to be worthy of a full release. Excellent job!

Pretty neat little game! The characters look nice and they have that 90s look that goes well with the tileset. I think the music was definitely the strongest suit here, especially the totally not Megalovania track playing in the final mansion area!

I felt like the game made really efficient use of map space. It had a bit of an "open world" feel despite taking place in a relatively small town, and it was fun (if quick) to explore all the houses.

The combat felt a bit jank (perhaps in a true 90s fashion). Throwing was fun, but in the end I didn't use it that much due to how long it took to pick up and throw things, and the character being a bit too specific for where they had to be standing to actually pick up things. And both the melee attack and the dash were a bit tiny and made it hard to hit enemies without getting hit yourself.

The final boss was pretty cool, even if a bit straightforward. I tried throwing things at him, but that didn't really work out since most of the time he'd just run into me and make me drop the thing I just picked up. Ultimately, the best way I found to damage him (and to damage enemies in general) was to dash into him while holding the opposite direction, so that I'd immediately walk away and avoid contact damage. He took a few more hits that I'd have liked an enemy without a visible health bar to take, but he went down in the end.

EDIT: Okay, I had to look at the other comments to find out the dash was a continuous ability and not just a one-off boost. This is actually the second time I overlooked this exact mechanic while reviewing this gamejam, so I guess I should try holding down buttons (instead of just tapping) more often in these games! It did completely trivialize the final boss, so in a way I'm glad I didn't figure it out before beating him.😉

All in all, good job!

The game looks and sounds incredible and extremely polished for a gamejam, the artwork and atmosphere are top notch! Although, it was sometimes a bit hard to tell the difference between walls, walkable areas, and other objects of interest due to almost everything being bluish grey.

The story seemed quite engaging and well-thought through for a sci-fi setting, and I found it quite impressive that so much effort was put into the storytelling in the first place, considering the level of quality of everything else. The upgrade stations doubling as story cutscenes was pretty clever, too!

The controls I'd say were the weaker part of the experience. They were overall fine, but the character felt very slow to control even with the dash. That wouldn't have been a problem in a smaller map, but there was quite a bit of walking back and forth in the game. Plus, the little bit of forward momentum while attacking often led to contact damage.

The basic walker enemies sometimes seemed to ignore walls, and the first boss was cool but it did seem to be just one attack and one phase repeated three times.

The second boss (giant lady) also looked really cool! Unfortunately, I got softlocked after dying to her once, since she got stuck in her stunned animation in the middle of the lake upon coming back, and I couldn't reach her or do anything else. And since the game didn't actually seem to save progress between shutdowns, I got sent all the way back to the beginning.

I will try my best to give the game another shot and update my review before the rating period is over, but I can already tell you did an amazing job!

Maybe my favorite entry so far, a really neat and atmospheric game that invokes a unique sense of nostalgia. It might've been simple in terms of gameplay, but I feel like it succeeded at pretty much everything it was trying to achieve. Felt super quick to navigate and get through even while having so much content, too!

Overall, the art style and music are top notch, and I loved all the different NPCs. I especially liked the visuals and ambience in the rainy area, although the sound got a bit glitchy there at times. The distant vocals (animal noises?) were a great touch, though!

The controls felt super tight and responsible, especially as the bunny. I found it really funny because the heavy landing sound and screen shake makes it look like they weigh a ton. Loved how fast all the characters move, too!

I think my only minor complaint (aside from the occasionally glitchy sounds) was that it felt like finding the fish transformation actually took away some of my movement options, since before that, I used to be able to jump at a wall as a bunny and quickly turn into a spider to latch on to it. With the fish, I could no longer do that due to fish appearing after the bunny and the transformation cooldown. Of course, none of this was a problem after getting the bird form.

The level was a bit on the big and empty side, but I feel like the fast movement speed of the player more than made up for it, and in this case, the emptiness actually contributed a lot to the atmosphere. Once I had all the transformations, it felt like it only took a few minutes to find all the puzzle pieces, even with some of them being quite far off the beaten path.

I'm not sure if there was an ending beyond completing all four paintings (which were all super cool and lovely, by the way), but either way, it felt satisfying enough to me and overall I had a great time playing. All in all, incredible job!

Edit: Okay, after looking at the comments, I did manage to find the secret room and enter the code! I did think it was weird how tight the jump to get over that little ledge was, but I never thought to try pressing Down on the little fence things. The ending room was neat, but I think to me, finding all the painting pieces was still the "true" ending. :)

Probably one of the weirdest games to rate for me because even though I absolutely love the execution and the vision, I personally didn't really enjoy it that much! (Though that's probably purely skill issue...)

In terms of the presentation, maybe one of the best games I've played so far (or at least the most complete-feeling one). The sound design is top notch and the graphics, while simple, are easily readable and don't lack in detail - I love all the secret rooms and the little furniture scattered throughout the level.

The parry mechanic is awesome and feels like it's working as intended, though it was a bit too unforgiving for me and I feel like I managed to beat all the bosses only by sheer luck. It felt like some attacks punish you for panic parrying, while others require you to parry as soon as you see the animation (like the first boss's dash, or the second boss's falling projectile barrage). So it definitely feels like a case of developer difficulty, although there's nothing wrong with that in my opinion! (It could also just be sleep deprivation on my end.)

Funnily, the final boss seemed far more fair and forgiving in terms of the timings compared to almost all of the mid-bosses. I loved the fight overall in terms of the gameplay and the spectacle, although I do have to agree with the other comments that the game just locking you into the ending like that was very abrupt, especially since the game doesn't seem to actually save your file between shutdowns. The level might not be that big, but after getting skill checked all over again on the first couple bosses, I decided to give up on finding all the secrets for now.

I'm not sure if there was another ending or something, because the lady statue definitely looked like she was going to be the final boss. Sadly I just couldn't figure out the piano puzzle purely by ear, I tried a bunch of melodies that sounded vaguely correct, and tried looking for hints like the scratch marks on the keys etc. but ultimately gave up after many attempts.

Overall, regardless of my complaints, I think you did an outstanding job!

First things first, the game looks absolutely gorgeous! I adored everything from all the portraits to the UI and the little wobble the player does while jumping. There might have been a couple too many rooms for my liking, but at least none of them felt like they had a lot of unnecessary empty space, which is often a big problem in these gamejams!

The controls were very solid too, and I loved that your attack is an AoE around you, it was definitely a nice alternative to shooting or swinging swords all the time. The variety of enemies was great, although some of the ranged ones were pretty annoying to deal with and in the end I resorted to the true and tested "just run past everything" strategy most of the time. The compression of every ability into the prayer/attack was a cool idea, but in the end I feel like maybe it was a bit too much functionality under one button, and it made it a bit hard to keep track of all the abilities I had.

Some minor issues I noticed was that the dialogue text sometimes overlapped the frame. The game also took a long time to load and initially stuttered quite a lot in my browser. Fortunately, it evened itself out soon enough, but still I feel like a downloadable build would've been nice! Other than that, some music would definitely have helped tie everything together, but obviously there's only so much you can do in a gamejam!

I managed to get to the top and talk to the goddess, and I like how it seemed like there were several ways to get there. I definitely missed a few stars along the way, though I'm not sure if there was a different ending or any other effect to collecting them, since the game didn't seem to keep track or acknowledge picking them up in any way. Regardless, excellent work!

Great little game with a refreshingly rich and engaging story! The depth and execution of the story were quite impressive for a gamejam project, while also being a solid Metroidvania in its own right (despite what the mean bird might have said). And the graphics and music were gorgeous as well, especially in the forest area.

I know many of the gameplay choices had narrative significance, but I still wished the main character was just a teeny bit faster, especially before getting the dash, and some of the big winding rooms perhaps a bit smaller. It didn't help that I somehow managed to take the exact route through the game that led me to every dead end before finding any upgrades, and some of the backtracks were definitely pretty tedious with the base walk speed.

I think my main complaint is that the ending felt very abrupt for the amount of buildup up until that point, and I feel like many of the plot threads and foreshadowing never really got a chance to pay off (unless I missed something important, which wouldn't be a first for me this gamejam).

And while I agree with the overall message, I'm honestly not sure if this community is the right audience for it? I've only been around for a short while, but I feel like during my time here, it's always been emphasised that the definition of Metroidvania for the purposes of the gamejam is broad. Heck, I'm pretty sure at least a third of the games this edition aren't even side-scrolling platformers (though obviously that's not something you could've predicted while working on this project). So in that way, it does feel like preaching to the choir a little bit.

That said, I still had tons of fun following along with the plot, and really enjoyed how much variety there was in the different areas throughout the end. My favorite was by far the optional(?) area east of the dark caves, it definitely had big old-school RPGMaker horror vibes. For a while, I thought the game was about to go full-on creepypasta on me!

All in all, excellent work!

Interesting little game! If the goal was to replicate glitches, then I think it was successful because I was clipping through walls and getting launched left and right. It did make it hard to figure out where I was actually supposed to go, but I did manage to find some kind of an ending.

Having to hold down Control to use the menu was a bit of an awkward choice, since I have Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down bound to volume control via AutoHotkey. Meaning, I had to suspend my hotkeys to be able to select the laser.

The visuals were definitely very minimal, but they had an interesting blend of GameBoy and Flash game aesthetic. Overall, nice job!

First of all, I absolutely admire the vision and ambition of the game! While the rest of the review might seem like I had a lot of issues, I think that's kind of a given with a project of this size. There might have been plenty of nitpicks, but that's because the game attempted to achieve many different things and mostly succeeded in all of them, but fell short here and there. Overall, I think the level of polish and execution is very impressive considering the scope and the timeframe!

The art style was very cute, and I loved the variety of characters and enemies! I immediately thought the trees looked like people, so it was really funny when I found out some of them were actually enemies in disguise. That said, I feel like the overall look of the game was strongly hindered by so much of the level being taken up by empty space, which really drew attention to the simple graphics. I think the game also suffered from not using true pixel accuracy, which resulted in some things looking weirdly out of place (this applied mainly to the font and the "smeary" enemy projectiles).

Overall, the controls were very solid, and zip-zooming around with the dash was a lot of fun! People have already mentioned the issue of falling into pits too easily when dashing, so I'm not gonna harp on that here. When using the analog stick to move, the character also really likes to face up/down even when it feels like I'm pointing the stick sideways, which often led to missed attacks.

And again, as people have mentioned, the combo attack often hurt the player more than it helped... though as I found out, by pacing the attack just right to never actually trigger the combo, I was able to do better overall damage without the risk of accidentally running into enemies. (Still, I never used the melee attack again after unlocking the ranged abilities.)

My only major roadblock was that I had to look on Discord to figure out I was supposed to kill enemies to progress in the mountain area, because to me, the obstacle with the counter looked more like "collect X of this weird-looking thing" than "kill X of any enemies".

The second boss was definitely the major highlight of the game for me and helped motivate me to keep going. I absolutely loved the attack patterns and how dynamic and fast-paced the fight felt! My only issue was that it felt like there was very little time to actually hit the boss... until I realized I could just stand to the side during the "bullet hell" phase and get tons of hits easily with the aforementioned "slow attack" strategy (hitting slowly enough to avoid comboing myself into taking contact damage). Once I figured that out, the fight was over in only a couple phases.

The third ("mechanical eye") boss would definitely have been a big challenge... if I hadn't gotten a glitch where I somehow became unable to take damage, which obviously made the fight much easier.

The difficulty definitely took a huge nosedive after getting the disc ability. It felt like it became the solution to every puzzle and every enemy encounter from that point onward, and it kinda trivialized both combat and farming. It was sure as heck cathartic to use, though!

The final boss looked cool and felt suitably climactic, though it was again made pretty trivial thanks to dash and the disc, and overall, I think the bird boss had far more interesting attack patterns and would have made better final boss material. The presentation of the fight was also held back by the size of the boss and the arena, which meant the boss was barely visible much of the time. Still, the design of the boss and the music were amazing!

One big disappointment was that I couldn't go back to the main world after entering the final dungeon, as the gate requiring the three feather items was locked again and I couldn't open it from that side. This was annoying because I had missed the final bunny somewhere (and I even have an idea where), but I locked myself out of finishing that quest by thinking it was gonna be somewhere in the last dungeon.

All in all, the story might not have entirely landed with me, as I feel like it got a bit overly pessimistic towards the end and kinda contradicted its own message, unless I somehow missed a secret ending? I did get the keepsake from the shadowy person, but that didn't seem to have any effect. I also feel like I didn't really understand most of the references and easter eggs, having neither been part of the gamejam long enough, nor active enough on Discord. Still, it was definitely one of the strongest attempts at a solid story-centric entry I've seen in a gamejam, and without sacrificing the gameplay either. Overall, exceptional work!

SPOILERS:

Okay, so after some more consultation in the Discord, I did totally miss a major secret that happens to solve my biggest problem with the story! I think some bigger warning about the point of no return would definitely have been nice, or just letting you go back through the final gate normally, because the game will absolutely feel incomplete if you miss that. Still, that was definitely a really cool way to tie the loose ends together, and elevated the story and the game for me a good couple points, so great job!

Thank you for your kind words! I definitely would have liked to come up with some more interesting abilities, though I'm not sure what exactly. With more time, I'd probably have liked to add a darkness mechanic in the cave and maybe some kind of a raft to traverse water, though those aren't exactly unique either...

Very fun little game! The movement felt very solid and I loved the ultra-pixellated 3D art style.

I wish the level had a bit more solid ground and not as many haphazard platforms scattered in the air (this is something that seems to happen with a lot of the 3D entries in these gamejams). It felt like most of the time was spent jumping from one tiny platform to another, and misjudging a jump or getting hit by an enemy meant falling all the way to the bottom.

The fly enemies were particularly annoying due to how specific the attack hitbox was about only hitting things directly in front of you. I think the game's biggest saving grace here was definitely that enemies didn't respawn between checkpoints, meaning at least I was able to gradually whittle down the ranks each attempt until I could actually focus on the platforming.

I finally managed to beat the beetle and got sent all the way back to the beginning, so I guess that means I won? Thanks to the game letting me keep the upgrades, I was actually able to find the Pseudoregalia easter egg, too!

Either way, the game could do with more level and enemy variety (as well as some music), but there's definitely a very robust foundation here for a good 3D platformer. Excellent job!

Definitely a very unique and cool game! Loved the the main character animations and the comically oversized sword, and the music was really nice and catchy too.

With the enemies, I kinda wasn't sure what I was looking at - I guess one was some kind of an enchanted dagger that shoots lasers from the grip end for some reason, and the other was a heavily armored knight? The level was a bit empty and repetitive and could have used a few less rooms in my opinion.

The physics feel quite well-executed, although I have to say sometimes I wished I just had a normal jump button... I spent a lot of time flailing around with my sword getting stuck on moving platforms, or repelling me from the thing I was trying to jump onto. The controls started to make a lot more sense once I got the shotgun, though at first I thought my game was bugged because I didn't realize I had to equip it from the menu, and I ended up replaying the whole part up until then on Windows before I figured it out.

I admit I expected a bit more of a duel-y combat system to match with the theme, rather than just enemies shooting or rushing you down. In the end, the enemies were a bit too tanky to actually bother fighting them, so I mostly just skipped past everything.

The final boss was a cool touch, but the lack of contact damage, and the fact your sword can block lasers, made it very easy. The boss spent much of the time floating too high to reach it even with all three shotgun blasts, and it was mostly a game of patience until it was in a spot where I could get a couple good spins in.

Overall, maybe I'm not the biggest fan of physics-based gameplay like this, but the concept itself and the level of polish in the execution were very impressive! Good job!

Pretty fun little game! Loved the graphics, music, and the sense of humor. The slime controls took some time getting used to, but overall they were very snappy and solid.

The artwork was gorgeous for a gamejam, but made it a bit hard to tell what was background and what was foreground, and I kept running into spikes that I didn't notice in time. I preferred the dungeon area for that reason, as it was much cleaner and easier to read. That said, I loved the design of the protagonist and the final boss!

Some of the rooms also felt a bit big and redundant, and fighting the ubiquitous flying bees wasn't really that fun. After a while I found myself mostly just dashing through while ignoring enemies. All in all, it felt like the world didn't need to be that big for the amount of abilities and enemy types that made it into the game.

Still, it was definitely a very solid entry in terms of the graphics and the overall presentation. Good job!

Sadly not a whole lot to review here, there seems to be no game on the actual project page, and the other link leads to a game that shuts itself down with a "Failed to switch scenes" error after a few moments of gameplay. The player character and some of the backgrounds look nice, but they're covered up by a bunch of glitchy-looking textures most of the time. Still, if you're planning to fix this game, good luck!

Interesting little prototype, definitely very barebones, but I like the idea of not being able to fight back against enemies. For reference, I only played on the "hardest" difficulty, which wasn't really that hard once I got used to watching the edge of the screen for the glowy eyes.

There were a few unfair situations where I was already backpedalling from one enemy and got sandwiched by another one coming from the opposite direction, or jumped up only to immediately get hit, but fortunately those were overall pretty rare. The game straight up telling you where to go definitely made things much easier, too! Level design is obviously too big of a topic for a review, but I personally think for a short game like this, sometimes it's better to just have a more linear level with only a few branching paths, compared to what's essentially a single giant room where you keep running into roadblocks over and over.

I managed to find all three crystals and got all the way to the bottom level, but unfortunately I got stuck on a waist-high barrier and couldn't figure out how to get past. The nearby launch pad didn't launch me high enough to get over the wall, and I tried pressing every button but couldn't find any sort of dash or glide or anything else that would give me more air distance.

Still, the minimal graphics did a pretty decent job at selling the horror setting, and I think the idea of dodging enemies in the dark has a lot of potential. Nice job!

Cool little demo! Definitely feels very unfinished, but the main character looks great and actually controls very well (at least in the base form), and the music is lovely too!

At first I thought the boss bugged out after attacking me once, but eventually I figured out I could dash upwards and managed to craft the heart, so I guess I just killed him that quickly? After that I just kinda floated around the level aimlessly until the character said something about "being free of the tunnels," which I'm gonna assume means I beat the game.

Overall, there's definitely a lot of work to do here, but also plenty of potential for a bigger game. Good luck with future updates!

Pretty short but sweet! I liked the desolate, almost meditative atmosphere and the subtle ambience. The level looked very nice, but I think it'd have looked even better if the character didn't take up so much of the screen.

The progress was definitely very obscure at times. I had to look at the comments to figure out how to solve the cave puzzle, and it was often hard to spot the tiny branches you had to latch on to. I ended up finding what I assume was multiple easter eggs (pie, bone, cowboy hat) before finding the actual way forward, but overall, the level felt pretty linear once I knew where to go.

It didn't help that everything felt super slow, from walking to jumping and reeling in the lasso. Also, I feel like the game was supposed to have combat, but I guess that didn't make it in in time?

I'm not sure if there was an alternate ending for finding gold, but I did eventually manage to reach the top. There were definitely some rough edges, but still, very nice job!

That was a lot of fun! The graphics were definitely simple, but at least the color coded blocks made it obvious what each of them did. On the other hand, the character was cute and the music was quite snazzy!

The level was fine, even if a bit on the big and empty side. The generous checkpoints were very appreciated, and the map was definitely a huge help once I remembered that it was a thing (and the MVM easter egg was hilarious)! I think my biggest problem was with how slow the character walks, which made some of the backtracks pretty annoying as I was trying to find whatever upgrades I needed.

That said, I liked how many different upgrades there were for such a relatively small game, and the little shooting challenges with the bouncy shot were a nice change of pace. I also really liked the part where you shoot a green block and suddenly the ground starts collapsing from under your feet, that was a really neat little set piece!

Overall, good job!

Honestly it didn't even dawn on me that he could count for that reference as well! I guess to me, a furry character is just a normal character. 😸

Thank you for your kind words!

The axe definitely ended up overpowered, since I originally made it with a much longer wind-up time. That didn't really feel good to play, so I made it much faster... at which point I should probably have revisited the damage value instead of building the entire rest of the game around it. Plus, I personally love this style of weapon in games, so I guess I just couldn't resist the temptation to make it too good. :)

(Alternatively, I could probably have made the claymore an intended upgrade earlier on, and have an even stronger "straight sword" type weapon as an optional secret. Although, at that point there would also need to be more level to fit all those items, at which point there should probably also be more tile variety, so...)

As for the enemies, I think that's mainly just an issue of only having 2 enemy types (two for the overworld and two for the cave, one being just a reskinned overworld enemy). Although, you could also say it's a gentle way of nudging the player to explore a bit more if they struggle with the cave, because if they had found every optional item up until that point, it should take a regular enemy 5 hits to kill them.😉

But yeah, if I had spent more than a week on this game, adding more enemy and weapon variety would definitely have been my priority.

Pretty neat little game! The level might not have been much to look at, but the movement was nice and the wizard's sprite was pretty cute (although I have to say at first I thought it was a person with a tiny head and arms and giant legs). I managed to find all 10 bunnies, and funnily this was also my 10th game reviewed. Well done!

Definitely a cool gameplay concept, and the music and artwork are great, but I honestly would have liked it better without the rhythm aspect (or if it just moved the characters in beat increments, but didn't actually require timed inputs).

The grapple has some issues beyond just firing and moving, as sometimes I'd be standing perfectly still but the grapple would fire in the complete opposite direction of where I was facing. And I feel like the retracting mechanic hurt me more than it helped, because I'd often try to hit an enemy but accidentally press the button twice, or try to attack again too soon, and retract before actually getting the hit.

The game might take 11 minutes to beat for the developer, but for me it took several attempts to just get a sense of the game mechanics and the map layout, another one to discover that I needed to actually kill enemies, and several more to figure out some semblance of a route that would let me get enough kills on the way to the exit. So that's already many times 11 minutes, all just to get mobbed in the last room and die every time.

(I don't know if the timer actually means anything, as I reached 0 a few times and nothing seemed to happen, but I sure hope it doesn't because getting through all of that just to get a bad ending would be terrible.)

I can definitely admire the guts to go with such a niche genre, but sadly for me it was too much to go through without a checkpoint. Still, the concept is neat and there's definitely material for a really good game here with some more forgiving mechanics, so good luck if you choose to update it further!

It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but the idea is certainly very unique! The controls were nice and responsive, and the huge hitboxes of the characters took some getting used to, but fortunately the game didn't make it too much of a problem. The graphics, while simple, did a decent job conveying a unique setting for each character, and the music was a blast!

Obviously I skipped the upgrades and played Vert in 1-hit mode like a real gamer, it was definitely a challenge but not too bad with a bit of respawn invincibility abuse. I did go back and played them the intended way after the full game, and I have to say letting the player completely skip those upgrades in the first place is definitely a decision. I would say it's definitely interesting that they can be either the hardest or the easiest journey depending on your choices, but I think a more obvious indication of "you're entering hardmode" would have helped.

(Plus, maybe add a big pit leading back down to the start from around halfway through, so that the player has an easy "out" if they decide they bit more than they could chew?)

Buster was always a nice change of pace compared to the other two when the game switched back to them, but I did feel like the gunplay was missing something. I think instead of the three alternative shots (that I never really used), some kind of an active shield/deflect ability would have been a good match for their more aggressive nature, as the enemy bullet patterns felt a bit cheap at times with how fast they come at you.

Alma was neat but I think they were my less favorite character of the three, they kinda lacked the immediate sense of identity of the other two, and the block puzzles were alright but felt a bit shoehorned in just to give them something different. The puzzle focus in itself is a good idea, but I think some other puzzle mechanic like hacking or gravity manipulation would have been more interesting.

Overall, I think the concept of three unique playstyles is great, but it just didn't go quite far enough. I think in an ideal world, the Vert journey would either go full Celeste with the platform and spike challenges, or full Terraria with the drill. And for Buster, I'd have loved to see it just go all-in on the gunplay and turn into a linear corridor shooter, maybe with a bullet-time effect whenever switching in and out of this particular character to help the player get back into the action. (Since as it stands, Buster's and Alma's areas overall have a fairly similar feel to them.)

More visual distinction between characters would have been nice as well, in particular I think Buster and Vert should have been shorter than Alma since they have to avoid damage, while Alma could keep the giant hitbox since they're the only one who never gets hit.

Of course, all this is a tall ask for a gamejam, but that's kinda something you have to keep in mind when you essentially decide to make 3 games in one!

Still, definitely one of my favorite implementations of the theme so far, I think switching between the three perspectives does a great job conveying the sense of distance and isolation. All in all, nice job!

Cool little game with a neat soundtrack and a really interesting 90s artstyle, and I love the comically large fist attack! Unfortunately, I also found it pretty obscure and difficult to play.

Not being able to hit the first boss when he seems to be the most vulnerable (your fist goes over him when he's on the ground, and you can't crouch or aim down as far as I could tell) feels pretty bad. On the other hand, he always seems to hit me easily even when I think I can jump over or run under him. Coupled with him becoming invisible when I do hit him, all this made for one annoying fight.

(The movement pattern and overall idea is actually very neat, just a bit too fast imo and with too large a hitbox compared to how fast your character can get out of the way, and the invisibility doesn't help.)

After half an hour or so, I was really close to giving up, but I ultimately managed to squeeze by somehow, and the second boss seemed much, much easier in comparison. Though by the time I found the ice key and got to the area with a ton of enemies and acid pits, I decided I needed a break for now.

Still, it's a very neat project with a really unique sense of identity, and I might give it another shot some time!

Thanks for the honest feedback and the video playthrough!

The idea is that the boss has a "last breath" attack where he will fire 20 projectiles before dying for real, but each hit on him will take away one projectile. I should probably have just set his health bar to 20 and make it lose 1 HP for each projectile to have a better visual indicator of what's going on.

Balancing a slow & beefy weapon vs. a weak but fast one is definitely a big challenge. In most games that I've played, usually one of them ends up being better in almost every situation. Personally, I'm always biased towards the slow and beefy weapon, which is why the axe is the way it is.😉

I agree that the axe probably shouldn't have been able to trigger gravestones and campfires. There is a secret in the game that involves NOT hitting a campfire with the axe, but I probably could have thought of a different puzzle to put there.

Thank you, and thanks for playing and taking the time to find the secret! :)

Thank you for your kind words and for checking out the game! The ability to bypass the boss is something I kinda decided to leave in the game intentionally. I didn't really have time to get anyone to playtest before the deadline, so I wanted people to still be able to see the ending in case the boss turned out to be too hard.

...I totally did miss that. I think I did see a message about the "long-press F to save" in the beginning, but then I got to a bonfire and also saw "press F to save" and I guess inside my head, it just became "press F to save at a bonfire". With that knowledge (and a night's sleep), I came back to the game and managed to get to the end pretty quickly. That's definitely at least partly on me for completely missing that mechanic, so it definitely ups my enjoyment score of the game a couple marks!

Interesting demo, although the protagonist looks much higher quality than everything else. I'm not sure if there was anything to do after getting in the castle, but I did find the Pseudoregalia reference.

Not sure if I'd call it a Metroidvania or a journey, but it's a neat prototype regardless! The wall run and ledge grab seemed to work pretty well. Keep up the good work!

Absolutely loved the design for the player and the human characters, as well as the music. The story seems quite interesting, too! Unfortunately the platforming and combat feel very rough, and the level has a big problem with almost everything looking very similar and mostly being big empty rooms with spikes.

I managed to trudge along until I needed to get 4 spirits, at which point I gave up after more than an hour of attempts. On my first try I somehow managed to get the vessel and get down from the platform only to die to rats on the way to the save point, and it only made my subsequent attempts even more frustrating as never again did I manage to avoid dipping my toes into the acid pit of instant death.

Overall, I think the characters and the story have tons of potential, but the actual "game" part of the game definitely needs a lot of work!

I am irrationally happy that the person with the Noelle avatar was the first one (to my knowledge) to find it without help

I've already shared some of my thoughts in discord, so I'm gonna try to be quick here: Great job! I loved the music and the artwork for the player and the main terrain. The size and amount of content in the game is definitely very impressive for a gamejam, and the world is just big enough to get a bit lost in (yet not hopelessly so). The controls are nice and snappy for the most part, and I'm a fan of the player's speed (although it does make it hard to land some of the more precise jumps at times).

I liked the variety of the bosses, and some of the fights were pretty intimidating at first. The baddies are certainly on the tankier side, and sometimes it felt like they had twice as much HP as they actually did because of the lack of visible healthbars and the tiny range of your attack. Though, it all kinda went out the window when I realized most of the bosses could be brute-forced by standing next to them and using Lifesteal.

I liked the clear sense of distinction and identity between the different color-coded areas. The map overall had a nice sense of flow, being framed by the two tall shafts (one being part of the green zone, and the other connecting gold, green and orange). That said, some of the rooms felt a bit too big, especially when it comes to some of the climbing challenges that were essentially just a lot of small platforms stacked on top of each other.

Also, a small nitpick that's more of a Godot/Windows issue than a fault of your own: If you export the game as a single executable (just the .exe, without the .pck), Windows will get confused and show a warning before running the game. Even though a single .exe is obviously more convenient, it's still safer to export normally with a separate .pck.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun and ended up beating the game twice to see both (some?) of the endings. Well done!

Thanks a lot for playing the game and for the review! As for those trees... well, I feel like you might have already answered yourself.😉

For an unfinished demo, this was actually a lot of fun! I loved the music (especially the ending theme) and the controls were nice and snappy. I actually liked that both you and enemies die in one hit, it made for a fast-paced gameplay loop. I do wish you could lightkick in midair, though. Still, good job so far and good luck with the full version!

Thank you for giving the game a shot and for the honest review! The boss does one final attack at 0 health, so maybe that's why it looked like you couldn't kill him? While in that state, he will shoot 20 projectiles before dying for real, but you can reduce the counter by 1 by hitting him. In retrospect, I probably could have communicated that better by setting his healthbar to 20 and reducing it by 1 for every hit or fired projectile.

The boss does gain armor during the "top" phase and the later "side" phases, meaning you will deal less damage in those phases. I wanted the axe to feel powerful to where it'd one-shot or two-shot all regular enemies as well as the early phases of the boss, but I also wanted to encourage the player to dodge a bit more in the later phases of the fight. I agree it might be a bit counterintuitive; there's a different hit sound when you hit an armored enemy, but it's probably a bit too subtle since I didn't have much time to spend on audio balancing at all. (Introducing another armored enemy somewhere earlier in the game probably also would have helped.)

The game's length (and probably some of the other issues) is partly because I made it in a week after dropping a previous project that got way out of hand. That said, I personally think it's a pretty good length for the amount of enemies and upgrades I had. I'm also used to there being a lot more entries in the gamejam, and I feel like a lot of people tend to tune out when a single game takes too long.

(That's probably not as much of an issue in this gamejam due to there being fewer entries than usual, but that's something that was hard to predict until the submission period was over!)

Thank you a lot for your kind words! Just pushed out a last minute patch to hopefully address that and some other issues, as well as a little bit of extra content. 

Thank you! As a side effect of the save system, you can actually just ignore the boss and go straight back to the ship. I decided to keep it as a feature since I kinda ran out of time to have anyone playtest the game. :)

A very intriguing game! The story and cutscenes had me hooked, and the early area with the town looked very nice. The music was quite beautiful and haunting, especially the songs playing in the introduction and the town. The design and animation of the protagonist was adorable and definitely my favorite part of the game, especially after unlocking the wings! The artwork for the enemies and terrain was nice, but the bright gray edges looked very out of place.

Moving around felt nice and responsive, especially after unlocking the wings. The area of effect of the absorb ability was hilariously huge and made dealing with enemies fairly easy, considering it could hit most of them from outside their aggressive radius (the only ones I took damage from for the most part were the rolling rock enemies). The "Kirby" mechanic definitely has some potential for environmental puzzles and decision-making based on what abilities are available in an area. But as it stands, I only ever used the wings once I'd unlocked them, and the only other ability I was able to find (the projectile) felt a bit unnecessary compared to just using absorb.

Aside from the town area, the rest of the map felt a bit empty and redundant, and I feel like some of the time spent placing those empty rooms could've been spent polishing other aspects of the game. Still, I had fun exploring around and uncovering the map. Good job!

Pretty neat little game! The music was cool and the art style had a nice cartoony vibe. Blasting through waves of enemies was quite satisfying, although the primary pistols could have used a bit more "oomph" in terms of sound effects. I also wish it was possible to look ahead a bit with the mouse.

The turtle boss was very cool and had some impressive attack patterns, but got stuck in the wall towards the end. Otherwise, the only major issue I had is that I'm not sure stamina and energy bars really count as "side effects." Still, very nice job!