This was a solid game but having played some of your other games it just felt like more of the same. I think it is lacking something to make it really great.
Neat idea, the semi-abstract level design was pretty cool, however I found the "platforming" aspect to be pretty frustrating at times, especially the second-to-last level. I had a really hard time judging the right time to step off the moving platform, and then it was tedious to wait through the super-long death sequence when I failed. Also, a lot of levels seemed to rely on blind camera "jumps" which felt a little unfair. Even so, I enjoyed this overall.
Nice action-platformer with a fun visual style. I found it a little easy as most fights could be completed by button-mashing and health drops were plentiful -- maybe you could tweak the mechanics a bit to add more of a skill/tactical element.
I finished with "June Mejos: suspended, suspicious of student council" with 7/7 evidence. Are there other endings?
Very cool game! The pogo stick mechanic was really unique and interesting, I enjoyed the difficulty level, and the low-fi visuals reminded me of 3D games I played as a kid. The secrets added some nice depth too.
I completed all four levels plus the throne room bonus area and collected three coins, I would have liked to get 100% but I think that's all I have time for right now.
A few critiques:
- I thought the "indoor" areas were too dark, I could barely make out anything in most of the sewer level.
- The Yard felt sluggish and a bit tedious compared to the other levels. The game felt the most fun when you were moving fast and trying to avoid flying out of control.
- The color palette was a little drab, I think you could brighten up the colors to make things feel more lively.
- After completing the last level in Firefox, the screen went black and I had to reload the page to continue.
I completed the game, but I didn't like it too much. It felt like the different game elements didn't come together in a satisfying way.
The hummingbird's flight seems suited to quick, fluid movement and dodging obstacles, but the laser turrets, can't be dodged at all and required lots of slow, finicky movements. Also the laser line-of-sight felt somewhat inconsistent.
In general I didn't like the box pushing mechanic. It felt out of place thematically, the physics felt clunky and awkward, and, like the lasers, it clashed with the flight mechanic.
The pollination mechanic seemed promising but wasn't used in a particularly interesting way.
The final gauntlet leading up to the nectar and the sequence after that placed a lot of emphasis on the lasers and box pushing, which felt tedious and not enjoyable.
I liked the overall visual design of the game, my only critique there is that I think the puzzle elements should be a different color from the enemies.
The game is tagged "exploration" but I don't think it really fits as most of the game is a linear sequence of screens and I did not really get the sense of discovery that I associate with exploration games.
Great idea, but needs a way to skip the level intro (where it shows you the gems) on retry, and a reset key so you don't have to wait for the time to run out if you make a mistake early on.
I think the horror elements represent the girl's feelings, not a real danger. Based on the ending it seems Meowmie was killed by a wild animal outside, such as a coyote. This would match the skulls and tracks seen in the game, and coyotes do sometimes kill housecats in real life.
Excellent work, it's clear a ton of care went into this! The physics felt great and the level designs had nice variety and a satisfying level of challenge, especially when trying to hit the star times. My only critique would be that the second-character movement mechanic felt a little underdeveloped or underutilized by the level design. All in all, an outstanding game!
Pretty good room escape game. The puzzles all felt logical and I managed to get through the game without ever getting seriously stuck. The game was nice to look at, but I felt the overall art design suffered from a lack of thematic and tonal consistency, which tended to break the illusion of exploring a strange environment and remind the player they were just playing a game.
Nice proof of concept, seems like there's good potential for a full game. In its current form, both the puzzle and platforming aspects felt pretty light, hopefully one or both can be developed further to create a more substantial experience.
Very original and innovative idea, and I loved how it gradually became clear what you needed to do without any specific instructions. I liked the exploration aspect and the extra details here and there which gave the environment more flavor. Getting the last thorn and reaching the forge were pretty frustrating though. Maybe you could add more audio feedback to make up for the lack of tactile information.
I'm not sure I understood the point of the QR codes as opposed to just having text in the game world. I ended up using Firefox's screenshot functionality along with the zbarimg command-line tool to decode the text, which felt like an unnecessary hassle.
Nice physics puzzle game! I liked the "golf" aspect of trying to complete each level as efficiently as possible.
I completed all 40 levels with 2898 total length in a little under 55 minutes, but I think it's possible to get much lower by exploiting certain quirks of the mechanics.
For me, what defines a puzzle game is that it exercises the player's problem-solving ability to solve the game's challenges. This game doesn't do that, there's no insight required to complete each level, just brute-force exploration of the space.
Great game! Feels pretty tough at first but it's fun gradually learning what works and what doesn't. The upgrade system gives a nice amount of depth without getting too complicated.
I finally beat the game with a multi-carrot / splash build. I might try to come back and see if I can win with some alternate upgrade path like ring-of-fire or pure speed/damage with no special effects.
Nice game, simple but fun and nicely polished as usual. The B side was pretty challenging for me! It might be fun to have a hop count so you could try to get through each level with as few hops as possible.
Wonderful metroidvania! I loved the carefully crafted level design and how each ability felt like a fun surprise. The rich environments were great too.
I liked the little bits of story sprinkled throughout but I was a little confused about what happened at the end of the game.
Beautiful visuals but I think the gameplay was too simplistic. It would be nice to have some indicator if you've collected all the fruits so you know if you've missed something before ending the level.
It was fun to see a game about a maned wolf. I've seen this animal in a zoo before and they really look like some sort of dream creature. They have a pungent smell like a skunk.
Very impressive for a 48-hour game! More of an action game than puzzle I would say, it was never hard to figure out what you were supposed to do but some of the levels took me a few tries to get the fast mouse movements right.
On my first playthrough the person who wants you to deliver a letter did not give me any package, so I couldn't get past 90%.
On my second playthrough, I knocked on the door where you start last of all, and the person told me I had already received a package, but he gave me a part anyway and at the same time the house to the left also gave me another part. So I got the generator to 110%. Luckily I was still able to see the good ending so I didn't have to play through a third time.
Yes, I completed the game... I think. I reached Mount Hop and started collecting story pieces, and then after it said there was no one left, it went to the "Do not despair" screen and reset the game.
Overall, this was an interesting idea and I was sufficiently intrigued to finish the game, but it was a long grind. The world is much too big for the amount of content, and most of it is just drab, empty areas. Finding the first few powerups can take forever and it's easy to get lost since everything looks so similar. Towards the endgame it gets easier to navigate but then it just feels like a slog to collect all the map coins.
Perma-death forces you to play cautiously but this also leads to a kinda boring playstyle. Any fancy maneuvers you can do with the powerups are just not worth the risk. However there are a few sections that are dangerous to navigate even with all the powerups, so you might spend hours slowly crawling around the world only to die in an instant from a single fumble. All of this can lead to a pretty frustrating experience which I think would deter most players from completing the game.
I also experienced a few issues which made the game more stressful:
The game randomly hangs for a few seconds at random times, for no apparent reason. This could end a run if it happened at the wrong moment.
If you press down while standing at a vending machine you can fall through solid floor and die. I also fell through walls a few times when using the rope gun or even just jumping downward through platforms in a narrow vertical tunnel.
The rope gun is unpredictable when used in any way other than moving straight upward.
I was unable to jump while pressing up + left/right on a ladder (possibly due to keyboard ghosting?), this can cause the player to fall when trying to jump between horizontal ladder sections.
Sometimes when moving upward between rooms using the rope gun, the rope would disconnect and I would fall back down to the previous screen.
Sometimes holding space with the double jump powerup would lead to a sort of wiggle-jump that went further than two normal jumps, but this was not predictable. Other times it seemed like the double jump did not work at all e.g. when trying to break out of a fall just before hitting the ground.
If I could suggest some improvements, I would make the world smaller and add a mechanism like map markers or a compass to help find the remaining items. (I know there's the ancient map scroll but I only found it on a single run out of all my attempts, so not a reliable help and occurs too late in the game.) It would also be nice to add some more variety to the visuals or add some random things to find throughout the world to liven things up a bit -- for example a special room layout, an optional powerup or item, or just an interesting visual that appears on a small percentage of runs.
In the end, the idea of a procedurally-generated exploration platformer is pretty neat and I'm impressed how far you were able to develop that idea, it just needs a little more polish to make it a really fun and engaging experience.
Great game! You definitely captured the feel of old metroidvania games with the unforgiving difficulty and precise level design. I really liked how the player could not attack, I think this made the game more interesting.
A few minor critiques:
- I don't think the blur effect added much to the experience, I turned it off right away.
- I didn't like having to hold down the z key constantly to get the faster movement speed.
- The scroll hints felt unnecessary; the player can find everything through careful observation.
- Trying to get the cross over the lava and having to wait for the elevator ride after each death was pretty annoying.
Wonderful game! I love how the world gradually opens up as you gain abilities, and the treasure indicator was nice to satisfy my completionism towards the end. I felt like it was a little on the easy side overall, but still quite a fun experience!
