Thanks so much for playing! ๐ Glad you enjoyed it!
Shandy Pants Studios
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Thanks for playing! ๐
You'll be happy to know that there isn't a left-hand side section (at least as far as I know!?!) The only side room is to the right.๐
I'll have a look at the jump height! I know physics can sometimes be weird in Unity, so it could just be something to with the way I set the jump velocity. Hopefully the spring could still propel you the top though! (and if that didn't get high enough something must have gone very wrong ๐
Thanks for noting the UI! It's probably the part of the game I spent the most of time on! (To the point where I didn't even finish the tutorial level until 5 days in ๐). Actually the instruction screens were just rushed in the last couple of hours of the jam ๐ (hence why I might have missed key details like how sound effects need to start during the relevant section ๐)
I'm also very glad you enjoyed the intro! I think it's one of my favourite cutscenes I've made in a game! Hopefully worth spending the entire first day of the jam on!
Thanks so much trying it out! ๐
Thanks for playing! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
Oops I didn't consider that could be missed! I've moved the starting position back so now the camera can see both conveyors, which should hopefully signal there's more over there! I think the best solution would probably be a mini map for the ground floor (and side room in later levels!) but that might be a thing for after the jam ๐
Still! Thanks for persevering and replaying! It's greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed it! ๐
I'd assume you had issues with the pause button since it only worked during gameplay in the initial release ๐
It was a (very) last minute addition there were a couple of technical limitations with actually putting it everywhere! I've just released a patch now that allows you to pause the game anywhere, including cutscenes (where there is now a button to skip! ๐)
Yeah the sounds count if it's started during the time in which the line is read out. With the exception being the overall noise levels (where it's the sum of every sound currently playing!). I think I could make that slightly clearer, but once again the controls menu was made in the last 5 hours along side the credit sequence, main menu and pause menu ๐ probably should have got round to those earlier next year!
Anyway thanks so much for the feedback! I feel like this might be one of the first games where I might come back to it after the jam. Despite how the game might look, it actually features some of the cleanest and most robust code I've ever written in a jam game (which isn't saying much ๐) but hopefully a lot of things can be easily extended and refined if I did indeed want to!
Thanks for playing! Have a good flaming-evening! ๐ฆฉ
Really glad you enjoyed! I have to admit I loved working on the "Town with no name" storyline ๐ and I tried to keep most former SBIGJam references a secret as far as I could! ๐
Yeah the musical QTEs were probably the most difficult mechanical part of the game, as I had to deal with them in a whole load of different varieties (playing in sync with the music, having a bit of leeway, having them play dynamically in a looping track, having to play in a specific section of a track looping then move on to the rest of the song, having multiple ones played concurrently, playing in both cutscenes and gameplay, and adjusting for multiple time signatures and tempos). I had to play it fairly safe in the end have the music play for 1-2 bars before they appear on screen, hence why they can sometimes feel slightly slow, but that's probably something I can probably solve now I'm not stressing about getting all the content finished ๐
Really glad you enjoyed the music tracks! I didn't know how they'd turn out since it was just me and a voice changer doing all the VA, but yeah I'm really happy how it turned out!
Yeah that's a good point about the camera rotation! I tried to keep a balanced between speed and precision but also I barely used it when testing except in certain circumstances, so I didn't put a whole load of QA into that part ๐ Maybe I need to try an IMGJ sometime!
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!
What a fascinating experience! As someone who has always dreamed of harnessing my door expertise in order to inspect a variety of different products, I felt this to be a very intriguing time!
The game just goes on, and on, and on. Eventually it makes you curious about your surroundings. I tried picking up the painting and then spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to put it down ๐ Anyway it's a fun little game and got me very curious!
Thanks for submitting!
Thanks so much for playing! I'm so glad you enjoyed the playthrough!
Yeah in terms of the ending, I was originally planning a complete anti-ending ๐ (I find that sorta thing kinda funny) but settled on something slightly more wholesome. As with pretty much every level of this game I used it as an excuse to cram extras in I couldn't find a use for elsewhere, but yeah I can get why it's very underwhelming when I lie about there being a grand conclusion that links everything together lol.
I guess in terms of gameplay I wanted to make something that was slightly more of an experience than a challenge. I feel like in previous entries I did, some questionable design decisions on my part made some sections frustrating (especially platforming sections ๐) so my aim this year was to make a game that no-one would ragequit for the most part ๐.I guess it's an interesting challenge for me next year to see how I can put more of a gameplay focus into my projects without making things overly difficult for a jam game.
I'm still trying to work out some of the kinks with the unity animator, and I'll see if I can fix the specific dialogue bugs. I think it's caused as the unity PlayableDirector sometimes skips frames without calling signal tracks when tabbing out, but I've found it a fairly difficult issue to replicate. Maybe just yoloing and turning off pause in background might be the best way to resolve it ๐ (but then I would definitely need to implement a pause button which doesn't play nice with timelines ether ๐).
Hope you had a great time with the game, and thanks so much for writing such detailed feedback!
I managed to get in contact with some anonymous sources from Shandy Pants Studios! (To reiterate, I am an independent archivist with no legally defined connection with the developers, and am *definitely* not a 1st party as defined by section 4.7.28 of their Confidential Disclosure and Exports Agreement).
Apparently when gaining the first round of seed funding from the Tortoise Island Media Fund, the developers agreed to make the in-game location a 1:1 scale replica of Tortoise Island! While it's extremely impressive that they managed to map the landscaping to the nearest millimetre ๐ฎ (trust me I've seen the photo comparisons!), it was a bit of a major issue in development, considering that about 70% of Tortoise Island is made up of flat plains of grass ๐
of course, this wouldn't have been a problem! Due to the 67 hours of scripted content originally planned for the game (The completionist time was estimated to be about 4027 hours, but it also included a mission where you had to count each blade of grass on the island). On top of this, they managed to negotiate a sponsorship with the TT (Tortoise Trophy) in order to bring motorbike racing to the game. The motorbikes could get from one side of the island from another in just 2 minutes, the tortoplane (planned for the shell Islands expansion pack) could get from one side to the other in just 30 seconds, and the tortoporter could get from one side to the other in only -2 seconds! (Yes, I asked how that worked. No, I didn't get an answer). None of these materialised by the time the plug was pulled though ๐ฅ
When I asked why the game felt so broken and fragile-feeling, I was told "Life is fragile, and 'You did WHAT?!?! with my salad?' is the most true-to-life game there is". After telling them to to knock off the BS marketing spiel, I was told that they just ran out of time before the funding dried up ๐ฅ apparently though the save system was actually fully working all along though, so at least that's good I guess! ๐
Finally, they said thank you so much for playing! The whole team is very sad they can't talk about the game directly, and can't publicly make their case to The Game Awards. They've also said for future players to make sure to grab the salad! ๐ฅ or that might otherwise break things.
Thanks for all the feedback! Regrettably I actually made a build with a locked mouse cursor yesterday but forgot to upload it! ๐ Sorry!
Yeah the camera stuff always seems to be the hardest part when making 3D games. Hopefully I can get that sorted some time in the future.
Thank you so much for playing!
Thanks so much for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed it!
Yeah the performance is really bad. I was supposed to make a Potato PC edition, but I ran out of time near the end. I've made one now though, with a few graphical effects turned off and a dynamic resolution, so hopefully that should help somewhat (It runs now on my tablet, at least!). The text runs on a separate co-routine to the script that resets the text and moves the light, so that's why it can mangle itself on low framerates. Oops!
In terms of the relation to ND64, it wasn't really intended, but I ended up going for a similar narrative structure, which kind of explains the similarities.
Anyway, thanks so much for playing and taking the time to review!
You know what? This is actually quite a short, sweet game. While I definitely think the game could be expanded upon, I had quite a lot of fun. I loved jumping bullets, but found it hard to shoot the enemies when they were shooting at me so much. I think if the enemies gave a bit more of an opening, it would be slightly easier.
I loved the art style, and I think you did a great job.
Hi Hob! As a fellow Construct 2 dev, I want to say well done on finishing the game. I really liked the concept, and it left a smile on my face.
There are a few improvements I can suggest to make the game better. As Keyb said earlier, letting the user press a button to move on text is definitely a good idea. To do this, just add the keyboard object in under "Add new object". Then in the event sheet, write "On key pressed (Space)", and add another condition. Then the second condition should be "If [NameOfText].text = [Previous piece of text]" Then the event should be "Set [NameOfText].text = [New piece of text]". Just do this for each line of text, and you're good.
The other thing is that you can use effects to embellish the graphics a bit. Don't worry if you're not a graphic designer (I'm not either). Adding in a flash of something when the creature at the end comes in would really make it more dramatic. Possibly a screen shake as well. If you're using the scrollto behaviour, just go to [Character]-[Shake] in the events.
Otherwise, I think you did a great job, and I can't wait to see how you progress in the future!
If this jam had a category for story, this game would easily get 5 stars. No other game has made me laugh so much. The gameplay is solid, and while I think the controls can feel a little floaty, it doesn't subtract too much from the main experience. There is a decent amount of enemy variety which helps to mix the game up, and I just found it a lot of fun. Well done!
Wow. This game feels so polished. I just can't believe you've done something like this in such a short space of time. The animations are superb, and I love the parallax effect on the backgrounds. The concept fits perfectly with the theme, and the concepts of the game are really well explored.
My suggestions are more just small quality-of-life improvements. While the "9 lives" idea is funny at first, it's not so fun when you have to start at the very beginning, going through all the tutorial stages again. Especially when a couple of deaths feel quite cheap, and the overall difficulty spikes nearer the end.
I would love just a couple more keyboard bindings as well. Have two keys to the slow/moving time would be good, and possibly a key to reset the time of all the objects.
This isn't really game related, but a slightly higher-resolution thumbnail might help the game stand out better. This was one of the last games I got to, and I think it's because the thumbnail blurred in with the rest.
On the whole though, I'm in awe of just how much you've managed to do in a short space of time. This is truly one of the best games in the jam.
To start off, this game looks amazing. I love the progression between the builds, and I think it works seamlessly in a way I didn't think was possible. I think the game definitely fits in with the theme.
When it comes to the gameplay, I'm really torn. While I understand that the gameplay was intentionally bad at the start, it didn't make it any less frustrating when I was playing the game. As much as I like the idea of the game gradually improving, I had to grind through the first parts of the game, in order to get to the final build. I think if you were to make this into a fully fledged game, you still need to make the early builds enjoyable, as it could otherwise turn people off at the gate. I only managed to complete the game on my second playthrough, and I didn't even get to the final build the first time.
Overall though, you certainly achieved your goal here, and I'm amazed you managed to do all this in 3 days. Well done!
This game looks really cool. I think it has a really memorable aesthetic which stands out among other games in the jam.
I think the main improvement I would make is responsiveness. I had to restart the game whenever I wanted to try again, and since I only ever stayed alive for a few seconds at a time, it soon became tedious.
Overall though, you've made a really neat looking game.
Hi tankbuster! I watched this game on the live stream, and thought it was a must-try. I think that it was spectacular that you managed to do this in the 3 days.
The cinematic intro was amazing, and the voice acting was great. I think the game could be polished, so the car doesn't crash as much into random ice. Saying that, it's a jam game so it doesn't matter too much. I think that adding mouse controls for the camera would also improve the user experience.
Overall, you did a great job, and I look forward to whatever you do next!
For your first 'finished game, this is a really good attempt. The gameplay felt very zen, and it felt surprisingly relaxing (Bonus points for the music as well!)
If you want to expand upon this idea, some time-based challenges would be really cool. Maybe a leader-board as well would give the game a slightly more competitive edge. Saying that, you should be proud of what you managed to do, given the short time frame.