Announcement - Results! Winners! ~Sleigh the Competition! 2023 Christmas Game Jam

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Started by Ms Littlefish 184 posts Page 2 of 10 View original ↗
  1. Ms Littlefish
    #21 Source
    Trihan said:
    An official hearty congratulations to the well-deserved three placing entrants. <3 and thank you to @TESTOSTERONE and all the judges for all the work and time you've put into giving us a fun event to obsess over to the point of neglecting important tasks for the holiday season!

    I’m low key not joking when I say the amount of time investments this month have resulted in a semi-disturbing amount of box pile up that needs taken to the recycling. I honestly might opt for fire pit this time.
  2. Trihan
    #22 Source
    ZombieKidzRule said:
    I'm a sucker for punishment feedback so I'm happy to hear anything that anyone wants to offer. Don't feel obligated though.

    I went into this with low expectations and I thoroughly achieved them. :LZSlol:
    I think I already gave most of my thoughts in my stream, but:

    - overall the premise seemed antithetical to the "getting you into the spirit of Christmas" criterion, but it was an interesting concept.
    - as nothing but a vehicle to slightly differing dialogue, the quiz was definitely too long. It felt like it was going to determine something more important.
    - same with the avatar choice. I understand wanting to give the player something to get invested in but ultimately none of it was really relevant to anything but a few referential pronouns and the image representing you in the minigames.
    - the games themselves were fun enough but were almost entirely down to blind luck. There wasn't really anything there that you could win through skill or familiarity with the games; it was mostly RNG. I would have liked to have seen something skill-based too.
    - the game over sequence was more funny than anything, especially with the comic book smack bubbles. XD

    But you finished a game! And the text appearance thing was cool looking. You should be proud of what you accomplished. :)
  3. Dalph
    #23 Source
    Starmage said:
    I would be happy to read the critique/feedback for my entry "Heroes of the Seasons" from the judges as well! <3 Especially since I plan to make a fully updated version of this game soon for commercial release ^^ <3 :yhappy:
    Here. Congrats for the fan favourite award.

    Spoiler
    A solid boss rush game with pretty good gameplay and strategic battles. The New Game Plus mode with unlockable mercenaries is an interesting addition too. The only problem is that it took me longer than 20 mins to reach the final boss, the battle system is also a bit cluttered and overcomplicated (to be part of a very short game!) and I think it needs to be toned down a bit in terms of effects\skill change and stuff, sometimes there's just too much going on.
    On my first try, I didn't purchase any item or equipment from the shop and used Braith, Keoh and Mikaye, still managed to win with a bit of strategy, I think the balancing is okish (leaning towards Easy if you prepare the party appropriately).
    Blondus points for Mayor Nelly of course. I played the updated version of the entry with the RTP graphics.
    I had fun, I think the game is above average\quite good, the battle system just needs to be a bit more simple to not confuse the player too much.

    Izzy_MS said:
    Congratulations to all the winners!
    From what I can see in that graph, I got third place in fan favorite! Pretty good for a game I made in about 5 days.

    On the other hand, I would love to hear feedback from all the judges, so I can improve for the next game I make.

    Spoiler
    There isn't much gameplay here, that's why my feeback isn't particularly long (with some gameplay the game would've had a higher score) but the Christmas Spirit is particularly strong in this one, I think it has to do with the idea of buying presents for your friends.
    The multiple endings encourage a bit of replayability too. I would like to save the game after the intro cutscene to not be forced to rewatch it everytime I wanna try a different ending. Custom portraits are very cute.

    ZombieKidzRule said:
    I'm a sucker for punishment feedback so I'm happy to hear anything that anyone wants to offer. Don't feel obligated though.

    I went into this with low expectations and I thoroughly achieved them. :LZSlol:
    Remember. The last shall be first one day.

    Spoiler
    Was it meant to be a Visual Novel with choices?
    I was initially very intrigued by the idea and the dark undertones, the writing isn't bad either, it's actually pretty good but ultimately everything was problematic and hard to play.
    The game is painfully and absurdly slow. Just speed up things (in terms of text) next time and keep the pacing faster.
    Mostly no gameplay, minigames being RNG and several choices to make, I wouldn't even mind as I did in fact make a cooking minigame myself in the past with only choices to make. The problem here is that everything is just...too...SLOW. It also weirds me out to see photos of real people into it, I understand what you were trying to do there, but I think photos of people just don't work. Next time go with any resource pack.
    It's a shame, because I really liked the idea, it just needed better execution.
  4. TRIDIUM
    #24 Source
    Ooh, do mine @Dalph! Do mine!
  5. Starmage
    #25 Source
    Dalph said:
    Here. Congrats for the fan favourite award.

    Thank you so much for the detailed feedback Dalp! <3 I'm very happy you mostly enjoyed it, and indeed the battle system does need to be made simpler or less complicated, especially on the first run, so I'll do my best to find a work-around on that for the full release! Thanks so much again! ^^
  6. TESTOSTERONE
    #26 Source
    All of you put your energy and time into this game jam, and it was a lot of fun to have an emotional ride of joy and tears playing your entries.

    christmas-cute.gif

    Congrats to everyone who completed a project in such a short time and made the contest fun - 32 entries!!! What a great turn-out! I left my personal feedback on all of your itch.io game pages.

    Each one of you will get an awesome participation badge and the winners will get special badges all courtesy of @hiddenone

    • @r66r Great job for completing this gem of a game and blowing it out of the park. I had so much fun playing your game! What can I say… it’s a masterpiece.
    • @slimmmeiske2 i loved your idea. And even though I’ve seen similar gameplay before, your execution was so well crafted that it was such a joy to play.
    • @TeiRaven those custom graphics you made were such an eye candy for me. It felt magical to go out and spread Christmas joy throughout town.
    WindRyder_ChristmasIncoming.png
    • Thank you so much again to all the participants!
    • Thank you to @Ms Littlefish for going above and beyond to make this contest a reality.
    • Thank you to @hiddenone for making the badges and helping score and provide feedback for all the entries.
    • Thank you to @Dalph, pretty sure without your encouragement and know-hows, this contest wouldn’t have happened.
    • Thank you to @bgillisp for offering additional work power to score all the entries and helping get the mods and admins on board.
  7. TRIDIUM
    #27 Source
    6eb90113-9bf2-4931-b10e-7dd5751e31b2_text.gif

    (I kid, I kid)
  8. Shuruzy
    #28 Source
    Congrats on the games, everyone! I figured I wasn't gonna have the time to make something for this (& considering the types of games i like to make, 20 minutes was... not the most compatible with me), so this was a nice event to watch from the sidelines!

    :MV1:
  9. bgillisp
    #29 Source
    I'll post a few here:

    @ShadowDragon I already posted this on your itch page but a little more detail:

    Spoiler
    The controls were a turn off for me. Too touchy, I often fell when I didn't have enough time to get the jump to register. The biggest offender was when I climbed the ladders, then had to turn to jump. Since I had no ledge to get on first this required me to hit right then jump and hope I was fast enough for it to register. An extra tile for the ledge coming off of ladders would have helped a lot.

    @Starmage

    Spoiler
    Battle system gets too overcomplicated too fast. I had skills change on me with no explanation. Why was I only able to do a skill that does 4 random ice attacks sometimes with one character? Also if you take out the enemy with the weakness that character is mostly useless as they can't do much otherwise. Needs a little toning down keeping in mind the 20 minute time limit.
    I think the battle system you have would work in a longer game though, but it wasn't a good fit for a 20 minute game.

    @ZombieKidzRule

    Spoiler
    The intro abot Kramus is 5 minutes long (I timed it). I'd cut that from the game totally as it added little. Start with the kid and being sent to bed. Also let me hit enter and go to next text box when I'm ready please. I read much faster than your autotext, and that bored me having to just wait and wait and wait.

    @Izzy_MS


    Spoiler
    Feel like I was going blind on the gifts as it was pick from three and pray you got the right one. Granted not sure how much it matters as I felt like I got a decent ending anyways.

    @TRIDIUM :

    Spoiler
    Cute game but kinda wondered where it was going sometimes. Do wish it had not just ended when it did.

    My suggestion is it did feel like an abrupt end to me with that one. Maybe that was though just due to time?

    Anyone else?
  10. Erif
    #30 Source
    meeee
  11. TRIDIUM
    #31 Source
    Yeah, it really needed more time in the oven. Which, I can't complain about because I submitted it on the first day XD.
  12. bgillisp
    #32 Source
    Still just remember, you all made a game. If you hadn't entered, you were guaranteed to lose. Or as someone else I know puts it:

    An unreleased game is a 0 star game.

    The important thing is to have fun with it. Heck I know I do when I enter jams. Remember I entered this masterpiece into a game jam once: Big_Harold.png

    Oh and don't forget the intro!
    Blahblahblahintro.png
    Basically, just remember to have fun with it. That's the important thing.
  13. Dalph
    #33 Source
    TRIDIUM said:
    Ooh, do mine @Dalph! Do mine!
    Ok
    It's cute and fun, there's a bug regarding the key in the log, the event can always repeat itself if you interact with it. Found also a typo: "Tommorow."
    Would be helpful to have the game Auto saving right before the sledge section and the walking on the ice section, also instead of a Game Over screen there, I would prefer a "RETRY" screen.
    It would be faster and less frustrating. That being said, I have no big complaints about it, it was pretty fun. Mapping could be a bit better too but it does the job OK. It's an above average\quite good game. Blondus points for Jane.

    Starmage said:
    Thank you so much for the detailed feedback Dalp! <3 I'm very happy you mostly enjoyed it, and indeed the battle system does need to be made simpler or less complicated, especially on the first run, so I'll do my best to find a work-around on that for the full release! Thanks so much again! ^^
    You are welcome. And beware, you just called me Dalp, only @Caz has the permission to do so. :rwink:
  14. TRIDIUM
    #34 Source
    Ooh, nice, noted. Now I have two sure fire ways to piss Dalph off.
    Dayum, all those spoilers, you had me sweating. Funny thing about the autosave, a few people claimed it saved too often. Weird.
  15. TESTOSTERONE
    #35 Source
    Reading those spoiler tags was such a rush.
  16. Dalph
    #36 Source
    TRIDIUM said:
    Ooh, nice, noted. Now I have two sure fire ways to piss Dalph off.
    Dayum, all those spoilers, you had me sweating. Funny thing about the autosave, a few people claimed it saved too often. Weird.
    I died many times and had to restart much earlier than the puzzle sections. That was my only real issue about the game.

    @Erif
    Spoiler
    The action battle system is very fun (not perfect but it works for the most part) and it's the best thing of this entry. There are a lot of scattered errors everywhere else though. If you get back in the house before the first battle (or anytime you want except when you're forced to by a cutscene), it can snow into it, plus you also can't get out of it anymore, the game gets stuck and you have to load again your last save file.
    There's also a visible character event on the bottom right of the house map, some visible mapping errors on the exterior roofs and around in the snowy town, the old man NPC also speaks spanish.
    The writing is ok and gets the job done, the Xmas spirit is give or take there. The game is clearly rushed and with a little bit of more polish, it could've been much better than how it is. It's overall very average right now. Blondus points for Mary.
  17. Dalph
    #37 Source
    EDIT: Whoops, double post.

    @Ms Littlefish
    Please use your superpowers to erase this from existence, thank you very much.
  18. Starmage
    #38 Source
    bgillisp said:
    Battle system gets too overcomplicated too fast. I had skills change on me with no explanation. Why was I only able to do a skill that does 4 random ice attacks sometimes with one character? Also if you take out the enemy with the weakness that character is mostly useless as they can't do much otherwise. Needs a little toning down keeping in mind the 20 minute time limit.
    I think the battle system you have would work in a longer game though, but it wasn't a good fit for a 20 minute game.

    Thanks so much for the detailed feedback bgillisp and indeed, I do feel my entry became too ambitious and got too complicated fast when I made the system xD :D <3 But I will consider that for the full release and at least make the game simple on the first round. :D Thanks so much again! :)

    Dalph said:
    You are welcome. And beware, you just called me Dalp, only @Caz has the permission to do so. :rwink:

    Omggg that was a silly typo of mine and forgot the H, my bad haha xD :D Well, too bad ya'll can't deduct points on us now :LZSevil: j/k xDD
  19. ShadowDragon
    #39 Source
    bgillisp said:
    An extra tile for the ledge coming off of ladders would have helped a lot.
    this should make it to easy and wouldn't work for the final level!
    I do agree with all others, and pixel movement and different jump could pull
    things off better as well and easier jumping.

    this jump plugin wasn't really built for platformer, but I totally agree your judgement.
  20. ZombieKidzRule
    #40 Source
    @Trihan Thanks for those additional thoughts! My project was definitely more about concepts and much more ambitious than I had time for.

    Originally, I had plans where the customization choices would have been brought out more in responsive dialog. And you were supposed to have the opportunity to actually win redemption in various ways, including based on choices you made in certain games. But nope, everyone lost.

    I think I approached the Game Jam backwards. I used it as a means to work on concepts I wanted to try rather than conceive of a game that fits well within the given parameters, which is definitely backwards.

    @Dalph Thanks for that feedback! I definitely chose games to make that I thought I could do and wanted to try, rather than think about what games might actually be fun to play. Great for learning, but again, backwards for the Game Jam entry. Which is why Krampus ended up warning the player that some games might be based entirely on luck. I realized that when the reality set in of just how much I was going to be able to implement. Making games like that are fine for learning and gaining experience, but not really for playing. And I definitely get the slowness part and the photos.

    Bizarrely, I spent a lot of time searching for useable photos that would have been better spent developing the game!

    @bgillisp Thanks! I was also watching the time on that Intro and skipping those and converting to clickable text is on my fix list!

    Thanks again for your thoughts and for your patience in playing the game!