This is such a cute game with fun background music, I love the style and how all the creatures look! The animations and victory animation with the little sunglasses were well done and wholesome. Another detail that I thought added a lot of personality to the character and game was Mein's face getting sadder as you take more damage as it made me empathize and feel bad for him. I also like the story; it is endearing and makes me excited to learn more about Mein and the main villain.
I also liked his swing attacks and the range that they had. I think that it'd be cool to add other kinds of attacks as time goes on, like through gear or power-ups since I also really liked the addition of the noodles and takeout and I think something similar to the food could happen and create different types of power-ups.
The boss was also fun but challenging, I liked his attack style with the charges and jumps. I do like how the boss flashes as he took too much damage and there could be a power-up that Displays the health bar of enemies. It low-key took me four tries to beat the boss. With that said, the game is really replayable and the levels feel rewarding to go back through.
I loved the little bit of lore about Mein that came down after the fight and I think it would be great if there was a button on the main title screen that could show you the unique things you collected throughout the game. And, in the future, I'd love a "load/saves" button that could bring you to different chapters of the game or go to the next part of the game.
Overall, I thought the game was adorable and had a lot of character and potential. I can't wait to see any new levels/chapters or any updates in the future! :)
I'll make sure to let you know when the next update for my game drops! We've been working really hard to make even more awesome things, and judging based on some feedback, I think youll enjoy what comes next :)
There are being small changes here and there that will paint a better picture for what we want the final product to be like. Hope you get a chance to play it soon
Glad you enjoyed what you played! Thats a tough question, as admittingly we are running behind schedule by a bit. I realistically cant give an exact date, but know we are working hard to make something great :)
Just tried this game. There's a ton of potential for this game, and while it's clearly in the very early stages it's obvious there is a lot of love and thought put into this. The only thing I'd really say needs work is the control schema. The art style looks like a three-way lovechild between Plok, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario World. I dig the character designs too!
It more had to do with the way combinations of controls would interact with each other on the keyboard. I spoke with Vicctre about it and I think we worked through it - some of it was due to playing the game in the way that I would with my own game's control schema.
I enjoyed the game, the animations, music, and sound effects are great! The only thing I didn't like is when you die, you start over, and the boss is kinda hard to beat, so if you die, you have to replay the whole game.
yeah, the lack of a checkpoint system is something I've heard about. There was one implemented, but it was taken out for dev reasons. It will be around for the next demo!
Having just played the DEMO_1 version, I enjoyed the game. It is Kirby inspired in terms of visuals and gameplay, but not in a copycat way, but moreso as a foundation for new ideas to take place in. I am a huge Kirby fan, so perhaps I'm a bit biased. I'm looking forward to seeing more in the future, but for now, here are my thoughts on the game so far:
VISUALS:
Characters are very charming, especially Mein himself. Love the ear wiggle details, and the victory pose in particular. Enemies are also given charm too, but the focus is still on Mein. While I have a lot of praise for the characters and their animations, I feel the shading and color palette could use a lot of improvement. I am especially not a fan of the banding present in the vast majority of the sprites. I think banding in general does not look good on modern displays; it muddies the sprite, and makes them look...a bit strange. I feel like a bigger focus on concrete shadow areas from 1 light source could make the sprites look a lot nicer. The colors, especially in the background, I feel could also improve a lot. The shadow colors don't look too interesting to me, and I feel the rest of the game looks a bit too dull, in a way that doesn't quite feel intentionally so. Not too sure about visual direction in terms of the characters and the world, but these more fantastical environments feel like they should have a little more vibrancy present.
MUSIC:
Music was fine. Inoffensive, but nothing memorable yet. Maybe I haven't played it enough to really let it sink in, but I can't really remember anything that was played. Sound effects were cool, the attack swing sfx sounded nice, but some seem to be missing, like a proper hit effect, which is understandable as an early demo.
GAME FEEL:
I played via keyboard, and overall, gameplay feels nice and responsive. There are nice visual effects for most actions, and for the ones that are missing, I assume they will be introduced in future versions. I really like the fact that jumping after running preserves the previous momentum; it just feels right and I will never really know why a good amount of games like this don't have that. But also, moving the other direction mid jump will cancel the run boost, which is fair, and gives run jumping some risk. However, I can't help but feel that it's a bit unfortunate that colliding into walls make you lose your run boost. Also holding both right and left cancels movement, which is fine, but I would prefer a system that allows the most recent move key to overpower the other one, rather than cancelling each other out. But honestly, that is a big nitpick, and isn't even relevant for controller users, but I think it's nice when games with keyboard support do that. I think my biggest issue with the gameplay was the sluggishness of the attacks. Not in terms of animation; the attack animations are very solid. But rather, using the attacks feel a bit more sluggish than I'd like. The grounded attack will keep you in place for a bit, which depending on gameplay direction, isn't inherently bad, but the animation feels a tad too long for an attack that locks you out of movement options mid-animation. Honestly, that's not too bad; maybe I'm just used to faster paced games, and not every game needs to be fast paced, but what's more egregious to me is the fact that you can only use the air attack once until you land. Not even double jumping will refresh the counter. It feels a bit jank and arbitrary to use because of that. Maybe the attack is too powerful to be used in the air as many times as you want, but I feel like this is not the most optimal method on balancing the attack; it simply feels bad to me because it feels like control was taken from me. Also landing on the ground mid attack will make you unable to use the attack button for a bit, like there's an internal cooldown. I think the main bad part about that is that there's no visual indicator that shows I can't use the attack. The character will do their usual animation, but now I just cant attack until some invisible timer allows me to attack again. It's cool to see Kirby Adventure styled gameplay back, with Mein's attacks feeling like Sword Kirby from that game, but I think it could be handled better.
That being said, I will state once again that maybe I'm a bit too biased and used to faster paced games that have land cancel attacks and stuff like that, and that direction might not be what you want, so take what I said with a big grain of salt.
GAMEPLAY:
The level layout is pretty solid so far! I love the button input images throughout the level; a fantastic way of showing someone the controls without stopping the pace of the game, or flipping through a menu. Level design did a nice job of teaching me the mechanics, and the enemies in the later part of the level do a good job of elevating tension by just a bit to feel like my skills are being tested. The boss fight works really well as a tutorial boss; their pattern is very simple, but still requires players to be engaged to finish the fight, which is surprisingly difficult to balance. It has the right difficulty as part of the first stage, which is awesome.
CONCLUSION:
Great foundation so far, I'm excited to see what new ideas you have in mind. It would be nice if visual direction and game feel were refined a bit more, but so far, so good! I might've had a lot more negative to say for game feel than I expected, but I think they're mostly nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. Keep up the good work, and I'll be back to play updated versions!
The fact you were able to give me a ton of feedback from such a small demo is AMAZING. Being a huge Kirby fan myself, I can understand your POV.
In terms of visuals, I've definitely have heard a bit about the banding. I didnt really see the issue at first, as with outlines it felt more clear to me, but its something I'm already considering working on! Maybe not the next demo, but definitely down the road. The backgrounds do have a thin "fog" layer over them to give the game a feeling of DEPTH, as originally it all felt flat aside from the parallax scrolling. Something we might need to reconsider but I felt it fulfilled its role in making the foreground pop more.
The attacks were a tricky thing to balance. With work on stage 2 already underway and new enemy types, some things felt a little TOO good, in a bad way. Meins grounded attack used to carry momentum when starting it, which caused us to slip into the boss and take damage, leading us to remove that, making Mein stop for a more precise feeling. We did intentionally restrict Mein having multiple aerial attacks due to it making skipping large segments that much easier with a dash jump into double jump. It requires the player to think more about when they are going to use it and how to traverse the stage. It was brought up to me by others that having said restriction feels "off" and its prob worth testing again.
You bring up some valid points, which might need a second look if possible. I appreciate you trying the game out and giving me so much to work with though! Thanks again for giving it a try.
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This is such a cute game with fun background music, I love the style and how all the creatures look! The animations and victory animation with the little sunglasses were well done and wholesome. Another detail that I thought added a lot of personality to the character and game was Mein's face getting sadder as you take more damage as it made me empathize and feel bad for him. I also like the story; it is endearing and makes me excited to learn more about Mein and the main villain.
I also liked his swing attacks and the range that they had. I think that it'd be cool to add other kinds of attacks as time goes on, like through gear or power-ups since I also really liked the addition of the noodles and takeout and I think something similar to the food could happen and create different types of power-ups.
The boss was also fun but challenging, I liked his attack style with the charges and jumps. I do like how the boss flashes as he took too much damage and there could be a power-up that Displays the health bar of enemies. It low-key took me four tries to beat the boss. With that said, the game is really replayable and the levels feel rewarding to go back through.
I loved the little bit of lore about Mein that came down after the fight and I think it would be great if there was a button on the main title screen that could show you the unique things you collected throughout the game. And, in the future, I'd love a "load/saves" button that could bring you to different chapters of the game or go to the next part of the game.
Overall, I thought the game was adorable and had a lot of character and potential. I can't wait to see any new levels/chapters or any updates in the future! :)
I'll make sure to let you know when the next update for my game drops! We've been working really hard to make even more awesome things, and judging based on some feedback, I think youll enjoy what comes next :)
There are being small changes here and there that will paint a better picture for what we want the final product to be like. Hope you get a chance to play it soon
Amazing, When's next update coming?
Glad you enjoyed what you played! Thats a tough question, as admittingly we are running behind schedule by a bit. I realistically cant give an exact date, but know we are working hard to make something great :)
Just tried this game. There's a ton of potential for this game, and while it's clearly in the very early stages it's obvious there is a lot of love and thought put into this. The only thing I'd really say needs work is the control schema. The art style looks like a three-way lovechild between Plok, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario World. I dig the character designs too!
Hello from dev team! And thank you for kind words <3
Could you please describe what controls issues have you had?
I know it was quite long ago, but we'll greatly appreciate any feedback
It more had to do with the way combinations of controls would interact with each other on the keyboard. I spoke with Vicctre about it and I think we worked through it - some of it was due to playing the game in the way that I would with my own game's control schema.
I enjoyed the game, the animations, music, and sound effects are great! The only thing I didn't like is when you die, you start over, and the boss is kinda hard to beat, so if you die, you have to replay the whole game.
yeah, the lack of a checkpoint system is something I've heard about. There was one implemented, but it was taken out for dev reasons. It will be around for the next demo!
The platforming feels clean and in line with the animation, the gameplay is solid, and I really enjoyed the creature designs. Keep up the good work!
Really nice gameplay ! Fun levels ^^
Just played it. Fun demo! The animations for Mein are great.
Having just played the DEMO_1 version, I enjoyed the game. It is Kirby inspired in terms of visuals and gameplay, but not in a copycat way, but moreso as a foundation for new ideas to take place in. I am a huge Kirby fan, so perhaps I'm a bit biased. I'm looking forward to seeing more in the future, but for now, here are my thoughts on the game so far:
VISUALS:
Characters are very charming, especially Mein himself. Love the ear wiggle details, and the victory pose in particular. Enemies are also given charm too, but the focus is still on Mein. While I have a lot of praise for the characters and their animations, I feel the shading and color palette could use a lot of improvement. I am especially not a fan of the banding present in the vast majority of the sprites. I think banding in general does not look good on modern displays; it muddies the sprite, and makes them look...a bit strange. I feel like a bigger focus on concrete shadow areas from 1 light source could make the sprites look a lot nicer. The colors, especially in the background, I feel could also improve a lot. The shadow colors don't look too interesting to me, and I feel the rest of the game looks a bit too dull, in a way that doesn't quite feel intentionally so. Not too sure about visual direction in terms of the characters and the world, but these more fantastical environments feel like they should have a little more vibrancy present.
MUSIC:
Music was fine. Inoffensive, but nothing memorable yet. Maybe I haven't played it enough to really let it sink in, but I can't really remember anything that was played. Sound effects were cool, the attack swing sfx sounded nice, but some seem to be missing, like a proper hit effect, which is understandable as an early demo.
GAME FEEL:
I played via keyboard, and overall, gameplay feels nice and responsive. There are nice visual effects for most actions, and for the ones that are missing, I assume they will be introduced in future versions. I really like the fact that jumping after running preserves the previous momentum; it just feels right and I will never really know why a good amount of games like this don't have that. But also, moving the other direction mid jump will cancel the run boost, which is fair, and gives run jumping some risk. However, I can't help but feel that it's a bit unfortunate that colliding into walls make you lose your run boost. Also holding both right and left cancels movement, which is fine, but I would prefer a system that allows the most recent move key to overpower the other one, rather than cancelling each other out. But honestly, that is a big nitpick, and isn't even relevant for controller users, but I think it's nice when games with keyboard support do that. I think my biggest issue with the gameplay was the sluggishness of the attacks. Not in terms of animation; the attack animations are very solid. But rather, using the attacks feel a bit more sluggish than I'd like. The grounded attack will keep you in place for a bit, which depending on gameplay direction, isn't inherently bad, but the animation feels a tad too long for an attack that locks you out of movement options mid-animation.
Honestly, that's not too bad; maybe I'm just used to faster paced games, and not every game needs to be fast paced, but what's more egregious to me is the fact that you can only use the air attack once until you land. Not even double jumping will refresh the counter. It feels a bit jank and arbitrary to use because of that. Maybe the attack is too powerful to be used in the air as many times as you want, but I feel like this is not the most optimal method on balancing the attack; it simply feels bad to me because it feels like control was taken from me. Also landing on the ground mid attack will make you unable to use the attack button for a bit, like there's an internal cooldown. I think the main bad part about that is that there's no visual indicator that shows I can't use the attack. The character will do their usual animation, but now I just cant attack until some invisible timer allows me to attack again. It's cool to see Kirby Adventure styled gameplay back, with Mein's attacks feeling like Sword Kirby from that game, but I think it could be handled better.
That being said, I will state once again that maybe I'm a bit too biased and used to faster paced games that have land cancel attacks and stuff like that, and that direction might not be what you want, so take what I said with a big grain of salt.
GAMEPLAY:
The level layout is pretty solid so far! I love the button input images throughout the level; a fantastic way of showing someone the controls without stopping the pace of the game, or flipping through a menu. Level design did a nice job of teaching me the mechanics, and the enemies in the later part of the level do a good job of elevating tension by just a bit to feel like my skills are being tested. The boss fight works really well as a tutorial boss; their pattern is very simple, but still requires players to be engaged to finish the fight, which is surprisingly difficult to balance. It has the right difficulty as part of the first stage, which is awesome.
CONCLUSION:
Great foundation so far, I'm excited to see what new ideas you have in mind. It would be nice if visual direction and game feel were refined a bit more, but so far, so good! I might've had a lot more negative to say for game feel than I expected, but I think they're mostly nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. Keep up the good work, and I'll be back to play updated versions!
The fact you were able to give me a ton of feedback from such a small demo is AMAZING. Being a huge Kirby fan myself, I can understand your POV.
In terms of visuals, I've definitely have heard a bit about the banding. I didnt really see the issue at first, as with outlines it felt more clear to me, but its something I'm already considering working on! Maybe not the next demo, but definitely down the road. The backgrounds do have a thin "fog" layer over them to give the game a feeling of DEPTH, as originally it all felt flat aside from the parallax scrolling. Something we might need to reconsider but I felt it fulfilled its role in making the foreground pop more.
The attacks were a tricky thing to balance. With work on stage 2 already underway and new enemy types, some things felt a little TOO good, in a bad way. Meins grounded attack used to carry momentum when starting it, which caused us to slip into the boss and take damage, leading us to remove that, making Mein stop for a more precise feeling. We did intentionally restrict Mein having multiple aerial attacks due to it making skipping large segments that much easier with a dash jump into double jump. It requires the player to think more about when they are going to use it and how to traverse the stage. It was brought up to me by others that having said restriction feels "off" and its prob worth testing again.
You bring up some valid points, which might need a second look if possible. I appreciate you trying the game out and giving me so much to work with though! Thanks again for giving it a try.
Fun little demo, looking forward to future demo versions
much appreciated homie :)