This is adorable, and a fun game concept. It's a little limited in that any mistake derails your entire plan, although that just means that levels shouldn't be much longer than level 5 is. One big pain point is the way the game counts inputs. If you treat it like a rhythm game (like it sounds like it is) you'll actually be hitting/releasing A/D as late as possible, or even later than that. You have to actually prepare your inputs beforehand. (And also, the music is or becomes desynced from the pumping/winding of the toy which appears to be the truer marker of how inputs are taken). I would recommend "cheating" here, and recording the player's input as much as half a beat later than it currently is (so, you're counting "1, 2, 3, 4!! 1, 2, 3, 4!!", change it to "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 (&)!!" and actually count the inputs on the &s after the actual beats)
If you don't do that, I might just have to make my own version instead, so I can personally tinker with the best way to take the player's inputs. This is a great little game and I would love to see more mechanics introduced, more levels created.
Also, if you want your inputs to be very reliably recorded by the current version of the game, do that half-beat counting yourself- "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &", and change inputs the & BEFORE the beat that takes the input, that will give you the most leeway, and is what let me become reliable enough to clear level 5 (which was super satisfying by the way)
And the final step would be juice, juice, juice! Music outside of the rhythmic setup part, and then sound effects and VFX for the things that happen. You mentioned sprucing up the walls, which indeed would help the atmosphere immensely, but don't neglect adding in little worldly details like chairs and tables, piles of books, stuff like that. And definitely, little faux-lore blurbs perhaps explaining why we're using a wind-up toy to steal gems instead of grabbing them ourselves, or just banter between the phantom thieves who might be here with us.
Thank you for your in-depth review! You made extremely good points, I will definitely take them into consideration! And yes, the story part was actually planned and was supposed to have some comic intro for each level introducing new mechanics along with story-telling, but due to it being a 2 days gamejam I could not really implement it. I initially do not have intentions to come back and work on this, but your comment has added some fuel to get it started again, thank you!
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
This is adorable, and a fun game concept. It's a little limited in that any mistake derails your entire plan, although that just means that levels shouldn't be much longer than level 5 is. One big pain point is the way the game counts inputs. If you treat it like a rhythm game (like it sounds like it is) you'll actually be hitting/releasing A/D as late as possible, or even later than that. You have to actually prepare your inputs beforehand. (And also, the music is or becomes desynced from the pumping/winding of the toy which appears to be the truer marker of how inputs are taken). I would recommend "cheating" here, and recording the player's input as much as half a beat later than it currently is (so, you're counting "1, 2, 3, 4!! 1, 2, 3, 4!!", change it to "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 (&)!!" and actually count the inputs on the &s after the actual beats)
If you don't do that, I might just have to make my own version instead, so I can personally tinker with the best way to take the player's inputs. This is a great little game and I would love to see more mechanics introduced, more levels created.
Also, if you want your inputs to be very reliably recorded by the current version of the game, do that half-beat counting yourself- "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &", and change inputs the & BEFORE the beat that takes the input, that will give you the most leeway, and is what let me become reliable enough to clear level 5 (which was super satisfying by the way)
And the final step would be juice, juice, juice! Music outside of the rhythmic setup part, and then sound effects and VFX for the things that happen. You mentioned sprucing up the walls, which indeed would help the atmosphere immensely, but don't neglect adding in little worldly details like chairs and tables, piles of books, stuff like that. And definitely, little faux-lore blurbs perhaps explaining why we're using a wind-up toy to steal gems instead of grabbing them ourselves, or just banter between the phantom thieves who might be here with us.
Thank you for your in-depth review! You made extremely good points, I will definitely take them into consideration!
And yes, the story part was actually planned and was supposed to have some comic intro for each level introducing new mechanics along with story-telling, but due to it being a 2 days gamejam I could not really implement it.
I initially do not have intentions to come back and work on this, but your comment has added some fuel to get it started again, thank you!
Prototype: Nice thief model, sadly after it jumps on the board I cannot wind it up to proceed.
Oh, you are supposed to wind-up the doll before it jumps onto the board by holding space/W.
Ah got it thanks