I really love the game so far! The new update was pretty cool. I liked the new end sequence, and I had a blast playing it!
A few suggestions: The areas should have some more visuals and puzzles. The music tile puzzle was fun, but it would be nice to have more than just the one. And visuals is self explanatory. (I did notice that you added some visuals in the update! It's a good start, but you couldn't go wrong with a bit more.)
In the bar fight, I preferred the special attack's name in the first version. (Waterfall of red death, as oppose to Marathon of red death technique. I don't remember the name exactly, so forgive me if I'm mistaken.)
Another thing in the bar, when you talk to white mask (gaster) The music stops entirely - I think it might be better to have it stop and then resume after a few seconds.
And finally, when you confront gold pig, I noticed a small typo when he says that it's best to get rid of you.
I really look forward to seeing the game completed! It's very promising so far, and I've had a fantastic time with it.
Very fun game! Combat is interesting and fresh, the aztec/mushroom fight was an amazing trip. Very nice music as well!
Criticism:
The club is kind of barren, could do with some set dressing. In fact, most of the areas could do with some side visuals or more puzzles, as its a bit disappointing to just run through black areas just following a path.
Likely due to it being a demo, but the combat ramps up a bit to quickly. You went into final boss visuals for the fourth fight in the game during Act 1. Could tone it down for the final release.
(not really criticism) The fights are amazing, but I worry that it might be hard to make an entire game with fights these complex and unique. Most games have some sort of trash mob, but every fight in this game is the equivalent of a boss fight. Makes for very memorable encounters, but I worry that the pacing/length will suffer.
The music box puzzle sound positioning is a bit odd. I spent around 5 minutes feeling around in the dark for something because you could narrow down the source of the music, but I didn't find anything. Maybe the music source could be changed to a strip of area instead of a point, or some interactive object could be placed at the music source.
Kind of a nitpick, but the combat feels a tiny bit cramped. The notes start a tiny bit too close to plan in my opinion. Could leave it as is if you are going for that style though.
In conclusion, I will be following this game to see where it goes, and am eagerly looking forward to the full release! Amazing work so far!
I do agree! I also loved the visuals, and thought it could use some smaller random encounters.
The game feels a lot like undertale, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it was a pretty great game. I personally don't mid the barren background too much, and was used to more strict reflex timing, and although the combat got more and more difficult(I struggled a bit with the bar fight), it wasn't that big of a problem(think of cuphead).
However, the fights were all fairly long, and I wouldn't mind them being just slightly shorter. It would make learning the patterns easier and less frustrating when you die. I am also curious to see how the diffiiculty scales up, as there isn't much you can do before it becomes a complete clutterfest. You could try to change it up a bit with various challenges, without completely abandoning the core mechanic. For example, I noticed how you clear levels without jumping at all, so you could have a ceiling tht slowly goes down and prevents you from jumping. Or, you can have a battlefield that slowly narrows down, from 5 lanes to 2 lanes. I will once again be referencing Undertale for this. In undertale, you coud have a normal heart, a ddr heart, a blue heart, a yellow heart, and so on (I haven't played all of Undertale yet so I may not know everything). This helps the game stay varied and interesting to the player (See this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbzGO_Qonu0)
Some stray thoughts:
The visuals are in my opinion, absolutely amazing, with a rare aesthetic.
The music puzzle was, whilst easy, very fun.
Overall:
Lots of potential with a bit of variation, interesting gameplay, 4.5 out of 5
I loved the gameplay, it's something very innovative and I can't wait for the full version (sorry if I have any mistakes, I don't speak English so I used the Google translator hehe)
The vertical slice was an absolute JOY to play. I used to played rhythm games back in the day and this is such a nice evolution / divergence of the genre. There's an intriguing story and world, with plenty of characters I'm genuinely interested enough to engage with to learn more about what the hell is going on in this place (especially with all the cryptic dialogue). The MUSIC though is bloody fantastic and there wasn't a track I didn't genuinely enjoying listening to. I'd buy the OST for this in a heartbeat. Replaying battles was rewarding enough purely to listen to the music again. The visuals were great too and matched perfectly with the theme of the game.
I broke down my feedback into some rough bullet points below so hopefully these help with development! Otherwise amazing job overall - actually SUPER keen to play the full version.
Pros / Keep doing this:
music is great. would 100% buy the OST - made replaying levels enjoyable just for the chance to hear the music again
difficult progression was good. new obstacles introduced with each new fight was paced well. intro frog fight was a solid tutorial
checkpoints were a godsend in the longer battles
even when shit got crazy with a bunch of notes coming towards you it was relatively easy to adapt and go with the flow. Again the music telegraphed incoming attacks and pauses extremely well
health is nice and forgiving but not TOO forgiving
story / world is suitably mysterious. lots of potential to learn more about the world from random NPCs like the ones in the dance club. Feels like exploring the world and choosing certain dialogue options will lead to some interesting story paths
the music tone-match puzzle was awesome and suited the game very well
visuals are awesome - match the music perfectly. Seeing the enemy animations as they cast their notes was great. I'll admit I died a few times purely because I was enjoying watching their movements haha
Crits / suggestions:
bop the player to the beat of the music
different sprites for each lane position
make each note light up the square tile that is underneath it as it passes over so it's easier to read timings. Was often difficult to tell when I was clear to jump simply due to the shape of the note graphic. If I can see how quickly a tile is being lit / unlit it'd be easier to read the note timing
(might already be fixed) if you replay the ATM battle there's no way to forfeit and just go back to the overworld if you've already cleared the battle
clearer boundaries in the overworld for movement / more definition to the world. I'm sure this is already in development but yeah just general more art assets in the overworld when exploring (although I do like the abundant use of empty black areas!)
was able to tap my keyboard pretty well along with the beat of the music to avoid obstacles but sometimes it was a little off. Any potential to sync the player actions up more with the notes would be sweet
the 3D model enemies were awesome but I'm on the fence if they fit the game overall? Either add more 3D elements into the game (battle / overworld environments) or commit to the 2D pixel art for the enemy encounters for consistency, otherwise they feel a liiiiittle bit out of place
I really appreciate this game with an amazing combination of pixel graphics and rhythm based elements I'd be more than happy to play this game in full if it gets a full release. Keep up the good work :D
i absolutely loved this game, it simply was magical, and mysterious, which are both qualities that i really loved while playing this game. I will say that sometimes controls were a bit iffy, (specifically when the blocks in front of the "notes" couldnt be escaped until you move to the side) but the only reason being that there was no instruction that wouldve prevented me fro restarting the level with the knowledge of NOT being able to jump over those rectangular blocks. But everything else in here was amazing! i'll try to see if i can scrape up enough money to buy a full version when it comes out. graphics were beautiful, and the music was really cool too! everything about this game was amazing!! keep up the amazing work guys!!!
It was really good, I wish there was a skip option for dialogue, or at least a skip so it finishes the sentence instantly. Also, the levels are sooo long, which can be fun but if you mess up and die you have to restart like 3 minutes of work it can be really unfun to play because of that. Also the game didn't tell me how to deal with the keys with the long blocks on top ( i think it means use up and to the right/left keys) so i have to move slots and jump at the same time. maybe there could be like a mini tutorial at the beginning about that. Also the health system was extremely confusing, at the beginning i thought oh they made it very generous because it's sorta like a demo version. but later on it was like 3 lives, but if you beat a section of the battle you heal 1, but obviously if you used all 3 lives at once you'd have to restart, but sometimes, i swear i got hit & it made the sound but the bar wouldn't go down. and I was just in a battle where I would lose all 3 lives but the battle would continue on and refill my bar to full? So I'm very confused as to how that all works. But overall the game is great, the art, sound effects, dialogue, etc is perfect! and the music in the battles is soooo gooddd, overall 7/10! and this is just the short version so it could definitely become a 9 or a 10/10 in the future with some minor changes & polishing. keep up the good work! :)
Absolutely loved it. Not too obvious with storytelling, not too cryptic. Music felt very natural, all tracks fit together. Absolutely sold on full release day.
One aesthetic idea: your character should bob along to the beat of the song you're listening to in battle instead of a constant pace despite the song's tempo.
A little visual tweak; during battle, being in each of the five columns should have a different view of the character (facing back to the viewer in center, facing more towards the right when on the left, facing more towards the left when on the right columns). This way your character is always focused on the actions of the enemy during the heat of battle.
Enjoyed every second. Would love more puzzles too, the tone puzzle was a good change of pace!
The fight with the VIP dude was the highlight for me. His animations were clean and the beats were meaty. I also really liked the music for the frogs.
There were some parts where it felt like I needed to quickly double tap in one direction to avoid getting hit, and I think that would be pretty hard to do on controllers if you're thinking about releasing on console.
The last songs were quite intense but I never dropped below two health. Maybe for a harder mode you can nerf the health regeneration a bit or get rid of the checkpoints
it was a really fun experiment i streamed it for my friends on discord they really enjoyed it wish it was bit longer tho but i guess we have to wait for the full game :P i must say it took a bit of time to figure the puzzle
This is an amazing game even as is. Although there are some minor inconveniences, I'm sure with your plans for a full game they will be fully conceived. My main criticism is the dialogue thing where you can't hit "Space" twice and skip a whole dialogue (like Undertale) but it's still really great. I would totally rate this as a 10/10. So glad I tried this.
Honestly, this game is amazing. I'm surprised not too many people are talking about it. When the full game releases, I'll be more than willing to pay any amount. Is there a Patreon, Kickstarter, or GoFundMe where I can support this game and/or it's creators?
Really great game. The story is nice and well-written, and the characters have some charm to them. The game had a somewhat "undertale" vibe to it, which I like. Some parts on some levels felt a bit too easy, but aside from that, I have no problems with the level design. The music was also quite catchy. Overall, I love this game, and I'm looking forward to its release.
I just tried This game today and it was Fantastic .The story had a lot of depth while the characters had there own spark to them . I hope to try out the game when It comes out in full release. The only thing I had a problem with was the last boss because some of the stage you could just hang to the left near the end.But other than that this game was a Blast.
i love this please make more the music is amazing and i would love to see this as a full experience. the last encounter may be a tad long though also whats up with the buddha? keep it up and keep creating you guys
Definitely interesting! The Undertale influence seems to be very, very strong but it does do more of its own thing with the encounters, story, and tone (vs Pacifist, at least). It has a sort of surreal fairy tale feeling to it (though with a significant amount of modern day influences too), which is neat.
I appreciate the relatively forgiving health regeneration system and the checkpoints, though the last 2 encounters were still very tricky. It definitely can trigger that "how did I even manage to beat that" feeling at times. The varied aesthetic styles of the encounters are also a pretty cool touch.
It's a minor thing but it does strike me as odd that an RPG-ish game like this would have there be momentum to the player character's motion (they don't immediately stop when you tell them to). It's not so extreme that it's hard to control, but seems especially odd compared to the snappiness of the movement in combat.
Oh, and you might want to reduce the flashing effects in parts of the last encounter (particularly with the background changing). I don't have photo-sensitivity issues but if anyone does that could be problematic for them.
The topdown character movement has been configured for future release!
It was something was mainly something we got working and figured we improve afterwards. The test was mainly looking into the battle mechanics and getting the event systems working :)
Yeah the flashing effects are quite a lot, we should look into having it being less blinky.
Pretty cool game! If you're planning to make a full release, I'd strongly recommend using Godot to avoid having to pay royalties :-) Seems like the perfect engine for a game like this ^^
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I really love the game so far! The new update was pretty cool. I liked the new end sequence, and I had a blast playing it!
A few suggestions: The areas should have some more visuals and puzzles. The music tile puzzle was fun, but it would be nice to have more than just the one. And visuals is self explanatory. (I did notice that you added some visuals in the update! It's a good start, but you couldn't go wrong with a bit more.)
In the bar fight, I preferred the special attack's name in the first version. (Waterfall of red death, as oppose to Marathon of red death technique. I don't remember the name exactly, so forgive me if I'm mistaken.)
Another thing in the bar, when you talk to white mask (gaster) The music stops entirely - I think it might be better to have it stop and then resume after a few seconds.
And finally, when you confront gold pig, I noticed a small typo when he says that it's best to get rid of you.
I really look forward to seeing the game completed! It's very promising so far, and I've had a fantastic time with it.
Very fun game! Combat is interesting and fresh, the aztec/mushroom fight was an amazing trip. Very nice music as well!
Criticism:
The club is kind of barren, could do with some set dressing. In fact, most of the areas could do with some side visuals or more puzzles, as its a bit disappointing to just run through black areas just following a path.
Likely due to it being a demo, but the combat ramps up a bit to quickly. You went into final boss visuals for the fourth fight in the game during Act 1. Could tone it down for the final release.
(not really criticism) The fights are amazing, but I worry that it might be hard to make an entire game with fights these complex and unique. Most games have some sort of trash mob, but every fight in this game is the equivalent of a boss fight. Makes for very memorable encounters, but I worry that the pacing/length will suffer.
The music box puzzle sound positioning is a bit odd. I spent around 5 minutes feeling around in the dark for something because you could narrow down the source of the music, but I didn't find anything. Maybe the music source could be changed to a strip of area instead of a point, or some interactive object could be placed at the music source.
Kind of a nitpick, but the combat feels a tiny bit cramped. The notes start a tiny bit too close to plan in my opinion. Could leave it as is if you are going for that style though.
In conclusion, I will be following this game to see where it goes, and am eagerly looking forward to the full release! Amazing work so far!
I do agree! I also loved the visuals, and thought it could use some smaller random encounters.
The game feels a lot like undertale, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it was a pretty great game. I personally don't mid the barren background too much, and was used to more strict reflex timing, and although the combat got more and more difficult(I struggled a bit with the bar fight), it wasn't that big of a problem(think of cuphead).
However, the fights were all fairly long, and I wouldn't mind them being just slightly shorter. It would make learning the patterns easier and less frustrating when you die. I am also curious to see how the diffiiculty scales up, as there isn't much you can do before it becomes a complete clutterfest. You could try to change it up a bit with various challenges, without completely abandoning the core mechanic. For example, I noticed how you clear levels without jumping at all, so you could have a ceiling tht slowly goes down and prevents you from jumping. Or, you can have a battlefield that slowly narrows down, from 5 lanes to 2 lanes. I will once again be referencing Undertale for this. In undertale, you coud have a normal heart, a ddr heart, a blue heart, a yellow heart, and so on (I haven't played all of Undertale yet so I may not know everything). This helps the game stay varied and interesting to the player (See this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbzGO_Qonu0)
Some stray thoughts:
The visuals are in my opinion, absolutely amazing, with a rare aesthetic.
The music puzzle was, whilst easy, very fun.
Overall:
Lots of potential with a bit of variation, interesting gameplay, 4.5 out of 5
I love this but the new music is CRAZY I can't wait more of this. :D
Holy crap what an incredible game! This had me laughing and sweating the entire time. Excellent work devs. Can't wait for the full release!
oh my god dude! Your game is a blast! "expect the unexpected" holds true to this scenario. Lotta fun, thank you for this gem/
Drop what you’re doing and play this game, support these devs, and go wishlist this on Steam! Loved every second of this game. :)
This is one of the best games I ever played. Keep it up, I'm looking forward to some new mechanics, story etc. Seriously, great job!!!
Good game! Here's my Review!
love this game
Brilliant!
I really enjoyed it! I'm looking forward to the finished product!
A very enjoyable video, thank you for making it and all the positive vibes!
I like this game a lot, so i await for release. Thank you for this vertical slice and good luck in develop.
After you released an last update, i replay the game and found this bug. lul tsss i'll try to get my arm back from his backpack *ehhehhe*
The vertical slice was an absolute JOY to play. I used to played rhythm games back in the day and this is such a nice evolution / divergence of the genre. There's an intriguing story and world, with plenty of characters I'm genuinely interested enough to engage with to learn more about what the hell is going on in this place (especially with all the cryptic dialogue). The MUSIC though is bloody fantastic and there wasn't a track I didn't genuinely enjoying listening to. I'd buy the OST for this in a heartbeat. Replaying battles was rewarding enough purely to listen to the music again. The visuals were great too and matched perfectly with the theme of the game.
I broke down my feedback into some rough bullet points below so hopefully these help with development! Otherwise amazing job overall - actually SUPER keen to play the full version.
Pros / Keep doing this:
Crits / suggestions:
I really appreciate this game with an amazing combination of pixel graphics and rhythm based elements I'd be more than happy to play this game in full if it gets a full release. Keep up the good work :D
I enjoyed this game I like rythm of the music and others thhings like that thanks
i absolutely loved this game, it simply was magical, and mysterious, which are both qualities that i really loved while playing this game. I will say that sometimes controls were a bit iffy, (specifically when the blocks in front of the "notes" couldnt be escaped until you move to the side) but the only reason being that there was no instruction that wouldve prevented me fro restarting the level with the knowledge of NOT being able to jump over those rectangular blocks. But everything else in here was amazing! i'll try to see if i can scrape up enough money to buy a full version when it comes out. graphics were beautiful, and the music was really cool too! everything about this game was amazing!! keep up the amazing work guys!!!
This is a very good game if you like undertale and beat games with great story, music and characters.
It was really good, I wish there was a skip option for dialogue, or at least a skip so it finishes the sentence instantly. Also, the levels are sooo long, which can be fun but if you mess up and die you have to restart like 3 minutes of work it can be really unfun to play because of that. Also the game didn't tell me how to deal with the keys with the long blocks on top ( i think it means use up and to the right/left keys) so i have to move slots and jump at the same time. maybe there could be like a mini tutorial at the beginning about that. Also the health system was extremely confusing, at the beginning i thought oh they made it very generous because it's sorta like a demo version. but later on it was like 3 lives, but if you beat a section of the battle you heal 1, but obviously if you used all 3 lives at once you'd have to restart, but sometimes, i swear i got hit & it made the sound but the bar wouldn't go down. and I was just in a battle where I would lose all 3 lives but the battle would continue on and refill my bar to full? So I'm very confused as to how that all works. But overall the game is great, the art, sound effects, dialogue, etc is perfect! and the music in the battles is soooo gooddd, overall 7/10! and this is just the short version so it could definitely become a 9 or a 10/10 in the future with some minor changes & polishing. keep up the good work! :)
Very awesome game!!
This is a MASTERPIECE it was a interring and fun experience good job guys :3
Absolutely loved it. Not too obvious with storytelling, not too cryptic. Music felt very natural, all tracks fit together. Absolutely sold on full release day.
One aesthetic idea: your character should bob along to the beat of the song you're listening to in battle instead of a constant pace despite the song's tempo.
A little visual tweak; during battle, being in each of the five columns should have a different view of the character (facing back to the viewer in center, facing more towards the right when on the left, facing more towards the left when on the right columns). This way your character is always focused on the actions of the enemy during the heat of battle.
Enjoyed every second. Would love more puzzles too, the tone puzzle was a good change of pace!
I prefered the frog's music but the animation is crispy and i would buy the full game. Continue your good work
Loved it, will definitely buy the full release.
The fight with the VIP dude was the highlight for me. His animations were clean and the beats were meaty. I also really liked the music for the frogs.
There were some parts where it felt like I needed to quickly double tap in one direction to avoid getting hit, and I think that would be pretty hard to do on controllers if you're thinking about releasing on console.
The last songs were quite intense but I never dropped below two health. Maybe for a harder mode you can nerf the health regeneration a bit or get rid of the checkpoints
it was a really fun experiment i streamed it for my friends on discord they really enjoyed it
wish it was bit longer tho but i guess we have to wait for the full game :P
i must say it took a bit of time to figure the puzzle
Glich after the demon battle same time talk him an the VIP ticket make a softlock.
This is an amazing game even as is. Although there are some minor inconveniences, I'm sure with your plans for a full game they will be fully conceived. My main criticism is the dialogue thing where you can't hit "Space" twice and skip a whole dialogue (like Undertale) but it's still really great. I would totally rate this as a 10/10. So glad I tried this.
Honestly, this game is amazing. I'm surprised not too many people are talking about it. When the full game releases, I'll be more than willing to pay any amount. Is there a Patreon, Kickstarter, or GoFundMe where I can support this game and/or it's creators?
Really fun game! it really is such an interesting new style of gameplay. 10/10
Woah... I'm speechless. This game is absolutely amazing! I can't wait for the full release. 10/10
Really great game. The story is nice and well-written, and the characters have some charm to them. The game had a somewhat "undertale" vibe to it, which I like. Some parts on some levels felt a bit too easy, but aside from that, I have no problems with the level design. The music was also quite catchy. Overall, I love this game, and I'm looking forward to its release.
I just tried This game today and it was Fantastic .The story had a lot of depth while the characters had there own spark to them . I hope to try out the game when It comes out in full release. The only thing I had a problem with was the last boss because some of the stage you could just hang to the left near the end.But other than that this game was a Blast.
Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed it!
We will need to make sure the bosses are less cheeseable :)
Feedback noted, thank you!
Great to hear that you enjoyed the demo! :)
I like this game i want try the full game.
Make sure to stay in touch and you will!
list of enemies and what I thought of them:
- Frog: Nice, good "tutorial" fight
- ATM machine: Decent first level, nothing too bad (I thought for sure we were going to fight the bouncer)
- Red Tie: Waterfall of Death required good reaction but otherwise was fine (I like how the high blocks showed his superiority)
- Mr. Skeltal: the Skrillex influence seemed to show through his chaotic patterns, the hardest guy
-Guru and Frog 2.0: Guru was weird but fine, and frog 2.0 had a huge tendency not to target the left most column, uncertain if purposely or not
aw yea! :D
i love this please make more the music is amazing and i would love to see this as a full experience. the last encounter may be a tad long though also whats up with the buddha? keep it up and keep creating you guys
Thank you!
The buddha represents a *lot* ;)
Definitely interesting! The Undertale influence seems to be very, very strong but it does do more of its own thing with the encounters, story, and tone (vs Pacifist, at least). It has a sort of surreal fairy tale feeling to it (though with a significant amount of modern day influences too), which is neat.
I appreciate the relatively forgiving health regeneration system and the checkpoints, though the last 2 encounters were still very tricky. It definitely can trigger that "how did I even manage to beat that" feeling at times. The varied aesthetic styles of the encounters are also a pretty cool touch.
It's a minor thing but it does strike me as odd that an RPG-ish game like this would have there be momentum to the player character's motion (they don't immediately stop when you tell them to). It's not so extreme that it's hard to control, but seems especially odd compared to the snappiness of the movement in combat.
Oh, and you might want to reduce the flashing effects in parts of the last encounter (particularly with the background changing). I don't have photo-sensitivity issues but if anyone does that could be problematic for them.
The topdown character movement has been configured for future release!
It was something was mainly something we got working and figured we improve afterwards. The test was mainly looking into the battle mechanics and getting the event systems working :)
Yeah the flashing effects are quite a lot, we should look into having it being less blinky.
Pretty cool game! If you're planning to make a full release, I'd strongly recommend using Godot to avoid having to pay royalties :-) Seems like the perfect engine for a game like this ^^
Thanks for the suggestion but sadly we are already in to far in development to make a game engine change! :)