Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Jazzy Beats
By jorgegamedev, moski and RobinHoodPT
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 145 | 3.89 | 219 | |
| Fun | 341 | 3.56 | 219 | |
| Innovation | 288 | 3.51 | 219 | |
| Theme | 604 | 3.41 | 218 | |
| Graphics | 36 | 4.58 | 223 | |
| Audio | 34 | 4.17 | 216 | |
| Humor | 304 | 3.45 | 205 | |
| Mood | 197 | 3.76 | 208 |
Love it :heart: Audio and graphics are fantastic Easy to get into and pretty fun, I would love to see this with more characters and levels and maybe even multipla- Am I asking for too much there? :laughing: Great game! More please :kissing_heart:
The graphics are stellar and I love the audio. I found myself wishing for the gameplay to be a little bit "juicier" - there wasn't much reaction from the enemies when I hit them other than an animation change. It wasn't super satisfying to hit things. Other than that though, well done! Amazing that this was done in such a short amount of time.
Wow, the production values are insane! This looks, sounds, feels and plays great! The character design is top notch, too. I'd love to see more of Jazzchan and Bluessom! A multiplayer vs-mode would be the cherry on the cake. Love it!
A great game! :smile: I really loved the music
**Amazing artwork!** :laughing:
Gameplay on the other hand is not that good and it felt *unfair* that enemy artist was so overpowered.
Loved the music and graphics. One of the most polished games I have tried so far! The game is quite fun but I think trying to fight and using your basic abilities is not rewarding enough and it is much more effective to just run around and use your ultimate on a large mob.
OMG very nice music ! but kinda difficult for a beginer like me haha :) good job I liked a lot ! gg
A really impressive game ! Audio and graphics a perfect. Maybe a bit more fans since the begining would be great ^^
Love the art and sound! Really amazing, congrats.
Playing the game was a little frustrating because the enemy looked like sooooo overpowered.
Wow, really nice graphics, atmosphere and sound! Converting the fans is a nice idea - something different than slaying hordes of mosters! Just one little thing annoyed me: If you push all the fans to one side, the combo-sign obscures the view, and you can't see what you are doing. But that's really just a smalll thing! You did really well, fun game!
Really good game, the design is so cool ! Great game !
Wow! Nice graphics, presentation and music! The animation was good too. My only grip is that despite the good move set for the player, they felt bland, not really connecting on the fans. But it was enjoyable!
This was very fun to play! I don't really see the theme behind it, but it's really fun to punch those fans! Bluessom put on a tough fight but after all she was just no competition for my jazzy fingers! 10/10 audio! Really nice
Presentation - top
Graphics - top
Gameplay - top
MORE! :3
Very awesome, incredibly well polished game!
The game plays as well as it looks! The combo system wasn't anything ground breaking, but it was fun, and the twist on controlling fans makes it interesting. The music also keeps the fight engaging. Overall, just everything looks, plays, and sounds great.
I really only have two criticisms, one, I'm not sure how well the game fits the theme. The more fans you have, the better. I suppose the more fans the a.i. has, the worse it is, but it's kind of a stretch. And two, I felt like the R ability was too good. As long as you wait for the ai to use its version before you cast it yourself, you won't really have any trouble.
Other then those small complaints, it was very enjoyable. All around an amazing job for 3 days!
As usual amazing graphics and adorable main character. However, the enemy seems overpowered and the ulti isn't satisfying to use.
P.s.I think this game would be much better with multiplayer and created in the Unreal engine =P
This is fantastic! Could expect no less from the WaG team.
As always the art is very well made, and OH BOY THOSE MENUS! (for the record, I did _not_ spend more time clicking buttons in fascination than playing, ok? Good thing we cleared that up)
Nothing to complain about the coding, didn't see any bugs.
The music was really nice, but could be a bit more energetic or generally wackier, to match the art style a bit more. As a fighting game, could have a bit more, uh... _Beats_ than _Jazz_ (or, crazy idea, procedurally balance the intensity with the proportion of fans?)
A couple things I could notice could use a bit more attention (perhaps for a post-jam version? *wink wink*)
1. Hits could have a bit more feedback, either in UI or sound. Sometimes I got stuck between fans and couldn't be sure if I was hitting them or being hit. 2. Fans have very similar pallete/outlines, so it is a bit hard to identify the player amidst a bunch of them. 3. I wasn't too sure how the trumpet (E ability) worked, if I used it right to the face of fans, they would be knocked back, but if I used it a bit farther, then only one of them would be hit. Does it deal "damage"? (links to point 1)
Great aesthetic choice! The game has a lot of potential, and I'd like you to have more feedback on the outcome of my actions. Congratulations on art and play.
Ótima escolha estética! O jogo tem muito potencial, e gostaria que tivesse mais feedbacks do resultado das minhas ações. Parabéns pela arte e pelo jogo.
Really good game, loving the description too "punch them so hard they become your fans.", maybe that's what we should all do? Really liked the art style on this as well, good game guys :D
Since this was my first Game Jam I didn't know Whales and Games, but it seems you guys are well known around here and for good reason (which makes you praising our game even more amazing <3).
And after playing Jazzy Beats myself I can totally see why. What I played was an incredibly polished, bug-free and most importantly fun piece of entertainment software. The artwork is stunning (seriously, those menus), as is the sound which, in a game called Jazzy Beats, is just as important to me. The gameplay elements à la Streets of Rage are well implemented and the core mechanics of turning fans into allies instead of flat out killing them and not being able to directly fight your true opponent give it a nice unique twist and strategy depth.
Add some more levels with different enemy types and I can definitely see myself paying 15 bucks on steam for this gem.
Easily the best submission I have seen so far! :)
Awesome.
The art in this game is very polished. Even the itch.io game page is well done. The artist obviously put a lot of work into this. I really like it and reminds me of The World Ends With You kind of. I would definitely try to improve on the combat as that's the focal point of the game. Thanks for the awesome submission!
The graphics, animation, sound, was really great! But it did felt a little bit overpowered on the opponent side, also, sound effects were absent or too soft maybe, but great entry !
Game about war over fans. The more popular you are the fans you get and then your army get bigger. I think this angle is good. But:
1 When I actual play the game, the fans just get converted time to time, they wont get killed or disappear, so it is really hard to see some progress. Controlling them does not seem to be a very big advantage, as they will be converted very quickly.
2 I dont see how "the more you have, it is the worse"
Loved the animation paired with the art, gave the game a lot of punch!
I loved the presentation, the art style was brilliant. I really liked the game idea as well, even if the theme connection was a bit forced.
The combat system in the end came down to wait for the ultimate skill to refill to convert everyone in one go. However, it is super-easy to see how with some improvements to that and the enemies' behaviour this could evolve into a very interesting game.
Despite these comments, I do believe your entry has a lot of potential and I hope you keep improving it. Congrats!
This game is amazing! Perfect!!
Very good arts! It takes me a little while to understand all the attacks, and I lose every try (even if the last was very close to win), but I like the idea of turning opponents fans to my side unstead of killing them, that's an original take of beat them all game concept. Well done!
Definitely the most polished game I've seen here. The sound effects could have been improved a little, as they sound flat, but the game loop is fun and you should be proud.
Cute character designs & environment.
I spent a little while just looking at the detailed backdrop. Very amusing.
I feel that there could've been greater integration of the attacks into the music, to make Jazzchan seem more like a musician. At least, the volume of the attacks' sound effects could be raised relative to the bgm.
Anyway, good job.
I love this game! Not only as a fan of jazz, but just having a fun time playing it. Graphics - Well polished, consistent art. Would have liked to see some more in-depth animation. 4/5 Music - While not something I would classify as jazz, it gave a good beat to the beating. 4/5 Theme - The more you have the worse it is... for your rival! I would have liked to see it affect me somehow. 3/5 Fun - Really fun! Though the controls were a little weird (and a tutorial would have been nice), I had a lot of fun beating up the fans. 4/5 Overall - 4/5
Nice game, the most amazing thing I can tell are the graphics. Just let the artist know that his/her style is pretty awesome (as I said before in the GDN server, very Skullgirls-ish style). Melee mechanics are also hard to do, and you did do ok at it. You guys have been doing these LD runs for a while, am I right?
Really fantastic artwork and music! Very polished game. But a little bit difficult to understand what attacks I made and what's their difference.
Great in overall! Art, music, and concept are great!
I have some suggestions:
1.The game hint at the beginning of the match disappears too fast. I can't go through it after restarting at least 3 times.
2.When the match is going, hide your cursor because it does not affect the gameplay but blocks some of the screen.
3.Winning your fans with punches and kicks is somewhat strange with your concept XD. Maybe use some other music attack to beautify it.
Love the art style, great job 👌
You guys nailed everything. Good job
Very good mood, love the music and clever gameplay
Really cool game. Very polished for a game jam game.
I really like the mood and the setup, the music and the graphics match together really well. A little minot thing I found is that is quite difficult to mantein a combo if you don't just spam the punch.
Really cool game and awesome concept. Good job!
Awesomely groovy graphics. Music was real smooth. The cherry on top was the huge amount of polish from credits to transition between scenes. Felt that sound FX was a little too quiet compared to the BGM, and there was not enough feedback from the attacks. The strategy of moving back and kicking everyone, and spamming the AOE once the opponent has done its AOE was key to beating it.
Great graphics, sound and presentation. Even though the gameplay lacks a bit strategy (it was very simple), overall it was a great job.
Amazing art, not a fan of the music, but the gameplay feels like it could use some more balancing. Trumpet (E) felt kinda useless, while the kick (W) with its wide range and low cooldown overshadowed all other abilities.
As always, the best drawn and funniest game I've played was made by you guys.
Sound and art are amazing; that "squashy" feel when the attack animation is starting is just so well made.
Now, my favorie part is that the menu buttons play a different note whenever the mouse hovers it. It's so simple yet a nice lil' touch.
Parabéns!
Oh man this game looks and sounds awesome!
groovy game! thanks!
Nice and cute. Jazzchan mai waifu. The art is lovely, the music isn't exactly what I'd expect from a K/J-pop inspired soundtrack but it's very pleasant to listen to and fits the characters. The gameplay is a bit simplistic, spam abilities until you convert all the fans, wait for Bluessom to send them back to you. Winning was fun, though.
Jazzy beats.png
Great game. Makes me wish for an actual release with slightly deeper gameplay, more idols, story etc.
Really a top notch entry.
As usual, another fantastic entry from the WaG team! Art, and general presentation was top notch, music also quite good. Gameplay, while pretty decent, lacked depth, and it hurt the game slightly. Again not to say it's bad or anything like that, just unfortunately left a bit to be desired with that awesome presentation.
With that said, I know you guys will improve it, and I'm waiting patiently for it!!
Whoa! Beautiful visuals, excellent UI, wonderfully fun gameplay, overall very polished! Super impressive! This is an excellent entry :)
Really fun game! It looks great, plays well, provides a decent challenge, without overwhelming you, and is really polished for a jam game. Very good work. I really like having the different attacks. It held off the game from getting too repetitive before you knockout bluessom.
Whoah. This been an overwhelming reception. So many comments! I've been checking out all of your games (and I'm still on it, so if I haven't rated yours yet, wait a bit longer). The team's been busy as well, but now, before they keep piling up, let's go over them! Thanks a bunch!
@RainbowJam Thanks! Very late into the jam we did mention that this would be cool with a VS mode of sorts. Who knows if it'll ever happen, but I do agree with you :)
@cammy Aye. The sound got a bit muffled and we didn't get into adding particles. We'll do better with more confirmation feedback in the future!
Anonymous1 Glad that you liked it!
@grey Noted! @RobinhoodPT poured his heart and soul into it!
@Hugmugi7 Yeah, some say that. It's nothing that the player doesn't have at their disposal, but it can still be seen as unfair, so it's certainly in need of a tweak. Thanks for the feedback!
@bar0net Mhhh... Maybe if we make the ultimate recharge with punches rather than waiting it out... I'll forward it to the team.
@antoine-vion Sorry to hear that. Difficulty is something hard to nail down for us. We've had previous projects that were either too easy or too hard. Hope the next one nails it to perfection!
@Grahamliphts Noted! A slow start was meant to let the players fiddle with the controllers, but we'll see upon this.
@asghardian-game-studio Thank you! And sorry if our enemy gives that impression. We ended up trying to make it bossfight-like because, otherwise, the game was being too easy. We'll do adjustments based on the feedback though, so thanks for letting us know!
@rontz Mhh... That's one issue we didn’t notice. I'll let the team know, thanks!
@Camcam_S5 Glad that you liked it!
@Murilo Good to know you had a fun burst. Gameplay tweaks have been noted, thanks!
@hooraygil "The more fans you have, the worse it is for the rival". The theme is a stretch, yes :I
@Nivbeth YES!
@stencilchris Polish is all on @JorgeGameDev. He really outdone himself this time around.
@zee Yep, theme's a stretch. We took way too long to nail concepts, and by that time, we mostly threw caution to the wind. R skill is in consideration for tweaking, thanks!
That’s my share of replies. My :whale: of a friend is going to take the mantle from me now. Have fun! :whale:
Well then! As @moski wrote just right above on the previous comment, the amount of feedback we’ve got in such a small spawn of time is really overwhelming. We’re really humbled by all the feedback and overall opinions you guys have left so far, and we can’t thank them enough! :yellow_heart: Hopefully as we go along during the rest of the judging phase, we are able to share some more insight on how the whole thing was created.
As @moski started doing on the previous comment, here’s our replies to all of your feedback so far! @Blizary Glad you liked Jazzychan! If it wasn’t for the fact that I know you and know that the P.S. is a joke, I’d probably be making a full-fledged rant at this very moment. Gladly, that’s not the case, and I can simply shove the game on the face of the professor that thought that idea was good idea. :thinking:
@kroltan Thank you for keeping up with us Kroltan (especially on Discord)! I’m really proud of how the overall Menus came out too. There’s nothing to shame about having spent an undisclosed amount of time clicking on them, we did it too. I’m pretty sure @RobinhoodPT would love to implement that sort of procedural music at some later date!
And yes, you’re totally right. I was worried during the whole development process if we were giving out enough feedback or not when you hitted other fans, and apparently, it was a bit on the lesser side. Same thing with the ranged ability (which was the trumpet). Since the collisions were being checked globally with all the fans, it seemed more like a knockback than direct damage when hit large groups at the same time (despite only supposedly hitting one). Oh well, food for refinement. As for the pallete issue, @Moski will take note of that. Thanks a lot for your feedback!
@Gruhh Thanks! More feedback is something that’s been being requested a lot. E temos todo o prazer que tenhas gostado da arte e da jogabilidade! :smile:
@james-studd After some certain fandoms went a bit too crazy at local McDonalds for some sauce, I’m not sure punching would do much better. Glad you liked it! @Moski certainly had a blast with all the art process! @ollec I’m not going to lie and simply say that, when I read your comment yesterday, I felt like my heart just melted on the inside. Your whole comment about WAG was just really humbling. :blue_heart: As @Moski left in your page yesterday, our congratulations as a team on such a fun game of yours! Hope to see more from the future from you too! Glad you really enjoyed it!
Not so sure about the part of having it as a commercial title, but you never know what the future might hold, isn’t that right? :wink:
@Danneh Awesome Indeed! :trumpet:
@brandon-anderson We’re glad you liked the art! Poor @Moski is still complaining about how much his wrist hurt by the end of it all. :whale: But yes, TWEWY and Skullgirls were definitely two inspirations when it came to the art. We’ll definitely look into tweaking the combat. Thanks for your awesome feedback!
@muromets Balancing out the SFX and the Music up was one of the big challenges when it came to this project. Sadly, it seems the SFX ended up a bit too muffled by the actual Music (when @RobinhoodPT was exactly worried about the opposite). In the tweaking list it goes. We’re glad you liked it!
@guoboism Fans won’t actually collapse or disappear. As you’ve mentioned, fans will constantly be converted between sides, meaning that neither idol will hold them out for more than a short period of time. Your progress is mostly seen through the idol’s health bars at the top, which will start depleting as they’re hit by fans. The more fans you control at the time, the more chances of them causing damage to Bluessom there are.
As for the theme - ‘The more fans you have, the worse it is… for the opposing rival!’!
@andrewballinger Glad you liked it! Animation is all on @Moski this time around! He spent the last days prior to the jam learning how to work with that part of Unity just to make it sure it was perfect!
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@ithildin Theme interpretations are always a bit questionable. Even if we thought it scrapped by, some people are likely to think it doesn’t fit that well, and that’s an opinion (and rating) everyone is allowed to have. The ultimate skill definitely needs some tweaking as we mentioned on the previous answers. Glad you found it interesting, and we’ll definitely let you know when we make some tweaks to it!
@renato-felix-martins Glad you liked it! Thank you!
@lereveur Thank you! We’re kind of surprised that people have been finding it an original concept, but I am glad to read so! We tried our best to make the game challenging, so if you’re up to it, I’d definitely suggest you giving it a try again! @hillexed We’re really proud to read that indeed! The SFX could totally use some balancing. We’ll let @RobinhoodPT know about it.
@mase Glad you liked them! Jazzchan is a cute little goober indeed. We’re pleased to know that you liked the backdrop! We tried to put some of our signature details here and there. Just as I mentioned on the previous reply, increasing the SX feel is definitely something we’ll look at next. Thanks for your feedback!
@Samusoidal As a jazzy fan (eh? eh?) we’re joyed you had a fun time with it! We’ll look into improving the control scheme and animations in the future! :whale:
@Jegus9 Thanks for checking out the game through GDN and rest assured that I am getting onto your entry today still! As he also replied on GDN yesterday, @Moski is pleased that you guys really liked the art over there (and how the inspirations from _Skullgirls_ is noticeable).
And yes, this is our fourth time at the rodeo, with [_Colossorama_](http://jorgegamedev.itch.io/colossorama), [_Hyper Holomayhem_](https://jorgegamedev.itch.io/hyper-holomayhem) and [_Petty Puny Planet_](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/petty-puny-planet-38) preceding this game. We actually plan on making a full blog post about our history with _Ludum Dare_ and what we learned through it during the judging phase. I’ll make sure I @ you when we have it posted. Thanks for keeping up with us!
@Luciax @Moski will be flattered that you liked the artwork! Improving the feedback of the attacks and making their difference clear is on our TODO list for sure!
@cliff-lee-cl I actually had on my plans to make the message at the beginning a prompt that you’d press a button to continue, but unfortunately, time didn’t allows us to accommodate for that. Hiding the cursor was also on that list, the system was even done from a previous game.
As for the punches and kicks, it was just a matter of creating a redundancy. You’re able to do all that with your idols fans, but to her directly? Nuh-uh. Not a chance. Glad you liked!
@reality-blid Indeed! This has to be one of the best art styles @Moski has came up with!
@szekeres-szabolcs Guess we really packed a punch with it, heh? Heh… I’ll show myself the way out now.
@sebastian-m Polish is definitely one of the things we always aim for in a jam (even if it might not seem like a thing you should care much about in a game jam). Maintaining a combo is absolutely a challenge. My personal highscore with it is on the 200+, but I kept having to dodge and use the ranged attack to make sure I didn’t lose it. To what combo did you make it in total? Let us know!
@bonelazy We tried to simplify the beat-em-up concept as much as we could, but we probably simplified it a bit too much. Great knowing you liked it!
@spierek The goal with the kick was that you could chain it together with the punch ability in succession. One of the things that I felt lacking at the beginning of development was exactly how there was nothing to complement the punch, but when we added the kick in, it definitely improved the feedback a lot. Unfortunately, you’re right when it comes to the point that it overshadowed some of the other abilities. We’ll see into tweaking them. Thanks for your feedback!
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@syndelis Obrigado pelo o teu feedback Synd! I was actually a bit worried about the squishing animations at first, but @Moski definitely made them work (together with the rest of the whole art). @RobinhoodPT also chuckled when he saw your comment about the different notes on the buttons. It was really a touch thought up by him and he deserves the full credit for it! Obrigado por jogares, e vou ver se jogo o teu jogo assim que possível!
@xoidberg We feel awesome that you liked it!
@Stadoblech Groovy indeed! Glad you liked it!
@Shodanon Jazzy is totally waifu material, and we can’t wait to make more stuff with her in the future! (Hopefully that doesn’t sound so weird I mean-). I’m pretty sure @RobinhoodPT would be the best man to explain the whole thought that went into the soundtrack, but we were actually the ones that suggested him to look into a more Noir/Jazzy/Blues soundtrack.
If we ever get the chance, I’m pretty sure we’d have a blast making a K/J-Pop inspired soundtrack. Just have to make sure we get a chance to do so. Thank you for playing and good job on defeating Bluessom!
@poorwil Thank you! We actually have this itch to slowly start expanding the world of ~~ripoff shibuya~~ the game. Who knows? Maybe more down the line we’ll see some posts here on the site about how we could expand the world of Jazzchan? Honored that you found it top notch!
@kirezar Somewhat disappointing to read that gameplay lacked depth, but you’re fairly and definitely right! We’ll look into improving it in the future and making sure we make some more not-playing-it-safe design decisions when it comes to the gameplay depth! We expect that you continue keeping up with WAG and whatever we create next! @Moski will, once more, be really proud that you liked the presentation! Thanks! :whale:
@wildgamut Thank you! Glad you found the UI of excellence! We really did our best there!
@roaring-cat-games Thank you! We’re glad it’s not overwhelming! We tried to make sure the game was just a few minutes long as not to overstay the time it needed too. We wanted to make sure that, even if the experience was short, that it didn’t felt repetitive or boring. Glad you liked it and good job on knocking out Bluessom!
Phew. That was a much longer reply batch than the one I could ever have imagined, but we really like to reply back to the people who have commented our game! In total this whole reply batch was made up of five pages and that’s insane! Hopefully it isn’t much of a text wall to punch.
Thanks to everyone who has commented so far! If you get the chance, and if you’d love to hear more of what we make in the future, we’d suggest you guys giving us a follow over on [**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames) (we follow back all game devs, especially LDJam ones!) and, if you’re into some chatting, join us over at our [**Discord**](https://discord.me/wag)! Thanks again!
(I definitely did not expect to have to break this comment into three.)
The game is really beautiful and the music is nice so before anything else, congratulations ! It was a bit hard to play it on an azerty keyboard though since the keys are quite far apart and so I was most of the time running around waiting for my ultimate to fill. Maybe adding different sorts of ennemies, some that can dash toward or other kind of actions would help make the gameplay more dynamic and tense ;)
Wonderful game, thanks for letting me try it out on stream. First, the negatives: The gameplay, to me it almost felt like it was a battle of who timed the super R ability. If you use it, then enemy uses straight after, then it is negated and the cooldowns will likely repeat to align. Also, the theme of the more you have - the worse it is for your enemy is a mild copout in regards to the theme in my view - think it could apply to most games if you're doing it from the perspective of the enemy.
Now on to the good (there is way more good than there is bad!). It looks beautiful, the audio is high quality, all aspects of the game integrate with each other, and its very well presented in terms of menus and giving information to the player. Amazing job to you all!
WOW! Absolytely stunnung entry! Love the animations and visuals, music is wonderful! Good work!
Great audio and graphics! The gameplay is a bit repetitive because it's easy to kite enemies and just use R. Maybe you can add a progress bar and the player need to do combos to unlock R. Overall a fun game :)
Lovely art and use of color. Please don't let this be the last time we see these awesome characters :)
Extremely ambitious game! Kudos for such a polished delivery and multiple builds. Artwork, animations and music is tight!
Interesting idea. Can you convert the fans only with a sax solo? Somehow punching them didn't help.
Interesting take on the beat em up genre, the graphics were really top notch and the music was nice also, this entry feels really polished overall, i also liked the humour "punshing another idol is strictly unprofessional" because punshing the fans untill they convert obviously isn't hehe :p
Eventhough the controls felt solid, i think the difficulty is a bit unbalanced, fans you convert seem to be converted back almost right away, so it's hard to have them do enough damage to your rival unless you convert large groups with the saxophone move.
but quite frankly other than that it was a good experience and i really enjoyed it.
nice entry guys ^^
It's nice to see a game with so many comments answered. Graphics are superb, audio is great but the mechanics seem a little lacking to me, having the enemies just walk toward you allows you to do the whole "round up enemies by running around in circles" thing and then just blast em. Maybe if there were more than one opponent/color and allow them to chase another random team it'd make it a little more interesting. Great job on this guys! ;D
I can't believe how great the art, ui, and audio are in this game. The theme is incredibly cohesive, and well executed, so kudos!
As far as gameplay, the idea is unexpected and that was fun. However, the strategy becomes a little one-dimensional where I found myself kiting enemies for a long time (4'34" to beat the rival) which slowed down the pace too. However, there is definitely potential to tune and add some variety to fan behavior (maybe super fans with their own aoe).
Really amazing amount of polished work in such a short amount of time, so you guys should be proud of the work here :)
The art style is absolutely fantastic, and the music is great. The idea works really well around the theme of the Dare. It would really benefit from some punchy sound effects for when you hit an enemy, but overall a very polished game and really high quality considering the short time frame. Great job! :D
I finally got around to playing this and it's just as good as it looks! What a great original concept, fantastic artwork and sound. I also really love the little touches like scene transitions and overall presentation-- very slick. It was also very fun, especially once I started to figure out a strategy. I could see this being a longer game, sort of a twist on the beat-em-up genre. Great work!!
I really enjoyed the art style the most. I felt the background music got a tad repetitive, but was spot on for the theme of the game. It took a bit to get used to the controls but once I understood I need to gain fans it became a clever "musical brawler."
Thank for your comment our game last ticket and your advice about story is cool.Now I played your game it has a good art style like the game The World Ends with You.The operation is fluent and the music is dynamic and I like this game.Thank for your team working.
I can't exactly describe how amazed I was when I saw how beautiful this game is. Its artwork is something exquisite, I can't believe you managed to draw all that stuff in just 3 days!
The game itself is extremely polished and smooth, the mechanics are quite simple but fun, and the music, ohh the music, I loved it so much.
A beautiful masterpiece, fantastic job everyone on the team!
Thank you all again for the recent comments and feedback from these past two days! :blue_heart: During these past days, we’ve been working on getting some blog posts ready, making adjustment to the game’s pages and preparing to release on more game portals, as well as restlessly rating and leaving feedback on games. We’ve just released the game on [**Newgrounds**]( https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/703223) although it still in judgement. :whale:
As last time, I wanted to thank you all personally, and give some more replays to your comments, so let's get to it!
@kerdelos Thank you!... and my apologizes. We honestly didn't take AZERTY keyboards into consideration during the development of the game and it's honestly something we should take into consideration as we go further. I'll see if I can do some research in regards to how our input plugin handles different keyboard layouts to assure that our future projects and jam entries support it out of the box.
And yes! We actually had some ideas for different fans. One example was a fan that would run around and heal either you or the opposing idol. However, due to time constraints (as always) we weren't able to get them in. Who knows, maybe on a future version? Thank you, and sorry for the whole keyboard thing!
@honest-dan Thank you and glad you found it wonderful! I didn't catch it on stream, and as such, if you have a link for the VOD around, it'd be great so I could see your reactions and impressions first hand. And yes, the ultimate ability was probably a bit too... ultimate. This is worsen by the logic side, which tries to have both Jazzchan and Bluessom on the same difficulty pedestal - same cooldowns and everything - leading to the situations you described where she would use her action just as you did. In regards to the theme, it's always a grey area, but we understand where you're coming from. :smile:
As for everything else, thank you! We welcome your feedback very much!
@merzlot Thank you! The whole team is proud that you liked it! :blue_heart: :whale:
@undefined Thank you for your feedback! Sad to read that you found the gameplay repetitive, especially when your suggestion was exactly how we were originally planning to do the R action, but on the fear that it could get too overwhelming, decided not to go with it. Maybe we can return to that idea in a future patch, mayhaps? :thinking:
@nils-gecko-munch Don't worry! No [*Whales And Games*](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames) character is ever forgotten, and I'm totally positive we will see more of Jazzchan and Bluessom in the future. :wink:
@smbe19 You can convert the fans with any of your attacks, but they deal different damage values (that is unfortunately not telegraphed as well as it could, though.) After a certain amount of damage, they'll become your fans. You need approximately 3~5 hits before they convert over, unless you use, like you said, the Ultimate Sax Drop, which converts them over in a single hit.
@nokusu Thank you! Pleased that you realized the whole irony of the unprofessional joke. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: And yes, as I've mentioned to in a previous reply, since we tried to have both the player and the enemy on the same level of difficulty, it can sometimes become overwhelming to people playing on their first time. We tried to make the fans have different properties, such as being slightly displaced from their current target, as well as them having different velocities, but we could have probably done some more stuff to ensure that the player had the possibility to get into combat with smaller groups even in late game. Oh well, stuff we hope to address sometime in the future! Thank you again!
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@blackoptics8 Thank you! We try our best to assure we always give a reply to every single person that comments on our games, and hope to create a more mutual conversation with them in regards to the feedback. And yes, that would definitely been an interesting idea. I've been envisioning this four-player mode in my head with four different players, but, for now, it's still a distant concept. Glad you liked it!
@brendan-milos Whow! @moski will definitely be pleased that you found the the art and UI great! Same wise to @robinhoodpt in regards to the audio. As for the game's strategy, yes, it definitely requires some tweaking to make sure we avoid extensive and repetitive times like that. And thank you! We're definitely proud of what we've created here! :whale:
@themadpangolin Thank you! The art style is totally kudos of @moski which really gave his best this time around! As for the sound effects, they're actually there, but they get mixed too much the game's music to the point they're not always audible. We'll be looking into tweaking their volumes into the future, after the jamming period has ended.
@adsilcott Thank you! Joyed you liked the concept! What kind of strategy did you come up with? Was it waiting for the best opportunity to make the Ultimate Sax Drop, or did you use a combination of combos to try to get the best out of the fans? We'd love to know! :wink:
@patrick-d That's the type of comment that makes @moski proud of this own work! Unfortunately, music is always a hard thing to get spot-on during a game jam, and @robinhoodpt wrote quite the [extensive devlog](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/jazzy-beats/dropping-the-musical-beat-on-jazzy-beats) about it today. It might be a bit repetitive for now, but we're sure he will continuously get better with his workflow and music composition with time! Glad you liked the 'musical brawler' idea! :smile:
@yangtianqiang Thank you! _TWEWY_ together with _Skullgirls_ were one of the inspirations that lead to the game's art style, so we're happy that you were able to get the reference. Thank you for playing our work! :relaxed:
@wolfo Thank you! @moski actually wrote a [devlog yesterday about how he managed the whole sprite creation process during the jam days](https://ldjam.com/users/moski) in case you're curious about knowing how he managed the whole ordeal (it was quite crazy indeed, the poor man's wrist probably felt terrible at the end of the jam). Flattering to read that you go as far as considering it a masterpiece. Thank you!
And phew, that was another long set of comments! I cannot believe that we're already over **110** ratings and that we're still in the first week! It's definitely insane and a whole new record for us that we almost have to pinch ourselves to believe. This was all thanks to the great likeness of everyone that has commented and left your feedback so far. You guys are really a bunch of cinnamon rolls. :yellow_heart:
If you want to know more about the whole development process of the game, @moski [has written a devlog about the game's art process and how he managed to do all of the sprites involved in just three days](https://ldjam.com/users/moski) and @robinhoodpt [has written another about the music creation process during the jam, his workflow and the challenges involved in composing music during a game jam](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/jazzy-beats/dropping-the-musical-beat-on-jazzy-beats). I'll be writing my own devlog about the programming side of things soon too, so keep up for that! :smiley: Remember once more that, if you'd like, you can give us a follow over on [**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames) or join our [**Discord**](https://discord.me/wag) if you'd like to keep up with us! **Thank you!** :whale:
I just wanted to say that I really loved this game, and greatly respect all of the work that went into it. Everything holds together here extremely well -- the wonderful art is brought to life in a really energetic way through the animations, the music gives a strong atmosphere to both the setting and the pace and energy of the game, and the programming seems incredibly strong, with what look likes like it must be an extremely complicated AI setup running the rival and the fans! Everything seems extremely polished, right down to the professional-looking interface. I really appreciate the devlogs you all have written, to get a chance to see the process!
Wonderful game, and seriously great work. (And a huge thanks, also, for the very kind support for our game, it's greatly appreciated!)
Oh boy you guys must be super busy with the reception you're getting :)
I'm glad I wasn't just imagining the Skullgirls influence, it's nice to see that aesthetic right down to the UI and font. In that case, it would be crazy to see a full implementation of this idea with more than just the basic attacks. The game itself is good, with the art being spectacular of course. I was pleasantly surprised with the AI preventing me from doing an easy cheese to victory and I had to think up a good strat to finish them off. One more thing I'd like you note, you made an AWESOME first impression with the title screen for me. This is a jam and usually the title screen is a relative after thought. You've inspired me to try to match that kind of polish in my next jam!
Art style and music are fantastic! The gameplay on the other hand doesn't seem to work that well, all attacks except Ultimate Sax Drop felt like they barely did anything, and even after using that the fans quicly turned against you. And even then the game felt a bit too easy. Combo system was kinda weird without any attacks chaining into others.
I hope I didn't seem too harsh :D I still liked the game a lot, I think it's one of the best entries I've seen so far!
Really liked the jazzyness, the graphics were great. Didn't so much understand how I could be smart or good about the fights so unfortunately it was more or less a long hopeless way towards loosing. So perhaps to make it more satisfying, have the opponent not be that cool for the first fight?
Love the audio. I haven't managed to win, however, I really enjoyed the game. The whole setting is pretty innovative. I also like various attacks.
The gameplay is alright, kind of repetitive and easy without any variation. But the art and visual style is great! The overall package with the menu screen, credits, music, art, effects, animations, feels like a complete game. Everything is great but the gameplay may need some refining. Great job on a solid entry!
Very nice and polished, and it reminded me a lot of The World Ends with You. Probably because the street's perspective is similar. Also the Skullgirls inspired interface worked very well. The game fit the theme in a meta sort of way because the more fans you have, the more your opponent can convert with their ult. Instead of taking control of all of the NPCs I would ult about half. Took me a bit to figure that out so I didn't get the best time :<<< Fun game though!
victory.PNG
The music is very catchy, I loved that! The art style was also very nice and I liked the MOBA style controls with a twist.
It took me a while to understand what was going on, maybe I should read instructions before starting play. The only complain I have is that the ultimate was way to strong and as both the player and the AI have it pretty much cancels itself out. However I was able to win by using it and quickly adding a combo of hits to the mas of fans.
But in general I liked it and I think that for a JAM this is a great accomplishment!
I love the art style and the music is catchy, very cool! Nicely done.
Really cool game, the art is really beautful, I loved the art style, the songs are also very good, the sfx, especially the UI are really cool, great job, I just wish the controls were more intuitive, besides that it is a great game, congratulations, great team work !
Sou brasileiro, mas é bem legal ver a galera de Portugal fazendo um jogo tão bem feito, bem interessante, parabens !
Fantastic visuals and music. The characters are oozing with personality. I wish that the followers you gain had a more apparent affect on gameplay. It seemed to me that they just walked away peacefully when they turned gold. The combat is perhaps too simplistic. I'd love to see a musical beat-em-up like this, with a fleshed out story, and musical combat where each instrument has a different effect on people. I would take the kick out entirely. Imagine this multiplayer! You could have a whole jazz band "fighting" on Bourbon Street!
When I listened to the skillful beats and watched the cute characters fight, I felt charmed. If you continue to develop this game, when I pressed the QWER keys and watched some characters change colors, I felt confused which actions I did had which effects on converting the blue fans to yellow fans.
Thanks for this game :) It's really fun ton play. I enjoy the sounds and arts, great job team !
I win at my second attempt : jazzybeats.PNG
(max combo : 137 but loose during my first try ^^)
nice entry! feels very professionally made and it is! great music, graphics, movement all add up! Good job!
This feels very polished, but I did not see how it fit with the theme
This was really great ! The game is beautiful and well-presented, even the itch.io page is cool-looking ! Gameplay-wise the concept is interesting, maybe the UI is a bit overwhelming from the start. Also there was no alternative controls for AZERTY keyboards, so I had to restart after changing...
I had some fun and enjoyed the music, too ! The game may lack some sound design, especially impacts. Otherwise this is one of the coolest entries I've seen. Congratulations :)
Great style and music. The game has a great mood, the combat is cool with all the skills and their cooldowns, but needs more juice, like some sounds or effects. Loved the yellow/blue contrast the game had. Good job guys, awesome game.
Great polish, but the enemies just approaching you can feel a bit swarmy at times. It did not feel very varied. Over time, a clear best strategy became apparent. Apparently the enemy AI is not smart enough to avoid getting pummeled by swarms but I can easily get away from them if I use my skills properly. The power skill converting all the enemies right after pushing them back and additionally backing it up with punch kick combos becomes nearly unstoppable. I need a reason to not spam that strategy. Gorgeous art, fantastic music, and wonderful sfx. All in all a fun playthrough but I think with more variety you can increase player longevity as well.
Wow!! Amazing music and graphics. The mechanic is easy and straight forward. Congrats on the amazing entry!
Lovely look & sound! Really great poppin art. During the gameplay I was thrown a bit into the pit without any training. It would have been nice to ramp available skills, so people learn what each one does, before moving on. (now it was a bit button punchy at times) Aside from that, once you get into it, you can get a flow going. I wish my fans would stick along longer tho.
Great polished game! I love the art and the music. I didn't manage to win, but that's totally on me :grinning:
This has great potential (maybe with multiplayer for a post-jam version). Overall, nice work :thumbsup:
Awesome game! I love the aesthetic, the sounds, and the gameplay. It's really polished, easy to get into, and fun to play. If I *absolutely had to* pick one thing to criticize it would probably be that hitting/converting fans didn't feel quite as impactful to me as I would have liked it to. But I don't think I'd fault a full game for that, much less one made in 72 hours...
I love it. Keep it up! :thumbsup:
score.png
*Oh and this totally needs a versus mode!*
It's really gorgeous, and the music is above-par, but really the gameplay doesn't really hold up. Just... Do a lot of attacks. There's really not much strategy or skill, smash the attacks, smash the charge attacks when they're full, smash some more.
I was hoping that the combat had some sort of musical jazz improvisation to it, it really didn't feel like it.
Kudos on a really swish and polished presentation.
By far my favorite entry so far! It's insane how polished the whole thing was, from the concept to the combat execution to the visual + audio presentation. I really adore the character designs and the music-inspired themes. Very unique and interesting take on beat em ups/fighting games!
Really well polished art! I love the style. I kind of wish there was more juice in the moves the player made, like having jazz licks play with combos.
JUST AWESOME. Honestly, no words for this. Outstanding job, guys!
Next level audio! This is extremely well polished stylistically. The art, the animation, the HUD. On top of that, it's an interesting idea and fun to play. Fantastic!
I’m humbled at the amount of comments we keep getting on this project. We’re getting more comments than games I can play! It’s madness! But of the good kind!
Now, let’s do another batch comment-a-thon!
@greg-lord Awesome! Glad to hear that you liked it this much. Likewise, The Will of the Wisps has been very inspiring to me, from an artistic point of view. I’d be keeping a close eye on it
@PeachTreeOath Aye, we had been playing Skullgirls for weeks before the LD theme was chosen. The day came, and it was the freshest thing in mind. I myself had my share of fun with Poser, but you probably already know that. Keep up the good work!
@Lamossus That’s fair criticism. Balancing difficulty is not easy, and we still get comments of both sides of the spectrum. We’ll take this to our hearts for the next time we do a project like this, to make more meaningful combos and mechanics. Thanks!
@local-minimum Yep, balancing problems. For a time, either the player was too overpowered, or the opponent. Some people find it one way or another. In the future, we plan to spice things up to make games more tactical and add variation to what the players can actually do. Thanks!
@petr-belohlavek Thanks! @Robinhoodpt really outdid himself this time around with the audio!
@akusan Refining gameplay is certainly the top request right now. Thanks for playing!
@team-infernus Yep, it’s Skullgirls and TWEWY as far as the eye can see. I had screenshots of those all over the place while doing the designs. While the perspective is a mess, I’m glad that we managed to deliver the vibe. Cheers!
@jireymendez Thanks! Since MOBAs are so popular these days, and abilities were going to be cooldown-based, we thought it’d be proper to map them like that. As for the ultimates, we’ve had talks about how to manage them more properly. They are overpowered as to not make the game too easy or too hard, but they also ended up feeling not very rewarding or intuitive. Thanks for the feedback!
@gwolf86 Thanks and thanks!
@SVR-audio Glad that you had a fun time. Also, did you play with a controller or a keyboard? I preferred playing on the keyboard since it uses standard MOBA buttons, while I think that the controller ones could be remapped. If you could give us a more in-depth feedback on why you think they’re not intuitive enough, that’d be excellent data. Also, I’m replying this time around, but @jorgegamedev says O nosso programador e musico agradecem, e querem garantir que Portugal mostre cada vez mais trabalhos de qualidade, seja durante jams, seja em jogos lançados. Obrigado! “. In my mind, you’re both communicating through some secret language, so I hope it’s juicy gossip.
@shinyogre Thanks a lot! We’ve discussed the possibilities that this would have with multiplayer in consideration. I’ve done some doodling here and there of characters based off instruments like violin, piano and even an otamatone (long story). We’ll see upon making NPCs behave more aggressively or with more variety in future games, thanks!
@ethan-kennerly The blue fans are all enemies, which have to be beat up to convert them to yellow allies, ping-pongening them from one band to another. We thought the gameplay was intuitive enough, but some people have not found out that E is a ranged attack, since they usually use it mid-combo. We’ll see upon making things more clear in the future, thanks!
@harasume That’s good! I didn’t win until my 4th attempt back when we were playtesting! (Granted, game varied from difficulty a lot, but still)
@tulipekoni I’m humbled! Thanks!
@josh-ayres To be honest, we tried to stick to the theme up to a point, and when we passed the point of no return, we doubled down on what we had instead of trying to focus more on the theme. In the plan, the more fans you have, the worse it is for the opponent. Yet, it’s still a stretch, since it’s easier for the player. The theme pretty much got lost along the way.
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@thefunattic That’s actually something very important to consider, thanks! We’ve rarely paid attention to other keyboard configurations. I’ll see upon contacting the programmer on this aspect to see if remapping or variations are something that can be implemented without too much of a problem. Accessibility is something to always have in mind. Thanks!
@jaimuepe Variety is a concern, yes. The swarming was on purpose to give it a “Warriors” feeling. And yet, it also ended up having the “Warriors” shortfalls. Maybe we could make enemies that behave in different ways? We’ll brainstorm something, thanks!
@gris Aww, shucks! Thank you!
@joror Yeah, we should make some sort of short introduction to detail the differences of buttons. I’ve read that some didn’t know what the trumpet was, for example. Thanks!
@articmatterkar I agree, multiplayer would be fantastic!
@for-science That’s a point worth rising. The idea of mechanics like these is to feel that they have an impact and are rewarding. We’ll see upon giving the player more visual and sound cues for feedback in the future!
@tuism @jorgegamedev really outdid himself with the polish. As for design, that’s on all of us. We’ll aim to give the player a more impactful selection of things to do in future projects. Cheers!
@dvdfu Glad that you liked it as much as we enjoyed making it!
@svntax Writing these up. We’re getting many cool suggestions. Thanks!
@purplealien Thanks! Thanks! Lots of thanks!
@tvance When the 3 of us were doing different things at the same time, then put them together and somehow made it work, it felt _so good_ (especially since half of the time, I expected the whole thing to burn to the ground or something. We learned a lot about teamwork this time around). Thanks a bunch!
I think that covers it. It’s always fantastic to reply to our comments. We’ll see upon playing your games! But for now, that’s it. Thanks a lot for stopping by! If you’d like to see more of what we’re up to, you may want to follow us on[**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames) (we follow back all game devs, especially LDJam ones!). Alternatively, if you’d like to chat for a bit, join us over at our [**Discord server**](https://discord.me/wag)! Thanks again! :whale:
"Variety is a concern, yes." Actually @jaimuepe did not say this, I did. That said, "swarming was on purpose to give it a “Warriors” feeling" definitely came across. "Maybe we could make enemies that behave in different ways?" I feel that adding variety in enemy behavior either by using different types with different abilities or by making them not always directly approach you may make this interesting.
Perhaps play around with the idea of social cohesion? People often don't go yelling at other people by themselves as it can be pretty disheartening but when they are in a group they are often more comfortable doing so. Maybe have some enemies try to group up before confronting you or your opponent. This doesn't change the gameplay a huge amount on its own but you could make it so that when groups form, they generate more powerful minions based on the group size for instance? Also, giving them other things to do besides just charging for you can make them feel a bit more diverse and give the player a bit more to do.
@forrest My bad. Switching back and forth made me make a few mistakes here and there. I've already been notified for this. Quite awkward indeed. Those ideas you're giving are quite fascinating, although changing the idea to social cohesion might be something more fit for a different setting. This one settled too much on silly idol antics, so odds are that any further work would spiral into going over the top with that. Still, food for thought. It'd be fantastic to see something like that as well. Thanks for clarifying my mistake and for replying back! :whale:
The graphics are really good. The audio is probably the highlight of this game. Fun game mechanics, but somehow a little bit too easy to win.
This is a quite cool entry! I really liked it. The graphics and audio are incredibly polished, and the action feels quick and fun!
I found the same downside as other people: the game misses some kind of tactical component because all the enemies attack you at the same time and in the same way, and the character's attacks are too plain (the punch and the kick are too similar, the simple ranged attack does almost nothing). At some point, it was a matter of focusing on countering the enemy's area attack with my area attack.
That being said, this is an amazing entry overall! Congrats!
Frankly superb graphics and atmosphere, a true inspiration! However the gameplay is a bit dry, the problem with anything like a scrolling beat them up is that capcom refined that to death :) The normal blows do not chain and the ennemies do not look stun so the fighting is not very satisfying. Also the bounce to emphasize animation is a good idea, but a tad too pronounced maybe? Still, you definitely nailed audiovisual quality.
Superb presentation! The artwork was just fantastic and the jazzy soundtrack was really on point. I played the web version, but didn't seem to have any technical difficulties you'll be happy to hear!
My lone complaint is one that a few people have made already that the only legitimate strategy seems to be waiting for the area attack to come of cool down and then dive into the crowd.
Still, the game lasted just long enough that it didn't become tedious and idea and theme (which I thought was super cool - duelling musicians!) certainly has legs! Great submission and best of luck in the future!
P.S. Cheers for rating our game! ;)
Hey, this was great! Definitely one of the most polished games on here. The graphics were perfectly drawn, the sound fit it really well too. The gameplay was much more fun than expected, and suprisingly difficult as more fans join, just as intended! Since the enemy has an identical moveset it's quite hard to keep fans on your side for long... :P Just as a couple of tiny suggestions, I thought the audio would have been perfect if it perhaps had some sounds for attack hits? Just to make them feel more impactful. And perhaps the combo counter could have more affect on gameplay, maybe something like recharging the abilities faster? But overall, a brilliant game :D
Art and gameplay were really great, audio just amazing. Overall clearly one of the top games (If not the top). On the con side, the game kinda fits the theme as of "more enemies is bad", but equally important is "more allies is good" mechanic.
Great gameplay, perfect art and sound. Love the fighting with combo mechanic. Somehow I really like to try this game with more rivals, 3 armies fighting each other sound really fun.
Amazing original concept!
Top notch quality on sounds and visuals. What lets it down for me is the enemy AI. It really easily converts my recently converted fans without any trouble. It felt like the only winning strategy was to wait for my power move to reset and use that then run around. Rinse repeat.
Since the main focus seems to be music another addition could be mapping the music to the controls. Not an easy feat mind you but one for the future perhaps. Handling a large crowd is hard and it fits the theme really well but I don't think it was pulled off quite right.
Still a quality game though.
Oh, good thing you left reply on my page, your game was one of the few that I noticed during event and wanted to play, but unfortunately forgot afterwards. As everyone mentioned, amazing concept but honestly speaking I expected it to be mix of the rhythm game with beat-em-up. Fun to try netherless. But gameplay becomes a little dull rather quick, it is soon just "gather fan cloud and wait for ult cooldown". But well, graphics, overall design, sound, and most important - style is marvelous. Also amazing polish.
Things I liked a lot: - art, palette, animations, easter eggs, hatching shadows. - game menu, ui and overall polish level - MUSIC. It just plays in my head.
Other things: - My first assumptios was that I need to hit punches accordingly with a music tempo. - I didn't get what to do in my very first try and failed 4 times in a row. But then I recognized HP bars on top. I'm not very smart. - Combos need more love. ~~Best tactic for now...~~ oh I see a lot of people mentioned it. - Timer flikers a lot since it contains millisecond and aligned in center and font is not monospaced.
I'd recommend to adjust the battle system (make combos more valuable, nerf saxy), add some levels and this will be a great full-featured game. Why not? :smiley:
Here is my playthrough:
https://youtu.be/ohMvgubkHNA
_Jazzy!_ :saxophone:
A game very enjoyable and fun to play. Excellent graphics and music ! It is challenging, I tried 4 times but could not win. May be the attacks are a little unbalanced as other comments mentioned it. The gameplay is also interesting, I was very fun to convert you enemy to build an army. But is was also a little frustrating because the fans changed side too fast so sometime, fighting them seemed a little useless. Make the conversion slower and harder for the both side could make the fight pleasant may be. Great job !
Best game I have played this LD. First play got smacked around, second I was able to win. winning strategy - kite while kicking... when the opponent uses her 'ultimate attack' move the group over her and use yours. She is surrounded and can't just turn the group back on you immediately.
SFX could be slightly louder compared to the music. Especially the opponent's attacks, so you could tell when she was using them off screen.
Controller input was really well done and I liked it.
As a musician myself, I can confirm that this is totally how acquiring fans is done. Excellent art, sound, and gameplay. Good on all fronts.
Definitle one of the pretiest game here and the jazzy theme is excelent! I would have loved to have an audio feedback when cooldowns are up again, but that's a detail and the only thing I see to be improved. Great game folks!
A very polished entry! I found the game fun to play, though the swarming enemies would sometimes stun-lock me. The audio was fantastic and the graphics/UI were very well done. The idea of a beat-em-up where you convert enemies is a really cool idea too.
Interesting concept! Loved all the graphics -- very stylish! The gameplay felt a bit degenerate though.
very nice, pretty polished! My max combo was 140. I was able to deal with the masses by distancing myself and kicking up back slowly and converting them that way. The brawling was pretty good, I think the hitboxes being pretty big helped a lot. The different movesets are fun but since I was able to distance myself I felt like kick and the special were probably the only useful ones for me. I think if this was taken further there could be exploration on crowd patterns or different move sets. Keep up the good work!
Very polished and fun game however I'm wondering how it is worse to have more fans. Maybe there should be some kind of drawback to have a lot of fans, to better fit the theme (if that's the goal).
Super Fun! Can't say anything that hasn't already been said. Just amazing <3
Thank you everyone who has left comments once again! As amusing as it is, we’re just a single week away from the end of judging! As we’re closing in, to the final days, we’ve decided to try and release the game on platforms we hadn’t had the chance to release on before. As such [***Jazzy Beats*** is now available on *Game Jolt* as well!](https://gamejolt.com/games/jazzy-beats/305517)
However, you probably saw that on the front-page already. What we’re doing here on the comments now is to reply to the avalanche of comments we received this last week. So let’s get to it, shall we?
@kyle-pham Thank you! @robinhoodPT will be joyed to read that you think the audio was the game’s highlight! One thing we’ve been noticing is that there’s a big opinion curve when it comes to the game’s difficulty, such as some finding it either too easy, and others too hard. Adaptive difficulty seems to be a very interesting topic that we’ll probably have to make some research into for future projects, as it would definitely balance out the difficulty situation.
@racso Glad you like it! There’s definitely several things regards to the game’s tactics that could be improved on, especially the feedback when it comes to the character’s attacks. The punch and kick are definitely similar attacks, but the kick actually applies more damage to the fans. However, due to the lack of any indication of that, it isn’t that clear. Thanks for your feedback!
@trabitboy Pleased to know that you enjoyed audiovisual quality! CAPCOM beat-em-ups are definitely something we will look for further inspiration in case we end up coming back to refine the gameplay more. As for the animation, it was @moski’s first attempt at animating in Unity and we had to cut some corners since we didn’t have that much time to work on that many different frames. We’ll totally try to have a smoother animation for next time!
@mundis It’s superb that you liked it! I’m relieved to know that the game shows no problem when running in the web version, as some of our earlier games had a few issues here and there. :relaxed:
As for the strategy problems, we’ve definitely have it noted. Gotta take in mind to try to make more varied mechanics in the future. Glad you liked the theme too! Cheers! :whale:
@samboyer276 Thank you for feedback! There are actually some attack sounds for the hits, but they aren’t that high in terms of volume unfortunately, which kind of resulted in them blending in with the rest of the audio sources.:disappointed: As for the combo counter, it was originally intended as the way to charge the ultimate sax drop but we ended up changing that idea unfortunately. Glad that you found it brilliant!
@francyreckless @robinhoodPT is joyed to know you found the audio amazing, and it’s really flattering to know you consider this one of the top LD games (which is kind of a big thing given how many quality entries there are this time around)! As for the theme, we tried to be a bit sneaky about it. Since the phrase was just “The more you have it, the worse it gets”, we thought “who does it get worse too?”. As such, we made it so the more fans you have, the worse it gets to the opposing idol. An alternate interpretation of the theme, or just a sneaky way out? We’ll let you be the judge of that. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
@tqv5964 Glad you liked combo-ing the fans through! I’ve personally been picturing this game as a 4-player splitscreen mayhem. I don’t know if it will ever happen, but I can definitely imagine the chaos that it would be. :thinking:
@andrew-white It’s even more amazing that you liked it! Thank you!
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@spiffy Thank you for your feedback! Getting the enemy AI to a passing point was actually a pretty blind process unfortunately. It’s always hard to tell when it is too hard or easy for those who will be playing it during the development process of the game, and in this specific case, it ended up being a bit shuffled. Sometimes she is easier, sometimes she is harder. This, connected with how the ultimate sax drop is handled, unfortunately created a bit of some entropy when it came to the strategy of the game.
As for the audio responding to the controls, that would definitely be a fun thing to try! I’ll leave that suggestion over to @robinhoodPT!
@sun-wukong Gotta give @moski the credit for leaving some feedback in your page then! Glad you got to check our game out! As we’ve mentioned previously (it’s becoming a regular thing), we’ll definitely look into improving the ultimate sax drop with a cloud of fans situation. I personally would like if their AI could a bit more noisy and less predictable. It’s pleasing to read you found the polish amazing as well! Thank you!
@icxon You’re not the first one not to recognize the health bars to be honest, some people also only realized that they were health bars a while after playing. It’s the side-effect of having such a stylized UI. The combos definitely need more love alright.
The time flickering issue is also something that’s been bothering me for a while now. I totally want to check that out too. As for the future plans with the game, we never know what we’re going to get with _Whales And Games_ :whale: Glad you liked it and thanks for your playthrough! Jazz out! :saxophone:
@edmond00 Thanks for your feedback and glad that you had a whale of a time with it! And yep. The attacks could definitely have had a different level of balance to them and Bluessom totally needs a nicely deserved nerf to her converting abilities. She’s always a tough and fast one to fight. We will take your feedback in mind! Thanks!
@jason-kennedy Saying this is the best game you played this _Ludum Dare_ is really flattering! Thank you! :embarrassed: And it seems we both share the same technique when it comes to fighting against Bluessom! :wink: SFX really needs some more love, and we already left the note for @robinhoodPT to improve their volume balance in the future.
Glad you liked it! Ever since we bought [Rewired](https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/21676), making sure that our games support controller support out of the box has been one of our top-most priorities. Pleasing to read it came out alright! :gamepad:
@killthealias Couldn’t we say that this is how you acquire fans regardless of the area of interest? :wink: Great to know you found it good on all fronts! :whale:
@sgadrat Calling it one of the prettiest games on here is really going to get @moski on a good mood for the remainder the week! :smile: Your suggestion for the audio cues is actually the first time it has been suggested for us, and now that I think of it, I don’t know how we missed such a basic cue. Thank you!
@bocodillo I’ve also have had some situations in the past where I’d get stun-locked as well. We tried to counter it a bit by adding some invincibility frames, but overall, it seems in really swarmed situations, just a few more frames to avoid you being jazzed out of the screen would have been ideal. Will take note of that. :pencil: Glad that you found the idea cool as well!
@ddkirbyisq Great to read to know you liked the concept and the graphics! Gameplay could definitely receive some well-deserved improvements. :whale:
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@chriiis88 Similar as I tried to explain to a comment above, we tried to be a bit sneaky when it came to the theme. Since the only thing we were told was just that - “The more you have it, the worse it gets” - we thought - “who does it get worse too?”. As such, we made it so the more fans you have, the worse it gets to the opposing idol, rather than having an obvious “the more you have it the worse it gets to you, the player”. Not sure if that counts on your body, but we tried our best to keep with the theme. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
@nanda Great that you had an amazing whale of a time with it! Thank you! :heart:
And phew. That was another ginormous slew of comments. We’ve been holding out a bit as we were slightly busy with personal work and events in these last days, but as we’re getting into vacations this next week, we made sure to catch up as we expect to post more devlogs and insiders in the upcoming days. :tada:
If you want to keep up with what we’re doing beyond _Ludum Dare_ stuff, we suggest you guys giving us a follow over on [**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames) and, if you’re into some chatting, join us over at our [**Discord Channel**](https://discord.me/wag)! We’ve been making and testing some wacky experiments over there and it’d be fun if you joined in. Thanks you! :whale:
The visuals are amazing and the music is glorious. Can't really same about the gameplay loop as it's very button mashy and there's not much besides that. Also there's the possibility of just avoiding the enemies entirely and then playing the sax once in a while. Maybe some ranged enemies would spice the whole thing up?
Wow, the graphics and music are super super amazing. The polish in general its awesome, menus, tutorial, animations, etc. The gameplay it's good, but I think it could be more dinamyc, maybe run, and have some knockdowns. But in general it's great. Congratulations guys!
Great game!
I liked the game from the start, when every time my mouse went over the button, it would make a different saxophone sound. ^^ The game looks finished, I like the sounds and the art. It took me a while to recognise the UI about the number of fans and my 'life bar'. The game play seemed to be mainly a matter of button mashing, with an well-placed 'R' when available. I think this would make a nice two-player game! Congrats!
The R ability felt quite powerful overall, making the game somewhat devolve into kiting fans around until the R refreshed. The enemy clumping felt like to much which only added to the R feeling so powerful and swingy.
Art and sound was excellent though!
A really well done game, it deserves all the attention it's gettin! The art, design, music and FX mix in perfect harmony and style with the concept of the game. The only thing I felt was that some actions don't really do much against the one in which you play the instrument (R) but still was challenging while not being particularly too difficult. A job well done guys, congrats!
Aside from the gameplay getting old really fast, the game has impressive graphics and audio.
Great sound effects and music, good graphics too. The goal of the game is somewhat unclear, I beat people up and they change color, then they change it back and so on back and forth. Victory/defeat conditions are unclear also. I mean, I get it now but it wasn't obvious. Overall great game.
Love the graphics! Nice audio too! Would love to see more!
This was an EXTREMELY well polished game! The graphics were absolutely fantastic in particular. A really wonderful submission! :grin:
Both audio and art were superb. I also liked the concept and the presentation (plus it was super polished).
Felt like it needed a little more of depth gameplay-wise, felt like the old punch and run strategy was the only viable solution to win the fight.
Anyway, well done guys! :-)
Cool concept, there's so many ideas to develop there further. Really loved the trumpet (E) sound combining with the main theme. It's no very hard to get the winning tactics, but the game itself is very good and original.
OMG! I love the graphics 5 stars! The idea to punch/kick the fans then become yours is really fun too, so nicely finishing! I have to mention the keyboard part, if I remember right, only need to use QWER and arrow keys, perfect position and very thoughtful for someone like me, short memories :P I could play a bit more than 2 minutes :D
Well, that was a close one! We still managed to rate before the time ending, I am now writing this calmly :sweat_smile:
First of all, a nice and well polished game, like always. The premise was really interesting and the execution was great. All feels polished: from ui to animations, passing through gameplay. The art is really well made, although I feel it could pop a little more from the style of your other games. However, the art is indeed well made, with the ui specially gorgeous, and the protagonist and antagonist have character/spunk.
Audio wise, really well made again, however the saxophone's notes started to get on my nerves. A tad annoying on the menu mainly.
As for the gameplay, I mainly had fun mashing the other keys while waiting for R to be available again. R was the most powerful attack. I did feel though that the balance was shifted, as Bluessom managed to get many fans really quickly really often, while I had to wait for my most powerful attack and the others didn't do as much.
I didn't understand what the time meant though? There was no limit and it was really down to who managed to get all of the fans. As a suggestion, if this mode still makes sense like it is, the game could have more modes in addition to this one, like a time attack one, where you have a set goal and a time limit, an endless mode where you can just mash away, and multiplayer modes. @vasco-rodrigues and I were talking how fun it would be to play against each other as idols, or (my favorite) a multiplayer mode where you team with another idol (a collab!) and take down the other pair of idols.
Overall, great game, polished, well made, and we do hope to see updates to it in the future! (Maybe a multiplayer mode at the next game dev meet :P). Congratulations, and good luck ;)
It’s time to close off the Ludum Dare. time’s up and rankings are there. Jazzy Beats couldn’t have done so well without you, people! Our team is forever humbled! Now, let’s get into the replies!
@secretpocketcat Thanks for the feedback! Rebalancing the sax and adding variations of enemies are things we’ve been told some times that would really spice up the gameplay. Noted, and thanks again!
@nax-89 Aw, shucks, thanks! We do feel that it could have done with some extra variation as well. Time will tell.
@peredom Aye, thanks!
@papaver I know, right? @jorgegamedev’s really outdid himself with the polish. Thanks for the feedback as well. It’s all on consideration now.
@kleinzach Yep, R is overpowered. The enemy has an equivalent too though, so at some moments it can become a fan tennis ricocheting spree. Still, it could do with some retooling. Thanks!
@giusex27 It’s odd though. We’ve both read about people saying it’s too hard and people saying it’s too easy. I guess that the game is far harder when you try to make as little time as possible? Who knows, we’ll check on that. Thanks for the comment!
@blazing-borkus Glad that you liked it. @robinhoodpt did an amazing audio work, the madman.
@explorer Aye. We could really do with a tutorial of sorts. Kudos!
@chuigum And more will be done! Thanks!
@goat-toaster-games Those are very kind words, thanks!
@ludipe Some people were more akin to running until the Sax Drop was ready. But yeah, I see your point. We’ll see upon making more interactive things in the future, thanks!
@ardorugus Thanks! Some people didn’t really find out the untapped potential of the trumpet. Very good to attack while dodging swarms!
@starlin Yep, we designed the game with popular MOBAs in mind, turning the “attacks” into “cooldown based skills”. Feels more streamlined. We’re glad that you liked it!
@saramartins Wow, that’s very in-depth! Thanks for taking your time with us! The feedback on the art and audio are things we hadn’t heard before, so it’s always great to have some extra things to ponder about. As for the additional game modes, that’s something we’d really like to try at some point. The timer was added to let people try to finish the game as quick as possible,but implementing it for actual purposes is something that we could try at some point. And yes, Versus sounds like a blast. Anyhow, thanks again. Jorge says hi!
This much attention has warmed us all in this cold winter. Bunch of hugs for y’all, and happy new year! If you’d like to keep in touch, [we’re at **Twitter**](twitter.com/whalesandgames) and [at **Discord**](discord.me/wag). Come chat a bit and share your wisdom sometime. Cheers! :whale:
Lovely graphics, challenging game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 40 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdHqgfn9vOI
@jupiter-hadley We have dropped you a comment and reply on the Youtube video and on the tweet you made with it, but since we have replied to all of the people who have previously commented here on the game's page, we figured we'd also copy and past the comment we posted over those sites here as well for consitency!
Thank you for covering us once again Jupiter! We're glad that you found the concept interesting, and @moski will definitely be pleased to know that you found the graphic's style 'amazing'. We have to wonder what was the outcome of your combat against Bluessom though, as you cut the video right before the battle ended. Guess it will be a mystery left to our curiosity. Thank you again!