Careful Caverns

firebelley 2022-10-03 23:19

Really cool interpretation of the theme and great atmosphere! However, the lack of checkpoints was really morale crushing. More forgiving checkpoints would be great. But I enjoyed it overall!

spencerflem 2022-10-03 23:25

Great vibes, and the theme is on point :) As someone who gets lost easily it was very hard :p

shaukaula 2022-10-04 10:07

Cool game, it's easy to understand! But the difficulty of the game is too high in my opinion. More checkpoints would have been nice. Good job for someone who worked alone!

kepsert 2022-10-04 15:09

Interesting little game!

Even though I must be honest, I was mostly appealed by the gameplay; it made me keep trying cause I wanted to "do better" every time I died. In a way this gives me the getting over it, or jump king, kind of vibes. Rinse repeat, learn, get better, and I'm all in for it!

2022-10-04 17:03

Great little game. Hard though. I'll have to spend more time getting through it. Right now I think the boss thinks I'm writing an angry email the way I'm hitting my keyboard!!!

natpat 2022-10-10 00:07

I really liked the take on the theme! It was an interesting case of slow, deliberate exploration and then frantic execution. Fun! I think perhaps it could have been a bit clearer that the player was actually making progress, as I was very lost at some points but still actually moving forwards - though I guess that's probably the mood you wanted. There were some very tight platforming sections too, and sometimes the screen transition made it very hard to control. The controls were slightly unforgiving too, it didn't seem possible to jump whilst holding the button, you had to press it every time. The rats multiplying was a neat touch, I liked them jumping to their deaths as they tried to attack me! Nice entry :smile:

wfmg 2022-10-10 00:11

Cool game! It's fun to go through the caves. I've always liked this setting.

broodjethomaat 2022-10-13 07:56

Nice game! Kept me wanting more, the game is difficult but fun! The screen transistion could be smoother

mossieur-patate 2022-10-16 05:14

(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)

1. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled; there is also the key rebinding as suggested. Just note that programming in a position-independent way is possible :) 2. no sound? I feel it would help knowing what happens, especially given the darkness! 3. display may be a bit small; fullscreen option or something may help. In particular, while playing, I give little to no attention to the counter because they are remote 4. oh, you can jump on rats 5. the torch concept is cleverly used (reminds me I used such a personal torch shader in several games; very useful! :)) 6. duplicating amoeba-like rats? X) 7. I think that while the rat duplication counter is useful, the light one is not so, because you visually see the light radius; I think you could do away with the light counter 8. the game feels SO HARD XD <- 10-second light for exploring in a platforming environment with huge pits and instant-death enemies really is much to take! 9. by the way, I notice the double use of the theme (light + rats) 10. weird, for once, a rat went falling… on me X) 11. many jumps are uneasy go-to-the-square-above-you ones… Probably on purpose, but this makes the game even harder 12. barrels are hard to see, although they are so important! Suggestion: highlight them in some way 13. small detail: just a small walking animation would have been nice, although this is not even necessary 14. reached the end! :D Which is a cutely arranged room. :) Is there something written on the hidden ceiling?? Also, why "end+"? Or is it "end" + sparkle? :) 15. Actually, only ONE section of the game was really hard to me (where you have to go leftwards from above), and I rather quickly overcame what came next

**Takeaway:** an interesting and challenging concept; some technical improvements would make the player’s life easier (higher resolution, more visible barrels, more even checkpoints — some are concentrated towards the end —, sounds…). I thought this would be hell to beat at some point, but it turned out the length was entirely reasonable! Nice platforming exploration with a twist. Maybe some other mechanic(s) or enemies would have added variety, but designing the world was already probably enough of a challenge for you given the short time span, so, not complaining.

Thanks for the potholing. :)

[Advice: just in case, since people do not always know, and I see you have both zero karma and an uneven voting ratio balance: since the "Smart" ordering is the default one and not everyone uses the "Classic" one, reviewing games will help you get more testers and feedback. :)]

verbante 2022-10-16 21:34

I like how the world looks :) I think barrels could be more visible

mascoll 2022-10-20 12:35

Nice graphics and cool take on the theme. Hard game!

otterfaelure 2022-10-20 13:50

This is a realllllllly cool concept, I loved the ideas.

That being said, some fine-tuning would definitely be needed to make this a "finished" game in the sense of getting it past the game jam limit.

I found the totally of not being able to see frustrating, I didn't know if I was going in the right direction or not and nearly stopped before stumbling on the end.

Even with that though, getting something this engaging is hard in a game jam so super well done. =) Thank you.