Broomstick Blitz

ashashza 2023-05-02 09:07

Fun jam. I really like the choice of character, playing as a witch and seeing my little legs dangling is so great.

I thought the discrete speed zooms are a really smart design. Giving me a chance to aim but also feel a burst of WOAH when I'm confident in my aim.

I found myself feeling a bit disorientated at times, not from the controls but regarding my goals. I kept wanting to see my "current mission / quest" in the UI or something. Maybe also a way to zoom out and see the whole map to plan my route (at the expense of time / control).

:beers:

jaco-van-hemert 2023-05-02 09:17

It took a bit of time to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. Starting me off next to the story time building might have been helpful (or just some instructions in the game description or on the menu!). But once I found that building, it became clear what to do.

The movement controls are wacky as hell, but it lends a sort of charm to it. I feel like I'm always a bit out of control with the turning. Though I'll note that the slow movement felt too slow and the fast movement too fast (though the latter is really satisfying to activate; perhaps the slower starting move speed is what makes it feel that way).

As for the gameplay loop: It's pretty easy to get into a flow, though often it feels like the best strategy is to activate a mission you have no intention of completing to collect some items so that when you get a real mission, you can finish it more easily. The arrow showing where you need to go is great, though having some directional indications of the closest of each resource might have been helpful to avoid the temptation to pre-collect. That said, towards the end of the game, I started to remember the layout, so perhaps it's better to leave it to the player to memorise (though then perhaps either the resources should be more logically distributed in a more distinct series of places [e.g. crystals in the mountainy area, and red gems in a city-esque area], or the time limits should be a bit more generous to start off with).

That's about it. Nice entry!

nsadie 2023-05-02 14:12

@ashashza While I was testing I only played in a small area while my brother was working on the camera and world. I realized later that not only can you not see the order anymore, you can also not see the timer, which makes it very difficult to know when the time is also up! I added an indicator for the active order as a small bug fix.

@jaco-van-hemert Thanks for playing! I like the idea of putting the resources in more logical places.

hakuinu 2023-05-03 17:19

sehr cooler still art <3

gametrodon 2023-05-03 17:26

Echoing what Jaco said here: It took me a bit to realize I'm supposed to be accepting a quest first. The controls felt fun, but weirdly floaty? It was kind of difficult to move precisely, but it felt like that's what I needed to be doing in order to get quests done quickly enough.

For people who are playing for the first time, it might make sense to up the timers a bit.

I really liked the art, even if its placeholder, it has a really neat minimalistic feel.

eli-delventhal 2023-05-03 17:27

Very solid entry. I am a Kiki fan so really liked the take on the theme. Very pretty and the little story bits were cute. I think overall the game lacked a bit of substance and balance – quests were often impossible and only there so that I could gather the stuff I needed for the next quest. Felt kind of odd from a game design perspective. Also, the movement was a bit wonky and tough to control. I'd have loved a little more structure around the challenges and so on. But as I said, very solid entry!

hammerfrenzy 2023-05-03 17:29

I played through the main story, and was able to complete everything but the final delivery in one go. Cranking up the speed as you fly as probably my favorite part, it felt good to zoom over the dropoff when I lined up properly.

movealonghome 2023-05-03 17:29

Fun game, love the art style. I liked that you could zip around but I will be honest couldn't aim the witch in the right direction to accomplish many of the deliveries.

aevek 2023-05-03 17:33

I really like the art style here, the grayscale paper aesthetic is really cool, and all fit well together. I mostly liked the feel of flying, but never quite figured out how the acceleration worked. My strategy ended up being to fly in circles to build up speed before picking up a side-quest order so I was going fast before starting. Not sure if that was intended? I also liked the writing on the story missions, great work overall.

sbeif 2023-05-03 18:13

Cool game, I'm not personally a fan of games without an end (unless there was some twist that I missed later on), but other than that the game is well made, the art is cool, the controls are well balanced between having enough control but not too much and I think the difficulty was well tuned, which is important in this type of games, well done!

rjdrag 2023-05-03 18:57

Nice work. The art was really nice. I liked how the witch feels at full speed. I actually wish there was more game play that fit better for full speed, and maybe more smooth steering.

japes 2023-05-03 19:38

Great polish as always, art, music and writing are all great. Nice that you guys tried something a bit different to your previous entries.

Agree with other commenters that the controls feel a bit wonky/unsatisfying and that it wasn't quite clear what I needed to be doing at first. Zooming past a destination at high speed because your aim was slightly off is also a bit frustrating.

I think the idea could have promise with a bit more balance/tuning. It's a cool concept and I liked zooming around the little world :)

nsadie 2023-05-04 06:16

@sbeif There is definitely an ending after you complete the 5th story point (although it is not much more than going to a thank you screen)!

@aevek @japes One of our friends joined for the first time to do the writing. We used YarnSpinner for the dialogue system. He is not a developer, but it was really cool that he could write it!

@rjdrag I am really happy with how the art came together (except for the main menu, that is AWFUL).

emty 2023-05-05 10:25

Controls a bit uncomfortable to me, but i guess it`s gonna be way better with gamepad. Looks cute. Music and style suits well to this game

kiseki 2023-05-05 12:55

I like the control of your game! The 2d graphics mixed 3d models is also very cool to see.

yoddaa 2023-05-05 13:04

@nsadie @andre-sadie very cool game I love the broom rotation.

jesaipo 2023-05-05 14:49

Hellow ! Nice entry. I fell the control a bit wonky especially when you are in hight speed mode. And if you miss a gemstone, the time you stop and accelereate again make you failed the mission. I would like to control the acceleration or make a boost.

Great sound and graphic also. good entry !

lexuor 2023-05-06 21:38

Very inconvenient control. It would be handy if it was a third-person game, but for top-down it's just misleading.

And the graphics are amazing. and the music is nice.

cubellia 2023-05-06 23:44

Cool game! The controls are difficult to control but that feels like the whole point to me. I love zooming around and turning, even if it makes aiming at targets a bit difficult. Maybe bigger targets would help balance things out a little? I think you did fantastic work with the feel in a polish sense, going fast feels really nice, I think the map is just slightly cramped for that system.

The one thing that felt maybe a bit unnecessary was the R to reset cargo. In most cases, I forgot that I was still carrying something and just ended up messing up jobs. In other cases, such as story missions, I found that I could completely fail a mission, only to have everything I need to retry it and go straight to the goal. Basically I think it might help to just automatically drop all your cargo after a mission failure.

Cute presentation also! Nice work!

zubspace 2023-05-07 16:14

I'm impressed by the visuals: Already the main menu is awesome, but the in-game world really looks great. Controlling the broom is not so easy and a bit more time for each quest would not have hurt, but overall I had a great time. Good job!

kevin-scroggins 2023-05-07 19:33

This is a wonderful little game! I liked the theme and artstyle, and the use of sounds/music was nice as well. Had to fullscreen the game though because the text was too tiny otherwise. Some of the sprites looked a bit pixelated, but it really reminded me of Don't Starve. Would be nice to see the speed boost a bit more controllable, like by holding shift or something, or at least being a bit less jarring, it makes the player awful hard to control at times! Might also want to try disabling the delivery destination indicator until the cargo has all the required gems, but no big deal. Nice work!

daniil-vakhrushev 2023-05-08 17:29

Great style and fun chill gameplay. A little bit rough on the UI side. Solid game!

duke-ua 2023-05-08 17:41

I like visual and sound very much. But controls made me mad sometimes and the biggest challenge in the game is to not miss the target. Overall, good game!

arktas 2023-05-10 20:56

Control is a bit hard like previous guy say, but maybe it's design to be and add some difficulty in this delivery game :). Mood is cool and graphics too ! Game work well, nice Jam entry ! Keep rocking !

paulsams 2023-05-14 21:10

Very atmospheric and enjoyable game. That's just the camera twitched sometimes when switching speed mode, but in general I really enjoyed flying. Of course, there is something that can be improved in terms of UX, but it is difficult to do this by initially choosing such an inclined camera. In general, well done.