FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD54 → PIO

PIO

By sbeif and Amedea

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6743.4547
Fun6173.3747
Innovation3343.6347
Theme2414.1147
Graphics7233.3447
Audio5223.2345
Humor3823.2746
Mood7513.3045

Comments

cloverfall 2023-10-03 10:03

Really nice game with a good degree of difficulty. Dont really have any feedback, so well done!

soffu 2023-10-03 10:10

Really fun concept) I didn't immediately understand how eat mechanic works, but once I did, the game showed it well)

mrpig 2023-10-03 10:11

Funny and thought out if it comes to level layout :) Nice job!

barbabulle 2023-10-03 10:14

Nice balancing, and good respect of the theme, nice !

soot-potato 2023-10-03 10:15

For my first die, the miss of sound feedback make me laught af xD

eryph 2023-10-03 11:18

Pretty neat level design you got here. Made me rage in frustration (in a good way). Once you understand it's a puzzle game, the experience is way better. Good job !

I had a bug :Pio.PNG

I think it happened when I ate while being jumping to the roof, but now I'm safe :3

A better game over / restart experience could be a good improvement but it's cool like that anyway !

sbeif 2023-10-03 13:47

@eryph Thanks for the report, I think it can happen if you move while you're eating, since the check to verify if you have enough space around you only happen when you start eating, if you then move to a new position before growing you can end up in an invalid position.

Also we were about to add nicer death and win transitions but then we realized that it was just 45 minutes to the deadline, so we decided not to risk it

notnasiul 2023-10-03 14:10

You know what a 500kg bird does on a tree branch?

**PIO PIO**

:D

Nice game! Got to the level where a lot of them come and there small square platforms everywhere. Too difficult that one!

sbeif 2023-10-03 14:26

@notnasiul ahaha I'm glad you liked it! For that level I suggest slowly moving to the right while you let them follow you and circle around platforms, to slowly "guide" them into a single big flock. If you rush in it's hard to dodge them all.

The last level instead requires careful planning and timing, I find it hard too.

baconeta 2023-10-03 14:28

Brilliant game concept, I would love to see what someone (you?) could do with a lot longer and a bunch more mechanics and polish. For the game jam timeframe, it was fantastic.

captainzo 2023-10-03 14:40

Nice and funny game ! The bias is very interesting !

lostcyclop 2023-10-03 14:40

pure fun from the start :D congrats! love the sound pitch on big fat chicken state!

magalix 2023-10-03 15:29

Finally ! a Kirby competitor :D

I like the art and gameplay but that level with the tunnel is impossible or what ?

sbeif 2023-10-03 16:24

@magalix in that level you can eat up to three eagles before releasing them, so my go-to strategy there is eating the first three, than retreating a bit, releasing all of them to my left and either eat the last one and release it to my left or fly over it

magalix 2023-10-03 16:42

Wait what you can eat multiple eagles ?

I was trying to spit them back as fast as possible :laughing:

I thought it was made impossible on purpose to mark the end lol

Will try again

feor 2023-10-03 17:53

Pio pio!

Short but fun, and definitely on point with the theme.

I managed to beat the last level without eating multiple eagles (didn't know that was possible), I basically just waited in the middle for them to get to me and then ate and spit them all up top, which gave me enough time to run back to the nest. Speaking of which, I love how it says you get back to the safety of your nest when there are approximately 20 eagles waiting for you right outside haha.

Nice work!

oller125 2023-10-03 20:03

Nice game. though I think some of the ways you damage yourself don't make sense, though they could be bugs. It seems like you can take damage being in a limited space just by trying to eat, even if there is no eagle nearby. This can also happen if you do it near the top of the screen, but that's presumably because there's a collider there to stop you flying off screen.

I also didn't like the instance death when an eagle attacks, but I think that's down to taste.

Overall, a fun game.

geronimo 2023-10-03 20:06

Nice game :D, some levels i got stuck and some were very easy, the constant sound of the eagles is very annoying though. The music is cute and the bird opening his mouth with that sound is just adorable. Nice work, keep up the good job!

viktorthegreat 2023-10-03 21:42

I really liked the cute chubby bird. The little noise they make is also very cute! However, I feel like the eagles move just a *bit* too fast, especially when you have only one hit before you have to start over. There were times where I would get hit by one (specifically in that little squares level, that's as far as I got) and I wouldn't even realize it.

There was also a bug(?) or maybe just an oversight where, because your hitbox changes with your size, I would eat a bird, and then immediately die because an eagle happened to be within the bounds of the new hitbox before the graphic loaded in, so it looked like I died for no reason.

I will say this though, thank you so much for making the death/respawn screen so fast! Difficult games are 10x more bearable (for me at least) when the respawn is quick.

sbeif 2023-10-04 09:32

@magalix ahahah actually I made that level with the purpose of pushing players to try eating more eagles to "discover" that possibility on their own, but maybe I should have specified that

@feor I'm impressed! I think you're the first one to complete the game, and you did it without eating multiple eagles? That's crazy! And yes, I just assume the eagles are very well mannered and choose not to disturb you in your home

@oller125 If you try to eat near a wall you don't get damaged, you blink red just to notify that you can't eat because there's no space. It was an attempt at showing why you weren't eating and without making you think that it just ignored the input, any suggestion on how to make that clearer is welcome. And for the death we planned to do some kind of short animation but we ran out of time, we don't like it either. The upside however is that this makes respawning a bit faster

@viktorthegreat I agree, the death when you eat near other eagles is very annoying, I think that the main issue is that you die apparently before growing in size so it seems unfair, maybe growing in size when you start to eat instead of after could be better, and maybe growing towards the back instead of from the bottom center could make it happen less often. Or maybe even just delaying the death screen a bit would let you show the collision with the enlarged chick and justify the death

Anyway thank you all for your feedback and for trying our game, we really appreciate it

honest-dan 2023-10-04 13:31

The bird noise - SQUAAARK. I think this was cute, the yoshi style "eat and spit" mechanic was cute, and I loved how the bird size changed with it - which fed in well with the theme. Like you've mentioned above, delaying death screen a little would be good for the player's sake. Fun experience!

smitner 2023-10-04 13:41

Really cute game with an interesting mechanic. I found the sounds adorable.

One idea I would love to try is the eating becoming automatic, so it'd be more about managing shrinking over growing - Plus the timing is hard!

sbeif 2023-10-04 14:38

@smitner that's an interesting idea, it would shift the focus more towards space awareness and make a stronger connection to the theme. In that case I'd probably need to look at the level design from a different perspective, such as using some eagles to make you stuck and others to finish you off. That's definitely an interesting point, thank you

rafael-garcez 2023-10-04 18:41

Good game! Well done!

kasmilus 2023-10-05 06:28

It is a great concept. Clever and original. But I feel like two things make it into something worse than it could have been: "artificial" difficulty and level design. Difficulty mainly comes from having to press spacebar at the right time and without being in the air when eating - I feel like there should be some leeway in how that works, it was quite frustrating when it looked like it should have worked but I actually died because I was few pixels off still... (try googling online how platformers will often let you jump even when technically you've already fallen of the platform - that's the kind of thing you need here but for your unique mechanic). Level design - I think it could be an amazing puzzle game. You made it into more of a quick action platformer, which is fine but I just feel like this "growing when there's space" is begging for a thinky game! Graphics and audio are solid and fit the game very well, it's a nice little game :)

sbeif 2023-10-05 10:01

thank you @kasmilus , I agree with the coyote frames concept, unfortunately I couldn't find the time to tune the growth check implementation for some leeway, I'd probably let the player move automatically if he's close to the wall but there's room on the opposite side. The puzzle could have been an interesting choice, in that case I would probably consider making it turn based and with a discrete grid movement

adam-konig 2023-10-05 17:45

Nice game! I got really stuck on level 5-ish but the mechanics were easy to understand, fit the theme well and were fun to play with!

devez 2023-10-05 17:59

Got stuck on the one where 3 eagles are coming from small corridors. Great implementation of the theme. Controls were a bit weird for me, it was not easy for my brain to get used to S spitting them out :cry: .

egormnc 2023-10-05 19:15

Fun game

marcodeevil 2023-10-05 19:26

Nice pixel art graphics! Very simple and solid entry, that's how game jams games should be made!

jonathan-vinesar 2023-10-05 19:35

pretty fun! I really like the concept and see potential in it. Audio was a bit lacking and the constantly screeching eagles was a bit much, but it was enjoyable.

enderswype 2023-10-06 09:15

last level was kinda tricky but made it eventually, that was a cool game!!

tunasandwich 2023-10-07 12:47

This little and sometimes big bird is overly cute. I enjoyed the game very much !

papaver 2023-10-07 21:26

LD_Pio.png

Yay, I did it! It was a bit unclear sometimes when I could or couldn't eat, or why something went wrong, but I got the hang of it eventually. :)

Funny original mechanics, with some fun challenging levels. :thumbsup: I enjoyed the level with the many eagles and the 1x1 tiles. I managed to finish it without eating any! :smile:

jrevel 2023-10-10 22:50

This concept is pretty clever, I really like it ! It's kirby, but that grows when he eats something. It's interesting to use that as a mechanic that blocks your movement. The input was a bit confusing however. I kept trying to throw with space or suck with down, it was the main difficulty I encountered, which was a bit frustrating, but now that I think about it, I don't know what kind of keybind would be better. I suppose it would be more intuitive with a gamepad, using RT and LT to suck and blow. The level design was pretty cool, and used the mechanic pretty well in different ways, that was fun ! Well done !

johnnysix 2023-10-10 23:18

Great concept, with some polish on things like the movement and the bird spitting mechanic - maybe the ejected eagles could be projectiles that destroy things like enemies , walls etc.

I got stuck in this bit, based on the art - I thought I'd be spitting out the eagles onto the ledge, but wasn't able to. Screenshot 2023-10-11 001405.png

scollow 2023-10-11 00:51

SUPER FUN!!!!

sbeif 2023-10-11 10:36

@jrevel @devez Thank you very much, I know the input mapping might be a bit weird, I noticed people having some troubles at the beginning, maybe using z and x as some do could help but I was worried about qwertz and azerty layouts, maybe I should just look into keys that remain in the same positions in all layouts. Gamepad would surely be easier.

@johnnysix do you mean that instead of shooting them over the edge they collided with the edge? I might need to tweak the virtual mouth position (they get shot out from a position which should roughly be in the middle of the open mouth but I didn't have time to check how correct it was for all sizes, when PIO grows I move it up but maybe it remains a bit too low). Using the eagles as projectiles could be a good idea if we expand this to include other enemies (maybe even a boss-fight) or breakable obstacles, thanks!

lcstark 2023-10-11 11:09

Fun game, with a clever concept for the main mechanic!

It is also pretty difficult. It seems at first like it's a puzzle game you need to approach with caution and think everything through, but then you get thrown a curveball of having to figure out precise movements and timings. For the most part it works well, as most of my problems were related to trying to execute everything at the right time. One thing that I think could use a bit more work is the collider for eating range - quite often I found myself in a situation when an eagle coming diagonally looked like it should be in range to be eaten, but it wasn't and I got killed. Eventually I've managed to figure it all out and reach the end:

p.png

The graphics look great - the level tiles and the background are simple, but they work pretty good. PIO looks cute, so do the eagles - I could almost forget they're trying to kill me. The background music is pretty chill, which helped me to relax and figure out a way to solve all the levels. I loved how PIO's voice got deeper as he grew in size. __PIO__ :P

moonlightbomber 2023-10-14 08:45

I gave the graphics a 5, because Pio is adorable.