Saturnyoshi

blank by Dreadusa 2021-05-05T04:14:50Z

While the 'shoot to move' mechanic isn't the most original idea, I do like the inclusion of an instant reverse key. Though the movement itself didn't always feel that great - it felt mostly fine when navigating through the stage, but more precise operations (like dodging the enemies that charge directly at you or collecting coins) are incredibly awkward.

The one time I reached the shop I did get a different gun which had a different turn speed, which seems very strange to me, since rotating is kind of the 'core' of movement here I would think you would want to make it as easy and consistent as possible.

I think most of my grievances with the movement system would be fixed by making it mouse based, allowing me to turn as quickly and precisely as I wanted - which may go against your original vision here but I think it'd be a worthwhile sacrifice.

As I said, I only reached the shop once, and had I not known it existed before playing I probably would have quit before ever seeing it. The first area can feel very repetitive and slow to get through, I wasn't counting the number of subareas in it but I feel like it could have been cut in half. The new elements introduced in the second area seemed interesting, and I would have liked to have seen more, but I died pretty quickly there and didn't want to slowly trudge through the first area again.

TAILSPIN! by Saturnyoshi 2021-05-02T03:18:51Z

@leekanarchism @kp-cftsz Thanks for your interest in the process! We don't exactly have a formal plan or a pre-made toolkit, but having made several jam games together in the past we have figured out a good structure for making them. The whole jam was spent in a voice call, being able to communicate easily and having a good idea of what everyone is doing and what needs to be done was essential to getting so much done in such a short period of time. Having a dedicated concept artist was also really useful, having someone focused entirely on designing things for the game removed a lot of the stress from the other artists having to iterate on designs until we were all happy with them. We also made sure to get someone to playtest the game a few hours before the deadline! This uncovered a lot of problems we didn't know of so we used the last 8 hours to fix those issues while getting the final few stages in.

Grabanakki by Saturnyoshi 2021-10-05T04:44:35Z

@bloodbane the 'unstable' element is the ground you're on collapsing as you use it to attack.

Grabanakki by Saturnyoshi 2021-10-11T00:17:38Z

I'm seeing a lot of comments about the controls in particular, but nobody has yet to actually detail *what* about the controls they don't like. I'd really appreciate in-depth feedback on that if anyone's willing to expand on their issues with it.

Grabanakki by Saturnyoshi 2021-10-11T18:50:50Z

@dsoberdan thank you for the detailed feedback! We did a few different iterations on the throwing mechanics including 8 directional throwing. One of the big reasons we removed it was that we felt it didn't provide enough actual utility for the amount of complexity it introduced into the controls and that in most cases it's preferable to just throw directly up / down without having to awkwardly release the left / right keys for a moment.

I wonder if the problem would have been solved by more explicitly telling the player "you can throw in these 4 directions" in the tutorial? It's a tricky problem to solve.

Thanks again for leaving such detailed feedback! It really helps.

Somnokid by Saturnyoshi 2022-04-09T22:31:12Z

@0x746564 The game should work with an xinput gamepad in slot 0 if you have one connected.

Super Pyonpon by Saturnyoshi 2025-04-08T21:48:28Z

@rascarcapackdev Thanks you! You can modify your controls from the options menu. I'll add a note to the page to make it more obvious.