SAGE 2024 - Demo Astropods: Starside Glaze (Windows 0.4.3)

Yo, game feel here kicks ass.

Really enjoyable to move around, the enemies are fun to punch and I feel I didn't even experience all of the movement tech in the demo.

Main feedback would be to work a little on level design, especially with such a fun moveset, but overall, it was fun. The boss was great too.

Oh, and I should probable point out, when I was on the main hub after finishing the first stage, I managed to softlock myself walljumping into a corner (in-between a left wall and a ceiling), I tried mashing to get my character out, but had to restart (which restarted the whole game).
That's bound to happen so early in development though.

Best of luck with the project!

i was really pleasantly surprised with how much i loved this game!

combat and overall movement has so much *stuff* to it already. the downward aerial attack with the hammer has got to be one of my favorite attack buttons i've ever pressed in a 2d combat game, i like the way you can use special attacks to continue combos on far away enemies, the fast fall -> spring jump technique feels great, directional air dashes feel great, the way airdashes automatically land on one-way platforms feels great, and all of the above was really fun to mess around with in the low gravity demo level, too. the game wears its kirby inspiration on its sleeves, but it's just overall a little juicier and faster.

loving what's in the game so far for visual art, too. our two playable characters are lovable little scrimblos, and the background art is really well executed and pleasant. i really hope the bit where the hammer sometimes makes a squeaky toy noise on hit stays in the final game.

my only real criticisms are about the fullscreen weirdness, and music being super quiet, but it's an early demo. i really can't wait to see more of this game!

I see that every ounce of this was rushed. I am questioning why you even submitted this to SAGE despite leaving the game in such an unfinished alpha prototype.

The menus were confusing to navigate. The game starts in fullscreen, for some strange reason, which lead to some menu text and icons being cut off. I didn't realize the controls were rebindable until I forced the game to be windowed and small via save file editing, which I should never have to resort to. That's just bad UX. The game is also awfully quiet. There's settings for music and audio, but they're just listed as "none yet". Something that would have been so easy to implement, and yet you didn't. At least control rebinding is here, I suppose.

The levels are very spacious with nothing going on in them. There's no real threat to anything. You just kind of walk right, smash a few things, and win. There are enemies to fight, but they're such a non threat. There's also a severe lack of polish and game juice. While hitting things feel nice, I wish everything else was satisfying. Dropping down red zones does not play any sort of feedback. The music restarts every time you enter a room. The boss just felt like a bigger enemy. No fanfare. Dialogue was just kinda there. Ignored most of it because, again, no feedback whatsoever. Controls are rebindable, but the tutorial popups don't change according to your key binds, which would've been very easy to implement considering you use Input. You didn't even bother making the rest of the level assets. You default to debug collision sprites midway through the first level. The other levels JUST uses those test sprites for the rest of the game. You couldn't even add a proper demo end screen. It's just text that spans across the room.

You made this...thing as if you were in a game jam mindset. I had my doubts when looking at the screenshots, but actually playing the game not only proved my suspicions to be correct, but knocked them out of the park. This game was built so terribly. It sucks too because the game is very adorable, but I wish there was more...you know, GAME.