SAGE 2024 - Demo Aureole - Wings of Hope (SAGE '24 Demo)

Pretty fun! I enjoy the speed you can get for this, but I don't like how the rings that launch you feel deceptively weak, like you're gonna go forward & then it get *pblet*s you out.

Also at one point in the cave level I clipped into the Geometry & was just moving around inside the walls.

This is definitely one of my favorite indie games in this SAGE, next to Aurascope!

The amount of polish here is insane. The game doesn't abuse shaders enough to lag out my PC either, which is great. From entering a level to finishing it, everything just felt so satisfying. The game got some very nice ambiance and sfxs! Love the hand-drawn graphics.

The controls just feel so right. I'm not one to play with a mouse only, but I had no problems getting used to the controls since we are giving such a simple movement. Nowhere in the game did I feel hindered by using a mouse. Moving around the environments feels so smooth. You can get into a flow state when you're combining chains of flinging yourself, stomping, and dashing throughout the obstacle courses!

The story looks like it's going places as well. I love extra lore in the form of hidden collectibles. None of the collectibles are in tricky spots either, which is great. My only issue with the game is that I wish I could skip the cutscenes for the level intro panshot and entering a level. They're very slow on repeat playthroughs. Another problem would be that levels 2 and 5 have strict gold time requirements, but the rest of the levels are very lenient. I'd recommend adding at least 5 or 10 seconds to those two levels to balance everything out.

Other than those two hiccups, amazing 9/ 10 game! You shall be getting a wishlist from me!

My fave game from SAGE 2024, atleast from the games I've played so far! Suuper fun to play, very fast, very fun to optimize and speedrun. The main gameplay is so goood, but also because I really like there's also a good few things I'd like to see improved a touch more! So here I go:

-Think the main thing I'd overall like to see implemented is a skip button. For cutscenes too yeah (mashing works, but skipping would be better), but especially for when hitting "Retry" during a stage. When you die (before any checkpoints) it restarts nice and fast, but pausing and hitting Retry is sooo slooow when just wanting to speedrun and trying to optimize stuff, I wish it was faster. Got annoying especially after restarting right after throwing at a wrong angle at the start and wanting to re-do. Think I counted it took like 6-8 seconds to get started with the next attempt, which as is isn't much, but on many repeat attempts stacks up. Oh, and some sorta quick-retry would also be great, as in the stage restarting without needing to even open the pause menu.

-When doing the initial launch/throw, I feel like it takes a little bit too long till you gain control, as in when the ring is flying, takes a second or two, and theeen you can start dashing and jumping. Some way to speed this up would be great, maybe you'd gain control once it hits any surface or gimmicks?

-A few too many "auto" sections, where a canon launches you and you just watch the game for a good few seconds. I get those show how stuff works, buuut yeah it was just a bit much at times - however I'm assuming there will be less of these later on, so this is prolly a non-issue, all good for the early stages to show how things work. Also, in the last stage (the crystal cave/mines one), if you skip some of the rings leading to a canon, the game flips out and shoots the camera up, even if the player wasn't heading up yet.

-A few rare times the disappearing launch rings didn't disappear when they should. Noticed it mainly with the big circle of rings with the canon in the middle and a single upwards-pointing ring within the circle, one time I got "stuck" going around in circles when the rings didn't disappear. Tho I was able to dash out, so didn't get softlocked thankfully.

-Managed to clip inside the walls once or twice. Here's one of the places where it happened (the same place as where the ring-non-disappearing problem occurred on a different run) - Imgur link

-Insta-dieing on spikes is a bit oof. I'm all good even if it stays like that, buuut I did keep wishing that if my ring is yellow and I take damage, it would just bounce and turn silver, as in lose one level of those dashes, and theeen die when the ring is copper colored. Could be an accessibility option, perhaps?

-As an another accessibility thing, I kinda wish there was some kinda angle snapping option. Possibly with options if the snapping happens at 5, 10, 15, 20, etc degrees. Probably not at all needed with playing with a mouse or something, but I felt the need with a gamepad, aiming in those tight corridors with spikes surrounding the ring was a bit difficult somehow

-I also kinda wish I could see my best time at the start of a stage, and/or during the run. Also the gold times were eaaasy, never had problem reaching the gold times and it made us (me and a bud I was playing the game with) wish there was an even more difficult time to try and beat, even for just fun even if not for collectibles

-A level-editor? Would be amazing haha, even with super simple graphics and big blocks to work with

Uuuh that's about it! As you can prolly see what I'd like to see here aren't any big changes (as if those would be feasible at this point anyway), the gameplay itself is reaaal solid. Really looking forward to more, wishlisted on Steam!