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

Overview Reviews (3)

Overview

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screenshot_acro_bossfight.png




Astropods: Starside Glaze is a 2D Action-Sandbox Platformer. As a tag team of Hemi (pink) and Acro (blue), utilize their unique combat abilities and their expressive mobility in this wondrous, whimsical world in order to restore the Waterfall of Dreams, which has somehow gone missing.

Controller is recommended, and keybind changing is supported! I've been told that it is bugged when you enter a new room, so beware, as we investigate.

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STORY
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Hey lovelies, Zooka here!

Our planet is suffering right now! Our source of aura and dreams, the Waterfall of Dreams, has gone missing! How is that even possible?! To make matters worse, many who live in the wild have gone berserk! Since I am obviously a great and caring person, I shall lead investigations on this peculiar situation!

...Unfortunately, I can't do it myself. My specialty is intelligence, so I'm not fit for combat. Can't use my big brain to knock these guys out, after all. However! I can provide you a shop full of upgrades and other helpful goodies! Aren't I so great?? Now go stop these menaces to society, and I'll generously pay you!


...You do like money, don't you? I sure do, and if I were you, I would graciously accept that!

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CHARACTERS
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HEMI

keyart_hemi_thumbsup_export.png


ACRO

acro_upsidedown3_bgless.png

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PROGRESS
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Characters:
95%

Stages:
20%

Gameplay Systems:
80%

Dialogue & Story:
10%

Music:
10%

SFX:
30%

Updates

Ver 0.4.2 Changes:

- Fixed Acro's dialogue in Room 3 of Intro Stage to no longer go beyond the text box
- Added spike tileset to room 4 of Cheese Satellite; there were invisible spikes beforehand.

Ver 0.4.3 Changes:

- Menus have been visually revamped as a whole!
- Options menu now features these following functional features:
button remap,
volume sliders,
general gameplay adjustments/additions,
resolution select
(Alternative control options still under development)
- Button scheme now has distinguished UI and Gameplay buttons
- Input signs now actually update when input button has been changed in the settings
- Updated keyboard default control scheme to be less wacky (I actually don't know how F became jump)
- Music no longer restarts upon new room entry
- Default resolution is now 720p instead of 1080p
- Enemies can no longer hide behind signs when not knocked back
- Very slightly nerfed Hemi's and Acro's dash speed cap in the air
- Nerfed grab's aura cost and aura vamp
- Buffed grab range
- Nerfed Acro's special attack aura generation when landing hits with the cyclone
- Adjusted dialogue signs to look more innocuous
- Room 1 of the intro stage has been made slightly smaller, and now features a wall jump and pause sign, alongside more intuitive level geometry to guide wall jump usage
- Red zones now play a sound effect, and shake screen when entered through, signifying damage taken
- Normal enemies take overall reduced knockback due to weight increase and removing increased knockback for enemies with less than 100 HP

Credits

CheesiMoon: Game Director, Artist, Programmer
Breadbinbran: Composer

Latest reviews

A
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!
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CheesiMoon
CheesiMoon
Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you had a lot of fun with it. Level design has definitely not been as fleshed out as the moveset of the characters, which we are looking to remedy ASAP. I think the lack of enemy types (specifically airborne) has been a big factor in this, so we'll definitely keep a watchful eye on the quality of the levels as we add more interesting enemies to fight.

As for the clipping issue you mentioned, I spotted the exact wall, and have fixed it. Due to the way I programmed anti-clip technology, I have to place terrain in a very specific way, or else you'll get stuck into walls pretty easily, so some problematic walls may slip under the radar. Thank you for noting this!

Once again, thank you for playing, and be sure to check out our future builds!
C
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!
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CheesiMoon
CheesiMoon
Thank you for your feedback! I'm really glad that you also had fun moving around and attacking; that's definitely the highlight of the game for me too! I feel very honored to hear that Hemi's down air is one of your favorite attacks in 2d combat games ever, thank you! My personal favorite is Acro's down air, check that out too if you'd like.

Background art has never been my forte; I've always felt more comfortable with character art, so to see that you like the background art is a very welcome surprise. I really appreciate it; I think background art will be the element that improves the most once the game comes out.

As for your concerns, I actually just released 0.4.3, which should fix all the setting-related issues you experienced with a revamped options menu, but maybe not all of the fullscreen weirdness has been fixed, bc that's very hard for me to actually verify.

Once again, thanks for playing, and be sure to check out future builds whenever you can!
AltyTimes
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.
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CheesiMoon
CheesiMoon
Thank you for your honest feedback. I was honestly in the mindset of simply uploading what I have, and see what people think of it as is. I suppose I've betrayed expectations by doing that.

I greatly appreciate feedback regarding actual stage gameplay. I'm def gonna revamp the stages to make them not boring expanses of space. Since it's the first stage, I don't want the game to be too aggressive at first, but its def a bit too boring rn. Menus have been needing a revamp for a while, so I think now's a good time to go through them properly. I'd like to say more, but theres a character limit, so ya.

Glad to see there were aspects of the game that shined despite the numerous problems youve encountered. Thank you once again, I really appreciate your input, and Im honestly really excited to apply at least some of the new info to make the game better!
AltyTimes
AltyTimes
No problem! I see some potential in this cute Kirby-like game! It just needs a serious rework, is all. 👍
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Comments

TechnoSuperguy
The combat is so satisfying! It's fun just to beat the crap out of the enemies, even the ones that are seemingly harmless. I especially like Hemi's massive hammer that appears from nowhere. The platforming itself is very snappy and responsive, and I like the distinct play styles between the two main characters. Excellent graphics, sounds and music as well.
 
CheesiMoon
TechnoSuperguy said:
The combat is so satisfying! It's fun just to beat the crap out of the enemies, even the ones that are seemingly harmless. I especially like Hemi's massive hammer that appears from nowhere. The platforming itself is very snappy and responsive, and I like the distinct play styles between the two main characters. Excellent graphics, sounds and music as well.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the comment! I've been having fun making and playing the game, so i'm glad to see u also enjoying the game!

We'll be continuing development to make the game even better than before, so comments like this are very helpful and greatly appreciated!
 
L
I really did like the feel of the combat even though it was very zoomed out it was hard to tell when enemies were about to fight back. I also couldn't help but just want to keep running through the stage since often, when you hit an enemy, they just immediately bonk out of range and at that point they're gonna hit ya. This includes Acro to my surprise, it was easy to just let them fall somewhere and keep goin'

I enjoyed fighting the boss though because it was enclosed. Both characters felt good for it.

It'd be nice to have a badge that let told you the range (hitbox) of your attacks, would be good for training combos.
 
CheesiMoon
LuckiestMage said:
I really did like the feel of the combat even though it was very zoomed out it was hard to tell when enemies were about to fight back. I also couldn't help but just want to keep running through the stage since often, when you hit an enemy, they just immediately bonk out of range and at that point they're gonna hit ya. This includes Acro to my surprise, it was easy to just let them fall somewhere and keep goin'

I enjoyed fighting the boss though because it was enclosed. Both characters felt good for it.

It'd be nice to have a badge that let told you the range (hitbox) of your attacks, would be good for training combos.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the feedback! I've been having trouble with the enemies being easy to avoid, but I hadn't quite considered that the high knockback on enemies might also play a factor in that. I'll definitely be testing normal enemy knockback values, thank you for bringing that to my attention!

Things like hitbox viewer I want to include as a toggelable option, but the menus in the game are incredibly underdeveloped atm, which I definitely would like to remedy in the near future.

Thanks for playing once again!
 
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