SAGE 2024 - Demo SUPER NOVA - SAGE 2024 DEMO

The visuals of this game are stunning; the late 90s, early 2000s web core aesthetic is right up my alley and the music was amazing too! Gameplay wise, a bit confusing at first due to me not understanding the tutorial doodles but after I got the hang of things it was super fun! Fast, snappy and brought me back to playing flash games when I was a kid. Nova herself is super cute, and I love her animations; she’s so expressive and goofy, but then the end of the boss fight was so cool! Speaking of, the boss was simple but fun and had a really good feeling of being an actual battle!

In terms of improvements, some enemies tended to blend into the backgrounds, and I would have much preferred to use a controller as my hands started to cramp up using my keyboard. I did encounter a bug where I fell through the floor while grappling the boss in its second phase; I think we bounced into a wall and phased through it, but I was able to beat it the second time round. Otherwise, amazing game dude! I’m looking forward to seeing how this game progresses!

I was already hooked on the artstyle alone, playing the demo itself blew me away.

easily the best game of SAGE 2024. this has the potential to be one of the greatest platformers ever made. pure genius.

Let's not beat around the bush, this game gets maxinum points for it's unique and quirky presentation, the main character is simple adorable! The super speedy gameplay is an absolute treat to experience!! DON'T MISS OUT, PLAY THIS GAME!!

Overall really enjoyed this one! My only real criticisms are that enemies can be a bit hard to see when running through levels, the boss at the end felt a bit unclear (and possibly inconsistent?) with how to hit it even with the indicator above, some text is scaled weirdly, and assuming you can't die that MIGHT make the game feel too easy.

But for what it's worth I still found it a fair bit challenging, love the unique gameplay ideas this game has, and ESPECIALLY love the pre-rendered art-style along with the cutscene at the end.

So keep up the great work on this, I can see it becoming something truly special that stands out from other 2D platformers!

I REALLY love the aesthetics, but the gameplay is way too chaotic and a little poorly explained. I was mindlessly holding right most of the time and it worked. With such fast gameplay and zoomed in camera you can't even notice most of the level design. Still, I was flying over everything with that triple jump - way too OP. The boss was also pretty easy - too shallow combat for my liking.

Well, there's no gamepad support, so the internet says I gotta dock a point for that alone. Sorry.

In all seriousness, I can see what the gameplay was trying to do, and I do respect it, but somehow even with a tutorial it doesn't click quite as well as classic Sonic does. To be honest I'm convinced this could just be a feedback issue - there are some attacks like the groundpound / pseudo spindash which have clearly defined auras and trails that make them explicitly identifiable as special moves, and there are others like the midair flip kick that do not, which meant I had persistent flying enemies chasing me everywhere without even realizing I had options for dealing with them. Once you realize you have those options it flows alright, albiet sometimes has strange (but not gamebreaking) collision issues or sometimes moves a little too fast for its own good and throws you against threats you can't really react to without prior knowledge.

The graphical style is easily the highlight of this game, especially the FMV-esque portraits and interludes. Normally I have more of an eye for the negative than the positive and a mindset for finding the bad in the good so a good thing can become even more good - but even I have to make a special note for the sheer style this game oozes, and it's something you should be proud of. Definitely looking forward to seeing more.

Very charming art style! The game is pretty fun though a little unwieldy especially at first. I also felt like there are plenty of times where I should have been hit but wasn't? Overall a pretty solid demo!

Visuals and music are top notch but the gameplay is a little bit all over the place. The lack of lives or any kind of punishment kind (to my knowledge, if you're able to die I'm sorry) hurts the main levels, I felt like I was kinda on autopilot the whole time. I understand the appeal of speedrunning so I don't mind that being the focus but if you don't wanna play the game for that then there isn't much to the main levels for you. Ironically I think I enjoyed the boss fights the most, which is not really something I'd typically say about high speed platformers. It very much reminded me of 32-bit era Treasure, with games like Silhouette Mirage and Mischief Makers. It was pretty fun utilizing your speed and the level around you to hit the boss and it was super satisfying throwing them. I think the lack of lives isn't even that much of an issue here, as the challenge is based around how to navigate the level in a way that enables you to hit the boss. I feel like this would work best as a boss rush game but I don't want to deter you from your vision. You and your team have obviously put a lot of care and effort into this and this is just a demo. With more time and development you can make something really great. Feel free to call me out if you think what I said was bs though, these are just initial impressions.