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A jam submission

New AwakeningView game page

Death is only the beginning
Submitted by Alpaca Rider — 8 hours, 28 minutes before the deadline
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New Awakening's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Sound#383.8063.806
Aesthetics#494.2904.290
Story#583.6773.677
Theme#1723.6133.613
Fun#2903.2263.226
Mechanics#3253.0003.000
Music#3712.8062.806

Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How many people worked on this game total?
1

Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Epic Games "Paragon: Decker", "Paragon: Wraith"; Permanently Free Collection "Polar Sci-Fi Facility" by Julio Juarez, "Sound Phenomenon Fantasy Orchestra" by Taylor Brook Music; Freesound "Landing on the ground" by "nextmaking", "Cthulhu growl" by "cylon8472"

Link to your source?
https://mega.nz/file/FSUwwbyT#6VLp64TEPkbWGuKugd-6bPzn5k8ygMJkWUnsc9APdIU

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Comments

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page
Submitted( 1)

Really great game, the voice over definitely made it. 

and also found a couple of new youtubes to follow :0)

Developer

Thanks a lot for taking the time to play, and for the feedback.

I kind of hate my own voice, but I think that's a common thing :D. Recording it was fun.

About YouTube, I think I should make a dedicated channel for dev stuff. In that channel I mostly upload videos of me playing a game called "Blood Bowl", all in Spanish :D, I will try to do a bit more dev in English from now on.

Thanks!

Submitted( 1)

ETMPetraefa - Twitch  I cant run your game. So watched your playthrough, and paused and commented now and then. Personal opinion of course. :) Game looks awesome.

Developer( 1)

Thank you very much for taking the time to check the playthrough, and for all your interesting comments!

I saw your video, and I really appreciate all your tips and comments. I think I will be adding some lights on the platforms, as you suggested, and I may try something like the Far Cry lines you said, to help navigation :D. I should try ALS V2 as well, I haven't played with it yet.

I also like the idea of somehow closing the access to the platforms once electricity is restored. I don't want to collapse the platforms, but I could add some intense electricity in that hole in the wall, now that electricity is restored :D.

At the beginning, I did try to stop the physics of dead bodies after a few seconds, and turn it at least static, but I was getting some weird results at times, so I decided to let it as is for the game jam. I think I will have another go at it for a future update, as it would help with performance, as you say.

By the way, they are not audible in the video, but I do have footsteps :D. I got 8 different sounds that play at random, spawning at the position of the relevant foot.

Again, thank you very much for your video and all your feedback!

Submitted

Just wanted to update you. I updated the previous sound rating to 4. I watched my own stream and realised I had not been right on that one. Hearing the sounds you made again made me realize i had not thought of that when i rated sound and now knowing there are footsteps does make a difference. 

Submitted( 1)

Here are my random thoughts:

Cool that you made your own voicelines - also great job on adding some variety of voicelines (when respawning)

I did have to turn setting down to medium/low for a smooth experience. Props for adding the settings-options though.

Also, I'm not sure if you have a shipping build or development build - since I saw a print string 'Call me "Kat"'. The performance might be better with a shipping build instead.

Great job at making a nice scene - I especially like the lightning rays.

For me the beginning section with platforming was not as obvious what the intended route was. There are also smaller ledges which you can jump and it's easy to slide off some platforms. Died at least 10times here xD
I wasn't sure in the beginning if that was the intention - but after playing some more I see that dieing a lot was definitely the intention ;)

Great job for adding TAB to show the previous voiceline as an accesibility feature. On the part where you are supposed to get your suit and insert the core I was stuck for a bit though. Because I didn't quite hear the voiceline well - I wasn't really what I was supposed to do. TAB only showed the description of the suit & the voiceline of what to do didn't repeat on dieing.

Highlighting interactive objects might be useful.

Great job creating a game and submitting! - Was a nice experience!

Developer

Thanks a lot for taking the time to play it, and for the comments!

Thank you very much for letting me know about the print string! I thought I had set it up for shipping, but if you could see that string then something was clearly off. The good news is that I will be able to easily squeeze a bit better performance when correctly set to shipping :D. That string in particular is a test for a fake achievement that you get when you die 7 times, but I didn't have time to implement it in time.

About the platform section, I had a couple of slanted platforms with the idea of having the player die once or twice, but I have been receiving feedback that people have been dying a lot. It definitely was harder than I intended. I have learned that it's hard to gauge difficulty when you know the optimal route, and which platforms are not good. Sorry for the frustration!

I will be updating the game after the rating period is over. In the first update I will have much improved performance in the main menu, and also a mission message that clearly states what to do, and is also accessible with TAB. I realize the current system is far from ideal, as the messages were ambiguous and would sometimes be overwritten by other non-informative ones.

In future updates I will also add highlighting of interactable objects and a reworked platforming section.

Thanks a lot for your time and feedback, and sorry for the frustrating parts!

Submitted( 1)

I unfortunately found this quite unplayable and quite slow as well, my computer isnt a low end machine and it really struggled to process even on the lowest resolution. I managed to get to the platforming section but combined with the about 1 second delay inputs and just the frames, it didnt work for me. 

Developer( 1)

I'm really sorry to hear that. I would have liked to do some optimizations, as I use a lot of lights and post-process effects combined with lumen, but I didn't quite get there (as you could see). After the jam rating period is over I will update the game to improve some aspects, including as much optimization as I can (I'm thinking about having Lumen as an option).

I apologize for handing you a frustrating experience, thank you very much for taking the time to try it!

Submitted( 1)

hey there - quite unique to find a story focussed game here and a good one at that! the concept was super cool and totally fit the scifi scenario - there were definetely some alien/prometheus vibes going on.

i do want to point out something that threw me off a little - not to be mean, but maybe it's interesting for you to hear: for me there was a mismatch between the AAA-unreal super graphics and the selfmade LoFi unprocessed voice over and I couldn't really get over it. I don't mean to say, that the VO wasn't good enough - I found it quite charming and funny actually, but it stood out in it's hand-craftiness against this blockbuster production background. you get what I'm saying? 

whatever, just a little food for thought. overall one of my favourite entries nonetheless.

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to play it, and thanks for the feedback!

I totally understand your point. I do have a decent microphone, but I'm quite the noob when it comes to audio processing. I intend to add some enhancements to this game, so I will try to improve the audio quality. Actionable feedback is the best feedback :D. Thank you very much for pointing it out!

Submitted( 1)

Nice-looking assets, I couldn't get the jumping to different platforms though and would just through me off, tried it a few times but just couldn't get it. well done though it's looking really good.

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to play it, and thanks for the comment!

Sorry to hear that. I tried to make it so players would die once or twice in the platforming section, but I didn't want it to be more than that. The thing is that it became really difficult for me to gauge how hard or easy it was becoming, as I knew it way too well. The last thing I want to do is to get people frustrated, so I apologize.

Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted( 1)

This was so much fun! You did a great job :)

I appreciate your developer commentary too, it's nice to hear your thoughts behind the game. Good choice on the music! You were saying the narrator was inspired by Bioshock, my first thought was Stephen Merchant in Portal 2 as Wheatley. Great writing, I really enjoyed playing!

Developer( 1)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to review it, and for the comments!

Hehehe, believe it or not, I haven't played Portal 2 yet... Knowing this, I'll have to play it (finally!).

Thank you very much!

Submitted

haha there are only so many hours in the day to play games, you can’t play them all! But both Portals are very much like your game so I definitely recommend them!

Submitted( 1)

Though I had to play on low settings, you obviously put a lot of effort into making the ship look good, and it does! Good work on the voice acting, too.

Developer( 1)

Thank you very much for taking the time to play it, and for the comment!

I have a giant issue in the main menu level that is almost halving performance there. I have it fixed in local, I will be updating the game once the rating period of the jam is over, and hopefully I'll find ways to improve performance during gameplay as well :D.

Thank you for your kind words!

Submitted

If it's just a bug, you can upload an updated version now if you want, since bugfixes are allowed :)

Submitted( 1)

Game looks like pretty much AAA project!

Game assets and engine are really delivering amazing graphics! How sad that my CPU couldn't handle that :( Got around 20 fps at lowest with pretty powerful gpu, hope you can find solutions to increase perfomance.

But about actual gameplay, i couldn't handle parkour section, thought it was really hard, but voice acting is what made me happy despite of rage that i felt! Also, story is quite nice!

Overall, great job, would love to see your other projects!

Developer

Thank you very much for taking the time to play it, and for the feedback!

I have some ideas about how to increase performance during gameplay, I'll try to optimize it a bit once the rating period is over. I also had a giant issue in the main menu that has halving performance there, that's already fixed in my local project.

About the platforming section, I'm sorry, it caused frustration to a lot of people. I wasn't sure if it was hard or easy, I intended to be an area where players would die once or twice, but no more than that. I know now that it's kind of hard for the developer to gauge difficulty, as I know the best path, but it's something I will try to get better at. 

Again, sorry for the frustration, and thank you very much for your kind words!

Submitted

Nice game. I was not able to play it but watched your playthrough. When I tried to play it, I basically got 3 FPS, but I think that is related to some issues I have currently on my system. I really like the voiceovers and the story idea.

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! The game is in the demanding side, no doubt about it. The main menu is the worst offender, as I had some elements I forgot to delete, but it won't go from 3 to 30 :D. Hopefully I can do something about performance in the future.

Thank you very much for the comment!

Submitted

Game assets look great and the intro dialogue adds some personality. The parkour section felt unclear and difficult, but I get where it was going. Enjoyed checking out your submission :)

Developer

Thanks! Yeah, Unreal Engine 5 makes nice assets shine :D. The platforming mini-section was intended to cause a couple of deaths, but the game as a general is a bit too unclear about where to go next, I'll be fixing that in the future.

Thanks for taking the time to play, and for the comments!

Submitted( 1)

Phenomenal job all around!  Love your sense of humor - the voice acting was so good!  Especially liked the "organic matter is a good conductor" part :D  You really nailed the theme and worked it so well into the gameplay.  Seeing your dead bodies was a nice touch too.  

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to play it, and for the comment!

I can say that I had some fun recording the lines :D. Setting them up in the level was too much of a manual process, so now I'm working on a "dialogue manager" of sorts to make it easier and avoid voice overlaps.

Thanks for playing it!

Submitted( 1)

Nice!  I kept dying going out of the vessel,  but that is due to my poor parkour skills :) 

Developer

Thanks for playing, and thanks for the comment as well!

No, it's a common issue, I hope it didn't become frustrating. The collision boxes are a bit too tight on that one, and when testing I found it easy because after many tries I knew exactly where to position myself. I will update the game after the rating period is over, and that's one area I will try to improve.

Thanks a lot!

Submitted( 1)

Wow! Excellent entry! I was really astounded right from the get-go with how you made everything look. The environment is really great. The lens flares are a little intense, though. I really enjoyed the platformer aspects of it, actually, but I would agree that I wasn't sure if I was where I was supposed to be or not. In a few instances the voice overs fired off simultaneously, so it was a little confusing. The voice overs themselves were nice, though! I was also really jealous that you had an Unreal engine logo to open with :D I liked the options available too, I needed to change my resolution so that was great to have. Overall, I was really impressed with this game in a lot of ways. I have my own dreams of making a sci-fi RPG, so this was a blast to play through! Well done!

Developer( 1)

Thank you very much for taking the time to play it, and for your comments!

I will be overhauling the dialogue system to make it more robust after the rating period is over. At the moment is a mess held together with delays in the level blueprint. I will create a dialogue manager component that will buffer the messages and play them in order, so even if you enter into a different area it will not overlap. That will also allow me to remove the slow movement at the very beginning of the game, which is there precisely to avoid overlapping dialogue (last minute quick and dirty fix :D). It also opens the door for priority messages, continuing conversations ala Uncharted 4, etc. (for the future I mean, this project doesn't need all that :D).

I will also be adding a navigation system, and some in-game indications of what each area is. I think most players had some problems with that aspect, so it's a big one to fix.

The Unreal Engine logo, I just got it from google. I wanted to have a splash art of my own as well, but I didn't have time to create it.

Thanks for the kind words, and cheers for your awesome game!

Submitted( 1)

Nice game, and really nice narrating, (it made the experience lol "Wakey wakeeeky!)

There are some minor performance issues and the character gets caught on objects a lot, but you really nailed the theme. I also love that it counts the amount of times you died. Great job!

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to play it, and thanks for the feedback!

Hehehe, that line, "wakey wakeeey", is my personal favorite among the ones you can get when you respawn :D.

I'll be updating the game after the rating period is over, I may want to remove the collision of many of the props.

Thanks a lot!

Submitted( 1)

Really nice environment and Voice Over :D!! One little thing I'll improve is the jump and the camera, many times I had to jump and also if it were a simple jump I failed many times (some times also for the collision). Anyway, it is a really well-made game! Congrats!

Developer( 1)

Thanks for taking the time to play it, and for the feedback!

I was actually planning to add some invisible blocking volumes below the platforms, so they would allow you to get onto it if you just missed it by a tiny bit, like Mario, but I was running out of the time at the end and I left it for after the jam is over.

I wish my level was a bit bigger, your game really impressed me with how much play area you managed to create :D.

Thanks!

Submitted( 1)

This guy was you, wasn't? :D


Nice voice acting!

The game is easy - although I died a *lot* on the outside platforming - and has a nice humor, thanks to the voice acting.

There were a few bugs, though, like some environment collision is a little off (invisible walls on a platform?) - maybe an issue with scaled-up assets?

I personally found the eye adjustment on the camera off, to the point of making it harder to see things. It is requires a lot of tweaking, and it is time consuming, I totally agree, but it does worth spending some time on that. My eyes would personally thank you :)

All in all the game was a fun little pack of a game jam! Cheers!

Developer

Hahaha, how did you know! But now seriously, I'm an actual engineer, you can trust me on that. The proof is the platform on the roof that seemingly takes you the hole (winky winky).

Really seriously, thanks a lot for taking the time to play it, and for your feedback.

I did indeed have many scaled-up assets, especially in the platforming area, but also, the assets themselves didn't have a consistent collision box (some of them didn't even have one to begin with). I have some bounding boxes in some areas to stop the player from clipping through the walls, but I didn't add any in the platforming section, that was an oversight.

I will be updating the game in many ways after the rating period is over, one of the things I want to do is improve the collision of the assets themselves. I will also be taking my time with the eye adjustment, thank you very much for pointing that out!

About the difficulty, originally the platforms were smaller, and the radiation time limit was stricter, but I decided to make it looser to avoid frustrating the players. It's hard to gauge how hard or easy something you have made actually is, especially when you have played it dozens of times :D.

Thanks man, and cheers!

Submitted (1 edit) ( 1)

So, you're an actual engineer, and I'm an actual architect. Perfect. :)

I agree, properly balancing out a game's difficulty requires some time, mainly because it is through playtesting. Keeping it loose and accessible is always a better idea, at least for a game jam.

I'll give it a try when you updated the game!

Submitted( 1)

Very  nice game! I really love the voice acting!

Developer( 1)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to play it, and for the comment!

Audacity was my friend for many of my sound needs.

You know, our games do resemble in a way. Mine is a futuristic, dystopian interpretation of yours :D.

Submitted( 1)

Really nice environment and GFX! The voice acting is also really good!

Developer( 1)

Thanks! I already told Romulus, but for future platforming sections I'm taking notes from your game. That was very well designed.

Submitted

Thank you so much! I'm glad you noticed the design behind the levels!

And by all means, if you want some tips and/or development insights don't hesitate and DM me on Twitter at @Yeray_CS ^^

Submitted( 1)

The graphics were gorgeous on this one. You knocked out of the ballpark with how pretty this is. The voice acting was a nice touch as well. Great atmosphere for this came. I love the way you used the theme gave me serious Aeon Flux vibes from Liquid Television. Some of the clues were a bit puzzling for me, but I got it after a while. Loved it over all. Great experience. 

Developer( 1)

Thanks a lot! I could have definitely used a mission indicator for more clear instructions. I will be updating this project after the rating period is over to make it a bit more player friendly.

Thanks for taking the time to play it and comment!

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page