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Psychic Shaper's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #1748 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Enjoyment | #1990 | 3.176 | 3.176 |
| Overall | #2009 | 3.324 | 3.324 |
| Style | #2397 | 3.294 | 3.294 |
Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
We wanted to use both meanings of "scale", to climb but also to change shape and size. By changing the size of the shapes and building a way to cross the level, you can beat the game!
Development Time
96 hours
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Retro Gaming font: https://www.dafont.com/retro-gaming.font
The rest was made by the team! See page for team credits.
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Comments
Thanks for submitting your game to the stream! If you wanted to look at it again in the future heres the vod timestamped to your game
thank u =)!
I love the audio, it really sells the psychicness :) The puzzles feel really nice and the levels feel full of life and character. Controls felt natural and intuitive. A very pleasant game experience overall :) good job!
This was great, I loved to see all the different characters and their uses.
Switching between them all was a bit hard and became tiresome quickly, but other than that it was a fun game!
The world is unique and vibrant I love it. Great work was fun to play.
Thank you very much for your lovely comment! Have a great day!
Me ha parecido una tarea monumental haber podido hacer un video juego de este tipo en 4 días, realmente hay mucho trabajo aquí, desde lo músical , al aspecto visual y las mecanicas del juego, hay muy pocas cosas criticables realmente, por ejemplo que el personaje se queda fijo cucando mueves el cubo, pero mehh, no tiene real importancia. He completado todos los niveles, el ultimo ha sido el más desafiante. Les deseo la mejor de las suertes en esta competencia y en las siguientes.
Muchas gracias por el post y la sincera opinión en esta sección también jajaja ;:D!!
I really like the visuals. The designs are super creative and cute, there is a ton of content for a game made in sucha short time period. Great job, It was fun!
Thank you for your comment. We’re glad you liked the game. It was a lot of work to design all the levels in such a short time, but it was an excellent and unforgettable experience!!!!!
Well, I don't know how many people work in this one, but I'll assume that was just a single guy.
The idea of multiple characters with unique skills for a puzzle platformer is very nice and I already experimented with this before.
I finished the 3 first levels and played a bit of the other ones and I had some issues with the game:
Controls:
Oh boy, the controls are something, they're not terrible, but they aren't very good. I feel like you could use the mouse to change the characters instead of TAB, also, Press F will switch the cube's scale direction even if I'm not controlling it, also also, I think the use the Up and Down Arrow instead of W and S Keys wasn't a good idea, feels clunky every time I needed to use the Cube.
Visuals and UI:
I'm not against wacky art styles, but this one feels very over the place, lacks consistency between characters, background, VFX, and so on.
The UI in the levels could be better, there's no clear indication of who I am currently controlling at the moment but the sprites got darker, except the blue kid for some reason, which screw everything XD
Level Design & Mechanics:
The puzzles are simple but good, and when I finally stopped to fight against the controls I could solve them very intuitively, but on the other hand I felt complexity spikes between levels, I understand there are just 6 of them, but this in addition with the controls made my experience less enjoyable, also I get stuck in the level that introduces the blue ball, which cannot reach the button(note: while writing this, it came to my mind the probably the kid isn't the only one who can trigger the exit, but then the level per se isn't very intuitive).
Since this game was made within 96 hours, I understand the tutorials being text boxes, but for some reason, neither of them tells the player about the wall jump, which you kinda need to progress in the 2nd level.
I don't know how to feel about the psych meter, it's important for a puzzle to have limitations, but this one doesn't feel well-designed, it's just a limitation that forces you to reset when you run out of energy.
Other Issues:
Speaking of reset, if the kid dies in the middle of the level he just respawns in his origin position, but the other characters don't, so...what's the point? If this happens I would be forced to reset anyway.
This is a minor issue, but if you press W the kid unleashes his Ultra Ego Aura in the same way as the Up/Down Arrows, but nothing happens.
Outro:
Sorry for the insane long essay, but I think there's a very good and promising game here, just needs a lot of polishing, and rethinking some aspects like the controls and visuals, if this is your first game, don't give up, the beginning is always rough and manage schedules and game dev it's always.
Thanks for your long and detailed feedback! There are 3 people who worked on the game. The main roles were programmer, artist and sound.
Controls:
Yup the controls could definitely been improved. Should’ve added some text in-game saying that you can select your characters from the UI. Like you said in UI, should’ve dimmed the unselected character too. Also could’ve added the selecting characters from the screen too!
Visuals:
I think the inconsistency is due to pixel scaling (for UI and characters). Thought of using Unity’s Pixel Perfect Camera but it makes everything look jittery, especially when the camera moves. We might try it again but I think we’ll just scale in multiples of 2 to keep the pixels consistent for future games.
Level Design & Mechanics:
Ya, the placement of the button is quite bad. It’s not at the edge so the smallest ball often falls out. And if the player scales it up, they’ll just jump out of it. The kid should be the only one that can trigger the exit. If the shapes can trigger it’ll be a bit too easy as they can jump over everything. Yup saw some streamers and comments mention the wall jump too.
It might sound like an excuse but I had some stuff in real life that really hindered the progress of the team and affected the time schedule. Being the solo programmer meant the team couldn’t properly test levels.
Others
Felt like instead of resetting the whole puzzle if the player just missed 1 jump, they got the option of using the shapes to reposition themselves. Especially in earlier levels where the player doesn’t really need to move the shapes after they are already positioned. Changing characters and moving them to their spots every time they die is a bit repetitive?
Ya, that’s a bug… forgot to disable the bar and SFX for it.
It was our first time making a puzzle game so we can definitely improve from this! Thanks again for your feedback!
Thank you very much for the detailed and extensive feedback; I will take your recommendations into account for next time! Best regards!
Very consistent presentation overall, the tutorial was easy to understand and well integrated
The puzzles were pretty enjoyable. It seemed like there were few a different ways you could solve some of them which is cool. My critique would be try to keep art consistency. Especially when scaling the objects, the pixels get scaled too, maybe try unity's pixel rendering? Anyways, great job!
Thanks for playing! Yup, we tried the pixel art camera for Unity, but it was quite jittery, especially when the camera moved. I think we need to explore it more. Thanks for the feedback!
Nice game. I'd like to see more of it. I think it has a similar issue to our game where the level design could be tightened. I think several of the puzzles had more than one solution, but it plays like a puzzle platformer. The duplicating sphere was my favourite. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but the fact that all the copies changessize together made for some funny moments.
Ya level design could have been improved definitely. Changing the size of the copies was intentional! Wanted the clones to follow player controls too, making it available for the player to use multiple times instead of a 1-time clone and abandon it.
Nice game, I liked the art and enjoyed playing it, but I kept forgetting which character was I currently haha.
Yup, I think I might add an arrow on top of the controlling character on the post-jam version if we are doing it.
Love the art-style, both cute and moody (the "escape from lab" setting reminded me a bit of PS1 game Galerians). and concept and execution is cool too.
The game compelled me to finish it, which is remarkable in this jam -marathon ambiance we're in.
There was a few issues, like, i didn't manage to regain power ? even after losing a life ; I got around that by go back to main menu when necessary (in that, it's a cool idea to let people access any level from the beginning)
Well done !
I saw a few streamers play it and many of them gave up at the last level, even with some light guidance from me. So I’m really happy you finished it :)
Yup, there are a few bugs that could be fixed! Sadly didn’t have much time to fully playtest it.
I played this game during the stream I watched, and I felt that the art design is very good! Also very creative mechanic and flexible to be used upon next updates. Quite hard to complete earlier levels since I am not used to making my own platform hahah, but I get satisfaction once I pass the level. Definitely would need easier tutorial level for beginners to learn about mechanics, but overall a nice gaming experience. Good job! :)
Thanks for playing! Also saw your game during one of the streams and played it slightly after!
Haha ya seeing the streamers play made me realise the puzzles are quite hard to solve. Well, it’s our first puzzle game, we’ll improve from here.
Glad u enjoyed it!
this is really good!
the shapes are very good and flexible once you know what you are doing, the triangle was the mvp, I think i could finish the last level only using it.
overall, loved playing this game!
a suggestion: make it controlable by only using mouse and arrows or control dynamics players are more familiar with. Controlling multiple characters via tag can be challeging for newer players ;)
good job! awesome entry!
Congrats on finishing it! Glad u enjoyed it!
Thanks for the suggestion! It makes sense, I definitely think switching characters could be improved. Had some people struggling with switching characters too.
Also, the positioning of the UI isn’t so good when it’s not at the usual aspect ratio haha. Was very rushed so didn’t have time to do it properly.
Really really good. I loved how each shape not only had their own unique ability but their own useful properties such as size or how they carry others. I especially loved how open ended the last level is. I also liked the glow effects and the post processing in the game. My one and only note is that the keys that you use could change, since I felt switching characters was on a uncomfortable key position in proportion of how much you use it. Still I loved it and I would enjoy seeing the idea be expanded.
Really nice game! Well thought out, very polished, and the mechanics compliment each other very well, also like how "loose" the system is, allowing you to step on the other characters, wall jump and such. Also appreciate the alternative method to beat the final level, by jumping over the middle wall.
Curious what you mean by it but it’s ok! Don’t spoil for future players :). Glad these mechanics turned out well!
Really really polished and unique! It was a very cool experience. My brain got caught up trying to think about when to press tab but it worked out in the end. Beautiful art as well
Thank you very much for your comment. I'm glad you liked it and that it was a good experience for you. I’ll also try your game =) have a nice day!
Fun take on the theme, I enjoyed making it through the levels. Liked how you added new elements as you progress. Great job!
Thank you very much for playing our game thoroughly and also for sharing a comment with us! Have a great day!
Nice entry! the different mechanics are fun, the ball is a bit wired but overall, well done!
Thank you very much for commenting and played the game. Yeah, the ball is very special ;D
Congratulations are in order! This wonderful little platformer not only has a well executed breadth of mechanics that allow for player expression in problem solving, while still being relatively challenging to find a solution, but it also just plain looks and sounds good, especially for a game jam submission.
Small annoyances can be noted, such as things on top of the square not moving when it moves, unlike all the other shapes, and having to cycle through characters in a constant order, rather than simply selecting one which you would like to use.
Those are all merely nitpicks, of course.
Well done!
Thank you very much for writing this great review with many details. We’re happy that you liked it. Also, thank you for the feedback; it’s always appreciated so we can keep improving future aspects of the game! My friend Gnox tried your game and gave you some nice feedback in commentaries=)! Have a good day=)