Death Bowl

I liked theere was voice acting :D The main complaint would be floaty control of character as other has said. Now otherwise it could have been pretty enjoyable but still frustrating to play :D

The voice acting was a great way to sell the atmosphere quickly, so that was a great decision to include. Unfortunately the floaty controls, dodgy physics, and one-life-only mechanic make this deeply frustrating to actually play.

Another much more minor point is it would have been nice to be able to switch into full screen - it was quite small on my monitor which added to the frustration a bit.

The voice acting is really cool, the art is a fit for the style of game, and the concept of the game is good. Sadly those things are let down by the controls - just way too floaty and imprecise for a timed platformer (with a one death mechanic). This could be improved massively by adding checkpoints throughout the levels (Sorry if there were some, I didn't find them), or making the controls more precise. I tried the first level ~20 times (trying out the different items etc) before giving up, as the controls were just too frustrating, the furthest I got was the drop with the blades either side.

The items themselves were cool, a nice positive and negative combination of effects on each one. (the wings were my favourite)

It's a good first entry, with potential. I'd focus mostly on fixing the controls. I think if you fixed them, it would alleviate most of the other frustrations as they're really smaller things that just get amplified by the controls.

Found a few bugs - if you're on a ladder and a moving platformer hits you into a block, you teleport through the block to the other side. I also fell from a large height onto a ladder, climbed back up it, then as soon as I touched a floor block I died (from fall damage I assume). Kinda funny bugs though, made me laugh!

The player animations were fairly good, but I wish you could ledge-grab. The jump animation looks like the player is grabbing forwards so you think you can grab the edge - but then you fall to your death and die (sad face).

Again, the voice acting was great! Good first effort :)

I think the voice acting in this is hilarious, the guy sounds like he's enjoying himself rather too much when he's jumping 😂 it's an interesting idea and I love the showmanship of it. I did find I couldn't get out of the pool when I landed in there (on the far-right bottom of the first level), but overall this is a funny concept and I had fun with it!

The voice acting is easily the best part, haha! I like the presentation at the start of levels as the spotlight swoops from the end to the start, and I like the large scale death-trap-game-show vibe that's going on. Wasn't really sure why the screen would be completely tinged yellow for a while at the beginning of level 1, though.

Wings of Icarus seems like pretty much the only viable option you can pick. Strength opens up some alternate routes but doesn't make navigating the standard platforms any easier, and CUL8R seems to not provide any tangible benefit at all due to the extremely low acceleration rate and lack of response on pressing B or shift.

Interesting game! I included it in my GM48 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/mhNq7rNpmB8

Ugh, so frustratingly hard at certain parts, particularly the basically unpassable moving platforms (they seem to require the double jump buff or EXTREME luck) after the flame trap that can only be passed with the invulnerability buff. Particularly with the ultra-floaty controls. Aside from that, graphics are pretty good, voice acting is good, character animation is good, the side effect theme is used, there's definitely a bit of glitching when getting trapped between moving platforms and things, there's some audio glitches as well.

I enjoyed the idea of this game, but I felt like there were a lot of flaws that made it not for me.

The art of the game, once you get to the platformer, was actually quite good, but I felt like the menu art, such as when you're picking pills, didn't fit that aesthetic. I did really like the voice acting, it definitely made me feel like I was in some sort of death game. I also thought the upgrades and their downsides were quite interesting. I wish there were more of them, but I'm guessing more were planned and there just wasn't time, which I can forgive.

One thing I'm really not a fan of was the controls and level design. The player's movement is incredibly slippery, and the level isn't designed in a way that would make that fun. The moving platforms felt especially frustrating, particularly the two at the start.

Overall though, I think the game had some good ideas.

The character is very hard to control. I couldn't get very far before I wasn't having fun anymore.