Moon Stealers

Very polished game for such a short time! I agree with the rest of the feedback on the slow restarting after you die. Nice job!

Feedback as I play:

• The bouncing seemed a bit quirky sometimes, like, a bit difficult to anticipate how it'd bounce.
• You should cap the amount of light that can stack. I know you're not supposed to, but if you spam the orb light, it can get blinding. edit: actually some levels kinda can encourage spamming
• lvl 10: I'd recommend to be extremely careful with spike hitboxes. They're very difficult to properly account for, so if you force the player to have to make a very precise jump over 2 stair-like spikes, it makes it very difficult to know when it's too early/late. So if you make that the last jump of a level, it feels very frustrating. I'd recommend putting that in the beginning of a level to allow the player to test it/anticipate it, rather than after a long series of platforming. I can't count the number of times I died on this spikes and felt like the game is unfair instead of difficult
• I know it's been said several times, but I'm gonna say this is the thing that needs to be addressed the most: the restart of a level should be... almost instant, in a die and retry game.
• I wish there was a way to predict where the spikes and hazards are gonna pop. Sometimes, i activate a moon and it spawns a spike on me. I know it cannot immediately hurt you but it feels a bit clunky.
• It can be hard to predict how your shot is gonna go. I recommend tracing a short line between the tip of the wand and where you're aiming. I can't count the number of shots that turned super wrong because it bounced on the platform I was standing on, while I thought it wouldn't do that
• Have an option to tone down the screenshake. I love screenshake, but sometimes it makes it really hard to move around when you're quickly activating moons. Especially because sometimes you gotta do some actions fast to cheese it, which might not be intended by the game but are good solutions
• Sometimes you shoot at the same angle, but the orb light bounces either back at you, either where it seems it should be. I know the mouse might have moved a bit, but that's a dramatic change!
• Hitboxes of the flame cannonballs seem too big
• I know this one might seem paradoxal but... there's way too many levels! I know it's supposed to be a good thing, but game jam games aren't supposed to be too long, considering we play a lot of these. It's good that there's content, but I gave up after level 23 cause I've been playing for an hour

Feedback after playing:

That being said, it's amazing how much content there is! The game is very well polished! It has a cool gimmick and cool mechanics. The controls feel a bit clunky because the bounces are sometimes unpredictable and an be a bit hard to land sometimes. The visuals are pretty nice and the effects are super cool!

EDIT: I hope you see this, but I forgot to say one thing that I really liked about the game: It's cool to have different options of gameplays. The levels often seem to be layed out in a specific way, yet you can choose to do it as you wish considering you can choose the order in which you activate (certain) moons. Sometimes I was able to cheese a level an unexpected way. I don't know if that freedom was intended, but it's rather cool!

Really well polished except whenever I finish a level it gets super slow until the screen goes all white. There's a lot of great use of tweening and the circling text is pretty neat. The level design is pretty well thought out though I did have an issue with one cause I was trying to get one moon that was farther off without knowing when I get the closer one it'd spawn in cannons that I can use to jump across. I think it was level 8 that caught my interest and love it when people make use of bullets as a kind of timer. I worked on a game once where there was different wire types to connect things and made basically a clock where we had a spinning block you'd attach a ball to and the ball would press buttons in sequence to open doors and push platforms up through lava. Your art style was great and was kinda wondering how you did the legs (were you moving them with math?). Sometimes the wand projectiles got stuck on a corner and would constantly play sound, the lighting for them is pretty neat though (are you making sure to destroy them when they leave the room or after a certain amount of time?). Great entry, I still got some levels to beat later but was definitely enjoyable.

Well I shot myself a lot, haha. This is a very well put together game - my only real issue was the slow restart. Since I died so often it became deeply frustrating to see the (really cool) level intro every time lol. The game overall is very charming and oozes atmosphere which is really nice to see in a jam game.

This was way longer than I expected ahah. Despite the few annoyances likes bullets bouncing back at me instead of doing a 45° angle, I had a lot of fun. But I admit, I probably would have given up at some point if I wasn't able to cheat. That's also what makes the game so fun, every object reponds to the same rules and the result is that I can win by doing (almost) nothing :D

The biggest issue I think was how slow it was to restart after dying. The visual effects are really nice, but getting the level number every time adds up. Same thing with the "moon stolen" text, it makes it hader to follow everything, and sometimes you really need to be aware of everything at once!

Also I love that Grandma wasn't kidnapped, she was stolen!

Alright, Imma be honest here. I'm always impressed by your visual style, and the sheer amount of game you can make in 48 hours. But, I will say that this one kinda missed the mark for me. It was too slow and tedious for me to really get into, and I died far too often and easily. Especially by spikes showing up where I was standing because a bullet picked up a moon. Maybe I just suck at it, because I couldn't even beat the 2nd level. There was a lot to think about, so maybe it's just a bigger learning curve than what I understood.

All in all, it's a solid entry in so many aspects, and it's really impressive. I just wish there was a little more leeway given in the actual gameplay, and that it didn't restart every single time I got hit. Good job, though! Definitely more impressive than anything I've made in this short period of time.

If I may say, this is my favorite game this jam. It was really fun and absolutely nailed that 'one more level...' feeling. The art was cute and the sound was more than servicable. I would definitely come back and play this game some more! Great job.

Very polished and fun game! I included it in my GM48 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/sv7QWHTrbUo

We even get a main menu???? You're spoiling us. I adored this, definitely want to come back and do a full playthrough sometime soon. I love how there's multiple ways to complete things, and you can "plan your side effects" out in a way so that you can be in an advantageous position when you get your last moon!! This has been mentioned already, but yeah the only con is dialogue is not skipped second time doing a level (I'm really bad at this so I have a lot of re-dos). It doesn't even feel like a con, just if I had to put anything down for future improvements, it'd be that. SIDE NOTE I JUST NOTICED IT SAVED WHERE I WAS AT, I am so happy I can continue from where I left off and fair play for adding saving (A)the fullscreen mode setting I had selected and (B) the level I was on!!!

It's not even fair to criticize a game as polished as this one (for a game jam project at least)

Pros:

• looks / plays like a final game honestly
• fits well in the theme
• liked that you can collect stuff with your projectile too
• nice music / sound
• cute story (silly but it works!)
• nice touch with the hold input stuff as confirmation (ESC to go back for example)

Cons:

• could have a way to skip tutorial / text after you fail 1 time and level reloads

Excellent stuff overall, kudos to all that worked on the project!

This was a complete joy to play from the moment I started it up. The graphics, audio, story, and general level of polish are above and beyond what you'd expect from a 2-day game jam. Your character controls well, and there are some really clever puzzles involving both the changing level layouts from collecting moons, and your character's own projectiles bouncing back to kill him. My only complaint, which is more of a minor nitpick, is that your character keeps jumping if you hold down the jump button, which sometimes led to him jumping when I didn't want him to. Aside from that, though, this is easily the best entry I've played so far!

oh WOW.

Gotta be honest, with the name and logo I wasn't really sure what to expect, but as soon as I launched the game I knew I was playing something special. There's a lot of stuff here that make me wonder if you used a Project Template to save time? (not mad, that's smart). There's so much attention to detail here, particularly with draw_text that it's hard to beleive this was all done in just 48 hours.

Bravo. Really good. Unfortunately, I can't really think of a criticism other than the room-reset triggering the same dialogue getting annoying--but that's just a nitpick.

Wow, The fact that this was made in 2 days is impressive. This was really awesome. So much polish, even had lighting effects with the bullets at certain points. Loved it!

Really solid and good looking platformer with a nice level of difficulty, and a nice little story added as well. I beat the game but it took me a while. I liked that there were multiple ways to complete most if not all of the levels. There were a few bugs with the bullets getting stuck and some of the toggleable walls not being solid, but nothing game breaking.

Really well made game! Actually liked playing it, i don't know if it's intentional or not there is no cooldown on the magic wand, if i spam too much the entire screen goes bright haha, Congrats on the submission!

I'm genuinely really bad at this game but that's not the game's fault, however, the presentation is absolutely stunning, I'm honestly impressed with it, and after just 48 hours? It's insane. Very well done!