The design and aesthetics of this game are on point! It's a very difficult game and the death can get a little annoying... as others have pointed out. I don't mind dying so often in a game like this (it feels.... intentional?) but I'd like to move on a little quicker. I also think that overlaying a texture over your graphics (like paper or rusty metal), or something would be very simple to do, and add even more charm. Overall, I'm really impressed with the polish on this game!
Cool idea, very good execution. The look, sounds, music, style - everything fits together and has this professional feel. The controls could use a bit more tweaking but I can't be sure how it should be improved - maybe the jump/fly should be smaller and the bird falling a bit slower? I died 40 times in the first 5 minutes and I think that's a bit high death ration - but kudos for showing that statistics :D
Super cute game! The audio really adds to it, and the goofy dying dynamics fit the style well. I finally made it through; that last one took me longer than it should have, and I didn't have the endurance to make it through the speed run mode, but I like how the timer in speed run mode doesn't count the unsuccessful time, for people like me who miss a lot of easy jumps, haha. :D Along those lines, it'd be handy to have a key to respawn slightly faster, 'cause when I've been at the same spot for a bit, I don't always want to wait the couple seconds for the respawn every time, even though it is only a couple seconds. (Also, after reading other comments, I'm super glad I always disable the shortcut key for Sticky Keys, haha.) The fade out after XII is a nice touch. Thanks for the great game!
That was great! The audio and visuals are amazing. There were a few parts where the bounding boxes were a bit too big and the bird got caught in a cog without the visible part of the sprite actually touching. Also, pressing SHIFT five times in a row is the default shortcut for turning on sticky keys, so that kept interrupting the call. It was still a lot of fun, and even though I messed up on XI probably fifty times, I eventually got it. Oh, and thanks for having some many checkpoints and rest areas!
Thanks for staying 'till the end! Sorry for any bounding-box issues, I'll get them fixed. Pressing shift too often is a common problem for many games, but sticky keys can be turned off in system settings. Maybe I'll change the key for cuckoo in the next build.
I had a lot of fun! The mechanics aren't new at all, but the way you presented and delivered it was great! The graphics, music and sound all nicely communicates with each other. You also seemed to manage the project scope really well, as the experience is complete and also with a second game mode. Congratulations on that! :D
Cool little game 😄 I agree with all criticism said before, the gravity is a bit too high, death, which happent alot in my playtrough, can also get a bit annoying and the gear colliders could use some tuning. I dont have much for critique more than what has allready been said. I like the art style and that is one cute bird :D
I think you should be really proud of what you’ve made and submitted and i wish you the best of luck in your future dev-ing endevours! 😁🙏
I agree with Pyrians feedback in that how far you can go into the ceiling is hard to judge. I also think the gravity is a bit too steep that it makes it a bit hard to get the right timing on things, you just drop like a brick if you don't flap.
It's clear that this game is designed that you die a lot, so I think the death penalty needs to be reduced. At this point it's a pretty annoying penalty with the long death sequence and the sound starts to get annoying as well after a while.
I'd suggest, allow skipping the death sequence with space, make it a bit shorter in general and don't play that death sound and instead play a more uplifting cuckoo sound when you respawn.
Really fun idea. I kept trying to beat it, but only ever got to 11. My advice would be to either make it a lot easier or make it a lot tighter. Right now many deaths feel like nonsense, and I hate that.
For example, the thing where you can (and in some cases apparently must) go a fair distance into the floor/ceiling, but you can't see the limit of how far you can go before you die? The game is hard enough without having to guess where you're going to die.
Fast pendulums that come out of nowhere need to be foreshadowed somehow. Maybe a sound, I dunno.
The colliders needs to be closer to the models. Sometimes you can go through the edge of the cogs, sometimes you get hit while not even touching them.
The death sequences are great, but need to be skippable.
I'd put the checkpoints more frequent, too. Having to constantly redo a section I barely beat once because the next part kills me, isn't fun.
Kept me playing, I'll give you that. Love the aesthetic.
Well, the colliders must be tuned for sure... It is a great idea to add a skip button and I could add a warning "pendulum is coming!". Also, I don't really remember any levels where you must go through map edges, so there could be a different way to play through it. Anyway, I should make the boundaries more clear.
A debate difficult/fun is still in place, with no clear outcomes 😁 but here are some levels that are mentioned often: level 11 is too hard compared to other levels, level 6 looks impossible, and I'll find out which level is 8 to see how can it be improved.
I think this could make for a great meat boy styled platform with an emphasis on aerial movement. However dying is kind of annoying since it takes forever for you to respawn. Speaking of dying the deaths feel a bit anticlimactic if that makes sense.
Thank you for your response! That is a good question whether this game must be faster paced or not... I guess I made it on a boundary to try to suit all. Some people want it to be more puzzle-like, and others want more challenging stunts and quick death. Good to know!
I feel so bad for this bird falling into flesh shredding gears just because of my incapability to fly it. This is really fun! The multi-pendulum part was hard than I thought it should be. This is a fun game thanks for making it!
Thank you! I think level 6 looks really scary but it is really not? You have to wait until pendulums are out of synch. Anyway, I think I'm going to change this one since it is too different from any other level.
I feel like this could make for a great puzzle-platformer, if you added in some puzzle elements, as well, but what you have here is already enjoyable! Also there was a massive difficulty spike between the eleven'o clock and twelve'o clock levels, so I feel there could have been a more gradual difficulty increase between the levels instead. The main character is a cute birb. :o I imagine she (or he, or they, or it) is a mechanical clockwork birb. :o
Thank you for your response! I had an idea of some puzzles, but all of them broke the pacing of the game, and introducing new elements was a challenge in making a tutorial. Also, puzzle elements would have to go together with the aesthetic which I just couldn't do in time 😅 And yeah, I was really anxious by the end of levels that they were too easy, I should have thought them through better. The bird indeed is mechanical, and I guess the pronouns would be it/its
Thank you all for the responses! Here's a question for you: do you feel like the game could be easier / more difficult? Do you have any ideas on how to make it more interesting? (Besides making it harder)
This game had great mechanics, and I really enjoyed the theme. It's something I don't think I've seen before. The mechanics are something that could have backfired—I've definitely played ones before that were frustrating and finicky with their level design, but this game did a good job of avoiding any jumps or movements that were too picky about positioning.
That said, I also got an out of bounds error after the 12th level (in the web version, Chrome 72.0.3626.121). It seemed like I was at the end of the game anyway, so it didn't really matter too much, unless you had a really cool game end screen.
Hello, thank you for your response - the error is not good, but you don't miss much; since it's a clock it just wraps back to level 1 and says thank you for playing. By the way, thank you for playing!
the web version. only happened after like level 11 or 12. screen sudeenly totally blank from a certain point on, no gears or pendulums anymore. as I flew further to the right, despite the blank everything,, at some point I got the error message
I thought this was fun! I definitely killed my poor Cuckoo bird many times, haha. I thougt the level design was pretty good and i liked the regular checkpoints. Having to do the little Cuckoo cries the number of times you were at was a cute touch, and I loved how the bird bobs up and down when she walks
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The design and aesthetics of this game are on point! It's a very difficult game and the death can get a little annoying... as others have pointed out. I don't mind dying so often in a game like this (it feels.... intentional?) but I'd like to move on a little quicker. I also think that overlaying a texture over your graphics (like paper or rusty metal), or something would be very simple to do, and add even more charm. Overall, I'm really impressed with the polish on this game!
Cool idea, very good execution. The look, sounds, music, style - everything fits together and has this professional feel. The controls could use a bit more tweaking but I can't be sure how it should be improved - maybe the jump/fly should be smaller and the bird falling a bit slower? I died 40 times in the first 5 minutes and I think that's a bit high death ration - but kudos for showing that statistics :D
Super cute game! The audio really adds to it, and the goofy dying dynamics fit the style well. I finally made it through; that last one took me longer than it should have, and I didn't have the endurance to make it through the speed run mode, but I like how the timer in speed run mode doesn't count the unsuccessful time, for people like me who miss a lot of easy jumps, haha. :D Along those lines, it'd be handy to have a key to respawn slightly faster, 'cause when I've been at the same spot for a bit, I don't always want to wait the couple seconds for the respawn every time, even though it is only a couple seconds. (Also, after reading other comments, I'm super glad I always disable the shortcut key for Sticky Keys, haha.) The fade out after XII is a nice touch. Thanks for the great game!
Thank you for playing!
That was great! The audio and visuals are amazing. There were a few parts where the bounding boxes were a bit too big and the bird got caught in a cog without the visible part of the sprite actually touching. Also, pressing SHIFT five times in a row is the default shortcut for turning on sticky keys, so that kept interrupting the call. It was still a lot of fun, and even though I messed up on XI probably fifty times, I eventually got it. Oh, and thanks for having some many checkpoints and rest areas!
Thanks for staying 'till the end! Sorry for any bounding-box issues, I'll get them fixed. Pressing shift too often is a common problem for many games, but sticky keys can be turned off in system settings. Maybe I'll change the key for cuckoo in the next build.
I had a lot of fun! The mechanics aren't new at all, but the way you presented and delivered it was great! The graphics, music and sound all nicely communicates with each other.
You also seemed to manage the project scope really well, as the experience is complete and also with a second game mode. Congratulations on that! :D
Thanks! It's actually a miracle how everything was done on time, although some bugs were fixed after the jam.
Cool little game 😄 I agree with all criticism said before, the gravity is a bit too high, death, which happent alot in my playtrough, can also get a bit annoying and the gear colliders could use some tuning. I dont have much for critique more than what has allready been said. I like the art style and that is one cute bird :D
I think you should be really proud of what you’ve made and submitted and i wish you the best of luck in your future dev-ing endevours! 😁🙏
Thank you very much! 😄
I agree with Pyrians feedback in that how far you can go into the ceiling is hard to judge. I also think the gravity is a bit too steep that it makes it a bit hard to get the right timing on things, you just drop like a brick if you don't flap.
It's clear that this game is designed that you die a lot, so I think the death penalty needs to be reduced. At this point it's a pretty annoying penalty with the long death sequence and the sound starts to get annoying as well after a while.
I'd suggest, allow skipping the death sequence with space, make it a bit shorter in general and don't play that death sound and instead play a more uplifting cuckoo sound when you respawn.
Thank you! I'll definitely make the death skipable! I'll see what I can do with the sound too.
Really fun idea. I kept trying to beat it, but only ever got to 11. My advice would be to either make it a lot easier or make it a lot tighter. Right now many deaths feel like nonsense, and I hate that.
For example, the thing where you can (and in some cases apparently must) go a fair distance into the floor/ceiling, but you can't see the limit of how far you can go before you die? The game is hard enough without having to guess where you're going to die.
Fast pendulums that come out of nowhere need to be foreshadowed somehow. Maybe a sound, I dunno.
The colliders needs to be closer to the models. Sometimes you can go through the edge of the cogs, sometimes you get hit while not even touching them.
The death sequences are great, but need to be skippable.
I'd put the checkpoints more frequent, too. Having to constantly redo a section I barely beat once because the next part kills me, isn't fun.
Kept me playing, I'll give you that. Love the aesthetic.
Thank you for showing your point of view!
Well, the colliders must be tuned for sure... It is a great idea to add a skip button and I could add a warning "pendulum is coming!". Also, I don't really remember any levels where you must go through map edges, so there could be a different way to play through it. Anyway, I should make the boundaries more clear.
A debate difficult/fun is still in place, with no clear outcomes 😁 but here are some levels that are mentioned often: level 11 is too hard compared to other levels, level 6 looks impossible, and I'll find out which level is 8 to see how can it be improved.
I think this could make for a great meat boy styled platform with an emphasis on aerial movement. However dying is kind of annoying since it takes forever for you to respawn. Speaking of dying the deaths feel a bit anticlimactic if that makes sense.
Thank you for your response! That is a good question whether this game must be faster paced or not... I guess I made it on a boundary to try to suit all. Some people want it to be more puzzle-like, and others want more challenging stunts and quick death. Good to know!
I feel so bad for this bird falling into flesh shredding gears just because of my incapability to fly it. This is really fun! The multi-pendulum part was hard than I thought it should be. This is a fun game thanks for making it!
Thank you! I think level 6 looks really scary but it is really not? You have to wait until pendulums are out of synch. Anyway, I think I'm going to change this one since it is too different from any other level.
I feel like this could make for a great puzzle-platformer, if you added in some puzzle elements, as well, but what you have here is already enjoyable! Also there was a massive difficulty spike between the eleven'o clock and twelve'o clock levels, so I feel there could have been a more gradual difficulty increase between the levels instead. The main character is a cute birb. :o I imagine she (or he, or they, or it) is a mechanical clockwork birb. :o
Thank you for your response! I had an idea of some puzzles, but all of them broke the pacing of the game, and introducing new elements was a challenge in making a tutorial. Also, puzzle elements would have to go together with the aesthetic which I just couldn't do in time 😅 And yeah, I was really anxious by the end of levels that they were too easy, I should have thought them through better. The bird indeed is mechanical, and I guess the pronouns would be it/its
Thank you all for the responses! Here's a question for you: do you feel like the game could be easier / more difficult? Do you have any ideas on how to make it more interesting? (Besides making it harder)
This game had great mechanics, and I really enjoyed the theme. It's something I don't think I've seen before. The mechanics are something that could have backfired—I've definitely played ones before that were frustrating and finicky with their level design, but this game did a good job of avoiding any jumps or movements that were too picky about positioning.
That said, I also got an out of bounds error after the 12th level (in the web version, Chrome 72.0.3626.121). It seemed like I was at the end of the game anyway, so it didn't really matter too much, unless you had a really cool game end screen.
Hello, thank you for your response - the error is not good, but you don't miss much; since it's a clock it just wraps back to level 1 and says thank you for playing. By the way, thank you for playing!
Love the game! Come out amazing, but raged quit at level VI sadly, game was fun! Love the music and the sound effects! Both come out good! Great job!
out of bounds error :-D
That's not good. Can you tell me which version were you using?
the web version.
only happened after like level 11 or 12.
screen sudeenly totally blank from a certain point on, no gears or pendulums anymore.
as I flew further to the right, despite the blank everything,, at some point I got the error message
Okay, I'm going to fix this in the future. You didn't miss much; It wraps back to level 1 and shows credits. Thank you for playing!
This is great! Love how it came out!
I thought this was fun! I definitely killed my poor Cuckoo bird many times, haha. I thougt the level design was pretty good and i liked the regular checkpoints. Having to do the little Cuckoo cries the number of times you were at was a cute touch, and I loved how the bird bobs up and down when she walks
I love it! I felt terrible every time the Cuckoo got caught in the gears D:
Thanks for making this game! I laugh, I cried and I won ;)