Those Aren't Stars by Gtron
"Those Aren't Stars is an action platformer featuring a tiny witch... person... who can turn into a stone statue.
When she's a statue, she's unaffected by strong wind and can't be hurt by any form of attack, but the only thing she can do without turning back into a person is... well just kind of sit there. Despite that she can't do anything in her rocky form, clever use of this transformation ability is the key to victory!
This game is best played using an Xbox 360 Controller, but there are keyboard controls as well. No other gamepad will work, as this game was made partly to test Unity's new input system, which only supports that gamepad. (Mac users can find a driver to let the controller talk to their system here: https://github.com/360Controller/360Controller/rel...)
Finally, there is a known bug where holding left or right during a scene transition can screw up Unity's input system, soft locking the game. So don't do that... I guess...
[EDIT] The help screen claims you can jump with the up arrow on your keyboard. We apologize for the fault in the instructions. Those responsible have been sacked.
(Seriously though the up arrow doesn't do anything)
[EDIT 2] I'm honestly surprised by all the positive feedback you guys have given and all the interest I've seen in a post-jam version. In order to protect the integrity of the voting, I've elected to keep the publicly available build of the game static until judging ends. However, I'm working on improvements and bugfixes (and trying to figure out what I want to do with this thing), and if anybody is interested I'm going to try to post about it on my blog (http://gregorarmstrong.com/blog/) that I totally didn't set up right before editing this description. So once judging ends, if you're interested, come check things out!
When she's a statue, she's unaffected by strong wind and can't be hurt by any form of attack, but the only thing she can do without turning back into a person is... well just kind of sit there. Despite that she can't do anything in her rocky form, clever use of this transformation ability is the key to victory!
This game is best played using an Xbox 360 Controller, but there are keyboard controls as well. No other gamepad will work, as this game was made partly to test Unity's new input system, which only supports that gamepad. (Mac users can find a driver to let the controller talk to their system here: https://github.com/360Controller/360Controller/rel...)
Finally, there is a known bug where holding left or right during a scene transition can screw up Unity's input system, soft locking the game. So don't do that... I guess...
[EDIT] The help screen claims you can jump with the up arrow on your keyboard. We apologize for the fault in the instructions. Those responsible have been sacked.
(Seriously though the up arrow doesn't do anything)
[EDIT 2] I'm honestly surprised by all the positive feedback you guys have given and all the interest I've seen in a post-jam version. In order to protect the integrity of the voting, I've elected to keep the publicly available build of the game static until judging ends. However, I'm working on improvements and bugfixes (and trying to figure out what I want to do with this thing), and if anybody is interested I'm going to try to post about it on my blog (http://gregorarmstrong.com/blog/) that I totally didn't set up right before editing this description. So once judging ends, if you're interested, come check things out!
Ratings
| Coolness | 57% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.43 | 273 |
| Audio | 3.14 | 263 |
| Fun | 3.28 | 366 |
| Graphics | 3.60 | 210 |
| Innovation | 3.03 | 520 |
| Theme | 3.55 | 339 |
I did find one glitch: Bree's health bar didn't seem to visually update during the Radiance fight. So I did not know how close to dying I was. Still managed to win though :)
I think the stone turning mechanic and graphics are great and so is the music. I am just pointing out these things because these are rather simple to adjust in a post compo version and I think you should do so because the base game is really fun!
One gripe, though, the jump arc of Bree and her wall-stickiness could be really annoying during the platforming parts. I got caught on so many corners it was pretty frustrating.
The boss fight with Radiance was nice, but the health bars kept resetting so I wouldn't know how much damage either of us had taken until we got hit, but then mine stopped updating altogether, so I'm not sure if I almost died or if she stopped doing damage at some point.
Also, when you first introduce an element like a floating platform, it might be a good idea to either a) have it start near the player and move away when they get there or b) have some sort of visual indicator that something is there and it might be coming towards you. I didn't even know the platform was there until I tried several jump to statue sequences and it happened to fly over my head while I was pondering what to do.
The graphics were nice and the gameplay was pretty fun despite the glitchy collision with corners and the platforms. I could see some really interesting wind column + statue obstacles in a future version.
All that said though, there are several stages in the game and even a boss fight mixed in, which is quite impressive for a compo submission! Graphics and audio are nice too. I became curious about the possible story though, like who Bree is, why a statue transformation, why the firework-shooting enemies are trying to kill you, and who is the boss. Consider an expanded version in the future with story, more polish and more levels, and you've got a great thing here.
Though i'd work on a collision issue where the player gets sticky when jumping towards a wall
All and all i really like this entry! keep up the good work :)
Well, it does has its flaws, like already pointed out, sticky walls, slow platforms (and no indication of them), a bit unresponsive to turn into stone, too much life, stone transformation is much more useful in late game. But those things you can fix, and you will have a very nice game! I'll look for your post-compo later!
Great work!