Potion Commotion by boaheck-artgent
You drank more and more magic potions without realizing it was making the world worse. Now it's out of control and you must find the crystals to get the rampant magic under control. Watch out for the cute monsters that want to inconvenience you as you run, jump, and bounce your way around this cute little world!

Ratings
| Overall | 290th | 3.716⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 204th | 3.716⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 827th | 2.875⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1055th | 2.635⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 179th | 4.176⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 149th | 3.778⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 186th | 3.667⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 231th | 3.706⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
I did fall through the world at one point trying to get the third crystal, but I'm not entirely sure how, so that's probably not too helpful.
I got stuck under one of the monsters once and the whole game just crashed but overall I haven't had so much fun with a game in a long while! Thank you so much!
Graphics are much better than I expected at first, and the controls are good.
Pros:
First good 3d platformed I've seen in a LD
That cell shading. Mmmm hmmm.
The level design was straight forward but smart-- adding the sheep to the back tracking parts was a good decision so kudos.
I wanted to explore more. Like when I saw that bridge I was legitimately curious what was up there. It was a gem.
Cons:
This is borderline unplayable on keyboard; its the first game I actually dug around and took out my xbox controller for and GOD did it help. You should mention that up front like in meatboy (something like you REALLY should use a controller for this-- hint hint)
Not sure how it relates to the theme exactly mechanically-- it felt a little like the story was kinda shoe-horned in to have something relating to the theme (I did like the intro btw)
Excellent work, I really genuinely enjoyed playing it.
Love the use of the shader with the outline, it makes it super unique.
Great sense of exploration and level design. Well done!
Too bad there's some level design issues that makes platforming hard. (But 3D games are hard to make, it's already super impressive in 72 hours.)
music is pretty good too.
I would have loved the sheeps to be used more'cause they're really fun to jump on =)
i really liked the graphical style, and now that i finally tried it, it indeed has sound and music both of wich were nice, and the SE in particular were so funny :p
Gameplay wise i'd say it controled nicely and it's good to have the option for people to play it either on a controler or mouse+keyboard combo.
So i collected the gems, fixed my mistakes, and i had a good time,
good job to you guys on your entry :)
Pleasant and responsive controls is the most important in such games. You did it well! Special thanks that you did not plain mountains. It really helped me to get the second crystal.
Nice paint art in the start :laughing:. In LD with three people you have done a lot of content. And this game is fun to play.
Thanks for the game. You are cool :smile:.
In general though, a really good game.
Good job overall!
Here are some comments about it:
- Controls weren't super tight but still pretty impressive for a jam.
- Level design was simple but it still works pretty well. I like how you eased backtracking to the central area. Avoid placing colliders on top of the character's head before jumps, those are always quite frustrating. Also avoid placing blocked areas within reach (people will try getting there).
- Liked the cellshaiding effect, the palette worked but maybe there's too much grey stuff on screen.
- It's rather polished, I didn't run into major bugs.
- It's a solid game, perhaps its weakest point is that is lacking any kind of twist. It's polished and nice, but there isn't anything new/personal that catches the player's attention (in terms of gameplay, art or narrative).
First, the camera controls are soooooo sensitive, which really negatively impacted how you moved because your direction depends a lot on which way your facing. I fell off a lot of things because I looked around too fast before I decided to just point the camera in the direction I wanted to go and then not touch them while moving. That is a real problem because it removes your depth perception in the 3d world. Especially since the edges of the platforms don't draw as lines when you're above them. I really wish that you drew edges of platforms. It made it hard to know where you could land.
I couldn't play with a controller. Mine, I think, registers with a slight permanent push down, which is fine in a lot of games, but because of the sensitivity, I basically just pointed at the ground and couldn't do anything. I unplugged it and then could play with the keyboard. I appreciated that you included it as a way to play.
I really like that it's non violent, since it seems like that is just a gimme in most games. However, the little grey guys are super frustrating. The fact that they make it so the player can't jump properly when they touch you is really frustrating, especially on the little tiny platforms you have to land on, you can't help it. You just sort of hope that they randomly walk away from you on that run.
Speaking of which, the second gem was almost impossible. It was so hard to land on the platforms with the little creatures. It would look like a good time to jump and they would just turn around and walk right up to the edge so I couldn't land a large percentage of the time. Or if I did land they would hit me afterwards and I couldn't jump. The second creature didn't seem to be quite as much of a problem, but I only got to it some of the time. I think its platform is a little wider and so it didn't essentially always knock me off. If I could have used the camera properly I would have had an easier time of it, I think. Also, if the creatures had a more understandable pattern, or stood still until you landed and ran at you after, I don't know, half a second. Something to make it so that when you could feel good about landing and then worry about the creature. Or maybe just making the platform wider. The third creature felt kind of like a slap in the face. Getting up that high and being so close to the gem and then getting knocked off felt awful.
I really liked that you could see the whole world from the start and that it opened up as you played. I saw the bridge at the beginning and thought it was need and hoped that I could go there. And then I could! It made my little bit of exploring at the beginning feel rewarded. The checkpoints were handled well, too. One at each gem and, importantly, one at the start of each section. Nice.
Overall, I think that with a few tweaks it wouldn't be so frustrating and would be even more fun than it already is!
However I did not personally see how your game fits to the theme...
But overall, you did a hell of a good job. Congrats!!
the Jumping was really hard.. The camera followed the person, which took her to high to see the landing point, so it was almost impossible to make jumps other then trying over and over again.
I also had cases where my jump just failed to register.
Also is missing an invert camera option.
Wish I could have got past the first jumping puzzle so I could have seen more of the game.
@bryceltaylor - That has to do with how [PC/Mac/Linux process controller input](http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=Xbox360Controller) works - for some strange reason, the inputs are mapped different depending on the platform, so if the programmer doesn't know that, they can't address that specific issue.
- there are some camera problems especially with the brown overhanging stuff in the mushroom area
- it takes some time to get used to the controls, because there is no momentum in the jumps (let go of the key and the witch immediately stops moving) and there is no safety frame that would allow you to jump in the first frame(s) after falling. I highly recommend watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9SzQxaCm8.
- there is no reason not to hold down shift the entire time. Therefore one could argue that it has no place in the game and the witch should sprint the whole time ;)
Actually there is a safety frame. In fact there is a couple of safety frames. This is just subtle as a safety frame in my opinion is never intended to appear as though you are jumping in mid air. if you expect a safety frame to work this way it will feel wrong, however if you expect to jump off of the solid platform it appears you are still standing on but actually aren't you will it wont feel unfair. I feel like your issue with this is more in the tuning of numbers than the existence of those numbers at all.
For some players the fine tuning afforded by the sprint allows them to make jumps easier on keyboard. I know from feedback, that people previously found the keyboard controls too clunky and adding a sprint has helped those people. Admittedly it may make more sense to have sprint as default and the sprint button make you move slower.
The sprint button did make some of the jumps more manageable, mostly because some of the platforms to land on were pretty small. One thing that did trip me up was having to hold the jump button in order to jump at full height -- I know that's pretty standard among traditional platformers, but I think in 2D platformers it's easier to manage because the control scheme is something like horizontal movement on one hand and vertical movement on another. For a 3D game it was a bit difficult to manage WASD on one hand as well as adding in holding space (as opposed to tapping it). Since there's not really ever a situation in the game where you need to jump with a lower height, it probably would have been easier to just have the jump be full height every time. That's really just a minor nitpick though.