Don't Splat The Bat! by RubixNoob13
Don't Splat the Bat! is a game about falling down a hole, using echolocation to avoid rocks, and going deeper and deeper.
Bugfix upload on 4/27/21 - AudioStreamPlayer2D is directional, and they were all placed at 0,0, which is why the sound was only playing out of the left ear.
See in game menu for controls and tips (all under the "controls" menu)
All graphics were done by myself using Paint.net
Made with Godot Engine https://godotengine.org/ (Godot License information can be found here: https://godotengine.org/license)
Sound effects generated by SFXR https://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
Credits for things I didn't make myself:
Font: Megakris by Kris Keogh http://www.kriskeogh.com
Music: AI Generated by computoser http://www.computoser.com (Music by computoser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ )
Ratings
| Overall | 1566th | 3.081⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1354th | 3.048⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1776th | 2.435⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 732th | 3.783⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1507th | 3⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1073th | 2.935⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 980th | 2.574⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1673th | 2.71⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 40🗨️ |
Simple gameplay, quite suited for a playtime session on the bus or on the train!
There just seems to be an issue with some sounds that I could only hear from my left ear for some reasons, maybe some positional audio where they shouldn't be?
*Update: See in the description. I didn't realize that the AudioStreamPlayer2D in Godot is positional, and most of them were sitting on the root node at 0,0, so on the top left side of the screen. Makes sense that the audio all ended up on the left side. THANKS again for your help! :)
I especially appreciated the polish put into the various parts of the game - the sound effects and visuals made it very clear what was going on, and the UI was clear and looks nice.
Echolocation is a cool mechanic, but I wasn't really sure what the purpose was here since you could still see the rocks anyways. Similarly, I wasn't sure of the purpose of acceleration/slowing down - it seems like there's no downside to just slowing down the whole time. Though there are definitely some small tweaks you could make to use both of these mechanics more meaningfully (e.g. echolocation reveals positions of health bonuses or powerups that are otherwise invisible, or you have some energy meter that depletes when you slow down and recharges when you're at normal speed).
I do kinda wish there was just a little more variety (e.g. different kinds of obstacles or powerups of some sort), but even what you have was still pretty fun. With some small changes I can definitely see this being a fun, addictive phone game. Nice work!
@qzqxq I had initially intended to add in some powerups to regain health, I was thinking fruit as the face for my hand drawn bat is based on a google search for "cute fruit bat" or something along those lines where they have huge eyes and people are holding baby fruit bats and feeding them watermelons, etc. I just got down to a time crunch so the powerups were cut out for now. I also wanted it to get darker (it will eventually get pretty dark, there's a layer with RGB 0,0,0 that once you make it down to around 40k depth it will be at 90% opacity, which makes it pretty tough to see) I had actually also considered a stamina meter of some type for slowing down, which will most likely end up in the game if I continue development into a phone game (girlfriend has suggested it would possibly make a fun phone game as well, I'm just not 100% sure what the controls would look like for that, like swipe controls or on screen buttons) Thanks for the feedback and the kind words, though :)
As a note about the mobile version, I think the left and right movement at least would be better as on-screen buttons so that responding to the rocks would be a lot faster and easier.
Echo mechanic seems a bit useless though because obstacles are visible anyway.

I was wonderning if it was nomal for a few minutes because game was about echolocation :laughing:
But tried it with the exe and it's pretty nice, especially light effects with echolocation ! Pretty hard too, but this is part of the fun !
Maybe the rocks should be less visible to make echolocation more usefull (& make the cooldown shorter)
I think with some balance adjustments this could be a nice mobile game.
I'm not quite sure what to use the echolocation for :/
But the overall game was nice and challenging!
Keep on working :)
The echolocation effect was really nice, and I liked the discrete steps between columns, rather than having to aim between really tight spaces. The ability to speed up and slow down let me adjust the difficulty level to my comfort, which is huge in these "fall continuously" games. A lot of them are either too easy or too hard, but this lets the player set that balance for themselves.
I did have a bit of trouble telling whether some rocks were directly against the wall, or if there was a gap that I could squeeze through. I think maybe knocking one or two columns out and increasing the overall width (and scaling up the rocks to match) would make it easier on the eyes, and easier to read the positioning. Also, some very subtle vertical striping in the background that indicates the column positioning could also help with that.
Great work!
A fun game.
It is not clear just why echolocation is needed. Obstacles are clearly visible.
I really loved the hand drawn art style and the font choice. Great jam entry.
Have a good day :)
Good work on this game!