Really loved the sound design! I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but man that sprinting section is difficult haha. Great work!

Nice game, had fun.

@jiffy Glad you enjoyed! If you're talking about the falling stones, you need to have the dash unlocked, but even then we did get frustrated a couple of times playtesting haha

Hey where am I supposed to go after getting the extra high jump?

I got lost after that.

@JPGFG Thanks for playing our game! Sorry it wasn't clear: after getting the high jump you should jump back down and then can choose three different paths (there are two pathways on both sides and a hole down on the left). I think we should try working more on the scale of the levels to make it clearer next time. Thanks!

Awesome game! It made a great first impression - the way the screen fades in at the beginning is super immersive. The art and audio also complement each other wonderfully! The dash level was a little too tough for my skills, haha, but I really loved the game all in all.

Cute game, it can be a bit challenging, at least for me :)

Maybe I didn't get far enough for the music to have a mechanic, but the overall idea was great. Whoever designed the sprinting section is evil. Had fun.

I like the puzzly nature of this game :) Good job!

@hymirth Glad you had fun! Sorry for the sprinting section, I am the villain 😈. The background music only plays the notes you have unlocked thus far. It starts off with just C. The more notes you collect, the more complete the background song is. After collecting the whole C major scale (C D E F G A B), you will hear the song in its fullest.

Good job

Really cool concept and game design ! :wink:

Very cute aesthetics, liked the idea of collecting gameplay elements and musical notes :)

Great game!! I like the metroidvania aspect of collecting the notes, and the music getting more intense the more notes you get - great job!!

This is such a cool concept! That sprinting part was truly a challenge but the overall game was really fun ^^ The art and music are also so well done!!

This is a very cute game, the graphics are great and the music and how the game plays with notes is really nice.

Also, collecting "notes" ... The notes are notes. That took a moment. :D

I'm not quite sure if I've reached the end though, I unlocked the door and talked to the person in the house, who said something about "help me collect my notes" (isn't that what I've been doing to get there? :thinking: ) but then I don't know what else to do. Did I miss something?

There's some smaller things that could be improved: When jumping, the camera follows the player immediately, meaning you cannot see more than a few tiles below the player, which can be annoying while jumping over platforms because you can't see the platforms beneath you. Also there was a level transition that seemed a bit misplaced/buggy. Lastly, the moving platforms part was hard, but not too hard. What was a bit annoying about it was that the platforms smashed the player even when moving away from the player (e.g. it's moving up and you run against it, this will kill the player).

It's a very nice game though! :)

crazy intro!!!

Cute game. The controls felt pretty good. I did get stuck in the bottom level though and there was no obvious way to get out.

ВАУ! Это было реально восхитительно! Действительно необычно-обычная механика ПОИСКА механик ахаха. Я под большим впечатлением осталась. И звук у вас чудесный, но на моменте со спринтом луп мелодии было тяжеловато слушать. Вы крутые и игра у вас крутая)

Really dig the art and music here! I got stuck at the blocks quickly moving up and down though haha Couldn't get the timing right with the sprint. Really nice job though! Cute little main character

I love the minimalism opening!

This was fun, I liked the art and the sound design was great. I loved the little foot pitter patter it was such a nice detail! Also the metroidvania style unlocking movement abilities to navigate was quite satisfying. I did rage quit the sprint section, even with it unlocked the timing was so unforgiving!

Really charming! I loved the idea of collecting notes and having them play as you pick them up — such a creative touch. The main character was delightfully weird, and the overall vibe of the game was strange in the best possible way. The background was minimal but very effective, and the level design did a great job guiding the player forward. I did get stuck on the bouncing platforms, though — that part felt a bit too tough, and I wish I could've seen more of the game. Great work overall!

I saw in your previous comment that the music adds more notes when you gain them, and I think this is such a cool addition! Also the little things like movements making their note sounds. I also got stuck after talking to the person -- is this the end? One bug I found that wasn't already mentioned is that if you dash into the ground after the double high jump, it doesn't register that you are grounded so you cannot jump. Anyways, lovely game.

So cute! The music is amazing! Got a bit frustrated with the controls after falling down to the lower level for the third time I have to say but otherwise a very nice experience!

@binarydiv Thank you so much for such an in-depth review! We definitely would've loved to polish the game more - the character you meet is supposed to be the end, sort of an invitation to imagine a continuation of the game where you enter a different biome and help this character collect **her** notes, maybe with new abilities, but I didn't do a great job translating that... We will definitely keep your comment about this and the movement / platforms in mind when making other games!

@ludumdaredevil there is a "door" - a darker wall - on the left side. Maybe I should've done a better job making it more distinct. Thank you for trying out the game and bringing this to my attention!

@caominh-le Yes, the character is supposed to be the end, sorry I didn't make that clear enough. And thank you for bringing the bug to our attention!

the best sound design I've heard at this jam!

I love the animation it's soooo cute!

Nice design. I like it.

I couldn't figure out where to go after the guy who told me to help him. I jumped up to the first location on the left, and then jumping no longer worked, so I decided that was it for the game. I really liked the visuals; the main character's twisted legs both amuse and delight me. The atmosphere and gameplay drew me in; you guys did a fantastic job!

@annabondar Thanks for playing, I'm really glad you liked it! The person asking for help is supposed to be the end, I didn't do the greatest job at picking a dialogue that would communicate that well. And after that we just wanted to leave the player in the world if they wanted to go back and explore, do something they didn't get to. As for the main character, I based his design on the treble clef. I'm really happy you liked him, because I kept doubting if the design made any sense haha

Cool sound design. I got a bit lost on the map. But I like the vibe of the game

Cool idea! The transitions between sections of the map were a little to quick in my opinion. I had a lot of fun playing the game. :)

Sound design is really good !
The dashing platforms are to quick for me !!!

Really cute little Metroidvania with a fun musical concept behind it.

Not a tremendous fan of "press W to jump" - I kept instinctively hitting spacebar to jump instead and diving into pits with the dash (which I was really happy to see is also an *air* dash when done in midair). The sprint also seemed rather useless; the character moves slowly enough that a permanent movement speed upgrade would've been welcome.

I'm also one of the people who got confused by the lack of ending: the guy literally puts you up to a new quest and that's supposed to be the *end* of the game? You could at least have smashed to credits or a "To Be Continued." ^_^;

I also think the placement of the pit leading down to the lower floor is plain cruel - it's too easy to enter the room from the left and just end up diving straight back into it, and then having to redo the entire jumping sequence. There should really be more of a leadup from the left side, or maybe a ledge that covers the pit when you enter from the left but can't jump up to the first time you reach it from the right. Also curious about a couple of areas you can jump to which don't seem to have any purpose; are those leftovers from abandoned plans or just scenery?

I like the idea of collecting notes to unlock actions, and the sound design is excellent! I was so immersed and hope to learn more about the world's story of this game, loooking forward to more game content:)

So unlocking notes / mechanics is very nice in terms of 'collecting'

Graphics were excellent, love the parallax effect.

Some glitchy transitions between levels, the bit where you fall down to the bit with the moving platforms, I kept accidentally falling down there (it would switch level in an area where I would normally be able to jump out). Then I have to go all the way around to get back.

Nice game, thanks for making it!

I'm not sure if I made it to the end of the game or not. I thought for sure I collected all of them, and then the guy in the tree basically just said "ah, go find all of them."

Anyway, I recorded myself playing to provide extra feedback!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoMD1Ew_E5U

@grummelchen @redphoenix2412 @remy-lopez @ryusui @fin1717 @nnnnneeeedddd Thank you so much for your feedback! It's helpful to hear your experiences so we know what to focus on next time we make a game.

@100th-coin Thank you so much for recording this! I am really sorry that we got you confused with the ending there. The dash cooldown end sound effect idea is great - we were thinking of a more visual way, but that's even better - fits the vibe of the game more. I gotta say, it was a very unique experience watching someone I don't know play the game we made. It felt a bit awkward, but overall really flattering to see someone enjoy a piece of art we worked hard to make. We also loved your commentary - you're a charismatic guy:)

I really like it :3 I love how the music keeps getting new layers of notes as you unlock new abilities and those notes then get added as new music and new sounds! At least from what I could tell, I think the abilities themselves also have sounds based on the notes that they are from, am I wrong? Definitely love the tippy tappy sounds for the walk the most :D

The only gripe I really had was the inconsistent gaps between platforms in the "staircase" bit, it also could have been a little shorter, took a lot of time to get back up as soon as you fell down :sweat_smile: And the "death" hitboxes of the crushing platforms felt a bit unfair, I'd get 2/3rds of the way there, only to die because I accidentally touched one of the platforms from the side and not from below. :sweat_smile:

Very good job for your second game jam overall, and a surprising amount of content too :3

@aurora-bee Yes! When you pick up a note the corresponding abilities' sound effects are in that note! And even the dialogue in the very beginning is in C, since that person gives you the C note. I'm glad you noticed:)

Thanks for the feedback, we really want to work on making platformers since we can't get the scale of the levels and movement right, so it really helps!

Nice game! The theme is even more used in your game, because the system of collecting notes are pretty interesting. For the audio part, the music and sounds are the strongest point in this game. As a hint of my ratings, the biggest one is the audio.

Overall, good job, being your second game jam is quite good!

Musical notes as upgrades is a great idea, and adding those notes to the music too. I had (non-musical) upgrades planned in my platformer too, but didn't get to them - maybe next time. The graphics look nice and the character animations are adorable.

The story/idea behind this game is the highlight with atmosphere and BG graphics being well made. The levels could've used a bit more time in the oven, but the gameplay drags behind as it is quite simplistic without much to speak of in terms of gimmicks, upgrades etc. outside of unlocking basic elements that exist in every game.

Wow I love the audio and sound design in this. The song slowly building up as you collect more notes. This is the best use of audio i've seen so far this game. Really great job on this.

We really enjoyed the game - I see we did make it to the end based on the feedback above, pretty much everyone covered what I might say above.

The music was great. I was impressed with how good it sounded with your partitioning of adding notes in as play progressed. Did you try different compositions to get one that worked well? How did you make it/extract all the individual notes?

Oh, and your game is just about the right amount of "horror" for me. :)

@runningopenloop Glad you guys liked it! Initially I recorded the background music on my guitar, so I played around with several progressions/melodies. I ended up switching to MIDI due to time constraints (getting a good quality sound recording is hard!). I simply created a separate MIDI track for each note in garageband and exported each track as a separate file.