Illusion by Vikatoria

[raw]
made by Vikatoria for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

The main character in this game is a hamster who overhears its stoned owners talking about how limited or not the universe is. The hamster, influenced by the talk, goes on an adventure in space. But what happens next you’ll find out while playing the game.

Our game has 3 levels and passing it takes about 10 minutes.

HOW TO PLAY? ENTER to navigate the story line SPACE to jump WASD to move

OUR TEAM: We are freshmen students studying game design. It’s our first game, made after a month of uni, so please don’t judge too harshly :) Even though it was a new experience and a stressful one, we enjoyed the process a lot and gained lots of new knowledge.

We are Vika, Tory, Nicole, and Di. Vika carried out the codes, and worked on the narrative; Nicole worked with sounds and helped Tory and Di with the visuals; Tory made the design; Di made the visuals and worked with Vika on the narrative. Together we decided on the level design and discussed all the details and game mechanics as a team.

WHAT DID WE USE? To make the game work, we used Godot. For the visuals, we used Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, and GIMP. All the design was done by hand. We took the sounds from the internet (Uppbeat.io, Pixabay.com, Sfxr.me) Screenshot 2023-10-02 234333.png!Screenshot 2023-10-02 234512.pngScreenshot 2023-10-02 234420.pngScreenshot 2023-10-02 234420.png

Ratings

Overall 632th 3.5⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 485th 3.538⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1019th 2.654⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 952th 3⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 687th 3.407⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 167th 3.769⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 495th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 35🗳️ 22🗨️

Feedback

iron_head
03. Oct 2023 · 07:03 UTC
Fun idea. So were you supposed to jump into the sun? Either not, or the "_you lose_" and "_you win_" messages are the same, which is confusing. Also in the first level it is unclear which clouds you can jump on. Oh, and the story, great interpretation of the theme.
festishin
03. Oct 2023 · 09:04 UTC
Хомячка жалко в конце...
Ackbad
05. Oct 2023 · 21:28 UTC
I couldn't get past the opening screen. After pressings start and getting to the next screen I couldn't do anything.
🎤 Vikatoria
06. Oct 2023 · 07:25 UTC
@ackbad i’m sorry that there are not any controls mentioned, but to get past the opening screen you need to press enter.
🎤 Vikatoria
06. Oct 2023 · 17:48 UTC
@festishin это на моей совести)
Tankou
06. Oct 2023 · 18:41 UTC
Lovely game. I had fun playing it. Partly it was not easy to distinguish active platforms from background but with some training it got better. : ) The art is very cute by the way!
Moebius
06. Oct 2023 · 20:54 UTC
Nice idea with the story line, but it was a little confusing because it's not really clear which of the things are actual platforms and which are not. So you find yourself hopping from one thing to another that might or might not hold the hamster, only to be told that you can't keep the funny hamster alive - I'm trying, but you're not really making it easy for me :wink:

But: the hamster looks really cute! Nice pixel art!
digitaldude555
06. Oct 2023 · 20:56 UTC
Why hamster died... Congrats on your first game, one thing I would improve is make it more clear which parts of the level you can jump on and which ones you can't, especially the clouds on level 1. Good job students.
Sean Atterbury
06. Oct 2023 · 21:04 UTC
Very cool game, I think that the game is quite funny and I really enjoyed the artwork. Great job!
Kris3
07. Oct 2023 · 09:47 UTC
Cute game, the music is catchy. Don't know if it was right to jump into the sun because I died. But overall, good job colleagues!
Im not a robot
07. Oct 2023 · 10:39 UTC
Cute game with nice music. Very good job for a first game - it is playable and you don't get stuck anywhere, so that's way more than I can say for my first game.

The opening screen has very nice separation between foreground and background, so if the levels were like this, it would easier to see where you can jump.

I'm not really sure, if I played through the whole game? I jumped into the sun.

The pixel art was very cute, maybe if you do another game with it, try making every artwork have the same "pixel size" once in the game. it can make the game look much more coherent.

Overall great job for your first game made in only 3 days! Hope you had fun and didn't overwork yourselves in the jam. And thank you for playing my game :)
Nicoleta
07. Oct 2023 · 15:40 UTC
@im-not-a-robot thank you for liking our game, it makes us very happy for your feedback :P
Ginxel
08. Oct 2023 · 19:50 UTC
Hamtaro!!!
Volkolak
11. Oct 2023 · 20:18 UTC
The plot is just right, fun! It's fun to jump on the clouds as a hamster, the transitions at the end of levels reminded me of the times when I played Tiny Toon on my Sega Mega Drive.
kanity
11. Oct 2023 · 21:14 UTC
The hamster is very cute!

Had to press all the keys on the keyboard to figure out how to proceed, a simple message on the screen "Press Enter" would do the job.

I thought I am supposed to gather water drops and that's how I ended up dying for the 1st time xD The "V" platform - didn't realize you can only stand on upper corners. I think the disctinction between what you can/can't stand on and what you are supposed to gather should be more clear. If the drops are just a part of BG, they should blend in.

I like the platformer genre, and it is pretty easy and feels nice. The high jump was surprising; I think the mechanics could be worked on a bit further.

The ending was sad and felt like I did sth wrong (?) But I didn't find any other ending. Poor hamster :(
boddiul
11. Oct 2023 · 22:52 UTC
A very cute and funny game! Short levels, but with varied content.

I'm not sure if there are other endings in the game, but the ending with the sun was very unexpected and funny.

The graphics are cute, but there's a noticeable difference in the resolution of the sprites. In the case of pixel art, you should aim for the pixels of the sprites to be of a similar size.
Nicoleta
12. Oct 2023 · 16:46 UTC
@boddiul thank you for playing our game and for the feedback :>
bentglasstube
16. Oct 2023 · 05:31 UTC
This was a really strange and fun game. The hamster was adorable and the music was excellent. The platforming mechanics were a little floaty and I frequently found myself unable to jump because I had walked off a small edge and I was falling. As others mentioned, some better separation between what is and is not a platform would have been nice in the first level. Overall a fun and charming entry.
SgtWeirdo
18. Oct 2023 · 13:13 UTC
Good job on submitting your first ever project!
I don't have any feedback that hasn't been given before.
- Sometimes unclear what the ground is
- Went for the raindrops on my first attempt
- Couldn't get past the loading screen till I read the comments

The overall mood of the game is great, graphics work with the music.
Good start! Keep it up!
Im not a robot
22. Oct 2023 · 13:15 UTC
Came back to see how some of the memorable games from the jam did in ratings. Congrats on the nice score! :) Really amazing for your first game! Hope there are many more to come :3