Nanashi by JSD
Nanashi is an isometric twin stick shooter focused on combining genres. Play through 4 different mini challenges of different kind such as a breakout, or an horde mode as you collect the crystals that will open the way to the final boss of the game. Highly recommended to play with a PS4 controller as for being a twin stick shooter I was the one I primarly used. Any advice is welcomed. In case you wanna try a different controller it should work, if not, just tell me about it.
Keyboard/Dualshock 4 controls:
WASD/Left Stick -> movement
IJKL/Right Stick -> camera control
Spacebar/ R1 -> shooting
Other inputs: you can edit the inputs from the unity startup config screen, which I highly recommend if you plan on using an Xbox Controller as the right stick axis for the PS4 and Xbox controllers are not the same
Also, I added to the gamejolt page and alternative and extraofficial input scheme where the axes are not rotated 45º and with a minor sliding spaceship as some people have been asking for it
The recommended resolution I used while working on it was 760x480 but I leave it up to you to choose one when trying it out.
Some screenshots :)
Bugfixing updates: v.1.0.1 Patched some minor issues with the UI elements not resizing when selecting the screen resolution and a weird controller issue that was reported by a friend. v.1.0.2 Fixed music not looping. For some reason I forgot to include this in the previous bugfix
Ratings
| Overall | 1052th | 2.911⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1032th | 2.732⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 789th | 3.115⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 795th | 3.304⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 427th | 3.732⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 452th | 3.212⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 959th | 2.053⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 831th | 2.979⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
Also just added a linux build.
Cheers!
One of my biggest problems with the game was the controls. The 45 degree rotated inputs are only necessary when the game is both *restricted to a grid* and currently using keyboard controls, otherwise they just add confusion and false difficulty. In this case, W on the keyboard should move the ship up on the screen. Compounding this, the ship felt extremely slidey and hard to control, making the purple gem much harder than it needed to be (until I found a slightly cheating strategy). The boss fight was really fun, and the other stages were enjoyable once I got past the weird controls.
Glad you like the graphical style and thanks for the comments. There's still surely room for improvement and I still got ways too go regarding level designing and game flow. The slidey controls were made conciously so the player doesn't go crazy and actually pays more attention to the bullets and everything else on the stage. Will keep it in mind though, probably not the best choice so once the jam is over I might take that out and make it more standard. Also glad you liked the boss fight! It kind of just pop up into my mind after finishing the breakout stage and thought I would add some "tetris" bit in there to keep the whole multiple gameplays going. There's a physics bug with it though but that just makes it more random and I actually I liked the way it turned out so decided to consider it a feature xD
Again, thanks for playing the game, will check out you game once I get back home from work. Cheers!
a) a small picture to the post to actually explain how the controls go
or
b) (and I'm not sure about this since it might go against the rules since it's not exactly a port or a bug fix so if somebody knows for sure I'll do it) I could simply reset the camera which is the one with the actual rotation and change the whole world layout so the game looks the same but controls might prove more intuitive. Also I could take the friction away but that was mostly something I decided to add to the game, not an actual side effect of things.
I could also do b) and post it in gamejolt as a different version to leave it out of the jam, something that I'll eventually do to add all the sound effects I couldn't.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely keep it in mind since you don't seem to be the only one telling me about it.
Thanks for playing!!!
Btw, finally got back from work so it's time to finally give a try to all of these games :)
Give it a second try and tell me how you feel about it. Personally I'm so used to the rotated controls that I'm too bad at it xD
I'm getting told that a lot so I went ahead and tweaked them a bit in the "alternate" version though, mostly to take out the 45° rotation
Your mini games are interesting, but I think I found what the problem is with your controls (as it seems to be the recurrent subject in the comments ^^).
You ask people to do precise things with a ship that has an inertia way too strong (example : the room where you have to survive). I only succeeded in the "break-out" mini game, because movement is not so important in this one, even if I fell off the map a few times.
I can propose two solutions :
* Keep the inertia, but make it impossible to fall off the map, by adding physical or invisible walls, and make the things you should avoid slower
* Get rid of inertia, or tune it down (a lot), and keep the game the same
You have the ideas, you have the nice graphics, now you need the controls that suits them 🙂
I hope I don't sound harsh, that stays my opinion and not a general truth, what I said is the kind of things you can really understand when you watch some other people play your game, it gives you the opportunity to take a completely different look of what you've done so far (which is nearly impossible during a jam sadly), if you want to develop the game further I recommend doing it 🙂
Don't worry about sounding harsh cause it's not, I participated in the jam mostly as a way to improve and have fun so knowing what people think I should improve and what not is a huge help!
In the alternative non-jam build I have up at gamejolt I tried to fixed a bit of the inertia which I must recon it might have been too much and should have spent more time testing. Give that a try if you wish and tell me if I should tone it down even more.
I certainly wanna expand the game after I finish what I was working on till now so luckily that'll be soon enough and I might be able to add more challenges to play.
Thanks for testing it!
When it comes to control, I suggest using the mouse for rotation (and right stick on controller). That feels more intuitive. As a fellow unity user, I know its easier said than done.
Great work nevertheless!
I was actually planning to add mouse control but run out of time though, but definetely is gonna be something I start working on next week or so. Right now I'm checking out some level ideas and plan to try the 2018.2 beta to test the new Input system with the runtime remapping options. Add a couple of menus here and there and planning out a better presentation.
The Bad: As everyone said controls, the most frustrating controls I have ever encountered on ludum dare. When you are building a game above all else make sure it controls well. Anyway I know you fixed some stuff in new build but I can only vote on the one submitted during the jam.
Thank you guys for playing it and you comments.
I've already taken note of the problems with controls and certainly they needed more testing and somebody else to try them out too so I'll keep that in mind for the next jam as well. I've already tried to address this issue in an alternative build and I play to go into more deepness as I try the new Unity 2018.2b with the new control layout so I can create an option menu with a control mapper and the likes.
@digitaldude555 "As everyone said controls, the most frustrating controls I have ever encountered on ludum dare" I think I'm feeling kind of honored or something xDDDD
And yes I totally understand your vote and it's the main reason why I uploaded an alternative version instead of cheating and replacing the jam submitted version so I'm totally ok with that. I just want everyone's honest opinion so I can improve myself and so that I can improve the game itself.
Cheers everyone!
So I got ahead to playing this. It's a nice concept, I think I agree with people that the controls made it really way too hard for me :( the 45 degree offset and super slidey-ness made it hard. I was using a keyboard too, maybe it would be less slidey with a controller depending on how you programmed that.
Graphics are cool, music was nice and set the tone of the game well
A guess a good way to catch things like this is to have someone play test the game during the competition -- family members can be helpful, or alternatively people you find on IRC/discord.
Your soundtrack too. :)
A bit difficult to control sometimes.
Sometimes my ship stays at the fringe (image)...
Nevertheless I was captivated for how similar it is to the pirating stages of Nier Automata, while utterly surprised with the "Arkanoid" mixup in two of the stages. Nice work!
@gustavo.christino yeah, that's a known issue, it's basically due to collider and the spaceship actually not touching the ground. Will give that a second thought though.
@Jupiter_Hadley thanks! Watched the video and saw you struggling with the controls. Couldn't add mouse+keyboard controls so it was pretty messed up
@maesk it certainly does seem that way for the controls and balancing. Thanks!
(And glad you understood the reference xD )
As soon as I get the time I'll play everybody's games first thing. Thank you!
I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.
I hope you continue with the project.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape