Ayy, it's nice to see a family come together and work on a game jam together. While the gameplay itself is simple, the visuals and the audio really fit well with the general vibe of the game. Hope you guys keep up yall's journey in game development and good job!

Cool game! I think you should have worked a bit more on the graphics though.

The team is really adorable :heart: The music is made me a little afraid :)

Nice job, the visuals and audio give the game a great vibe!

Really nice little game to start your children on the "GAME DEV CARRER". If they are so eager to do it now, i really think they will be such great devs later in life. Chears and help them become the next team cherry!

Props on devin' with the family ^^


the doors were a bit confusing at first, instead of "you cannot enter here" you could write "you need something to enter here" for example, that way the player understands that they'll have to do something before the ending opens up. Also i would propably make the movement a bit more faster. But i loved the art on loading screen and the death-timer mechanic as a looping aspect! Great work.

it doesn't make sense what your doing but the graphics is good.

@kultisti, the "You cannot enter here" was simply because I was running out of time. My daughter had designed probably 8 other rooms that the player would be able to explore. The timer was set for a much longer time. The suit of armor was going to be spread throughout the castle and the player would have to search for each piece. Sorry if that came across confusing. Thanks for the feedback.

Really enjoyable to play and always nice to here about people using game jams to have fun with the family.

It's really heartwarming to hear that you pulled together as a family to make this! The graphics remind me so much of Atari and Commodore 64, I was really taken back in time! I grew up playing my parents' old machines, so it was great to feel like a kid again. The game certainly fits the theme for sure! My only real advice would be to try and give the gameplay a little more depth - however I understand you guys were running out of time. SDL2 is really hard to work with (I personally legged it and switched to GLFW and raw OpenGL, but then I am also a graphics nerd, take what I'm saying with a pinch of salt).

I hope you guys do more game jams together!

@matt-jones. I actually started my game programming with the openGL. However, trying to learn openGL and C++ at the same time was not working for me. I got the basics down, but was struggling with the pipeline. I have considered many times trying to learn it again, especially since I now have a much better understanding of C++. Thanks for the feedback!

I think the story behind the making of this game is really heartwarming and cool, I wish my parents could do cool stuff like this with me. That said though, as a game, it has a lot to improve...
- The main mechanic of the game, being sent back to the beginning after time runs out, is more of an annoyance than a mechanic. The only thing that happens when you reset position is that you have to walk over to where you were all over again.
- Not being able to walk diagonally plus the slow walking speed makes walking very awkward.
- The locked rooms at the beginning hint at more things to come, but when you come back after collecting all the items they're just empty.
- The music sounds like just random notes placed around.

I feel bad criticizing this game like this but I think that's what's gotta be done so all of you can improve and make way better games in the future!

@fupi. I take no offense to the criticism. I actually agree with much of it. Improvement is part of the learning process. This is the first time my children have ever done something like this. I let them be as creative as they wanted and used what they gave me. I only asked them to change something, or I changed it because it had to be done. I wanted them to feel that their contributions were good and to me, they were. I know it can change the dynamic of the game, and I was completely ok with that.

This was also my first time with working on a team of any kind for game development. That said, I spent a lot more time answering my children to come look at what they have done and answering question they had.

The part of the doors becoming just open empty space after the items are collected is actually a coding error in my part that I did not find until after the jam had ended.

Do not feel bad for the criticism. I respect your honesty and feedback. Thank you!

Nice! my recomendation is more feedback to the player!

I actually had to go back to this a second time as the first time I tried to play I didn't realize the context for it's creation. So I finished it, because honestly, your story is great. It's amazing that this is a family project, this industry is really booming and there's never been a better time to start learning skills for art or programming. It's crystal clear how much love went into this and I hope everyone involved is happy with the results. 10/10 would wander the castle again.

EDIT: Wanted to also include that the simple graphics actually drew me into this initially. Love the slightly improved Atari aesthetic, with a special highlight to the perspective on the walls which is very well done.

I personally enjoyed the music and aesthetics of the entry. Art wise it reminds me of some retro titles I used to play a lot of. The movement was also very similar to that period as well. The music helped drive home a sense of stress and reinforced the core game concept and setting. While I think it lacks some in the gameplay department, that makes sense given the nature of the development. Jams are always fun with family. Done a few with my little brother as well. Hope you guys had fun and participate in more jams together.

Nice game, Music really fit the theme and the art style reminded me of games from the 80s. Well done

I like the Idea that you only have a limited time to explore and it's quite intensive and fun. Personally I think If the suits will show up in random area, it would be better.

I likee the aesthetics, the game feels retro in a nice way. Although gameplay feels retro in a not as nice a way, jerky movement might be too retro for my eyes. My suggestion would be to use a more abstract castle with less detail but make it bigger in size, this would add a feel of exploration to the game, you can also add some purpose for the rooms to tell a story of a dungeon through context which usually feels awesome, that's what I like the most about such games (abstract visually, rich in world detail) Anyways, good job, thank you for coming to my TED talk.