Rhythm of the Tinymon-Catcher by DropMania
A short rhythm game with some Pokemon influences.
Story: You play a young kid whos dream it is to catch all Tinymons in the world!
Controls:
Walk - WASD
Interact - Space
Rhythm - HJKL
Restart Song - Escape

| Source Code on Github | https://github.com/DropMania/ludumdare56 |
| Game on Itch.io | https://dropmania.itch.io/rhythm-of-the-tinymon-catcher |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/rhythm-of-the-tinymon-catcher |
Ratings
| Overall | 122th | 3.647⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 119th | 3.543⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 207th | 3.171⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 294th | 2.824⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 164th | 3.543⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 7th | 4.286⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 167th | 2.971⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 144th | 3.443⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 55🗨️ |
A stick insect meme may be great for the tiny creature theme and rhythm challenge XD
The html version seems to have synchronization isssues between the notes and music.
- A whole ass exploration thing with maps but there's really nothing to explore
- A whole ass inventory of tinymons that... Do nothing? Well the first one gates the exit to the house, but certainly was not needed to actually do the gate.
- I guess my biggest gripe is that if you had cut the exploring map top down bit and focused on the rhythm game, it could have come out with so much more in terms of feel and mechanics :p
- I can't help but feel like the rhythm section's scoring was a bit rudimentary, but it does the job. No biggie.
- Would have been nice for the dance bit to involve some kind of visuals other than the bars. But not a big deal.
- The rhythm mapping + songs were surprisingly good considering this is was a jam. Do you have past experience mapping rhythm games?
Back to the difficulty though, it did feel a bit frustrating. The multiple notes bug hurt a lot, but in general missing notes is very painful, since you actually lose 2 points - one for missing it, and another for pressing a button without a matching note - while getting a note right only nets you 1 point. This felt a bit too punishing for me, and I couldn't beat the 4th and above trainers :( Although I did try, if only to hear their themes!
Overall though, I still really enjoyed it - awesome entry!
Because yes, this game is difficult and that was my intention. However you are probably right it's really punishing to lose 2 points for a miss. And the multi-note bug doesnt help.
I tried to balance the win requirements with enough tolerance but its hard to do that if you are the only person testing it :D
Glad you enjoyed it! thank you :)
Edit: Tried it again, and I think maybe it does have some leeway built in. Maybe it felt odd since there's a whole note of leeway after the beat, but almost no leeway before the beat. Otherwise the maps felt good to play though.
And yes the music is overall pretty basic and the mappings are all in quarter notes. I planned to make the music a little more interesting but composing and mapping like 6 songs in one day kinda makes you uncreative in the end :D
I will learn from this and make my next jam games easier^^
A couple minor bugs/inconsistencies:
- Twice I lost a battle despite beating the listed high score; is that not the amount you need to win? (For example, hitting 220 on the house directly across from the starting one, even though it says HS: 210)
- Escape isn't a great key for restarting a song, b/c the game works much better in fullscreen, and escape...takes you out of fullscreen.
- The music restarting when you enter a new area is a little annoying (mostly noticeable in the very first house)
- I wish there was some way to leave a conversation/battle once you've started, but it's either play through it or restart the game
And yeah there seems to be a bug in the end that just drains your points after the song sometimes... I have not figuerd out what triggers it..
And even though I have done quite a few games on Itch.io now, I still always forget about the ESC thing... maybe next time I will remember :D (surely not)
I imagine that if you add a story component, then the game will feel more complete, because now it's not clear why you have to walk from one place to the next.
Overall, it's a really cool game, and the songs are mapped nicely. I'd love to play a longer version of it.
I might pick this up again and try to make it an actual game :D it was really fun to make.
Ps: Please adapt the player movement to AZERTY keyboards (e.g. allow movement with the arrow keys).
However for a Game Jam I realize I should've made it a little easier :D
And I will make adjustments to the game like the controls and bug fixes. But I will do this after the jam to not fake the ratings.
I did it!
That was fun but the difficulty was a bit unablanced, I beat all the songs on my first try except for the one right next to the 5 tinymon gate. That song took me 4 attempts to beat. I mainly struggled with the back to back double notes. I found the last song to be very easy and got a near perfect but that might've been from all the practice I got on the previous song.
I enjoyed the rhythm game aspect although the keys were a little bland being just white rectangles, and I wish you had more feedback when you scored or missed a note. Maybe some tiny vfx or a subtle clap sound effect.
The tinymon seemed pretty pointless and tacked on though. At first I thought it would be a pokemon style game where you battled with a rhythm mini game, but in reality its a rhythm game where you just gain a tinymon when you win?
Kinda weird but an enjoyable experience nontheless