Reviews

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Unfortunately the implementation is superficial. The game would feel exactly the same if the player was controlling a robot, a jumping car or a jumping fruit instead of a lion.

1.2. Fable:
Just because there is an animal saying that you should try again when you die or finish the level without all stars, this doesn't make the game a fable.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The star iridiscence is very well implemented and convincing look. However, it is not a core concept, since if the stars were plain yellow instead, the game would feel the same.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
A speech balloon is presented when you die or finish the game without 100% of the stars asking if you want to try again. But again, if it was not there, the game would be essentially feel the same.

1.5. Chart:
There is a pie-chart showing the percentage of stars collected. But it is so discrete and dispensable that no-one would miss it if it was not there and the game would be essentially the same thing, it was not a core concept.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The game idea for now is just a generic platform game. Platform games are good an quite easy to turn out into a crazy unique idea, however this game don't do that, at least not yet as it is.

3. Technical and code

If you click the `tins2023.exe` file, it will crash at the start up. To run the game, you must type `.\zig-out\bin\tins2023.exe` in the console from its root folder. This makes non-tech-savvy people unable to play the game. This could be easily solved just by moving all the files in th `zig-out\bin` folder to the root directory or just adding a BAT file in the root dir with `.\zig-out\bin\tins2023.exe` as its content.

The code is done in the ZIG programming language (https://ziglang.org/).

4. Graphics

The graphics are simple and crude and could be better. But they aren't a horrible mess at least and are somewhat ok-ish. Got iridiscence implemented in the stars and they look great and also got speech balloons implemented somewhere, but they are mere details instead of core concepts.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

There is some challenge in trying to find all the stars. Also, since there are some points of no-return, if you don't do it correctly, you'll have to do it all over again. Unfortunately, once you finishes the game with 100% of the stars, it is done and there isn't anything new to discover. And it isn't difficult to get 100% stars, there is no hidden trick there.

7. Suggestions for improvements

As it is, this could be the game's level 1. The game would be much more interesting if:

* There were more levels.

* There were objects like switches, keys, doors, elevators, teleporters, spikes, pools, traps or anything that makes progressing towards the level much more challenging.

* There were stars that are really very well hidden and very tricky to reach.

* There were enemies, like hunters, hyenas, alligators or other lions.

* There were Other animals that could help or hinder your advance, specially if they talk.

* There should be a reason for colleting the stars. Like trading them for something, giving them to someone or perhaps returning them to the sky.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

Stuck in the begin.

zig: error while loading shared libraries: libclang-cpp.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have the 15 version of clang, i don't know why can't take it (or he don't want).

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Jungle Tale is a platformer with a goal of collecting all twenty stars. The challenge of the game seems to be that some stars cannot be reached if you fail the jump to reach their platform in a single attempt, or you progress too far, too quickly. Either can make backtracking impossible. Therefore, jumps must be perfectly precise, and you must memorize the map's layout in order to get the highest score. It reminds me of the bonus stages in games like Castellan, where you try to collect as many gems as possible on the roads between proper game levels, under similar conditions.

Unfortunately, it seems that there are some stars on platforms simply too high and distant to be reached no matter desperately you mash the jump button, making a perfect score unachievable.

I must whine about the control of the lion, which feels floaty and inconsistent. It slides a bit overmuch for the precise movement this game demands, and I find getting through single-tile gaps in platforms overhead unnecessarily difficult. The lack of a walk-cycle animation on the lion greatly exacerbates this feeling that my lion is trying to walk on wet ice.

The collision detection at the corners of blocks also feels a bit off. I don't have slow motion video evidence or anything, but half the time I swear I made the jump with some pixels to spare, only to fall straight down as though crashing into a wall.

Lastly, I'm not sure how stars and lions are related, so the concept of the game wasn't too compelling.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None