The games were assessed by Joshtek and Chris Street based on their gameplay, creativity and use of the Pesky Power-Ups theme.
We had four submissions to the Pesky Power-ups Game Jam, each approaching the theme in a radically different way. It was great to see how much variety this competition inspired.
Botti Bolt: Ctrl+Alt+Defeat was the clear Gold winner, excelling at all three of the main judging criteria. The author Devid K can now receive a well-deserved shiny prize from Clickteam.
Exterminator and Penguin Salvation both merited Silver, but for different reasons.
Power-Up Haven completes the medal rankings with Bronze, with its visual effects being a particular highlight.
STORY/BEGINNING
Botti Bolt jumps straight to the main menu, with a pulsating logo which is quite nice to look at. An array of items bounces around the screen. Upon pressing the game, a very nicely drawn story in the same pulsating style fills the player in as to why they're playing.
Jumping into the game reveals a beautifully sprited map world with a retro aesthetic to it. I really like this. Only part of the map is visible to the viewer, so, jumping into the first level reveals a NES styled platformer. The engine is very solid and smooth.
VISUALS
Beautiful. Detailed. Retro. I can't really fault these. If I was nit-picking I'd have liked to have seen some parallax scrolling in the platforming stages. Botti animates well too and is surprisingly expressive for a robot. Graphics are very varied too in each world - you never quite know what you're going to stumble across.
AUDIO
Very well curated. I feel chiptune themed music would have suited the aesthetic better though. Sound effects are cute and twee
GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS
Controls are fairly straightforward - X allows you to jump, while C lets you shoot with the limited number of bullets you have. Don't waste the bullets, which can shoot through certain blocks, can be aimed in four directions and are required to progress in certain sections. Perhaps moving around the world map could be a little quicker. The engine is extremely solid throughout and is very impressive. Checkpoints are present in each of the stages. There's even a shop in the overworld where Botti can upgrade himself.
FUN FACTOR
Fantastic fun. I really, really REALLY like this game. I would be quite happy to see this on my Nintendo Switch. The game is responsive, it's addictive, retro and screams originality to boot. I had a hard time tearing myself away to be honest.
USE OF THE PESKY POWER-UP THEME
Botti can pick up a range of power-ups that impact its behaviour. One (the Stone Powerup) makes him heavy, so he can't jump high, but can jump through certain blocks. Made me think of Warioland 4. Botti can also collect batteries to charge up his health. The Ice power-up makes him slide around, while the Snail created a trail of slime. The Beans powerup is amusing, allowing Botti to "fart" and jump higher. Bad Vision gives me Binding of Isaac vibes. I am very satisfied that this category is met - Devid has clearly understood the brief.
THE POSITIVES
Everything! It's pretty much perfect.
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
CREATIVITY: 8/10
USE OF THEME: 10/10
TOTAL: 27/30
Joshtek's comments and scores:
This game is a delight. It was easy to pick up and play, but the more I played a level the better I got at it. And I wanted to replay each level to do better, to explore some of the areas not explored, and to collect the screws for power-ups. It's amazing how much content was made in 20 days, and there is some excellent level design. The way that the yellow keycards are often hidden or made hard to find is a fun challenge. There is plenty of variety in the gameplay due to the different visual themes, the different power-up combinations, and the boss levels. I can see lessons learned from feedback given for previous games such as Bald Man, including the use of checkpoints and letting the game breathe enough so it doesn't feel like one big series of tutorials. It is possible that there aren't as many overtly clever puzzles as some of Devid K's other games like Bald Man and PILE & JAJE, but that does allow for it to maintain momentum.
GAMEPLAY
Fun to play and fun to re-play. All amazingly smooth considering the level of ambition, although the bouncing power-up feels a bit broken. You have to learn how long to hold the buttons and learn the jump distances and quirks of the different power-ups in order for the controls to work, but that is part of the game and improves the more you play.
CREATIVITY
Definitely similarity to Bald Man which was itself recognisable compared to games like Wario Land, but the fun user-created graphics work well with the game. The level design worked very well with plenty of variety. There was a good variety in power-ups. While not a strong part of the game there was a passable storyline basis for it all. The enemies are probably some of the weakest elements creatively, and the music and sounds while appropriate were not created by the developer and were generally unremarkable. I agree with LordHannu that the rocket was an amusing highlight.
USE OF THE THEME
The peskiness was primarily delivered through the implications of the power-up roles you assumed, which were sometimes mandatory and sometimes something you could avoid. Definitely had moments where I thought to myself: "Man, that power-up is pesky". Even some of the power-ups which helped often had their own down-sides in terms of ability to jump high or to easily control where you land. The basketball one while not great from a gameplay perspective was especially pesky. The improvements you could buy, which were the ammo and extra health, didn't have any downsides, but I guess having more firepower makes you more pesky to the enemies. The power-up roles were key to the gameplay and level design.
VERDICT
This is not just a great entry, it is also a great game that will be immediately added to my 'recommended' list. Well done on successfully delivering such a polished and ambitious project in only 20 days!
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 9.5/10
CREATIVITY: 9/10
USE OF THEME: 10/10
TOTAL SCORE: 28.5/30
Exterminator by LordHannu (Action platformer Metroidvania)
STORY/BEGINNING:
A polished (although unskippable) introduction sequence in space, leads to the title screen. Quite pleasant. Clicking to begin, we see a spaceship head towards a planet, and we are then straight into the gameplay in the form of an interactive albeit brief tutorial. What perplexes me though is the name - is the game supposed to be called Exterminator (the name of the protagonist), or Extermiator?
VISUALS
The player controls a quite nicely animated mech, but it only ever faces one direction - right. Nice particle effects where the shooting of weapons is concerned. There is parallax scrolling. The graphics appear to be a slightly strange inconsistent mix of fairly detailed sprites and Photoshopped backgrounds.
AUDIO
Music consists of a kind of techno/trance theme. I quite like it, but it's a bit repetitive. Sound effects are reasonable
GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS
The controls are a bit odd. A moves left, D moves right, Spacebar jumps. You also control a reticule with the mouse. This is used to select weapons and shoot them. You need to be an octopus to play this game and I wish these were implemented better as they let down the game for me. They can however be changed via the top menu, but only in windowed mode. Weapons can destroy all the terrain, and everything reacts to the newly deformed terrain. A very impressive engine! To be honest I'm just having fun by mucking around with the terrain destruction alone. But it's often necessary to do this to progress through the stages.
Enemies are easily defeated at a distance, however they can sometimes surprise you by dropping in from above, so quick reflexes are required. However, on occasion they also sunk through the floor. I got classic scrolling beat-em-up vibes from this element and found it enjoyable. Weapons can be collected, and toggled via the number keys ala the Gunner games by KNPMASTER. They can be shot in all directions. Some weapons seem to be more inefficient than others.
However.
I managed to die. Upon respawning my mech completely disappeared. I had to restart the game all. Over. Again. This, along with other niggles - including the controls - does knock down the overall score a bit.
USE OF THE PESKY POWER-UP THEME
Enemies drop collectibles called Credits - I'm not sure what these do yet. These are coloured blue. They also drop red collectibles which increase your health. This is poorly explained. There are also weapons to collect as well as jet-boosters for your mech. I wouldn't interpret these power-ups as "pesky" per se; they are atypical for a game like this, but they do work well.
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
CREATIVITY: 7/10
USE OF THEME: 7/10
TOTAL SCORE: 21/30
Joshtek's comments and scores:
As an experiment or Fusion showcase this is great. As a game jam entry it is good. There's a lot of elements which lack polish, from visual issues such as the player only ever facing in one direction (as per the project page) to the game respawning the player without a visible character if they die.
The author notes "I thought it was fun to play and it looks really cool to shoot away terrain", and they are right. I love the art style, which is a definite highlight.
Destructible terrain is novel, at least at first. However because you just shoot through the terrain and there are no real hazards or clever uses of the terrain it isn't used to its full creative gameplay potential.
I appreciate the arrows to show where you should go, as getting lost isn't fun when everyone respawns when you leave and re-enter a screen and you have a large world to explore.
I like the variety of guns which added some variety, but nothing was drastically different.
I collected a lot of credits, but couldn't find any way to spend them.
The game was renamed "pesky upgrades competition" in the opening and credits rather than pesky power-ups. I found the guns fun and the final gun did have a specific gameplay purpose, but nothing particularly more pesky than in a standard action shooter game with the exception of the fact that the weapons can destroy the terrain.
The game can be completed in under 10 minutes, but it took me around 12.
GAMEPLAY
When it works it's pretty fun action with decent controls. It has a few bugs (including some that require you to fully restart the game) and you can easily get lost if you decide to ignore the arrows. This game was arguably too easy, not requiring much by way of strategy. Short and sweet.
CREATIVITY
The destructive terrain is pretty creative, but the fact you mostly just blast through the levels without much strategy means the screens feel a bit samey despite the fact that a lot of effort went into drawing the levels.
USE OF THE THEME
This game doesn't really feel like it has power-ups at all, and certainly no more than an average action game. It was supposed to use credits for upgrades, but this was never implemented. The different guns add some variety and the fact they can shoot through walls and easily kill monsters make them pretty 'pesky' to the walls and enemies.
VERDICT
The destructive terrain is creative and the game is generally fun. While the bugs can be forgiven, the game is let down by its lack of real challenge and especially by its failure to make good use of the 'pesky power-ups' theme.
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 7.5/10
CREATIVITY: 7.5/10
USE OF THEME: 3.5/10
TOTAL SCORE: 18.5/30
Penguin Salvation by MinkoedZamorVedro (Eight-directional adventure/RPG)
The peskiness in these power-ups comes from the difficulty in finding them as well as the destructive power of some of the powers they give you. It starts off overly slow and hard which is especially tricky for an exploration game where you don't initially know where to go, but does pick up the pace as it progresses and it is handy that when you get a few save points you can use them as quick jumps.
This game reminds me a bit of The Wizard & The Shadow Beast by The MPP, and it was useful that I had played games like this (including some of Scott Cawthon's Flan games) before to understand the way that it uses hidden elements that require a bit of experimentation to supplement the exploration so as to allow progress.
The GameJolt trophy integration was a nice touch, and I especially appreciated how when I logged in later it picked up on the trophies I had already obtained throughout my play.
The music got a bit grating after a while. You may wish to use Ctrl+M to disable it and play your favourite tunes in the background.
The experience would be improved if the enemies stopped moving while you are reading the power-up dialogues (mostly an issue in the early game) because trying to speed read the power-ups while being killed isn't fun.
GAMEPLAY
Score reduced because it is too slow and difficult to start (a triple combo of having no way to kill the seals at first; moving slowly; and not really knowing where to go). Once it gets going it gets more fun, so it's worth sticking around. Some fun dialogue and scenes but doesn't require much by way of strategy or skill. The fact the collisions are for the whole body and not just the feet make the game feel amateurish, but other elements show quite a good use of the Clickteam Fusion engine. It has clearly had testing to make it mostly bug free, but the game still suffers from a lack of development time to smooth out the gameplay experience where a few thoughtful touches could have elevated everything.
CREATIVITY
Original art by the developer (and Convert2Double aka CavernCroc) shows some creativity and is charming and fits the feel of the game, but the music got repetitive quite quickly. Some creative gameplay and storyline twists.
USE OF THE THEME
The power-ups were key to the gameplay. Some power-ups certainly felt pesky to find, and the step ups in attack power was palpable.
VERDICT
This game works well on paper, it has a fun look and feel, and there's lots of individual elements to like. Tedious early gameplay is the main thing which holds this game back.
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 6.5/10
CREATIVITY: 7/10
USE OF THEME: 8/10
TOTAL SCORE: 21.5/30
Chris Street's comments and scores:
STORY/BEGINNING
A rather unsettling introduction featuring rudimentary visuals of an igloo, with a penguin and a pig inside. The penguin and pig are real photos. They are arguing about dangerous seals and if mammals are a superior race. Suddenly the pig disappears, and the penguin enjoys an egg. Two years later, we reach the title screen - a basic design.
Game begins with penguin inside an igloo. I've no idea what I'm supposed to do. The game seems to involve collecting powerups, but it's more of an inventory. It's accessed (like the title screen) by clicking on an icon rather than pressing a key.
VISUALS
Graphics are... ok. You can at least work out what everything's meant to be. Everything seems to have been scribbled quickly in Microsoft Paint, but there's a sort of charm to the visuals. Penguin leaves behind footprints when it walks. Corpses of animals populate the land. The penguin is barely animated when it walks. When it swims, it looks a bit better.
AUDIO
The main world operates with a generic MIDI track, and somewhat appropriate sound effects for the actions your player performs. All very library-ish. The music gets very annoying on repeat though. Although I appreciate the throwback to classic klik games that used Doom's opening level MIDI in the lava world.
GAMEPLAY AND CONTROLS
There are instructions on the side as to what the controls are.
Penguin often gets caught on invisible edges of the background. "Collision With Box" option has definitely been selected with this. I picked up a key and stumbled across a wooden door. Walking into the door, and it just disappears. Penguin moves extremely slowly. After wandering around the snowy plains, I stumbled across a new power-up - Shovel Fish - which allows the player to dig by pressing CTRL. I'm not sure what this does other than seemingly leave opened bags of flour on the snow. I like the fact there are save crystals dotted around.
To Dive, you hold SHIFT. I assumed initially this allowed the penguin to dive and slide anywhere it wanted to, but these controls are actually used for when the penguin's in water, where an oxygen meter decreases. When the meter hits zero, the penguin magically reappears on the surface. This diving mechanic reminded me a little of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The enemies (the seals) aren't animated at all and follow the player around like they're on a piece of string. If the penguin collides with them, it gets injured.
FUN FACTOR
Sometimes I wish I didn't have to be a judge. The effort's been put in, but I didn't find Penguin Salvation to be particularly enjoyable. This is predominantly down to the engine and speed of the player. It's far too slow a game to be enjoyable. In the end, although I tried, I gave up with this (until Joshtek gave me his save file, and the gameplay did improve a little, with the penguin being able to move more quickly.)
USE OF THE PESKY POWER-UP THEME
The brief is met on a basic level. As mentioned, the power-ups are often more like collectables/abilities such as keys and health increases, and the ability to swim in lava. It's all very... ok.
HOWEVER, SOME POSITIVES
- The diving mechanic was good, albeit somewhat rudimentary.
- The introduction was mildly amusing.
- There was a save/checkpoint feature.
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 4.5/10
CREATIVITY: 7/10
USE OF THEME: 5/10
The author didn't follow the instructions as to what to include inside the game in terms of acknowledgments, but did deliver on the pesky power-ups theme. Arguably the game is too pesky, with a difficulty level which is far too high for my liking.
While I was able to improve by replaying the game, it was still too difficult for me to be able to enjoy the gameplay and theme fully. Any corruption from power-ups was dwarfed by the fact that whatever you do you die after a few minutes.
There was a lack of clear progress towards a goal or way to track improvement (e.g. score or timer showing how long you survived), and so while it was easy to start playing again I lost motivation before too long.
I think another week of development addressing these issues would have resulted in a much higher score, so I hope the author releases a version two or sequel in the future as I'd love to see what it could become if it lived up to its clear potential.
GAMEPLAY
Lots of action. Always clear what to do, with intuitive controls. Some potential for use of tactics. Quick to get back in the game. Audio and graphical effects enhance the gameplay by conveying a great look and feel. However, let down by inevitable death after a few minutes and a general sense of unfairness meaning I just found it too challenging to actually get into it properly and didn't feel like I would greatly improve through improved strategy above my initial gains.
CREATIVITY
A pretty basic WSAD/keyboard shoot the enemies game with okay graphics, elevated with some excellent use of visual effects. The sounds were not by the author, but did fit well.
USE OF THE THEME
The idea that the power-ups corrupt you more is pretty fun and fits well with the theme of the game and the competition, and the visual way of representing this adds to the ambiance. However, the difficulty means you often never even get to a power-up and they don't have a big impact on the gameplay as you tend to die even with the power-ups.
VERDICT
Lots of potential, with the visual effects and the 'look and feel' (including choice of sound effects) being a highlight. With more polish and difficulty settings and clearer strategic options this could be quite a fun game.
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 4.5/10
CREATIVITY: 6.5/10
USE OF THEME: 6.5/10
TOTAL SCORE: 17.5/30
Chris Street's comments and scores:
STORY/BEGINNING
Power-Up Haven jumps straight to a title screen featuring very thick scanlines overlaying what appears to be a level layout. Clicking the "Play" button throws the player into the deep end immediately with no indication as to what's required of them.
VISUALS
Generally very basic and rudimentary, but the lighting effects are very well done. The light wraps around objects and is easily the most technically proficient element of the game.
AUDIO
The music consists of a haunting, futuristic droning. It reminded me of some music I used to "generate" using a program called Mixtikl. I quite like it though. Sound effects are atypical of klik games, with the usual array of shooting effects.
GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS
The levels revolve around a top-down environment comprising of lots of blocks and beds, so I'm assuming the environment is some kind of hospital? Some of these blocks have green circles but don't appear to do anything. Ominous squares containing the words "Escape while you can!!!" are scattered around the stage. You appear to be a robot armed with a gun, containing limited bullets. Once the robot runs out, it must reload them all again, which takes an age, but adds a tactile layer to the gameplay. There's no apparent way to manually reload at any point, however (until you stumble across the creator's YouTube video which does in fact tell you that pressing "R" reloads (why wasn't this referenced in the game?? Why not use the right mouse button to reload?)).
Enemy bots wander around and bounce around the level, and can "lock on" to you if they see you or get close to you. Other enemies shoot at you. They all require a good number of hits before they're destroyed. They appear in continuous waves from drain covers. With Power-Up Haven's contemporaries such as Destruction Carnival or Factor X, there's usually a limit of the number of enemies on-screen at any one time during a wave. Not in this game. They need to be dealt with quickly before the player gets overwhelmed.
Your own robot is controlled by the W,A,S,D keys for movement, and offers 360 degree shooting with the click of a mouse. The player engine is solid enough.
FUN FACTOR
It's... ok. My gripe lies within the fact that enemies can easily overwhelm the player, and, with a limited number of bullets, and enemies acting as bullet sponges, the player can get hemmed in quite quickly and die. This is a rather difficult game, and one that I didn't enjoy too much. The strategy seems to involve not moving too much and waiting for enemies to come to your little corner where you spawn - try and kill them, and then inch your way forward. This strategy isn't a fun one and the number - and aggressiveness of the enemies seems rather unfair. Improving the reloading mechanism would mitigate this a bit though.
USE OF THE PESKY POWER-UP THEME
Power-ups are received once you've beaten a wave. They add perks to the player, such as allowing bullets to pass through enemies, increased fire-rate, etc. I feel this could have been implemented in a much better way. You never see any power-ups - just a bit of text indicating what your upgrade is.
THE POSITIVES
- Nice lighting effects
- Decent, atmospheric music
- Solid engine
OVERALL SCORES:
GAMEPLAY: 6/10
CREATIVITY: 5/10
USE OF THEME: 3/10
Advertisement
Gold award: - WINNER!) - 
Silver award) - 
Bronze award) - 
