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Descend the Stairs's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #6 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Polish | #20 | 3.529 | 3.529 |
| Atmosphere | #31 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Overall | #35 | 3.353 | 3.353 |
| Art | #38 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Sound | #73 | 2.882 | 2.882 |
| Gameplay | #100 | 2.176 | 2.176 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Great little experience! honestly that's the whole review, you made something in perfect scope and competently. Any critique would be that i wish there was more animation of the character stepping, the 2 frames for each form made it a little hard to understand what we became, and the step down anim early looks a little stilted.
The animation on the stairs is great! and the environment is really well done! like i said, stop reading after the first line of this review, because that's the long and short of it, you did great c:
Thank you so much for the feedback and nice words!! Unfortunately, I couldn't catch your stream that day but I hope you had fun!
Im going to polish the game a bit more after the Jam ends and focus on the graphics more, as that stuff was kinda sidelined when I was trying to figure out the code of the game xD
A unique game with a very interesting story. The music was pleasant at the beginning—it’s a bit unfortunate that there were some bugs in the web version. If the game were a bit longer, it would be easier to fully appreciate the atmosphere, which is already quite strong. Perhaps adding flashbacks for the main character could improve immersion even further.
I liked the idea. The art looks great and the game ran smoothly. thanks
At the end of the game my own fingers felt the decay from so much clicking. But I did enjoy it. Good work.
Interesting take on decay and the theme! I'll suggest to add a sound when a pop-up is going to appear, I missed a couple because I was clicking to go down the stars (maybe the user could go down clicking the arrow keys and use the [E] key for deactivating pop-ups... idk 🤔). Nethertheless, good work!
Thank you for playing and for the feedback!! I did get the same from a couple of people who missed some dialogue due to continuous clicking... I already made it so you can only proceed dialogue only if you click on the dialogue box, but it probably is a way better solution to use a different button like you suggested
The artwork is pretty good, and I also liked how the theme was handled. It’s a “standard” interpretation, but it can also be seen as “the decay of the body in the face of the mind’s hunger.” Great job!
Thanks a lot, Im glad the visuals worked for the game! Would have loved to invest more time tbh, but this works too :))
Good story, the game is predictable, but it's nice still. Nicely paced progression, wasn't too long, or too short to see changes in the character as he's descending.
Thank you so much, Im happy you enjoyed the game!!
I loved it, such a simple concept implemented so cleanly, just beautiful. I'm interested in how the stairs are rendered, did you set up a way to pre-render them as sprites, or is it realtime 3d? My only criticism is that since there is only one in-between frame of the stairs for each step, I can perceive them as moving up or down, like in a 2 state blinking christmas light string. 3 frames will better show direction of movement in a repeating pattern. That and also that I didn't get to the bottom where I could become a badass skeleton.
Thank you for the kind words, Im glad you enjoyed it!!
The stairs are realtime 3D, I dont have much experience with pre-rendering 3D objects 😭
When the player moves, the stairs are simply rotated and moved up. Once they are outside the camera's view, they are despawned and a new stair is spawned underneath, so it doesn't overload the game :) It actually took me quiet some time to get it to work right, since the stair-animation is done through script as well. That is an incredibly good point though, another frame for the stairs and player animation would make it look a lot better, thank you for the feedback!
The atmosphere in this game is haunting, I felt the dread while playing it. And I also thought about this being a metaphor about addiction before reading the description, so you have conveyed the themes you were going for well. Gameplay is where it lacks a tad bit tho. I do understand clicker works fine for this sort of game, but giving player even A/D controls to move around will help the game a ton. You could also have multiple endings based on when/if player turns back. Overall super sick game, well done!
Thank you so much for the feedback! I had plans on developing the idle-clicker genre of the game more with upgrades, auto-clicking and a "currency", but decided to scrap it for now, because it wasn't doing a lot for the message that I was trying to convey. The idea to give players more freedom of choice and multiple endings is actually quiet interesting and I could use it well for a plot-twist to make the game less predictable. If I decide to continue developing DtS, I will definitely brainstorm a bit in that direction!