Pawn

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.30
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.66
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.34
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.08
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.17
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.43
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.06
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.71
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★75%
Pawn struggles with his identity in an abstract world.

This game is basically a little platformer with a story inspired by a hook in GZA - Beneath The Surface.

Comments26

Christophe28 Apr 2014, 09:50
I will always be a pawn I get it !
jorgemoag28 Apr 2014, 09:52
very nice entry,
captivating and mysterious, but it's very hard
Chompson28 Apr 2014, 09:52
The controls are ridiculously floaty. Pretty nice graphic design.
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor28 Apr 2014, 10:56
@jorgemoag Thanks :) The difficulty is intentional but hopefully not discouraging.
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor28 Apr 2014, 10:59
@Chompson I had some trouble with the controls, they should have been more snappy, but decided to spend the development time elsewhere.
evilDan28 Apr 2014, 11:18
Love the idea of the story from the pawn's perspective :D
Katamori28 Apr 2014, 11:28
The second levels was an intense for me to find out, and still not really obvious for me, what to do.

I collected all the stars and nothing happens.

I love the music and the atmosphere though.
b222ster28 Apr 2014, 12:11
Really atmospheric !
Contacaton28 Apr 2014, 12:15
My rating may be coloured by the fact that I think this game is awesome.
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor28 Apr 2014, 12:46
@Katamori That must be some sort of bug, when you collect all the stars next level should start. Was it web or standalone version?
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor28 Apr 2014, 12:47
@Contacaton There is nothing woring with being little biased ;)Thanks.
Jojo28 Apr 2014, 14:21
I really liked this game, the mood and story where great! The only downsides to me were the floaty controls and the long animation after you die. I almost stopped player because of the latter, but I liked the story too much to stop. :)
Diptoman
Diptoman28 Apr 2014, 15:36
I am no longer a pawn!
hexabeast
hexabeast28 Apr 2014, 15:36
That's a really great game, I did not kill the king and i don't understand all but it's poetic and original, Good job!
cr2crstudios28 Apr 2014, 15:39
You own a widescreen monitor, don't you? :) Interesting art-game. I like it!
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor28 Apr 2014, 15:48
@cr2crstudios I do :) I saw somewhere they are most common nowadays, so I do graphics widescreen. Glad you like it.
ChuiGum
ChuiGum1 May 2014, 07:10
Very nice, cool story
MintArcade
MintArcade2 May 2014, 08:39
WOW! This is one touchy story heavy game. Even my daughter adore it.
shadow64
shadow642 May 2014, 08:47
Really innovative and I love the use of the theme. I think the restart needs to come way faster. The duel takes some figuring out, in my opinion, since the solution is uncommon to most games (I jumped on his head multiple times, not realizing the true solution).

The music is good, the art work is neat, and the mood is fantastic, but you can die really easily due to the controls and restarting takes too long. My suggestion would be to give the player more control or shorten the respawn. You could do one or the other, but both would vastly improve the experience, in my opinion.

Great job and thanks for sharing! :D
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor2 May 2014, 09:09
@MintArcade I'm glad to hear that.

@shadow64 The duel was intended to be trial and error, but I realize that both the controls and long respawn animation are far too punishing. Something too keep in mind for next LD. Thanks for comments :)
joe40001
joe400017 May 2014, 02:36
You clearly have talent, but you kinda made a game design sin. You shouldn't have the hardest part be a randomly generated thing that requires getting through a pre-timed 2 minute thing to get to it. Sometimes the rain would fall such that it was impossible to survive, and then just having to sit through the first part for 2 minutes just because you had bad luck was pretty frustrating.

It sounds like I'm being really critical, and I don't want to be because you have great talent and creativity, just be careful when you make your game to make it "challenging" and not "frustrating". Challenging means the player's failures are the player's fault, and frustrating means the player's failures are the game's fault.

Again, sorry to sound critical, because your mood was great, the graphics were great, the audio was good, and the innovation was great, so just keep at it and be careful of small slip ups that make an otherwise great game a bit too frustrating.
Jadernak
Jadernakauthor7 May 2014, 11:57
@joe40001 I appreciate your feedback, no need to apologize for constructive criticism :) I can see that the randomness of the rain together with the controls problems might be frustrating and it wasn't in my intentions to make it non-survivable in the case of a bad luck. The point about hardest part being random is definitely very valid one, I'll keep it in mind for next time.
copain
copain7 May 2014, 13:02
nice mood.
(i had a probleme of scale with my browser (firefox): don't see left and right things...)
grayhaze
grayhaze16 May 2014, 13:34
An interesting idea, but took too long to understand what I was supposed to be doing on the first level and the controls felt too loose. I'm also not clear how this relates to the theme. I'm assuming GZA - Beneath The Surface is a song and the text on each screen is from the lyrics. This sounds harsher than I intended, but these are the first things I look for in a LD game.

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