BELLOWS is a fast-paced, procedurally-generated action game about escaping the city in a rather...unconventional manner. Use your trusty bellows to avoid crows, rats, and bats on your way to the top, and collect bubbles to make sure you never run out of air.
This is absolutely a fantasy I can relate to. So cool :O
That song is gorgeous, and chock full of ennui. It does a lot to build on the "escape from a dingy city" narrative. I love the second part, when the orchestra breaks into the motiff; unfortunately, I rarely last long enough to enjoy it, since it loops. Good motivation!
I really dig the art style too; the monochrome background draws attention to the black and white objects standing out against it. The way all hazards are black with white outs makes for a great, easily-recognized visual cue. I knew to avoid rats the first time I saw them, without instruction. Good game design!
The gameplay feels great too, and the rough steering is a new challenge my brain isn't used to. I'm glad you can recover from hits too; that makes things more forgiving. Though it's subtle, I also love the ability to spam the bellows after I run out of gas, to squeeze just a bit of air out and hover fruitlessly in the air for a few moments, before plummeting down; the way the game recognizes my desperation and characterizes it that way is adorable, and feels great.
I really liked this game's idea, but two points really annoyed me:
1 - Lack of quick turn: If there were a "double tap A" to switch directions, I would find this really fun and challenging. Without it, it feels like the difficult is too cheap. I'm either forced to spend a burst of air so I can be thrust vertically (which may not be an option if there are no bubbles nearby) or I may be forced into an enemy because there's not enough time to steer.
2 - Too random: Some times (3 runs out of 8, I think) I got no bubble until I was on my last "jump".
The music, however, was great and the graphics really cute! :)
Only complaint would be the spacing of the bubbles. ran into a couple spawns where there were no bubbles to collect, so ran out of air and died, or while travelling along, missed one then just as I ran out saw 4 above me just out of reach.
Great visuals, great audio, cool gameplay, impressive stuff.
Excellent graphics, nice theme interpretation, and procedural generation is assuring that every game will be unique. Still, it's a jumper, so it's not very novel mechanic. Nicely done, anyway. Should become a pretty mobile game filler-style.
You guys did an amazing job with this! The sprites, the sound-effects and the music all fit the mood perfectly! I think the mechanic of using bellows to launch yourself upward is incredibly creative and naturally you fit the two button theme. I also find the situation, the character and the death by enemies to be funny and enjoyable.
My main gripe with the game is the spacing of the bubbles. They feel too random and near the start, too sparse. It's fine to be challenging, but death due to lack of bubbles feels unfair. By contrast, I enjoyed it when I lost due to a crow collision. Another problem is it's too difficult to control your turns, but this might be more forgivable if the bubbles were more common.
Excellent variation on the runner/climber genre! I particularly liked that enemies didn't one hit kill you, and that there actually was an ending!
Personally, I found the game a little easy, though I see plenty of people talking about the difficulty above me. Maybe I got a good spawn, but I found spacing my puffs helped a lot. Maybe adding faster scrolling for people who rush would even it out a bit there?
Uu it's so hard, the controls are fun but definitely need a couple tries to get a grasp on. Also looks really pretty. I didn't get very far in the game because the difficulty was quite high.
Wow! The gameplay was smooth and the music was nice, but damn it was hard. Would love to see some stats to see how I'm doing and what the goal is. Feel like I never got better at the game, only less worse haha
wow, this is great. normally I don't like the asymmetric control (one button switches, the other is an action), but I think you've hit a sweet spot with the speed of turning and the range to cover. I love how gentle the puff sound is.
The controls were a bit frustrating at times. I think a press left/right to turn and press both to use bellows would be a more intuitive control scheme.
The RNG has also killed me multiple times in the early game by not giving me enough bubbles. (Though whenever I got past the early game, there would be enough bubbles.)
Wonderful! I absolutely adore the sound choices, the graphics were nice (Although I think I a sepia color palette would've added more to the atmosphere), and it's challenging.
Although I do think this game would benefit from three button controls, overall I gotta give this a some nice ratings.
AMAZING GAME! Loved so many things about this game. The music and graphics were beautiful. And I kept on playing wanting to hear more and more of the song. i loved how floaty and precarious everything felt. It made me really feel for the little guy. It was adorable. Thank you so much for making this game. We had so much fun playing this!
Nice game! Just think you need to work a little bit more on the generation. There were a few time that at the beginning I run out of air before I even see a bubble.
This game looks and feels fantastic. Would love to see this expanded post-jam! I think it would make a great mobile game (perhaps having the bellows moving at all times and then tapping to blow). Do you have a twitter?
This was a very clever game. I liked the idea, and I loved the art. But I felt like I wasn't in control of my character though. It made me feel like how well I did was totally random.
Wonderful music, great visuals. Very cool idea and usage of the theme as well, but controlling the bellows is pretty tough xD Guess it needs some getting used to. Cool, stylish entry. Good luck!
The game is great. My only issue was that using one button to realign the bellow make it way too hard. I'd suggest using left right for direction and maybe having the player auto fire to move up so it's more about timing and anticipating where you want to go. Great job!
Fun and I like the graphics and the game mechanic, but it's a little bit too hard, and hard to control. Great job though! The atmosphere is really good :)
I think that your game should have not 1:1 display fromat, because it is very simle to get out of screen to the top. But your game is very good. It has very good controls.
Decently fun, but quite difficult. The animals moving down made them hard to dodge and I'd frequently get hit twice in a row and be unable to recover in time. Additionally, the controls were a bit difficult to use and as such made getting where I wanted to go problematic.
On the plus side, the graphics & audio were enjoyable and fitting and the instructions were nice and clear.
That was pretty great. I loved the gentle sounds and the color scheme of the game. Also an interesting use of two button controls, if a little difficult to get used to.
The idea is great, but I would've found the controls a lot better if the bellows rotated between only 2 angles, for example, -45 and 45 degrees (if 0 would be pointing straight down). That way you could kinda toggle the direction and it would require less looking at the bellows' direction and more looking at the (beautiful) game.
That said, the graphics are quite good, music is great and the gameplay is very fun (minus the point made in the first paragraph). A clever idea with a pretty good implementation.
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The controllers are rather difficult though, but the game itself did become more fun once I got used to it.
That song is gorgeous, and chock full of ennui. It does a lot to build on the "escape from a dingy city" narrative. I love the second part, when the orchestra breaks into the motiff; unfortunately, I rarely last long enough to enjoy it, since it loops. Good motivation!
I really dig the art style too; the monochrome background draws attention to the black and white objects standing out against it. The way all hazards are black with white outs makes for a great, easily-recognized visual cue. I knew to avoid rats the first time I saw them, without instruction. Good game design!
The gameplay feels great too, and the rough steering is a new challenge my brain isn't used to. I'm glad you can recover from hits too; that makes things more forgiving. Though it's subtle, I also love the ability to spam the bellows after I run out of gas, to squeeze just a bit of air out and hover fruitlessly in the air for a few moments, before plummeting down; the way the game recognizes my desperation and characterizes it that way is adorable, and feels great.
Top marks, all around. You guys did great!
1 - Lack of quick turn: If there were a "double tap A" to switch directions, I would find this really fun and challenging. Without it, it feels like the difficult is too cheap. I'm either forced to spend a burst of air so I can be thrust vertically (which may not be an option if there are no bubbles nearby) or I may be forced into an enemy because there's not enough time to steer.
2 - Too random: Some times (3 runs out of 8, I think) I got no bubble until I was on my last "jump".
The music, however, was great and the graphics really cute! :)
Great visuals, great audio, cool gameplay, impressive stuff.
On one playthrough, I don't think I missed any bubbles, but I still died because it was too long between bubbles...
Nicely done, anyway. Should become a pretty mobile game filler-style.
My main gripe with the game is the spacing of the bubbles. They feel too random and near the start, too sparse. It's fine to be challenging, but death due to lack of bubbles feels unfair. By contrast, I enjoyed it when I lost due to a crow collision. Another problem is it's too difficult to control your turns, but this might be more forgivable if the bubbles were more common.
Nonetheless, I found it entertaining. Well done!
Personally, I found the game a little easy, though I see plenty of people talking about the difficulty above me. Maybe I got a good spawn, but I found spacing my puffs helped a lot. Maybe adding faster scrolling for people who rush would even it out a bit there?
The controls were a bit frustrating at times. I think a press left/right to turn and press both to use bellows would be a more intuitive control scheme.
The RNG has also killed me multiple times in the early game by not giving me enough bubbles. (Though whenever I got past the early game, there would be enough bubbles.)
Although I do think this game would benefit from three button controls, overall I gotta give this a some nice ratings.
Good job!
Seriously, though - really fun, strangely addictive game. I could have played for hours.
:D
On the plus side, the graphics & audio were enjoyable and fitting and the instructions were nice and clear.
That said, the graphics are quite good, music is great and the gameplay is very fun (minus the point made in the first paragraph). A clever idea with a pretty good implementation.