Bantam!

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.22
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.65
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.77
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.18
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.88
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.65
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.12
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.05
Logo.jpg

Play Bantam!


Fly your ship around and visit small worlds. Fight the mechanized enemies that lie within. Win at Bantam!

There are no chickens in this game.

Play on the web or download for Mac and Windows on itch.io!


Look at the source code on Github!


Check me out on Twitter and my website

Also working on stuff at Ward Games


Controls:

On Ship

- Left/Right - Turn
- Up - Boost
- Space - Enter Fort

On Foot

- Left/Right - Walk
- Up - Jump
- Down - Duck
- Space - Shoot

Comments19

samlo
samlo1 May 2017, 17:41
Bantam!
Cooby1 May 2017, 18:58
Nice pixel art, especially with the outdoor areas and character. Gameplay was a little too difficult for me with the very high, very fast jump.
Epicsoft
Epicsoft1 May 2017, 23:32
Nice game, I liked it
kantieno
kantieno2 May 2017, 02:43
It's a fun concept! Was thoroughly unprepared for level 3! Some sound effects would be nice but it was a fun time! Would love to see this expanded with a little world building to make the overworld seem that much more adventurous!
Ratbag2 May 2017, 04:22
@dylanilvento,great entry! fantastic graphics, platforming felt a little flimsy, and I got lost many times flying around. Otherwise really solid game!
Ratbag2 May 2017, 04:22
@dylanilvento,great entry! fantastic graphics, platforming felt a little flimsy, and I got lost many times flying around. Otherwise really solid game!
impbox
impbox2 May 2017, 07:30
Platforming felt terrible sorry. Took me a couple of minutes to find the world to land on.
fancy89
fancy892 May 2017, 11:52
Very nice pixel art, but gameplay was difficult to master!
Hethsin
Hethsin2 May 2017, 12:02
Great aesthetics, pixel art looks amazing, but the platforming controls are a bit rough on the edges. Very nice feel overall.
paulhocker
paulhocker3 May 2017, 03:28
platform room was hard especially when there were four - figured out too late i could crouch - nice artwork and game idea - awesome job
C0nst4ntin3 May 2017, 18:34
Realy cool platforming game! I like the idea and it fits well with the theme.

Please also check out my entry!
Burgee
Burgee4 May 2017, 12:51
You must have not slept at all making this. There's a lot of gameplay here for just 48 hours of work, not to mention the awesome pixel art.

I loved the ship and the effect of flying it around and it was fun to find new worlds to go to, though a couple of times I got lost and couldn't find any.

The platforming needs some work. The character's jump feels a little jarring and key inputs last a bit too long for left / right movement. If you tap left or right, he moves for about 3x as long as you tapped the key for. Not really a big deal because (from waht I saw) it wasn't a precision platformer, but it still felt off.

The game was tough but really doable once you got into a routine. I played to level 3 and ended up dying because I got a phone call, (lol) but this was a cool entry.
🎤								dylanilvento
🎤 dylanilventoauthor4 May 2017, 14:22
I want to say thanks to everyone who played the game so far! I think the major critiques people have with the game are for the quality of the platforming and the difficulty of the rooms. I agree that the platforming doesn't feel great, and, given more time, I would've tried to tweak it to feel better. Tool-wise, I was using Unity's 2D Rigidbody to control the movement and jumping via velocity, and I think the movement and the jumping try to overwrite one another, cause a jump that has a high movement up but a shallow one left to right.

And for the difficulty, that was also a case of no time to playtest. I wanted to put enough challenge so you didn't breeze through the game but could also play it within one session.

Despite it all, I'm pretty happy with the result. Thanks again for the feedback! Keep it coming!
Yami no tenshi 8
Yami no tenshi 811 May 2017, 12:27
Pretty nice pixel art and quite much content in this entry. :thumbsup: I agree with what has already been said, the controls need to be polished to make the battles more entertaining. I also didn't understand that I had to shoot those grey statues at first, making them turning red when hit should be a way to indicate that the player's shot is actually dealing some damages to them.
Connor McGrory16 May 2017, 17:06
The audio got old pretty quick and the enemies felt kind of repetitive. But great job! The ship movement felt great. (Moving as a guy though felt like I was sliding on ice. Made it hard to land on the platforms)
Antti Haavikko
Antti Haavikko16 May 2017, 18:03
Would have loved to see more flying stuff. The ship looked sweet and it controlled beautifully. It just felt just right. Too bad it was pretty much just a level select.

And as other people have already mentioned, can't say the same about the platforming sections. After a bit I found myself just standing still and wailing on enemies but even that failed since dodging enemy bullets was sometimes near impossible with the controls and they had way too much health.
Superbusyrobot16 May 2017, 18:54
I enjoyed the overworld sort of aspect of the game, but the controls and whatnot definitely need more work. I would also suggest maybe going with simpler designs for monsters, as it's really hard to tell what they are supposed to be, exactly. I also don't know if it was the best choice to make them fire in all directions while the player is fairly limited to how they can aim, and the difficulty kind of feels artificial.

Altogether, it looks pretty nice and everything, but refining movement mechanics should always be a top priority before expanding content.
uvwar
uvwar17 May 2017, 22:32
Bantam!
philomory19 May 2017, 17:39
The pixel art on display here is really nice, and I'm a huge sucker for "multi-modal" games, so I really like that part too. As others have stated, though, the controls for the combat sections just don't work well. Personally, I think it's very rarely a good idea to use a physics simulation for platforming controls, a platformer needs to give the player much more precise control over the movements of their character than a physics simulation typically allows. Obviously, of course, compromises have to be made during a game jam, especially in a Compo entry. But if you're planning to expand the game at all, I'd recommend rethinking how player movement is handled.

All that aside, I really did like this, and would love to see a more polished version! Maybe with longer, side-scrolling sections inside the castles, and things to shoot at in your ship? Or, at least, some obstacles in the overworld map that still allow you to explore, but make the obvious, easy path the one that leads to the easier levels first.

Other games by @dylanilvento

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