Kei26 - Union Game Engine

by fupi

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.83

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.35

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.90

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.79

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.47

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.66

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.86

Play here: https://fupi.itch.io/kei26

I recommend the downloadable version for a smoother framerate.

Kei26 is an experimental game about an aspiring game dev.
Explore their abandoned projects and learn more about who they are.

How to play

- Click on a project thumbnail to play it
- Arrow keys to move and jump
- Stomp on enemies
- Collect coins

Intentions

This is more of a walking simulator than a traditional platformer, so you'll probably find it really easy. My main goal was to try and tell a story through unconventional methods. Your reactions will tell me how well that went. :d

Things I didn't make

- All the music
- The explosion animations
- Most of the sound effects

I got those from Freesound and OpenGameArt, public domain.
All the rest is made by me, keep that in mind when rating.

Tags: #experimental, #story rich, #walking simulator

Genres: platformer

Tools: Godot

Comments46

MickM4 Oct 2021, 05:36

That was an interesting experience. Very cool little idea digging into the old project files.

The dev was a bit melodramatic, feels like the person that copies a few tutorials but doesnt actually commit to learning it as a skill? A pity that they gave up and didnt buckle down.

A little disappointed there wasnt an achievement for popping all the baddies in the level where they are overflowing in the platforming parts ;)

Great presentation, good job!!!

candlesan4 Oct 2021, 06:45

This was a very original game. I like the way you took the basic idea of a platformer but then came up with so many variations but then also so much custom code to make the different games end in different ways. I felt like the fun of the game lay largely in the novelty of seeing different ways the mini-games ended - for this reason some of the games had platformer jumping puzzles that seemed harder than I would have liked, but I'm bad at those. Regardless, great work!

Fupiauthor4 Oct 2021, 09:27

@mickm Yeah, that's what I tried to convey! :d The dev got stuck in "tutorial hell" then threw a hissy fit and stopped trying. Kinda similar to how I started but of course much much less dramatic.

Also I didn't put in anything for popping all the enemies cus I didn't think anyone would actually bother lmao, maybe I should have.

@candlesan Thanks! Sorry for the difficulty, I didn't reach out for a playtester this time.

HolyShot4 Oct 2021, 20:02

Wow, dude. That was amazing and really sad story. I, as a person who spent a lot of time on the development of the first major game, but did not manage and closed the project, I see feelings in this game that I myself went through. Thank you, for that experience.

Fupiauthor4 Oct 2021, 20:04

@holyshot Ah so good to know that my story resonated with someone! There's a little Kei26 in all of us unfortunately. :d Good luck on your next projects!

Reispfannenfresser4 Oct 2021, 20:21

This game is a great experience! It all sounds a little overexaggerated, but I know some people who seriously write stuff like that. (I doubt they would put it into a failed game project though)

~~Death of the author!!!~~
~~As you play you take on the role of the dev and the text is the current thoughts of the dev that's playing their games one final time.~~

Regarding the difficulty:
I feel like the difficulty differences made it more immersive.
Story-wise these levels are just prototypes by a person who just started out with game development.

Fupiauthor4 Oct 2021, 20:28

@reispfannenfresser That's what happens when you incarnate your edgy victimizing self and let your mind wander off with no filter. :d Ultimately no one *wants* to be that person. Love your theory too!

Game_Coder284 Oct 2021, 20:30

Wow. This is literally my favourite game from this jam. The story was amazing and the concept of telling the story through the dev's old project files is amazing. Incredible work. Keep it up.

Fupiauthor4 Oct 2021, 20:38

@r3l0ad1 Damn :heart: Thank you so much!!

Noctiphobia5 Oct 2021, 02:32

Pretty nice experience. The sad cubes are spooky, too.

shmador5 Oct 2021, 10:34

Nice experience, I liked the humor (3d cubey made me laugh ngl), And I really liked the way u did the ui and the menu with all the different projects. really cool vibe

joonamo5 Oct 2021, 17:52

Where can I preorder Cubey VR? :sunglasses:

DriagonV5 Oct 2021, 18:03

Holy this game is way too fun, I got attached to cubey lol, and it was one of those jam games that I couldn't help but finish, it pulled me in.

potkirland5 Oct 2021, 18:23

really interesting and intriguing game.! it was pretty original and a nice journey throughout

Fupiauthor5 Oct 2021, 18:43

@joonamo @driagonv @potkirland

Thank you all for the comments! I'm so glad you enjoyed my weird story. :grin: I'll play all your games as soon as I can!

DinoWattz6 Oct 2021, 01:43

I really liked the game, I got excited to see every project. I don't know if this is intentional but I keep getting stuck at "an actually good game" because the camera starts to freak out, well I think that fits the theme though lol

Fupiauthor6 Oct 2021, 01:48

@dinowattz Woah, that is definitely not intentional! I never had that happen.

Were you playing the browser version? Maybe if you download it, it won't do that. You missed a good chunk of the game so I'd love if you gave it another chance. :grimacing:

JammyGunns6 Oct 2021, 01:52

A great story of someone trying, failing and eventually learning failure is a thing to be embraced as a part of life. Pity they didn't decide to stick with it and see the failures as a chance to learn.

At least that is how I interpreted the story. Wonderfully done.

Fupiauthor6 Oct 2021, 02:32

@jammygunns Thanks so much! Yeah you got the story right. You're not necessarily supposed to empathize with the character or agree with their decisions, you're just supposed to, by the end, have some sort of opinion on their way of thinking.

Fluffy_Kaeloky6 Oct 2021, 23:54

I remember my very first game project, on Irrlicht Engine, controlling a ship to avoid asteroids. It was buggy as all hell, but it worked (As long as your PC wasn't too fast, I had no idea about delta-time when I did that). Perhaps I got lucky I never followed any tutorials ?

The story was touching, and the gameplay while not intense felt tight. (Also, yes, as said before, I'm disapointed that killing all the bad guys did nothing, I bothered as well :P)
The amount of levels and story you did in 72h is also impressive.

Congratulations ! :)

jessefreeman7 Oct 2021, 00:50

Liked the game and wasn't expecting the story in what originally looked like a simple platformer!

VirtualMan527 Oct 2021, 01:14

This entry was quite fun overall ! I enjoyed watching the story unfold, and the concept of using the engine's interface for level selection was very interesting. The gameplay and graphics were a bit simple, although I understand why you went for that style, and it fits the story really well. Congrats on a great entry !

Fupiauthor7 Oct 2021, 01:20

@fluffy-kaeloky Thanks for playing! Dw, this story isn't really autobiographical. I had a tutorial phase but it involved a lot of making projects from scratch and many mistakes as well. :p Following tutorials did help a lot but the real learning was found in debugging the unholy mess I created.

Joel Davis7 Oct 2021, 06:25

Really neat idea, great way to tell a story and one that you know your audience will relate to. :) The platforming itself was pretty frustrating and while that "fit" the narrative i feel like it got in the way of the storytelling a bit. But this was a good twist on the theme and quite original

Fupiauthor7 Oct 2021, 09:50

@joel-davis Thanks! And sorry for the difficulty. It wasn't supposed to be like that, to "fit" the narrative. I just made levels.. and didn't think people would find them that hard. :| Definitely should get a playtester next time.

osh.studio7 Oct 2021, 12:16

I am traumatized from killing the sad cube and then a million sad cubes came flying at me. This game surpised me a lot, in a good way. Simply platformer with a cool unstable take! I'm hoping its a character for the game, but if not, you should DEFINITELY keep making games!

TureGrappa7 Oct 2021, 12:25

Really wonderful! Good job :)

Sli7 Oct 2021, 12:39

Heh this is meta. I enjoyed it very much. It is smart and funny. Good Job!

Fupiauthor7 Oct 2021, 12:51

@osh-studio It is just a character! Don't worry ;w;

GustavB7 Oct 2021, 20:13

1st level: What is this...

2nd level: What _is_ this!

8th level: Who am I?

Love it, 5/5! Never before seen someone get such mileage out of a simple platformer controller :smile:

MisterPapi7 Oct 2021, 20:14

What a cool concept! It's executed cleanly for being done in a game jam. I really enjoyed the progression. Great work.

Zhenda Hu7 Oct 2021, 20:16

The graphics and sound effects were very nice and charming, but I got an error in the middle of the tutorial and couldn't continue playing the game.

Timur_Bahadir7 Oct 2021, 20:27

This was a solid game. It never got boring and i was looking forward to next level :)

Fupiauthor7 Oct 2021, 20:29

@zhenda-hu That's part of the game. Too convincing perhaps? :p Just press OK to go to the next level.

Peace Of Cake Games8 Oct 2021, 22:32

Constant crashes, bad collisions, and annoying popups.... yeah, this feels like Unity all right.

Certainly an innovative game! I love seeing all of the tutorial ripoffs, it feels just like when I started making games and spent ~10 months making ripoffs of engine tutorials and existing games.

Peace Of Cake Games8 Oct 2021, 22:34

Oh, and....

> Also I didn’t put in anything for popping all the enemies cus I didn’t think anyone would actually bother lmao, maybe I should have.

😏

Fupiauthor8 Oct 2021, 22:40

@peace-of-cake-games Uh.. bad collisions? :grimacing: Not intentional. Where were you having problems?

Peace Of Cake Games9 Oct 2021, 00:01

@fupi Hitting a block at the right angle (corner of box touches corner of block) lets you slightly climb up, I managed to save myself from death like that one time, but died immediately afterwards so I don't think it mattered. 😅 The slime-looking enemies also had some rather square-shaped collisions for such non-rectangular enemies, and there were a few other random misc things. All in all I think it contributes to the feel of ~~Unity's~~ Union's lack of stability though, I could tell from the loading bar that this is a Godot game and I don't blame you for using Godot over Unity.

Fupiauthor9 Oct 2021, 00:20

@peace-of-cake-games Ah ok, that's because the collider for the player is a circle. I'm gonna change that in a post jam update.

Tygrak11 Oct 2021, 08:04

Nice to see a story based game! "Cubey3d" was very funny, that got me. The concept of the game reminds me of The Beginner's Guide, which is a great game :). Good job!

mar3k12 Oct 2021, 09:26

Well done

Vivoubos16 Oct 2021, 16:30

Thank you for this game! So many questioning!
Very nice Entry!! Well made.

I can share the feeling ^^

Jonathan Lorenz20 Oct 2021, 11:59

I like the meta side of the game, I honestly thought it was a legitimate game engine and that the game was uploaded by a noob who wouldn't rename his own project. However, I'm not sure what I was supposed to do in the "editor" part of the game. Had fun playing the simple platformers. The iterations of the games were pretty close of my own gamedev journey (2d, 2d with more stuffs, 3d , jams...) It's very much a game for gamedevs, but I enjoyed that. Was hoping for a happy ending, but the ending is more ambiguous. Very good work!

Fupiauthor20 Oct 2021, 13:02

@jonathan-lorenz Thanks! The game engine part is just a level select, you didn't miss anything.

spode21 Oct 2021, 16:00

Loved the sprites for the main character and enemies! :D. Also liked the choice of music and sound effects fit the game well, nice! I'm very impressed with the whole "engine feel" of the game! The platforming also felt good to me / I had good control of the character and I think you had a good take on the theme. Only thing I was not a big fan of was the humor/wall writing, sadly. Overall good job!

Fupiauthor21 Oct 2021, 20:12

@spode Oh :neutral_face: Could you be more specific on the writing? That was supposed to be the main part of the game afterall. :d