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Holly’s Splendid Sugar Rush Rally (Game Jam Build)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #48 | 3.898 | 3.898 |
| Visuals | #52 | 4.434 | 4.434 |
| Gameplay | #64 | 3.796 | 3.796 |
| Overall | #82 | 3.798 | 3.798 |
| Enjoyment | #89 | 3.888 | 3.888 |
| Theme | #266 | 3.643 | 3.643 |
| Innovation | #424 | 3.133 | 3.133 |
Ranked from 196 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
The game takes place in a candy society, an unusual setting where the player, enemies, and bosses are all sugar-themed characters. The entire world is built around this idea, so every encounter fits the theme. We wanted to contrast something sweet and colorful with fast, challenging combat. It’s cute on the surface, but the fights are no joke.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Most of the music was composed by our team’s composer. Due to time constraints, a small portion of the background music was sourced externally. Most sound effects (combat hits, UI sounds, etc.) were also sourced externally and lightly edited in Audacity. All gameplay code, mechanics, sprites, animations, and boss systems were created from scratch and are designed to be reusable.
How many people worked on the game?3
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Comments
Yeah this felt like a complete game good job!
Cool Game! I wish there was more to it though, Would LOVE to see it finished!
Perhaps you would like to try out my game :D
Okey, this a really good and fun to play game, quite polished too. Great job!!
Hi
This feels so complete and ready ship out.
I honestly have nothing to add.
Maeby most ready game I've played so far.
Very well done, team.
WHAT?! ALL OF THIS IN ONE WEEK FROM SCRATCH?! This is really cool! The only thing I can say is that it didn't play with the theme quite enough mechanically, as it's mostly just a combat platformer in a candyland setting, but screw that, this is awesome!
Nice art style!! Really well made!! Great job!
Really cool game my gf liked it :). Feels very polished with nice visuals, animations and engaging gameplay.
Insanely polished for a jam entry, everything feels lively and juicy, and the candy theme is super cohesive. The game also feels well put together, it’s the kind of jam game that feels like a published game already. If you keep developing it (maybe add a deeper progression), I’d totally play a longer version.
The animations are amazing, and the game is really enjoyable. I also love the art style!
this game is amazing, the art is realy cool and all the animation of the player is coerent and cured
I don't think there's much I can really say that hasn't already been said, but I'm going to say it anyway. Obviously, the art is really good! The style, the animations, and all the VFX as well. I'm extremely impressed that your artist was able to draw SO much and do all the animations and such. I usually consider myself to be pretty fast when it comes to making art, but I'm not sure even I could do all this in a week. The colors all work very well together in a way that not only looks really nice, but also doesn't make it too difficult to distinguish between things. Also, all the character designs are very well done and pleasing to look at.
The fighting and movement felt very good and wasn't too difficult. Although I do wish the dash let you move farther. That could just be my preference though. Boss fights were also fun and not too difficult. I also really liked how the two bosses had different patterns from each other.
I'm not as experienced regarding audio, but it all sounded really good to me! This music fit well with the overall tone of the game.
I think the weakest point of this entry would be the story/dialogue. I would've loved to see a little bit more regarding it. For example, some intro dialogue to set the scene and tone, and maybe a little end sequence showing Holly getting her TV back and reflecting or something. However, this game is already great as it is and I understand that writing a fleshed out story and integrating it seamlessly into a game that isn't a VN can be difficult.
Overall, this entry was extremely polished and I loved all the little details from the death screen, to the animated title screen, to all the little SFX. And I'm sure there're some extra little details I mixed. Great job on your entry!! This is honestly 4-5 stars all around.
Thanks! I wanted to do a bit more story but there was no time lol also I didn't do most of the animation's, Win did that in krita :0 using a mouse too :0!! Very amazing stuff from our lead and only programmer lol
Still very impressive! :D
Hi, thanks for the detailed feedback! If you’re curious about the animation process, it was a combined effort between our artist (@Hypercandychan) and myself. She did a great job establishing the visual style and creating the base character actions. I helped guide how the animations would function in-game and enhanced them to make the movement feel more fluid and responsive.
To save time during the jam, I used a few “shortcut” techniques, such as duplicating frames and primarily adjusting the major body parts rather than redrawing everything from the sprite sheets. Much of the process was guided by the "12 Principles of Animation", especially squash and stretch, anticipation, and careful frame timing.
Thanks again for the thoughtful review!
Cool! Maybe I should try that sometime with my own games :D
The boss fight was excellent! I had a fun time perfecting it. The shift x z controls were tough to get used to, but provided a good challenge. Consistent theme, fun music, nice art!
Thanks a lot for playing! I’m glad you enjoyed the boss fight and took the time to master it.
Just in case you missed it, the controls can be fully customized in the Options menu from the main menu. You can remap everything there to whatever feels most comfortable for you. Thanks again!
Woah this is a very polished entry. All of the art looks great, the music is well done and the movement is satisfying. I found the enemies easy to learn and work around, the bosses attacks are well telegraphed and fun to dodge. The only thing I would say feels off is the normal attack, which kind of felt like it wouldn't hit when I expected it to sometimes. Most likely a skill issue haha. I also appreciate the family guy death pose on a game over, overall a really solid game! Nice work!
Very polished game. Good visuals. Good job guys !
This is really impressive for a week's work! You guys make a great team!
I really enjoyed this game and it was clear a lot of work and thought went into it. I appreciated the responsiveness of the enemies getting hit like their attacks being interrupted when I womp them and multiple animations. The special attack was fun and satisfying as well! This game had Kill la Kill vibes which I really enjoyed.
I did feel like the controls weren't responsive enough and my character felt really sluggish in her movements which made the first boss really frustrating. Especially with the tornado attack being SO much faster than I was felt impossible to dodge.
Overall though great job!
Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback!
Just to clarify, the dash/dodge got invincibility frames and is designed to avoid attacks, including the tornado. Thanks again.
I did figure that out! The dodge i frames were pretty generous but I still had trouble timing my dodges with that tornado. I just needed to get good haha. All the attacks were well telegraphed too. Maybe I'm just not used to playing those types of games without a console controller.
Cute Pink Platformer. I liked the Jello platform that you have to hit to work. Made it a little more skill than just a jump up here.
A few parts, when dropping down to a lower level, I couldn't see the monster and would land on it, which would make me lose HP. It felt punishing because I had no way to know it was there or a way to avoid it once dropping down.
Well done.
This is a really nice well polished game. You even added a tutorial level. I really love the attack to jump concept. Very well done. Art was also super amazing.
It's seriously impressive what you managed to get done in a week. That is one of the most smooth, good looking platformers I have played in any game jam. Seriously impressed, I was going to comment on attack, special and dodge keys not being intuitive but didn't realized there was an option to change those as well so that's on me. Really impressive entry, hope you place well, I'm pulling for you.
This is actually such a good game for being a game jam entry... The ability to change keybinds (which are reflected in the tutorial text!), the polished art(the boss kills are brutal lol), the audio actually being balanced, the boss fights feel like they could have come out of hollow knight(if there was a dlc about ghost getting a sugar high or smth lmao)
My only complaint is the player character's movement(which feels a bit too slow, especially during the boss fights), and the lack of a heal(not really needed in the game as is, but id imagine it would be nice to have if you guys continued working on the game after this jam and added harder areas/bosses).
I am also confused by the green bar, does that actually do anything? it refills too fast to really empty.....
Overall, great game, would definitely like to see it being continued after this jam
- Crow
I concur
-Moth
Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback,
You’re the first one to notice that the tutorial text updates to match the changed keybinds, excellent observation! I’m impressed you caught that detail (Even the special attack UI, "PRESS X", text reflects the remapped keybind).
I also really appreciate the kind words about the bosses, art, and audio balance as well. The Hollow Knight comparison is seriously high praise.
Regarding the movement speed, I’ve seen a couple of reviews mention that too, so I’ll be speeding it up in the next update. As for the green bar, that’s the stamina bar. It decreases when attacking (for example, the jump attack recovers quickly and covers a 360-degree collision) or dashing (since it has i-frames). I added it as an experiment, partly inspired by Dark Souls, to prevent attacks and dashes from being spammed and to keep combat more deliberate.
Since it’s a game jam and players have different platforming skill levels, I tuned it more generously to see how it would feel. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I couldn’t implement a healing system, so I compensated with higher HP and more forgiving checkpoints instead. It was definitely a tough balancing choice, because it would be a shame for players to quit early and miss the full content due to overly punishing difficulty.
Thanks again for taking the time to share a thoughtful review.
This was quite a visually stunning game! Great work on the music as well! Thoroughly enjoyed the game!