What a great jam game! The sound was fabulous.
@boltersquad
Sorry, your game looks great too. Didn’t mean to be so off topic.
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Haha thanks and don’t be sorry, I’m glad to see others exciting projects too! 
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Thanks. 
I would have liked to have ranked higher, but it’s all a learning experience.
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This Game IS Awesome!
I love the JUICE!
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Thank you much 
Juice IS life !!! 
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Yeah, and full of cool devs !
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This forum has a like limit. Feel free to use this image above to express yourself.
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Challenge accepted, let’s break the limit then 
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Well… I think I just reached it
[Edit] False alarm, I can still like!
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@Frozen_Fried OMG I just played one of your games on itch, it was SO FUN!
For you guys who want to have a good laugh (and maybe rage a little bit): Restarting in 20 seconds… by FrozenFried
There is even a leaderboard! 
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Thanks ; )
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Tons of juice on this game! Would you mind making a ‘juice breakdown’ of what little touches you added? Things like that short delay when enemies explode into coins, or the random offset to the bounce animations of coins. I’d also love to hear the mentality behind how you decided where to add more juice. There’s something to this title that just doesn’t feel present in my own stuff, and I sometimes can’t figure out where to add more juice.
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@ComicallyUnfunny that’s a great question, and honestly a really flattering one, so first of all, thank you. You’ve got a sharp eye, and it genuinely makes me happy that another dev noticed those little details.
You’re absolutely right: a lot of the juice in Botherlands lives in very small, almost invisible things. The short delay after a hit or before enemies explode into coins, the slight randomness in coin bounces, tiny timing offsets… none of that is flashy on its own, but together it makes the game feel more alive.
One thing that helped a lot is that I built a prototype first, then remade the game entirely. When I restarted from scratch, I could think “juice first” during implementation, instead of trying to sprinkle it on at the end. Every time I added a mechanic, I asked myself: what feedback does the player get here? what does this communicate?
Also, “juice” or “game feel” isn’t always about big effects. Sometimes it’s very subtle:
- the smoky backgrounds in the menus
- reworking colors and contrast using the
WorldEnvironmentnode (huge payoff for very little effort, I originally used a shader, but it broke the iOS renderer, so this became a much better solution) - tiny delays or easing instead of instant transitions
- lots of nearly invisible details that just help things breathe, feel a little bit more “alive”
That said, I knew combat would be about 80% of the player’s time, so that’s where I focused most of the effort. Hit flashes, particles, exaggerated blood bursts to clearly signal a fatal hit (and give a small sense of reward), shells and weapons flying off… I tried to add feedback everywhere it really mattered. You obviously can’t juice everything, so I mostly prioritized things that either communicate important information or reward the player emotionally.
One resource that really influenced how I think about this is this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCj9CZoAvFY
It’s a great breakdown of game feel techniques and helped me be more intentional about where and why to add juice.
I’m really glad this resonated with you, and honestly, thanks for taking the time to look that closely at the game. Questions like this are always motivating to read
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Thanks for the tips! I’ve already watched that video like two or three times, but the tip about focusing based on time spent is big! I realized that my game feels not as juicy as it could because I put an even layer of juice everywhere, when really, it should be prioritized by time spent. Easing and bounce are also a great tip.
As for juice first, I feel like I hesitate to add juicy mechanics as I think of them, since my mentality is to test a feature without juice to make sure it’s still fun. If it’s fun without juice, it’ll be really fun once everything’s layered on.
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This is really good advice. I’ve got three game jam games I want to make into full games, but editing them is tough. There’s so many things I did that I’d do differently, even right when the jam ends, but I’m constantly trying to fix the original project instead of starting from scratch. I appreciate that advice.
This was an AWESOME video. I love it when people have thought about things that I intuitively know, but break them down into easily digestible pieces like this. In Katamari Mech Spcey, I completely forgot to add camera shake. And I don’t mean I forgot to code it. I had it coded and in the game. I just forgot to turn it on. One thing the video didn’t mention is controller shake. I think that tactile feedback is SO important to game feel. And it’s why I think lockpicking in Fallout 3/New Vegas/4 and Skyrim is DO good. You can actually feel how close you are and over time lockpicking becomes easier because you know how far to move the pick to succeed.
I encourage you to write a devlog on itch or Steam about these things. Not only would it be helpful and interesting to us, but a lot of gamers like reading how games are made. It could increase your engagement on your game in a direction straight videos may not.
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@ComicallyUnfunny that’s a really good way to put it, honestly.
I think your approach makes a lot of sense too, making sure a mechanic is fun without juice is a solid foundation. Juice shouldn’t be there to “save” something boring, totally agree!
For me it’s more about not postponing juice too much. Even a tiny bit of feedback early on (a hit flash, a sound, a small delay) helps me feel if the mechanic is going in the right direction and communicate the right things.
But yeah, the “prioritize based on time spent” thing was a bit of a mental unlock for me too. Once you see it, it’s hard to unsee
@dragonforge-dev I’m really glad that resonated with you.
Game jam projects seem especially tricky for that, you know exactly what you’d change, but you’re emotionally and technically attached to the “original mess” I guess 
Restarting from scratch felt scary at first, but it was actually very freeing. I could keep the idea and the learnings, without fighting old decisions every step of the way.
And yeah, that video is such a gem. It’s wild how much impact those things have, and how easy they are to forget (even when they’re already implemented ).
Writing a devlog about this is a really good idea actually. I don’t always realize what’s “interesting” until people point it out, so thanks for that nudge!
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My Post Mortem posts typically get between 100 and 300 views. My latest one for Katamari Mech Spacey already has 30 views and it’s only been up for a day.
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That’s a TON for a devlog/post-mortem. They aren’t really popular, unfortunately.
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I’m very good at writing them I guess.
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