Hey hey! first time participating in a game jam, I hope you guys like what I made! (even if it’s a little bit scuffed lol.)
Sundae’s a classic top down shoot em up revolving around the plights of the game’s main protagonist, Cushma.
Here’s the link to the game’s Itch page. More info on the game can be found there. Feel free to let me know whatcha think about it here!
Also, one more quick warning, the game does get a bit difficult at certain parts, so keep that in mind, just in case.
This game was certainly a twist. I saw none of the plot points coming. Unfortunately I can also say the same for the enemies throwing cake at me.
Always use the Shift key. It makes the unfair possible in this game.
For what this game is, it’s great. So far, I have not been able to beat it yet but I never have been good at the style of game this is.
Although I really have to question the performance on this. There is no reason this game should be making my PC run as hot as it does when I play Helldivers 2.
It would be nice to have the weapons you started a level with carry over after respawn, because you’re guaranteed to die your first run in a level.
You’re completely right. I’ll see if I can maybe try and put a patch out for persistent items post respawn. (if I’m allowed to do that.)
As for performance, UE5’s already a pretty beefy engine, and I think my crappy novice coding is not helping it at all lol. It runs aight on my PC, but I’ve also had performance/framerate issues when i tried running it on my old shoddy laptop. I’ll see what I can do, thanks for commenting!
UPDATE! Added a V2 version of the game that makes enemies a lot less painful to deal with. They shouldn’t attack you from places you can’t see anymore. I’d recommend playing the V2 version of the game since it’s a lot less frustrating to play then it’s original incarnation.
I’ll still keep the OG version of the game up on the itch page though, just in case any of y’all feel that this new version is a little bit too easy.
I’m a confused on how to end the third level
I’ve interacted with the console at the top, but not sure where to go after. Leaving back through the main entrance doesn’t end the stage. Is it bugged?
It’s not bugged.
Just go to the left corridor that’s adjacent to the stairway you took to get to the other half of the level. you will find another set of stairs that’s blocked by a door. if you’ve interacted with the console the door should be open. just go down those stairs after interacting with the console and you should be sweet.
Completed Sundae and to be honest, I didn’t like it. The idea of hotline miami is good, but execution is really bad. Enemies shoot or run to you when you don’t even see them. You cannot melee them, meaning finding a gun is really painful, Moreover, I have to spam right click to pick guns because sometimes they just ignore you. And when you drop the gun, it will sometimes teleport back to you which is bad when a lot of people trying to kill you. And dialogue between main character and Bea is not my type, but i couldn’t skip it which really pissed me off. The game needs polishing but what came out wasn’t the best. I would rate it 2/5 because the Hotline Miami formula, the idea, and some of the levels were fun at least.
I’m really sorry about all the jank present in my game 
I would have polished it a lot more if I had the time to do so, but I had to focus on a whole bunch of other stuff (eg, spriting, art and mapping, those areas of development took ages to do.) so I could complete the game on time.
As for the dialogue, I’m also sorry I wasn’t able to add a way to skip it. Most of it was written/made super late at night for me around the time the jam was coming to a close so I did rush it’s production and implementation quite a bit.
Also, did you use the v2 version of the game? it’s a lot less frustrating to play, as it makes it so that enemies are far more forgiving, and don’t try to shoot you when you can’t see them.
Again, I’m really sorry you didn’t enjoy my game. There were a lot of things I could have done better, but I don’t have enough gamedev experience to do it all in two weeks.
It’s okay man! You tried and I think that important. I think you for gamejams like that you should try making smaller but more polished games. They still can be fun, just a litlle bit short! I hope your next project will much better 
Also, yeah I played V2. They still kill you from the screen and chainsaw guys right away sprinting to the player.
Yeah, I can’t even get past the first room. It seems like everyone on the map immediately beelines for me as soon as I spawn and it becomes a matter of “Will the game register my right click and let me pick up the pistol so I can shoot one of the dozen guys who come in through the door at the same time before I get shot down by the second guy.”
if it helps, try running a little bit away from the weapon before running back into it to pick it up. im sorry the weapon pickup system is a bit scuffed 
Took a couple rounds to get the hang of it but the game got very fun once I did. Having to be careful to not get hit even once and learning to identify which threat to take out first in a room gives a thrill and a very satisfying feeling of accomplishment once I succeed because I can feel myself improving with every run.
Currently, the issues I see are that we rely a lot on the shift zoom function which can be a little disorientating due to how fast we need to look around to react. Also, enemies can get stuck on doors and moving towards to door to open it ourselves is pretty dangerous. Bullets are also really hard to see when we are on white tiles like in the 3rd room of Takeaway
If you’re gonna continue polishing the game, I think zooming out the default camera slightly would help reduce the need to move the camera too much. A highlight for which weapon we are going to pick up would be good for when multiple weapons are piled up together. Most importantly, have a “Are You Sure” confirm menu when you press Esc to quit to main menu cause I accidentally pressed it in the middle of a run and lost my progress which was a little fustrating
Overall, the core gameplay is very fun and it just needs a tiny bit of polish to be a really good game. Shame there’s no WG (as far as I got at least) but having fat people/blobs is nice. Keep up the good work.
aaaaaa TYSM!!
I’m so glad you liked my game! If I ever do decide to release a post-jam version of the game, I’ll definitely try to implement your ideas. They’re really good.
Thanks for leaving such a nice review! 
I hope this comment is safe(moderators or creator can delete it if wants):
“It’s on the house. you would have done the same for me, right?.”
GOTTA GET A GRIP!!
(You’re all good bro <3 Very nice comment.)
JUDGES’ VERDICTS:
I will admit to finding this quite the frustrating time to play. It was immensely unforgiving without abusing the shift look function, pick-up not being registered resulted in a loss of multiple runs and the enemies being able to hit frame perfect shots before your brain can register what happened. I do however think the Hotline Miami style gameplay was a novel idea, certainly not one I’ve seen attempted before, but unfortunately it was just too unforgiving to be fun. The story was rather sweet in the end (pun not intended) and it definitely opens up for more stories to be told in that universe. With a bit of technical polish and balancing I think there’s a really solid experience to be found here.
Hoo boy, this game does not prepare you for the bait-and-switch it thrusts the player into. The first level is understandably the hardest with the player thrown into the deep end… BUT it was one of the games that I was compelled to see through to the end. Much like its Hotline Miami inspiration, it didn’t pull its punches but once you began to master the mechanisms the flow of the run and gunplay was immensely satisfying! Some of my most enjoyable moments in this Jam were found in mastering this game.
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PS: Fuuuuck that catacombs level which started you with no weapons though, hah.
