Picoman

Was fun! I liked how you could direct the boomerang up or downwards with your jump to get those pesky critters on lower platforms you needed to jump on. I was looking forward to level 2 but it was a bit short: maybe more to come post-jam? :)

A cute little platformer! Same as @mit-mit, I was happily surprised when I saw level 2 and its fire-shooting dragons, but then it ended right after :P It's still a nice entry, with a quite long first level that thankfully has some checkpoints. The birds were occasionally so fast that it was very trick to evade them. After a while though I learnt to be ready at all times for a supersonic bird :)

The boomerang mechanic is well implemented, and even allows for some trick shots if we can learn to master shooting. By the end of the level I had learnt how to shoot downwards for instance, which is almost required at some places, but I feel there is much more potential.

If I were to nitpick, I felt the platforming was slightly frustrating at a couple spots, notably one where we have to nail a 2-block jump with a ceiling right on the 3rd block. Unless we nail it precisely we fall to our death, which may have happened to me more that I'd like to admit x) Overall the balancing is reasonable though.

Great job, especially since it seems to be your first Pico-8 game! The retro feel is obviously there, some background chiptune woud have been a plus but it's already pretty good.

@mit-mit @wan thanks for playing after your comments about the short level 2 I checked and realised while testing i had left it starting on the last checkpoint (whoops). It should be the same length as level 1. I have updated now.
@wan I had made some chiptune music for the levels, but felt it was a bit too repetetive and would get annoying to listen to for very long and couldn't be bothered to set up mute music options, so just stuck it on the title screen. A bit of a waste maybe. Glad you appreciated the check-points I had been tempted to be truly retro and give limited lives and make you restart from the beginning but that might be going too far.

Great little retro platformer. Nice pixel graphics, cute little intro music.
I liked that there were checkpoints, nobody wants to play the same bits they already cleared over and over.
Game was decently challenging but not frustrating. I liked the new theme and mechanics in level 2. Nice to have the variety.

The boomerang mechanic is more complex than it initially appears which is really cool. Worked out how to throw boomerang down the way by jumping then throwing while falling. I liked that this was left to the player to work out.
I think you should've left the music over the levels, doesn't matter if it's repetitive but it was fine without.

Nice game friend :)

I love the sprite work you did in here. Its really cool how expressive you can make just 64 pixels.

The boomerang mechanics were really fun. Like with the Shurikan game that was also submitted it felt like a lot of care went into the mechanic to make it feel great without neccesarily being based off of anything. I really liked you could dodge the boomerang to get it to orbit you, and If I were better at platformers maybe I could actually use that to my advantage.

Great entry!

This is a nice entry! I enjoyed playing it thoroughly! :)

The graphic style and sound effects create a greate retro feel. The controls feel intuitive (you picked the same keyboard layout as we did in our entry, so it felt like home immediately! :D ) and reactive. Jumping is nice but throwing the boomerang is even better. I like how you can make it circle around you if you time your movement correctly to the boomerang. If you hit an enemy with such a shot, it feels very rewarding!
Adding a second level is also a nice touch!

All in all, great job!

Super cute graphics!!! :D Really fun to play, but I died a lot and I was glad it has some 'safe spots' so you don't have to start the level from the beginning.
:)

I agree with @Laguna when it comes to the circling boomerang and the rewarding feeling, even though I hit most enemies more accidently then intentionally with my circling boomerang. … but it's something right? xD

Nice entry though :D