MFGG - Mario Fan Games Galaxy

Review Information

Game Reviewed	Kamek's Midnight Flight, by Swoof
Review Author	Pedigree
Created	Dec 8 2020, 7:11 AM

General Commentary and Game Overview

Kamek's Midnight Flight is a shoot em up style game starring Kamek the Magikoopa. Nabbit stole from them and now they are attempting to recover their items. This game won first place in the MFGG Halloween Jam and it's not hard to see why. The potential here is pretty exciting!

Game controls are displayed as if you were using and Xbox controller with movement being possible with either the joystick or dpad, a to fire a single bullet, x to fire a spread of three bullets and b to use an item. Keyboard controls do exist, however, and are as follows: arrow keys to move, z key to fire a single bullet, x key to fire a spread of three bullets and c to use an item.

In this full game, there are three levels and a boss. A rather short experience which does make sense given the limited development time of the game jam. You will fight your way through a library, a level based on pumpkin zone in Super Mario Land 2 and Noki Bay from Super Mario Sunshine. Throughout you will fight a variety of enemies from floating books to japanese folklore and so on.

Credits for the game include Swoof, Kraken, Evan F, GamerInGeorgia and Sumdedguy. It's great to see talented people come together to develop a project like this and I do hope they will all work together in the future.

Pros

-Graphics are wonderful, thanks to the combined efforts of Evan F, GamerInGeorgia and Kraken.
-Music is really quite nice, I especially love the Pumpkin Zone music! Excellent work, GIG.
-I was surprised to see an opening cutscene! A very nice touch for the presentation.
-The shmup gameplay is well executed and fun!
-Items mix up gameplay enough to make up for the lack of variety in spell casts.

Cons

-I would have liked to see more variety with the spells you can cast.
-Enemy patterns are predictable and repetitive.
-Weird audio bug slipped through playtesting during the boss stage, becoming invincible cuts all audio until the powerup expires.
-Control screen only displays gamepad controls even though keyboard controls are available.
-Boss appears to be a placeholder, which seems to imply that the team ran out of time to fully see their idea through to the end.
-Game abruptly shuts down after you defeat the boss. A real shame given that the game had an intro. Would love to see an update to finish out this little story in a more satisfying way.
-Once you have defeated the boss, there is little reason to return.

Impressions

Gameplay 8 / 10	Shoot em up style gameplay is a perfect match up for the Kamek the Magikoopa character. It's a lot of fun to cast spells and defeat enemies in your path. Though I do wish they expanded upon the types of spells that Kamek can cast, the items do mix up the gameplay enough to make up for it. Enemy patterns are a little predictable and repetitive, but that's to be expected from a game developed with tight time restrictions. The game is pretty short with little reason to return once you've defeated the boss, but is worth at least one go!
Graphics 9 / 10	Graphics are well done and original, a truly wonderful collaboration from the great artists listed above!
Sound 9 / 10	Music is wonderful. My favorite track is easily the Pumpkin Zone remix. However, there is a weird audio bug that appears during the boss. If you use the invincibility powerup, you do lose all audio until the powerup expires. Presentation: I was surprised to see a game jam project include an intro animation. It was a cute way to get into the action. However, a lot of the presentation in the game does seem to be incomplete given the nature of the game's development. For instance, the control screen only displays gamepad controls even though keyboard controls are available. The boss appears to be a placeholder with no references to Nabbit and the game abruptly shuts down completely when the boss is defeated. I really do hope that the team finds time to update the game with a more satisfying ending. However I do feel that we should cut the game some slack given the nature of game jams, and I really did love the music.

Final Words

It's easy to see why this game won the Halloween game jam. This game is a lot of fun and I would love to see a version of the game that wasn't limited by time constraints to fully bring out the potential presented here.

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Comments

	GamerInGeorgia Dec 10 2020, 12:33 PM
Thank you for the kind words, Pedigree! As you said, we had a lot of issues that arose thanks to the time constraints of the Game Jam, especially when it came to the sheer amount of sprites we needed for the game and real life events that took large chunks of our team's time, so we're glad that we you like the game even in its unfinished state. Aside from that, I just wanted to make it clear that the Pumpkin Zone remix is the only track I ended up making within the time constraints (the rest were selected by Swoof from various official Mario games), though I am pleased to hear that that was your favorite. As far as I know, we are planning on making a DX version with more content, more polish, graphical updates, and a complete OST sometime in the future, so be on the lookout for that.
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