Christmas SAGE 2023 Susan Taxpayer - Christmas SAGE Demo!

Took me way too long to get around to playing this. I loved it! This was a very interesting take on the Wario-like and the looser Mario-esque movement gave it a unique feel. The only jank was obviously SMB2X jank, though as pointed out the ground pound jump timing is a little strict (I know it's being worked on, it's ok!!).

Loved the aesthetic too. The graphics were very cute; they struck me as less Pizza Tower and more goofy Twitter shitposts. Music was also fantastic and I appreciated all the silly sound effects in it.

Amazing all around. Can't wait to see more!

Immaculate love letter to Wario Land and the whole corporate hellscape theming it's going for. The characters are all charming as hell and the gameplay was very smooth, though the game would benefit from a little more animation frames, but you could honestly argue the lack of is part of the charm.

Please keep up the amazing work, and I'm excited to see this grow!

I saw that people talked a lot about this one, so I thought I might as well play it since it looks interesting, and yeah, I'd say it was a very good playing experience.

The gameplay is just a reskin of Wario, well duh, it uses the SMBX engine and I am... completely okay with that, aside from the hassle of having to install SMBX in order to play it, I can think it as a total conversion and I think that the level design the game offers is quite solid, at first I was confused but then I realized that I should search for every nook and cranny I can, why I am discovering this so late? well, I'll tell you later, but needless to say it's necessary to have your brain working a bit to find everything.

The graphics are very good and very colorful, I think the cartoony style fits with the game a lot and it's not shaded or anything, but this is minimalism done right so sprites are easy to read and the animations are fluid, a case where less is more.

The music is very good, while it's not something I'd listen outside the game, it goes perfectly with the usual gameplay and the comical antics, not much to say here.

As on an aside, I should rate the humor, I'd say the writing and the slapstick in the game is very funny, it didn't get me lauging out loud but a lot of the dialog made me crack a smile, well except for this bit that made me laugh:

Glad to see this game has important life lessons!

The game is not perfect tho, for two things, first is a minor and the other is a major one.

The minor caviat being that susan is a wee too slow for my taste, I don't know if it's that or that the levels are too spacious, maybe she could benefit from running slightly faster, and also that I'd like if I had more time of opportunity to make the stomp jump thingy, because many times I'd fail it.

And the major one is that at first the controls seemed unintuitive and unclear, but that's because... I saw the tutorial later, yeah, if I see a door and that's the first door of the game, I am going to assume that's the first level I should play, but no, what I should had done is walk to the right and play the tutorial, which I didn't knew it was a tutorial because it was the second door! Like I wasn't clear if that was the tutorial of the game or not, because of the name of the levels, if it had a sign saying "learn how to play" or "tutorial" or something, I'd know instantly.
So for the next time I'd like you to put the door of the tutorial first and make it clear that it is that, rather than making it ambiguous, albeit somehow even without the tutorial I figured how to 100% the level, so at least the controls are solid, but someone with less experience(or insanity) will not be able to figure out.

Nevertheless a lot of effort was put into this project, I'd like to send a very "well done" to you, Punkitt.

Almost perfection!

For a game that seems so early in development, it oozes so much passion, love and care, the art style and theming is absolutely on point, my only slight critism is Susan's animations being quite stiff, the level design not living up entirely to its full potential, and that certain timings on some moves can be harsh, but I am sure that is all subject to change, I wish you the best of luck with developing, I hope that I can follow this games development as much as possible :)




(Oh and also, I managed to essentially beat a Lap 2 in Office Orientation, wasnt easy, thats all imma say)

Absolutely adoring this so far! The vibes are excellent and more Wario Land-Likes in this world is nothing but a net-GOOD for humanity IMO! Also that "running to the exit" music is bomb?! I look forward to the final version with hype!


Finished the demo, 100% the two levels, love the breakroom (might mess around in it some more, OMG that dog(?!) )
((Also whover this npc is, I APPROVE their smug cuteness!))

(

I really dig the theming of this, 90's americana office settings are becoming a lost artform and I love how the soundtrack/SFXes play with it too. (tada.wav playing when you get every golden paperclip is chefs kiss tier shit)

The pizza tower comparisons are inevitable considering the artstyle and the WL4-ish gameplay, so I do wish susan had slightly faster movement.
The run button really feels more like a jog. The emphasis on using the bash to clear higher jumps isn't bad, although it does show the game has kinda poor vertical mobility. (Considering not-yoshi is a planned powerup I'm guessing this is intentional)

My real pet peeve though is that ground pound jumping has a terribly tight input window considering how often it is required from the player and I keep missing it; it's not a particularly fun move to perform either considering you need to two-step it, and the diagonal variant that combines it with the briefcase bash is essentially useless outside of the tutorial it's shown in currently.
I'd honestly just replace this whole mechanic with a shinespark... but maybe you can make it work!
just being able to stay crouched with a superjump charged after ground pounding would already help a lot imo.

The little bounce you get when ground pounding a slope before turning into a ball feels janky, and i'd much rather turn into a ball instantly when doing that.

Excited to eventually see more of this!

I didn't know SMBX2 could look this good. I love the soundtrack too, I think there are modem or fax machine sounds, right?

This demo was so fun! The sprites and animations were all really cute, and the character designs are top notch! The game plays a lot like Wario Land 4, and how difficult it is depends on how many of the big paperclips you wanna get. Getting all of the ones in the available level in the demo was tricky, but worth it for the cute reward you get afterwards! I also wanna mention the excellent music, which has a great 90s vibe to it. I'd buy a cassette of this stuff!

I'm really, really excited to play more! Can't wait!

A pretty solid demo overall, can't wait to see the game get expanded on and ironed out in the future. The art style is pretty unique and charming, the music is catchy, and the controls and movement tech feel pretty solid. Only complaints I have is that the ground pound jump could have a more lenient timing window as it is pretty hard to time it without spamming the jump button for it, and the tutorial level could possibly do with having some visual examples in the background.

One bug I encountered while playing is whenever I ground pound on a slope, sometimes Susan will end up getting stuck in place instead of rolling like normal. Not sure why exactly it happens, seems to happen either at random or when ground pounding specific parts of a slope. EDIT: Didn't read the part of this being brought up until hours later lmao whoops.

i accidentally left my review as a comment lmao. just know this game is great and you should definitely worth your time. played it and had a blast!

Alrighty, so having had a chance to check the game out at last I might as well leave a proper review.

EVERYTHING about the art is fuckin' amazing, perfectly stylized. The music is so aesthetically fitting and I'm pretty sure there's sampling of Wario in Crunch Time? Or it is made to sound like him? Which is SO good, shows the inspiration without relying on it TOO much.

There's a few little gameplay things I think could stand to be improved, but that's what playtesting is for ofc. So:

- The timing on bounce jump execution should be made a little bit more generous. It's a little frustrating to hit sometimes.
- I honestly have no idea if this is just me being really stupid or if it was something else, but I couldn't figure out what the first technique taught in the Advanced Movement room wanted me to do. No matter how many times I tried to execute the move and double checked what Clifford was saying it just didn't seem to work.
- The light green file cabinet asset is pretty easy to confuse as something intractable rather than a background object the first time you see it. maybe de-saturate it a little bit more? That's an incredibly minor passing thought though.

That's honestly all I can think of though other than wishing there was more :u I really look forward to seeing where this goes and I genuinely hope you can expand it into a full paid title in the future, if you wanna' of course.

Fantastic!!! Loving it so far, I'm blown away with how much you managed to do with the SMBX engine!! Looking forward to more of this :)

a delightful platforming affair that for what primordial form its currently taking, accomplishes what it sets out to be phenomenally.

it feels satisfying to control and pull off some of the tighter execution tech at your disposal once you get into the swing of things.

all complimented with a visually pleasing style animated by punkitt herself, and a soundtrack that, as much as it at certain points reminds me of Rugrats on the ps1 and consequentially sends me into fight or flight mode, absolutely bangs for what is present thus far. Hats off to Ms. Quinn.

Susan is like a stone. in the sense that i really like stones. shes the best



thank you punkitt, and best of luck with further development. i cannot wait to see how everything shapes up in the future.