Once Upon a Shell

It's a free student game, so it's harsh to complain. Even so, the core of mechanics simply does not support the gameplay. The semi random generation dominates outcomes. The player controls are awkward and unsatisfying. There's no real depth to mastering the game. These are core elements you can still achieve and master with a basic demo build, and they're not there. Unfortunately this wasn't worth the 20 minutes i spent trying it, even if it was made with love and effort.

i love this little turtle game with the bunnies in it

Hate to leave a negative review for a free game but the camera controls are so unbelievably bad it's just unplayable. Playing with an xbox controller it's left thumbstick to move the character and right thumbstick to control the camera/look. Problem is the game auto recenters the camera every 2 seconds no matter where you're looking - so stupid and game breaking.

[h2]The Cutest Game That Kicked My Ass[/h2] Don't be fooled by the innocent look - this game is much more devilish than it may seem at first. Everything is fine and dandy until you reach the final race. That's where the game's main challenge lies. If you want to complete it, you'll have to try again and again, quite a few times, before finally succeeding. I'm exactly the type of audience this game is aimed at. I absolutely love true roguelikes - by that I mean games where everything resets with each run. There is no meta-progression. The only things you carry over are your own knowledge, skill, and experience. Because of that, this game can proudly stand alongside other true roguelikes (that I have played) such as Spelunky, Devil Daggers, and Hyper Demon. There are also upgrades that you can buy before each race. To be honest, I didn't notice any significant difference in gameplay when purchasing them. Usually, I wouldn't buy anything during the first three races and would only purchase two or three upgrades before the final race. However, I actually have no idea whether upgrades stack. It would make sense if they did, since you can collect enough coins to afford all three upgrades if you have the money. But as I said, the impact on gameplay was so subtle that I genuinely couldn't tell whether that was how the system worked. By the way, the game was created during the DADIU 2025 conference, so it's essentially a solid short game developed by a small team in only two days. That's impressive, but it also explains some of the technical shortcomings. The most unpolished aspect is definitely the RNG tied to your opponents' speed. In the first race, they are relatively slow, but they become faster with each subsequent race, culminating in the fourth and final one. I even saw opponents eliminate themselves by jumping into the water on occasion (though not during the final race). It was amusing to see, but as I mentioned, it's entirely RNG. Sometimes an opponent's disqualification can save your run, and sometimes it won't matter at all. The RNG is especially noticeable in the final race. Sometimes the hares would outrun me by a considerable margin, while other times they seemed just as fast as me. I'm not entirely sure what to think about that. I guess you just have to keep trying until luck is on your side, but I would definitely prefer the game to have no RNG elements at all - especially when it comes to opponent speed. I don't mind randomness in the upgrades nearly as much, since I never considered them particularly important. So yeah, I was initially intrigued by the clever use of the classic Aesopian tale of a tortoise trying to beat a group of hares, as well as the wholesome visuals. In the end, however, I stayed for the challenging roguelike gameplay loop of: TRY - DIE - REPEAT. It's a great game, but it could have been even better with more polish, additional content, and a longer overall playtime. [h2]7/10 - A surprisingly challenging true roguelike with an addictive "TRY - DIE - REPEAT" gameplay loop. Great fun, but held back by RNG, lack of polish, and limited content.[/h2]

Art: 8/10 Cute game and looks good Controls: 5/10 feel kinda clunky Gameplay: 1/10 - no way to see what upgrades you have - not rewarding - only 4 "levels" aka cups - hard reset if you loose one - very bare bones in terms of content

Great game if you like restarting the game after a single LOSS AAAGHHHH, btw world record is 3:30

So taking 'The Tortoise and the Hare' and continuing the story of it by making a roguelike racing game around it is just something that clicks with me, so when I saw this I was very intrigued. Like I stated above the game is a roguelike, so people complaining about the game just ending your run is something that is kinda funny to see. I do wish that it wouldn't straight up send you to the menu to skip the intro cutscenes and to then having to skip the tutorial, but I would rather just see it send you to the hublevel and just restart your progress. The racing itself can be fun when everything clicks, even though it can feel clunky. So the game is using tank controls, which here it's not too bad as I've played older/worst games, but when the game sends you flying essentially controlling an ice puck, let's just say tank controls and slippery physics just feels weird, but doing anything else feels fine to control. There feels like there's some sort of RNG involved here, as races 1 and 2 will send you absolutely flying through with the hares having a hard time catching up to suddenly them whipping your @$$ as if you owe them money in races 3 and 4, it's weird because the AI itself is absolute trash too. You'll see them get stuck on trees, you'll see them just suddenly stop, you will see them racing each other in circles, but once you pass a threshold they just straight up fly passed you. I think the game like someone else said below should reward you with additional coins on top of the ones you collect as this would alleviate some of the luck and unfair CPU. I wouldn't have said this if the last level didn't have multiple different paths. The achievements here are pretty easy if you care about those, just keep playing the game and you'll have most of them before you beat the game. This is a free student project, so I'm not gonna give it a straight up negative when it's got such a fun concept, I would've given it a mixed if Steam allowed it, but since I had some fun it's getting a positive. If anyone wants to take a racing roguelike game and run with it, I would be more than happy.