Splinko
About a year ago, I asked a close friend of mine, an incredibly talented artist, if he would build a game with me. We sketched ideas, shared late-night messages, and began shaping something small but meaningful. We made a little headway before life pulled him in other directions, and the project quietly paused.
Last month, he passed away suddenly.
The unfinished pieces we had started together sat on my drive for a long time. It didn’t feel right to let them disappear. So, I decided to begin again, from scratch, with the goal of finishing what we started.
I tried to keep the art and tone as close to his style as I could. No tool can replace a person, and no technology compares to a real artist’s mind. Some elements were recreated as faithfully as possible; others were interpreted the best I could manage. It isn’t exactly what he would have made, but it carries his fingerprints in spirit.
This project became more than just a small game. It became a way to honor a friend, to finish a promise, and to prove that something started together doesn’t have to end unfinished.
Now it’s here.
And I hope when you play it, you feel a little bit of the care, heart, and quiet determination that went into bringing it to life.
If you take a few minutes to try it, I would genuinely love your feedback. Your thoughts will help shape where this goes next. And if you think this is something you’d like to see fully developed as a real mobile release, let me know. That support would mean more than you know.
Development log
- Per your feedback3 days ago
Comments
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Bug? I got the diamond pickaxe stuck in one of the smaller golden pinko-cups, the pick laid basically perfectly in the cup, so maybe check if some collision box is missing or misplaced?
Thank you for the feedback!
This is a known bug, but it only appears in the web browser. I’m working on it, but I can’t replicate it in Unity, so I’m not sure why it’s happening on itch.
Thanks for letting me know, though. Now, maybe I can isolate it to the small cups.
Enjoying it, but wish this would save my progress between sessions, I closed out my browser last night, came back today and had to start from scratch.
Thank you for the feedback!
I will definitely be adding a save mechanic. This is top of the list, I even started this game by building a save system to use on mobile and never got around to making it work for browser.
Hopefully the changes I plan to make will help your next play through be just as fun.
First, sorry for your loss.
Critiques: The game doesn't fit to the browser, took me a bit to figure out i had to zoom out to 80% to see the full game on chrome. Not a big deal but a QoL fix would be nice. Also a durability bar for each tool somewhere on screen would be nice.
Feedback: The gameplay is simple and fun. Really enjoy the upgrading system and summons. I think if you released this on mobile people would definitely watch ads to double rewards and stuff.
Thank you for the feedback and the critique!
The screen size and background setting to make it fit really depend on your devices screen size. So for people with big monitors the window is small but for anyone on a laptop it probably doesn’t fit, I’m not sure the best fix for this. I can however fix the full screen mode so that it works on any screen.
I had not considered this issue so thank you for sharing your experience.
I’m glad you enjoyed the game over all!
Have you tried using the "full-screen" button with the 2 diagonal arrows in bottom right corner just OUTSIDE the game-window?
That works for me at least.
Yes I tried, no it didnt work
I will have to fix it in the next update, I have canvas scaling set up on the horizontal when it should be vertical, will be an easy fix just wanna push out a few fixes at once
Upwards force is strong enough to bounce you out of the hole at the beginning. Might want to weaken that a tad so you go no higher than you started.
Need to look at the bottom of the cups. I've hit them several times but it only detects it like 1/3 times and I need to end run without my bonus.
Didn't know til now the run was supposed to end when you hit the cups, it never activated for me.
Not even once is a tragedy, gonna have to really take a look at what’s causing this.
Hey, thanks for the feedback!
The first part is a choice, but I’ll consider adjusting it to make it less time consuming. I know that if you get stuck on top of the island, it can take a while for your tool to slide off.
As for the plinko cups, that’s quite unusual. I’ll have to see if I can replicate it. I never encountered that problem while building it in Unity, so I’m curious if it’s a browser thing.
I actually got the shovel all the way to the edge of the island and stopped stuck in the dip at the edge of the screen. No waiting was ever going to fix that. Perhaps invisible walls or make the top of the island always bounce towards the hole.
Hmm, this one is also interesting. I’ll have to double check this. There are some colliders set up in that area, but I ensured there was enough space between them to prevent this from happening. I’m curious how this got messed up.
Thanks for finding this bug!
The ai usage felt a little aggressive, if you could human it up a bit.
Well I wrote all the scripts myself. The music and sound are public domain. The art is complicated matter and I would encourage you to read the games description.
Thanks for your opinion.
I understand that you think you're being reasonable, it's just ai isn't a good tool to use. Training an ai model itself produces as much carbon gasses as 5 avg American cars- it's really not good for the environment and you shouldn't use it just because it's easier than making art yourself or in the respect of someone who died.
Listen I appreciate your concern about environmental impact. But I think there may be some confusion here, I did not train an AI model. The “five cars” statistic only applies to training large models, not generating a handful of images from one that's already been trained.
The actual energy cost of generating the assets I used is relatively small. Comparable to playing an Xbox for a few hours.
This project was also deeply personal. Finishing it was about closure and honoring a shared vision. If there had been other realistic ways for me to complete it, I would have done that instead.
I understand that AI use is controversial for some people, and I respect that perspective. But in this case, it helped me complete something meaningful.
I would appreciate a bit more control about HOW the tool is upgraded (AOE-range, damage amount, durability, homing amount, bounciness/stiffness, etc.), since that's about the only thing we can control in this game.
Both in the stats of the tools & in the relics.
Maybe the "pinko mechanic" can be used somehow for upgrading too, but we have some control in some way about what happens in there?
yeah the breakdown is every 5th level the effectiveness increases and every 50th level the special ability increases. I thought about making the pickaxe follow the mouse instead of chasing rare blocks to give the player some control later in the game but opted to test this as is for now.
I also considered making unlockable cards the player could pick from at the start of each run. This would give a more rogue like feel and change each run a little based on the players choice. That would be a whole lot of work though haha.
Thanks for the feedback!
A great game for a tired mind :)
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Was going for a relaxing vibe.
One observation you might want to check: You have an upward push regardless at which direction the shovel hits the rock...even from below. That does not make sense...
Thanks for the feedback!
I will be changing this in the future if I continue to work on this game.
Given the background of making this game and the previous comment, I will only make a couple basic feedback mentions about the game but my condolences to you and I wish you well going forward.
I kept playing until reaching level 60 on all 3 tools. The game starts off fun but slowly turns rather frustrating as the physics for your tools makes it go straight up regardless of angle or momentum when it hits a block , meaning after finally reaching bedrock you could hit one extra block and find yourself at the start again. Would be nice to see some tuning for this.
Tool-wise, the hammer is very lacklustre, the aoe for the explosion is small which makes it rather useless in the end.
I won't comment on the art, however the background is rather low quality compared to the rest of the textures.
And finally, the "watch an ad for x3" isn't consistent whether or not it appears, but also odd to see it in an itch.io demo.
Thank you for some genuine feedback!
I will definitely consider changing the bounce mechanic to only happen when hitting the top of a block. This is a relatively easy fix but I wanted to test it as is and see what people think of the unusual physics because the normal plinko feel became lame very quickly.
The aoe of the hammer does get crazy but it takes a while. The original plan was to make this game for mobile, hence the ad buttons and the tools starting weak and eventually becoming op. I kept that as is in case I ever decide to turn this into a mobile game. You’re right that it feels odd for a browser version of the game though.
I did make the pseudo ad buttons pay out the rewards every time they are clicked. They show up every third run and pay out every time for the idle rewards.
I will fix the background art if I decide to continue to work on the game.
This has all been valuable feedback so thank you again!
There is plenty to comment on here, but I do not feel comfortable doing so in light of the story you shared. I worry that any feedback I could offer might be taken as offensive or insensitive, or otherwise wound the memories you have embedded for yourself in this project.
I am sharing this feeling with you as my feedback instead, to make you aware of the hesitancy that sharing such a story can create, if genuine feedback is what you desire.
I appreciate your consideration. I originally didn’t actually make this game for the game jam I just felt the falling theme fit well enough to warrant a submission. This was more a personal project to knock the rust off after a year away from game development and a project that I hoped would provide some closure.
That said I do seek to grow as a developer so feedback is welcome.
So, this comment on the surface felt really genuine and I appreciated it. Then I saw you gave my game a one-star review and now I simply must know your thoughts.