An unexpected treat I discovered recently is an indie game called Hojiya. Enjoy a nice vacation on this mystifying island. Explore caves, help shops get started, and takedown island monsters. In this post, I discuss a game in alpha that has the potential to become a hit game.
Hojiya is a side-scrolling platformer that takes place on an island with a lot of secrets and missions. In this adventure, you team up with your friend Iara and try to discover what is happening on the island. When you arrive on the island initially for tourist reasons, you are then tasked with helping some of the residents with quests and explorations. You are also trying to find out why a shady corporation is taking advantage of this island and its residents. You can pick up various items and discover caves to find out more about the island. The overall experience is fun and engaging, and there is plenty to do that will keep you busy in this current version, there are even some subtle effects in the game that are an unexpected but positive experience. There are a few minor bugs but nothing game-breaking. The game is still in alpha but has some good polish already on it. The experience will change, but only for the better. Once this game has been through enough phases of development and feedback, this would be a great candidate to have published as a Nintendo Switch game. It has all the right tones that just need a little bit of tuning that can be turned into a hit.
Check out this development team over on itch.io and give them feedback on the game. Having a community of indie game appreciators helps small development teams like this one succeed. Check the more detailed review below.
Experience
This game has potential and has its own identity, but shares common themes we have all enjoyed in the past. The way you start gives me a feeling of Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Celeste combined in its kind of way. The dialogue is impressive, and the tutorial is pretty good. It does a pretty good job of conveying the controls to the player. Although, it never did explain which command was the jump button. The missions and overall grind in the game so far is enjoyable. The colors and general tone of the game are relaxed but still offer dynamic and challenging scenes.
The controls are pretty good, although I had to continually think about the controls for going below platforms and how to pick up the items from the plants. There are cases where the game shows prompt of what to press when interacting with key elements in the game, like shops and characters. The battle experience is not bad at all, either. The animation is clean and very simple to use. There should also be ways to attack things that are below the character. Having only a horizontal damage direction becomes difficult with enemies that are below or at an angle attacking you.
The Effects
Something unexpected I found was when lens flare appeared on my screen when the sun rose. The night and day mechanic feels more like a progression of time instead of just a night to day switch, which is nice. The water texture and overall color palette are not too intense on the eyes and transition well with the scene around it. There are some helpful polish items already visible in the game. Like the rainfall effect, the wind affecting the environment around you. The game doesn’t feel like an alpha, and it feels much closer to beta.
Some effects that need some improvements are just animations and interacting with others. The enhancements are more of a polish item than anything, and I do not expect the developer to worry about it until more of the game is developed. You do not want to have to rewrite an experience if the entire experience has not had its first pass. It can be too easy to rework a single piece over and over again. Then the next feature you implement causes that animation effect you worked on earlier to no longer fit the current experience, thus causing the scene and its effect to more than likely be rewritten again. Overall, I am impressed with the level of quality in this alpha game.
The Mechanics
There are some great mechanics in this game, and I enjoy the save game Polaroid feature. It brings the theme of you being a tourist exploring the island, helping it, and reinforces it. It also has a fast travel system that makes running around the island a little more enjoyable and just costs some gold to accomplish. Catching the timed events in certain zones rewards you and gives you a chance to do it again if you missed it earlier. There are a lot of really lovely mechanic decisions made that cause the player to continue playing.
Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, and that is okay. Things that need improvement are the dialogue. By pressing next on any dialogue screen, it has a chance to skip a bunch of the conversation. It tells me the dialogue button is on an “On a pressed” event instead of “On Release” to ensure each dialogue is given and skipped intentionally. One more thing that would be nice would be to have essential milestones be auto-saved. I had to restart after making my way halfway to a shop on the far side of an island. Having to restart the tutorial after completing it will make players want to continue playing. It shows the players you respect the time they have put in your game.
Economy
The economy uses gold coins to purchase items for missions and keeping your character alive. You can also find many of these items by taking on the monsters around the island. I even like the idea of the sale appearing for the shop. Granted, this was for a quest you were on, and so the deal makes sense. It would be great for your usage at the shop to change the pricing. If you are continually buying the healing fruit, then maybe it would get more expensive the more you buy. You are putting in some of that supply and demand experience in the game.
It would be interesting to see additional items appear in the shop. Potentially a weapon upgrade that lets you attack in multiple angles or shoot projectiles similar to the enemies on the island. Or add items that change your character’s stats, like jump or run speed, to then allow placement of high up secrets that you can discover by exploring and trying to see what you can find. The radar is similar in that it will enable you to view hidden items for a while. So there is a potential for new and impressive upgrades to appear. But only if you give feedback to the developers.
Thank You
I enjoyed playing this game in its current state. I do believe there is a lot of going for this game and can become another great relaxing adventure platformer game. What it needs ignoring anything I like to see is your feedback. Games can achieve their best experiences only through constructive feedback. So head on over to their page and check it out and give them the feedback they need to make this game genuinely fantastic.
As always, if you liked what was written, share this post with someone you think would enjoy reading it. I want to continue bringing indie games to everyone and can only do it with your support. So feel free to share on your favorite social media platform and again. Thank you.
Remember to check this game out on Itch.io and give them your feedback.