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Cave Bounce
Cave Bounce
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| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Innovation | 10 | 3.89 | 36 | |
| Fun | 15 | 3.67 | 36 | |
| Overall | 18 | 3.64 | 36 | |
| Coolness | 3 | 49 | | |
| Theme | 53 | 3.41 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 58 | 3.19 | 37 | |
| Audio | 118 | 1.33 | 9 | |
| Humor | 132 | 1.60 | 15 | |
| Community | 61 | 3.04 | 28 | |
Comments
Cool little game :) I've thought up a similar concept myself before, but have never had the chance to apply it. It would be nicer if I could see the shape of the non-active layer, though, like perhaps using the active layer being darker where there is an inactive solid behind it, know what I mean?
Also, I think it would be nice if your character was red/orange when you were in a place where you -couldn't- switch the layer, just to make it more clear and the twitch gameplay a little more effective.
Fun stuff. I didn't finish it, some of the later missile levels were just too hard for me.
It was fun when it was a puzzle game, but once you brought in all the missiles it got a little too chaotic. Basic control is good but feels a tad stiff. Nice simple aesthetic.
Cool idea, but it's quite buggy the first time I played when I tried to get the six coins up the left I went through the wall to the "You win" screen. Playing around with it a bit, it seems you can often go trough thin walls.
Interesting concept. Simple effective graphics. Collisions don't work perfectly and I hate the controls, but that may be a result of the perceived low frame rate I get.
I kept getting 'stack trackback' errors, and the ball ignored collision on the walls sometimes.
Pretty cool idea, but the controls seem like they need some work. It also seems a bit too easy if you don't worry about collecting coins, although maybe that's the point?
Really nice, although as others have mentioned the missiles make it a bit hectic.
I love the crazy levels with the huge banks of missiles. Great stuff.
Pretty fun. I like the concept of shifting planes, and the action levels reminded me a bit of the missile dodging in N.
The game itself felt a bit too long. Most of the levels before the missiles (and about 1/3 of the missile ones) didn't seem like they explored anything new in the concept. I did like that one early puzzle where you had to jump from one side of a stalagmite, shift in midair, and land on the other side of the same stalagmite to get enough height to reach some coins, though.
I gave up on collecting coins around that staircase level. Thank god I'm not an obsessive completionist or the rest of the game would have been infuriating.
I thought the controls were very smooth. The concept is really original, would be nice if there was sound and maybe a set amount of lives.
High marks!
Reminds me a lot of N, except even *more* unfair ;-)
The basic design - switch back and forth between planes to collect stuff and get out of a cave - is sound, but the level design doesn't exploit it properly. The first few areas are usually mindless collection and don't do anything clever with the plane-switching mechanic. Once the missles start flying, collecting stuff takes a back side to getting killed a lot. If, as ChevyRay suggested, there were some visual indication about the other layer and whether you can switch to it, you might be able to do neat stuff - switching layers to hide away from missles or send them careening into a wall. As it is, the whole thing is too frustrating - it becomes a game about fighting two separate mechanics, rather than enjoynig any sort of synthesis of them. Also, point of comparison: the missiles in N move slower, were generally less numerous, and the game gave you way more tools and flexibility for dodging them - and N was infamous for being crazy difficult.
I hope this doesn't sound too negative! I actually had a lot of fun with this and really appreciated the polish. Given more time to tighten up the level design and experiment with the mechanics, it could be really great.
When I got to the room with the rockets, I laughed because it reminded me of N+, specifically some of the crazy levels a friend of mine makes for them. I did find one issue with getting stuck in a pit. I'll send a screenshot.
I disagree about how hectic it was. I liked it and felt it was funny. I liked being able to switch depths, causing missiles that would otherwise hit me to hit the wall. In fact, I looked back at a level with a giant wall of these missile launchers, and I somehow made it past without even thinking about changing depth, when there was an entire wall of cave to block them as I collected coins at leisure. Whoops! B-)
Yay, I win! I beat it mostly just to spite the missiles, those bastards. I kinda skipped collecting all the coins. Fun.
Reminds me of N but then I really like N and I also really like this :) The missle bits are excellent, frantic and quick and being able to switch layers to avoid the missles is cool.
Some of this was great (specially where you have to switch in midair to get to places), but I don't think you exploited the mechanics fully with your level design, and also you've got way too many rockets in there. I mean, challenge is fine and all, but some of those rooms are just plain frustrating. I liked the ones where you had to switch to block them off though.
Innovative mechanic.
The shifting part and collecting is well done.
The missiles are way to hard though. They come in so fast that you can't do any sane planning. The stair stage made me stop trying to collect all coins.
It's a shame you didn't make any more interesting puzzles with the shifting part.
I win!
Neat game. The concept is sometimes fun and sometimes frustrating. The rockets are crazy hard.
On some of the rocket levels I found myself just holding up and left and toggling the cave rapidly. It got me further than you would think.
Left right movement felt a little weird.
I liked the introduction of missles, I often found myself just jumping and shifting randomly until I bounced through though. The missles made it a bit more difficult, thus interesting. But they were very hard too though, maybe too hard. cool game idea though
Very cool concept. Loved using the switch to block rockets. The high gravity combined with the mostly vertical jumps made it pretty frustrating for me. The third screen was the least frustrating for me.
Would be better if you could lose. :P
I liked the game. As some other commenters noted, once the missiles came on screen, collecting coins became basically impossible.
I really, really liked the switch-back-and-forth-twice-in-rapid-succession-to-climb-opposite-sides-of-tower-in-one-z-level puzzle. More cool stuff like that would have been nice. That one puzzle honestly made me think of Braid, and the kind of tricks you need to pull of in that game.
I thought I'd seen everything the game had to show, and then the missiles showed up :) I really enjoyed dodging the missiles up until the staircase where it got way too difficult to keep trying to get all the coins.
I really liked this game. I didn't think much of it at first, but it was great fun once you got to the parts with the missiles. The horizontal controls seem a bit too sensitive, but apart from that, it plays really well.
I'm afraid I can't comment on the audio if there was any - I tried it on a machine without sound, and I can't try it on this one (download gets corrupted) :(
Well done!
clever game, very challenging, clipping bugs were weird, crashed at about level 9. strangely similar to cowwiv by smx.
I really like this- this may be the best entry I've seen so far.
My only grievance is that the player movement is a little awkward. It's nothing a little tuning couldn't improve, and for all I know may be entirely deliberate. We stop on a dime when we let go of a directional key, and yet we can fly huge distances horizontally in a single jump. Also I must confess the missiles are pretty vicious :)
Would you consider doing a version with sound? I really like this and think a lot of people would enjoy a slightly improved version.
Great game idea, a little like Fez. A little puzzle, a little action. Could use some sound and music.
I didn't find this that hard compared to a lot of commenters here. I also have never played 'N' or 'N+' so I'm not sure of the comparisons others are drawing. I really liked this game a lot though and had a lot of fun playing it. I had to finish it on my first play through and I was successful. I also felt that you had made some really cool levels that did in fact make use of the mechanic quite a bit. I found a lot of simple joy in toggling the layer as I scaled certain areas to collect the gold coins. I really liked the visual colors too though I agree with some other comments that slightly transparent layers would have made some of the toggling strategies easier to see but perhaps may have made it to easy as I enjoyed the 'leaps of faith' I often had to make to find my way to some of the harder coins. Final score 5550. Excellent job on this!
it stopped being fun around the 3rd or 4th missile level...
This is a fun game. I really enjoyed it.
Absolutely great game. Love the pacing, and the simple mechanic, and the way you used one to teach me the other. With some polish (audio?) this would be functionally- and aesthetically identical to any one of a number of XBLA-type puzzle games. And I mean that in the best possible way -- this is great, and nigh-publishable. Fun!