Planet Hopper

alisoncox 2017-05-01 12:16

I'm not sure how much of the art is yours (as you mention you used some free ones) but the character itself is really well made/chosen.

The controls were a bit difficult to handle on the ice world it would have been good to have been able to jump a little more but as a game programmer of only 2 weeks I think you've done a great job!

gertjohnny 2017-05-01 22:23

As as first game it's not too bad at all. That said, there are tons of ways you can improve it!

- The movement doesn't feel very good. There must be a technical problem, because the movement in my game looks totally different than what's in your gameplay video. While on a planet mine moves at a third of the speed, making most of the jumps impossible. You might need to move your physics code inside FixedUpdate, or scale it by delta time so that it feels consistent across all platforms. - Jumping and hitting the bottom of ledges didn't feel great, and you might want to make those one-way colliders instead. The visuals give a bit of indication that you should be able to jump through and land on top of them. - When changing directions, the character's collider moves around which leads to unintended consequences. I can be standing on the edge of a ledge just fine, but as soon as I change direction I fall down off of it. When you flip the character between left and right, make sure to keep the collider and art centered so stuff like that won't happen.

You're off to a good start though! Keep tweaking it and improving!

ectucker1 2017-05-01 22:51

I loved the animation of this, the main character looked good, even if you didn't make him.

The movement feels a bit slippery. It was also really annoying to have to retry the whole level every time I died.

Platformers are tough. You might do better with something more constrained.

It's a good first game. Good luck in the future!

toonteamj 2017-05-07 22:02

The game looks good, but the mechanics need work. Jumping feels too unnatural and colliding with the undersides of platforms gets in the way of things. 2D platformers can be tough because you need more complicated physics like gravity. Keep at it.

hatten 2017-05-13 10:55

Lots of content for a weekend! The planet hopping mechanism was cool. The controls are rather shaky and buggy. Dying by runing upphill is kind of bad. Still very impressed by this game.

sebbernery 2017-05-13 17:10

Controls are sometimes hazardous and there is some bad physics bugs, but not bad enough to ruin the game. Nice entry and I hope you'll participate to the next LDJAM !

frodewin 2017-05-20 11:27

I didn't look at the game before so I was surprised when I suddenly was in a platformer after touching that muchroom. Positively surprised, to say! However, I had a lot of issues with the controls. What looked like a simple task in a platformer become really frustrating to me. The main problem in my opinion is that the sprite's flipping point is not centered. So when I am on the edge of a platform and I want to switch direction, I fall off the platform. This caused also a problem when I went too close to the stair-like platforms from underneath. When I wanted to go back, I was stuck under the stairs and I could not get out again.

stuck.png

Stuck forever, despite having 7 lives left :-(

Other than that I like the idea, theme, sound and graphics of the game. You wrote that you opt out of the graphics, but the graphics rating is still there.