Naarrow

alexhoratio 2017-04-26 15:26

Okay. Wow.

What this game doesn't have in graphics, it makes up for in... literally everything else. When I first clicked on this game, I had low expectations due to the graphical fidelity. Lower still when I found myself wandering through identical room after room, opening the same door over and over again. I honestly wondered if this was some kind of debugging setup left in the game.

Then I got to the last room in the series, and the room was different. My first thought was "oh, random level generation went wrong there?", then I realized that all the other rooms were persistent and had their own set of challenges.

It was at this point that the game really "clicked" for me. I reevaluated the graphics and began to realize how dissonant and *alien* each sprite was.

I would believe you if you told me that these graphics were chosen purposefully, because they fit this game perfectly.

I haven't even touched on the inventiveness of each level and the satisfaction of completing each puzzle, despite it being so unceremonious, nor the haunting soundtrack.

This game is genuinely incredible, and I urge anyone reading this to play it. Wow.

king-kujito 2017-04-26 19:22

Great game, couldn't get past the second series of spikes in the red room

ace17 2017-04-26 20:33

Thanks a lot for your reviews!

For those who don't like playing the browser, I've put a windows binary version for download:

http://code.alaiwan.org/games/LD/naarrow/naarrow-w32.zip

King Kujito: the game can definitely be finished ; there's always an exit way!

picapica 2017-04-27 21:44

The way the game starts strangely repetitive adds to the claustrophobic feeling, the music sets a fitting mood, and the way it progressed made me feel like I progressed with it. I liked it when I got the hang of moving around (even though some climbing through narrow spaces was really hard). Then I got stuck, couldn't figure out what "dash" did, and I had to give up, grudgingly, because I wanted to continue playing!

king-kujito 2017-04-28 14:15

Okay, I assumed so. Thanks for confirming :-)

khorm 2017-05-01 11:43

What the game lacks in graphics it makes up for in map design and overall feel, it's very hard in some places, (the freaking yellow room with the moving platforms???) A very metroidy feeling game, some negatives for me was theres no momentum on the player so the movement dident have a organic feel to it and also hard to get up on ledges sometimes. Love the finding upgrades that improves your abilitys and mapdesign is really great for what little time is avalible, also music fit perfectly.

wtoa 2017-05-01 12:31

The mood that this game gives is very good. The music also fits the aesthetics really well!

mrspeaker 2017-05-01 13:01

I lost a lot of time to this game... I have to play and rate more games, but I added this to a note saying "play again!". Really cool idea, and besides having to hammer the X button a bit it feels really cool. I even like the weird player graphic xD

zsoltbartok 2017-05-01 14:40

I like the main character, creepy but cool!

move127 2017-05-01 14:45

Wow, I'm glad I kept playing. Perhaps give some indication that something will change, since you might lose some players.

I love the mechanics and the gathering of skills by exploring the rooms.

Sometimes I got stuck on a corner while trying to climb up a wall. It made it kind of frustrating trying to get up to some areas. I guess that is part of the name though, huh? :grin:

thedoodleguy 2017-05-01 15:13

I honestly thought something was broken in the beginning as it seemed to not change much other than colour but I could see there was more if I could climb. Once I was able to climb it got more challenging, really enjoyed it after that long start :-)

makenai 2017-05-01 18:16

Pretty fun metroidvania stickfigure game! Same as above, I almost stopped playing because I thought it was one repeating level. Glad I stuck around and got some of the power ups.

multiplexor 2017-05-01 18:42

Great!! Very smart level design (very hard too).

As the other people said, at the beginning the game give the impression that it might be something else. So maybe you could give some story indications that it's going to change.

Still, once into it the game is pretty neat! I got stuck on the yellow platform moving jumping level, too hard and frustrating for me!

Keep up the good work!

zarkonnen 2017-05-01 18:52

I really like the music, but the controls are frustrating and unreliable. It's often not clear if something is not possible because it's intended not to be, or because the controls don't work well.

pixzleone 2017-05-01 18:53

Reminds me of VVVVVV. The whole graphics style isn't bad, but the player sprite could use some work. Music was great and played a big part in the general mood. Together with the almost repeating levels, it created gave me an eerie feeling.

It's really cool how much you seem to have gotten in here during the compo, this could've been a pretty big project for many people. The level design and the powerups are cool, but the movement felt a bit clunky and awkward. I had a hard time executing the movement I wanted, and especially moving upwards through 1 unit wide gaps was pretty hard. Overall the movement was okay though.

**possible spoiler alert:**

The first spikes and booster puzzle was a bit confusing. At first I thought I just was just supposed to dash and jump, on the boosters, but I couldn't get it right. After a while I realized that I could get hit by the bouncing cube, and then walk over the spikes. Intended or not, this was really cool, but confusing since the booster and dashing combo hadn't been used earlier.

If it was intended, I recommend letting the player use the dash on a booster in a similar way before this puzzle to learn how it works. If it wasn't intended, I recommend making the gap a bit shorter and forgiving.

**end of spoiler**

The respawning felt fair, but I gave up in the room with the repeated dashing across the spikes. Playing your game was an overall great experience. With some more work, and some innovating touch (maybe there was one I didn't get to?) this could be a great product.

Very impressive work for the compo, keep up the good work!

madmaw 2017-05-02 01:10

Clever level design and powerups, really impressive game for a 48 hour competition. Not to mention using C++ and Vim to create it (and emscripten to put it on the web), that's hard core!

I felt like the levels were a little unforgiving, I could have used a bit more headroom to jump around in a few places, and my platforming skills aren't great so maybe just falling and being able to easily retry instead of having so many spikes might have been nice. The character moves really quickly too, which makes me more liable to make accidents.

I like that the game seems to explore what happens when you have a non-square character (I assume that's why it's called 'narrow'?). I also assume that, at some point, you get a power up that lets you get shorter, but I didn't get to that bit. I'll come back and take a look at the post-compo version.

peachtreeoath 2017-05-02 05:12

Good take on metroidvania. The character felt too tall at times or too wall bouncy to make it into some gaps, but otherwise it felt pretty good.

sachos345 2017-05-02 13:32

Holy shit i almost stop playing at the beginning did not understand what was going on. Got to the dash powerup and could not figure out how to pass that first set of spikes =S The music is amazing it really makes you feel claustrophobic. The art could see improvement (is that a stick figure dick im seeing??) Some walls seemed toooo narrow (hehe) to use the climb power up it felt kinda clunky. Cool concept man, congrats!

c0nst4ntin 2017-05-02 13:41

Realy well done! I like the mood of the game! The character is quite creepy I think! You could maybe improve the graphics and maybe a little in the audio but an overall nice game! Also, you may look at my game I would really appreciate! Nice Game!

zicboy 2017-05-02 15:10

Really great game! The character controls felt slightly clunky but overall a really nice game that fit the theme well

schizoid2k 2017-05-02 20:31

Very close to stopping play since it seemed to repeat itself, but then there you are! I had to try a few things to continue on in the game since it wasn't apparent how to accomplish movement in certain cases, but keep on playing. Reminds me of an old early 80s vibe.

mrchippy 2017-05-03 20:23

Great job. The simplistic art and audio really help the mood. Some of the parts were kind of frustrating. I really like it though.

hectigo 2017-05-03 20:30

I liked the mood set by the music and the atypical level design, and the graphics were clear enough. The controls combined with hitting the walls/ceiling very easily in many places felt quite clunky and frustrating though, and made me stop playing even though in a way I still wanted to see what else the game would have had in store.

remicy 2017-05-04 04:10

Yay! I did it! Great game! It took me 2 hrs, but worth. 1493870719627.jpg

ace17 2017-05-04 05:12

Good job Remicy! Thanks you all for playing and for your reviews!

huek 2017-05-04 15:46

I'll echo most of the positive sentiments that have already been said above, and add that it's impressive how much high quality level design you got done in a 48 hour span (on top of, y'know, making the game!). Really great work here, well done!

gato 2017-05-06 01:07

I finished the game, and man do my fingers hurt. This is an amazing LD entry. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole concept of traveling backwards through the rooms. Great job with the music, the individual level design and the overall game design. The way you build up abilities was very satisfying and definitely surpasses my expectations for a game made in 48 hours. Really nice work here!

furazin 2017-05-07 00:49

Oh my gosh, really hard game. But one of the best polished. Congratulation.

mhaton 2017-05-07 16:32

Very interesting! Fantastic atmosphere and fun to play, if let down a little by the controls, but then I'm also terrible at platformers, so perhaps they were fine. Great job!

rujo 2017-05-09 16:06

a really enigmatic game to me maybe too much effort spent on level design and less on graphics and controls but it's a good start for an peculiar game

g12345 2017-05-09 19:32

I think this is a really nice metroidvania.

But i did got stuck on the dash part. The part where i have to jump over 1 yellow block... or maybe i still dont know how it works... maybe i will try it again later.

puppetmaster 2017-05-09 19:39

Great metroidvania entry! I like the idea to go back the themed rooms with new abilities. The sound fits the confined spaces. Please add possibility to play also with y as a replacement for z. My fingers are already twisted. :) Keep up the great work!!

ace17 2017-05-09 19:59

@g12345 : to dash, you need to press C while walking. The latest version (post jam) has a simplified version of the infamous impossible spike yellow room!

samusoidal 2017-05-10 00:16

This is awesome. Metroidvania is one of my favorite genres ever, and you just nailed this one. Here's my thoughts as I played through the game. Start. Oh gosh, the soundtrack. Wow. Next room. Um, it looks the same, but the music changed. That's cool. Next room. This is getting creepy. Next room. Oh, they are changing a little bit. Next room. Ooh, a powerup! Aw, yes, now I can go ANYWHERE! Oh, no I can't. Okay. Backtrack. Oh, a dash. SPIKES! AAAGH! SPIKES!

rockhoppergames 2017-05-10 13:45

It's amazing that you managed to put this all together in 48 hours, even if the difficulty on some of the rooms drove me further up the wall than the climb powerup! D:<

I did get through it in the end, but for me my favourite moment was at the start, descending into the depths of the facility. It did a really good job at setting the tone through gameplay, and I would have loved to see more of that. That you managed to put together a feature complete metroidvania in 48 hours really is something though!

rnlf 2017-05-10 19:30

Hmm. Can't get through the first room with spikes, I have the dash ability, and I always make the jump each time, but I fail every time. I gave up now after about 50 tries, and since I cannot find any other route, I guess that's it. That's sad, because the game seems really cool.

The graphics are low-fi, but that doesn't hurt at all. The music is cool for this genre. Only the physics are a bit fast and might need some tweaking to make it feel "tighter".

ace17 2017-05-10 20:34

@rnlf : thanks for your advice on physics, I got lots of comments about how "glitchy" physics are, however, this is the first time I get an actual description of the problem (i.e "a bit fast")!

Hint: you can toggle the slow-motion mode by pressing 'tab', this might help you go past the first room with spikes! Use with caution, this might ruin your gaming experience ;-)

g12345 2017-05-12 18:56

@Ace17: I got through that first yellow spikes room now... Now I'm still stuck on the moving platforms + spikes room. I think I will just give up.

erkberg 2017-05-12 20:49

A pretty great game that is just way too hard. I could not get past the room with the moving platforms and spikes all over the ground. I tried again and again but got too frustrated. This is partly due to the controls, it's for example extremely hard to jump off the disappearing blocks. Wall jumping is also kinda tricky. I guess you were aiming for a super hard game and you succeeded, but it's certainly not for everyone. The dark atmosphere the game creates is stellar though, so I still enjoyed it quite a lot. Good job overall!

sparrow 2017-05-13 15:25

Awesome game, incredible work for 48hours! Loved the powerups and also the music changing with each world!

monty 2017-05-16 21:02

Very nice...but dashing over the spikes are hell on earth (or whatever world this is)! Enjoyed the audio quite a bit!

crefossus 2017-05-19 09:49

At first I didn't realize the jump button was variable height when wall climbing, but after I realized that I got to the dash. I liked the feel of the dash.

There is something about the jump in general that is a bit off, maybe the gravity? It seems harder than it should be to wall climb back and forth.

There is one part where there is the same obstacle maybe 3 times (landing block, 2x blocks destroy you dash over, one more block then a gap and obstacle repeat) it has spikes underneath the destroy on touch blocks. The one block leading space was too frustrating for me. I sometimes also accidentally hit the first block and died so I ended up giving up here.

Nice job with the music. It gives a great mood. The staticy sounds are a little dominating I had almost thought something was wrong with my headphones at first.

I guess you've probably fixed this in the post compo version but I got stuck in the ceiling when changing rooms the first time I played http://imgur.com/a/x5wr4

2017-06-07 20:28

Neat game. I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMCwacAGwrA