endurion 2017-05-02 13:24
Nothing too innovative, but damn tough. I gave up on the fall part in the top middle. At least one checkpoint would help a loooot ;)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Spike Spire
By acuity
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Nothing too innovative, but damn tough. I gave up on the fall part in the top middle. At least one checkpoint would help a loooot ;)
Ok this kind of game is very frustrating, but very fun too :) I tried a lot, but couldn't finish it :D
This was incredibly difficult. Based on the map I think I made it about 1/4 of the way through (I might try again later). I agree with @endurion's suggestion about having a checkpoint. My other main complaint is about the hitboxes, but you've already mentioned that in your notes.
I think you've got a good feel for level design - each section felt like a step up in difficulty from the last. I think if you smoothed out the difficulty a bit you'd have a great game that keeps challenging the player to push themselves a bit further than they think they can go.
The music is cool. The difficulty is tough but fair up until the drop down the middle of the screen, which is a bit too hard imo. It would probably feel more fair if there was a checkpoint before it. Actually, that particular drop reminds me of a section in VVVVVV, but that drop in VVVVVV is right at the end of the game (and optional I think).
Overall, I like the level design; it's just a bit too hard too fast I think. Also, the character placeholder art gave me a chuckle. Cool entry. :thumbsup:
Oops... I double posted, and I don't know how to delete it. Sorry :upside_down:
Difficult but moody. I liked the music!
The game was really difficult, but I never found it unfair. It was quick to reload, controlled smoothly and reacted well. It definitely was a challenge, but a fun one. I did find the lack of checkpoint system, even if it was an optional one, kinda weird, however it was good. I can imagine that with proper graphics this could be a fun little game to play and get really good at, maybe with progressively harder elements added in. Good job
A basic platformer, liked the music. When I go through the edge of, I think the main character has "jumped" forward a little, I neet to be very careful everytime i go through the edge.
Its a very simple game, but its playable. I very much like the jumping around the edges puzzle which was a new idea to me.
The game is REAAAAAALLLY hard. I am a reasonable patient person, but i already predicted i would ragequit this game after a minute.
My suggesting is to think about making it fun for your player instead of making it challenging. Add a very basic checkpoint mechanism. Make sure you player want to Keep playing and play it to the end!
Good luck!
Harsh difficulty straight from the get-go. Gave up after making it to the top of the level few times. Jumping also feels a bit floaty for the pixel perfect jumps you need to perform. Maybe having a smaller hitbox for player/spikes would make the horizontal positioning less punishing.
Separate jump button would have been nice and even restarting with any button after death. Also, having several different hand drawn frames of placeholder sprites for the "character" instead of one even semi finished sprite is kind of a weird choice.
Pretty cool music. I'm kind of jealous as a solo game dev with zero musical talent.
Thanks for all the comments so far!
As suggested by many of you, adding a checkpoint would definitely improve the difficulty and reduce frustration, I still haven't found the time to figure out the code for that (have to save coordinates to respawn the player at the right location, and remove and make a new player object I think?). I definitely will try to figure this out because I'll need checkpoints if I want to make a longer platformer like this.
And yea, @antti-haavikko the jump is a little bit floaty and the spikes are just square hitboxes (which might be why it feels so punishing). I'll have to think about how to change around parameters next time to make things still work out and feel smoother.
The best part of your entry is the soundtrack! On my pc /browser there is some problem with precise movements and this makes it impossible to come very far. I need to write down the exact place to jump. Play_Spike_Spire.png Perhaps it has something to do with not multiplying the delta value with the movement vector (I don't know) Anyway, its a solid entry, keep up the good work.
I think you said everything in your description. I think some more fair hit boxes would improove the game a lot. The music was very good in my opinion. Good Job!
Nice use of screen wrap, but the game is too punishing for me to really enjoy it. I would have liked a more gradual progression of difficulty, andsavepoints along the course (maybe on each screen) so it doesn't keep sending me back to the start. That said, technically the game works alright; I feel it just needs some refinements in design to make it truely fun to play. Hope that's helpful to you :)
Too difficult, yes, but if you respawned automatically rather than having to press R to restart, and if you could start from the last safe point before you died, it wouldn't be so bad. I didn't complete it.
I have to admit, I felt better after seeing the comments here. I suck at platformers, and this one did unspeakable things to me. Thanks goodness the music was so great considering how long it took to just get a quarter of the way through. Instant respawning would go a long way towards keeping the player dialed in, me thinks.
Nice game. It's quite tough, but very addictive. Nice work :thumbsup:
Rate me at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/survival-game
Hey ! First, music is cool :) After, as said in the comments, I think it's very (maybe too much) hard. You should also maybe improve movements, cause sometime the player get slow down by the ground. Jump mechanic works well. I could be a great platformer if it would be easier :)
Challenging platformer game, the music is really nice. Good job :)
Its really hard. I'm not very god at thi kinds of game,s It tried a lot to get the blue thingy on top, but I eventually quit. I would have appreciated at least a couple checkpoints (two or three). I know that's maybe not the idea, but then again, I'm not really into super hard platformers.
However I enjoyed the music and the art style though minimal it works its purpose. Nice!
I can get to the second floor, but that jump is very tricky. Screen wrap looks good actually, but you should add more original mechanics to make the gameplay more unique and innovative. Platformer genre is very competitive (VVVVVV, Super Meat Boy, Dustforce and etc.) and it's also very fun :smiley:
I'd recommend to read this as well: http://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the-guide-to-implementing-2d-platformers/
Thank you.
Great soundtrack! But the game is waaaaaay too hard (speaking as someone who played a lot of 2D platformers) ! Those who told me my entry was too hard surely didn't play this one ;-) The physics engine seems solid, and the character is pleasant to control. The graphics are simple but clean. And also, clever idea about using screen wrapping!
Music is really good here, but the difficulty is a little much for me. I have done this myself in the past in games I have created for jams and the feedback reflected that. While its good to offer a challenge, it is important to find the right balance between keeping the player motivated to overcome it but also not enough that it becomes frustrating where you risk losing your player.
Thanks for the platformer guide, @icxon! I'll definitely draw some stuff from this when I make tweaks and upgrades. And thanks for all the comments, everyone! I'll definitely have to plan a less frustrating and more fun game next time!
Sorry I can't run flash games right now. So I can't play your game even though I promised I would... (since you rated my game). :(
It seems like you reached 20 votes already though. :)
aahh, i just had to give upp without even getting anywhere. i'm not too good at this kind of game, but at least i was prepared for it to be difficult so i'll try not to take it personally. i'd try it again if it was calibrated a bit to make it a little less impossibly hard. nice music (it's still playing in a tab as i'm writing).
Yeah, really hard. Checkpoints would have kept my interest, but redoing the whole first section repeatedly quickly got tiring. Music is nice, and I like the idea of the wrapping level.
I played this on stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141703264 - time 1:37:15
The music is really great, but I found the difficulty a bit to high for such a small game. And I don't really see the theme in this. But solid entry besides that !
You-Died.jpg That about sums up my play-trough. It reminds me a little of I wanna be the guy, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you ask. But I enjoyed it! Good job!
Hey Acuity; I remember you from OHC. :) Oh heck, this game is pretty tough, but it's actually kind of fun. Part of this is because the music is quite good. I love the contrast of a buzzy bass with delayed piano and a metre that sounds like a beat of 3 followed by 5 - I don't know what that metre would be called, but I like counting uneven beats like that. The game actually kind of benefitted from not having a lot of sound effects, but the one dying sfx was a bit too loud, but I guess it startles the player into realising that they've lost.
I agree that the game needed a lot more frequent checkpoints, and perhaps a bit more forgiving jump height, especially since a lot of factors can go wrong in terms of unresponsive controls, lag, that is not necessarily within the player's control (my game was skipping a couple frames and it made some passages frustrating to go through). Regardless, this doesn't seem like it is one of the most difficult of these sorts of spike platformers, particularly because it is very small scale, but I have yet to beat it, so maybe it will frustrate me if I was to try and beat it (which I might, later. :D).
Thanks for the comments and ratings, everybody!
@sgstair Whoa, thanks for streaming! I didn't realize how hard some of the jumps are since I've played each one many times to test - definitely good insight for me to see your stream!
@random-storykeeper Oh yea, I remember you from the last few OHCs I participated in! I haven't been able to participate in quite a while, but maybe I can pop in again sometime. Yea, my game definitely could use checkpoints (that's the next thing I'm going to figure out when I add to this), and I think the metre in the music is something like 3 3 2 in a measure, which is pretty much like 3 followed by 5 like you said. And huh, I didn't realize the death sound was that loud, I'll have to scale it down in the future! And yea, the controls are a bit sensitive, and the spikes are unforgiving, I'll have to tone it down! Thanks for commenting!
Oops, I triple posted... I don't know how to delete this! D:
I guess I might as well use this blank post to mention - if you want the music, it's available for download here: https://soundcloud.com/acuitynpc/spikespire