FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD43 → Twist of Souls

Twist of Souls

By agentparsec and franfox

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4153.5449
Fun4773.3051
Innovation5613.0951
Theme7953.0452
Graphics1614.1952
Audio224.2052
Humor2.168
Mood1043.9451

Comments

jiri-hysek 2018-12-04 17:35

Ok, i finished it upside down :) I like the graphics and animations, really well done. And soundtrack is great. Good job guys!

raffe 2018-12-04 17:35

Nice audio, animations and graphics! The game feels super polished :D Character is also kinda moody which is good. :) Nice game!

joshanthony1990 2018-12-04 17:41

A well-polished game, which is very hard to pull off in such a short time. Took me a few tries to figure out the significance of the Twist mechanic, but once I did it was fun to play. Good job!

publicidadeba 2018-12-04 17:43

Good Graphics and awesome mood. The precision required with the slow movement was not a good combo imo, but I was able to beat :) Well done guys.

publicidadeba 2018-12-04 17:43

killer audio btw 5/5

najmm 2018-12-04 17:44

Absolutely love your Itch game screen...I played the entire thing but I am not sure whether I would be okay with a game with upside down controls. Maybe you can change the gravity instead of the controls...

goldenmelon 2018-12-04 17:46

Best platformer on LD43 so far. Great graphic and music. The game is very polished.

However, the theme is not disclosed.

Liked the game anyway :D

captainweeaboo 2018-12-04 17:48

Game is pretty good, but I can see you encountered same problems as we. Not much time to work, too complicated idea to implement. Feels like you should sacrifice your life to make game some easier, but now game can be finished even upside down. Graphics and sound design is cool, controls are very nice and smooth. Great job.

hechi 2018-12-04 18:08

I've enjoyed playing this game. Controls are smooth and the pixelart is simple and beautiful. Pretty good work.

jandourek 2018-12-04 18:13

Great game! The music, visuals and overall athmosphere fit very well with the theme. The twist mechanic is nice but didn't have much impact on the gameplay (it was easy to finish even while playing upside down).

kirke 2018-12-04 21:31

Really nice simple graphic, I love it! And music, too! :D I like also the concept of switching control axis! Man, an easy game became a more complicated because of my brain! Great fun, good job! :D

velocity7 2018-12-05 12:31

The game is really well polished and the mood is pretty good. It really made me complete the game. I got the sacrifice of my controls. If I want to see the game in the correct orientation, I will have to sacrifice my health. If I don't want my health to decrease, I will have to sacrifice my vision. Hope I got your idea. Good Job. Try mine as well. :smirk:

mattwagar 2018-12-05 12:43

Very well polished and gorgeous visuals! Loved the dust on jumps and sounds and animations. Very impressive. Conceptually I'm not crazy about the precision platforming, but upside down. I think the mechanics could have been a bit more adventurous.

budgiem2 2018-12-05 12:45

Loved the art and music! But isn't the game just an ordinary platformer upside down? Do you you even need to switch the camera back?

theonethatneverwas 2018-12-05 12:51

Very nice little game! I really enjoyed playing it! Very polished for a ludum dare game. Good job!

groggi 2018-12-05 13:31

Beautiful and fun game. Liked it very much! Had a few crashes on Windows unfortunately...

t1a2z 2018-12-06 08:18

I absolutely love art and the sound of this game! And "turn over" mechanic feels fresh, yet not quite as mind boggling as I expected it to be =) Level design, on the other hand, have some issues in my opinion. The biggest of them is that "pixel perfect jump" thing, when you have to jump from the last pixel of a platform to land almost on the first pixel of the next platform.It is quite annoying IMO. But still awesome and incredibly polished game.

wowa 2018-12-06 15:49

Wow! Love this one, could not finish it, it was quite hard for me. But i'll try it later :) Very well done!

aeveis 2018-12-07 05:45

Nice pixel art and music! The squash and stretch adds a lot to the small pixel sprite. The platforming was alright for me, though interestingly enough it felt like I couldn't jump as far when upside-down. That might be my own perception though with timing while upside-down. Could see you making it harder and harder for the player- and finally when the player is back to normal, it could feel like a huge powerup. nice job!

franfox 2018-12-11 15:15

@joshanthony1990, @captainweeaboo, @jandourek you guys are right! I’ve changed the idea of the core mechanic 4 hours after deadline so It was pretty intense ending. That’s the consequence of a bad planification :S

franfox 2018-12-11 15:15

Hi, @publicidadeba, I’m not sure what’s the “slow movement“ you said. I’m glad you like the audio!

franfox 2018-12-11 15:15

@najmm thanks for the website comment! You’re right, I’m thinking in improve it a little for the post ludum version.

franfox 2018-12-11 15:15

@goldenmelon you’re very kind. I agree about the theme, I need to improve it in next jams. PS: I’ve enjoyed your game so much and was pretty close to my original idea. Good work!

franfox 2018-12-11 15:15

@velocity7 thanks! I think your idea is better than mine :)

franfox 2018-12-11 15:16

Hi @t1a2z, yes, I’m planing to improve the whole level design for the post ludum version. When you say that “pixel perfect jump” thing are you referring to the first big jump or in general? thanks!

franfox 2018-12-11 15:16

@groggi Thanks! Could you tell me what Windows version you used? How many times it crashed?

franfox 2018-12-11 15:16

@mattwagar Yep! I’m totally with you, the core mechanic need a bit more of spice. Thanks!

franfox 2018-12-11 15:16

@aeveis yes! It’s definitely just a perception. The problem is you get used after some jumps, I need to add extra challenges… but thanks for playing it!

franfox 2018-12-11 15:17

@jiri-hysek, @raffe, @hechi, @kirke, @wowa, thanks for your comments and for playing the game :ok_hand:

groggi 2018-12-11 21:43

I am on Windows 10. Hope that helps... :|

franfox 2018-12-12 13:04

@groggi Ok, thanks! I'll try to find it.

smbe19 2018-12-12 22:40

Very beautiful game! The atmosphere is great, especially the audio improved the feeling of the game a lot. The controls felt quite good, which is not easy in a platformer.

ddrkirbyisq 2018-12-16 16:47

Pretty neat short game! Like others I have mixed feelings about the game concept, in that I think it's not providing a whole lot gameplay wise BUT on the other hand also makes sense in a cool way. *shrug* It feels like with some more time and planning you could probably come up with some better execution of the general idea, no idea what that would look like though.

It does feel like the game would start to get repetitive after a while (so, it was a good length as is, actually), but on the other hand, maybe there could be some cool new mechanics and obstacles introduced to spice things up. Perhaps something along the likes of weighted platforms that change their height based on whether you are flipped or right-side-up! Thus forcing the player to switch in certain spots for a reason other than the health timer. Or anything, really.

The jump sound effect felt a bit odd to me (?), but the overall presentation is pretty nice, and the checkpoint visual + bell audio was a very nice touch, probably my favorite part of the entire game.

Overall, good job on another jam entry!

ddrkirbyisq 2018-12-16 16:49

(Oh! FYI, a very minor bug report: the menu screen doesn't react very well when you mouse click on certain parts of it (e.g. outside of any valid option), seems that it results in no choice being selected at all, which is awkward to recover from since the mouse cursor is not visible.)

franfox 2018-12-17 15:49

Thanks for your comments @ddrkirbyisq! There's a final version of the game with a lot of improvements and fixes in the itch.io page :ok_hand:

acaral 2018-12-17 19:42

polished and thoughtful, your entry is pleasant to play. Nice work!

icxon 2018-12-18 00:03

I'm really bad at platformer games, but I love this one. I think you should not drain health when you at respawn, because this leads to infinite death cycle if you leave the game on its own. But I know... the sacrifices must be made.

Well done.

Here is my playthrough (full of struggle):

https://youtu.be/t3k3mHRDG_k

franfox 2018-12-18 08:56

Wow @icxon! You really made a big sacrifice playing it! Do you think I should reduce the difficulty in the last part? (the x4 part :sweat_smile:) In a range where 10 is satisfactory and 0 is frustrating, what note do you think the game have?

Thanks for your time, it really helps!

icxon 2018-12-19 03:07

@franfox, I don't think you should reduce the difficulty, players tend to love challenging platformers (e.g. SMB, Celeste, VVVVVV and many more). It's fairly difficult and it's all about right timings and controls. Unless you track metrics for the game sessions and see something that works not as intended.

The game is not frustrating :smiley: The only thing I have concerns on — is the 'upside down / normal' playtime ratio. It seems 'upside down' close to 90% right now. If you plan to add more content — I'd consider to make it somewhere in range 50%-70%, especially in the first levels so player can get used to the 'upside down' mode.

franfox 2018-12-19 08:51

I think I'll keep it as it is, it's hard to know the right point when you've played thousands of times :) So thanks @icxon, it helps me a lot! Best!

jk5000 2018-12-19 12:02

This is an very well made little platformer. The controls, graphics and music/sound is overall really good in this game. The idea of turning the camara up-side-down is pretty fun, but I would have liked the game to tell me what is really happening in the red door, and why I have to walk up-side-down. Overall is this a good LD game. Well done.

franfox 2018-12-19 12:42

Thanks @jk5000! Normally I do not like having to explain the reasons or the history of the game and I prefer it to be in the player's imagination but you are right that it may not be very clear. Thanks for the comment

bbaf 2018-12-19 17:06

Nice and challenging game. Simple but good mechanics. Art and music are awesome, no jokes. Soundtrack reminds me Resident evil 2 - 3 which I love very much. :smile: Wonderful entry!

franfox 2018-12-19 18:04

Thanks @bbaf! It's true, @agentarsed did an excellent job with the soundtrack :ok_hand:

tgiant 2018-12-20 06:37

All I have to say is thanks for this game. It was such a great compilation. The graphics/art was beautiful and it felt perfect. It was an excellent and professional application of pixel art. The sound was superb.

Amazing game.

franfox 2018-12-20 09:56

Thanks @tgiant! I'm glad you liked it!

falak 2018-12-20 15:37

Really good game but quite hard. And this is annoying that after died you must start in normal position not upside-down. Good luck!

verysoftwares 2018-12-21 17:25

hmm, i'm just not sure if the game presents a meaningful choice. you lose health so fast in normal orientation that you'll basically always want to be upside-down. it does have some good presentation and level design.

easy82 2018-12-22 21:36

Hey there! :) I love the pixel art and animations, the jump animation is very juicy (are you squeezing the character?), and the player movement is very fluid. I like the minimalistic approach: less is more. The game is super hard though... I hate the jumping spikes! :D I've seen some visual glitches when starting up the game in fullscreen mode (there were lines along the tiles). Very solid entry, I'm looking forward to your next game! ;) Cheers, pal!

franfox 2018-12-24 09:19

Hey @easy82! Yep, I'm squeezing by code! Thanks for your comments. I was not very sure about difficulty but as I won't continue developing this game I think I'll keep it as hard it is. Otherwise I've been having problems with fullscreen but I think I could fix it in a new version, did you played in Windows? Thanks and Merry Christmas :christmas_tree:

frescogusto 2018-12-25 23:02

jumping really good is! also sound of jumping pretty cool! IT S A ME AMRIO! also my sister almost fell asleep but not in the nd. good one !!1

blubberquark 2018-12-31 19:05

The old LDJAM site told me not to comment "I died a lot", and yet...

easy82 2019-01-01 22:26

@franfox Cool! Subtle effects like this squeezing adds a lot to the animation. I played the Linux version, I believe. Happy New Year! :)