FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Hell Glider

Hell Glider

By theaxe316 and tylerkealy

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall204.3444
Fun114.3645
Innovation3103.7745
Theme14302.8444
Graphics1714.2846
Audio7193.2544
Humor10212.3636
Mood4213.7445

Comments

primalshadow 2020-10-05 23:48

I really enjoyed this one. Once the grapple mechanics were introduced the game felt very fun and intuitive to play however before that, when you can only walk, the movement seems overly sluggish.

bananabobbert 2020-10-05 23:52

Really polished and good looking style. The movement and mechanics are nice but the character itself should have as much polish as the rest of the game :P

puncherbear 2020-10-06 01:45

This is really good, if it had some good music to complement the gameplay I would pay money for it.

maytch 2020-10-06 01:51

I beat it! Fun, satisfying grappling mechanic, and cool colour theming.

jimlad 2020-10-06 02:51

A really fun game, and the hook controls extremely smoothly for 72 hours of work, and the simple art style has charm. I'd love to see it expanded into a larger game! I would imagine speed runs of this game would be amazing to watch, too.

paulhocker 2020-10-06 02:59

at the first the platform controls felt horrible. thick and clunky. but then when the grappling mechanic came in --- HOLY SMOKES --- what an amazing ride. you could take this further. great work here. you can see how much you put into it. thanks for making this.

fabula-rasa 2020-10-06 08:23

Some of those levels are truly diabolical! Grappling around is SO MUCH fun! Great mechanic and a very well-implemented one. I also loved the color scheme and how the color accent could change in a level with a new attempt. The intensity of highlights may get very tiring to look at after a longer time - but I bet it's only a problem when somebody sucks at platformers as much as I do and has to keep retrying ;).

Really well done!

malai 2020-10-06 09:37

Mechanic and controls felt great! As I got going and flying through the levels, I thought you should remove the 'platformer' tag, because I felt more like a 'flyformer' :D

andygates01 2020-10-06 14:18

The movement mechanics are actually really engaging. I found myself playing for way longer than expected! Great stuff!

meowmeowlitclub 2020-10-06 17:56

Thank you for making such cute and wonderful game. It's easy to understand what to do. I really love and enjoy the pixel art style so much. Flying and jumping in the sky is so excited! Good job and look forward to play your next game!!!

tigerchris2000 2020-10-06 19:00

very nice game a little bit challanging but not frustrating

noirox 2020-10-06 19:02

That is definitely a very fun game, super polished for a jam game and it looks nice on top of that! I was very impressed by its length as well, I expected it to end about 3 levels earlier than it did but you did an amazing job designing all the levels. It also reminded me a bit of our game because of the whole swinging thing, except that yours felt way smoother to control and was less frustrating imo :P One of my top games so far, maybe you could have communicated how to control the rotating switches a bit better (I kept trying to use WASD) but that is about the only criticism I can give!

ismailtemirci 2020-10-06 21:39

haha :D I feel like indiana jones is there :D good game thank you

somogy 2020-10-07 00:07

nice puzzle and fun of course!

ree-rolph 2020-10-07 00:22

Ooh, I loved this! Too few games have a decent grappling hook in them, particularly platformers. The closest I can think of is Floating Point by Tom Francis, in which I have an embarrassing amount of hours. Art is lovely, and the slow initial movement made the grappling feel more fluid and exciting in comparison. Would love to see a more complete version of this. Hell, I feel like the core loop is good enough that it could be well served by procedural generation. A roguelite version of this could be really interesting.

deathdev 2020-10-07 01:27

The level of polish here is downright amazing.

One thing that I would definitely like to give praise to is the placement of buttons in the level. Specifically, many of them are placed in such a way that I would unintentionally press them as I was going through, but due to the way my player was moving, it would create these perfect scenarios of _just barely_ opening a door before swinging through it. This created an overall sense of great timing / flow through the levels. Great job!

m-trigo 2020-10-07 02:48

Good job!

I managed to scale up walls and get across pits by spamming the wip and clinging to walls and ceilings. Is that intentional?

eugenik 2020-10-07 03:31

Very funny! Nice job!

dharby 2020-10-07 04:14

Nice ambience from this game. Love it! Nice work.

adil 2020-10-07 06:01

wow, i want to play this game more and more, I would be happy if you release it with some new cool features. Absolutely good graphics, sounds, gameplay, gamedesign. It's a great example of really great ludum dare project! Love this! <3

tyler-law 2020-10-07 06:14

That was awesome! I loved the style you nailed it. The chromatic aberration was a really nice visual touch. It wasn't just the visuals, everything was really cohesive. The sound effects and the weight and feel of the actions were spot on. You masterfully balanced the razors edge of difficulty vs frustration. The levels were fun and scaled up there difficulty at a good pace. My only complaint is that I always had to spin forever on the gears that unlocked the doors to figure out which way to spin them. Well done. That last level almost had me quit, it was awesome when I made it down that spike tunnel and finally succeeded though. :thumbsup:

pichuscute0 2020-10-07 08:34

Quite a nice looking and playing game, with a ton of content too. I've got only a couple small criticisms. First, the levels feel to generally claustrophobic for how fun it seems like it'd be to go really fast (especially with your fancy camera tilting). Next, the character feels really stiff without animation, although obviously in a game jam you can only do so much. And finally, the cranks were a bit difficult to turn in the levels because of the somewhat cramped nature of them.

Generally, this is a fantastic job. Congrats!

akromaly 2020-10-07 14:21

This game has really a lot of potential because the graphics look awesome and the noose mechanic is so satisfying to use, though I found the main movement controls pretty slow and awkward, some more speed and animation would've done it better, also some music would've been a nice touch.

toccio94 2020-10-07 14:52

This was really fun and addicting, completing it was a pleasure. The hook mechanic is very satisfying, i like that it has no length limit so you always attach to something (unless it is a spike, it could have been useful to have a sound for it). The style is very cool and original, I liked the chromatic aberration and how u smoothly move and tilt the camera based on the movement.

Level design is also well made, I mostly could move smoothly through a level, and not like stop and guess "I've to hook there or here?" then move and stop again. You are always moving and that is perfect, it gives a special dynamism to the game. I also felt lost in hem and it helped atmosphere and immersion.

That said, the base movement, if it is not needed since u mostly use the hook, could be improved a lot, it was too laggy. I would have also removed completely the glide and wall jump mechanic, I think they are out of the focus of the game. I can see you wanted to merge the hook with them, like in one of the last levels, but it wasn't working for me, maybe could be improved to better fit the hook mechanic.

Also, I really think this game was not on theme, even if I try my best to understand the connection it just seems it is not connected to it.

I could easily see this game with more levels and stuff as a complete game! Great work!

macmist 2020-10-07 16:06

That's a rea;;y fun game and addictive! Lovely graphics, coll ;echanics and hard to master but that gives a really statsifying feelings when you reach the end of a level. Sounds are great too, well done! The only thing I would have liked would be to know how long it took to for the correct run. The time displayed at the end of alevel seems to include all the tries you've made

jaoel 2020-10-07 16:50

Really nice game with a lovely art style. I love how you made the walk agonizingly slow to force the player to use the grapple! I think the gliding mechanic could have been used a bit more, but the grapple mechanics alone makes for excellent gameplay.

Amazing work! Good job!

zeu31 2020-10-07 18:52

What a nice game! So polished This noose mechanic is really nice. Now I want it in every game. =)

chocolat-endive 2020-10-07 20:02

This is a most pleasant game experience. The mechanics and controls works and feels perfectly well. I'm not a platformer-addict but I finished this one because I was having so much fun. Good job on making a redish palette/graphics that does not feel bloody, the game is very pretty. Even the level design is great with a good difficulty curve, and that's a difficult thing to make in such a short time.

The only thing I would add is some music!

firebelley 2020-10-07 22:39

I have to admit, I was kind of disappointed with the controls and how floaty they felt at first. And then I got the grapple and WOW what a difference. That grapple feels so nice, and the midair floaty controls felt really good in combination with the grapple. I think maybe you should have led with the grapple to start.

Art is great as well. Really nice work!

netmute 2020-10-08 08:32

What a fantastic experience! :smile: The graphics where gorgeous, the trees and falling leaves. There's also quite a lot of content here, the level design was super interesting. I'm not really sure about the controls. Sometimes they felt great -especially after I found out I can still control the player while hooked-, but sometimes they also felt too sluggish and floaty.

Overall this was a very very nice entry! Congrats :thumbsup:

earlybard 2020-10-09 07:04

Fully agreed with @Firebelley - the ground controls had me worried but the grappling completely changes the game. Feels fantastic once you get going!

hicko 2020-10-09 10:55

best game i played in this jam

thewustache 2020-10-09 13:42

I am a huge fan of grappling hooks in games, and man, this is one of the most satisfying ones I have played so far. It's hefty, fast, yet easy to use. Not to mention the beautiful animation. Both the buttons and the crank wheels complement the mechanic perfectly.

It shows that you cared about the little details -- things like the camera tilting when you move quickly. I don't know if that's the case, but it feels like you added a little auto-aim to make the buttons easier to hit, which I like if that's the case. The tutorial levels do their job very well too.

The amount of levels you created is impressive, especially considering how well designed they are. They provide the perfect backdrop for experimenting with the grappling mechanic while not being too easy. Exactly the right challenge for a jam.

For some suggestions: I would show more of the world, it feels like the camera is zoomed in a little too far when you move at high speeds. Also the ground movement and double jump/glide feel a little finicky. Luckily, that isn't too huge an issue since you largely use the grappling hook anyway. I would also consider adding more air control for spike-heavy areas.

Overall one of my favorite entries I've played so far!

eoshadows 2020-10-10 08:18

Awesome game! I loved the mechanics, it felt so amazing and enjoyable swinging all over the place. Making the scene kind of tilt whenever you swing really hard or whatever it was also provided a really cool feel to the gameplay! The graphics were amazing too! Overall, this is a really good game. Well done!

madbookstudios 2020-10-13 16:00

@tylerkealy and @theaxe316, I thought Hell Glider was probably one of the most fun games I've played this jam - so I included it in my favourite jam games of LD47! https://youtu.be/dhUnXhgGYv0

tylerkealy 2020-10-14 00:42

@madbookstudios Thank you so much, this made my day! appreciate it - great video!!!

exopunk 2020-10-15 16:53

Just finished it, loved the grapple mechanics and the feel when on grapple. There level design was nice, the ground movement felt a little bit off and jumping sometimes gave a much bigger boost than anticipated but that's minor. Overall awesome work, loved it!

joedev 2020-10-16 14:36

One of the best entries I've played so far! The main mechanic is juicy and very fun to interact with, the physics of the grappling is perfect (tho the base movement / jumping / wall jumping felt a little off). The audio was nice and crunchy, the aesthetics were great (love the background ambience and particles). Only minor nitpick would be it would have been nice to have some background music, but in a jam thats hardly a priority!

onkel-mo 2020-10-16 19:20

That was awesome! One of the best entries i played so far. It's really fun swinging around the rooms and trying to go on a speed run. The controls were snappy and the levels challenging, but not frustrating. I love how many levels you made! The only hing I didn't fully grasp was how the rotating switches worked. Do I need a certain speed? I had the feeling that sometimes I had to turn them once, sometimes more than twice.

I'd really like to have some background music to go with the game, but that's just a minor wish to improve something already very good. :)

duke 2020-10-16 19:40

Well done! That felt very good :) Excellent game design in regards of level progression and general game play. I loved how heavy everything felt. The camera and sound effects when getting really fast added a lot to the atmosphere and the weighty feel of the character swinging about. The game was rather easy and it shows that there might be some balancing issues left in regards to the platforming itself. After getting the lasso, I didn't need to use any of the other techniques until the last level or so, where you are forced to glide again (which was a great design in that level by the way). So, I kinda felt sad that you introduced all those mechanics and couldn't really use them. Swinging WAS the most fun though :) Walking and jumping felt kinda slow in comparison. The art was also on point and. great pixel art and color schemes. It was also a good call to tone down a little on the camera effects and only use them to actually add upon the audio-visuals instead of cluttering everything with post-processing. The sfx was rather bare bones but worked in the context of a retro pixel game. The theme is in there, but rather withdrawn, like most games that featured some kind of lasso mechanic to some extent. The speed run aspect was also a nice touch :) Helps to keep people invested!

All in all, a very very well made game. Congrats!

elysiagriffin 2020-10-16 20:42

Hi, I played your game on my livestream today!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/772381107?t=3h9m33s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

tylerkealy 2020-10-28 13:30

@elysiagriffin @duke @onkel-mo @joedev @exopunk @madbookstudios @eoshadows @thewustache @hicko @earlybard @netmute @firebelley @chocolat-endive @zeu31 @jaoel @macmist @toccio94 @andrewpixel @pichuscute0 @tyler-law @adil @dharby @eugenik @m-trigo @deathdev @ree-rolph @somogy @ismailtemirci @noirox @tigerchris2000 @meowmeowlitclub @andygates01 @malai @fabula-rasa @paulhocker @jimlad @maytch @puncherbear @bananabobbert @primalshadow We just wanted to thank each and every one of you guys for taking the time to review our game - we really value all of your comments and couldn't be more grateful! We got something useful out of each and every one of them - best of luck to you all on your development journies!!<3

chocolat-endive 2020-10-29 20:35

Hey, thank to you for sharing this little thing! Hope you're happy with the ratings, your game deserved it!

peace-of-cake-games 2020-11-05 02:57

Great job in the rankings! The gameplay, concept, etc, was fantastic! However, I feel that the controls are horrid: WASD does nothing for the rope when you can use the mouse, wall jump was useless, and spreading your hand across the keyboard for Space jump was just awful compared to the possibility of W jump. Otherwise, great job