FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Skycrawler

Skycrawler

By oneiromancer

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall534.22119
Fun294.22118
Innovation694.14117
Theme8103.61118
Graphics5353.85119
Audio3433.71119
Humor8012.7089
Mood3363.83107

Comments

mechord-and-mechoh 2020-10-05 17:53

It is very interesting game. I like this idea and music

gaq 2020-10-05 17:54

Loved it!

jmoocow2003 2020-10-05 18:06

Pretty solid puzzle-platformer! I enjoyed the way you can use (or defy, I suppose) the different gravity angles to get to certain platforms, some of the levels took some big brain power to solve. The music was pretty good but got repetitive after a little while. I kind of wish there was more of the creature at the end there, being hunted like that added some tension to the game that I think would be fun if there was more of it. Other than that, a really fun game :)

gorr 2020-10-05 18:06

Hey, I really like your game. Awesome idea. It was unexpected to meet enemy in the last level cvwU9vEPxI4.jpg

gammaromeo 2020-10-05 18:11

Very cool game! I love the idea and the puzzle elements. So many level possibilities! I think as you progress in levels you can add more complex things like moving platforms, springs etc?

arscene 2020-10-05 19:02

Very nice ! The movement feels great !

lestat 2020-10-05 19:04

Nice concept, very well executed. Good job!

robinerd 2020-10-05 19:07

Cool! Very promising core mechanic you got, and many levels with increasing difficulty. This was very innovative. The only issue I found was that the title screen text says "Skycrawer" without an L, but hey who cares! Awesome :)

oneiromancer 2020-10-05 19:16

@robinerd Wait, it does?! That's kinda embarrassing. I hope people won't pay much attention to menu screen.

mohdi 2020-10-05 19:17

Super fun game! One of my favorites so far. Making some of those long jumps was so satisfying. Very well done!

pedrohph 2020-10-05 19:23

I realy liked this game and this concept is amazing!

oneiromancer 2020-10-05 19:31

Everyone, thanks for coments and feedback.

@jmoocow2003 I mean, with the theme "Stuck in a loop" repetative music becomes a feature. And the creature at the end, well, I'll be honest, it was a pain to come up with AI for it, so I decided to leave it only as a one-time encounter.

@gammaromeo I do add some more puzzle elements, like spikes or platforms that fall if you land on them. But I try to stick to the idea that the gravity mechanic should be the only thing on player's mind.

purpledartfrog 2020-10-06 13:31

@oneiromancer What a great simple entry... big congrats on it .. relaxed music and a bit of brain gymnastics :rofl:

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

abiral 2020-10-06 13:35

Awesome game and music was really catchy.. I was really hooked into this game, It will surely be a releasable game if its polished with new things. The concept of gravity was really cool.

mincho 2020-10-06 13:35

The levels were really satisfying to beat, The core mechanic was really fun. The levels were pretty easy but that made it for a relaxing experience. Nice music and graphics, I'd like to play more levels!

pune007 2020-10-06 13:44

*Le Kiss* The game is amazing. The polish and the mechanic is amzing executed. Some levels had me scratching my head but in a good way. This game has amazing puzzle elements and could be made into a full-fledged steam release.

pschichtel 2020-10-06 14:11

I like the implementation of the theme. Also quite a bit if content for the time and pretty polished too.

leo-red 2020-10-06 15:10

Very good game mechanic. The art is good. Nothing bad about it to say. Maybe you should make it a commercial game.

vem 2020-10-06 15:15

I absolutely adored this one. Hits a lot of notes that I enjoy. Platformer with a puzzly gimmick and a relaxed aesthetic is a good start. Then it just does all of those things so well.

Yeah, this is probably one of my favorite entries so far this time around.

ds-nahogara 2020-10-06 15:26

Very great game here, i beat it! I suck very badly at platformers, but on this one, the control feels so nice and smooth, the graphics are fantastic, and the guitar track is a blast, amazing job guys! Well done.

I believe you can add more puzzles! And maybe even introduce rotating elements in the level, there's so much potential for this game! Don't give up team :smiley:

robinerd 2020-10-06 17:24

@oneiromancer don't worry about the menu screen, I'm kind of a grammar nazi :p blame the lack of sleep!

cieroceramics 2020-10-06 21:24

I really liked figuring out how the mechanics worked. it was very natural and intuitive what the next steps of the puzzle solving were going to be. which made for a very fun game. great job.

mateusboga 2020-10-06 22:08

Such a cute little game! It's really relaxing to play and the whole thing, the music, the visuals and the gameplay all feel really well together. Nice job!

jenny-bourke 2020-10-07 01:26

The art style and music in this game are fantastic!! This game was a ton of fun, I loved solving these levels. Great job!!

guillem-serra 2020-10-07 18:18

The core mechanic is very well executed, nice work!

steambrain 2020-10-07 21:55

Best game I've seen so far! Thanks for experience! Spider was scarry.

starcloud0621 2020-10-07 22:10

Nice! the game mechanics were very creative, and allowed for a fun gameplay

brorenata 2020-10-07 22:17

Loved it, great mechanic and platforming was very smooth. Only nitpick I had was that the character wouldn't turn some corners unless I jumped, but other than that really well done!

tommy 2020-10-07 22:17

Agree with @steambrain, best game I've played so far! Took a little bit to complete all the levels, but is was totally worth it. This game has a great core mechanic, beautifully implemented (alwyas feel very good to move and jump around, and the character responds as expected) and is very well implemented in the design of every single level.

ilya096 2020-10-08 15:40

Easy to learn, hard to master) Very good game and simple but clean idea, any possibility to further development with more levels and maybe port to mobile?)

erlioniel 2020-10-08 20:49

Thank you for such a nice game :D Don't know what to criticize in it. It's small and very well done from all perspectives.

skycrawler_cameo.png

peace-of-cake-games 2020-10-09 03:47

Wow, that really challenged my mind to think outside the box! Well done!

vivoubos 2020-10-09 14:58

WoW! A fantastic puzzle game! I loved it!

You add a lot of mecanism to your game! It add a possibility and you use it well in a great level design!

A very solid entry, good job!

duke 2020-10-09 18:05

That was splenid :) a really nice and round package. Firstly the good stuff: The pace was perfectly balanced. Just as I thought "this could use some more variation" you introduced a new mechanic. The ending came at perfect time as well. Not too short, not too long. I also loved the way you transitioned the levels, good idea! Made it a lot more fluent and immersive. The game play in itself was also very well made. Reminded me a lot of the Gravity Rush games (which I adore). The sound effects worked well and the score was nice as well. Like I said, a very good package all together.

The art was a mixed bag for me though. While the animations and the main character looked gorgeous, the rest of the environments seemed a bit off for me. The clouds were a nice addition but those could use some more polish as well. But that's all really nothing that actually reduced my fun. Seeing that this was a solo projects, it's all the more impressive what you achieved. Good job!

ruruie 2020-10-09 18:51

I loved the music, the mood and the crisp jump and air control which are obviously the key mechanics to have be crisp here. Perfect in-theme light platformer.

oneiromancer 2020-10-09 19:03

@duke, oh, it's refreshing to read some actual bit of criticism.

The whole environment art feels lacking, because, well, it actually is. All the levels are basically two 9sliced sprites, stretched, flipped and tiled.

There actually was more to it initially, I had some tiles to add variation, I was planning to make a dissolve shader instead of just alpha fade out. But whenever I've added new stuff, it would break something that was already working. So I've decided to cut it all, leave the bare minimum and just polish it.

Also, a little sneakpeak at what graphics were like 6 hours before I finished:

graphics_showcase.gif

harusame 2020-10-09 19:07

Strong game mechanic ! I enjoy concept, it's a challenging game. Well done.

alpacalypse 2020-10-09 19:18

Of all the platformers-with-a-twist I've played this LD this is my favourite, it's a great small coherent game.

sidonie-go 2020-10-09 20:09

Skycrawer (you forgot the L of the menu screen :wink: ) is a really beautiful game. The mechanic is pretty cool and the art really beautiful. I tried it on the online version and I will download it to share i to my friends :v: Congrats

jerry-xu 2020-10-09 20:31

I loved the puzzles of this level! I think it's one of my favorite platformers of Ludum Dare so far, and the difficulty was just right - starts off easy, but gets progressively more and more challenging as we learn how to navigate the changing gravity.

roboshamit 2020-10-09 21:02

Great game mechanics and sound design. LOVED it.

mackandrius 2020-10-10 13:32

Awesome, excellent idea for the core mechanics of the game. If you continue to work on it I think it really could turn into something. I think an atmospheric music style would work great here, something a bit more ambient, a windy soundscape and organic sound effects. Congrats on a job well done and got to say the spider freaked me out :laughing:

croxel-studios 2020-10-10 20:28

Really cool concept. The theme is very well applied to the platforming game. This has potential! :)

tjm 2020-10-10 21:59

Very unique take on Mario Galaxy-esque gravity changing, I like it! It allows for a lot of interesting traversal routes that aren't immediately obvious, and I feel like I solved a few levels in ways that weren't the intended default (or at least didn't use all the platforms/obstacles).

The controls did feel a little awkward to me; I would often find myself changing direction as I landed from a jump, which felt uncomfortable. I think I would probably like them better if they were screen-relative rather than character relative, but perhaps other people would feel differently?

Death also felt a little unforgiving; the levels are moderately large relative to the character's move speed, and I didn't generally feel like the gems in each one felt like part of a unified "whole" puzzle; it often felt like missing a jump required me to re-solve the previous one or two "puzzles" (gems) rather than just the one I was on. Perhaps if there were fewer gems on each level, and where there are multiple gems they should be part of the same jumping puzzle? When I return to the central island after getting a gem I feel like I should be "done" with that gem, and I shouldn't have to collect it again because I failed to collect a different one.

Though in many ways that speaks to the slickness of the presentation; the way the levels flow into each other is excellent, and it does a wonderful job of making the game experience feel like a unified whole. With a bit more time and art variety I think this could be the basis of a really great full game, so I look forward to seeing what you do with it!

sophiemae0 2020-10-11 02:23

This was such an interesting gravity system, it was really fun to play. And the music was amazing! This game is so well made and polished. Great job :)

zebrainflames 2020-10-11 14:16

This was a lovely concept! Great mechanics for a nice twist on a platformer!

chris-mulholland 2020-10-11 15:40

The movement felt fluid and it was an interesting concept

toccio94 2020-10-11 16:05

It was a nice and polished game =)

I liked the music (even though it became a bit repetitive after a while), it fit the game enough. The movement and the control of the character in general is nice and intuitive. At first, I thought you loop also when falling of screen, but it is also ok to lose to make it more interesting.

The thing I liked most was the fact you always built up the level starting from the middle pieces. It's a little touch that for me increased by a lot the immersion and made it feel more like a journey than a level select! I think they say it is more diegetic as level progression.

The dark thing near the end was intriguing but then the game ended sadly =( When the temple appear tho I was surprised, it's cool!

acaral 2020-10-11 17:03

A good view of the theme. A polished entry. You did a great job, and I had fun.

tricky-fat-cat 2020-10-11 17:59

A pretty fine puzzleplatformer with interesting core gameplay feature and smooth difficulty curve, nice work.

neowhoru 2020-10-11 18:00

A real innovative game - i love the gravity gameplay mechanic and the transitions. really cool game

roikku 2020-10-11 18:03

Nice jumpy game with awesome gravity stuff.

joedev 2020-10-11 18:55

Very well executed main mechanic here, and I love the relaxing and calming ambience and music. This feels like a very good casual puzzle game, and I'd love to play a full version as like a mobile game or small puzzle game PC release for sure.

I'd say similarly to a poster above, the death was a little brutal in that missing one jump at the end of the level would mean you have to repeat everything, which felt a bit more frustrating than tough.

Overall very cool, and I love the art at the top of this page too :D

kyrio 2020-10-11 20:38

The character animations are great! And I loved the concept, even though it took a solid 15 minutes for me to understand the gravity system. Maybe add a tiny tutorial? Otherwise, great entry, congrats :)

elysiagriffin 2020-10-11 21:33

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

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

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/767511277?t=2h54m30s

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

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

michaelaranda 2020-10-12 02:33

This was a really neat concept!

honest-dan 2020-10-12 13:27

Great mechanics - felt fun to play and I found I discovered more about how the mechanic could be used as I played the game more. It would have been nice to have a little more interactions with enemies, as they looked cool and added a nice fresh dynamic to the puzzles. The moving platforms going the direction you jumped at them from was a nice touch too. Nicely done :)

lone-wolf 2020-10-12 16:09

Nice work. I like how you did the gravity. Music fit quite well too :thumbsup:

ghuyajil 2020-10-14 10:03

That was nice, the gravity shift thing done in a proper way that allows for interesting puzzles; you could take this way further by working on it more. If I have to give some feedback to improve/continue with this, the music was indeed too short, therefore repetitive. Also some more sound would help as well. But well done.

remus-rain 2020-10-14 17:13

Nice game! Especially your idea is really nice, great job on that! As both a puzzle player and designer, I found that some of the puzzles could be a bit more carefully designed to force a certain solution. Most of the puzzles I had to spend no time whatsoever to come up with a solution. Just run to the nearest crystal. Also, I found that for that reason the difficulty ramps up too slowly and run in danger to lose player attention because you don't challenge the player enough with new unexpected ways to explore the mechanics. Of course this is a high ask! And definitely a great job for a game jam! But if you want to explore this game further I would take some time to really find unexpected things you can do with the gravity puzzles. I'm sure there is more hidden :) Also, I don't know if the vanishing platforms neccessarily play to the games strength, as it becomes more of platforming skill check rather than playing to the games puzzle aspect. Anyway, all of this is meant in a nice way! Goood job, keep going, you already have something awesome here!

matlab 2020-10-14 17:54

OH MY GOD, the mechanics of your game is so simple and completely crazy! I love it !!! I don't know if you invented the gameplay or if you were inspired by an already existing game. In any case I've never played a game with this mecanic before and I loved taking it in hand! I finished all the levels... And my verdict : I want more !!! Especially since you present the mechanics of the dark creatures in the last level, there is so much potential and possibility of variations. I'm a fan! I think you can make a real game out of it, if you want to of course, because the concept can really go far I think ! So far it's my favorite game that I've tested out of all this Ludum! Thank you very much!

lukuluk 2020-10-14 18:24

Nice entry! The gravity mechanic is fresh and the overall game pretty polished! I would be interested to see where it goes with more content :D Just had some difficulties with the inverted controls when you are upside down or on the sides. I understand the way it works, but my brain gets f**ked up (even if it did not prevent me to reach the end). An interesting kind of control would be to move the player toward the direction you are pointing with the controls.

tc5550 2020-10-14 18:37

Nice game, love the animations. The mechanics are easy too learn and feel intuitive. Sometimes the controls feel inverted when switching platforms

cjgladback 2020-10-15 02:35

This is a fantastic game; I got a little stuck (was just over-steering in the air) early on, but I'm really glad I pushed through it. Once you get the hang of not diving off the screen...you dive off the screen a few more times accidentally but laugh at the poor little character's blank face as they plummet out of reality. This was a pleasure to solve and one of very few games that I actually made it to the end; very nicely made.

joe-cowman 2020-10-15 17:42

Wow, what an incredible game! The mechanics were fresh and fun, the puzzles got increasingly more difficult and it all felt so polished. Thank you for sharing!

garys 2020-10-15 19:24

This is, wonderful. A really fun mechanic I've not come across before. I particularly like how there's no specifc way to finish the level, if you can mess around with gravity there's any number of ways to reach a platform. Great fun.

luckyluke47 2020-10-15 22:52

Very nice game. Love the concept

trexxak 2020-10-15 23:19

This was incredibly fun! Liked the mechanic and liked even more how you chose to explore it! The learning curve was just right, as even I made it through the whole game with a few tries. I see myself agreeing with another comment here, too: You should pack this game up and just sell it commercially. Feels very complete! Good job!

mg-beatz 2020-10-16 19:18

i love it , i enjoyed this game

sleepystudios 2020-10-17 19:36

This is a neat little game with lots of levels for a weekend jam! I would be interested in how it would feel with a little more control in the air, as I found trying to land on other platforms a bit frustrating in some cases.

island-jam-2-group-3 2020-10-17 20:05

Amazing gameplay! I loved the style and the music too. Awesome job! ;-)

cedric86 2020-10-18 19:14

Very good entry. Reall liked the concept. Good job. Keep it up.

rafy 2020-10-19 10:45

Loved it !

kack3y 2020-10-19 17:26

Very good entry :) cute graphics and nice audio, did you really had the time to do all of this all by yourself :p ? Good to sometimes think outside the box

vphyre 2020-10-19 19:10

Your game is very fun and creative. I believe you could do something bigger with a lot of potential, using your project, if you want. The controls are very comfortable and precise. The graphics and animations are beautiful. I like the music too. The mechanics of changing the center of gravity depending on the platform you are on, is very well thought out. Great interpretation of the theme. Congratulations.

itsdanidre 2020-10-22 17:42

Really cool game. The controls were very intuitive at the start, and while at the start I was hesitant in every movement, later on I got comfortable diving long distances in really weird angles. The last battle with the "Boss" scared me because it glitched all over and sped around the map before vanishing the second time around :joy:

meatball 2020-10-23 17:58

Very well done, particularly the minimal-but-perfect sfx and tasty guitar jam. Great work!

stefan-b 2020-10-23 18:20

Cool concept, took me a bit to understand how to trick gravity into your favour, but then really intuitive gameplay feeling

flying-dog-fish 2020-10-23 18:26

Cool game. The gravity changing mechanic is a great idea and is implemented beautifully.

ectucker1 2020-10-24 04:15

Very well done overall; I really appreciated how the landing sound fit into the music. I had a bit of trouble with the controls at times; mostly due to not always knowing which direction the character would go when pressing right. Some kind of indicator for that may be helpful. I also kinda disliked the enemy in the last level. Since his position was randomized, it was hard to plan around him and I found that to be a bit too frustrating. Other than that though, the level design is very good; lots of interesting uses of the main mechanic throughout. Great work!

matootsy 2020-10-24 11:00

I like this kind of gravity games where we are walking around pieces in the sky. But there's always this upside down feeling when we don't know if we have to go left or right at one time. The fact that we have to reach some distant platforms while breaking the gravity is not easy and interesting. Nice art, and music (even if it's a bit repetitive). A very clean entry. Congratulation.

peace-of-cake-games 2020-10-28 04:35

Hey @oneiromancer , do you have a speedrun record?

oneiromancer 2020-10-28 08:58

@peace-of-cake-games Well, my best time is 02:31, and I'm yet to see someone beat it.

peace-of-cake-games 2020-10-28 13:25

Wow, that's an amazing time! You are the one who made the game. Ha ha, I only achieved 3:29!

peace-of-cake-games 2020-10-31 04:29

Hey @oneiromancer , I didn't know you added more levels! I thought I was crazy about this game before, now I'm an even huger fan!!