FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → GRAPPLE the Abyss!

GRAPPLE the Abyss!

By lectvs

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall104.2774
Fun34.4874
Innovation674.0674
Theme2903.8274
Graphics1513.9774
Audio1413.7473
Humor813.6668
Mood953.9272

Comments

prof-suarez 2021-04-26 01:29

What an interesting mechanic!

nethead 2021-04-26 03:31

Loved every bit of this, totally nailed the aesthetic and gameplay. Would prefer if the music didn't restart after every death but that's super minor. Superb entry :3

ian-kettlewell 2021-04-26 06:18

Most polished game I've played so far! The visual details are really great, eveything felt cohesive. The mechanic is also a great choice and I like how the level design explored different uses of it. Definitely feels like the mechanic could have even more fun uses in a larger game.

bemmu 2021-04-26 12:15

Been going through entries from past winners and so far this one was the most fun.

prof-suarez 2021-04-26 13:38

Played through the game. Too short. Can't wait for it to come out on IOS

minibobbo 2021-04-26 15:17

This was sweet! I liked the simple graphics and the mechanics were great. I like how the hook interacts with the different things in different ways.

I think that the gravity was a little high and everything moved just a little too fast. It made some parts of the game a little frustrating. I am not sure that I would get much better at this game than I am now because I think I've hit the limits of my reaction time and not skill. I thought about quitting with the two bats but I eventually got through them and I'm glad I did.

You are correct that the final boss is very easy. And you included just the right amount of lore... :smile:

I got a crash on the controls menu. Here it is. crash.png

lectvs 2021-04-26 19:42

@minibobbo Thanks for the feedback! And thanks a ton for sending your error message after the crash. :smiley: I've put out a small patch to fix it.

paroxysmal 2021-04-26 23:52

Very good...that water area kicked my ass.

retrospecter 2021-04-27 00:50

fantastic work. Movement feels really good, challenges were pretty well balanced, and the ending was really great. Only thing I wish is that there was more of it to play(and I mean that in a good way).

2bitcrook 2021-04-27 01:47

Jaw droppingly well executed and polished. Really unique movement/mechanic! The design was great, ramping up difficulty and new obstacles/interactions with the grapple hook. Witty writing paired with solid art and great music, what a package! Your management of game scope is admirable! Great stuff.

stewmega 2021-04-27 01:50

Excellent blend of mechanics, art, and sound. This is my top pick for the Jam so far.

sapazu 2021-04-27 02:21

It is hard to make original platformer game with grappling hook mechanics. Great work!

kevinworkman 2021-04-27 04:17

At first I got an error saying my browser (latest chrome) didn't support WebGL: https://i.imgur.com/HyUEoxr.png

But then I remembered I disabled hardware acceleration a while back. When I re-enabled that, it worked fine!

I liked the mechanic here, nice work! I could see polishing it up and making the grappling a little more forgiving- some of those corners were really tough! But overall this was a really solid entry, so great work!

jon-topielski 2021-04-27 04:19

Solid entry. Got some VVVVVV vibes along with Celeste Classic 2. Even managed a boss fight in a 1 life precision platformer. Excellent!

peace-of-cake-games 2021-04-27 04:22

Post-Jam version, eh? I would love to see that since the boss says they'll be harder in it. I cheesed the last fight a bit too easily.

I love how timing all of the grappling hooks makes it so you must do very precise moves! Making the lava break the grappling hook is a nice touch.

tim77 2021-04-27 10:09

Fantastic. Cool grapple mechanic. I stopped playing at the lava section though because I couldn't beat it! There was a bug in the instructions / tutorial screen where I couldn't consistently grapple upwards. I'd love to see a version of this that was slightly more forgiving, not necessarily setting you back when you got damaged - therefore improving the flow for less skilled players!

omid-ghavami 2021-04-27 13:11

Great game and well polished! Lovely creative mechanic with the hook, worked really well, and the level design was high quality considering you only had 48h! And nice touch with the ending. The graphics obviously simple but looks and feels good and very consistent. Music was great too and the few sound effects fit in well with the rest. Slightly too easy, but in an extended game would have probably been just the right level for the introductory levels -- I am not usually good at these types games but more or less breezed through it.

lomna 2021-04-27 14:36

The art is clean and game is really polished. I would love to play a post-jam version. Amazing game!

notexplosive 2021-04-27 15:55

The first "video game" game I've played so far. Really cool mechanic and nice gauntlet of puzzles to explore it. The checkpoints were nicely placed so I never felt like I had to redo a ton of content. Definitely cheesed the boss though :stuck_out_tongue:

randomhuman 2021-04-27 20:36

Fun game, nice range of challenges and I like the metahumour before & after the boss fight

jake-white 2021-04-27 20:48

Oh man I thought this was pretty decent until I got to the boss and that kinda blew me away. Super polished entry, the "controls" testing area is also genius. Solid humor despite only having a few lines of text lol

keithswanger 2021-04-27 22:18

I absolutely love the mechanics in this game. Truly something special in its simplicity. The boss battle was surprisingly dynamic, I felt like the boss knew what I was trying to do and countered it, it definitely wasn't easy as you suggested at the end xD

Another fantastic submission from you. I'm really glad I got to play, thanks for making it!

skoobydoo 2021-04-28 01:13

Got some errors trying to review that I was unable to resolve. https://imgur.com/KbFAJ7V

Happy to come back if there's something obvious I missed!

lectvs 2021-04-28 02:43

Thanks for the error report @skoobydoo! It looks like your web browser doesn't support WebGL. That can happen if you have hardware acceleration disabled, for example. You can also try a different browser if you're so inclined. :)

sugarsugarsugar 2021-04-28 07:26

One of the best games here! There's an interesting mechanic, a cool concept, good art, fitting background music, great sound design, puzzlies, and even a boss fight! Gave me Celeste vibes towards the end. Great entry!

raeino 2021-04-28 16:06

Liked everything about this game along with the flawless water area management. Apart from Celeste 2 and VVVVVV, the bossfight reminded me the final bossfight from Zelda II. Definetly worth a post-jam version!

john-gabriel 2021-04-28 18:42

I really enjoyed this! About the only part I didn't like were a couple of occasions where I had to get myself into a tight gap in a hurry. The boss fight at the end was a real treat, too! I'm looking forward to the post-jam version.

jcmonkey 2021-04-28 22:06

i really enjoyed the graphel hook, it was nice and simple and fun!

ismael-rodriguez 2021-04-29 01:05

Very nice! There were a couple tricky parts that feel a little too "you need to be perfect or you die" in the lava area, but it was manageable. I think it would be good to see more areas where you CANT grapple, because without them, it's basically just movement on delay. A small nit-pick on this really good game!

I love the boss fight at the end.

Good job!

kroltan 2021-04-29 02:22

Awesome game!

- Mechanics are solid and clearly readable and understandable; - Visuals are hella smooth and fit very well together; - The controls screen is very smartly implemented; - The lore was completely unnecessary and totally appreciated.

I don't see much of the theme here (though I'm not one to speak myself either :sweat_smile:)

I do agree that the grapple could be a bit more interesting, the lava area was nice for the restrictions but also maybe some physics would be interesting? I don't entirely know of course.

pedrohph 2021-04-29 02:47

Great game! I really liked it!

The game is hard, but not punishing. It is super fun to try again and again, until you pass that level. Gameplay is super fluid!

Great work!

caiolima 2021-04-29 02:48

Awesome entry! Love how polished and fluid the experience was, the game even already has checkpoints! Congrats for the project, should become a full game released one day! o/

victor-andrade 2021-04-29 02:59

This game was pretty addictive, and really well when it comes to difficulty curve, simple and clean, nice work !!

Cheers matey!!!

arancutter 2021-04-29 15:41

Very cool, I love platform games that replace jumping with a novel mechanic like this. It works really well and was quite challenging at times. Loved the meta humor at the end :smiley:

I had a lot of fun with it. Great work.

marcmagus 2021-04-29 17:14

Thanks for bringing your game by my stream to try out Monday night. I really enjoyed it. Who knew "grappling hook movement" would turn out to be a mini-theme this Jam.

If you'd like to watch again the highlight is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1005053862

apos 2021-04-29 19:55

This was so fun! It looked way easier than it actually was. Boss fight was unexpected but really cool! I'm so glad there were so many checkpoints.

koolruz 2021-04-30 04:00

I had a lot of fun playing this! The pixel art looked great, and the final boss fight at the end was tough enough that it took me a few tries to beat, but not so tough that I ever felt hopeless. Checkpoints were generously placed, so I constantly got to experience new content as I went through the game, and the music accompanying the boss fight was a jam!

In terms of constructive criticism, I really only have a few minor nitpicks. I had a hard time at the beginning of the boss fight figuring out that I could only hit them while they were grappeling, especially because of the free hit you're given to start the fight - For my first couple of attempts, I felt like my attacks were randomly phasing through the boss, but I pretty quickly realized that they could only be hit mid-grapple. The risk/reward of sending yourself diving at the boss if you missed an attack was a lot of fun though, and really heightened the tension of the fight.

I also had a strangely hard time getting through this underwater section, which was the only time the game bordered on being frustrating - Between the very tight gaps between the moving blocks, the delay between launching your grapple and getting pulled forward, and the inability to precisely reset yourself to a fixed distance away from the blocks, it felt awkwardly fiddly to pass. Even when I got the timing down on the first block, it took me several attempts to be consistent enough to do it twice in a row.

tricky-section.PNG

That said, the rest of the game more than made up for that minor hiccup. All in all, I had a lot of fun. When even just moving around in the controls screen felt great, I had a good feeling that the rest of the game would be a good time and I was not let down.

manan 2021-04-30 05:06

Excited for the post jam version! I don't know how you come up with such innovative mechanics.

purplealien 2021-04-30 13:33

I really like the twist on the controls of a typical platformer. Sometimes I feel like I have not enough control over the character, though... For the rest, nice game, congrats :D

jordan-carroll 2021-04-30 14:35

I dig it! Reminds of Celeste. Only think is I thought the obstacles moved a bit too fast towards the beginning haha

chrissx2 2021-05-01 01:59

I gave up on the lava part, but over all i had a great time, gj!

nikaz 2021-05-01 10:45

It is fun game! This simple art looks good with mechanics.

ace17 2021-05-01 12:03

Very solid entry : gameplay is punchy, fun and innovative.

It's hard but not too much (please, in a game like this, let the music loop instead of restarting it on every death !), and the level design is enjoyable.

The graphics and sound are minimalistic but work very well here : simple and effective.

The last line "maybe I'll be harder in the post-jam version" just made my day :D

ryder-studios 2021-05-03 06:13

Really great game. The fast paced movement is greatly used in the Level Design, and the simplistic art is really nice. The boss reminds me kinda of Celeste (but only the story of the boss). Love the last line "Maybe I'll be harder in the post-jam version" is so great haha!

felo07 2021-05-04 00:13

Very good game, I finish. Solid mechanics, very smooth. Loved the graphics and sounds, congrats =)

paulhocker 2021-05-06 02:48

really solid game that had a cool finish. i could not beat the boss but i had fun trying. really great game. thanks for making it.

joe40001 2021-05-13 07:22

Super well designed compo game. Nice, bite-sized, well polished, fun, for what it was trying to be, pretty much perfect.

evan 2021-05-14 06:14

I finished this a couple weeks ago but never got around to leaving a comment. I had a lot of fun with this one and (if I'm remembering correctly) the ending cracked me up :joy:

Loved it :heart:

shoc 2021-05-16 06:51

Really fun and frenetic game!

Overall it's good, but music doesn't get me into the mood :(

Anyways, it's a really cool game, good job!

meep 2021-05-16 09:45

Really fun, short platformer. :D Like others have already mentioned, I got Celeste vibes from the protagonist's appearance, and Celeste Classic 2 ones from the movement mechanics. Whether or not it got inspiration from those, it still felt like its own game, and nicely rounded things off with that boss battle- nice work!

This didn't really detract from the game, but especially after using the grapple as a weapon for the boss, it seemed odd that it couldn't be used to fight the bats- instead you had to maneuver around them. I think it would be fun to allow for some of these smaller grapple fights should you flesh it out in a post-compo version. :)

itsboats 2021-05-16 18:59

This was hella awesome! I had a lot of fun with this one even though I got stuck for a while a couple times haha I really liked the boss fight especially (I ended up finding a cheese strat where you shoot her while she's attached to a wall I think and you can stun lock her to death >:))

This one is minor, but I was fangirling over it last night in my stream: I liked how you communicated that you couldn't grapple the lava by putting it straight ahead of the player where they would obviously try xD

Well done! this has a lot potential in case you plan on working on it more <3

guitarbro 2021-05-16 21:32

Fun game! Coincidentally, very similar to this one https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/grapple-tongue

The grapple movement felt good and the quick reset was nice. Music fit well and the graphics were minimal but conveyed the information needed.

Overall, a pretty solid little game!

2021-06-17 16:54

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