FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Rabbit Rappel

Rabbit Rappel

By idan9000, matterlinx and justin-ma-wav

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1274.10156
Fun2433.86156
Innovation644.20156
Theme1574.22156
Graphics824.50156
Audio4543.68155
Humor2.504
Mood1894.14156

Comments

brigadeirim 2021-04-27 04:30

Great and hard game! Beautiful graphics!

paperdomo101 2021-04-27 06:12

Really difficult at first, but once I realized I had to used the gun to propel myself towards the rappel hooks, I had a lot of fun! Wonderful art style and nice music too.

otresnjak 2021-04-27 06:19

Wow, what an exceptionally gorgeous and well made game! The camera is a bit disorienting though-- seems to have trouble keeping up with the player sometimes.

Very very cool in general though, great work :O

joe-z 2021-04-27 06:24

Art and music was amazing. The platforming movement felt clunky and unnecessarily difficult. Not sure if I missed something but having to restart all the way back each time felt frustrating. Could also use a tutorial or at least a more gentle difficulty curve. The atmosphere and lighting was 10/10 though.

locustjin 2021-04-27 06:25

Animation of character is very very nice and controll is very smoth. Difficulty is quite high or i am week player :P

daniel-seeberg 2021-04-27 06:37

Needs checkpoints, and the music didn't seem to fit the mood of the graphics at all, otherwise it was great! It also needed some sort of controll-popup somewhere but i also forgot that

thejonu 2021-04-27 06:39

Took me a while to figure out how to play properly. The graphics are astonishing.

clue 2021-04-27 06:40

The movement concept is really cool and fun to play around with. It might even be nice to have some more sections playing around with just the gun on its own (like using it to reach higher places).

At the moment, it feels like the game is a bit too punishing - would be nice if there were checkpoints (maybe coinciding with the background transition).

matterlinx 2021-04-27 07:56

Thanks for the feedback everyone! We recognize the difficulty curve issue - we were a bit pinched on time with the level design. Checkpoints were also bugged, so that didn't help!

Just wondering, would anyone be interested in a steam release for a more fleshed out game?

save-sloth-studios 2021-04-27 09:01

The game looks nice, I enjoyed the concept, but it took a bit to figure out the movement without a tutorial. Overall it was a good experience.

mololo 2021-04-27 11:56

This game looks amazing, I love the art design and animations, very well done.

A small tutorial would be nice, it took me a bit until I figured out how to play. After I understood the mechanics it was fun trying to overcome the obstacles. It's a bit hard and the checkpoints help, but some are very far.

Overall a very good game.

microchasm 2021-04-27 15:43

Such a good idea. The graphics are nice, and I love the idea of exploring a cave like this. Rappeling down into the unknown is such an interesting thing to do in a game. I really wish I could have gotten further, but there is no indication of what you are supposed to do at some points, which is very frustrating. Leaps of faith are almost always a bad experience. Also, I would love a nice, calm cave exploration, having a gun seems dissonent and gamey, especially with no shooting sound. Overall, its a really cool experience but the level design prevented me from getting too far.

eugenik 2021-04-27 17:45

It's so beautiful! I like it. Good job!.

almighty-games 2021-04-28 00:14

I really love the graphic appeal of this game and the rappeling mechanic is pretty awesome too. I'll definitely try this game again when I have a bit more time to really focus on it. Thanks for your entry. good luck with the game jam

doctortm 2021-04-28 00:16

Nice art and music work! A bit hard but great jam!

okamit 2021-04-28 00:43

I wrote parts of this in a stream as well but it is probably nice to have the feedback here as well. This is actually quite amazing! it is a bit too hard at first and the hitboxes on the spikes are a bit to harsh, making navigation sometimes feel a bit too pixel perfect (especially when you continue swinging after latching to a hook and have to go down, hitting spikes. It would be nice with an easy introduction part to get a hang of the mechanics and play around with them a bit, but it's very, very satisfying once you get the hang of it! I hope you continue working on it and I would love to play a full version of the game!

The music and soundscape and graphics are really beautiful as well with great spritework and lighting, and it's great that it's pixel-perfect rotation rather than just rotating the gun.

Keep up the great work!

dirkinz 2021-04-28 01:11

Great job on this one. The graphics are stunning, the gameplay is really engaging, and any amount of adaptive music is impressive in a jam scenario. It was quite difficult but I feel like that wasn't due to level design but rather slight imperfections in the controls. Occasionally, it would feel like a spike hitbox is bigger than it should be or I noticed some small stutters in the rope extension if my I was shooting a certain way.

I'm looking forward to a full version. Is there somewhere I should follow you guys for news?

adamcyounis 2021-04-28 06:41

I had a good time with this game, the controls on the exe version were pretty good, and the animation and sound paired well to create a unique atmosphere. I did feel like the twitch mechanics and unforgiving hitboxes / spawn points made for a lot of "cheap" feeling resets. I think there's an awesome and innovative platformer in here, and I was happy to see a few different mechanics and ideas experimented with. A menu and in-game hints might have taken it a bit further for me, but overall, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Thanks for the game!

poboy 2021-04-28 08:06

One of the most beautiful games I've played so far, I love the pixel art and the attention to detail. Music was quite good as well and I had a lot of fun playing this!

I got stuck on the bit with the gap, not realizing you were supposed to propel yourself over, and had to quit on the second leg (after the first set of chests) because I couldn't get past one of the bigger spikes. I think the difficulty is OK overall, would maybe like to see a few more checkpoints.

Thanks for the game, one of my favorites for this LD :)

jujuformatic 2021-04-28 09:27

Nice game, nice graphics, nice mood, just some bugs that block you but... hard to block yourself, continue like that !

badabooom63 2021-04-28 10:34

Great visuals and music! I also liked the part when you understand yourself (I didn't read the tutorials), how gun is working and how to jump far. There was one moment though, that was really annoying (see pic) - this jump was too hard for me, and it is a long way from the last checkpoint. I liked it a lot though, clever core mechanic and interesting discoveries (horizontal part is <3 )Untitled.png

justcamh 2021-04-28 12:06

Heyo, thanks for submitting your game to the stream the other day! Here's the vod if ya wanna rewatch, I hope my feedback was helpful!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1002310964

yeil 2021-04-28 17:23

Cool idea, well-made animation and selected music) When I wanted to do something with a similar idea, a rope and a little man. In general, I liked it)

potti 2021-04-28 20:04

Wow. This. Is. Amazing. It looks brilliant, control is mostly nice and snappy (sometimes you keep a lot of momentum when attaching to a new hook, which can be especially problematic in the second green hook section where have to get past to vertical outcrops of spikes). The gun feels really powerful, even without any sound, great game feel overall.

How did you get the light to be pixel scale, is it the pixel perfect render mode of the URP?

One thing missing are sounds. A nice railgun type sound for the gun and an attaching sound (maybe BFXR), maybe some winding when adjusting the rope length, would have gone a long way for relatively little effort. And maybe enemy sounds. By the way: The fight music seems to trigger only when you are in a certain area, maybe you should do that based on enemies nearby, or, once you get to implement that, when an enemy is aware of you.

I was a little confused as the end, because the coming to steam... text only appeared a long while after I attached to the last hook and noticed there is no further path. You could have been a little more liberal with the checkpoints towards the end, I explored some deadly pits out of curiosity, and had to do the whole green hook section again, multiple times over.

I jumped into the game unprepared, so I was confused at first. I thought you could attach a grappling hook with your gun, but that did not work. Maybe you could add a tiny tutorial at the start (maybe A/D, attach to hook, W/S, space, how to fire gun), but figuring out the rest was extremely rewarding.

All in all, excellent work, especially for a 72-hour marathon!

erik-brendel 2021-04-28 20:19

That is a beautifully polished game, congratulations, would buy it for switch if I had one :D

The part with the golden hanging spikes was a bit tough for me, it seemed like their hitboxes were quite big (touching them from the bottom also killed me). And since the last checkpoint was quite far away, I lost my patience after three deaths there. Also, the death end respawn was always instant, maybe having a short death animation, a "press space to respawn" and permanent blood on your last death position would be nice. But those are really nitpicky complaints - you game is awesome :D

gryffo 2021-04-28 20:38

I'm a huge fan of grappling hook mechanics and these were executed very well. The polish in the shooting also managed to contribute to the gameplay experience without becoming an issue, which is often my experience with sudden bright flashes. Congrats!

roikku 2021-04-28 21:57

Music is great, but unfitting. Very hard game. :)

javasaurus 2021-04-28 22:10

Great game, it is fun to try and explore all the way to get there. Can't wait to see this grow into a dream-steam game. I love the graphics, the mechanics fit well together. All that was missing was some gun-audio and that sort of polish, but it is definitely more than to be expected during a jam. Thank you for making this, well done ! <3

vknauss 2021-04-29 01:00

Really nice graphics and animation! Unique take on platforming. I liked using the gun for propulsion, but the recoil and screen shake made the combat a bit awkward. Really nice start for what I bet will be a great game!

picross 2021-04-29 01:40

Awesome work! I think the checkpoints were a little too far apart and I ended up giving up on the spikes. Really cool stuff! Love the art!

squidly 2021-04-29 04:00

Absolutely gorgeous game with a lot of potential.

My main issue is there needs to be a "safe zone" to introduce mechanics. For example, you introduce grappling on to a second latch while also introducing spikes. You introduce rocket jumping with an area that has a pit. There's a ton of just "learn the mechanic and also master the mechanic at the same time" instants that make this harder to enjoy.

I wanna see you continue with this, it's going places.

fxydev 2021-04-29 04:20

Super cool game visually and the mechanics synergize in a very fun way. Would feel even greater with sound effects and some spike forgiveness would be nice.

2bitcrook 2021-04-29 05:26

Super solid game with a very strong and interesting core of bunny hopping (hah because the players a rabbit ;D) and rappelling.

Like others (and even yourselves) have pointed out this is a game that has most areas absolutely down, it just needs some fine tuning. The level design could teach the player the movement/mechanics gradually with specific scenarios and checkpoints would really have been nice to have in this upload.

I love the Celeste and worms armageddon influences and I think you're very much on your way to releasing this on steam and finding an audience. The fact you got something this meaty out for a jam, top marks.

Great job on the game and great job to you as a team.

gamefive 2021-04-29 05:54

It took me a long time to learn how to play. But after learning how to play, it's an incredible game. I must watch YouTube to know how to play. I want you to lower the starting difficulty a little for those who do it first. Or it would be nice to have a detailed explanation. There will be people who don't know what to do at first and give up. I think the initial level is difficult. Make it easier and more people will enjoy the game.

lazyalarm 2021-04-29 06:13

Very beautiful graphics. The graphics were so incredibly smooth! I thought the game controlled very nicely and I loved all of the mechanics. But that was way too hard for the starting level, I have to be honest. If there were a few more introductory obstacles to introduce the mechanics it would have gone a long way to soothe the frustration of not knowing what to do. Great idea nonetheless.

lazyalarm 2021-04-29 06:13

Very beautiful graphics. The graphics were so incredibly smooth! I thought the game controlled very nicely and I loved all of the mechanics. But that was way too hard for the starting level, I have to be honest. If there were a few more introductory obstacles to introduce the mechanics it would have gone a long way to soothe the frustration of not knowing what to do. Great idea nonetheless.

kapa6uh 2021-04-29 07:39

Amazing game,visual and mechanics, but I have stucked in the beginning literaly. UPD oh I see, I can jump longer with the help of recoil.

no-grapes-games 2021-04-29 08:29

The game looks really good. This was not an easy game to get the hang of though. Seems extremely targeted to a person with a specific play style. Maybe some tutorial to ease the player into the controls will help more people like me get pass the first cliff without spending too much time. The game works, it fits the theme, good job!

leorid 2021-04-29 09:34

That one jump on the rope with the big spike almost ruined the experience. Also more checkpoints would be very very nice.

The hitbox of the spikes is extremly large, not even touching it with any pixel of my character and I die.. If you'd remove all spikes, this would be twice as fun to play.

And more rocket jumps - the one at the beginning was really cool.

But overall, looks cool, sounds cool, keeps you on the edge of your seat with those spiders.

nectanebo 2021-04-29 12:19

First of all, i really love the animations! Great job on that! The main idea is very interesting and clever. The way "rocket" jumping and swinging works is really addictive.The music is fitting well and it kinda stuck into my head xD I would like to hear some sound effects though. Overall, great submission, keep it up!

junior-lima 2021-04-29 14:13

I loved pixel art and the mechanics of the rope, the soundtrack is good, its a amazing job!

kaminos 2021-04-29 15:36

Atmosphere, movement, mechanics and graphics are awesome! I love the idea behind it! Post-jam if you polish it, I would love some different music and of course adding sfx. Check points and a small intuitive tutorial would be very helpful too imho. Oh almost forgot.. the pixel dust particles floating is a very cool addition to the atmosphere :) Well played guys!

panurge 2021-04-29 15:54

This was awesome! We didn't know what to do at first but when we figured it out we had loads of fun. Really cool controls and the graphics and sound were great too.

eric-smith 2021-04-30 00:14

I really really really liked this game! I especially liked the feel of the rifle and the kickback. The grappling was excellent fun but I really had a hard time repelling past the spikes. I don't know why. My brain just couldn't process it well! lol. But I eventually did it and beat the game and that's all that counts. Well done guys and thanks for sharing! :clap: :bird: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1003785681?t=6h10m15s

simpathey 2021-04-30 02:29

Please continue to a full game! A tutorial section would help a lot too!

fist-full-of-shrimp 2021-04-30 04:56

I'm going to join everyone else here and say that this was amazing. I love everything you were able to do in such a short amount of time. The particles and lighting set the mood perfectly. I wish there were a few more checkpoints in between certain areas, but it's such a small nitpick for an game that is near perfection for a jam. Happy LD 48! You did incredible work.

tanner-shelton 2021-04-30 05:04

Awesome game! Really good job. It stinks I died right before the final spider. Oh well, it will give me the opportunity to play it again. I think the spikes could have a smaller hit box and more checkpoints, but other then that, it was super fun and innovative.

link270 2021-04-30 05:06

Super fun game, I enjoyed it a lot! This was a great teaser in what could be a really nice game for sure. For the future you should add a tutorial and ramp the difficulty up a bit more. I'm sure there are a lot more mechanics that could be added as well, but the core you have here is solid. Nicely done, one of the favorite one's I have played!

1minatur 2021-04-30 05:10

Amazing, so unique, tons of fun. Thanks for letting us play it! There are so many great games we'd miss otherwise. Thanks again!

rosypenguin 2021-04-30 07:46

The art and animation are flawless; you really pulled off the feeling of climbling into the depths of a cavern. The controls took a bit of a learning curve, but once I figured out how to jump off walls and charge shoot at the same time, I really got the hang of the movement! I think the gameplay could use some better tutorialization and slow introductions of new mechanics. I also wish there was some SFX to really give the jumps, swings, and shoots that added oomph! But overall, very impressive and beautiful work. Best of luck with the Steam release!

jitspoe 2021-04-30 11:11

I really liked this one. Swinging on a grapple an propelling myself with a gun brings me back to the good old days of LawBreakers! The character animations looked so much more fluid and alive than most pixelart games. Just needed a few pew pew sounds for the gun.

One gotcha I noticed was that it seemed S stopped lengthening the rope and started making it shorter if you swung above the attachment point. Made getting past the wall with the big spike more difficult than it should have been, I think.

bauke-regnerus 2021-04-30 13:04

Fun game, awesome pixel art. Took me a while to get the swinging, but that's probably just me. I would like to have more light, to get a better sense of the environment. Also needs more audio. But great entry!

juliestrator 2021-04-30 13:06

5/5 stars experience! i loved everything! the look, the sound, the level of challenge! the game was quite difficult for me, but in a good way! the fact that it was challenging made more fun imho! Could probably benefit from making check points a bit closer to each other, but than i'm not a good gamer, so i dunno if i'm the best person to listen to in this matter. GG! Really loved it!

his-games 2021-04-30 17:41

the graphics are beautiful but the game is quite frustrating. It is a super neat, innovative gimmick and I would love to see this go further!

spatia 2021-04-30 17:56

Good game, Theme respected, Good graphics, great soundtrack. In short everything is great (but I lack of skill to finish this game)

crazyrems 2021-04-30 19:04

You’ve totally sold the game for me already. Mood is awesome.

It however is missing a tutorial for introducing hooks, swinging, recoil, enemies and how to lightening the lamps.

Also... there is no end ? I’m at the limit of the rope and there is nothing under me and no other hook to use.

Ok I just saw your speedrun, this is the end trigger.

Also, I played it with a controller, which feels nice _(thanks Joy2Key)_.

matterlinx 2021-04-30 19:15

@crazyrems I'm glad you enjoyed it! The game is definitely missing a tutorial area to teach the mechanics. Unfortunately we ran out of time for level design!

It's cool that you managed to play with a controller! I don't believe I got around to adding controller support for the gun.

danmedeiros 2021-04-30 23:13

The mechanic to propel yourself backwards is really fun and the graphics remind me a lot of Celeste, so... * chef's kiss *. I don't like the level design but I don't hate it either, I don't really know what to say. I'm just frustrated that it didn't had any sound effects, they could have amped the experience so much. Also, the music was really good, but I don't think it fits the mood. I can imagine this track playing in another level, with a different scenery. Looking forward to see this game refined and published on Steam or whatever, you guys deserve it!

exopunk 2021-05-01 00:32

I didn't manage to finish it but i can see the potential, the rappel mechanic is really unique and interesting combined with the gun propel, i liked the art style a lot and the small details like lighting the lanterns up with the bullets. I would love to have a lookahead mechanic in order to be able to see what's ahead or below, overall it was a really nice experience props to all of you, great job!

raptor851 2021-05-01 01:13

The webgl version doesn't seem to load for me but from what I've seen it looks amazing.

matterlinx 2021-05-01 02:15

@exopunk Thanks for the feedback and kind words. We will be starting development on steam release soon, a lookahead mechanic will definitely be on the list of features!

matterlinx 2021-05-01 02:20

@danmedeiros Haha, we don't like the level design either - time was not kind to us in that regard. The more polished release will definitely feature more thoughtful level design, we'll take a page from Celeste's book on that front. Stay tuned!

matterlinx 2021-05-01 02:22

@raptor851 I am assuming you aren't on Windows? Let me know and I will try making a build for the platform you are on!

raptor851 2021-05-01 02:43

@MatterLinx yeah, 64 bit linux

matterlinx 2021-05-01 03:51

@raptor851 The linux build is up, hopefully that works out for you

raptor851 2021-05-01 04:10

@matterlinx it works great, downloaded it and tried it out....managed to actually beat it first try with no deaths too! The swinging mechanic is SUPER intuitive, I absolutely love it, you can judge pretty easily how hard you need to shoot and how far to let your rope out to hit the next hook, there's a few tough swings in the purple area but I got most of them pretty quickly by letting out some extra slack and pulling it back in as i went past the hook (so that I wouldn't go near the spikes, I did have the slight advantage going in of knowing that your spikes are tile based from what you said earlier so I gave them a WIDE amount of room going around them). The graphics and music are really good too, didn't hear any sound effects so it maybe could have used a few of them. The only real part I didn't like was that the camera was so zoomed the spiders nearly got me a few times because they attacked from offscreen before I knew they were there, but luckily a panic jump + gunshot also propels you backwards quite a way.

sdata 2021-05-01 05:22

I felt that the combat with the spiders was a fun way to explore narrative with the game but took away from the core gameplay of swinging/mountain scaling. I think additional things like some timed hooks you have to latch onto or falling rocks could add a lot of urgency! I never though I'd play a game that reminded me of swinging on a playground by being a pig with a rabbit with a laser gun scaling a mountain, but here we are haha

charq 2021-05-01 06:22

I probably spent most of yesterday's stream playing this game. The controls were a bit hard for me at first, but with your hints in the chat and help from MetaMarkTea I made it to the end =D Is the invisible health bar gonna show itself someday? Also it'd be nice to have more frequent checkpoints since for someone who's not good at the controls, it could get frustrating. Thank you!

silkypantsdan 2021-05-01 11:22

I was dreading playing this (in a really good way), I had seen others streaming and knew I had to give it a go.

I'm so glad you are looking to continue development - this is a solid gem here and I will be back to play more! I'm not sure if there were meant to be sounds, but I only got the music playing. It would also be nice to have a way to exit other than trusty Alt+F4. But these are minor issues in an otherwise great game! Congrats!

oadt 2021-05-01 11:36

Fantastic music, graphics and mood. I especially like the music switch when enemies appear.Also pretty cool mechanics. I only wished there are a couple more checkpoints and the first jump felt a bit blind. Also somehow I kept hitting the middle mouse button :sweat_smile: then the browser wants to scroll and the game loses the focus. Maybe you can add some JS to prevent this, but I guess I am the only one with this kind of problem :smile: Maybe it could also be useful to show the controls beneath the game. But appart from these minor things amazing work!

bodaciouslycrazy 2021-05-01 16:33

This is absolute bliss! The graphics are amazing, the controls feel perfect, the music is great and even dynamically switches between different areas. It is unbelievable how well made this is. It is definitely missing some sound effects though, which can go a long way in giving feedback to the player. I had no idea the gun could charge for a good while (my bad for not reading the instructions) cause there was no sound effect and the visual cue was pretty minimal.

Yes, this should absolutely be continued! Well done.

tricky-fat-cat 2021-05-01 20:24

The game looks and feel great, I like movement a lot and overall atmosphere. Great job.

fraukauz 2021-05-01 20:29

Beautiful atmospheric game, background music and graphics work together excellent, and it also matches the theme perfectly. I have to say I had trouble learning the controls at first, but I put it down to the fact that I am really bad at shooter or jump and run games. I was also missing checkpoints and I would agree @bodaciouslycrazy that sound effects would make it perfect!

evil-villain-games 2021-05-02 06:02

Wow that was amazing. Seriously 5 out of 5. This might be my favorite entry so far. I'm glad you are putting it on steam. I would love to see this become a full game.

danceswe 2021-05-02 07:54

I love this game. Not going to add much more than what's above, but you this scream mobile.

offdutyextractors 2021-05-02 07:56

Looks amazing and the rope physics feel super accurate. Really well done. The music is also sick. The syncing between battle and climbing is crazy. Doesn't look like a game jam game at all.

jonah 2021-05-02 09:35

Awesome job on the smooth animations and core mechanics.

Would love to see the future version of this game!

mrpouletbzh 2021-05-02 09:57

Great game, wonderfull art direction! The music is a great base but it needs a bit more variation on the base loop I think. The gameplay mecanics are great and works really well, but the lack of tutorial makes them really hard to get (I was about to ragequiit when I saw the speedrun and the possibility to charge up the rifle :sweat_smile: ), but once you get them they are a pleasur to use! Also, it was already said, but the spikes really have an hitbox too harsh. And definitely yes, I would be interested in a full release of a more advanced version of the game, because your work really has an excellent potential :D Great job!

meritcoding 2021-05-02 10:27

Feedback - Liked the game - I couldn't jump over the pit - Liked the rope mechanic

steven-c 2021-05-02 10:29

Very cool and polished look! The beginning was super frustrating though, took a while to get past the very first spikes. Also, when I get to the 1st solid ground after that, I see no way to continue but jump to my death, which I tried 5 times and then gave up because I see absolutely no way to continue. :/ Which is unfortunate cause it looks like a really cool game but seemingly unplayable for now.

matterlinx 2021-05-02 10:56

@steven-c @meritcoding Sorry, that was the result of our unfortunate level design! The intended method of crossing the pit is to use the weapon recoil in combination with a jump. This should clear it up for you: https://youtu.be/W7P1hFsvYQo

steven-c 2021-05-02 13:51

Oh! I did try to cross the gap using the weapon recoil, but from higher up, and I was dead upon landing there, so I assumed that wasn't the way to go

ramble-house-games 2021-05-02 14:21

This is one of the most original game mechanic ideas I’ve seen in a long time. Usually experimental mechanics are clunky, but this is SUPER clean. The swinging around feel great. The impact of the gun is very rewarding. The music is perfect for the setting (especially heavy metal spider time). The pixel art is truly exquisite. I need more thumbs to put up for this game. Thank you so much for bringing this by my stream. Here's a link to the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007852839?t=11h40m30s

mykola 2021-05-02 19:39

Totally amazing game! Loved the pixel art details and the music. Certainly one of the best games in this jam.

chris1919 2021-05-03 01:01

Really awesome game. I had a lot of fun with the swinging mechanic. The art and music paired nicely to create a great aesthetic.

The limited light/visibility was pretty interesting. It did feel like there were particular moments that could have benefited from more light. For example, the gap that needs to be rocketjumped. I think more lighting could have revealed that there was a platform on the other side and that the gap was larger than what you can jump. This may have guided the player a little more into understanding that was the right direction and that they had to use this new mechanic.

On the topic of swinging, it was a little jarring in the more precarious areas the fact that your momentum stays with you when you attach to the next hook. I wonder if you could add a mechanic for "braking" to slow down your swing. I like that the gun is used to control the swing and don't want to take away from that. But when your rope is very short, it just didn't feel great to have to slow yourself down with the gun.

Lastly, the enemies were not very intimidating. They seemed pretty easy to defeat.

Overall this is a great game. I am really excited to see where ya'll go with the Steam version. This was a lot of fun to play!

matterlinx 2021-05-03 04:07

@chris1919 I had the same thought with lighting the other side of the pit... only after submitting the game. Thanks for the review!

minibetrayal 2021-05-03 04:35

Never played anything quite like it, would love to play a full version!

eden-shazar 2021-05-03 12:02

What a neat little experience! The rappelling mechanic works very well (although something feels a bit off about the energy dissipation?), especially combined with the limited impulses the weapon gives you. I'd say the combat is definitely the weak side of the game in its current form, as it provides little challenge that doesn't tie in with the core mechanic. Having said that though, the game is very enjoyable overall, and feels like it's teeming with little secrets just out of sight - even if that isn't the case! I'm very glad for you that you've decided to expand it to a full game and excited to see what will come out!

poweranze 2021-05-03 12:15

[Thank you for the submitting the game to the stream. If you want to rewatch the feedback, you can do so here.](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1008357028?t=00h41m39s)

bluishgreenpro 2021-05-03 13:43

Very challenging! I'd love to try new versions of the game and provide feedback as you work towards a complete release, please feel free to send a build my way anytime!

itsboats 2021-05-04 00:55

I think this is the one I look forward to the most for post jam release! It's so fun navigating around with the rappeling ropes and the gun and the style is beautiful! I think I gave a lot of feedback on stream, so Im going to focus on things I think I didn't mention or things I noticed going back into it today:

Sound: I was probably too distracted playing it the first time, but I didn't even realized there was no sound! There's so many opportunities for sound design to give satisfying feedback to the player, but the main one I'm thinking of is when you attach to the next hook (since it means the player successfully made it farther, the sound would quickly give that pavlovian response where the player looks forward to it and feels more rewarded each time).

Checkpoints: I'm glad you had checkpoints, but I wish there was a visual indicator!

Gun: The gun is awesome and feels powerful to use. The screen flash effect is very subtle and I didn't notice it at first, but really adds to it. Along with the tutorial area, a charging up sound for the gun will go a long way in telling the player that you can click and hold. Another idea for gun to communicate to player that you charge it up is make it sound you have to click and hold it for a fraction of a second to be able to even fire it once with a power up and power down sound (think miniguns in various games, but quick charge up and only single shots). It would make it seem more powerful, but also less responsive so just a thought!

You can count on me buying on steam when it's released, I'm interested in seeing what you guys do with this!

aditya-kumar 2021-05-04 04:15

I have rated this game before, but it's not showing up here for some reason so I'll do it again. I love everything about this game!

The innovative rappelling mechanic is so satisfying when paired with the recoil! Plus with the subtle camera shake, so great! You express the theme so directly with rappelling downwards - it's core to the game, not shoehorned at all The post-processed pixel art look is beautiful The background music is so soothing I feel super immersed into the game as I play, the dark aesthetic + the calming music feel really good

I wish there was a sound effect on the gun

There are a lot of games this jam with more polish and/or content and you didn't get to finish your level design, but to me this is the ultimate expression of what an LD game is supposed to be! It's an innovative mechanic demonstrated sufficiently that I know I'd buy a full game like this (please let me know when the post-LD version comes out)

olddog 2021-05-04 14:05

nice game ; nice animation ; and rops system is good :smile: but I really need guide or tips ; it is annory every time restart at the begin; and I dont know how to get though the big gap below ; nice job any way :smile:

pancelor 2021-05-04 20:24

really cool! beautiful lighting, fun gameplay

I thought the levels were a bit samey, and I'd have preferred something new to make it exciting (new enemies? moving platforms? being able to rocket jump out of a swing and detach the rope?) instead of lack-of-checkpoints to make the game harder

oh yeah! that MUSIC change was really really good

nice work!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1008218448?t=03h33m26s

smbe19 2021-05-04 20:43

Very nice and unique mechanic. Great idea.

etrealjunior 2021-05-05 01:04

My friends, congratulations, they made a wonderful game, a excellent art work, added to music and programming, I loved having the opportunity to get to know your work, a big hug to the team, and I look forward to your evaluations regarding my game.

jose-bonilla 2021-05-05 17:57

The best game I've played of the Jam (not Compo). I feel the controls can be smoother and I don't like I can't jump with W, but other than that the physics, graphics and everything else is amazing. Congrats!

ursagames 2021-05-06 05:16

Hello! Your game was played on stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on 5/05 (Day 3 of LDJAM streams).

You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/LDJAM48-ursa

3lstmsinatrenchcoat 2021-05-06 11:17

I love the swinging mechanics and the character animation. I'm a bit surprised that I never had to rappel and fight the jumping spider thingies at the same time.

digital-bacon 2021-05-08 00:41

Tricky game but pretty good. Love the graphics.

superpokeunicorn 2021-05-08 01:42

Really fun main mechanic. I like how the gun is used both for platforming and combat, and even to light level in the latter half of the game. The visuals are also amazing, and it's great how the level gets darker the deeper you go. I will say that the checkpoints are way too sparse, especially considering the insta-death obstacles. The lack of sound effects was also disappointing, especially for the gun. Overall, great game with a lot of potential in its main mechanic. Great work!

pennycook 2021-05-08 01:54

The main mechanic is really innovative -- great job! Like others have already said, the lack of sound effects is a little jarring (and I think it's made more obvious by the fact that the music is so good :smile:).

The other thing that stood out to me is that death is very sudden, and gameplay continues immediately. Some sort of game over mechanic would help that feel more smooth. Watching the rope retract to the previous location might be a neat way to do that, sort of a "Look how far you've come, also you have to do it again!"

juako 2021-05-08 03:09

Nice game! Really solid base for a full game, best of luck!

neontropics 2021-05-08 15:26

Very nice physics! It's fun to grapple and the shotgun is a nice twist to the formula. I liked how it feels a bit close to real climbing in that you have to get to the next hook to advance.

Some of the jumps are pretty tough and it gets a bit frustrating going back to previous checkpoints, especially as some places feel a bit trial-and-error.

dans17 2021-05-08 16:42

Shooting your gun to gain momentum was a really fun and original mechanic! The art was really nice too; did you make it in 3D and then render it with a pixelated orthographic camera? I'm not sure if the screenshake on vertical movement was intentional or not, but it made me dizzy after playing for a while. It could use a tutorial to explain the mechanics a little better at the start, but overall, the level design was good and the mood was set very well!

filgru 2021-05-08 21:44

Hi! This is very nice polished game. This art style is amazing! I had some problems with the controls at the beginning, but it's all swinging now well:) Nicely working mechanics, feels fresh :) Very cool, moody music. It's fun to play. Great job!

matterlinx 2021-05-09 03:01

@dans17 No it's just sprite sheet animation with dynamic rotation and scaling. Also we had to squash the sprite vertically since it was too tall, that resulted something that looks rendered. :slight_smile:

coleslaughter 2021-05-10 21:53

[Thanks for submitting your game to the stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1015053228?t=05h19m40s)

I loved playing around with this one. It was a super novel concept, and although it was a bit confusing at first, once I got into a groove it felt super satisfying! I love the way the music evolves when you get closer to enemies. I think with a little balancing with the difficulty curve and checkpoints, this could be come a really cool full experience!

meep 2021-05-11 00:09

Really gorgeous art! Not sure what I can add that hasn't already been said, or that you aren't already aware of. :P The things that really stood out to me was the lack of any sort of death/respawn animation to smoothen things out, and the lack of sound effects. A little extra something in the non-rappelling sections would have gone a long way (e.g., misc. collectibles, more gun-related platforming that doesn't involve a pit/spikes, etc.), as it felt like mostly empty gaps between them. Still very impressive work, especially on the visual polish, and I look forward to future releases of it! :D

secretjuice 2021-05-11 02:41

Super well polished game. Some of the level design was rough difficulty wise, but after getting used to the rappeling and shooting I was able to get through it. Aesthetically, everything from the sprite work to the lighting to the music was absolutely gorgeous. I wish you luck as you work towards a steam release!

Here's the stream where we played it: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1017517813 starting at about 1:28:20ish

Great job guys!

tomssuli 2021-05-11 19:28

Great and polished game! First I was wondering how to go forward over the gap, but when I had gone past that, the idea was clear to me. Nice puzzles and action. I also liked the chill soundtrack. The monsters did not look as good as the rest of the game, but were still startling me from the darkness. The use of theme was quite obvious choise, but I liked the ninja rope mechanics, that I haven't seen much after worms 2 back in the day.

Overall a little frustrating but rewarding fun! :)

chrisap 2021-05-12 23:17

This game in incredibly polished and has really cool mechanics! I like the rappel and shooting combination for a set of interesting mechanics. The shooting also has the dual utility of being used for combat and creating momentum while rappelling, as well as used for the rocket jump mechanics. The music loop was a little short but when it goes into the rock mode it was catJAM. Congrats! <3

alprog 2021-05-16 17:46

I'd like that game provides 2 types of gameplay: hook climbing and monster fighting. Both a pretty good! Great experience. Good luck with Steam.

dagostino-audio 2021-05-18 03:42

This game is incredible! Love the mechanic and love the movement animation of the character. This would be a 5/5 if there were some awesome sounds put in but obviously its a jam! Excited to hear there is going to be more development on the game!

tom-ruxley 2021-05-18 18:26

I really liked the combination of shoot-to-move and the rappelling system! One thing that I noticed though was that there seems to be a slight delay between clicking and actually shooting? That might have just been on my end though