Wizard of Unstablely Place

carraka 2021-10-05 20:55

Hey, Terry! Hope you're doing well!

I think I got through three of the levels and then got stuck on the level where you zig zag up to get the key and then if you try to jump off it, there's a spike platform in the way, but if you take the lower path, there's a jump up at the end that I couldn't make. I wasn't sure how to proceed.

If I could make one change, it would be changing the space bar to be jump and the dash to be left shift. (I actually wasn't able to get the run to work...or if it did work, I didn't notice any change in speed.) But I think that's because my mind is so used to dashing with shift in so many games. Had to rewire my brain a bit to get a handle on the jumping, and even still, I kept messing it up.

A death SFX would have been nice too. Often I would step onto a platform and there was a pause between when I hit the platform and when the level reset.

Keep it up! The music was very calming! Just what I need to relax after a jam.

terryg 2021-10-07 02:26

Thanks Meredith. We started out with the dash as left shift. Can't remember why we changed it LOL. And what's funny is we do have a death animation...it is pretty decent too. But somewhere along the line it must have stopped playing (along with you can still move a while after death.). We are working on fixing the "door" that I think is probably just a sprite and not a prefab. It behaves like that. Thanks for playing the game. All is well here. I'll check your game out later in the week

ponchoguy 2021-10-07 20:37

Hey!

I really liked this game, I love the mechanics of freezing platforms and it was a great match to the theme with unstable platforms :D

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Some of the levels required insane precision but it is good that you can restart from that specific level and didn't have to go all the way back.

I loved the music and art direction for this as well, it's really calming and it felt very surreal which is honestly great.

Thank you for this, I had a blast playing it!

nicolas-revillon 2021-10-08 11:39

the concept is very cool, good job

soul-grinder 2021-10-08 16:44

Nice puzzle style platformer game. Really liked wobbly platforms, was fun to play, good work!

joeriri 2021-10-10 19:51

A very simple yet fun mechanic! Wish it was more responsive though, I fell many times because of platforms freezing too late after I clicked on them and mixing up the jump and dash button. I liked the painterly background and the wobble effect a lot also!

sam-onella 2021-10-11 19:55

loved the hand-painted backgrounds!

wilko 2021-10-11 20:03

The wobbly platforms were a nice addition. Some points that might help: There should be more indication of where the platform was about to fall. Either the rumbling should increase or an audio queue. Also, like others have said the controls need to be more forgiving.

const-arch 2021-10-11 20:42

I beat the game, but ran into a lot of small issues while doing so. The core concept is good, but the platforming could use some improvement. Here are some thoughts: - Platforms should be freezable before they begin to fall. I would frequently stand there repeatedly clicking a platform until it started falling. - Spikes should only kill you if you hit them from certain directions. If you bump your head on the bottom of a platform with spikes on top of it, you die. - Coyote time would be very helpful - I would sometimes ricochet off platforms. They should probably just stop my velocity when I hit them unless you make that a useful mechanic. - The air dash feels inconsistent in length/speed - Most air dashes in platformers use a fixed velocity and distance for air dashes, and gravity doesn't affect you during them. I don't think it's necessary, but it would feel more natural and allows for levels that have linear gaps since you can dash straight through them.

tiger-ros 2021-10-13 00:34

WOW this is the BEST game i have ever PLAYED

terryg 2021-10-13 15:49

Thanks for that feedback @const-arch .

epb9000 2021-10-16 19:39

I loved the watercolor background, seconding the comment about how inconsistent the dash can feel, excellent use of the freeze mechanic, overall really solid entry.

caominh-le 2021-10-16 19:53

Nice game! The music and art were very calming, and the game fit the Unstable theme very well. One suggestion is to allow the current platform that the wizard is on to freeze when clicking in a wider hitbox because they were sometimes hard to click, especially when falling.

terryg 2021-10-17 19:13

Thanks @caominh-le . Good feedback. The hitboxes were giving us trouble. It is an area of Unity I'd like to get better at when you have overlapping hitboxes. :(