madr 2022-04-04 17:25
Amazing, especially for a game jam!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Mr. Second
By marvis, _zenstation_, Heorhi Liakin, Marina.Grebennikova and AlexND
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 154 | 3.99 | 145 | |
| Fun | 303 | 3.73 | 144 | |
| Innovation | 91 | 3.98 | 144 | |
| Theme | 1043 | 3.33 | 142 | |
| Graphics | 49 | 4.57 | 144 | |
| Audio | 99 | 4.09 | 143 | |
| Humor | 566 | 3.12 | 125 | |
| Mood | 246 | 3.92 | 142 |
Amazing, especially for a game jam!
Really good game! Great graphics, awesome concept! I had so much fun!
I came here because the clock miniature is wonderful! And i found i Love this game! And the art is wonderful! Congratulations!!
The art direction is crazy good and the animation is really on-point!
However, I found the uncontrollably of the time mechanic to be frustrating and unfun. But, I am not much of a platform player myself, so I am not the best judge.
Overall, though, the game is polished and very feature complete!
Great Job!
Absolutely stellar artstyle and theming. The game itself is REALLY difficult though, having to do leaps of faith to find certain platforms to progress was tough. I feel like the time reversal mechanic would be more engaging if I could control it and just have a button that sends me back 3 seconds. Love the art direction and sound though, and your idea is very original. Good work!
Neat idea and also cute artstyle. The puzzles are well done and the music is nice. My critique would be, that I would've liked to control the switch between the characters, because sometimes I was focusing on a jump and then as I jumped it switched and I jumped of the map, which was a bit frustrating. Or maybe don't restart the entire level when falling of the map, but rather rewind the time, as an idea.
The art style and sound is on point! Really well done 👍 It really looks and feels more like a finished game.
Great art style. But this travel back mechanic creates more problems than help. Great work!
Really neat concept! I love the art style especially. My only complaint is that the platforming felt a bit too tedious/unforgiving at times, but otherwise this is a really excellent game jam game. I'd love to see the idea expanded upon after the jam!
(for some reason my message sent twice. ignore this, sorry!)
Wow! nice visuals and cool 3s mechanic, its very interesting.
This is a really unique idea, but I do think that the time rewind mechanic is a little too jarring. Making the countdown timer a little more clear, or giving the player the option to switch manually could definitely help. Otherwise though, I think that the audio and graphics were really well done and charming.
Astonishing art style. But dunno about difficulty curve, after short tutor you goes right off the bat on pretty hard platforming, low vision distance doesnt help either.
When I saw the artstyle and animations I was blown away that you managed to make a game that looks this good in one weekend. Character controller (if we ignore one flaw which I'll get to) is really responsive and fun to control. But the rewind mechanic... It's so frustrating and makes me angry since it ruins the responsiveness of otherwise perfectly fine controller. It really feels shoehorned into the game design. I understand what level design possibilities it brings but could you at least put it so that the player can switch when does it start. All in all, you created a great entry that really stands out from the most.
Loved the visuals and overall consistency to the theme and concept. Catchy music and nice sound fx. The game mechanic was a nice and innovative approach to the 'two players' puzzlers.
Great job! The puzzle of this main mechanic hurt my head, but at one point it clicked and I got it down. Really beautiful looking game too, good stuff. Really well done! Are you thinking of continuing it?
very interesting mechanics, the graphic style is awesome, the music hit right in the heart
Nice job! Really liked the art style, felt very cohesive. In the tutorial I completely didn't get that the copper element was a switch. "to up the platform" isn't correct English, and it wasn't obvious that "jump here" and "to up the platform" were part of the same sentence. I reckon instead of "jump here" + "to up the platform" you should just say "this is a switch" + "switches move objects" and make it super clear.
The game was fun once I worked it out :) GGs!
I had a lot of fun playing the game, the eyes are happy, the handles are also happy, because the platformer mechanics are very pleasant (without bugs and collisions), the ears are also good.
really like this mechanic, havent seen anything quite like it before. i wish the grabby things were just a little more forgiving though!
The art was great, the sound and other design was all thought out, and this was well put together. The teleporting and platform mechanics are fun! Got to level 5.
realy cool concept ! and the arts are realy good !
Great artwork and animation. I like the textured background with the animated cogs in it. The mechanic is interesting, 3.5 seconds is just enough to make a little progress, but you can progress in two directions.
Very nice game, I love the art and music. The gameplay is great, I just think the hitboxes are a bit too punitive.
@solah thank you, I'm glad you played
Thank you, it was very cool!
Fantastic idea and pretty well implemented. I had a few instance where it would zip me back to a spot where I automatically fell off the platform, intended? Otherwise worked well and was enjoyable. Nice job!
@simplepotential yes it is meant to be, you have to play carefully, thank you!
I am glad I find out this game! Such a pleasure to play it. Nice graphic, sound fit in smoothly and the mechanic, simple at it is core, is very well executed. :)
I loved the presentation, but I feel really stupid hahaha. Very difficult. But the animation: yes
@snory thank you, we tried very hard :v:
@mosman yes, we got excited with the complexity :smirk:
@sofignedova Your project is also very beautiful, I like it! :love_letter:
Nice gameplay (and graphics too). The hourglass as meter for the 3.5 seconds loop looks good but it's hard to keep an eye on when precise time is required. Some kind of full screen effect (maybe a fade out?) could have worked better. Good team!
@homineludens We need more time, and let's do it! :smirk:
cool game for 72h :thumbsup: (but hard for me :cry: )
Nice game. Good art. Really like the idea of time loop. Stuck on level 4 though, game is tough.
GREAT GAME
The visuals are exceptional! I liked the puzzle mechanic. It feels like some of the jumps are a bit unforgiving for being a game that is (from what I can understand) mainly focused on puzzling. Some hitboxes felt a bit unfair as well. Other than that, the game itself, with the puzzles, was really good and surprisingly finished for being made during a jam! Great job :D
Sorry I stopped playing in level 5. It was just too frustrating. The hitboxes are very unfair, especially the arms that go up and down.
Love the art. The main character is very cute! Good job :)
@stefan-funke yeah we have some problem with hitboxes) thank you for playing
@diccuric-sigeon its realy hard game, for me too :smiley:
Lovely graphics, nice sound design and absolutely infuriating rewind mechanic (in the right way tho). There were too many times where I facepalmed at how stupid of a move I made than I wish to addmit.
Overall great experience!
Great Game! I loved the idea :)
It took me a while to understand that I needed to think about my character in 2 places at the same time to keep switching places, when I understood the strategies to complete the level became very interesting
It takes a bit to understand this game, but after you do it's pretty fun! It is a bit annoying that you have to wait in a place for 3.5 seconds sometimes, or sometimes you miscalculate the jump and and up stopping in mid-air, dooming your playthrough. I think some way to maybe skip the wait would be cool, but I understand that would come into conflict with the concept.
Overall, nice job!
This game is amazing! The idea is really good, graphics and animations are amazing, I have no words! I've been playing it for a lot of time and I have to admit that I found it extremely dificult! The idea is amazing and really good implemented, I understood what I got to do but I was not capable of doing it... Anyways, good job! It is a really rally good game!
Loved it, especially the hand drawn graphics! Would definitely like to see a post-jam version, well done.
Very nice graphics and feel, my main gripe is that without screen transitions and music fading/looping changing levels and dying felt very rough. The art is superb, and the player feels nice. I didn't really understand how to utilise the mechanics, so unfortunately I had to stop after level 1, not being able to work out the second one. Other than that though: very good job!
Very nice graphics and music.. Gameplay and game concept is also really good.. amazing finished game done so little time
Clever well explained mechanics. I can see potential in this for full release mobile game ;D
@szkocka yeaah we have plans for it :v:
@dusho I missed a bug in level 5 :sob:
@his-games we should have spent more time learning
@jamesolivermusic Follow us, we will definitely make an updated version :smirk:
The art including graphics and music is really nice, the rewinding concept is amazing, makes character can go east and west at the same time :smile: As for the hard platformer part, I have passed "I wanna be the guy", so I think difficulty is not a problem, but I cant clearly get the deadly collider edge, camera resolution is not enough, I guess this may be the problem.
@zyang collider, this is the very first thing to fix, thanks for the game
Very cool concept. I found it easy to understand, but I was surprised how often I got surprised by the change of the active character. Super cool graphics style, everything fits very well together :)
@robin-schmitz thank you, for playing!
Nice character and art. I'm still deciding if I love or hate the rewind mechanic. Nice submission!
@innoboros maybe need more play?) thank you! :smile:
Great platformer with amazing visuals and audio, specially for a jam it is impressive. The controls are smooth and responsive which is important in a platformer.
I liked the forced switch but I would have changed the timer to something more visual like a stopwatch or an analogue watch to precisely time the switch with your movement. Could maybe get away with some easier jumps into the void for the last piece. Also maybe change the camera to have a better field of view of the scene, I think it's a bit too close to the character to really understand the level or plan your movement.
Other than that great entry for the jam. Congratulations on a great project :thumbsup:
@zombiebust3r there is a clock in the upper left of the screen, showing a timer :smile:
PicasaPhotoViewer_0nXmDmFUuo.png
Hitboxes seem very unforgiving. Otherwise the game seems really polished.
Wooooow!!! This is in my Top 3 favourite entries!!!
Where to begin.
The visuals. OMG THE VISUALS. Mr. Second is SO. DARN. **CUTE!** gosh.
really like that character design, so cute and original. and those animations are soooo pretty 😱 probably my favourite animations in this jam! all the assets look amazing and provide the game with such a charming, lovely look! Everything looks very.. idk, handmade maybe? Even the background with this paper texture (?) Great eye for detail, splendid art direction :)
If I had to say something negative - and that's very, very nit-picky, especially considering this is a gamejam - I would draw the upper sides of the surfaces like it was a perspective view - in most cupboards etc it works because it looks like its a perspective view - but in this case you can slightly see it's not and like he's not ON but IN the surface - but again, very nit-picky :)
Screenshot 2022-04-09 at 21.19.18.jpg
Then the gameplay - amazing! Probably really the most original idea I've seen in this gamejam! I loved the mix between puzzle and platformer! Very clever puzzles, also. I really liked that you basically have two deal with 2 "you"s Although it is a biiiit unforgiving - checkpoints wouldn't have hurt anybody :b
But that's a gamejam syndrome - everyone starts their game with Level 99, as I always say xD
A very adorable game that I actually think you should polish and put on steam for a couple bucks :)
Congrats guys - you can be proud of yourselfes!
Great concept! I thought the button in the menu reset the level and not the game, it definitely makes you want to play more though (:
@angiemon Thank you so much!
@vilmantas yeah Hitboxes is our problem
It takes an awful lot of timing, but it has more innovation than I've seen from many other games.
@bwalter i'll try to make the levels more interesting
I know how it goes, you have to sacrifice time somewhere, and I am glad you dove into the deeper mechanics, and hopefully everyone is understanding of the somewhat tricky platforming and hitboxes. That stuff can be worked out later, solid idea, art, sound and execution!
@benmcnelly thank you! we have plans for game :v:
You team have a very beautiful game, you are great. I'm still amazed at her completeness.
Good job
@yusovv thank you, but we needed more time to test the game, there are a lot of collision bugs
@marvis Don't worry, my whole game is one big bug. You are doing great game))
Amazing game!!! I was caught of guard by how *fantastic* the art was! Very, very polished for a game-jam game, it's incredible! The only complaint I can think of is that the hitboxes on the hazards seem a bit weird, but other than that I loved it! :D
I notice you guys added a tutorial.
I think there’s a decent fairness issue around this, especially with you not including a change log I can see.
I was under the impression that patches were for game breaking bug fixes - I’ve noticed other devs who add new features/content clearly demarcate a ‘post-jam version’.
Obviously it’s all about having fun and seeing other peoples’ work, but this leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
dear player!
We haven't made any updates yet.
If you look at this post (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/mr-second/bug-fix), you will understand that I don't even know how to do it.
In the future, if there is an update, I will definitely indicate the list of changes.
@Anonymous chrome_twtr9FzY4v.png game upload date. be fair.
This was an interesting challenge. I would suggest keeping the velocity of the other body instead of transferring the current one over. That really messed me up a lot when I switched while mid jump. Shame about the bugs making it impossible to progress. Nice art, though!
@jitspoe Thanks for the feedback, I will try to fix the bug as soon as possible and call you again! :smirk:
Cool game, the visuals are really good and it reminds me of games from the early 2000s
Nice work!
Really good job, so fun to play!
Amazing graphics and super cool concept. The in-game tutorial was a really nice touch, too. Excellent submission!!
@jordantanner ty!
Wow, this game took me for a really nostalgia trip, reminded me of old good platform flash games. The time-wrap mechanics was innovative and fun, the music was fitting. Amazing entry and a ridiculous level of polish for a jam game!
The game a really interesting look and a great mechanic making for some interesting puzzle platforming. The difficulty curve is a little too steep and the landing animation is a bit slow and janky in my opinion. All in all you have yourself a really great foundation for an epic full release with a few tweaks and better introduction to the mechanics in the level design
@aka-black-dog Thanks for the feedback!
Awesome game! The mechanics are executed very nicely. I like how the first level acts as a tutorial, that is clever. It took me several times to finish level 3, I think I underestimated the rewind-mechanic a bit ^^"
I really liked the atmosphere of this game. The art and sound are fine. The puzzles and the level design are remarkable for a work of 72 hours. However I encountered problems with the hitboxes of the mechanical arms... they do not seem to be synchronized with the images and it has often frustrated me. Good game, congratulations to the whole team!
@wouter52 I want to expand the tutorial by adding a description of the big jump when long pressing the spacebar
@korvack yeah the hitboxes our problem! thank you
No offense, but I feel like you guys should play and rate a bit more games instead of focusing on blog posts, your smart balance isn‘t the greatest, considering you have 5 team members (yes you do rate and play, but still)
Look, I get it, we all want others to play our game and nothing is wrong with doing a bunch of blog posts but this is still a community where it‘s give and take, so this slightly rubs me the wrong way.
Maybe it’s just me, idk, again, no offense guys :) your game is obviously great! Wish you luck 🍀
i was having a blast until level 5. the moving enemies make that impossible for me. i had the left side perfect but couldnt get the timing for the right side. other than that, this is a great character design and a fun platforming gimmick that could easily entertain for many levels
@radmccool thank you!
fix.png
Welcome all!
We have updated the game, fixed problems with collision and mechanical arm, and all levels are now playable
@korvack , @wouter52 , @jitspoe , @benmcnelly @angiemon , @zombiebust3r , @stefan-funke , @brotherst
Woooaaaaaaaa !!!! Crazy job !!
Very nice and lamp-like atmosphere! I really liked the training system! I will be waiting for the release of the game! :) It's really a diamond! Great job! :)
Lovely visuals and the music fit well. Simple yet effective and the time repeating reminded me a bit of Adventures of Shuggy.
@ksimaster we are already thinking about the full version, with the addition of characters and bosses :v:
@drentsoft didn't know about this game before, thanks! we play)
I thought the idea was awesome! I love games with time as mechanics. Reminded me of CHRONOTRON. Very beautiful, friendly and challenging game. I spent a lot of anger dying in the changes of places.
:D
Some small problems with the scenery made me not understand what was scenery and what was an obstacle. Rethink the colors and strokes of some things to make things more distinguishable.
Other than that, I loved everything!
Congratulations!
@euler-moises thank for you playing, maybe you will like the full version after the jam :smirk:
What a great job!! I really like the art of this game and the animations look very polished and fluid. The idea and concept of the game is very creative and they were able to implement it in the gameplay, well done! Congratulations! xD
@emaigualmc2-art heey thank you! :cat:
Hello Marvis,
The first thing I noticed about this game while playing is the animation. The main characters movement and animation is beautifully done. I love the font and design of the game. This game was addictive and frustrating. For some reason I failed like 30 times at level 3. I think if you wanted to turn this into a game to sell which I think you should, maybe having some more tutorial levels to see how you can best utilize your characters rewind mechanic. Other than that super cool game!
@syafire Thank you! And come back to us again, we have 6 more levels for you :joy_cat:
Great game, Really love the mechanic of bouncing between player instances. Aside from general gameplay polish it might be beneficial to increase the amount of time between bounces by a small amount, maybe a second, maybe having an option for the player to trigger to bounce so they dont have to wait out the timer all the time. All in all though a great game and with polish all you have to do is add levels. <3
amazing graphic! and very interesting mechanic! But I spent some time for understanding of this mechanic)
Very cool! Love the art and sound design. Original concept with the time looping. I'm terrible at platformers, so I didn't make it far, but it's obviously really well done!
Hey again! Thanks for showing up on stream :) Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1453383276
Nice game platformer game with awesome graphics! For 72 hours making 9 different levels is outstanding! Good job!
@chris-mcknight thanks for the feedback, we will definitely make a continuation of the game!
@ben-yazi thank you! :smile_cat:
@mateusboga yes yes, thank you! we fixed the bug :v:
@hexkritor thank you!
amazing entry! the mechanic is really nice i like a lot i totaly see a full game base on it.
@hugo-kieffer thank you! we have to make a full version of the game :v:
A really nice concept, and nicely illustrated. Sometimes when the mechanics of the game interact with each other, it can cause some frustration - such as the swap happening mid jump, it feels difficult to control any momentum when it swaps back later on. I think with some further thought about making the game feel better to newer players to avoid some of the frustrations, that this could be an interesting puzzle game. Great polish for a jam game, too!
@honest-dan thanks, there is an idea that going back in time to make it controllable
Плюсы: + Классный арт, эффекты + хорошая озвучка + Механика хорошо связана с оформлением
Минусы: - тему я так понял попробовали словесно понять иначе. Собственно сложно догадаться что игра по теме вообще - ооочень сложная. Прежде всего из-за отсутствия предупреждения что щас будет смена. Кучу раз падаешь просто потому что идёшь после переключения прямо в пропасть. Или стоишь на месте, боясь переключения. - баги хитбоксов ещё больше мешали жить)
This game is really cool ! Neat graphics and pretty good polish ! There are a few things that prevented me to enjoy it to its full potential though. I'll put them all in no specific order so I don't forget anything. It might make a big list of critiques, but most of those can't be expected for jam games made in a single weekend, it's just possible improvements. - the character has a lot of inertia, which makes some jumps really to do. It's not necessarily a big deal, but the level design must take that into account, because the physics makes a lot of precise jumps hard to do. I'm thinking specifically of the saw at the right of level 3, that leaves only a tiny portion of the platform accessible. It forces the player to jump, and control very precisely his horizontal speed to land on the right spot, which is made really hard by the inertia. - It's sometimes hard to differentiate background elements and things that kill you. It's especially true to cogs that look like the saws that kill you. - hitboxes are quite big, making some small obstacles like the spikes really deadly. - The swap mechanic has no delay, so if it happens while you are moving, you can run into a hole even before the camera has had time to catch up. I got killed by this many times. - I don't know if there is a solution for this one, but I often found myself waiting for whole cycles because I hesitated too much before doing a jump. There was some kind of conflict between the urge of moving fast to not have to waste cycles, and the need to wait for the perfect time to do the jumps. Gameplay conflicts can be interesting, but there it felt a bit frustrating at times. - robotic arms are really fast, which made jumps really hard to time. It felt a bit random sometimes, I often ended up jumping as soon as I could and hope for the best.
I hope this will help, I think this game has potential, tell me if you update it at some point !
This game is very impressive for such a short game jam! The visuals are great, and the rewind mechanic is interesting and unique. However, I had a few minor annoyances while playing.
- The music is fine but quite repetitive, which gets annoying after a bit of time, and the sound effects, such as the gear collecting sound, could use some improvement (Jonas Tyroller has an excellent video on sound effects btw).
- The player hitbox is far too wide, which can feel a bit weird to control. In my opinion, it only needs to be about as wide as the gear that the player character wheels around on.
- There is no que for the player before rewinds, and I easily forgot about the hourglass while I was focused on playing. Some sort of visual or auditory indicator that the rewind is about to happen would be great.
- Causing the player to lose all their gears on death felt a bit too punishing to me, given that the game is already quite difficult. Not saying it has to be changed, but maybe consider doing something similar to the strawberries in Celeste, where the gears would be permanently collected once the player hits the ground.
- I really appreciate that this game has controller support, however, having jump mapped to Y felt like an odd decision, since every game I know that has jumping uses A.
- This one's a matter of personal preference, but I think the game could be a bit more zoomed out.
- It's too difficult to jump over enemies and those grabby things. I would recommend either making them smaller or the jump height taller.
- Finally, I think 3.5 seconds might be too short a time for the rewinding and can get quite frustrating. There are many different approaches to fixing this: the obvious, increasing the rewind time; letting the player delay the rewind time through some action such as collecting a certain item (this one fits the jam theme quite well, too); allowing the player to start the timer, and they rewind back to where they started the timer; and probably others I can't think of.
Overall, a great game and I hope you continue working on it!
What a beautiful and fun game. Love the steampunk look. Great job.
@sfoot thank you! :smile:
@kaya-games, @jrevel hello and thank toy for great feedback, we will continue to work on the continuation of the game :smiley_cat:
Very cool game with interesting platforming game mechanics especially the time delay. Was challenging to get the hang of it. But once you get into the game it was enjoyable
@4ahizon we should have made more levels for learning :smiley:
Beautiful work!
Your game looks and sounds great, but the difficulty curve seems very intense. The enemies also blend with or look similar to the environment, particularly the saw blades / gears.
Overall I enjoyed it though! It's a surprisingly difficult puzzle platformer, and the rewind mechanic is quite interesting.
@bougiebirdie Hey! thanks for the feedback
A very solid entry for a jam: with so many levels, beautiful graphics, very fitting music. Really impressive! Level design was pretty good too for the most part though I couldn't understand how to complete the 7th level. I'll try to return to it because I really enjoyed the core mechanic.
Some kind of visual/sound warning about swapping between characters could be nice too. Especially with picking up gears it's hard to learn the timing precisely and it's not so easy to lookout for both hazards in the level and look up at the hourglass. Another problem I had is that hazards sometimes blend with environment: there are gears that are part of the environment and sawblades that look quite similar at a glance that are a hazard that kills you.
But overall a very nice job for a jam! Hope to see it expanded :heart:
I was streaming my playthrough of your game. Here's a recording in case you'd like to see it https://youtu.be/P3HI-2edlag
Очень красиво выгляди. Графика супер)
Графика прекрасна. Визуальное исполнение выше всяких похвал=) Озвучка так же хороша=) Часы на фоне вообще добавляют +100 атмосферности!!! Идея с постоянным возвращением во времени- вау!!! Правда я немного глуповата оказалась для этой игры и застряла прям на 2 уровне.. никак перепрыгнуть не могу=_= (Так что дальше пришлось смотреть как другие проходят) Главный герой-очаровашка=)
Wow! This is definitely one of the most polished and unique entries I've seen soo far! Where to begin...
The artwork is all around remarkable! The overall style is really cool and very consistent. I absolutely love the character designs, animations, set pieces, backgrounds... well... really just all of it!!
The gameplay is definitely challenging and at times a little frustrating (there were many times where I would switch in mid air while jumping between platforms or switch directly into an enemy). As others have said, I think it would be nice if you could control when you switch to alleviate some frustration. All things considered though, the mechanic was unique, interesting, and most importantly fun!!
This was a very ambitious idea and you executed it very well!! I hope you decide to take this further with a full commercial release! You all should be really proud of yourselves for this one!!!
Really nice music and artwork. The sfx were a bit loud compared to everything else, but it all had a really chill mood to it. :smile:
The main gameplay mechanic was something I hadn't seen before. It could get a bit annoying at times, working to a timer rather than having direct control of the swapping, but it gave the game a certain rhythm that I think forced you to be a bit calmer and more careful when playing.
Good work! :grin:
Great Jobs people!!!!!
The mechanic, the whole game its really addictive, i really love it, i hope you publish a finish version more longer. Really love this game, amazing job!!!!
@sad-studios thank tou!
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I made it to the end. I'd like to give some feedback though. First know it's an impressive effort with good art/music, but honestly the gameplay was quite unpleasant.
I feel like this game really really needed some playtesting or just a more clear vision from the beginning because it feels like a already a bit slippery precision platformer with a mechanic put on top of it that just gets in the way of the gameplay. Most levels the time mechanic is just something that will kill you because it grabbed you mid jump. Or it swaps your position but half carries your momentum so you hit spikes or several other things. It's very frustrating to play.
If you have a game like this I think it's super important to decide what you are trying to do. Is it a puzzle game? If so most of the gameplay experience should not be accidental deaths. If it's a puzzle game the switches should not extend a platform for half a second. These platforms seemed designed to troll you into jumping just to retreat before you can get there because it's not a super responsive platforming system. I see no reason these were designed this way.
If this game is meant to not be mainly a puzzle but instead a platformer then you need a good feel for the mechanic such that it enhances the platforming rather than impedes it.
When you make a unique mechanic you should ask "what makes this fun?" and then design the levels around that. Most of the levels felt very haphazard. Multiple levels were beatable as just one of 2 instances of the bird.
The whipping back and forth camera felt jarring. Maybe if it was a longer amount of time you stayed on each version, or maybe if it was a shorter amount of time but they were both on the same screen at all times. The way it is felt like you were being yanked back and forth and there wasn't time, and as you got impatient the temptation was to try to do 3 jumps when you should only do 2, which usually lead to switching in mid air which was basically a death sentence.
When it comes to this main mechanic though, in jest I will quote the words of Jeff Goldblum of Jurassic Park: "You were so preoccupied with whether you could, you didn't stop to think if you should." It's an interesting idea for a mechanic, but you really need to design the levels around it. It's not enough to come up with some strange mechanic, you need it to serve the game in some way. Playtest, playtest, playtest. 9 levels is a lot, particularly if it's just 1 developer. 5 or even 3 really tight levels that fully used the mechanic would have been much better.
A good game design tips video I saw once said "follow the fun". If you really wanted to make this specific mechanic into a game you should think about what makes it fun and really really design around that. Brainstorm why you are making this mechanic, and design the gameplay around that.
I only write all this because you all seem like talented people, but the end result was less pleasant than a lot of games I see made with basic assets and little polish. When making a game, the game comes first. Figure out the feel you are trying to make and what makes it fun, and build from there.
This game IMO just does not work mechanically. It's biggest feature doesn't really add anything and makes the platforming a lot more frustrating and inconsistent.
Other notes: If platforms work as switches, just having the most basic "click" noise really helps. And/or you can have the platform get slightly bright or different in color. I know you mention in the intro that they are switches, but still, a little audio/visual feedback goes a long way.
Hope you don't mind my rambling feedback, hopefully some of it is helpful. I write it because there seems to be a lot of talent on your team, which is why it's so important to not forget the game design fundamentals.
Thanks for the game!