FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → Pogo Dwarf

Pogo Dwarf

By ntmalichi

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1463.46225
Fun1373.38224
Innovation1233.44226
Theme1953.34225
Graphics1413.46227
Humor813.21221
Mood2223.06224

Comments

literato-games 2025-04-07 01:40

Beautyful and innovative! I was stucked in the stairs hahah remebered the tibia's golden age.

sweltj 2025-04-07 02:03

great physics!

osh-studio 2025-04-07 06:08

Really tricky and precise platformer, the mechanic was super interesting though, not what I was expecting. Would be cool to add some mechanic where bouncing continously gives you bigger jumps. This is definitely very speed-runnable. Well done :)

aleksey-salion 2025-04-07 06:22

The game looks fun, but I got stuck at the second sign. It would be great to use a keyboard key for jumping, though.

sypiac 2025-04-07 06:51

Very challenging, but also fun. Made it to the part where you have to jump over the red rock pit twice in both directions, turned out to be too much for me.

placeholders 2025-04-07 08:22

can't belive the second sign defeated me, nethertheless had great short time- seems fun!

ghettobastler 2025-04-07 09:00

I also got stuck on the stairs, but the movement mechanic is interesting! As previously mentioned, having a "buildup" system where your jumps get higher and higher could lead to some nice challenges

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 09:09

@ghettobastler @osh-studio That's an interesting idea, love it! (spoiler - further into the cave there's actually a special stone that makes your jumps much higher)

And regarding the stairs @ghettobastler @aleksey-salion, the trick is to fully compress the pogo and just barely tilt the dwarf ;)

Thank you all for the feedback!

rezistor 2025-04-07 09:38

That's can be a really good rage game! controls are super responsive! great submission!

badpinkchicken 2025-04-07 10:10

So much fun, great idea on the poggo!

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 10:55

@aleksey-salion @placeholders After further investigation it seems like in some cases the physics just don't work properly and that's probably what's causing the jump to not be high enough :( Sorry about that. May I know what OS / browser you are using? I'm also adding Windows and Mac builds to download

msd 2025-04-07 11:00

nah i cant complete the impossible jump, sorry

gettingrekt 2025-04-07 11:38

Great looking game and jumping was quite fun. Too difficult for me so I didnt make it much further than the purple rocks and slooping edges. Great work!

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 11:46

@gettingrekt Getting to the purple rocks in itself is an incredible achievement!

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 11:48

@aleksey-salion @placeholders @msd There was in fact a bug causing the physics to be inconsistent - making the "Impossible" jump actually Impossible.. I've uploaded a fix to that issue hopefully it will resolve the issue as well, I would appreciate if you could give the game another round <3

scrawach 2025-04-07 13:37

At first, I thought ‘hey, there aren't enough situations here where you lose all your progress’ and then I got stuck on the first cave for 10 minutes.... Good job! :)

immortalfox 2025-04-07 13:53

POV: You pushed straight to the bottom of the world with stone pickaxe in Minecraft :) Nice game. Would be perfect to see Streamers playing it and published to Steam a developed version hehehe :D

And somehow I found a bug when you go to the second floorimage_2025-04-07_165337348.png

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 16:08

@immortalfox Seems like youv’e been blessed by the red stone gods (AKA my lack of programming skills). Seriously though, thats the best compliment I could have asked for, thank you!

immortalfox 2025-04-07 16:09

@ntmalichi good games deserve good compliments :) Keep going

jcmonkey 2025-04-07 16:22

got stuck on the stairs in the begining. i think if you add movement for left and right in the air this would more interesting.

ghettobastler 2025-04-07 16:40

FIY I tried the fixed version, and I can confirm that I am now able to go past the point where I was stuck before! However, I am now stuck at to the second set of red rocks, but that is probably me and not a programming error :sweat_smile: Thank you for the fix!

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 16:46

@ghettobastler Thank you for giving it another go! I appreciate it so much :)

leparlon 2025-04-07 17:05

I liked it! The physics are fun and the graphics look great. But it gets really hard sometimes because the rotation is locked to the keyboard with a fixed speed I can’t control, and the game has a lot of jumps that need precision. So that part felt a bit frustrating to me. Like, the game asks for precision but doesn’t give me many ways to be precise, if that makes sense? Other than that, I had fun. Cool visuals and a great idea. I agree with others that a more polished version of this game has a lot of potential. Nice work and congrats!

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 17:16

@leparlon yeah I totally get it, currently the precision is by timing both the jump and the rotation correctly, but I also think that with better controls I can set harder jumps, so better controls are high on my Todo list post-jam! I appreciate the feedback

andrewkennedy 2025-04-07 17:44

I absolutely loved this. The gameplay clicked right away, and even though these kinds of games are an exercise in frustration, most of my deaths felt like my fault for being too impatient, rather than the game being unfair. The only thing I disliked was the A/D controls to lean felt very imprecise. If you could tilt the mouse left and right to lean and line up a jump better, that would feel really nice.

Unfortunately no matter what I did, I couldn't get past this part:

Screenshot 2025-04-07 103934.png

I'd encourage you to keep workign on this after the jam. With some polish, I think this could be really popular. Congrats on finishing your first compo!

aleksey-salion 2025-04-07 18:06

@ntmalichi sure, it's Chrome Version 134.0.6998.178 on Win11

onngd 2025-04-07 19:18

good game, the step-by-step climbs are annoying, but they don't spoil the picture

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 19:21

@andrewkennedy Thank you! Yeah I agree the controls need a revamp and I totally intend on continuing working on this game :)

Also - Getting there is really impressive, congrats! LMK if you want a spoiler on how to make it past this jump ;)

ntmalichi 2025-04-07 19:22

Thanks @aleksey-salion , I believe I managed to fix the issue causing it if you want to give it another go :)

rustywolf 2025-04-07 19:26

I'm going to have to come back to this in the morning, but its very fun

aleksey-salion 2025-04-07 19:58

@ntmalichi thank you! I got frustrated, but it's FUN. The game reminds me of Getting Over It, except for the deep (which would've perfectly aligned with the theme, huh?) philosophical quotes. I love it!

javasaurus 2025-04-07 21:27

Great job, loved this game ! The art, the audio, the gameplay, it all fits so well together. One of my favorites so far! And don't worry about fixing things post-deadline, these clearly were essential to make your game work better / as intended !

ollulf 2025-04-07 22:32

I love dwarfs and I love to pogo, so I had to love this game. Funny idea. I think that the horizontal movement is based on frame rate so for me, it was pretty slow. :'(

anstabo 2025-04-07 23:10

I would have LOVED to control the pogo stick jump with space, but mouse click is also quite good, it does require a bit of getting used to it. Very rewarding

haokai-xu-1999 2025-04-07 23:37

Remarkable! I like your game so much!

Hope you can keep polishing it and maybe publish it on steam one day.

subsolar 2025-04-08 00:04

nice! very interesting controls!

chocolatedoodads 2025-04-08 01:36

pret hyard bruh me cahnt get over the ledge stare thingiy other thean taht pret gooyd me likeke

pigeon-dp 2025-04-08 02:05

Couldn't stop playing it, but couldn't beat it also :D Loved the artstyle and the main gameplay. It would be really nice to be able to tilt without loading a jump :)

ntmalichi 2025-04-08 06:05

@rustywolf @aleksey-salion @javasaurus @ollulf @anstabo @haokai-xu-1999 @subsolar @chocolatedoodads @pigeon-dp I’m seriously so humbled by all this reaction! Thank you all so, so much!

ntmalichi 2025-04-08 06:07

@ollulf I'll check into that!

oxnh 2025-04-08 07:04

Nice intuitive controls, it's sort of a rage game. But it still feels fair and fun. Still I rage quit after about 8 minutes. Good job, music would be nice though.

thisyc 2025-04-08 07:52

Great, a game that makes me hate myself. I hate myself for loving this. It did surprise me that, in the short time I played I actually got better, a lot. I thought for sure I couldn't get past the four steps in a row near the beginning. Well done! And well done, me!pogo.png but after dropping here from either side 5 times in a row, I am taking a break before rage got the better of me...maybe another time. 10/10 silly platformer.

cinar 2025-04-08 08:38

nice mechanic idea

dywanix 2025-04-08 09:20

Really nice! but font was some sometimes for me hard to read

jim-jagers 2025-04-08 10:21

Very interesting movement mechanics

enad96 2025-04-08 10:24

This game is great, but perhaps a little to easy, maybe removing some of the checkpoints would help?

JOKES ITS IMPOSSIBLE

fun though

yopin 2025-04-08 10:42

This game is REALLY good: graphics are simple but all of them fit eachother, the sound desssign is also on point. When you understand how the stick works it is so much fun. Also the addition of the timer is so good for this type of game. I enjoyed every minute of the playthrough.

r8teful 2025-04-08 11:02

A miner on a pogo stick!? How do you even come up with that!? Hahah, well done on the game!

ln404 2025-04-08 12:27

Hard but fun!!!

2025-04-08 13:41

Nice small Foddian/climb game. Definitely inspired by Pogostuck, but the idea of slipping on slopes and having to time the jumps not to fall is cool. Difficulty curve could have been a bit better (notably the two conecutive slope jumps could have just been one jump as the mechanic is only introduced there, and the part with the 3 rhombuses should have maybe been placed at the end as a final challenge, and also maybe made a bit easier so more people could complete the game), but of course given the small amount of development time it makes sense. Overall a fun game nonetheless, great job :). First run took around 40 minutes, and second was 8:28.Pogo dwarf.png

izzqz 2025-04-08 13:49

Fun and pleasant. Enjoyed. FIVE STARS!

xwilq 2025-04-08 14:17

Perfect rage game! I’m impressed by anyone who manages to beat it as I’m absolutely terrible at games like this :sweat_smile: All in all, it’s a really great game with nice art, good sound effects, and a gameplay loop that hooks people in!

haastaggi 2025-04-08 14:32

Little bit hard game but fun concept. Good job!

thrawn911 2025-04-08 15:04

Ah, I got Happy Wheels flashbacks. Good game, I didn't manage to finish it, but I like it. My only problem is that the character doesn't jump long enough vertically, even when I'm pressing D as hard as I can, but maybe that's intentional.

ntmalichi 2025-04-08 15:28

@enad96 IMG_4658.gif

ntmalichi 2025-04-08 15:45

@bossusuprem I actually have not heard about Pogostuck before but I definitely gonna give it a go! And that is SUPER impressive you completed the game in 8 MINUTES!! I only managed to complete the game in a single run yesterday and it took me 16 minutes, just WOW.

laurynas 2025-04-08 18:25

This is torture. But a very fun torture

mremmele 2025-04-08 19:18

It reminded me of games like Jump King, where part of the fun is watching streamers struggle to beat it—love that! The controls are really well done too. Great job!

bene-labs 2025-04-08 20:05

Super tricky but really fun and unique game, great job!

cure 2025-04-08 20:43

Didn't manage to finish it, but it was awesome!

lanalux 2025-04-09 03:06

the stairs were tricky. i liked the mechanic a lot!

riggen 2025-04-09 04:28

This is a fun rage game. It took me a second to figure out that you have to short-tap and take baby hops to back away from the wall on narrow steps. Before that I was trying to land on the edge of the step on the first landing which took a lot of back and forth.

arthur-tang 2025-04-09 04:31

Lovely platformer game. I really love your game mechanics and your camera setting, especially when you left click and it zooms in. The game is hard and requires patience. Players need to slightly adjust their jump power and angle. I'd say you definetly put works into level design and system design.

aleksey4adoff 2025-04-09 08:27

The dwarves! This world needs more dwarves! and it doesn't matter on a pogo or in a diving suit!

saryah 2025-04-09 09:40

Amazing Compo entry, whilst I was not a very good dwarf on a pogo stick, I was having a lot of fun. Excellent and well polished.

emsea 2025-04-09 09:40

The camera action actually gave me minor motion sickness. But I toughed through it, for rock and stone!!

flinge 2025-04-09 11:13

Great game in the rage genre! The part with high jumps onto slanted surfaces got me stuck for a while. Would be nice to have jumping on W or Space, and movement with WAD, not just the arrow keys.

sharky3188 2025-04-09 11:53

Great entry, surprisingly fun, i thought the controls would make me feel more angry, but they weren't too bad to control. Some lack of checkpoints definitely got me raging, but overall great entry.

meskaline 2025-04-09 12:12

Amazing entry, impressive for a compo, a bit difficult get started but after few minutes it gets easier. Good job, nice and moody graphics.

freamdev 2025-04-09 12:27

I appriciate what you did here, and it's a very cool and well presented idea, but after spending 10 minutes getting trough the bridge and up the stairs just to fall down, I hate it.

Well done great entry :smile:

bartholomheow 2025-04-09 12:34

You won, i gave up, it's pretty damn hard! I feel like that's how people felt when they played my rage game lol.

follusior 2025-04-09 12:58

Very sticky:)

texugo 2025-04-09 13:45

This game is so fun (and hard, those stairs gave me a headache) and I love that both of our games have dwarves in ridiculous equipment. Great job with the artstyle and idea!

soul-grinder 2025-04-09 15:15

Pretty good fun pogo game mechanic and the level design was pretty good too. It really needed some sort of music, but apart from that well polished and came across no bugs, nice work!

magus77 2025-04-09 15:53

fun game until you need to climb 'stairs' pogoing up, constantly hitting the vertical wall. With an analog stick it would be easy but KBM is almost impossible lol . I did like the whole concept tho, good sub!

Also the are holes in the walls/floors ;-)

image_2025-04-09_175243213.png

the3rdhunter 2025-04-09 16:13

Fun game. The art looks great. Super well done. Your sound effects are good and non-intrusive, but the lack of background music is noticeable. The game-play is fun and unique. It was a real challenge to get past some of the obstacles. I eventually got stuck in the same spot as @andrewkennedy. But I'll echo what others have said, and that with some more content and polish, I could easily see this being a game on Steam. Great work and congratulations on your first compo!!! :heart:

pechedodue 2025-04-09 16:39

1.PNG I'm just dying over and over again :'(((

svenerik 2025-04-09 19:06

Somehow this was harder than most rage games for me haha, if you've set up to make the hardest one, you've gone well towards that goal! I'd hope to have some thing to measure my distance somehow, so that made it even harder. Lovely solid little game tho!

wuppos 2025-04-09 19:08

This game is very fun, but also super frustrating XD With a few tweak I feel this could easily become a rage game that streamers like to play, haha The art was also really nice and fitting. Great job! :D

makache 2025-04-09 19:11

It's a bit tricky to control, but I like the unique jumping mechanics, I've never seen anything like it before.

mtnbonez 2025-04-09 20:17

A little too frustrating to be my cup of tea, but the execution is great! The tutorial was well thought out (gave just enough info to get started w/out being a wall of text) & the jumping has a deceptive amount of mastery. Good job!

mr-mesmer 2025-04-09 20:17

Nice game, very organic with sounds, graphics and gameplay. I think, that it was no special, but I laugh, when my character stuck and don't respond mouse/AD keys in this place. The most timely tooltip, that I see. Screenshot 2025-04-09 230429.png

ntmalichi 2025-04-09 20:38

@mr-mesmer That's actually hilarious XD

jonathan-vinesar 2025-04-09 20:54

Our games feel like they're in a similar vein, haha. Definitely a fun mechanic, but also super frustrating, which I think fits the genre. I could see someone getting really good and fluid with the movement. I played for about 20 minutes and got stuck on the double diamond jump. It was still fun though! I just got skill checked haha.

mahc 2025-04-09 21:47

wow very difficult and great execution

milestone-games 2025-04-09 23:22

Ughh, very fun but very tricky. Good one!

cmaks 2025-04-10 01:10

This game ended up being strangely addictive.. I love the simple mechanic and how to levels really lean in to not being able to jump up blocks you're too close to!

xpoho 2025-04-10 02:57

Nice game, but it is very hard for my sloppy hands ^_^

ntmalichi 2025-04-10 04:29

@jonathan-vinesar I’d say the double diamond jump is the hardest jump in the game and the one that gives me the most trouble too, good job getting there!

nuin 2025-04-10 07:00

I wish I was a miner

helloimbenjamin 2025-04-10 07:31

I had a great time bouncing around—challenging in the best way! Great Job!

iluvatar 2025-04-10 07:41

The game is so much fun, for such a simple concept haha. It's quite difficult, not gonna lie, but I think it's more of problem on my end.

The graphics are very pretty and charming and I really enjoyed the physics of movement. Maybe sometimes it's a bit annoying when you get too close to a wall and you must jump back because you can't lean to the side where the wall is. But again, this is most likely just me being a noob.

Overall pretty solid entry!

kahztein 2025-04-10 08:21

I found this quite fun, and it's a great accomplisment for the compo! There were some times where despite charging up a full jump, it wasn't anywhere close to a full jump, which made certain jumps feel like you had to get lucky. But I enjoyed it regardless. I'd love to see what you can do with it going forwards.

caeonosphere 2025-04-10 12:39

Jeez, and I thought my games were hard! I only made it up to the fourth checkpoint or so, whereupon I slid down a slope to my death many times. Can't say I've ever played a game with input quite like this: it requires a unique kind of precision.

buni 2025-04-10 18:21

Can't go wrong with a pogo stick! Fun game - great job!

crow-seeds 2025-04-11 00:55

If I had a nickel for everytime I've been a Getting Over It-like, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice already. Good game lmao

zimny11 2025-04-11 13:20

The game is great! Art style is nice and controls work fine. My only feedback would be: in game jam a lot of people will spend about 5-10 min playing a game. It is absolutely fine to make longer game, but most people will not play through whole thing and will miss out on later game content, which can backfire. For future jams I suggest make a bit shorter game and after jam is over add more, if you want to. Anyway, good job!

ugly-robot 2025-04-11 14:46

Awesome stuff! Innovative, deeply engaging, immediately understandable - fantastic game design. Instant to pickup, hard to master!

A question for you, if you consider to take this further - what would it look like if: * When on the ground, the character rotates on the pogo tip (as it does now) * But in the air, the character rotates on their center of mass

Right now, you can get a bit of extra distance by compressing+rotating in the air, but it might give the player a little extra control of that landing pont was rotating too - allow them to squeeze out a dozen more pixels of height, or even rotate 'away' to catch the lip of something they accidentally flew over.

Would allow them to pull of some nice 'last minute saves' (and I don't think it would trivialize anything, as it requires realization and skill expression on the player to pull it off - as the in-air-compression-rotation does now - just a bit more)

Just some food for thought! Totally up to you, of course. Really loved this entry - awesome work!

ntmalichi 2025-04-11 15:46

@ugly-robot I LOVE this suggestion, exactly the type of polish this game needs. That’s an advanced tech that is not required but may save a few jumps for casual play and I totally can see it being used by speedrunners for squeezing longer / faster jumps! Amazing, definitely gonna implement it in future releases. Thank you!

ugly-robot 2025-04-11 16:09

@ntmalichi hooray! Thanks for considering it - looking forward to seeing what you make!

crozzy 2025-04-11 16:16

Fun game, it was hard to get used to the controls at first, but it's definitely fun and interesting, great game))))

protzz 2025-04-11 16:19

OMG WHAT A GAME, GOOD JOB!

recursor 2025-04-11 20:24

Both difficult and frustrating, yet I am still playing. I guess that means this is a good rage game. Now I just have to keep from losing my temper so I don't rage-quit. I really like the super-simple lean-jump mechanic that is easy to learn but difficult to master. You really "leaned" into it and I think it paid off, since it is quite addicting to keep on trying just "one more time."

ukulelefury 2025-04-11 23:59

:) This was fun, but _very_ difficult and so many jumps are so precise! I liked the mechanic a lot. Very unique and fun! Also, nice pixels! But it was just a tad too hard to keep me playing for long.

vary 2025-04-12 00:11

oh man this is hard, haha, but really well done. I'm always impressed with entries that take a simple concept and polish it. The graphics, physics, and audio work together quite well. The gameplay is straight forward but challenging and rewards patience, and the learning curve is well done. My only feedback would be on the zoom-in that happens when you jump - it's a neat feature but on sections where I'm attempting several jumps over and over, the constant zooming in and out gets a little bit nauseating, so maybe there could be an option to tune it down or turn it off? Overall though, really great entry!

enmarimo 2025-04-12 00:31

Very fun game! An simple but innovative mechanic, with well packed graphics, audio and physics. I enjoyed it a lot, though I find it difficult at some points. The only complain is that I found the font a bit difficult to read.

phasmantic 2025-04-12 01:16

Neat game concept! I tried for around 30 minutes, but couldn't get past the second lava area, where the slope from above pushes you into the lava. Maybe its a skill issue or a browser issue, but I wasn't able to jump high enough to get up the slope. I love the concept and the overall game design though! The game is simple but neat, with room to be expanded on if you decide to.

ntmalichi 2025-04-12 06:54

@phasmantic it’s not a browser issue, this slope is basically pixel perfect if you want to make it in a single jump, but the intended way is to try and “fight” the slope by continuing jumping when you land, a tech I did not properly introduced at this place so its on me

zshandi-krahn 2025-04-12 07:31

Great concept, but I had to stop playing after the first fall and progress loss (feels very getting over it, which isn't my personal favorite type of game). I might pick it up again later when I have a bit more free time though :)

rubatotree 2025-04-12 11:01

Really challenging game! The mechanics is simple but it never gets boring. Good job!

coderaurus 2025-04-12 12:54

This is a nice skill-based, raged infused game. I both like and dislike it. I feel the pogo sound could have been more springy, like Mario's jump.

Well done.

mibi88 2025-04-12 12:57

The controls are very imprecise and the jumps are very hard early on which made it frustrating. I found that it was discouraging to play it further.

mibi88 2025-04-12 12:57

Sorry I double clicked on "Publish" which caused it to send an empty comment, but I can't remove it

ntmalichi 2025-04-12 13:16

@mibi88 Hi! Can you please elaborate about the imprecisions you've experienced? Because the game is indeed hard and might be frustrating, but as far as I can tell very precise and deterministic, and if that’s not the case I want to fix it.

mibi88 2025-04-12 13:40

It is very hard to tilt the dwarf to the right angle with the arrow keys, because he is rotating quite quickly. Maybe rotating the dwarf by moving the mouse would make the controls more precise and the game funnier, because I was very frustrated early on starting at the first staircase.

leparlon 2025-04-12 13:55

So... I saw your post on the main page and somehow my hand moved the mouse and clicked the link. Suddenly, I was pogo dwarfing. I think you need to fix this. I did not want to be pogo dwarfing. I have games to rate.

Now I’m actually questioning my earlier feedback about the controls… if I were in your shoes, I’d have a tough decision to make!

yibirabbit007 2025-04-12 14:58

I'm sorry I'm always stuck on the far left of the second floor, where I can't over it😞🌧️

ntmalichi 2025-04-12 15:02

@mibi88 Oh, I get it. Yes currently the controls are time based (both tilting and compressing), I will add a feature in future releases to changed the controls from being time based to being position based. (Both angle and compression will be controlled by the mouse position).

And I agree the game IS hard right from the beginning, but it also is really good at making you better at it real fast, you learn new techniques as you go and learn from your mistakes.

Anyways, I appreciate you giving time to play the game and giving feedback:) Thanks!

ntmalichi 2025-04-12 15:06

@leparlon Im sorryyyy it’s not my fault he got lost to a different cinematic dimension, I was just there to record it :(

borabee 2025-04-12 15:44

Very cool and innovative idea! I like how you mashed a very commonplace ideia for the theme (mines) with a totally unexpected element (the pogo stick) haha. And the pogo stick mechanic in itself is very unique and something I've never seen in any other game... It makes for a very very very challenging and sometimes infuriating game experience haha I'm not good at these types of hard skill based games cause they get me a bit too stressed out :'') so I wasn't able to get too far, but as far as I could see it seems like you made the most of that mechanic with the level design, playing with different platform and roof heights, also horizontal distances, it seemed like a new challenge was always being introduced. So congrats on that! Also, maybe after I calm down a bit I'll try again to see how you evolved these challenges in higher levels XD

phasmantic 2025-04-12 17:48

@ntmalichi Thank you for the response! I got past that part, and now I'm stuck where @the3rdhunter and @andrewkennedy got stuck. Its good to see that it wasn't a bug that was causing my previous issue.

thomas-bringer 2025-04-12 18:00

Excellent game! movement is very fun and fresh, got me Getting over it vibes. Fun level design, too. Amazing work!

wind1e 2025-04-12 18:40

excellent speedrunning game! Very satisfying to land a jump after many failed attempts.

rodorodo 2025-04-12 19:48

I also got stuck at the part where you have to jump over the lava to get to a level above, but I really enjoyed the mechanics, reminds me a lot of Getting Over it, but with more forgiving mechanics and level design. I hope you continue working on it!

mooyett 2025-04-12 21:30

Cool and innovative game mechanics! I'm part of the "stuck in the stairs" team too, but great entry. Wish I could have mined some redstone though

camer-the-dragon 2025-04-13 03:07

Awesome game! Took me about half an hour but I thought the checkpoints were very reasonably spaced apart (I clipped into the ground a couple times, mainly at the end section, but since the checkpoints are close it's not much of an issue with restart or just spam bouncing until you're out). Double diamond jump was quite difficult but the consistency built up and it was one of the last sections. The only real things I'd say are I wish you could hold space instead of click to charge the pogo stick and that music (even just a bit of ambience) would be good additions, but overall an excellent game!

python-b5 2025-04-13 04:07

Fun, but frustrating. I was unfortunately not able to finish - I got stuck at a section involving a decently sized slope that would drop you into lava. Not sure how far the game that was. I was at least several checkpoints in.

Climbing up stairs was extremely difficult from the start, and even once I figured out a repeatable strategy, it still felt very awkward and not very "intentionally designed", if that makes sense. Crawling to the edge of a platform before doing a very precise jump that only had about a 50% chance of working on steeper staircases did not feel good to me.

I was happy to see checkpoints, which aren't often present in these Getting Over It-reminiscent games, but I found this game difficult enough that even the checkpoints weren't enough to get me through it. The controls are decently responsive, but the difference between a successful jump and failure was often extremely small, and being on a laptop, left click was probably the worst possible input the main mechanic of the game could have been bound to (please consider adding another option for keyboard-only play...). Good work overall.

ntmalichi 2025-04-13 05:38

@python-b5 Thank you for the response! Yes the game is indeed hard right from the beginning but you do figure out consistent setups and tricks as you go. Control remapping and other control options will be introduced in future releases 100%

ntmalichi 2025-04-13 05:41

@camer-the-dragon That’s so awesome you managed to beat the game!! I truly appreciate you taking the time to do it! And yeah I’d say the last section is hard just because of the clipping issues XD guess I’m gonna have to replace Unity’s default physics with one of my own in the future (or at least introduce more safety checks)

papykent 2025-04-13 07:08

A bit tricky to get the control right but loved the idea anyway! Definitely some Bennet vibes after passing a difficult part. Good job!

verttixpertti 2025-04-13 11:01

Nah the game is bugged for sure. The jumps behave differently every time even when I fully charge it and aim it as angled as possible. Other than that I was enjoying the game.

ntmalichi 2025-04-13 12:39

@verttixpertti Hi! Can you elaborate where this happens to you? As I said before the game should be pretty deterministic and if thats not the case I want to fix it. The only known major bug right now that I know of is clipping through the floor when falling really fast

jtap 2025-04-13 19:12

Really fun idea! I love the jumping mechanics — it feels chaotic but in a good way. Sometimes it was a bit hard to control, but that just made it more hilarious. Great work on the theme and physics!

ntmalichi 2025-04-13 19:15

@jtap Thank you!

eyedromeda 2025-04-13 19:36

Cool concept, but very difficult (which is not necessarily a bad thing if you're looking for a challenge). I would've preferred a more precise way to control the character's rotation, especially since a lot of the jumps required a very specific angle, which was hard to get consistently. Maybe having the character tilt controlled by the mouse instead, or something similar to Pogostuck, where the A and D keys rotate the player at a fixed speed and the player otherwise stays at the given angle. Other than that, very impressive work, especially with the length and variety of the level!

protzz 2025-04-14 09:08

Good job👍

2025-04-14 20:45

I did a few more runs today because the game was fun :). Seems like there might be some inconsistency with the jump power, sometimes I feel like the jumps are weaker than other times (maybe due to the fact that the pogo clips into the ground on occasion). Anyways, here's the best run:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmeatf6Ndfs

batthecat 2025-04-15 02:01

cool graphics, nice physics and nice concept too... nice job!!!

ntmalichi 2025-04-15 06:41

@bossusuprem HOLYYY SUB 3?!?!? Damn That’s actually really close to a perfect run!! When I tried to beat your previous run I aimed for 6 minutes because the triple diamond jump is so hard for me and in my best attempt I got there at 2:20 but you got there faster and beat it 3rd try!!

There’s no way I’m even attempting to beat that XD

GG! You are the PogoKing!

Mind if I share the insanity of a record?

egor-iv 2025-04-15 08:11

Interesting gameplay

2025-04-15 09:32

@ntmalichi Nah, feel free to share it :D

yuri-antonov 2025-04-15 09:56

Its pain. But mechanic is interesting

jeffez 2025-04-15 10:08

Good game ! I love the vibe !

It remains me of theses Jump King games, but the pogo stick was a nice way to explain the jump mechanics ! The fact that the sign had a hitbox bothered me a little, but It was nice to play !

Pleases, continues the good work !

hinamarina 2025-04-15 20:18

This was so interesting! :) I feel that the idea was quite curious, yet super hard (I gotta confess that I eventually fall from up there and rage quit it XD but will for sure give it another try later). The idea is quite nice, very juicy! I wished there was a way to snap the amount of force to jump (maybe using a right click). having to handle the force and the direction at the same time is quite difficult (but i understand is also a skill issue, tho XD).

I overall really enjoyed the experience! Quite a funny game and very polished! Keep up the good work! :)

atsh 2025-04-16 15:30

*Failing to get over the stairs part at the start"

Ctrl+F "getting over it" - 6 results

Ctrl+F4

Best game in the jam :)

ntmalichi 2025-04-16 15:37

@atsh lolll Thanks! <3

oeuegha 2025-04-17 04:25

Surprisingly, for that type of games, controller of that one feels very good.

braeden 2025-04-17 19:52

One of the most frustrating games on here. When the dwarf slid down the slope and into the lava after the third checkpoint I had to close the game :laughing: I love the game though, really fun concept, and quite challenging. Reminded me of the pogo guy from Happy Wheels.

Really great job :clap:

ntmalichi 2025-04-17 19:56

@braeden I get you, I had to close Unity way too many times which really slowed down my work XD

jk, but thank you!

blackcat508 2025-04-18 05:39

surprisingly easy to use pogo mechanics!

block97 2025-04-20 05:16

Haha I couldnt beat it, it was really tough. you know I really excel with game like this but this one was too much :V Great work!

deadroach 2025-04-21 20:02

Far too much time was spent on a jump that I'm still not convinced is possible at all. I am not good at video games and this is a hard ass game. Very few games this jam have made me rage like this one did. Here is an hour and 40 minutes of me playing it

https://www.youtube.com/live/E-NlOS3kZmo?si=O64baCm6IU7eH-8l&t=1191

https://www.youtube.com/live/dIHuvZhFPa8?si=Ekd7L8elGPOOnspw&t=2896

ntmalichi 2025-04-21 22:16

@deadroach I just watched your VODs and I gotta say that: 1. You are really entertaining, definitely gonna follow and join your next streams (if you allow it XD) 2. I fully take it as a compliment that this game is a punishment for you 3. This jump is REALLY hard, but possible, once you get the hang of it it you can do it pretty consistently afterwards, and the fun part is that it’s the beginning of the hard part of the game :P

I’m now working on polishing the game, this also includes more consistent physics and inputs, and better difficulty curve :)

Even though I ruined your short-stream day, I really appreciate you playing my game, Thank you!

deadroach 2025-04-21 23:57

@ntmalichi Thank you and of course I allow it! I love views! Plus you'll be a known character right off the bat, there's some people in the chat that have been quite enjoying my feud with pogo dwarf. I should note I didn't realize at the time that your game was a compo so definitely you deserve more credit than I've been giving you lmfao I just struggle greatly with your game. If you're tweaking it I suggest the ability to compress the pogo with a button other than left mouse button, as I feel there's really no reason for the mouse to be involved if it's being used like a keyboard button press anyway and I think I'd be better at your game if it were like spacebar or something. Also I forgot to mention that the name Pogo Dwarf is fantastic, easily the most memorable game title in this entire jam. Sounds like a pokemon lmao

digital-bacon 2025-04-22 11:17

Interesting little game, but I found the controls are really hard. A bit different, though, and that's always good! Great work!

epicgamefan 2025-04-23 01:28

I'm so glad for checkpoints. I liked how easy it was to pick up and start playing and the variety of puzzles you could build for this.

deformhead 2025-04-23 10:34

Really good game!

Very challenging, I wonder why the dwarf didn't chose a ladder :thinking: :joy:

God job! :clap:

ntmalichi 2025-04-23 11:07

@deformhead I also wonder the same thing!

He's a special little fella I guess :laughing:

papaver 2025-04-25 10:04

Interesting mechanics! But very hard haha :laughing: I found all the stairs very frustrating. In general, I found it very hard to predict where I was going. I like the idea of someone in the comments here to use the mouse to aim in stead.

I got to the big jump, and got too frustrated to continue after 3 failed attempts. :stuck_out_tongue: I wish there was another checkpoint there, then I would have retried the big jump more often. I see in the speedruns the jump looks way easier there. My jumps really didn't go that far haha. (Playing in Chrome, not too fast computer). Also, Apparently I only saw a fraction of the game!

Overall, good game! Cool mechanics, nice graphics. Congrats on a fantastic first compo game!

ntmalichi 2025-04-25 22:10

@papaver Thank you!