Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
A jam submission

Strung AlongView game page

Submitted by Tristan "Trim" Lafleur (@TrimTheTrimaloo), DragonGawain, Doumeki21, 5DollarCostcoChicken, jacobmeleras — 2 hours, 36 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Strung Along's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#54.1434.143
Audio#64.0004.000
Theme#73.4293.429
Enjoyment#83.5713.571
Overall#83.5483.548
Innovation#83.5713.571
Technically Sound#142.5712.571

Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted(+2)

I have no one to play this game with, so controlling both characters simultaneously makes my brain detonate.

I think the other comments say everything there is to be said about the string. I found it hilarious how, in level 5, both characters ramming themselves into the wall will cause the string to elongate out of the screen for kilometres. I was hoping I would have a giga slingshot when releasing the keys, but instead it just made it visually freak out.

This is secretly a rage game. The levels are very much on the hard side considering the unpredictability of the core mechanic and the absence of checkpoints.

I however think the idea is genius, I have not seen a game like this before. I think a version of this game where the string follows physics more accurately and does not go through walls would sell like little hot breads on the Steam market. Not to mention the art's minimalism yet consistency is both cute and immaculate.

Developer(+1)

Damn, I thought I fixed all the bugs that let the string elongate infinitely. Especially if both of them are moving... suddenly realizes the edge case that I introduced: if both characters have the input to move held down, but neither is actually moving  Well, thanks for brining that up. 

And yeah, no slingshot. The string pulls based on the characters, not the center node of the string. 

Thanks for the motivation that you think the game could sell well! We are considering continuing development since we also think that it's a unique idea that can become something great! The string definitely needs a lot of polish though. There just wasn't enough time to refactor over and over until I found the best way to implement it, so I went with my first thought and just debugged it as best I could. I have thought of some ways to improve it though. 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it despite the extreme difficulty! (which was not planned btw. Blame the difficulty on string jank :shrug: ).

Submitted(+2)

Love the art style and mechanics design. I'm sure if given more time polishing the programming, it will beat Fire boy and Ice girl!  

Developer

Pretty sure you mean fire boy and water girl!

Thanks for the praise, it means a lot! Really happy with the idea we went with, and the art really does look great (as does the music)!

Yeah, a bunch of us on the team are planning to continue development, so look forward to some polish eventuallyTM!

Submitted (2 edits) (+2)

I see the potential in the game mechanics, however I found the levels pretty difficult and the string mechanic to be a bit frustrating to use because it wasn't dragging along the characters the way I expected it to.

Especially the first level, I find it a bit too difficult for a first level. A lot of the jumps in the first level make you rely on coyote time for the cat character which imo shouldn't be a thing in the first level. The first level should be introducing you to the basics of the movement and the mechanics. While you did do that, I think it shouldn't be this difficult. Also, in the first level after you pass the first 2 switches, you can get stuck if the bunny make the jump (unless you do a double jump and hug the wall to touch the edge tile so it resets your jump).

Also, a lot of the buttons were located at pretty frustrating places (Beginning of second level for example). It felt as though you really had to be precise with the placement of each character so you can activate both buttons at the same time. You should give some leeway.

I do really love the ideas you had for some of the levels (level 3 especially), but I think you should tone down the difficulty a little bit.

The art and sound design is really awesome I really enjoyed looking at each level!

Otherwise, I really like the gameplay idea and I do see the potential in it with some tweaking to the difficulty, string physics, and movement. Great job!!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! The difficulty (I think) was in part due to the jankness of the string, and some mal-layered ground tiles not refreshing the jumps didn't help. We might want to either lengthen the string a bit, or just make things closer together. I think we had designed a fair few puzzles around the string being max length, but the string not being perfect just ended up making them really difficult. (though almost everything comes back to 'the string needs more work' to me).

I'm happy that I implemented coyote time hearing how much you used it! Those 5 frames must have been valuable! 

Thanks for the level 3 praise (I built that one <3)! (though the level layouts were made by Kiran (Kiwi_HD on the discord))

Without making any promises, a few of us on the team are thinking of continuing development (I know for sure I would like to once my schedule clears up, though not sure if that motivation will last), so the feedback is greatly appreciated!

Hope you enjoyed playing despite the frustrations with the string, and the difficulty of the levels!

Also, thanks for praising the art and music! Our art and music talents worked really hard during the jam to make some great stuff!

Submitted(+1)

If you don't want to modify the levels too much, then I would say lengthen the string. Or, if you want to make the level design process easier, then making the string longer isn't a bad idea either.

The coyote time was very valuable indeed!

Glad to hear you guys are continuing development! I did enjoy playing it despite all of the feedback. Like I said I do see potential in the game! :) I am excited to play it after the touch ups. Also I was typing too fast so I missed some words in my initial comment, but the art and sound design was really nice! Especially the sound, it fit the mood very well considering a lot of the gameplay is puzzle based

Developer(+2)

Thanks so much, I really enjoyed making the art for this game! We plan to continue working on the project in the future, so your feedback is much appreciated!

Submitted(+2)

Glad to hear you guys will continue working on it! I missed out some words in my initial comment, but great job on the art! Loved the atmosphere you guys were going for!

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

The string is a really neat idea, but in practice it makes both characters unpleasant to control, because they're both weighed down by each other. I tried all levels and couldn't finish any of them (except 5 lol) because of some frustration with the physics.

The fact that the chatacters can't interact with things of their own color is very interesting, and I wish it was implemented into more of the puzzles.

I haven't encountered any puzzles that required the swap mechanic, so maybe that could have been expanded upon as well.

A minor problem I've noticed is that a lot of the puzzles required the rabbit to be on the left and the cat to be on the right. Given the control scheme, it would have been nicer for it to be the other way around to make it less confusing for solo players.

So in summary, this game has great ideas, and less than ideal execution in my opinion. Amazing job nonetheless!

Developer(+1)

Yeah, the string is a problem. I spent at least 60% of the jam working on it, and got it to be 'stable', but it's still pretty jank. 

It 'weighing down the characters' as you put it is due to me fixing issues caused by both of them moving at the same time(specifically them moving away from each other, and falling with the string suspending them in the air). So, when both of them are moving due to user inputs, the center node of the string only moves at half speed. 

The level design vs the control scheme is uhh, something I don't think any of us thought of during the jam, but is certainly a good point!

And yeah, as a proof of concept, we on the team think it has great potential, but we also agree that there's some issues that would need to be ironed out to truly flesh out the game. 

Thanks for the feedback, and I hope you enjoyed playing (even if you couldn't beat any of the levels)! 

Submitted

You won't get over Fireboy & Watergirl, but it's close.

Developer(+1)

Yeah but like, they didn't have a string between them. SO um, HA! We win (or something like that)

Hope you enjoyed playing!