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A jam submission

Bastion of EntropyView game page

Escape these ancient ruins collapsing within seven seconds using your unique time manipulation powers.
Submitted by Zoltan Kosina — 8 hours, 2 minutes before the deadline
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Bastion of Entropy's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall fun and playability#1112.5002.500

Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme incorporation
The game takes place in an ancient ruin which is about to completely crumble.

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Comments

Submitted

Finally! I am free! ... Or am I?

The game was very fun, I don't think I've ever played a game which works exactly like that, just replaying a little piece of time inside falling ruins, it was very original among my own experience. I think you can say most games in the jam feature "Ancient ruins" but now you've got a cool way to implement it in a mechanical way (not only ancient ruins but rather ancient ruin+endless of course). I love jam games fully based on one original gimmick which is fun to deal with and this was one.

I think getting through the end of this one without dying and retrying quite a bit is delusional? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind at all but can see how opinion may differ. In my case I like trying the full range of the timer to get the following path while I was actually inside a dead end, that's fun to me. I like getting further and further each time.

Also one thing I really like is as you advance you get much more time that you need as you follow the route you've been planning better and better so the further into the game the more you can take some time to observe, analyse, plan and possibly explore the dead ends and get back. This is great because the further you are the longer it takes to replay up to where you died, which is not exactly the more exciting part of the game. The very last sequence on the roof I actually passed through on my first try because of that, when I got there my timer was on 5, I owned 15 orbs and could see just going 3 to 5 to 3 to 5 ... (which is probably close to what you have to do but how close I could not tell as no platform ever moved during my walk through the roof, also this part of the text is hilarious if none of these platforms actually ever move) would get me to the opposite side without having to die and retry there, that was actually super satisfying too.

From my own experience the one piece of level design which could be done a bit differently is that you could have to mandatorily use a platform to get you upwards sooner into the game because by the time I had to do it I already tried a couple of times and always died so I totally thought it was not possible and would not deliberately try again, I went upwards only by chance and was actually surprised it did not kill me.

This is a very cool game, thanks for sharing.

Developer

Sir, allow me to metaphorically tip my hat to you, as your exceptional achievement in completing my game leave me in utter admiration and awe. Whenever I create something to challenge even myself and then completing it having a surprisingly hard time in the process even though I know everything about my own game, someone comes and achieves the same without the necessary knowledge due to my complete failure of communicating them within the game itself, and I just can't comprehend the superiority in intelligence and the incredible dedication towards something I made. So let me add some more fun facts that you might find interesting, and that would make me completely shocked if you figured out yourself within the time you burned on my humble creation:

  • The initial height of the falling blocks determine the exact half a second when they will fall. So this is why the first block next to the starting position of the player falls almost immediately, but the blocks on the roof fall as the last ones. Which also means that the higher you climb the later the floor you are standing on will fall during the first few seconds, so you have more time to explore safely without the need of reverting time. 
  • Climbing up and down the stairs takes one second in real time but only half in game time compared to the horizontal or vertical movement where the half a second is applicable both for real time and game time.  This was not intentional, but trying to fix it caused other issues which I couldn't figure out quickly enough, so I decided to keep it as is, since it doesn't impact the game negatively.

Features that ended up on the cutting room floor due to the lack of time even though some of them would have made the game a lot easier to beat:

  • Two additional viewports to show the past and the future, a nice way to emphasize the 4-dimensional maze aspect of the game. (Already partially implemented in the post jam version.)
  • Cracks on the fallen blocks, flying dust around them frozen in time, highlighting that they "will" fly back up if you take one more step while the time is reverted. Cracks on the edges of the soon to be falling blocks to warn you before they fall.
  • Prevent movement if a the future viewport already shows that a block would fall on the top of the players head, same for the past viewport in case the time is reverted.
  • Windows to let you see the rain outside, its falling our raising droplets to visually help you see if time is reverted or not.
  • Every block has a predefined time of falling unrelated to their height.
  • And my favorite: A demon that is always flying towards you and can be killed only if lured under falling blocks, but every time you revert the time and travel back before its death you risk guiding it away from its original fate.
  • And the one I regret the most that I had to leave out: Procedurally generated 4D dungeons. Theoretically I could have done it, I had plenty of experience with similar challenges, but when I got to it, I just couldn't wrap my head around preparing the maps that not only work as a challenging puzzle but also look good. That would have been truly infinite experience. Maybe next time.

And finally features that I tried out then removed because even though they were cool it made the gameplay itself really weird:

  • Move forward: times move forward, move backward: times more backward. The concept felt really cool in practice but then it quickly turned into a weird waltz abruptly interrupted by falling blocks. 
  • Revert time without limitations. It was nice, but ended up just going back to 0 after every step, which made the whole game a walk in the park.

So that's it, a nice, long, reply to a nice, long, review.

Submitted

Interesting to have a mechanic that changes the entire dungeon on different time steps. Had trouble understanding how it worked though. Sometimes it felt like I just couldn't move even when I though I should be able to.

Developer

Thank you! Yes,  there is a hard stop of movement at 0 second backwards and 7 seconds forward time, in which cases your can only move again if you reverse time. But for sure I should have communicated that better, maybe by disabling the movement buttons and flashing the reverse button.

Submitted

Nice puzzle game but not exactly a dungeon crawler. I admired your creativity anyway. Like the visuals too. Nice job!

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

Man what an interesting idea. Took me a few tries to figure out that there was like a global timer that I could predict. I died from debris quite a few times, and I think the mechanic needs to be explained a bit and maybe some work done in the UI (I didn't figure out at first that it bounced back and forward) but concept is really cool and pretty trippy too.

Definitely could do some polish, sounds, etc because the actual visual vibe is also quite intense but it's missing something. Theres a strong vibe here to build on.

Great idea, and one of the more unique gameplay mechanics I've seen for sure. Nice work!

Developer

Thank you very much for the kind words! I learned a lot from the feedbacks, and will definitely consider them next time.

Submitted

This is one of the more original ideas I've seen so far. It was impressive. A massive crawler puzzler. I agree that the concept could be explained a bit better in-game, but I figured it out after some playing and messing around. Didn't get to finish it, but it feels like I got quite high on the bastion. This could be a very good puzzler if expanded and polished a bit.

Developer

Thank you very much! I'm glad that you figured it out. Did you reach the part where you need to pass the long bridge crossing the large room? Sounds like you have reached the farthest part so far. :) I'll add my playthrough to the game page in case someone would like to see the ending. :)

Submitted

I did have to wait at one point for a bridge to lower to cross a room, not sure if it's the large one or not. Then I hoped that bridges work in reverse too and they can boost me up when they reset if I'm on top of them, but sadly, I just died :D

Developer

Check my playthrough, you will now. :)

Submitted

Super cool idea, I liked how you can optimize your path through the dungeon if you know timings of certain event. Was killed several times with a debris while exploring, but overall it felt like quite a nice puzzle crawler.

I didn’t had any sounds though, that could add a lot to the atmosphere and reversing sounds when you’re moving back in time could sound soooo cool.

Developer

Thank you very much, I totally agree, so much so, that I already added back and forth music and a half a second future view to help the player avoid falling blocks in the post jam version. ;)

Submitted

Very very pretty.

A might bit confusing, and so further development should include better splaining.

Good game.

Submitted

Nice job! great presentation and atmosphere!

Developer

Thank you! So much more I wanted to add, so little time.

Submitted

thats jamm time for you!

Developer

Exactly 

Submitted

This really f****ed with my brain. Very cool idea here, which you should iterate on a bit more. I wish there was some sound for the ambience.

Developer

Yeah, time constraints... I'll add some "music" after the jam, which only plays when you move, and plays backwards when you move back in time. Guess I can do that with foot steps too, and crumbling sounds. Stay tuned!

Submitted

What an awesome idea! A map that shifts back and forth between 14 states and you must unlock the mystery / learn to navigate it. “Only 7 seconds” Ha!

Great work!

Developer

Thank you! Glad that you tried and liked it!