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The Curator: Epic of Alexandria's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #11 | 3.588 | 3.588 |
| Accessibility | #23 | 2.588 | 2.588 |
| Overall | #24 | 2.992 | 2.992 |
| Theme | #25 | 3.059 | 3.059 |
| Graphics | #26 | 3.176 | 3.176 |
| Fun | #26 | 3.059 | 3.059 |
| Controls | #29 | 2.941 | 2.941 |
| Originality | #36 | 2.529 | 2.529 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4
Wildcards Used
Under Pressure, Checkpoint
Game Description
Travel back in time to the Library of Alexandria to collect knowledge long forgotten before the fire consumes it all. Risk your life to recover as many scrolls as you can as the fire races towards you. But don't worry if you die, you can always go back.
How does your game tie into the theme?
You are traveling back in time in order to save scrolls that had been previously destroyed.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
Coolrex56#8854, melo toni#5901, XtraK☆rma 業 #7259
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
2
My game has an export for Linux, Windows, & Mac and/or is playable through HTML5
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Comments
Nice game! The difficulty ramped up quickly, as I had no problem completing the first chunk of the game but got pretty stuck with the lava (I guess towards the end, based on what other people are saying?). I ended up not really using the “quickfall” ability, but maybe if I had practiced with it more I would have been able to use it to finish the level.
After playing for a while, I got a little dizzy from the quick bouncing of the camera following the player - it might have been nice to add a little damping on the camera movement, or just widen its field of view a little so it wouldn’t have to move as far to follow the player.
The ramp-up of speed after getting stuck behind something was a little jarring, although I guess you need to get back up to speed in order to get into the rhythm of the rest of the level, so I’m not sure what a good way to help with that would be. Maybe some camera lag or something would help here too.
The music and art are nice, and I definitely felt the pressure of the giant flame wall coming behind me! Overall, pretty nice work!
The start wasn't very good because of the speed making it hard to read the tutorial text. But the rest of the game was fun. The falling quickly ability came in handy near the end. The player controller could have had input buffering for the jump since there are parts where its necessary to jump multiple times quickly. The difficulty increased steadily but it did jump up a lot at the last part. The music was good and not too repetitive.
Thanks for your feedback! Based on what people have said, the game could definitely stand to be slowed down, especially at the start. The jump buffer is a good idea. And I'm glad you liked the music, thanks :)
The game has some nice polish and was fun to play. I liked the game concept, art and music, was fitting well together. Always good to see having some volume sliders.
I always enjoy challenges but this one was too hard for me. Maybe slightly bigger platforms or less speed to give the player at least one second to react and making use of the fall down mechanic. I actually managed some challenges (after many tries), not sure if that was far or not (you can validate with my screenshot), but then I gave up. Anyway good Job on this and great to see team effort coming together!
Worry not, this was the second to last trial of the game. You did a great job, especially considering most people said this portion was very hard.
yeah, this is where i eventually gave up too, glad to know it's not just me being terrible :P
eventually had to give up, couldn't time these jumps properly. but nicely done!
Appreciate the nice comments even though it gave you a hard time!
I really love the implementation of the theme! It was always a dream of mine to go to the Great Library of Alexandria and save all that ancient knowledge that must have been stored there lol.
As the others have pointed out, the difficulty was veeery hard :D Maybe you could make it a little slower overall and the platforms a little bigger? I had to repeat one section for like 15 times before I made it, which made the success sweet, but also hard-earned... especially considering it was within the first 2 minutes of the game :D
But it is a great game that you should be proud of, with very nice art and sound design! Well done!
Thanks for the kind words! You're right though, the platforms could stand to be a little bigger. The was a lot of variation in playtime during playtesting between the people who playtested so we knew there was a chance it might be difficult.
Nice job! Really high paced runner. The difficult curve really ramped up there. I was able to get past the first large lava section, but couldn't do the next. It made me want to keep trying though, which is great. :)
Thanks, I'm glad you had fun with it :)
Nice work! It might have helped to have a little exposition in-game about the time-travel bit, to explain why you’re running through this library collecting scrolls. Other than that, the movement felt a bit fast and abrupt, but I don’t play too many runners. I was glad for the checkpoints though, not having to restart from the beginning made it much more approachable.
I agree, originally we were going to put a quick intro but time ran short so we focused on polishing up what we did have instead of adding more.
Really solidly made runner game! The nice tight gameplay loop really helps with all the dying you'll inevitably do. The timing of the jumps in those later sections is absolutely brutal though. How did you ever playtest this!? XD
I couldn't make it to the end without having a mental breakdown, but I did manage to get 15 scrolls!
(edit: as a side note I played at 120hz so maybe something is framerate dependent... Or I'm just a terrible gamer.)
Thanks! Credit for the quick respawning has to go to Celeste. Unsure about the framerate dependency thing. Does accounting for delta in your physics calculations solve that issue?
Yep! That's what the delta value is for. Anything that shouldn't be framerate dependent -- i.e. anything not purely graphical -- should be multiplied by the delta value. It's entirely possible the problem is just me though so don't sweat it too much!
I double checked and provided move_and_slide() functions how I think it does, the only calculation that seems frame dependent is how long you stumble after hitting an obstacle. Gravity and horizontal acceleration are calculated w delta and coyote time is on a .1s timer.
I think some of the issues people are having are due to the goofy ass way I coded in the jump and fast fall mechanics lol. If you're interested, here's some more detail: For the short hop, releasing the jump button before the apex of the jump will cut your y velocity in half. For the fast fall, it will immediately set your y velocity to twice the maximum fall velocity regardless of whether you're jumping or falling when the button is pressed. My intent was to give the player the feeling that they had complete control over the character's vertical movement, so it may need a bit more workshopping :P
The mechanics felt just fine to me, it was just a combination of everything happening so very fast and the platforms being so small and randomly spaced that made it seem impossible to me, but clearly I just need to git gud. XD
Very nice game, really addictive. I spent around 8 minutes dying at the same checkpoint (the series of precise jump with small platforms), but now i rarely die before the 4th/5th jump. Jump physics feel really good and consistent, it's easy to time the jumps after some time.
The hardest part is the fall control, having to time 2 different inputs is hard, and it feels less accurate/consistent than the jump.
Thanks for the feedback! The fast fall could definitely use a bit more fine tuning. Would you rather the fast fall and jump be bound to the same key?
Not really sure how to do it best, main problem with my keyboard is i can't jump unless i released S, so it added to dificulty of timing inputs.
Maybe only allow the fast fall during a jump? so you don't fall straigh after a platform if holding S. That would mean disabling it when touching ground, and allowing it again when jumping. That may cause some others problems elsewere, not sure if fast fall is needed anywhere without a jump.
I finaly completed the game after around 20 minute spent at the last 2 checkpoints, Maybe the difficulty should grow more smoothly. The last 2 checkpoints are very hard( in a good way, every attempt is better and feel easier than the previous one), and since it's the first time we face those kind of jumps, we have to learn them from the difficult section.
Oh I didn't consider that someone might be holding S. I was under the impression that players would only be tapping S when they need to fast fall. Is that just a more comfortable way for you to play the game, or did you think you had to hold it to fast fall? That's a good point though, you definitely should still be able to jump even if you're holding S before you initiate the jump. Next time around I'll be sure to mess around with all kinds of inputs to try and squash these bugs before the jam is done. Thanks for the feedback!
Edit: I tried it out and I wasn't able to replicate your results. Maybe there's a difference in our keyboards?
I just tested back, and it's a mistake from me. the problem i had were in the hard part and in think it was when i was holding S at the end of the platform, and just missed the jumps ^^' . The game goes so fast it's sometime hard see what exactly happened.
I didn't notice i just had to tap, but i think a tap is good. It's just very difficult for my brain to handle timing, how long to press the jump, and timing for the fall. I feel like it's harder if i use different hands too, it's unusual as a control for video game.
the only area were fall control were frustrating were the 2 last checkpoints, especially the first of the 2. I thinks it's because you need to time it along with the jump timing.
Neat concept! I think this game has some problems in the way the controls feel - the game requires a lot of granularity in the way that you move which the controls kind of don't give. I like the fast fall idea but it should be paired with a more responsive and less springy-feeling jump. Also, the camera should be a bit higher; the way it's set up feels a bit cramped! Otherwise the audio department is really good, the background song is fun. Nice job over all!
Thanks for your feedback! We will definitely spend a bit more time fine tuning the controls and physics next time.
Thanks! There was some concern that the later parts may be too difficult for some players so I am glad that you enjoyed it!