Great game! I only made it to level 4 but it was a fun ride! Some of the challenges are pretty tough but very satisfying to finally pull off! And being pursued constantly really makes you think about every move. The checkpoints were spaced well and the coins are a nice way to help the player. The wall jump was a little tough to do consistently and the movement was a little floaty but all in all the controls feel good. I really like the level design and how each level introduces a new mechanic then expands on it. Really great job!!
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Goblington's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #122 | 2.772 | 3.250 |
| Audio | #135 | 2.665 | 3.125 |
| Graphics | #136 | 2.985 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #138 | 2.905 | 3.406 |
| Authenticity (or, Creativity in use of resolution) | #155 | 3.198 | 3.750 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Tools
Gamemaker Studio 2 for code, Aseprite for art, and jfxr for sound effects.
Lessons
It takes a lot of creative energy to design fun levels.
Comments
Thanks! Level 4 is actually further than I'd expect from the average player, well played :)
I'll improve the wall jumping in the post-jam version.
If it's too floaty, you can press down to do a quick drop (I thought this was covered by the WASD in the tutorial, but I think most players ignore S/down in platformers so I'll probably change that too)
Damn, the eye that pursues you is relentless. A little tough to deal with, I felt like it read my inputs (?), like I’d try to do a quick turn back and it’d just track me with 100% accuracy sometimes. I was only able to beat the first zone, this game is tough! Definitely just a skill issue on my part, but an “Easy” mode without the eye pursuing you would probably still be plenty difficult for people like me haha!
The wall-jumping is a little finicky, it seems like you need to be pressing in the direction of the wall while pressing jump to wall-jump. Consider adding a 0.1-0.2 second timer/window to allow the player to press away from the wall while still allowing a wall-jump (I believe most games with wall-jumping do this). It might make it a little more forgiving.
I almost missed the tutorial, but I think that’s not really your fault: The low resolution of the ‘keyboard’ art in the first room made me almost miss it (I didn’t recognize them as keys), but that’s more of a lowrezjam limitation. Glad you posted a comment with the controls below (consider adding the controls to the game’s page itself just to mitigate this).
I can see this game being fun to speed-run! Once I got the hang of it, I found myself going pretty fast holding space and zooming around. The music and art are really good too. I really liked the little button sections at the end of the first stage, where you had to throw the bomb at the buttons and double-back to the newly-opened door while avoiding the eye. In retrospect, I can see how the eye pursuing you is core to the level’s design, so honestly take my ‘easy mode’ comment earlier with a grain of salt. I’ll try to find time to come back to this and actually beat it, it looks like you’ve made a lot of cool levels in the screenshots.
Nice job!
Submitted
Clash MasteryThanks for the detailed criticism! I will definitely keep this in mind for a post-jam update once I'm feeling less burnt out :)
And yes, the eyes copy exactly what you do, so if it seems really fast and relentless, that's because you are being fast and relentless, but maybe that isn't communicated to the player well enough. The strategy is to remember what path you took so you can backtrack without crossing that path.
I also noticed the wall jumping being very tight, but never got to fixing it because the sheer amount of other tasks that seemed like a higher priority to me at the time. If it helps, there is a buffer that lets you press jump before touching the wall, but not after.
The thing I struggle with when it comes to difficulty balance is making things easier without making it easy to the point where it's automatic. Finding a balance is hard, and I didn't have any time to get playtesting from other players. I think I'll do a playtest phase when I update the game.
Also btw, you don't have to hold spacebar, you only need to tap it once to enter max speed and from there you can just hold the direction. The reason I wasn't super descriptive with this stuff is I wanted a textless tutorial that gets straight to the point, but maybe I'll reconsider that decision.
Ahh the eye copying my own movements makes so much sense. I can’t believe I missed that, that’s actually super clever, makes a lot more sense. Also that’s hilarious, me complaining about the eye moving erratic and unpredictably when it’s actually just me moving erratically and unpredictably lol I love it
it seems really cool but I dont get how to play pls explain
Submitted
Dust Man's Insulation Service (Cool)
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