Hello! I just updated the game on a different page here: https://crankycranton.itch.io/electro-leap-post-jam
And, just wondering, but did anyone notice that I forgot to make level 2's soundtrack loop?
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Electro Leap's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun to Play | #1 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Overall Grooviness | #1 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Nifty Use of Assets | #1 | 4.400 | 4.400 |
| Cool Concept | #1 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Overall | #1 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Thanks for playing!
I made the camera automatically move because of the co-op mode, but it turned out to be even more frustrating in that mode than in single player :/. I was considering making the camera only rotate when the player was standing still, or have the camera look at some hard-coded positions, but for some reason or other, I didn't even try them out.
If I can chime in here real quick, I’d say your best bet with the camera is just turn it over to the player either with mouse look or some other method that puts the player in control of the camera. Things just seem to work better that way. Auto cameras always struggle to frame the action correctly. Just my two cents. :)
Another option might be to give the player the option to press a button/key to re-center the camera back behind them. Kind of like some of the old N64 games used to. I noticed I kept turning 90 degrees to the left/right to force the camera to snap back behind me when I was trying to line up a difficult jump (especially one at an angle).
Thanks for commenting!
Because I was using the Compatibility renderer in Godot to have it work in the browser, I wasn't able to put in shadows. But I guess should have changed the renderer to Foward+ (which I don't think it supports HTML5), or make custom shadows.
Oh, yeah. About the sword... one of our pre-release play-testers asked the same question. It did function in early development. We wanted to have the player move whenever he attacked to give the game a dynamic ninja feel. So, we initially had the sword swing when you jumped, but it didn't feel good because you had to get at the right angle to an enemy to use it. So, we took out the functionality and left the mesh in because it looked cool (but perhaps it is a bit too misleading).
Does the grenade make up for the sword? :)
gotcha about the shadows. I was able to make the jumps without them so it wasn’t a game breaker or anything but definitely something to look into if you ever decide to expand on the game. Depending on how deep you want to go on the technical side of things, there are lots of low-fi tricks you could use in place of GoDot’s built in shadow stuff.
That’s funny about the sword, I had a feeling it might’ve been a cut feature. The game is probably stronger without it anyway because without an attack the focus is solidly on jumping around and dodging the enemies.
While it does look cool, probably would be best to remove the sword because if the character is holding a sword the first thing a player is going to do is try and swing it. That was definitely my first instinct.
Grenade was a fun treat, maybe not as cool as an awesome ninja sword, but probably better suited to the gameplay style.
I agree with with the love studios, an old school trick like a blob shadow would go along way into giving the player a basic understand to where they were going to roughly land. It is not a gamebreaker with the current respawn system, but it would shave a few unnecessary deaths off of a player’s run through the game.
As far as the sword, I agree, leaving it in makes it confusing to the player. Maybe remove it from the player at the start of the game. That way it conveys to the player that they are going to have to make it through with the rolling/jumping options instead (until the grenade :) shows up). Plus, it buys you time to tweak the controls, and you may be able to add the sword back in later down the line. Kind of the classic show the player the cool thing they have, then take it away from them and make them earn it back through gameplay.
Wow! This is one of the best Itch.io games I've played in a while!
Things I liked:
The aesthetic: The fairly dull color pallet, as well as the low-poly models contributed really well to a PSX kind of feel.
The sound design:
The music was a really good pick, and the minimal sound effects fit perfectly.
The animations:
The leap animation was perfect for the feel of the game.
The enemies:
The various types, especially the flybot, were just unique enough to force me to adjust my strategy to beat them.
The mechanics:
The roll and grenade attacks were really cool, making me feel like a bad-to-the-bone assassin.
The levels:
The levels were well thought out, and each felt unique.
Things I disliked:
No camera controls:
Having no camera controls in an action platformer like this proved pretty frustrating until I got the hang of it.
The last level:
While I still enjoyed the last level, I found that the small arena kinda created a mosh-pit scenario. It felt like it was all the same enemy, and my strategy became entirely focused on movement and luck, instead of fighting the different enemies individually.
Things that would improve the game:
A scoring system.
I think that a scoring system would be a fun addition, and give players a reason to replay the game.
Synopsis.
Overall a very enjoyable game, I finished it in about 10-15 minutes, and walked away wanting more.
Good job!
Thanks for the review!
The camera does seem to be quite a problem (*o*)! I got the camera working on my local version, and will update the game after the voting. In the last level, do you think removing some enemies, adding a boss, and/or enlarging the platform might help? Perhaps the scoring system could be time based, or how many times you got hit or fell (at the end of each level: "you made it! But you fell x number of times!").
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