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(1 edit) (+1)

Mkay! So some things I noticed:

  • As 8enB noticed, the double jump inputs are a little sketchy. I think it's probably best for the second jump to be active at any time during the jump arc, rather than just after the peak.
  • When the key hits the top of the stage, all of its horizontal velocity is immediately cancelled. I don't think it's necessarily an issue, but it made some segments of the game a little less intuitive. In "Seems a Bit Easy", I noticed sometimes this happened with a left throw at the top without jumping. It wasn't consistent, so it's weird that the physics seem a little random. But for me, this actually happens pretty often. It seems to be well over 50% of the time. I imagine the intended solution to this room is to just carry the key, but throwing the key can be an option - if you get lucky. x3
  • I have no idea if this was intentional, but in the last level, picking up the key to cause the wall to appear on top of you has some interesting interactions with the player.
  • Similar to the above point, it is possible to throw the key into the ceiling, for example, in "Seems a Bit Easy." It's not game-breaking. Just funny.
  • The choice of Ctrl and Space for the left hand is a little tricky; I held my index finger over space and my little finger over Ctrl, which did start to be a thing after a while. I imagine you'd want to change this for more playability, especially as the game gets longer. ^^
  • EDIT: I'm noticing that with spike hitboxes... is there an invisible pixel to the left of the visible spike that's part of the hitbox? If so, that would explain some of the fun I had trying to figure out the fourth level ahaha.
(+1)

Ouch! That stings the soul a little to read, but regardless, this was an immensely useful review.

The good news is, I was aware of some of the issues you mentioned after I submitted the game and have fixed them already. An update to this demo will be made available after the judging process has been completed.

- The double jump has been corrected and is working a lot smoother, I believe.

- I spent a lot of time fixing and tweaking the controls. I too noticed that "Ctrl" was not a comfortable button choice, and it has been changed to "Shift". I also have made it to where players can choose to use "Space" or "Z" to jump, and "Arrow Keys" or "WASD" to move. I figured this would help give players a couple of options based on their preference. I also did it because I learned that a lot of laptop and cheap keyboards have a major bug where if you hold "Up" and "Left" at the same time, the "Space" button does not work. Having the extra controls offers a way around this if someone has this bug in their keyboard.

- The issue with the wall appearing on your character in the last level happened to me in post-testing as well. I hate, hate, hate that I didn't catch this before submitting the game, but it has been rectified. However, it was pretty hilarious to watch the player character float up to the door through this glitch, haha!

- Sadly, on the point of the spikes, this is where it gets a little challenging. So, the ZX81 did NOT have transparent pixels. There was absolutely no way around this. You also could not make any alterations to the character set from which you made your graphics. This meant you could not rotate, scale, or edit what the characters looked like in any way. So, you are correct, there is a section to the left of the spikes that registers on the hitbox. This is because each character is 8x8. A single spike is made up of two 8x8 characters: a checkered square and a square with a smaller, black square in the bottom right. The "invisible" pixels are the white filling the rest of the space. I could make the spikes from three 8x8 solid black characters, but they would be much larger and impractical. So the dilemma is: do I remain faithful, or cheat for more accurate collision detection? That's a tough one. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

- I'm glad you brought up the issues with throwing the key into the ceiling. That is something that needs to be fixed, so I will make that my next mission this weekend when I work on it some more.

- Lastly, you're freaking awesome! I can't believe you made a speed run video of the game. I turned into a giddy, little schoolgirl when I saw that. No one has ever made a video of something I've made before, so it was surreal to see that. It was also extremely helpful to me because I could see all of the issues you mentioned.

- Thank you again for making such a detailed review. My pride got hurt a little, but I needed to see it. This goes a long way in helping me to improve the game, so thanks for that. :)