Decent platforming game but I have quite a few problems with it.
To be upfront, I didn't beat this I got stuck in this section
(itch won't let me post an image so I will describe it. It is after the wall jumping section where there are three icicles and a switching block with spikes on the right bottom corner. I don't know how to progress because the only thing I can think of is jumping over the first icicle with a double jump and then wall bursting but that doesn't go high enough)
I tried this for a good while and I am not sure if I am missing something like a statue effect that hasn't been communicated, or if this is the wrong way to go or if it's just really precise. But after the previous section I didn't really want to continue anymore.
So here is my feedback:
Movement:
- it overall feels a bit too frantic in my opinion. it's difficult to tell what is happening by just looking at the movement. Nothing has any weight to it. It feels floaty and not precise (despite it being precise).
- wall clinging and wall bursting feels bad. It is hard to tell if you are in a wall clinging state because the animation is just the character turned around and the difference in fall speed while on a wall and in the air is very small. You also have to press into the wall to wall burst and there is no push away from the wall which makes it feel a bit unpolished. This also makes jumps where you have to chain a wall jump into holding right really painful because when you hold right too early, the wall burst won't come out but if you do it too late the way too fast vertical speed gives you no time to course correct and you end up just bouncing your head.
- normal jump has a good amount of coyote time and I appreciate that, however there is no input buffering (not a big deal just wanted to mention it). As I said. I think jumping feels too fast and it leaves very little room for correcting mistakes.
- the double jump feels ok for the most part but I have an issue with the interaction between wall jumping and double jumping. You loosing the ability to double jump after wall jumping is not very intuitive and I think you knew that because the page clears this up. Without this hint I probably wouldn't have figured this out. There are ways to convey this information with sound effects, particles or UI. May be worth taking a look at.
- The statue effects are communicated very poorly. The first time it happened I thought the game was bugged because I lost my double jump but sometimes there would still be a little air hop instead. I thought it had to do with the spinning things offsetting the collision or something but then again you put it in the info section that statues do something.
Most of these effects I did not mind but the only wall jumping one was just painful.
Level Design:
- Level design was decent for the most part but the movement hinders it a lot.
- The main problem there is the lack of frequent checkpoints. They are very rare and the game is not afraid to throw new mechanics at the player without introducing them first so you are forced to do a decent amount of trial and error.
- Despite that most mechanics are explored in interesting ways, like the thwomps looking guys which have some really interesting setups. I just wish they would have been introduced in a save environment first before diving deeper into their mechanical depth. The only mechanic I encountered that I thought wasn't that great was the rotating platforms because they felt reallllly janky.
Some other thoughts:
I think the music was a bit grading after a while. It is nice in the beginning but either the game should have been shorter and easier or there should have been some new music every now and again.
There is pretty much no context given for anything. In the beginning I was just collecting or activating things that I had no idea of what they were doing. Explain yourself.
Despite all my feedback I think this is still well made and I appreciate the exploration of the different mechanics. Don't let this discourage you, it's just as jam after all.
Also if you could tell me how to beat the section I got stuck on I would gladly continue and see this one trough.
Thanks for making this game :D