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This game is the culmination of 4 years of work and various release and playtest cycles. 

The Last Question explores a decaying world as the universe approaches its heat death. The player will have to navigate many futuristic locales to re-build a society for humanity to thrive once again, and uncover the mystery of how their presence on the station came to be. 

I would love any and all feedback on this game! If you like games like Celeste, Hollow Knight, Super Meat Boy, or some of the classic fan platformers like I Wanna Be the Guy, then I expect you'd really like this game! It takes about 1-2 hours to complete depending on your skill level and speed you play with.

Thanks for taking a look, hope you enjoy it!

This is awesome feedback, really appreciate you taking the time to give it a chance!

Re-doing the swing physics has been pretty consistent feedback the last few versions and I think that will be my primary focus as of now coming out of the jam. 

Most of the music in the game is definitely placeholder and I'll likely replace once I have a better idea of how much I'd like to spend on licensing. For now, I'm just using some of my favorite tracks that atmospherically match the vibe I'm going for. This is very much in transition from a hobby made fan game to a more "real" game and there's a lot of that still heldover for sure. 

Thank you again for the feedback!

Really appreciate the feedback (and the critical bug find!!), I'm happy to hear the central mechanics felt good to you. I'll definitely look into why the return back is causing the game to crash

There's definitely still a lot of placeholder music and art in this game, and I will probably look at replacing everything holistically if/when the time comes to get the licensing figured out. Until then, I really want to wrap up the rest of the game before doing so

Thank you again for giving the game a try!

Thank you Joel for taking the time to play through a huge portion of the game, and I really appreciate the honest and super helpful feedback. I definitely was trying to make this a hard to super hard platformer, especially the later levels, but the impression I am getting is that it is more unfair than hard at times. This is something I will definitely try and balance going forward.

I haven't played The Messenger but am always interested in any exploration based action platformer, so I will definitely give it a look. I also have thought about making the endgame levels just bonus experiences and not block off the progression as there's really enough content now where the first 5 levels + the 2 true endgame levels would be enough for this type of game.

Again, thanks to you and everyone who's taken the time with this game. It means a lot to hear your thoughts on this and I really really appreciate it. 

MewsSnep thank you so much for this amazing feedback. This is the exact type of info I was hoping for when I submitted the game to the jam, and I will definitely integrate what you've said in a later release. 

I definitely wanted to make this a hard game, but somewhere between Celeste and Super Meat Boy in terms of challenge and rage. It sounds like it may be too far on the rage end right now, so I can definitely work to tone it down or make it more approachable.

GMToolkit is one of my favorite channels, I will definitely give his vid a look and see if I can use it to make the game better as well. Thank you again for playing and for the feedback!

Definitely the most unique of the submissions I've "played" so far, but I really like what you have here and totally see the use case for a counter like this. The physics were genuinely impressive, I don't know how you managed to have such good collision and gravity.

If I was a streamer and had some type of counting or aggregation, I would definitely use a tool like this. Impressive stuff!

Really nice little experience. While tree fun facts aren't typically what I would expect from treasure chest rewards, it really tied in nicely with your stated purpose of the game. I can see this being a nice interactive way to spread the importance of trees.

I liked the song, I liked the animations and menus as well. I think maybe having some type of indicator for what is required to complete a level would be a great addition, as there were times I would try and finish only to be told I needed to restart for missing one or two small things.

Overall, very nice!

There definitely seems to be a fun experience underlying this game, but without a tutorial or tool tips it is difficult to put together exactly what is being asked of the player. 

It appears that I am aiming to reproduce the shape on the left side with the editable grid on the right side, however, the sizes of each grid do not appear to be the same and none of the individual tools seem to bring me to a place where I can complete the level. 

I would really love to put more time into this game, but without any guidance it feels fruitless. I would recommend building out some support tools so that players have an idea of what is expected from them before setting them loose. A single tutorial level or tool tips for each action would be really helpful, as it is difficult to tell what each action does just by experiementing. 

Keep it up!

Appreciate the feedback! I can definitely try to rework those two challenges. The last one is definitely the most difficult but if it is too precise for most people I will try and tone it down to be more accessible.

Let me know what you think of the later levels if you get a chance to try them out!

Short trailer if you're interested!

Thank you so much for the feedback and the continued support. I really can't tell you how much I appreciate it. 

I'm working on a "big" release hopefully done in the next month that I think will stand as the last "proof of concept" version of this game before possibly transitioning to an actual Steam release. There would be a mountain of work and logistics between now and then, but hearing from you and others that it is coming along and resembling a polished experience is the motivation I need. 

Thanks again!

Yeah honestly I would 100% play a full version of this. I used to religiously play 2048 back in the day which feels like a poor mans version of this game. Really good concept and I'll definitely keep an eye on the project as it goes forward

Big time thanks, it's a weird combination of reassurance and sadness to hear that the difficulty is a roadblock at the firewall. That particular challenge is where I really kicked off the hard designed levels, and I knew it would either push people away or be the moment where it connected with players.

I don't know whether I should lower the difficulty of the challenge or accept that this game won't connect with everyone, you know? I have always loved these dumb ass platformers where I die a million times a level, and it's hard to decide whether to design around that, or to pacify the challenge so that all players can continue.

Tangently, this is something I love about Mario games. Most "main quest" levels are relatively easy, and present fun but pretty solvable challenges. After beating bowser for the final time, Nintendo takes their mask off and presents legitimately hard levels to fuck with players and by the time of the final level, the best Mario players are dieing 60 times.

Long story short, can't thank you enough for playing this game. I hope you enjoyed it, and would love to hear your thoughts on how to make this a better experience going forward

Really appreciate the feedback, and the bug report! I've started working on an updated version since the start of the jam and will definitely look into this. I imagine my moving walls are causing problems.

Thanks again!

Enjoyed some of the levels in this. Particularly liked the level where the player basically goes through twice, once without "weight" and once with it. There are some good concepts in here.

The hitboxes are the biggest setback right now I would say, along with visual variety. The hitboxes do not appear to match the sprites they are connected to, and it was hard at times to tell where exactly I was safe and where I wasn't. 

A good start, excited to see what's next!

Really liked the concept here, felt like an upgraded version of 2048 with some tetris vibes to it. Core idea is strong, and the feedback when two nines comes together really feels like you've hit a jackpot.

Also love the leaderboards and multiple modes, this game could definitely have an active community if enough people get on board.

Only issue I ran into (and it could be me not seeing it) was I did not have a sense of how much time I had left in timed mode, the game would just end when I was in a scoring sequence and I felt like if I had known how much time I had left I would've played it differently. Having some type of on screen notifier of remaining time would make it a better experience in my opinion. 

Overall, really fun game, keep it up!

Loved the intro to the game, and the overall movement and camera control feels really good

Some of the puzzles are super strong, and I think you do a great job easing players into particular mechanics without springing them on people unexpectedly

Some of the levels, however, I felt like I was trapped, and that every couple of seconds I was back at the spawn without really understanding what had hit me or what I had messed up on. I think maybe having some type of safe zone for the player to look and figure out their next move would be really helpful as opposed to feeling rushed right off the bat.

My game may also just have glitched but I think one of the early light switch levels repeated twice for me (level 3 maybe?). I'm not sure if I messed up with out realizing it but I had to redo what appeared to be the same puzzle consecutively. I did not encounter any other major glitches (not even sure this was one)

Very cool game, keep fleshing this out it has a lot of potential

This might be the strongest game concept I've played in the jam so far. It is a really interesting central mechanic that allows for original level design. I love the levels and individual challenges, and the pacing seems to be really well managed. 

This game needs any type of artistic thing on top of the level design and I think it could really take off. Keep up the great work!

Some really cool ideas here, particularly love the knocking over platforms as bridges mechanic. I think the game looks good and performs well, control is generally strong as well. 

Unless I was playing incorrectly, it seems a number of the later levels require the player to move backwards against the camera. I don't think this really works super well because as far as I can tell its basically impossible to navigate things "behind" the player. I think camera rotation or a redesign of these puzzles would be the best improvement for the game.

Overall, really enjoyed it! Keep up the great stuff

Super cool game and concept. Agree with the other poster that the "x" movement option took some getting used to, but really thought the visuals and platforming was strong. 

There were a few instances where the player has to essentially jump "blind" in a direction and hope they land on a code block, but outside of that I really enjoyed this!

Your feedback has been crucial in making it better, thanks for your support! I love building this game and am looking forward to the next update

Hello Itch Community,

I recently put out a version 2.5 of my game Concept. Since the start of the pandemic, my family and I have gone through some incredibly difficult stretches, and game development has been my go to form of therapy. I have put a lot of work and love into this game, and I can confidently declare that it is at the very least, pretty good!

When I released version 2.0 in November, I really struggled to find players who could give me feedback. It kind of hurt, knowing that there was potential for this game to grow, but I also understand it's really hard to convince people to give an average looking 2D platformer made by a solo developer a chance, especially when the first few levels are largely a tutorial. 

So I'm asking for your help, either in getting the word out about this game, or if you're interested then trying it yourself! I really really need feedback to know what works, whats bugged, and whether this game is worth continuing. 

If you've read this far, I can't tell you how much I appreciate just having my voice be heard on this. Thank you all for being such an excellent community, and I hope you enjoy the game if you can give it a try. I promise you won't be disappointed

- Bill

Really appreciate the love, I hope you like this new version. I'm hoping people give it a chance I think the new stuff is really cool. 

Can't wait to hear your thoughts!

I know, I kind of betrayed my own intentions with that one. But for this POC, the feedback I needed was much more centered around the gameplay and platforming elements. The ultimate vision I have would be much more focused on exploring a lot of different library-esque hubs within a larger hub world, connecting some shorter platforming sections. 

That though is much more time consuming and does not need to be as refined at this point as the movement and platforming principles. But I promise it is something that would be really important to me in a full release. 

Thank you so much for the feedback and for playing. I am starting to see a lot of common trends in what people felt were problem areas which I think is a good thing, it gives me some clear directions to focus on as I go forward with this.

The hitboxes on the orbs is something I tried to design around as much as I could, and I think you are right in just generally making the base block larger will improve the game. The grapple already auto locks the direct center regardless of where you click, so I may try and make the orb something like 1.5 - 2.5x bigger in a next release and see what people think.

On the difficulty curve, you are absolutely right in that I would try and smooth out the ups and downs in a longer release. I posted this in the reddit thread where I have linked this game but with each level I was targeting:

1. The Museum: Glorified Tutorial
2. Main Frame (lower level): Easy, introduction to large swings
3. Main Frame (upper level): Medium, slower and longer. First "non-learning" challenges
4. Power Plant: Medium, shorter and more difficult challenges
5. Museum 2: Medium - Hard, timing and cycle challenges
6. Main Frame 2: Hard, long continuous challenge
7. Power Plant 2: Very hard, short gauntlet challenge

And you're advice on bringing the physics more in line with SMB is something I had not thought of but definitely will be adapting in some capacity. The start/slow down friction is currently uniform, but I think making the movement more adaptive to player intention can only help this experience. I am definitely going to tweak it when I rebuild this foundation.

Thank you again for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

I can't thank you enough for your support, this is tremendous feedback and it feels really vindicating that you identified so much of what I was going for with this experience. 

I was nervous that this pacing would turn people off before "the real game" kicks off, and its a huge relief that the contrast was a bonus for you. To be honest, the Museum and the early parts of The Main Frame were as much a tutorial for me in putting the game together as they were for the player. It was really fun to take those concepts to their full-ish potential with the end game levels. 

I knew the library hint was going to be "the hardest", and purposely made sure I had the timestamped Youtube vid available in case it ended up being too unfair. This is one of the main feedback points I am looking for, and I want to gauge what the sweetspot is for providing information if and when I expand on this.

Again, I can't thank you enough. The writing is all over the place, and I had about 100 bugs identifed before anyone else had even played it, but to know someone enjoyed this experience makes it all worth it. I knew it would be hard to ask people to take a leap of faith on a visually unremarkable 2d platformer, and I'm really happy it ended up being worthwhile for you.

Sorry for the long response, I never expected such positive feedback and am just very grateful