Beneath the Surface - a 2D Puzzle-Platformer by JoshOS
We are proud to have built this sixteen level puzzle game centered around the theme 'Beneath the Surface' in only 72 hours!
Unfortunately, there is but one noticeable bug we were unable to fix in the deadline provided; and that is when played in a web-browser, the sound seems to be very out of sync. We HEAVILY recommend that you download the executable .jar file rather than play online, but we leave the option open for those of you who don't mind!
The submission links all go to the same place - there's a mini-site there where there's both the web and downloadable version.
NOTE - For those of you stuck; I have prepared a walkthrough on youtube. I won't post a link, that'll help you cheat all too much. :P Search for the user "Theclichename" on youtube, it's amongst their uploads! I tried to present it nicely for you all formatted well with all the levels covered. ;)
Unfortunately, there is but one noticeable bug we were unable to fix in the deadline provided; and that is when played in a web-browser, the sound seems to be very out of sync. We HEAVILY recommend that you download the executable .jar file rather than play online, but we leave the option open for those of you who don't mind!
The submission links all go to the same place - there's a mini-site there where there's both the web and downloadable version.
NOTE - For those of you stuck; I have prepared a walkthrough on youtube. I won't post a link, that'll help you cheat all too much. :P Search for the user "Theclichename" on youtube, it's amongst their uploads! I tried to present it nicely for you all formatted well with all the levels covered. ;)
Ratings
| Coolness | 66% | 3 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.68 | 102 |
| Audio(Jam) | 2.94 | 422 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.34 | 175 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.72 | 236 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.50 | 393 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.39 | 193 |
| Mood(Jam) | 2.94 | 449 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.79 | 77 |
The mechanics were interesting but I got stuck rather early without an idea of crossing the chasm above without hitting the head below. :)
Only problem I found, is that the surface girl has some lag compared with the one below, and sometimes I die because of it. And maybe you should add a sound or visual notification when one of the two girls arrived safely to the end :D
Some clever puzzle design to complement the main mechanic of controlling two characters, graphics are cute.
The sound of jumping is god awful though, and I feel the controls need more polishing (less sliding, faster acceleration... just more precision)
I'll let you in on a secret - the sound was my own voice just edited in various ways in Audacity; time is money, so they say! :)
While creating the game we made the low friction (sliding) intentionally, it allowed some leniency on certain puzzles, but it does in turn make it more difficult on intricate levels such as level 16.
Should we make a Post-LD version we will certainly take all of your comments on board. Thanks! :)
Extremely well done on the balancing. A little punishing when you'd get almost to the end of the longer puzzles and then have to restart, but that just makes my satisfaction at finishing the game that much better.
I liked the idea of controlling two separate entities, but I did not like the platforming aspect of it (I don't like platforming in general though...). Sometimes, for some reason, only one of the characters would jump when I pressed the jump key. And on level eight I had to check the tutorial to confirm that those jumps were indeed possible. The graphics were also somewhat too small. It took me way too long to realize that the spikes mentioned were those small toothpicks on the walls.
Anssi@MooseflyGames
Only thing I'd change is the jump sound, and maybe have two different characters, or clothing or something. The rest is awesome, good job.
To everyone else, thanks you ever so much for your motivational and positive comments! We're thankful for the feedback, overall as it stands we feel the game might be a little too hard, the controls too 'slippery' and the jump sound effect is disliked all round; these particular points have been taken on board and will be used if we continue to develop this game. Thanks again! :)