tequilaJumper by mort96

[raw]
made by mort96 for LD26 (JAM)
A fairly simple platformer game. You play as a green qube, and jump up on platforms. Despite the basic concept, it's surprisingly fun.

The game is written in JavaScript, and rendering is done using Canvas. It is therefore 100% cross platforms and cross browser (unless you use IE8 or below, as it doesn't support canvas), and can even be played on smartphones and tablets.

On a computer with keyboard, this is the controls:
A: move left
D: move right
W or space: jump
S: go down faster

On a phone/tablet, jump is always activated, and you steer by tilting your device.

In my experience, Google Chrome and Safari (Mac) give the best performance. Opera and Firefox tend to be quite sluggish. If you experience performance problems, I encourage you to try it in Google Chrome, as it's JavaScript engine is beast.

The game does seem to perform better on iOS than on Android-devices. Where iPad Mini and iPhone 4s run a smooth 60 FPS, people have reported that their nexuses and samsung galaxy IIIs get very bad FPS.

All feedback is highly appreciated :)

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 2.76 419
Audio(Jam) 1.33 461
Fun(Jam) 2.71 347
Graphics(Jam) 2.05 529
Humor(Jam) 1.54 402
Innovation(Jam) 2.06 507
Mood(Jam) 2.16 486
Theme(Jam) 3.56 169

Feedback

mchaza
30. Apr 2013 · 08:29 UTC
Controls a bit stiff on keyboard, but pretty good job none the less.
rujo
30. Apr 2013 · 09:05 UTC
nice variation on the classic jumper games
a little too basic in graphics, audio(?) and gameplay but.. this was the theme..
hnjslater
30. Apr 2013 · 09:09 UTC
Very good little game, even though it was the theme, a graphic for the protagonist would've been worth doing.
Aceria
30. Apr 2013 · 09:10 UTC
Surprisingly compulsive! 8900 ish was my score after a couple of tries. I nearly got stuck around 7000 where two tall, vertical platforms' movements were almost perfectly synced (rising and falling at the same time), making it nearly impossible to progress.
koblaja321
30. Apr 2013 · 09:15 UTC
Game of the year!
manabreak
30. Apr 2013 · 09:25 UTC
The controls feel quite nice on keyboard. :) Nice job!
ncgames
30. Apr 2013 · 09:30 UTC
I actually liked it best when I held down the up key, simulating the auto-jump you have in the iOS version. maybe you could embrace that control system (ala bean's quest) in the web version too. nice work
Typedeaf
30. Apr 2013 · 09:35 UTC
Pretty simple and actually funny game
🎤 mort96
30. Apr 2013 · 10:21 UTC
Thanks for the compliments :)


@ncgames yeah, I've concidered changin it to always jumping unless you hold the jump key, as the way it's played now invites to holding down space/w 99% of the time.

@Aceria Sadly the automatic world gen lsn't perfect. There are times when it's close to impossible to proceed :/

I agree, I should maybe have a slightly more advanced main character than a green cube, but meh :P
DARKCORTEX
30. Apr 2013 · 12:45 UTC
nice
Komradus
30. Apr 2013 · 15:30 UTC
I like how the faster platforms make you bounce all over.
ElScootro
01. May 2013 · 00:58 UTC
Quite fun on the iPhone
jamioflan
01. May 2013 · 12:33 UTC
13600 on my first try!
A decent game; I like the way you get a boost from going through platforms (it makes it flow really well) and I'm very impressed with iPad support (you can probably tell that I'm using one).
Can get a little annoying having to wait for the correct intersection of two moving platforms though.
kunzbe
01. May 2013 · 17:52 UTC
really clean game, i like this.
Grouflon
01. May 2013 · 22:09 UTC
I found this game a little bit basic for a jam entry (the add of art or audio could be really great even if they are simple) but the gameplay is super nice. I love the physics of the jump that makes me think of Meat Boy. The difficulty is very well dosed... Seriously good entry. Congrats ;)
vilya
01. May 2013 · 22:11 UTC
Not a bad idea, but needs a bit of variation in the gameplay in my opinion.
SmilingCat
01. May 2013 · 22:17 UTC
Pretty solid. The game seemed to give a pretty steady progression of platforms, and even seemed to give the player a breather after a tough section, which is pretty good for a random platform generator if that was your intent.
pikmin4000
01. May 2013 · 22:45 UTC
wow I got a highscore of 6263, I was strangely sucked into the game even though it didn't have impressive graphics nor any music. After that first play through though, it doesn't make you have any re playability. I'd suggest perhaps adding new mechanics the player can do after a certain point or powerups of the sort to spice up the repetitive gameplay.
Krise20
01. May 2013 · 22:48 UTC
I really enjoyed this, say and played this on the train on my laptop for like 20 minutes!

Well done
Holofire
01. May 2013 · 22:57 UTC
Reminds me of some of the games on the app/play store. Great job!
Diventurer
01. May 2013 · 23:28 UTC
Not really too creative, as it's just yet another dull clone with no new ideas. It's also very slowpaced, which is really bad for a game like this. The vertical sliders horribly interrupted the flow of the game. I'm not trying to be mean, just honest. It's also impossible to die unless you want to. The game works fine though, so you did an alright job. The design just didn't fit in.
john_conder9
01. May 2013 · 23:31 UTC
I love the concept of the platform velocity applying to the cube, just like you would expect it to - but it was a bit of a shock since you don't normally expect that. Pretty cool. The controls were a bit stiff, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it - but not all that bad and overall I liked it! Great job :D
Roan Contreras
01. May 2013 · 23:34 UTC
Very simple and addicting game...
Lerc
01. May 2013 · 23:42 UTC
8432. Tense.
Paul Sinnett
01. May 2013 · 23:55 UTC
I like the simplicity of this design. It would have been nice to hear some audio.
lathomas64
01. May 2013 · 23:56 UTC
nice job. really did well with making a very simple set of actions fun.
atlantian
02. May 2013 · 10:07 UTC
Enjoyed the game, loved how the fast platforms made you jump.
GranaDa
02. May 2013 · 19:44 UTC
Nice jumper. What's up with the shaking platform??
Rafael Sales
03. May 2013 · 01:04 UTC
Good idea. Congratz!
Travis Irby
03. May 2013 · 04:13 UTC
Controls were really good, I got into a good rhythm for a while :) nice job!
Prelucid
04. May 2013 · 18:23 UTC
Nice work. Were the walls bouncy or just my imagination?
🎤 mort96
04. May 2013 · 21:28 UTC
Thanks everyone! :)

@GranaDa Vibrating platforms are a result of the random world generation. When making a platform which moves along the X axis, it first generates a random X coordinate for the start position, then a random end coordinate. If they happen to be close, and the speed (which also is random (though dependant on some factors)) is high, it vibrates.

@Prelucid Yup, hitting the edges bounce you.

@SmilingCat No, the random generator doesn't do anything like that - it's just the randomness of the universe being awesome ;)
Felix20
04. May 2013 · 23:15 UTC
The physics were good for the most part, but this game is a bit lacking in every other area.
The random generation is good, it has a nice variation while not making impossible jumps, as far as I can tell.
The graphics aren't bad, but they aren't good either, the game just gets boring pretty quickly.
Overall this is a nice little prototype, but as a game it's a bit lacking.
WiseGAMER
06. May 2013 · 12:25 UTC
Nice game, fits in the theme.
GaTechGrad
06. May 2013 · 23:08 UTC
I like the simplicity of this game. The jumps can be a little floaty.
lightnarcissus
09. May 2013 · 03:41 UTC
A little too simple for a Jam submission but that isn't a valid point of criticism honestly. I think it was pretty fun besides the fairly stiff controls.
Dans17
10. May 2013 · 00:10 UTC
The links aren't working for me :/
MaxguN
10. May 2013 · 09:25 UTC
Qwerty controls, alternative controls would have been appreciated. Game is a bit fun but the low gravity makes it too slow. Outrageously faster movements would have made it more interesting I think.

Also, link is dead, I found it there : http://mortie.tk/mort/static/webapps/tequilaJumper/
🎤 mort96
10. May 2013 · 17:26 UTC
Pardon, restructured my site and forgot to upload the post with the new paths. Should be fixed now
dansludumdare
10. May 2013 · 18:58 UTC
I didn't get any audio.

Um, I think the controls didn't offer enough control. I'm not sure if that's what the people calling them stiff mean. And I realize that sounds weird so I'll give examples. I couldn't control my jump height, which I can totally do in real life (being unrealistic is OK (you're a cube), but what did you gain from breaking my intuition?). It was hard to reverse decisions about jumps because you moved faster on the floor than in the air (ie if you move left, jump, then hit right at the apex of your jump, you don't get back to where you started). And slipping off horizontal sliding platforms (by standing on its edge and pressing nothing while it switched directions) probably could've been interesting, but because it was so hard to hit a previous platform, it was just frustrating.

Regardless of my take on difficulty vs. frustration, this is an elegantly executed concept. And well done on the random generation.
ataxkt
11. May 2013 · 14:38 UTC
Controls are a bit tricky, its a little floaty for me. But still, really good little game!
Sylvain.p
14. May 2013 · 22:22 UTC
The jump is a bit too lunar.
Martin_Monosys
19. May 2013 · 19:18 UTC
Nice little game, maybe a bit hard... Gee, I had to say that often in this LD... :)
Christina Nordlander
19. May 2013 · 19:45 UTC
The controls are rather difficult to deal with, but other than that, a fun, difficult vertical platformer. The randomly generated platforms are innovative and provide replayability. I like the way the player is scored depending on how high they got, too.

I may come back to play this one more once I have more time after the voting ends.