Ballsy Escape by GeneralAnimal
What is the theme of the game?
An evil wizard trapped you in a castle, and turned you into a green ball. You want to escape, but must pay with your life!
How many levels are there?
I have created 10 unique levels in this entry, so it shouldn't be too long while also offering some interesting gameplay.
Change Log
29.04.19
- Fixed a small issue with the spikes at level 10.
- Fixed lives to reset when starting the game over from the main menu.
Screenshots



How to play?
- Arrow keys to move around and jump.
- R to restart.
- S to open the shop.
- Enter to purchase.
- Space to place a box.
- C to open a chest.
Avoid spikes, and maintain a positive amount of lives to survive.

FAQ
How to buy a key?
Open the shop. press the down arrow key. The key will be selected, press Enter.
| HTML5 (web) | https://generalanimal.itch.io/ballsy-escape |
| Source code | https://github.com/dani1996dani/ballsy-escape |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/ballsy-escape |
Ratings
| Given | 61🗳️ | 19🗨️ |
While it is nice that the shop is not controlled by mouse, I think that 3 specific key strokes just to place a box is a bit too much. I don't think there is a reason to have any inventory or shop at all, there is never a situation where you would rather have 3 boxes in your inventory than 9 health. Why not just place boxes with space and open chests with c, making it cost 3 and 2 hp, and just cutting the shop? The hotkeys made me lose a lot of hp just by mistyping.
I had a feeling that the spikes were unfair.
I restarted the level with the first yellow button several times. Then, I hit the "start again" button by accident, which made me quit immediately.
I would much rather have interesting puzzles with limited amount of hp per level than many levels connected together.
yeess!
Great level design!
1 when you are buying from shop you could actually place a box you cant move but you can place box.
2 sometimes even i was landing correctly i was dead for no reason.
3 sometimes even boxes are placed correctly on the trigger box rotate by itself.
4 sometimes box have Colliders and sometimes i could pass through them.
Overall i liked the game but controlling with arrows keys in platformer are really irritating you should always provide W A S D keys as an alternatives.
Switching between mouse and keyboard was really confusing because i had to use mouse to buy from shop and use the arrow keys with one hand and space s and c with other hand.
using arrows keys to switch items in the shop and buying the items using mouse was another annoying thing.
i would have played more but lot of bugs stopped me from doing so.
@nexusviper thanks for pointing out the bugs you have found, I will try to fix them as soon as possible.
Also, you can actually handle the shop only with keys, up and down to select items, and enter to purchase the selected item. However your frustration is noted and will be improved upon (next ldjam perhaps) :smiley:
But anyway points for accessibility, points for level design. Points for your LD page. Great instructions. Love how you even produced graphics for the instructions. It's the little things.
I like your interpretation of the theme. I've seen a lot of people go in this direction, which for some reason didn't even occur to me at the start. Thanks for the play. Cheers!
Can you elaborate on how the game got stuck if you used all the boxes?
Keys are not very intuitive but it's nice to see many levels.
Strong complete game, well done !
If you'd like a little feedback, I've got a few tips for improvement (at least from my point of view):
- buy and place enough boxes is a viable solution for every level. It would be nice to have also levels that cannot be solved by buying and placing a box :)
- Probably because previous point I had no need to buy keys and open chests.. tbh I finished the game without caring about chests at all
- a tricky thing (in a positive way) is that your lives don't restart by finishing level. But when you retry the level, they're number are reseted, you have 25 lives again so you can always finish the level by buying enough boxes. If you'd have constant number of lives for the whole game, I'm sure I would care more about what's in that chests and trying to complete level with as few live losses as possible
- and the last one - it takes too much time from touching a portal to actually let player know the level is finished. I understand it's probably intentional - you need to have a stable position to finish the level, but when the portal lays at the floor it feels like I missed something and the portal wont let me in.
The movement feels fine, I'd add also posibility of control by WASD - I personally prefer arrow keys but a lot of people are used to WASD. I'm always using both when it's possible. Other bunch of people, are used to use space for jumping, you cannot please everyone :)
I like the number of levels, making a reasonable amount of interesting levels drains me the most during game jams :)
I hope at least something from my feedback will help you with creating another cool puzzle platformers!

Sometimes it worked...

Sometimes it didn't.
The first image depicts exactly what I thought.. if the player is observant enough, he will understand he can pass the level with just 1 box instead of 2
The second image depicts the greediness of the player that gets ruthlessly punished :smile:
@jiri-hysek Thanks for the great feedback, noted! and I'm glad you enjoed it :smile:
The shop was clearly the pitfall of this game entry, as you are not the only one to mention it was unnecessary, but hey, you live and you learn :smiley:
Also, the life system is a little weird in my opinion, if you just die in a level you can just start from it with all the lives from the beginning, maybe is a better idea if in each room you have limited lives, that will also affect the gameplay and the player should think carefully what to do so they don't run out of lives.
Well, that was my take on it. Aside from that I think it's well done and it has potential, putting more mechanics and thinking more complex puzzles would definitely make a great game. But it's a jam so I understand that you couldn't get a lot done.
Found an infinite live exploit. Jump over the first brickwall offscreen use two boxes and a key to unlock the chest and kill yourself on the spikes. Gives you 10 lifes costs you 9 xD. Farmed my lives to 40 as a proof of concept :)
Great game!!
Just curious, did you find it on your first go of the level? or were you looking for exploits? :wink:
@generalanimal Well i found the jump over the brickwall on my second playthrough (I guess that is an intentional shortcut?). After I died on the last level the first time. Then i noticed in some other level that the chests reset when you die, so i put one and one toghether.
I also got boxed in in a level once after the box had fallen of a switch and build 4 boxes on top of each other to get out again xD
Will you be available to do game testing for the full version of the game? xD
(Noticed some issues with hearts. I had only 4 left, but after fail-restarting the level got 24)
well made !
1. You can die multiple times before screen fades out (takes multiple hearts)
2. Sometimes you can hang to a wall (i think this was not intentional)
3. I think hearts should not be passed from level to level - there are some ways to exploit this and some levels are extremely easy (you can just spawn boxes)
4. It's weird to use c for chest, space for placing box, s for shop... it's too many keys i think
But like others already said, the controls are quiet difficult to remember and it would be nice if you could move the boxes you place.
Also, after I played it the first time, it wasn't possible to get trough the fourth portal, so i had to start again to fix it.
It's a good idea to pay the material you need with your life and also i liked the concept of the shop, but it could be a bit more easier to handle.
Altogether a great idea!
Clean graphics and nice sounds, well done!