The Cookie Knight by aaranos


Description:
A kid received his holy mission from the Queen, he must do five good deeds in the kingdom. The knight sought out those in distress and found his five tasks. He must scale looming trees, avoid horrible beasts, and ascend to the highest peaks. All, so that he may obtain.. cookies!
Our nameless cookie knight will rescue the Orb of Bouncing for Wizard Tim. He will help the Queen's sister retrieve the finest spices used to make the best snacks. Further into the kingdom he will aid young Robin rescue a creature of the forest. The charming Sakura has also lost her precious ribbon, and our knight wishes to win over her heart by retrieving it from the den of crawlers.
All in a day's work for cookie knight.
Controls
Arrows keys for left and right
Spacebar for jump
I apologize that the controls menu doesn't work. It is due to the controls using the axis and not following the assigned controls. I could fix it, but I don't know if that is allowed.
Web Link & Download Links
Source: https://github.com/crandalj/The-Cookie-Knight
Ratings
| Overall | 463th | 2.805⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 384th | 2.85⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 531th | 1.925⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 530th | 2.175⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 398th | 2.854⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 262th | 2.548⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 450th | 2.556⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 42🗳️ | 63🗨️ |
Graphics are quite simple and I don't blame it as it is consistent all over the game but I don't know if it's about the level design or something I didn't get to go though all the levels.
I enjoyed playing it but I was a bit frustrated. Good work though for a Compo game !! Hope to see more !
Ill start with the negatives, because there are a lot of things you can improve, first and foremost, sadistic level design, I will try to go over every level:
•Basketball:
Fine for a first level, but completely out of character as every other level is very difficult.
•Flour:
This level starts alright, jumps are a bit too precise for me liking, then we get to the first problem, platforms that dont carry you
they just slide under you, this is very inconsistent, and if you fall you will have to start again because you dont have checkpoints.
Then we get to some tiny falling platforms, without any indicator they will do so, also since the yare small one is led to believe that will be enough of a challenge
but they also fall... once you know this you have to repeat all the level and get past this, then: a leap of faith... given that if you fall you have to repeat the whole level
I jump and there is solid ground underneath, good. After this mostly smooth sailing.
•Clothes:
This was one of the better levels, it's mostly good platforming and you establish that small clouds fall fairly quickly, only complaint is that
you have some sections with moving platforms right after falling ones, and if you dont time the cycles your platform will fall before the other one arrives.
•Cat:
This one was ok, not much to complain about, mostly pleasant, and I liked the theming!
•Ribbon:
This had some cool idea, showing you the end goal first was cool, and the maze like design was sorta cool, also I liked this ones looks, tough the cobwebs
produce something called a moire pattern which is pretty anoying, so you should do something about it. Also I came upon a dead end with no way to get out of, having to die to restart.
partially you succeeded, I had fun once I got into the mindset of challenging games like boshy and super meat boy, but to go for that kind of game you probably want smaller levels,
and very consistent and clear rules, well not if youre doing a boshy like, but doing one for a Jam is preeeeetty weird.
Anyways cool game I actually enjoyed the challenge, and looking for the ways you were trying to screw me over :P
I liked your pixels and the music. Though, I would suggest removing the music or changing to a jam entry since you didn't actually create it. There is a lot of content here for 48 hours. Designing levels takes time and these are a decent size and not just thrown together - good job.
Some platformer engine suggestions. Try adding a forgiveness timer to your ground check. It allows for the player to jump as close to the edge as possible. Also include an above check. If the player jumps and there is a block above, he wont "float" for a moment while the jump is still trying to push him up.
I definitely appreciate you finishing it. I'll make a music-less version to keep in compliance.
Thanks for the suggestions, the above check is definitely one I noticed but didn't want to waste time on it since it wasn't a critical bug. My ground check is a circle collider that isn't quite the width of the character, I'll take more notice of making it forgiving if I do a platformer again.
Also, thank you for the feedback c:
Also I have to give you some points for knowing about Ozzed. :wink:
@oxlander, thanks for playing. I know people rush through games since there are literally over a thousand of them to play. I'm glad I made each level accessible without needing to do them in order, at least that way you can try others if you can't get past one. Glad you enjoyed some of it haha.
@rmershon, I think I underestimated the difficulty. I play tested each level to make sure they were beatable and didn't have much difficulty with them. I think level 2 and level 4 cause the most frustration.
The graphical style was cool, and my favorite small touch was the look on the guy's face when using the trampoline! Overall a consistent theme and feel; simple in the good way.
The amount of content you got in with all of the levels was great, and it was a nice touch to have the menu that let me skip around to see all the content without necessarily beating it. Great call for an LD game!
Hope some feedback on the pain points is helpful:
The game is all about jumping, but the game feel of the jump needed a more love.
I would have traded a level or two in exchange for a somewhat better feel. I felt your game had the "ghost jump" described in this article: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20140810/223001/Game_Feel_Tips_I_The_Ghost_Jump.php
It was especially painful in the wood-themed level with the trampoline. Those first few disappearing sticks where you have to jump exactly and quickly, I fell off many, many times by trying to max my jump, thinking I hit it, but then not jumping.
A few others: penalty for death too disheartening; re-jump from holding space rather than pressing each time felt weird; several blind jumps including one that killed me in fire; restart used mouse but game used keyboard; trampoline got weird when I hit my head on moving platforms.
You have a solid entry here but maybe try just running and jumping over and over in an empty level and being really critical of the feel, you'll get less time for content but it might be a good trade.
Nice work tho - having a few pain points doesn't make it a bad entry, just trying to leave helpful feedback!
EDIT: I broke the game! Trying to test out the collision detection on the blocks, if I just inched off the edge of the first block on level two (flour?) and tried to jump a couple times I fell though the world. oops. Thought you might want to know though!
Also, thanks for checking out our game! I hope you'll get a chance to revisit us at some point now that ratings have been implemented!
Cheers!
Rob
To all the people that commented, thank you. In the spirit of productivity I will no longer be replying to all comments, but I will make sure I add you to the list of games I plan to play. So look forward to a comment on your game page if I haven't been there already.
Good call with allowing to browse through content you created even without complete playthrough. The base mechanic - jumping - could use some tweaks though, in which I agree with @pkenney - to be fully enjoyable, it would need to be a bit more forgiving. In its heartless fairness in regard to hit detection, it kinda feels unfair to player (which is of course a bias on the player side, but a game is for players, not the other way around ;) )
And just a small tweak to allow full keyboard control (without mouse-menu) would be awesome.
That said, a lot of hard work went into making this one and it shows. I like it, and how much you managed to do in such short time that compo allows. Great job, leaving my rating.
Cheers!
The lack of checkpoints is the biggest problem. When I've climbed all the way up really high and miss one jump only to fall back to the beginning of the level, I lose the motivation to climb back up.
The physic is a bit weird to my taste: jumping feels like you're on the moon, and there is too mouch gliding. It made the game more frustrating than challenging.
Still, I love the theming of every level. Too bad there is no music. Again: well done.
However I love your pixel art and level design
Making a platformer - is a good thing and experience. Making a platformer that everyone will to play - is a huge technical and creative challenge.
Check out this one, for instance: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/super-tiny-adventure-game by @sinclairstrange
The Cookie Knight has nice work on level desing and art consistency. And it is hard enough.
Also try to duplicate all required controls on keyboard. Player's both hands on a keyboard while playing, than he needs to use mouse to press "Back to Menu" and select next level - there is no need in this. R - for restart, Enter/Space - for button press and it will be perfect. You can keep mouse as well anyway.
Ps: I like that the character is having this small smile animation !