Walter's Well by Marcus Otterstrom

Walter's Well - A point and click side-scroller game for the Ludum Dare 41.
Theme: Compare 2 incompatible genres.
Download:
To download the game, click the itch.io link below. When there, click the white button labeled "DOWNLOAD NOW" and it will take you to the download page.
Controls:
ESCAPE to pause, the rest with the mouse. The game will guide you :)
Notes by developer:
This was my first ever Ludum Dare and I had tons of fun doing it. It was really challenging but I'm pretty happy with what I got as a result.
All assets are done by me, and you can find the whole project on github. Most of it was streamed here: https://www.twitch.tv/lemorrow/
| Windows | https://marcusotterstrom.itch.io/walterswell |
| macOS | https://marcusotterstrom.itch.io/walterswell |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tbd |
Ratings
| Overall | 604th | 2.881⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 574th | 2.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 590th | 2.833⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 582th | 3.024⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 404th | 3.119⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 363th | 2.762⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 329th | 2.684⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 375th | 2.975⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 32🗳️ | 5🗨️ |
If you are here because you can not get past the first level, it's because I was stupid and didn't consider other aspect ratios than 16:9. Changing your aspect ratio to 16:9 when booting up the game will fix the issues. If you don't have that option, I'm afraid you'll have to play in windowed mode and place your cursor outside the window in order to be able to pass some levels.
Sorry again, and thanks for playing <3! - dev
On the downside, I had a lot of problems with placing the platforms where I wanted them, it seems as if it's very glitchy. Also, the separation between background and foreground could have been better, as on the second screen I didn't realize there was an exit to the right at first. Nevertheless, solid first entry, just a bit too hard for me, I got stuck at the "elevator" part...
Here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w
Yeah, the foreground vs background contrast is actually something I had in the back of my head for a very long time, but I kept pushing making a "dirt with pebbles" tile for so long that I didn't have enough time in the end.
Yeah, I think the biggest problem with this game is the difficulty spike and the lack of tutorial, as you mentioned. This was mostly because I didn't have anyone else test the game that didn't know how the mechanics worked, which meant that I was the main playtester and I adjusted the game to fit me. I knew how the platforms would spawn, and I knew that you could double jump. It would of course be nice of me to let the player know that as well :p And for some reason, in the elevator, some people can fall through the platforms sometimes, which happened to you a few times. I personally never got that glitch on my PC which is super strange, so I should probably try playing it on multiple devices as well when developing levels :smile: (Oh, and the game is totally broken unless you play in 16:9, you can't even pass the first level)
So thank you very very much for playing my game, keep up the great content on your channel. It really is on of the best channels on youtube and I can definitely see you hit ~500k subscribers one day if you keep it up. Much love :heart:
(Oh, and I spawned a platform as a roof in the elevator, so rocks wouldn't kill me ;)
What an intricate well system... Unfortunately, I suck at these types of game, and after countless deaths I had to give up on level 2 :see_no_evil: I found it really hard to move the platforms around and not being able to stand still at the same time. Also, the platforms are quite glitchy and hard to control, sometimes they disappeared (partially), sometimes I got stuck or fell through them, sometimes they wouldn't move for unclear reasons.

I really love the visuals and audio, and the concept in itself isn't bad and can allow for very interesting level designs. I just think it could benefit from some more work, both in terms of physics and game mechanics. I would have loved to play further, but I just couldn't figure out how to control the platforms in a way that would let me go where I wanted to without glitching out. But it's a great start and I hope you'll continue working on it!
Well done (get it? like a _**well**_?) and hopefully till next time! :)