Pretty good entry I'd say, I really like that the character grows but the world around doesn't. That allows for some really good puzzles if you continue with this. The graphics aren't that great though honestly.

I didn't actually get very far through the game so I can't comment on any of the later stuff but the first minute or so was pretty good. I ran into a bug in the trial of speed, I got stuck inside the upper platform after I fell down into the area with the bowling balls (?), when I went to jump out I could go through the walls into the platform but I couldn't get out after that. After a few attempts I gave up.

@swordfish was that the first trial you did?
I'll check the colliders on that platform to try and fix that clipping issue. You can press R at any time to exit a trial and return to the main hallway.

@dovakla Yeah, I figured I would start with the most immediate one first. It doesn't seem to be an issue for the walls at the bottom of the pit just the ones higher up. When you jump to try and get out you can go through the walls higher up.

Hopefully that helps, I'll give it another shot and check out the other trials.

WOW! That was so awesome! So many cool mechanics :D. How did you find the time to do all THAT? Well done! I was fully engrossed in it all the way through and had fun! Went through walls couple of times but that was obviously ok.

@dovakla I ended up beating the speed trial and the piano trial but I couldn't finish the strength trial. Once I was at the 2nd size from beating both the other trials, I tried to pick the key up and it just fell through the floor. Restarting the room had no effect.

The three trials can be accomplished in any order but there is obviously an optimal sequence, it probably should have just been a linear experience.

Also at first I was confused by the black spheres at the end of the level, I eventually figured out to hit them but some indication would have been nice.

A little unpolished overall but there are some really great ideas in there.

Trial of Piano! This is everything I love about jam games!

@sambi thanks! You can do a lot more if you don't budget time for polishing.

@swordfish thanks for all the feedback. I don't think that the growing mechanic would have really been impactful if it was totally linear except as an aesthetic thing. It did mean that I had to basically design three rooms per room though.

Nice game there!

Pros:
- Fun mechanics (Trial of Piano! Thought it had a problem for me)
- Enjoyable story, loved the shy guy!

Cons:
- Controls felt very unresponsive. Jumps and attack would fail (that was specially annoying the in the piano trial, trying to jump in the correct notes), on the trial of speed I could do a very high jump if done sequentially in the ladder

Obs:
Couldn't get the key in the trial of strength after the 1st shrinkage (don't know if it was because of the pick up button not working) but after the 2nd one I was able to get it

Cheers!

@nihilaleph thanks for playing! What happened with the key? Grabbing can be very finicky.
I couldn't get to a point where I was satisfied with the controls either. I thought that flying up the ladder like that was fun enough to leave it in though.

I pressed E but it would still be there. But you are right, flying up the ladder was indeed fun :laughing:

Jump/attaack wouldn't work for me half the time, same as nihilaleph...

Ok... That was weird... It looked to me like a pack of odd protypes stiched together. That was -hu- weird, but interresting.

I found the puzzles in each room to be interesting enough, especially considering that size matters. Like, you want to do the piano room first because it's hard to hit the right key once you've grown, but the speed room gets easier down the line because you can just jump the gap instead of climbing the ladders.

The colliders for the stairs need some adjusting to better match the graphics, though. As it is, you start ascending long before your sprite actually reaches the steps, making it look like you're floating above the stairs rather than climbing up the steps.

Cool entry, and nice idea for the theme.

There were two things that created a problem for me.

First, there is something wrong with the input handling. The buttons for jump and attack only work half the time. This makes it very hard to get into a flow state, especially for combat. There's no code posted, so I couldn't look to see, but I bet this is a case of checking for inputs in FixedUpdate, or else some other squirrely input checking thing. This is the bread and butter of game feel so you definitely should dig into what's wrong with the way you process input. Because the left/right works fine but the attack/jump does not, I suspect you are not dealing well with Input.GetKeyDown().

Second, the "is grounded" check for whether I should be allowed to jump does not interact well with the stairs. I first noticed this problem in the first room, but it was not a big issue: it just meant I couldn't jump on stairs most of the time. But later this was a complete game-ender for me because I got permanently stuck after completing two challanges and had to quit the game.

Here's what happened:

I went through the first room. Took me a while because I didn't know I could attack. I even tried all the keys but no attack. So I spent a while trying to get the boss to fly up and nudge the key off, because I thought that was the solution. I got him up there, but he didn't move the key, he just got stuck. No idea what the solution is. Later I tried random keys again to double-check and a sword came out -- whoops! Then I saw I could fight the boss. I guess the first time I tried the keys, the input processing happened not to work, bad luck.

So I solved the first room. Next I looked at the names of the challenges, and picked speed.

I solved the trial on my second try. First time I got into the pit w/ 3 balls on the way back, and problems with jumping made me stuck for long enough that I died. Second time I did it, but when I got to the sparkle-ball at the end I didn't realize I was supposed to attack it.

I went back out into the main corridoor by running all the way to the left inside the challenge room, which teleported me into the hall. Then I tried the strength challenge, but gave up because it's frustrating to fight when my jumps and swings don't come out when I press the button.

Last I tried the piano. It's really hard not to trigger a key twice when landing on it! I solved it eventually, although there was no feedback that I did so. I went to the right, and saw a lock on the ground and the ball open, so I thought I was good.

Still not knowing to attack the sparkle-ball, I went back into the hall. The door to the speed challenge had stayed open after I beat it, whereas the door to strength challenge stayed closed. So I believed this was the indication I had beat the speed challange. But the piano challenge door stayed closed!?

Now I got confused and went back to double-check the piano challenge was really beat. This was when I experimented and tried attacking the sparkle-ball and learned this was how to claim victory!

Finally I saw the interesting aspect of the game, which is that you can choose what SIZE to be when you complete certain challenges. Very interesting idea.

So I went back to the speed challenge room to hit the ball there, too. Then I would do the strength challenge to finish the game, I thought.

Except that now I was bigger, and I got stuck in the pit in the speed challenge room. I could never jump because the isgrounded check doesnt' work on stairs, and I was on stairs.

Here is the final state where I tried and tried to get out but could not, so I quit:

https://imgur.com/VFlJA8x

So in summary:

You have a nice idea here. Some elements are nicely done. But you have to work out some flaws in your approach to controls, specifically with input handling and grounded checks. You also should probably signal more of the basics to player, because I got lost a few times.

Good luck!