Stepping Stones by Ithildin

Objective
- Reach the other side of each level! Consider each step carefully so you don't lose your footing :D

Controls
- WASD or Arrow keys to move. Movement is free on the safe areas, but it goes one step at a time the moment you step on a pillar.
- M to toggle sound on/off
- R to restart the current level
- T to restart from the first level
Tech
- Haxeflixel + Flash develop as implementation language/library/IDE of choice
- Aseprite + some Photoshop for assets
- Labchirp, Caustic, Bfxr and Jfxr for sounds. No time for music once again :sob:
HackNPlan for...planning
The font I used for the game screens is Cube Cavern
Changelog
- 14/08/2018: Added link to the postmortem.
- 18/08/2018: Added screenshots to this description.
- 19/08/2018: Fixed typos here.
- 20/08/2018: Added MacOS port (compo version)
- 26/08/2018: Post-compo added w/link (after the voting I'll swap the version, currently hosted on Github pages, with the Itch one). Current version features:
- Background graphics improvements.
- Last stage of the stones' graphics reworked a bit to appear crumbling (still missing some animation, though).
Example screenshot:

| HTML5 (web) | https://ithildin.itch.io/stepping-stones |
| HTML5 (web) | https://wildrabbit.github.io/ld42 |
| Windows | https://ithildin.itch.io/stepping-stones |
| macOS | https://ithildin.itch.io/stepping-stones |
| Source code | https://github.com/wildrabbit/ld42 |
| Other (document) | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/stepping-stones/stepping-stones-postmortem |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/stepping-stones |
Ratings
| Overall | 209th | 3.616⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 140th | 3.658⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 218th | 3.456⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 342th | 3.588⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 380th | 3.205⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 210th | 2.82⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 55🗳️ | 50🗨️ |
After that hiccup, the progression was good and I got through all 11 (or, technically, 12) levels. At the end, my brain was trying to come up with the formula to always solve the level if you follow its rules... *brain explode*. Nice job!
P.S. Nice ladder sprite!
@gwinnell @wongkongphooey The first two levels were intended to act as a tutorial that taught players the basics of the game, but I ran out of time to polish that part and had to settle for the cheap last-minute addition of the 'it's a trap!' line. As a result it's true that they feel like a bland approach to level design, so thanks for staying for the rest of the game!
I would like to improve the graphics and nail that bit for a post-compo version.
I liked how I would stop and think through the problem, decide on my path, and then hammer out the keystrokes. The game responded quickly and accurately as I was pretty rapidly smashing in my inputs, and it felt satisfying.
Really nice work!
Really fun to play and cool sfx
Congrats on the entry!
I think the only thing missing would be some musics, but you probably ran out of time ! Good job for your game :)
@RenD that's a great point, and you're right. At first I'd planned to add some animated tiles, but I left that for a later polish stage that didn't arrive. I've just submitted the first post-compo version with some visual improvements, one of them is that last tile state so it looks more dangerous to step on (still no animations, though).
@purrfexionator Yeah, that's possible, balancing is a challenge in itself.
@demn @silkworm-sweatshop Thanks! Yeah, I ran out of time for music. I tried to come up with something fitting, but went completely blank and time was running out, so I decided to drop it and add it to a post-compo version.
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
Graphics and audio fit nicely together although a few sound effects were a bit loud and high pitched (something I've made the mistake of doing in past game jams) which can get a little annoying after a while. Controls were responsive and it's a great twist on the theme! Great job overall, well done :thumbsup:
Graphics and audio fit nicely together although a few sound effects were a bit loud and high pitched (something I've made the mistake of doing in past game jams) which can get a little annoying after a while. Controls were responsive and it's a great twist on the theme! Great job overall, well done :thumbsup:
The puzzle design is interesting - I could see there being potentially multiple answers but it felt like there was usually only one.
I think introducing more colors later was nice, but the game might be easier with more colors, so maybe starting with that before paring down and having more limited solutions or logic-y puzzles. It might help with some of the progression as well - a player can see all the blocks of that color get smaller, and then step on the next color and see those blocks get smaller, and so forth just so it's really clear in the beginning. Then when you start to switch it up with stepping on small blocks first, the player can see, oh ok it doesn't matter what size it is as long as it's not the smallest size and it'll always decrease the rest of the sizes.
I could see different variations of the mechanics or special colors as well that make the block step differently (perhaps it disappears and reappears, perhaps it has a certain pattern, etc) that could really increase the complexity of the puzzles. Another suggestion would be to visually differentiate the color blocks as well so it's more clear they're in a group together (it would also increase accessibility with anyone with color blindness). nice job!
I did feel like sometimes the less obvious path was always the one that led me to victory. So I breezed through some levels doing that.
Overall really solid entry, Great job!