The Climb by Laughertes

[raw]
made by Laughertes for LD 42 (JAM)

Climb your way to the top in this minimalist arcade game. Control a block trying to make his way up layered platforms that shrink when stepped on. With a time limit of 60 seconds, quick thinking and reflexes are needed to get your block to the top!

How to Play: Use W,A,S,D to move. Press space to jump towards the mouse cursor. You can only jump one layer at a time, and the cursor will indicate the highest level you can jump to at any given time.

Music Credits : https://www.facebook.com/LilD0za/ and https://soundcloud.com/user-150506858/squares

Ratings

Overall 1100th 2.857⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1061th 2.714⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 749th 3.024⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1095th 2.714⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1128th 2.357⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 26🗳️ 3🗨️

Feedback

The Triumvirate
15. Aug 2018 · 12:21 UTC
Neat little game, took me some tries to finish the "easy"-mode. I really like the startmenu and its animations, and the look of your game in general. Furthermore, it's a interesting way how to move the player. It gets hard to track my player when it's covered with several platforms (on exactly which am I standing on?) but it's part of the difficulty, I guess.
A bug I found: if you let shrink a platform to 0 in the tutorial, and you want to jump again, the game crashes, but this doesn't happen in the actual game.
And a minor suggestion: it would be nice if I got a score indicating the highest color I was able to get to, not only a score of 6 when i manage to finish the level.
But all in all, it's a wonderful little game, a really good entry to LD.
Zicboy
19. Aug 2018 · 06:27 UTC
Awesome game. I was pleasantly suprised with the overall mood of the game. Hope you develop a post jam version for this!
AdonisDevs
19. Aug 2018 · 22:16 UTC
I scored 36! Interesting game. This concept seems like it would work good with levels. Nice job :)
Teo Miklethun
20. Aug 2018 · 03:05 UTC
![2018-08-19.png](///raw/5bf/a1/z/1a4ae.png)

Found a bug. Great job otherwise though!
JesterSeraph
20. Aug 2018 · 04:11 UTC
Interesting game, never played a simple block-like arcade game with this idea before. The game is definitely difficult, but fun! Awesome stuff!
Megalink
20. Aug 2018 · 09:52 UTC
This game is fantastic! Initially I was very confused as to what was going on, as I wasn't aware that the game was 3D but in a top-down perspective. Once you get the hang of it, it's heaps of fun! I loved the simplistic art style and music too. Brilliant work!
SheldonZS
21. Aug 2018 · 04:32 UTC
Took a couple tries to get the hang of it. Jumping towards the mouse is kind of awkward, the controls would be simpler if you simply jump in the direction you are traveling
Lexyvil
21. Aug 2018 · 06:23 UTC
The top down 3D feel is a neat touch, with each climbed blocks~
It's the first game of the like that I've played, and it fits the theme too, nice job!
Lintfordpickle
21. Aug 2018 · 08:16 UTC
well done one this entry, it really was fun to play, and I like the overall tone set by the music/sound and graphics.
zeu31
21. Aug 2018 · 22:23 UTC
Interesting game. It took me some time to get it, but once that it clicked it was fun.
Igor KinGamer
26. Aug 2018 · 19:32 UTC
Nice concept! That was hard! Took me some time to beat on medium.

Improvements I'd like to see in a post-jam version:
- Either use colors that follow some natural order -- I think changing hue *and* lightness would work best -- or show somewhere on the screen the progression of platform colors (or both).
- Show which color is the platform you're on. As @ the-triumvirate said, it's hard to know that when covered by other platforms.
- Jumping would be more natural and easier clicking the mouse instead of pressing spacebar. Either this or what @ sheldonzs said -- jumping in the direction of your movement.