Ghosth - Annoying Ghosts by Crowno

Ghosth is a puzzle platformer in which you have the ability to attract ghosts. After getting stuck in a ghost house, your goal is to escape by manipulating the ghosts in your favor. However, they have a tendency to follow you around everywhere and can be very annoying in large groups.
Controls
Arrow Keys to move.
Z to Jump. You can double jump once for each ghost you have following you around.
Hold X and pick a direction to shoot ghosts, like a slingshot.

Softwares used
Construct2, with some extra plugins and extensions.
Adobe Photoshop CC and Aseprite for art.
Audacity, BFXR and LMMS for sound effects and music.
| HTML5 (web) | https://cronus.itch.io/ld40 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/annoying-ghosts |
Ratings
| Overall | 65th | 4.05⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 260th | 3.65⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 307th | 3.488⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 625th | 3.375⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 15th | 4.688⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 44th | 4.1⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 306th | 3.447⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 31th | 4.203⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 8🗳️ | 15🗨️ |
Stairs were annoying in so many ways. It was very easy to do a weird jump on those and accidentally lose a ghost making you do some boring backtracking. And speaking of backtracking, the following were two of my least favourite spots because of all that backtracking that was required after a failed attempt.

This wasn't hard really but obviously I threw the ghost to the wrong direction at first and then had to go all the way back again to gather some ghosts. It even forced you to death respawn because there weren't any ghosts to try again with. And even after that, you need to do the same trek so many times, even after opening the door.

The first hard part really. The pacing didn't work at all and the swinging ball hitboxes were really unfair. Couple that with the wonky stairs and the long way to get to try again, and it was getting annoying. The jump wasn't even that hard but you had to either guess right or die a couple of times to plot the correct course. This was the spot where I think I spent the majority of my play time. There is even that spike maze puzzle with very similar idea but even though the jumps are harder (and again some unfair spike hitboxes, these probably weren't bigger than the sprite itself but still felt unfair because you die in 100% of the so called "close calls") that works so much better because you can try again straight away.

This spot was kinda hard to notice.

Took me quite a while to actually figure out how these things worked. But I kinda liked that you weren't so hand-holdy all the time and let me figure it out by myself.
Only managed to "find" one of the secrets. I did see at least three but didn't really know I was supposed to be gunning for those (even though it was kinda obvious). Then the game *suddenly* ended and I couldn't go for em anymore. Is there something extra if you find all of them?
One of the things I experimented with during this jam was to focus on core mechanics and level design before doing the art. I've learned that designing the assets and mechanics apart from each other can be very detrimental without enough time to properly fit them together. The biggest problem might be the hitboxes as you mentioned, that I completely overlooked after implementing the sprites. The player hitbox in particular ended up being slightly larger than the actual player sprite, giving the unfair disadvantage during the obsticle sections.
Aside from that, the lack of visual feedback on the double jumps is one of the things that bothers me the most. It was not my priority because I considered it to be mere visual flair, but as you can see that visual feedback would be much needed to get a good grasp at that mechanic.
I'm still working on the game and planning to upload a better version once this Ludum Dare ends. Some things like the terrible platform staircases have been replaced already, and your feedback will certainly help me to keep improving it. Again, thanks a lot for taking your time.
Ah, the secret collectibles are in there just for the joy of having secrets. You don't get anything for finding all of them (yet!).
Ótimo jogo! Gostei muito da mecânica principal! Ótimo design e arte muito bonita, parabéns!
Very cool game.
Caramba esse jogo ta mt legal, parabens, os Br sempre mandam bem haha, vc fez isso sozinho ? Se sim, cara é mais inacreditavel ainda, surreal, mt bom msm, parabens !
Nice work!

That was an amazing and really polished experience! I firstly saw this game over on the _Danger_ category, and when I opened to see the screenshots of the game I was flabbergasted how an experience like this hadn't gotten enough votes to pass by judging yet! (Gladly, that has changed since).
First off, and I believe this is going to be everyone who play's the game first highpoint, but the whole art and sprite work is fantastic! Everything was just so poppy and balanced in terms of colours, together with the backdrop with all the touches and details here and there really made it shine in that department. Everything that needed to stand out did so, and everything was readable at first.
However, where the game really shined in was in it's platforming twists and variation on the platformer mechanics through the ghosts buddies. When I grabbed my first ghost and realized I could use them both as a way to gain an additional jump as well as throw them to turn on switches, I knew I was in for something different and great, and it was definitely great alright. The room layouts themselves also served as great small tutorials, which, reading from the comments above, was one of your priorities to get right when designing the game.
However, as @antti-haavikko mentioned, there were definitely some problems with the pacing and layouts. The part where I re-spawned the most was the chained balls stairs and the ghost platforming segment. For me, I wouldn't say it was because of the hitboxes of the balls themselves, but just because of how close everything was to each other, which lead to situations where I'd just be trying to climb down the stairs and would get hit by one of them accidently. Same thing happened in the climbing segment. The first time I got there, I just tried to ghost-jump my way up, only to be hit by another chained ball and having to repeat the whole process again.
By the time I got to the top and saw one of the secret crystals (which I got a total of three out of five as shown in the screenshot above) I personally though about giving up on it and just carrying in, but alas, my completionist self eventually came back and was able to do whole process once more.
Other than those level layout issues, I don't see anywhere else where the game falls short. It was pretty, polished, and totally fun during my playthrough of it. The personally of the ghosts paired together with them sometimes crippling in front your view definitely gave them a lot of character and personality! :ghost:
The music was also great and the distortion that happens to it when you get just too many ghosts was also a neat touch!
Obrigado pela a ótima experiência! I'd definitely come back and try to see if I can get all of the extra crystals. On behalf of my team over at [Whales And Games](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames), we definitely look forward to seeing more work from you and I'll definitely be waiting to play that post-jam updated version! :whale:
I see it has already been mentioned but I also had some issues losing ghosts on the stairs and the collisions of the chained balls that seemed slightly bigger than I expected.
A ideia é legal, a arte é muito boa, os personagens são carismáticos, a musica combina e a mecânica funciona.
Foi o jogo que joguei por mais tempo dessa JAM, passaram uns 20 minutos e eu nem vi, hehe
Só parei de jogar por que fiquei puto com aquelas plataforma que mudam de cor, pelo que eu entendi quando você usa o fantasma ela deixa de ser solida, mas não é algo consistente, as vezes deixa de ser solida imediatamente, as vezes demora um pouco, as vezes fica solida por um bom tempo, enfim, não me senti no controle da situação, parecia que era pura questão de sorte eu passar ou não. Depois de um tempo me senti frustrado com isso e acabei parando de jogar.
Outra coisa que estranhei foi não ter som de morte ou qualquer coisa do genero
Mas isso é pouco diante da qualidade do jogo. Eu falaria que ele é simplesmente perfeito se não fosse isso xD
Parabéns cara, virei seu fã ;)
Visually, it's fantastic! And gameplay-wise, it's fun and has a ton of potential. Hoping you keep working on this one and turn it into a larger game!
Nice work :)
I only have 2 complaints:
* the fact that there was no death sound really irked me for some reason
* I could not figure out how to get past the mirror blocks. I gave up after about 10 minutes of fiddling around.
Overall the pros very heavily squash the cons though. Great entry!