I hope you had fun making this game !

The art looks cool and neat, though the movement of your player are a bit too "rough" for me. Nice work overall ! ^^

@kanonix I tried to go for very snappy movement. How do you think I did?

I really liked this game! Brings back old memories of Mega Man :)

I found a shortcut xD Right in the beginning, if you go down there you never get the Dash. :)

Definately snappy movement! Nice work in completing a project, especially after having to start fresh it sounds like after some other ideas pan out. I like the idea and that it can be beat without power ups.

Movement felt precise, would have liked some check points or similar to avoid having to replay the whole first part again, but I think thats part of the 'souls-like' formula you were going for. Every time I died I knew it was my fault and not the games, I just don't have enough patience for my own ineptitude to persevere in this kind of game.

@fictions well I did say you can beat the game without any power-ups. Good job finding one of them, now find all. :))

@aevek another trademark of souls-like games are shortcuts. *hint hint*

This is the second difficult game that I have played this Ludum Dare, and it was definitely close in difficulty as the other one. Just like the other one, I believe that it is completely the players fault if they die, and losing your power-ups is just a consequence of that. It is super punishing and really filled me with a sense of dread when I had to trudge back to where I died. I will definitely visit this again when I have time to finish it, but I'm way to frustrated right now. The graphics could have been more refined, and sounds/music could have been added, but I think the game is completely serviceable, well-rounded game with the perfect blend of character progression and difficulty. Nice work.

I found the shortcuts, I still got tired of having to re-travel the shortcut paths because of my own incompetence. Not a complaint with the game, I think you implemented the formula well, its just a formula I don't personally enjoy. Good job making this in 48 hours! :smile:

Cool game. I like the idea that you can get your power-ups back from where you died, that's a pretty fun mechanic.

It's quite hard to understand where you have to go, but I guess it's the point of the game. The control are really precise and it's super nice for this kind of game. Good job!

While the controls were responsive, I found the collision to be rather frustrating.

For example, you cannot jump while falling, meaning if you miss the cliff edge you will simply plummet to your death. Similarly, the collision boxes between you and a thing you're jumping over often result in unexpected deaths.

Level design could also use some work; as others have pointed out there are a lot of unintentional shortcuts you can take due to the meandering path and reliance on platform/pit design.

Seems I can simply lose powerups if I fall in a bad spot while holding one. Respawning doesn't re-create them.

Now, that all said, all of these issues are easy to change/tweak. Nothing here is fundamentally broken and the core seems sound. You even have a few enemy and trap types, making the game surprisingly competent for what was likely a very rushed product given you binned your first few attempts.

Nice work!

Nice work i like it :D

The controls make it more difficult than it could be (I say that when people actually did not finish my game xD) and lacks of sound design. However, the art style is interesting and it is cool to have some challenging games in the jam. Good job :)

Good game, but a bit hard for me (OOOOOH THOSE ORANGE CARS).
I agree with FireSlash: there are some issues, but not serious.
For example this place does not look like trap, but it can make you trapped.
https://static.jam.vg/raw/c6c/12/z/297b5.png

Controls are tight but it's kind of fast and twitchy. Hit boxes seem too big too, would be nice to have more close calls where I live. Powerups go away and aren't there on the next run?!

@fireslash the shortcuts are not unintentional, that's how you finish the game without collecting any power-up. Also from what you're saying you died to the purple enemies, if you'd gotten back to the place where you died you'd see a green orb that contains all the power-ups you lost.

All that being said thank you very much for your input. :) <3

@alexascher yeah the orange cars you either walk behind them or kill them :))

I found the game fun to play event if the controls are really tight. I really liked the "soul" which I found innovative and could opens many new mechanics. Checkpoints would have been nice though.

Enjoyable game! I really liked the distorted art style, would have been made even more effective with some equally distorted animations and a static overlay effect. Platforming for the most part felt nice and responsive, however I felt that you should have had it so that the jump height is influenced by how long you hold down the jump button. Level was also filled with exploits and shortcuts - it was very easy to skip out large chunks of the game and miss upgrades. Checkpoints also really need to be added, it was extremely frustrating to have to restart from the beginning each time. The scale and design of the level also suggests that the player would have more than one health, where some times it was very hard to predict what an enemy was about to do, and you would end up getting killed even though it was not your fault. There needs to be an in-game notice about the upgrade when you collect it too, including the controls and what it does. Overall well done, this was a lot of fun to play!

Hard one, no wonder it's a souls-like game. The movement is pretty harsh, but it's OK.
Also, in my opinion, this game would benefit with some checkpoints on it.

Not really my type of game, but I hope that U had fun making it. Good job ;)

The game is really hard, but it didn't feel very rewarding to actually play, more frustrating, and the visuals were quite noisy so it wasn't great to look at. The movement was at least pretty good, but it definitely stands for some improvement.

Just like Dark Souls! At first I was confused about when do saved lifes remain on the map or disappear, but its makes sense that the red stuff restarts the game. I really like that you have to go back for the lost upgrades without any, it adds a level of depth to the gameplay. I had fun playing it, good job!

I liked this one a lot. It does nail the feeling of improving skill as you reiterate sections, and the sudden realisation that you've found an unexpected shortcut is exactly on point as well. The game desperately needs audio, but other than that, this is the second-best game I've played this contest. (The first one also had Souls-like elements, even though that was unintentional in that case). Great job!

Foof... This one is very difficult. I try to complete all games before I rate them, so I can give a fair rating, and this one was certainly a challenge. It's basically two games in one; playing once through on the "intended" route, and again with no powerups. With only one hit point and a long landscape to traverse, it isn't very forgiving, and it's frustrating to start all the way from the beginning. The "intended" route even has one point of no return that is too high to jump if you die after it, meaning any death after there is a full reset. This is compounded by the occasional weird hitbox or dropped input, making many of the deaths feel unfair. Attempting again with no powerups is even more frustrating, since leaps of faith are added to the mix. The game isn't very rewarding either; there's nothing really keeping the player going that's worth the effort of retreading half the level.

I like the layered level design, where seemingly innocent paths hide a shorter route in plain sight. Although the retreading was annoying, it was made easier by the fact that enemies stay dead, so it's possible to make it easier on your future self. I also thought it was cool how such a short game can have so much to discover in such a short level. The art was unusual, but I appreciated the unique style.

Out of stubbornness, I managed to complete the game without powerups. I was hoping to take a screenshot, but the ending screen is the same, so that was a bit of a letdown. Still, I like the core of the gameplay; it just needs a few tweaks to be really fun. I haven't played Dark Souls, and I usually prefer more forgiving games like Celeste, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Nice work on your game!

@mao I wish I could upvote this more than once. This review made my day, made me reconsider coming back to this project to polish it.

I am in awe of the fact that somebody actually took the time and beat the game without power-ups, and yes I do agree I should have signaled the shortcuts a little bit better.

Anyways, you sir have my utmost respect, and I hope you enjoyed playing.