End of my Rope by Maytch
Explore the depths of the ancient tomb near the town. Those who entered never returned...



Keybinds:
- WASD - Move
- SPACE - Jump
- 1-4 - Items
- Mouse - Aim
- Mouse Left - Draw Bow, release to fire
- E - Press to Grab Rope, jump or E again to Release Rope, W + S to Climb Rope
- F - Retrieve Rope
Escape - Menu
WebGL bugfixes
27/04/2021 10:00am
fixed using multiple banks for fmod and freezing on load
removed compression from build causing failed build/crashing browser
fixed audio spamming of enemy (cathead)
fixed death collider stopping player level restart
| Link | https://dragosceteras.itch.io/ldjam48 |
| Link | https://dragosceteras.itch.io/ldjam48-html5 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/end-of-the-rope |
Ratings
| Overall | 324th | 3.893⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 395th | 3.714⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 383th | 3.69⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1161th | 3.451⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 350th | 4.167⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 789th | 3.346⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 465th | 3.282⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 547th | 3.762⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 66🗳️ | 66🗨️ |
The actual rope mechanic was a fantastic idea, and very run to use to platform. The boss at the end was very challenging and equally terrifying with its voice. Managed to best it in the end by climbing up the upper right wall instead of using the platforms haha.
Good job!
But great cute graphics!
I played through the whole game (though I won't disclose how often I died lol) and really enjoyed the whole experience. Especially the art and overall look/mood.
If I absolutely had to nitpick, I'd say that the rope can sometimes feel a little bit janky in it's movement. It didn't distract a bit though from this overall very neat game.
Somehow got myself clipped out of the play area on the room right after the second blue turret (I think). I shot the rope arrow to the ceiling and was trying to swing to the other side but then when I landed, the character just fell through the wall and into the void.

Almost gave up and restarted but luckily (playing on browser and full screen) I did try hitting the ESC key again after getting off full screen and gladly there was a restart level option there. I'm quite sure I tried hitting R which seemed to be the restart key on deaths.
The rope mechanic was wonky as hell but oh so fun. You could do completely bonkers stuff like just shoot and arrow straight into air and then proceed to jump climb that same rope for a good amount of height. And then there was stuff like balancing your rope around a platform so that there were same length of rope on both sides and you could weirdly enough reverse your climbing direction keys.
Showing the shotgun on the bar before the end was bit of a spoiler. And giving the shotgun (again) on the final room even if you don't go properly pick it up was a disappointment. Well maybe even bigger disappointment was that the game ended right when you got it. At least you should let the player go for a second round with the shotty. And maybe even just the shotty! You could get some mad propulsion hops with it... :thinking:

I for one wasn't a huge fan of the weird rumblings of the enemies. Somehow it didn't quite fit the otherwise look and feel of the game. Other than those it was taking itself quite seriously and that made the sounds seem out of place. Well of course there were the wonky physics too.
The movement speed of the character was too damn slow. This was super noticeable on the final boss which would have been a more fun fight if you could just fight it in a more agile and less turtly kitey way. Now it was just stay in his face shooting barely notched shots and kite away when needed. Boring!
Oh yeah, some UI scaling issues...

But yeah, thoroughly enjoyable ride. Good job! :thumbsup:
I felt sorry for the mushroms in my path to sucess.
Nice game!
The roping was definitely kinda wonky, but I had a lot of fun with it :smiley: I had some issues with double jump activating after coming off a rope, at least I think that's what was triggering it. Also, I think the hit boxes on some of the enemies were a bit too small. It was a little frustrating trying to land an arrow while jumping around trying to avoid them.
Nevertheless, great work, I really enjoyed it!
Critique things (in case you want to come back to this after the jam):
I couldn't find a time when the walking speed was useful. I'm sure there's cut content related to aim and movement speed or something but I didn't love having to hold the shift button down all the time. Fall damage: not a fun way to die at the last boss. I know some earlier puzzles relied on you not just being allowed to drop down but it wasn't fun to get the gun and then have to climb down slowly. Speaking of which, I'm kind of biased away from combat as a player, but I didn't think it was very fun to have to hit the boss so many times after doing the platforming challenge to get the gun. (I died that way too) I have been using a bow and arrow and it's killed every enemy in one hit. The shotgun should just kill this thing in 2 hits at most.
Thank you for working so hard! I really did enjoy the game despite the critique. Again, those things are not really "jam" things--they're things that time wouldn't allow. Very good job.
Also, I really dug all the pixel art AND the environments. Good job on the art, especially for only one person!
@saussol @yussovv @the-martjin @nikita-krasnytskyi @krapht @jokerbomb @progdamn @nabo369 @hypp Thank you for playing it!
@haematite Yep the rope physics was a bit janky, in the end we had to choose usefulness over smoothness. If we had more time that'd be our focus. The audio issues I also encountered about 10% of the time, not sure about that but I think it's limited to the HTML version (hopefully).
@joedev I'm really glad you enjoyed the boss! We were just able to squeeze it into the game at the end of the jam there.
@jorim Yep he's definitely quite fast at the start there with his jump. It can be a bit problematic to get up onto a platform before he hits you. Thanks for playing!
@stejkrobot Oh yeah you get 3 per level but you can also pick them up. You could also extend the rope by moving downwards on it.
@mrmattsim Ahh okay yes you press E once to attach to it, E or jump to detach from it, W / S to move up and down it. We should have had a static existing rope in the tutorial town to show people this.
@colapolka Thank you! And yep I agree, if we had time we would've definitely tried to make it less janky while still being able to swing and jump from it.
@antti-haavikko Aw I think I experienced the wall clipping a couple times before, and if it was the web build then at that point it was missing a collision trigger due to build issues. I'm glad you found the restart button on the menu, we probably should have had R restart even if you're alive. All the feedback is useful and understandable. Were you holding Shift when running for the character movement or did you want it even faster? I think getting the shotgun on the last boss kills it in 2-3 shots instead, though the bow kiting technique works as well.
@koboldskeep Thank you! Yeah I loved the sounds made for the last boss, it was tense to fight.
@arancutter I'm glad you enjoyed the rope mechanics, a bit janky but work-able. I bet the hitbox issue was with the cats right? They were tricky to deal with, and should've just had big hitboxes. Thanks for playing!
@animatrix1490 Thanks! I'm glad you liked the boss and the monster sounds. You're definitely right about the walk/run thing, I never walked playing it and I can't remember if we had a plan for it either... I think it's just a default thing from being used to playing Mario :laughing:
@minthamie Oh the mushrooms hurt? That's not intended! I'm glad you liked it even though it was difficult at times.
@jin9310 Thanks :smile: I'm glad you liked it.
But you only get the shotgun after the final boss. Or was there a way to get it earlier?
No way of getting the shotgun earlier, but if you rush to it in the fight, then it's only a couple of shots to kill the boss. We would've liked more opportunities to use it though.
Really nice artwork, solid level design, cool sound and visual effects, just an amazing well-rounded game.
I want more bosses and levels! It was very satisfying to play.
Thank you for making such a cool game! :)
I like the use of the rope-arrow mechanics, although the physical interactions could be a little wonky feeling. With some post jam polish it has great potential!
The sound on the web version had some cracking. I wont fault yall for it cuz unity webGL audio just does weird stuff sometimes. The musical choice was good, although the mushrooms talking off-screen was also a little odd, aswell as the choice to even have them say "I'm a mushroom" lol humor points I guess.
Good job on your game everyone!
What can I say, other than good job! I killed the boss before getting the gun, so I couldn't ever use it. But that aside, the levels posed a good challenge, the mechanics were neat and the game even looks good!
Congrats! This is admirable.