Have you, by any chance been playing a bit of Celeste? ;D Had a lot of fun, some really cool mechanic ideas in here and I liked the level of challenge. The rock toss + jump was especially cool.

@nethead

Haha, Celeste definitely seeped quite a bit into this game, although I haven't actually played it recently lol. I would say that I more directly stole a bunch of ideas from Mario kaizo (the rock toss is derived pretty directly from shell jumping in Mario).

Oh wow, I don't know how I didn't connect the shell jumping. That 100% is it, cool :3

TODO: review game

Very fun game, some of the levels are quite challenging (I made it as far as jumping onto rolling rocks before giving up). I think my favorite part is actually the graphical style, especially the screen wipe effects. Great job!

@metadept

Thanks for the feedback! I definitely wish I had made a couple more easier levels -- although I also think that the rolling rocks part is too fun to leave out. It's a tough balance 😅

Anyways, if for some reason you wanted to see any of the later levels (or the ending cutscene), do note that the F key can be pressed to skip levels.

I like the music and the visuals. For me the controls and especially the doable jumping did not work very well and I was therefor not able to get very far. But else a very well made little game.

@jk5000

Thank you for the feedback! Is there any more info you could provide about the double jump? From what I can tell it is a pretty standard control scheme -- I'm curious if there's some subtle problem with it or if completely different controls would be better (e.g. not having to release jump to activate the double jump).

The issue with the double jump is mostly that it's too unforgiving. If you don't start the jump at the exact right place and not do the same with the second jump, you will not reach the platform you are trying to jump to. And yes it's pretty standard controls, but they do often not work very well.

Wow, that was a lot of gameplay O:

I loved the challenge, but I started skipping after not getting past the "throw rock at wall"-level. On this note: Thank you for letting us skip levels, it would've felt bad to not get a resolution after all the brain energy I needed :D

Overall, I find the mechanics pretty intuitive and the learning curve, while steep, absolutely doable. The greatest moment in the game for me was accidently picking up the first (optional) rock, and later on in the game gaining that "AAH!" moment when seeing it again. Overall your work shows a great understanding of game design, I think. Fantastic work!

I liked the game, nails hard platforming. The jump and grab buttons were though in unfamiliar places in the controller and that hinged me back too much in the part where you had to throw the rock to the wall and jump from it in the air, so I had to stop there. I've used to have jump in A and grab in X in Xbox controller. So I hope for customizable controls of standardized controls at least...
...also keyboard controls didn't work at all if you start using controller, so I couldn't skip the levels to see forward.

I don't know if the game would have used the theme cleverly later, now it was ok as you go deeper to cave. Game did nothing especially new but it was great for what it was: Level design was good, I liked the pixel art and the mood that the music set :)

I also liked that there was simpler challenge first with the guy and then a bit more advanced challenge right after with the lady. I liked how you could look the same scenery in two different ways one after another.

@tomssuli

Thanks for the feedback! I definitely wish I had had re-configurable controls. On my computer the keyboard still works even when using the gamepad so I'm not sure what's happening there... oh well. Thanks for playing!

Edit: On the theme: I'm not sure this game fits the theme too well, but I believe my idea was going deeper and deeper -> going deeper and going deeper, i.e. going deeper two times. Sort of an abstract relationship to the theme.

Wow! Really great game!
I liked how it's platforming and puzzle at the same time. It starts to be a bit hardcore for my nerves at some point, so the ability to skip levels is really useful :)
Music and the change of theme between characters is also really nice

This was a lot of fun. I've never played any games that have a similar mechanic to the rock, so this was a new experience for me. It worked quite well.

The ability to skip levels is nice, I was struggling with wall-toss jumping after the two levels where it was introduced (I could nail it every time when it was introduced but not the levels afterwards, maybe I just needed to practice it more)

Those were the only levels I skipped though. The rest I toughed out. Great game!

I had fun with this one, can definitely feel the influences at work. The connection to the theme felt a little tenuous to me, but didn't keep me from enjoying the gameplay.

I did experience a recurring bug where I seemed to hit a brick wall occasionally. Sometimes it was while running, others while in mid-air. I didn't notice any consistent thing that was causing it though.

Anyhow, nice work and very fun!

@cameron-paxton

Thanks for the feedback! Do you mean that, like, it seemed like you were running into an invisible wall? There are literal brick walls in the game so I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding 😅

On the theme: Yeah I would say this game isn't really meant to fit the theme. If I recall correctly, I originally came up with my idea when I saw someone else interpret the theme as two characters both named "deeper." So the theme was more an indirect inspiration for my game then an integral part of it.

Really nice game! Took me about half an hour, but I managed to beat it without skipping a single level! This is pretty much the most polarizing game I've played this LD, so I'll start with what I liked (most of it).

I really liked the graphics & animations - all those little particles, and the death/win transitions added a lot. The music was okay, but I really liked how it slightly changed for each player. The main mechanic of playing each level twice, with slight differences, was also very cool. The amount of levels & content was astounding. As a fan of rock-hard platformers like Celeste, I enjoyed most levels - which tended to be difficult but fair - but not all.

Which brings me to my main gripes with this game: not enough checkpoints and unclear mechanics. Too many levels had 2 (or even 3) almost unrelated sections, where you had to beat the first one(s) over and over again if you failed the later one(s). This was especially painful in the second-to-last level: I failed the throwing-rock-at-wall section ~10 times, which forced me to repeat the previous challenging one ~30 times before I won. It was not very fun. Which brings me to my second gripe: I still don't understand how throwing-rock-at-wall sections work. I just kept failing them, and even when I did succeed, it felt more like luck than skill. Maybe a drawing of what I should do would help? Something similar happened with the jump & throw mechanic: it took me dozens of attempts before I figured out what you meant, which could've been prevented with a simple drawing/video. Yes, this is a rant, but these things just frustrated me enough to write this. Also, I know you added the ability to skip levels - which is wonderful - but my pride wouldn't let me use it :)

Other than that, it was excellent! There were a few instances of slowdowns - maybe adding an executable version would help? - but otherwise it ran perfectly, without any bugs. This is one of my favourite games this jam (and definitely my longest comment), and only the above frustrations prevented it from being my favourite. Overall, incredible entry!

@frogman

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback!

I think better tutorialization of the harder mechanics would be a very useful thing. I definitely didn't intend my game to be like, ridiculously opaque and hard-to-understand. I think that it would be quite possible to teach these mechanics similar to how Celeste teaches its harder mechanics in Celeste Farewell... sadly I just did not even think about it.

Personally I do think I like having some levels that are somewhat longer where you do have to replay early sections. I think it is possible to make that kind of replaying-the-same-thing fun when done right... but I probably did not do it very well here.

Anyways I do very much appreciate the criticisms. Knowing what is frustrating or downright not fun is super useful. The figures you provided for how many times you had to do stuff really give me a clearer picture of everything. Sadly I can only give you one heart! :sweat_smile:

Very cool concept and interesting gameplay mechanics. Solid graphics and good sound and levels. Very mario maker. Unfortunately it was just too hard for me. I got to the level where you have to first jump on a rolling rock then roll a rock off a platform and jump off the moving platform, land back on the moving platform, land on the rolling rock, then pick up one rock, throw it, pick up another rock, jump and land on the rolling rock and bounce up to a ledge, then bounce the rock off the wall and bounce off that rock to get up the ledge.

Wow, great game! Impressive amount of levels. Took me a while to beat it! The rock bounce jump was difficult to pull off, but felt great when you succeeded.

Great gameplay experience with some interesting concepts. The design is complete, polished and very well put together. Visuals and sound + music are superb, especially for a compo entry. With a few tweaks and some more levels this could easily be a commercial game. I loved the ending as well, although I confess I had to skip the last levels, as I couldn't figure out the "throw rock on wall" part, my reflexes are too slow :sweat_smile:

The one criticism I have is that the characters "slide" a bit on landing — and for precision platforming, this seems overly unfair. It's more noticeable on the stages with the levers and moving platforms.

Overall great achievement, I'm impressed that you managed to put it together in less than 48 hours. Excellent job, congratulations :trophy:

Amazing game! The graphics and audio were great, and the levels were both innovative and very challenging. I played all the way to the end without knowing about the "skip level" key, but to be honest, I like that. I probably would have skipped a lot of levels otherwise, and it was a nice, satisfying victory whenever I finally completed a level (despite my fingers cramping up by the end of them, haha.) I agree with the last feedback, it's amazing that you managed to create all of this in 48 hours - the amount of creative, challenging, yet fun levels and puzzles along with the rest of the content was simply astounding, and still would have been even if you spent 24 more hours on this. The only issues I found were that sometimes the rocks would stop inside the spikes (hindering my progress of figuring out what I was supposed to do) and that the amount of levels may have been (a bit?) too much for a game jam, but seriously, other than that this game was amazing. This has to be one of my favorite games I've played in LD48. Well done!

Nice platforming ideas and a good variety of challenges. Looks like a lot of work has gone into this. I think the rocks need to be a more different colour to the floor. They're quite hard to see, especially when they're moving and they move a bit too fast.

Good graphics, audio and presentation. Solid compo entry overall.

Great game, got pretty challenging near the end. Art is nice, music and sounds too. You really blew my mind with the bouncing on rocks mechanic. Wasn't a big fan of the "throw against the wall a bounce" though, it felt too precise, which made it very frustrating for me.

One small suggestion: the character movement felt a bit too floaty for a precision platformer, maybe make it a little tighter.

Awesome entry, keep up the good work!

Phew, this felt like a Kaizo Mario! Really satisfying to finish, but maybe a step too hard. Especially with the move requiring to throw the rock against a wall, even though it is cool to achieve, it felt more like a speed-running technique than a game mechanic! I spent a lot of time just to find a working setup, and even then it had only a 2/3 success ratio. And I must mention the penultimate level (the one that combines nearly every moves learned), on which I spent dozens of attempts where I learned to optimize every single jump until I finally was able to make the final one! Again, victory feels awesome, but I wouldn't have been against a bit of coyote-time, forgiving hit-boxes on the rocks, or slightly shorter gaps.

Nevertheless, the play feeling is great! Once you get it, jumping and bouncing is fun! And it's cool to have a difficult level-design, but with short levels that can be quickly retried. I initially played with a controller, but found the buttons layout a bit confusing (instinctively I was using the A button to jump, and jumping while grabbing requires a strange position). It's perfectly fine on keyboard though. Kudos for the aesthetic as well. Especially the music that shift between two moods, it's pretty neat!

Overall I had a great time on the game! It was worth suffering to see its end. Well done!

I didn't get very far, but I'm not very good with platformers anyway. The music is OK but could use a bit more variety. I like the color scheme and retro-graphics. The use of springs is an interesting twist.

(Disclaimer: I played this a couple weeks back but am now just getting around to adding a comment)

This took me a while to complete, but it was worth it! Very satisfying gameplay, especially after doing the rock to wall jumps (which were a bit hard to pull off to say the least). Got a lot of relief after doing those correctly :joy: Although I sometimes messed up and had to restart right after doing one successfully which was frustrating, but I persevered on.

I loved how natural the timing felt for almost everything. In particular, it was magical how jumping on rolling rocks just worked!

It is very impressive that you managed to do this all during a game jam, amazing job!

I suck at platformers, I really do :grin: So I am definitely not a target audience for this and the game defeated me. This is the last level I will ever see (and that squeaky death sound will stay with me for a very long time :laughing:):


However! The game has some really cool and unique mechanics that even I can appreciate. The multipurpose rock is great (yep, I am a fan of throwing rocks in games, I admit it!), and going through the same and yet not the same level with different characters is fun.

Music is quite cool, and the whole game has this upbeat atmosphere that I really liked.

Very cool snappy platformer. The alternating character and environment was a nice touch that kept the gameplay and music fresh. There's a *lot* of content here too for a jam, well done on that. The controls were easy to learn and felt responsive, except for one weird issue I ran into: I apparently couldn't carry things and jump while running to the right, although I could do it while running to the left. Might have been some weird input issue with my cheap keyboard, I don't know, but it made some of the platforming pretty difficult in specific sections. Whatever the case, really nice work. It's rare to see a game so polished and with so much content, *and for compo*. Really nice work!

@wheffle

Thanks for the feedback! That definitely sounds like some sort of keyboard ghosting issue, potentially... I don't think I've ever encountered it on my computer. Definitely a good reason to implement remappable controls!

Very well done! Has some Kaizo Mario vibes to it. So yeah, difficulty was there^^ Especially the wall jump was hard to get right, I only seemed to manage it, when I released the stone at the highest position. Don't know if it's possible at other states. Still - I beat the game :D
Sound effects gave great feedback. Level design was on spot! Short spicy levels. Controls were tight, although I often swapped jumping with grabbing (played with controller).

I like how you explained the controls ingame. I wonder, why people always explain the controls here on the ludum dare game page, when it's just explained in the game :thinking: Learning in the game is not only more fun, but I also have to read less where I only understand half the stuff of. But I guess you know that. I was just curious, if theres really a reason for the controls on the page, other than "everyone does it" I would be interested to know :)

I couldn't read what they wrote at the end screen, but I guess it was something like "name was here" :)
Nice touch, adding a ending cutscene there!
The game also reminded me a bit of Celeste^^

@bytinggames

Thanks for the feedback! On the wall jump: it definitely requires approximately full height, which is essentially because both the rock and the player need to accelerate from the same 0 velocity so that their vertical position is matched when they make horizontal contact.

On the controls: Your comments on learning them in-game definitely make sense. I think I mostly put them there as a reference--sometimes I find I sort of forget the controls at some point in the game, and want to refer back to them. I suppose this is unlikely in my game, but I figure it doesn't hurt to have that reference there anyways. It also lets me put the controls that I haven't tutorialized: the skip buttons and the retry button.

Tight controls, challenging gameplay and innovative mechanics. Loved it

Cool game! Just challenging enough - balancing on that nice feeling between frustration and accomplishment. I am really impressed at the level of content and functionality for this compo game. Good job :)