The Vortex by Liam
Unstable vortexes have released ghosts, make your way through this simple platformer to seal the vortex!
Arrows/WASD to control your character. P to pause. You can wall jump. You must dodge ghosts and spikes.
Head to the exit door in each level.


It was a challenging Compo, started off exhausted so it was a struggle from the start :sweat_smile: I'm glad I submitted to the Compo though, as this community makes it all worthwhile. My aim for the weekend was to build a platformer as I'd never done it before. Learnt a lot and will definitely try to make a better one in the future.
Please note there is an issue with the ghosts hitbox that has been pointed out, it's a bit too big and slightly above them so apologies in advance.
Ratings
| Overall | 412th | 3.158⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 377th | 3.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 531th | 2.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 524th | 2.447⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 411th | 3.053⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 174th | 3.447⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 160th | 3.139⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 290th | 3.184⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
The thing I like the most about this game is totally the sound effects, they definitely made me chuckle a couple times. Platforming felt fairly smooth, apart from maybe missing Coyote Timer when jumping of platforms. Great job on making this game!
My only gripes were that I don't like using just the arrow keys (I end up using arrows to move left and right and W to jump). A dedicated jump button would be good.
Also the hit boxes on the spikes and ghosts were a bit too big, even barely clipping them kills you; reducing the sizes would make it feel a bit fairer.
It is very hard, mainly I think because the acceleration is so fast and its easy to overshoot what your aiming for. Apart from the speed, I think the platforming is actually quite good.
The voice acting cracked me up :smile:
I wish the difficulty curve was a bit smoother
One thing with platformers like these - I would probably try and build in a little more tolerance for the controls and make it 'biased' towards the player. By bias I mean keep the hit boxes slightly smaller than the visuals - I don't mean make it easier! You can make the visuals bigger to compensate 👿! It just gives a nicer feel to the player.
By control tolerance I mean things like allowing the "jump" to happen shortly _after_ you've left the ground. Sometimes a player's fat fingers can't press the A and W keys at identical moments and so giving a little tolerance again makes the game controls feel tighter.
Congrats on your entry :thumbsup:
Was fun, well done!
@pvp Maybe too challenging for sure. I redid the tileset in the final hours and had issues rebuilding all my tilemaps, remade them too quickly and made jumps too tricky.
@joerenglish Glad you like the ghost design but... yup I see when debugging I knackered up the hitbox when adjusting things. It's flipping huge and offset. Good to learn what a Coyote Timer is, this is the first platformer I've made so I read a few tutorials and "how to create good feeling platormer" articles beforehand. I tried to implement some of that kind of thing pretty naively but thanks for the pointer to learn more.
@goldenevolution Aha, this uses the Matter JS physics library and I've found this open issue:
[https://github.com/liabru/matter-js/issues/971](https://github.com/liabru/matter-js/issues/971) about 144hZ so thanks for the heads up and I'll make sure to consider in the future. Glad you enjoyed the SFX, probably my fave bit of the game and the part I spent least time on when compared to everything else!
@amkingtrp One of my aims whenever I do these game jams is to have re-mappable keys, I never get round to doing it. I think I just need to make a little lib pre-jam, it would make things so much better for everyone. Yeah, I really should have paid more attention to the hit boxes, 100% agree.
@magnusfurcifer Glad you liked the acting, wish I had time to do more ghost speech for the final level, would have been fun and the voice SFX was my fave part.
@jsloth Apologies, I struggled with getting a sense of how hard it was and I re-did the level in a rush, definitely needed finessing/playtesting! 5/5 is high praise and gratefully received :laughing:
While I largely agree with the above (voiced SFX is nice, controls/'feel' could stand to be improved, etc.), I actually do have more to say as well.
First, I want to add a small detail to the control-discussion: I'm not sure if it's the key-rollover on the cheap keyboard I use, or the game (or maybe I just miss the coyote time described above) but the avi wouldn't always jump and I think it mostly happened when I was already pressing a direction.
Then, yes, the level design is nice but ... Playing these jam games I'm always interested in what they add to the table design/'innovation' ways. I'm not seeing a lot of that here. Probably you knew that though. (I also wonder why you introduce the 'seal the vortex' mechanic so 'late' in the game?)
Lastly, though, let's not end on a low note: About the difficulty level ... if _I_ can finish a game on a Monday after doing the compo (although TBF, I almost gave up on level 4), then I think you might be able to say that it's not _too_ difficult :slight_smile:
Personally I enjoy difficult platformers such as this one. I agree with the above comments about needing coyote time, the last level is very hard without it.
@caudatecoder Glad you enjoyed my daft voice :laughing: If I'd had a bit more time I would have added more levels to smooth it out but I was determined to have my "final" level in there to make the game feel a bit more complete
@kazatan I'm going to spend some time learning about Coyote timing and practicing platformer controls, I enjoyed making this one and would like to make more in the future. Definitely need to pay more attention to the hit boxes.
@appoxgames It's a feature not a bug :wink:
@remco thanks for a well thought out comment, glad you like the palette, really wanted to add a lot more to the graphics but had to triage hard at the end ofc. I totally agree that it hasn't added much in terms of originality, my main goal this jam was to build a platformer tbh, I did want to do more with the ghosts and vortexes (lean into them being unstable, explosions with debris and destroying ghosts etc). With hindsight I would liked to have had a few more levels like the final one, with a difficulty curve ofc, that formed the bulk of the game and those early levels were just to introduce the controls. Thanks again.
@rogual haha, I should have made more!
@jammygunns Yup, the difficulty jump there is just too much. I knew it and wish I could have added a couple of more levels to smooth it out, thanks for playing!
But at least the death sounds are entertaining :D
@wang-tianliang :laughing: Glad you liked them!
@arken Thank you, very kind.
@ubershmekel The hit boxes are really my biggest failure with this one, for the amount of time it would have taken to correct them and how much better it would have made the game. Lesson learned! Loved 'N' back in the day, so thanks for the praise.
@lesinvisible I will make sure I remember to have multiple keys for jumping or re-mapping in the future :smile:
@barrier glad the sounds kept you amused, that difficulty jump was way too harsh I agree, needed some more playtesting on the final level and some levels inbetween.