Challenging little game! I couldn't move past the 'Journal #3' entry- not sure if that's the end or not. Using both WASD and QE to do everything was pretty tricky! I ended up using my other hand for Q and E which made it more managable. You have just enough here to create an interesting atmosphere and mood, and the art is pretty good, too!

I enjoyed the little bit I played. Very challenging. Only made it to the second level.

I like the graphics and the main music! I feel like a transition for restarting and going to a new level could be a really nice addition.

Great game, well executed concept!

I like the graphics and music for sure! I think the controls are somewhat difficult to work with though, but you can get used to it.

Awesome game

Quite challenging game, I liked it a lot though!
Everything fit well together I thought.
Is definitely a good basis to build upon, maybe adding speed boosts, more obstacles etc.

Fits the theme very well! Gameplay was fun, got challenging towards the end! Nice submission!

I like the graphicss and the sound design i enjoyed the game as well :D good job

Hahaha wow what a game

Ok that was really cool

really fun!

A little difficult, but the concept was really cool and fit the theme pretty well.

good fit for theme + there is ninja

I was enjoying playing, but also got stuck at the screen for journal number 3. I tried both the web build and the windows download. Tried every key on the keyboard (including 'A' and 'D'), but the game would not progress.

Still, I thought the art was nice, and the soundtrack was a good jam!

Fun game with cool concept.

Nice entry!

Nice game, but very difficult :P

Love the graphics effects and the catchy music

great use of the theme and the soundtrack is absolutely awesome

This game has, as mentioned by others, nice graphics, amazing music and quite challenging gameplay. I think the fact that the controls were supposed to be used by one hand only made it so challenging. Anyways, you have done a good job overall!

Nice line art graphics, the clean aesthetic grabbed my attention.

Funky little tune too!

Simple but well done, love the music

I really dig the graphics!

A fun game with primitive mechanics, but with cool styling. It seems to me that it would be better to make the transition when jumping, and not just like that. Good job

I feel like the controls could have been more well placed, like A and D could be used for balance, and arrow keys used to jump between the rails - right now it's really hard to control both your stability and choose a proper lane with just one hand :smile: But the game is enjoyable and music fits really well, overall it's a good entry :)

@deav Ya, I think that your suggested control scheme would work better and maybe the difficulty would need to be adjusted just to make sure it's not too easy. Thanks for the feedback!

I like your game :) The graphics look nice and consistent and the music is nicely done. The controls feel good, but I think that the spacebar would have been a better button for jump :)

Same as @hacksawunit , couldn't move past Journal #3.

You weren't lying, the core gameplay loop IS fun! I enjoyed it a bunch.

Not sure how much the balancing adds to it though, and other than that it's very classic mechanically, but well executed upon. I did enjoy the fact that it made me play with two hands, one for the balancing and one for the board control, which I found to be an engaging exercise in multi-tasking, so the balancing does add some value, just not sure how much because it soon becomes automatic and doesn't interface too much with the rest of gameplay. And I never died directly because of it, and can't quantify how many times it killed me indirectly. Mechanically it feels a bit tacked on, although it's quite flavorful and makes a lot of sense narratively.

I like the idea, the use of theme, and the sliver of worldbuilding you give us. Wasn't too hard, but wasn't easy either. I really had fun! Could use a bunch of polish though, but them's the breaks. Great job <3

This was short but challenging! I appreciate the little background lore.

A lot of cool little things show you folks put a lot of thought into it, like the fire in the rail going down as you jump.

One thing that I felt lacking was the switching rail animation and how it dragged the fire with the character sprite. It would have been great if they jumped sideways, not just shifted, and if there was some nice sparks and other effects. But I understand the time constraints.

This mechanic could really be expanded into a very challenging fast paced game! Not sure how much you thought about lore into it.

All that said, the music slaps and the sound effects are pretty good too.

Great game (^w^). Good job. But I totally agree with @deav on the controls. I totally used my two hands though :p. Went up to Journal #3 and.... I don't think you can pass the story screen ? Anyways, love the chara design and the music (^^)

That was a fun, short experience! I want to play more! Great game overall. It has potential for a full game for sure! The track was dope as well!

Cool game! Has a good choice of music and has nice graphics.

I love this! It's hard, but super fun. This could be expanded into a really awesome full game.

Harcorde challenge!I already have swollen fingers. Nice graphic in isometric perspective :bomb:

Interesting blend of 2D and 3D art, the soundtrack really slaps! I had the same issue as some other people that I got stuck on journal #3 (tested both WebGL and PC builds, happened on both). I guess that's the end of the game?

I beat it! Nice playability! A very 1999 game.


This was really cool! Definitely a bit of Ratchet and Clank, or Specter of Torment vibe, but obviously the balancing adds a completely new twist to it.

Would love to have gamepad controls. I think it would still be challenging, but certainly part of the challenge is just trying to manage this on a keyboard.

Great graphical style. Nice work!

Fun little game, adds one more dimension to those three-lane runners. I love small details, like sparks behind the board don't disappear the moment you swap the rail, but instead fade slowly. Nicely done. Some score would be a nice addition, so I could see how far I've travelled and see my progress.

Not going to lie, I initially looked at this and was like "Oh, wow, this will be super easy."
"W R O N G"
Having to try to keep your balance and remember to jump between rails AND remember that vertical jump is "W" and not "Space Bar" like my brain kept trying to use as a jump button for some reason was more difficult than I anticipated.
Cute pixel graphics, great music track, ACTUAL skill required? Awesome entry :)

Having both balancing and switching rails proved particularily hard to maintain in the good way throughout the game....especially on an AZERTY keyboard :')
Thanks for the fun little game, and congrats on participating to Ludum Dare!

Fun but very challenging with one hand - definitely fits the theme - good job!

Very fun game. The remake of some classic rail game with the balance to maintain was a very good idea. Thank you for your game

Fun, simple gameplay, deceptively hard! I like how stylishly the graphics pair with the music. It's fun but difficult trying to balance three different control sets at the same time (board balance, vertical jumping, and swapping rails). It certainly fits the theme, I like it! Well done!

Nice twist on the runner genre! I was not able to force by brain to jump and balance simultaneously until I tried to press QWE with one hand and AD with the other. Guess cerebral hemispheres can still work independently even if you are bad at multitasking in general :laughing:

After I discovered that the difficulty was spot on, and the game became very fun in general. Would be nice if it was possible to use arrow keys instead of WAD, otherwise it's not very convenient for people like me who can't play using one hemisphere :smile:

Great job overall, I find normal runners kinda boring but Deathrail was actually fun.

like art) nice job

Kinda jumping back and forth between playing and typing. here are my notes:

1- controls are a bit odd, controlling the entire game with one hand is okay but feels weird. moving with WASD and balancing with arrows might've felt more intuitive.

2- love the music, but it starting over on every reload gets annoying. I'd suggest putting the music on a DontDestroyOnLoad object so the music is continuous even after a game over.

3- rather than automatically restarting, maybe wait for player input?

4- graphics are nice, but the flames chasing the player bug me. They're a certain distance behind the player even after a rail switch. so theres flames coming from where the player never was? I think this would be an excellent opportunity to use a particle system.

5- Pause functionality would be nice.

6- First time getting to the bridge, the game restarted, so I thought I failed to jump on it. Second time I'm seeing a Journal entry (#3, in case there's multiples). The shift in art style made be think I accidently closed the tab and this was a completely different game. Did I win? Did I lose?

7- In the instructions I noticed it said to push ESC to return to the main menu but that doesn't appear to be the case, ESC does nothing in game. It DOES bring the game out of fullscreen mode, so if you did have any functionality I'd suggest using another key anyway (If my game is in browser, I usually like to use "~" to pause/unpause/quit.

Final thoughts: Overall I like it, thought it could use some polish and new mechanics.

The controls got wonky because my instinct was always to press space to jump. Music absolutely slaps though.

@shaolin-dave
Thanks for the nice feedback, here's my response because this is the most in depth criticism death rail has gotten so far.

1. Ya 2 hand control setup feels less artificially difficult I think (then rebalance difficulty most likely)

2. wanted to do that, didn't have time

3. valid criticism and worth considering, I think either is fine (pause menu would make auto restart better imo)

4. lacking time, lack of spark polish is grating but i'm glad sparks made it into the game honestly (we didn't consider the particle system due to usually focusing on 2d)

5. I agree, just lacking time

6. Ya I agree that a clearer conveyance of information at the end screen was necessary to tell the player that they finished the game

7. esc was listed under story controls so it only works for the 2 screens of story

Challenging, but fun! I would definitely enjoy more :) As already said in previous comments, controls feel a bit odd, I had to use my two hands on a small space of the keyboard. Anyway, nice graphics, nice sounds, nice mood. Well done!

This was a neat little game! At first I thought the challenge was a bit too high, but then the short length compliments that, and I realised after a bit that there were actually two separate levels so I wasn't starting from scratch every time. I am probably reading too much into it, but I interpreted the clash of her pixellated, rough art style (she's cute by the way) juxtaposed with the clean minimalist style of the environment to be some sort of smbol for her rebellion. Intentionsal? Probably not, but it adds to it for me, in a way that clashing styles rarely do. The controls were prety intuitive and the main mechanic adds a layer of complexity to a pretty standard genre.

My only real criticism is that it would be nice to have some better way of conveying the imbalance without having to look at her. My eyes are mostly trying to focus on the path ahead, and having to keep glancing back at the character to see where balance is was the main reason I'd die. Possily on purpose but it does feel a bit unfair at times.

Overall, a solid entry! And the music was great too. Well done.

neat game! I really like the graphic style and music, it reminds me of old flash games in general.

I feel like the controls could be a bit better, but I saw that several people told you that already. For me the most crucial thing other than a bit of remapping would be enabling the player to change the balance and lane *while* jumping, it'd make it feel much more dynamic. I think it'd also enable you to get more creative with the levels, for example having a small gap where the rails switch instantly, or having a section where it changes from the left-most to the right-most side

A super challenging game but one I could see myself playing more of with a full release. I personally would love controller support, as I find balancing mechanics and such much more manageable (which then means you can scale up the difficulty further).

I wonder if you could even try out Switch motion controls/mobile phone gyro controls for balancing as an optional playstyle. I'm kind of a sucker for those lol.

Nice, quite a finger breaker too. Made me want to cut off my thumb as jumping is instinctively associated with space key. Once I went pass that problem, I started confusing A and D with Q and E, and the more I'd get frustrated the more often that would happen, but I guess that is one of the challenging aspects you devised. Although the background is repetitive I do like the building style, they add to the atmosphere. In general the mood is strong with this one, very nice.

Wow that ended fast!

I really wish for more levels ^^.

I do like the rough style and the music and I had no problems controlling the board.
Meanwhile I had fun hopping from rail to rail.
I also thought: It would be cool if I would get points for hopping on the rails and doing stunts ^^.

Please make it longer and keep up the good work!

I really enjoyed the first level! In the second level I kept falling through the rail. Not sure if this is a bug or if I didn't understand the concept. I don't mean the gaps between the rails. I would jump over a gap and a few milliseconds after landing, the character just fell through the rail.

@heremeus So you're saying that you landed on the rail and then fell off a few milliseconds later? If it is a bug we haven't encountered it so far but good to know.

Fun entry. Controls were a little difficult to get used to. Would've also liked something with a little more contrast to really highlight when I need to switch rails.

@hotowlgirls wanted to record a short video for you and now I can't reproduce it. Happened to me 7 times in a row earlier before I gave up, now I was able to complete the same sections over and over again without it happening. Seems like a weird one-off bug. Anyway, I'm happy I was able to complete the second level as well. Really enjoyed this entry! :)

Cool game - the graphics are great, good take on the theme. It was fun and tricky to balance the different aspects.

I wish it sold speed a little harder, maybe if it was a little more zoomed out or something. I agree with other comments that 2-handed controls would be better. I kept trying to jump with spacebar but I guess that's on me haha.

Some of the rails in level 2 seemed a bit messed up? They didn't have endcaps and jumps off the end / onto the start felt really finicky and I think I fell through one at some point.

I like it - the game was challenging and interesting. Loved the music.

Very cool, wanted to play more of it - would like to see more levels in the future but with an easier difficulty curve.

Amazing graphical style, I really love the pixel art on a 3d-object look! Simple concept but executed very well!

Cool and well excecuted entry :) I thought the music was good and the world building around it was neat too!
Good effort adding a story in a ludum dare game! It was intriguing 😄
As someone else said I think 2 handed would have made it a bit easier to control.
But good job :) well done

Nice, smooth game, with a lot of challenge and fun graphics. Fits the theme too, with the balance aspect. Rocking soundtrack and cool sound fx too. Nice work!

Very nice music, as it has been said - the controls are a handful. 5 buttons for such a simple game might be a bit overkill XD but it was very enjoyable and actually challenging :)

Super clean game, the graphics are stylish, and could be even more with more time for polish. Speed feels a bit slow for this kind of game, maybe if the background moved faster it would sell it a lot more. As others have said, the only reason the game feels difficult is with the one-handed controls, but I think if this game sold the speed more, it would still retain the difficulty while being more intuitive to control with two hands. Very cool work!

Really good entry, let down a bit by not being generous enough with timing in my opinion. Without super clear telegraphs for when things are popular it's very easy to end up jumping or transferring too soon or late. Overall though very well presented and a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.

challenging, but a lot of fun. I also loved the soundtrack!

That's one deadly rail! Fun game with nice graphics, my only wish is that the rail ends were a little clearer, as they tended to blend in with the busy background. Keep grinding!

This is a great, simple idea that has been executed very well! It has a good level of challenge, the art looks great and the music is awesome! The only thing that could perhaps have been improved is the UI but even that wasn't too bad anyway! Great work!

Really solid execution. The controls were intuitive and felt incredibly responsive! If you kept developing it might be cool to give the rails their own colors or end tip patterns to make differentiating between them easier. But as is its great as well.

Fun game, controls were a bit difficult to get the hang of but the game was fun nonetheless. Would love to see what you do with this!

Love the style and music. But I think controls could be made better. Way to many buttons under one hand. I suspect you could do with just three buttons - left, right and jump. Left and right balance when on rail, and switch lanes when midair. Or just move balance to another hand or mouse.

Very nice game! Very smooth and excellent entry. My only constructive criticism would be to make the pipes contrast more with the background, as I personally had to strain a little sometimes to see them, and that took away my attention. Really cool!

Very intense gameplay, a pretty fun game!

Держим баланс, держим баланс. Это не так просто, но нужно держать баланс!

I apologize for being repetative, but yeah, controls could be managed a bit better. Otherwise, nice game,great mood and nice graphics!

Loved it, only wish that jumping was bound to space instead of W, made it a bit more challenging. The whole aesthetic is great!

Cool game

Had lots of fun with this one - the scarf and fire look awesome!

Quite nice take on the theme, also nice that you have included some lore into the game as well. I would love to see some variation into the slides and perhaps some infinite mode with some score for comparison with others, but overall great job!

Really good game ! the idea is really cool, and the art and music are really cool as well ! good job !

Good and solid entry!
It was somewhat difficult to get used to the controls (would have expected space to jump maybe), but once I got used to it it was fun to play.
Well done!

Pretty polished! Remappable controls would be greatly appreciated though, having one hand on six buttons gets a bit harder than separate balancing/moving controls. I'd recommend something along the lines of the classic Arrows/Z/X setup.

Nice work. Loved the concept. The controls were pretty difficult, but I imagine it comes with practice. I would have liked to hear the music continue instead of starting over each time. I think it would have kept me in the world longer. Would love to see power ups and other variations.

Very simple, yet effective visuals and controls. I agree with @peace-of-cake-games that I would have preferred to map the controls. Whenever I had to jump, I instinctively felt like pressing space.

Nice use of the repeating background as well!

thats a lovely skating game.. its sad that i was never good at skating games but i could make it to the finish and i loved how you made the characters and visuals very nice :thumbsup:

Very cool tiny game! It's really polished and it's satysfying to play, good job.

What a fun game! The concept just works, and is well executed here. Not a fan of the controls though, I would have preferred to have the switching buttons on a separate part of the keyboard (so i could tilt and switch with different hands).

Pretty good autorunner, there's enough you need to do and check in order to stay engaging. However I would have liked the controls for balancing, switching, and jumping to be further apart so you're not trying to manage two directional movements on one hand.

Still, I can imagine this working as a mobile game, where you tilt the phone to balance and swipe to switch lanes/jump. Keep up the good work.

Great! Small scope, but executed really well. Atmosphere and visuals are great, controls work well, and it has a good (albeit short) difficulty curve.

Simple and good, also challenging. I would like to see the game with space as an option to jump as well so I can split tasks between hands a little bit. Having the balacing done by mouse position would be interesting as well I think.

The balancing mechanic was really cool. Had a good vibe through it, enjoyed it a lot.

Nice short game. I don't think I've seen this camera perspective in any game before.

Very cool and difficult game. Superb background music. The biggest challenge for me was the control scheme. I kept mixing up Q/W and E/D all the time.

I really miss score system. Nice entry anyway

This felt really nostalgic for some reason, I really liked the music as well. Great work!

Great Game! Artstyle and Music fit the game perfectly. The game fits the theme perfectly. The excution of the concept is done perfectly. Great Job! I think a proceduraly generated endlessmode with a scoring system seems a nice fit for the game.

Quite an innovative concept! Really works well, loved it!

Difficult but cool game! Nice graphics. Fits the theme very good!

Oh my God. This game made me go back in time. When I had an Atari ST.
There was a game called 'Skate Tribes' and the third level had some similarities to this one.
I loved it.
The only thing I have to point out is the number of keys needed to play. Too many keys.

Cool soundtrack, nice theme - feels like frogger but on hard mode!

Fun little game. My brain needed some time to adjust to the multitasking but then it worked mostly fine. Some more variation in what to do would be nice. Ramps, half pipes left and right could work nicely with the balancing aspect.

Challenging, nice music. Gave me a bit of a throwback to the grind sections in ratchet and clank, I had fun overall :D

Such a good game!!! I really love the "retro" feel of this game, the art, the audio, the interpretation of the theme... Solid entry. :)

I like the concept of the game. Music is nice and the graphics are essential yet adequate. It's a good entry.

FUN FUN FUN
I loved the quick restart after you dropped off the rail because, oh boy, I dropped a lot. Loved the music and the well executed simplicity. I hoped a bit for more after Journal #3 but I guess that's the end.

Well done! Challenging but with a good amount of forgiveness in how far you can tilt to one side. That said, I tilted even farther more times than I'd like to admit, so the instant restart was a smart, very welcome design choice. Really nice retro art, too. The clean lines remind me a bit of the upcoming game Sable.

neat entry, fun while it lasts.

Liked the audio as background,

I have finally found you! I knew someone was bound to have the same idea I had :P I can hardly believe people complain this is hard, it seems right to me. The art really stands out, the music is cool and the gameplay is fun. I think the explanation of the keys should have happened during the game, I completely forgot the key to jump when I started. Also I think it would be cool if the balancing gets harder the longer you manage to stay up. Great entry overall!

Very cool! Tough after the first level, at least for an old guy with slow reflexes :metal:

death rail. it does what it says on the tin! music was great to play along with. enjoyable game, thanks for the entry.

I kept hitting spacebar to jump like an idiot but this was a fun submission thanks for posting!

This game is very cool, i'm not big fan of the QWE to change side and jump, i prefer left,up,right and using my 2 hands (or bettter using a gamepad). Anyway great job !

This was probably the *coolest* game I've played in the jam so far! Great concept and challenging gameplay, but I made it to the end! I wouldn't have minded playing a bit longer in a randomized infinite rail, it was so much fun! :thumbsup:

Like @robowarrior1982, I had some trouble with the controls. I would have also liked to use both of my hands to play! Great job in any case, you know it's a good jam game when it leaves you craving for more :sunglasses:

A very fun game. just great gameplay. The environment, although repetitive, does not seem to be the same. The balance mechanic with jumping is very unusual.

I liked it! I would've loved if the controls were slightly different, there's too much going on in my left hand. Also, wouldve been nice if the levels were slightly longer so we could hear the full music. Great entry!

You've gotten a ton of feedback here, which is great, so I'll concur with some common things I saw, such as the one-hand controls not being intuitive, and the shift between levels (at least with how far I got) being not very obvious (like someone else said, I thought I got hit by the bridge or something).

I think the juxtaposition in art style across the game is quite cool, and something that could easily not work, but I think does in this case. Narrow line to walk for sure.

Last thing I'll add is the disjointed-ness between the story and the game itself in the menu didn't make much sense to me; particularly since you restart the game itself automatically when you die. I also thought when I first saw the menu that it was one option, as in "Play Story" because the text is so close together. I suppose, again, because it's not common to see "Story" relegated as its own menu option; integrating the different story beats between the levels would have felt more cohesive.

Really fun fundamental mechanic to build off of though, I'd say! Great job :D

Controls were pretty uncomfortable, would've been better if space was jump and the other hand could be used for balancing (like arrows keys). Looked pretty cool though (I liked the fire/spark effect coming from behind the board) and it's got a little bit of a story which was neat, even if it wasn't anything huge. The gameplay isn't anything amazing but it's engaging enough for a basic little game like this. Overall it's ok

My brain is wired weird, I can't get used to W being jump, or switching rails with Q and E.

Otherwise a fun game.

Cool concept and nice graphic. Well done!

Initially I had a rough time with the controls, and ended up getting something more comfortable for myself by using my right hand to hit Q and E with my left hitting everything else. A really neat little game, I quite enjoyed the music.

Fun game but actually I perfer up/down/left/right. Great entry!

Very interesting game. The character should be allowed to switch tracks when jumping up, so that there is more reaction time

Really cool game but I got stuck on the Journal 3 graphic.

Well done! Personally the button mapping got me a bit confused. Having jump left/right on the arrow keys (anything usable with the right hand tbh) would have made it a lot easier. But I could very well see it as a conscious choice to create a bit more chaos.

Fun and good game. Nice one

Feels great to play! Simple but fun. Would've been nice if the music didn't restart when you died because I died a lot and the music seemed to get pretty good once it got started 😅 The graphics are nice and the (pseudo?) 3D effect on the tilting character is a nice touch. Would've been nice to have a two-hand mode where you switch lanes with the arrow keys while using WA(S)D for the rest. And a story mode to boot, that's impressive for a jam game! Solid stuff! 💫

I loved the look and mood of this!!! The outlines on the buildings and rails were esssspecially clean. How did you do that?? Couldn't quite tell if they were 2d or 3d. Anyway they looked great.

Difficulty-wise, it was... hard! Overally in an enjoyable way, but sometimes it felt a little unfairly so. I think my main 2 suggestions are:

- Using a 2-hand control scheme instead of 1-hand. My 1 hand had too many things to do, especially too many similar things to do. I think moving the balancing controls to the arrow keys would have given my hands and brain more room to really tap into the gameplay faster and more confidently.
- Being a litttttle more generous with the fall detection at the ends of rails. If the hitbox that determines if you're on/off a rail was like 0.2 seconds longer at the end of a rail, I think I would have had a more positive time while STILL requiring me to react quickly to challenges

Overall great job! I enjoyed getting to the end!