This is one the most original movement ideas I've seen in a long time!! I think you can make afull game around this mechanic, it's even mobile friendly.. Loved it, really nice entry mate!!

@webox Thanks a lot! I should probably mention that I had this idea for the longest time, long even before I got into game dev, but I somehow never really got around to turning it into a fully-fledged game until now, when LD50 gave me the perfect opportunity. I do intend to eventually release it for mobile though.

At first I was confused how to keep the ball in screen bounds, but when I found that you can keep mouse button pressed down it became the whole new game! This is so original and addictive! Love it!

@x000000 Thanks!

Agreed, love the idea of the central mechanic here. Unique take on the endless runner genre that I've never seen before; always interested when people take an established genre and do something truly innovative with it. Had fun playing and trying to beat my high score! Nice job.

Didn't know about simple harmonic motion, thank you for the link in the description. It is indeed a really interesting idea for a movement mechanic. I think once you understand that you can "cancel" the wave by the line against the movement (not sure if it's clear) the game become a bit too easy.
It's really innovative tho and I would love to see this idea explored further.
Well done!

Nice game! It's fun to play and the ball moves satisfyingly. I do think that the harmonic motion of the ball could be used more as a core mechanic though, as it seems like the goal is to get it to move as straight as possible rather than have it bounce (so it won't hit obstacles). Maybe there could be enemies you would have to swing your ball forcefully at to kill. Just some thoughts on how it could be improved

Very cool and very original, but also very hard to control. When you get the hang of it, it's a lot of fun, but I wonder if it might be a bit too hard to get the hang of? Regardless, super original and certainly interesting. Great job!

Really really good game. Really unique movement mechanics, really good level design. Although some parts can be quite challenging. The tutorial at the start also sort of confused me in the beginning but I got it eventually. That's a mistake on my part though xd

Great gameplay concept! The controls are a bit tricky, but it's still one of the most original ideas so far, especially when physics comes into play. If I'm not careful and I click the line too far off the ball's trajectory, I end up losing control!

**ETA:** One thing I forgot to add is that you could maybe do tutorials on how the ball moves relative to the distance of the line.

Good game! :thumbsup:

Nice work! Like other folks, I really like the movement. There's a sort of rhythm to coaxing the ball to slow down, and that tension of trying to keep a steady hand in a tricky situation was nice.

I also appreciate that the graphics had solid utility. The game communicates information super clearly with the mouse line + trail behind the ball, the blocks stand out from the blurred background without any issue. It's not super flashy, but I think it really helps hold the whole game together.

Oh, a thought I had - it might be really fun if the game had background music that warped its pitch according to the amplitude of the wave. When you're calm and moving smoothly, things are stable. If you lose your cool and the ball starts to swing out of control then things get frantic. Probably wouldn't work so well if there are obstacles that intend you to be "unstable" to get past them safely, but could add to the trancelike feeling that this sort of play can head toward.

Neat entry! Took me a few tries to get the hang of moving the ball with out it going wild, but once you get the rhyme going it was really fun.

Great job!

The movement idea is good, but I don't think this was the type of the game to use it. The optimal strategy seems to be to avoid the mechanic, which is a bit of a pity, since there definetly are rules where the player wants varying degree of oscilating.

@polymathld Thanks!

@tombuston Yeah I am aware of what you are talking about. I discovered this when I was playtesting myself, but I couldn't think of a way to work around it before the deadline. I will certainly keep it in mind when I develop the idea further.

@charlesschar That's a nice idea! I will definitely consider it. The main reason I didn't implement something like that in the current game though was because I thought it would be extremely hard to be able to control the ball to be at an exact point at a certain distance into the game unless you were going straight e.g. make sure the ball is at the high point of the wave at this certain x-coordinate. I will certainly look into it now that I have the time.

@hajpappan Thanks!

@unbreathable I actually wanted to add stuff like flipped maps and randomised tile generation to the level generation, but couldn't because of time. Nice to see you still liked the level design.

@boaromayox Thanks! If I develop it into a final game I will most likely include a piece or 2 about the movement in it.

@doctor-zeus Thanks! Graphics is not normally my strong point so it's nice to see you appreciated it. (With that being said spending a lot of time on art was probably one of the reasons I overshot the Compo deadline.) Your idea about the music is interesting though, I will definitely keep it in mind. As always, due to time I could only add a few sound effects.

@str8griz Thanks!

@lohii Yeah I understand what you are talking about. I discovered that when I was playtesting myself, but maybe because I already had an idea of the type of game I wanted I just went with it. If you have any suggestions about what kind of game could utilise the mechanic better feel free to let me know.

This is a really neat idea for a movement system, and I would love to see it explored more in a larger project. Only real issue is how long some sections were with no variation, because there were a few points where I just sat and watched for at least a minute after getting my ball to a safe spot.

@charred-axolotl Yeah sorry about that, the level design was really rushed so I didn't have time to really think it through and playtest. If I do a post-jam version I will certainly modify the maps and add some random tile generation.

@escapade No problem! I totally get the difficulty with such a tight time frame. I was surprised I even got a functional product out. And like I said, this is a really cool movement system and has a lot of value on its own

Absolutely 5 stars for innovation. Super cool idea. Was very interesting to interfere the ball so it won't move by Y at all :D

Very simple, but still manages to be difficult (to me at least). I'm surprised I've never seen this concept before, it's a very interesting idea.

@yogurtthehorse @trev3lyan Thanks, glad to see both of you enjoyed it.

Great idea! I didn't find out how to lower the amplitude, though — it would be nice to have a hint about it in the instructions.

@dustyroom Thanks! I thought people would be able to figure it out by themselves, but I guess maybe not, I will keep it in mind. Try moving the line closer to the ball, but don't overshoot.

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450162412?t=03h36m44s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

@elysiagriffin Thanks so much for playing my game on stream! I will try out your game now, really hope I can participate in the next LD too!

Need two more ratings? I got you mans, you getting a five

What a great idea! Had fun playing this one, but I was quite bad at it

Very fun game!

@i1415 @fredrik-rosell @marianoa213 Thanks!

Really neat idea, but I agree with others that the wave motion is too unpredictable to be useful, so I just ended up trying to reduce the motion and avoid it. It also took a while to figure out I had to counteract the wave to get the ball to slow down. Maybe being able to control the oscillation speed would make it more possible to use the wave motion strategically?

@evan-minto That's incidentally also an idea I am considering now, being able to control the horizontal movement of the wave, although that may take away from the simplicity of the controls. But thanks for your feedback! I will spend some time after the jam thinking about how to utilise the idea better.

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Easy to operate, that's cool. Thanks for the game. UPD. There's an event horizon and control difficulty for a change. As a developer https://babu88bd.net/app/ I do not know how appropriate it is to change the concept, because that's the point of the game to be easy.