Dilate the time! by milq
Is time absolute? Help Delta to see his loved one. Run and dilate the time!


By Manuel Ignacio López Quintero for Ludum Dare 50 (Compo).
Changelog: * 1.1: - Clean code. - Remove unused assets. - Show version of the game at title. * 1.0.2: - Fix jump of Delta. * 1.0.1: - Fix Lerp movement. - Fix sound effects (power-ups now they sound).
Developer speedrun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX0_4kE-st0
Developer's friend speedrun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg9nxRtMjk0
Ratings
| Overall | 181th | 3.667⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 184th | 3.615⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 166th | 3.644⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 224th | 3.783⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 510th | 2.9⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 181th | 3.5⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 316th | 2.736⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 248th | 3.364⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 77🗳️ | 93🗨️ |
The controls got a bit annoying; I had a lot more trouble doing precision platforming than it felt like I should have. Still a good time, though, and a well-done entry.
@bingtheping, @mook, @tiny-pig, thanks for your words!
It really makes you think how this idea could be expanded in a bigger scope project.
Would like to see jumping also affect the time dilation!
I didn't manage to get to my loved one in time, but I got to hang out with her corpse for 10 seconds before I died, too, so that's pretty cool I guess. Good game, overall.
Good job!
good entry :)

@papaya, thanks for your feedback! Yes, the truth is that I added the fixes to the controls, were you able to save your loved one?
@luis-priego-cuenca, thank you very much, Luis! Let's see if we meet and have a few beers together and tell each other!
@farzher, thank you so much for playing the game! With a couple of attempts you will surely save your loved one, above you have a video of how I do it.
@proxy-games, thank you very much for your feedback! It has been detailed, direct, sincere and with respect. I appreciate it a lot. I hope you can play again and save your loved one, above you have a video of how I do it. Thank you very much again!


I'm getting there, just wait for me. This isn't even my final score

i got really close and it hurt not making it and i rage quit after. really fun platformer that is really difficult, though a lot of the difficulty is just controlling the character. though i think the aesthetic sells this as part of the design so doesnt feel unfair or limiting to me when playing
* The bottom time is your time, which expands more when you move faster. If you manage to finish the game you have the first ending of the game, the easiest.
* The time on the top left is the observer at rest, in this case your loved one. If you manage to finish the game before this time you have the second ending of the game, more complicated.
* If you get the previous one and the ten coins, you will have managed to overcome the highest difficulty of the game.
Hope I was able to clear that up for you, thanks so much for playing, seriously!
@mateusboga, It's been an honor for you to play my game, and thank you very much for the VOD, really!
Do the coins result in a different ending screen or is it just for show? Feels like maybe there's an opportunity there with them being pieces to some key for saving your loved one or whatever, which would incentivize another go at trying a 100% run. (??)
I try to clarify it:
* The bottom time is your time, which expands more when you move faster. If you manage to finish the game you have the first ending of the game, the easiest.
* The time on the top left is the observer at rest, in this case your loved one. If you manage to finish the game before this time you have the second ending of the game, more complicated.
* If you get the previous one and the ten coins, you will have managed to overcome the highest difficulty of the game. The ending is the same as before. It is a collectible.
Hope I was able to clear that up for you, thanks so much for playing, seriously!
And yes, I like fast accelerations like in Megaman but it is true that when the character goes very fast you have to accelerate more slowly. I have used LERP and maybe I should have made it exponential. I'll have to change and test it more! Thanks again!
Yeah there are many ways to do platformer movement; typically in my games there simply isn't any inertia so movement stops immediately upon releasing the direction. I feel like this was maybe an issue in some of the later levels here where small movements were encouraged by the level design but were difficult to execute effectively because the velocity carries over between frames.
Then again, if that's intended as part of the level design, maybe that's okay too. (i.e. "use walls and other parts of the level to adjust your position instead of relying on short taps")
You should make a sequel if you want ;)
My main problem with this game, however, is that the platforming is just far too unforgiving. You move too quickly for any kind of precision platforming to be possible, yet the game is *full* of precision platforming. Level 7 in particular destroys my run every single time, because the platforms are tiny and most of them are *just* within the limit of what you can reach, so you either don't quite make it on, or you overshoot and fall off the other side. The furthest I could reach is Level 9, and while I could probably make it further if I gave up on collecting the coins, I doubt I can ever make it to the end, and I'm sorry to say that I'm probably not going to try again anyway, because the platforming is just that frustrating for me.
I'm sorry, I know this is a very negative review. This is a really clever concept for a platformer, and I really wanted to enjoy it, but I just... can't. The movement physics just completely ruin the experience for me.
I try to clarify it:
* The bottom time is your time, which expands more when you move faster. If you manage to finish the game you have the first ending of the game, the easiest.
* The time on the top left is the observer at rest, in this case your loved one. If you manage to finish the game before this time you have the second ending of the game, more complicated.
* If you get the previous one and the ten coins, you will have managed to overcome the highest difficulty of the game. The ending is the same as before. It is a collectible.
For this game I don't like to use text to explain the story and I couldn't do it.
I encourage you to try it a few more times because in the end people love the experience of finishing it. I would have liked that you enjoyed it.
Other than my concerns with the movement, I liked the level design--it was challenging but never obtuse--and I think you implemented your concept really well. The difference in whether you get to spend time with your girlfriend for an observer and for the player was a nice touch! :smile:
Graphics could have been better, but honestly, you played into it well with the "cutscenes" so I'm inclined to say it doesn't matter. :stuck_out_tongue: Plus, having the character be a square in a level made of squares was probably the best thing you could have done to ameliorate the issue I already mentioned with the controls, so fair enough!
The music was suitably reminiscent of messing around with waveforms on an oscilloscope in the lab and fit well. I know the pitch shifts when you move because of the time dilation, but is that just a simple shift that you've hardcoded in, or is it a dynamic shift based on the current level of time dilation? If it's the latter, then that's a really nice touch! :grin:
Good job overall, I had fun! :smiley:
Regarding the controls, I added Jump Buffering and Coyote Time. However, I think I should improve the side scrolling. The acceleration is with the LERP function and I think it should have been more exponential so that the character handles better at the beginning of the movement. That is something I will experience later when the voting is over.
And yes! The time dilation formula is applied in the game! I use a constant as a factor for gameplay reasons but I try to follow the formula as closely as possible for time dilation.
The truth is that I'm sad that people did not see all my effort in applying that physics. Perhaps it has not been clearly explained in the game. But yes, your time is dilated with respect to the observer (your loved one). So the faster you go, the slower your time relative to the observer. But since the observer is at rest, the time is what we see normal at the top left. The space also contracts in the game and the sound also expands.
Thanks for looking into those details. I appreciate it a lot!
For the more general audience, you've just got to make sure that the game feels as engaging to play as you can make it, even if they don't notice the underlying concept. It sounds like you're planning on looking into doing just that after the voting's done, so keep on doing what you're doing, and best of luck! :grin:
This was really enjoyable, especially for your first Ludum Dare game! (And with compo timeframe too!)
I liked how the music speed changed and the level scaled (even though it didn't change the gameplay too much)
The end rush where you get a lot of boots to really up the dilation was cool.
I found some of the smaller platforms really tricky with how sensitive the controls were.