Catronaut by fatPenguin
Don't you just love a good cat game? And believe us, this one is impawsible to resist (especially if you like a challenge. Or cat puns.)
In this challenging but rewarding physics based platformer you are a little cat astronaut who has to deal with his spaceship being damaged by a meteor! Damn it! That's not ameowsing at all!!
Yep, reaching certain damn platforms can be hard.. :/ But man, does it feel GOOD when you finally do!!! :) 🎉
Moving vertically in space isn't as simple as on earth!
The only way to move upward is releasing oxygen from your tank - which isn't quite the same as jumping! But it also means you can "jump" an unlimited amount of time while midair - as long as your oxygen supply allows it.
It can take a while to get the hang of the controls - but as soon as you do, it's meow-ch fun, methinks :3
You can play our game with a controller or oldschool with keyboard and mouse (yumm!)
Due to the tight time budget we all know are typical for gamejams, we didn't have time to balance both out so they don't react exactly the same, which I actually came to find interesting:
Both react different in such a way that it's almost like 2 "game modes":
- Using a CONTROLLER gives you more POWERFUL JUMPS, but in return is LESS PRECISE. For example, you might have to outbalance your jumps more that would otherwise go to far (counteract by jumping back in the opposite direction etc)
- MOUSE & KEYBOARD takes a bit more effort and skill to reach platforms than controller, but offers significantly MORE PRECISION.
(Mouse&KB is definitely more difficult)
hehe. See how I just sold you this as a feature? And you just ate it all up. Puny humans. Cats RULE!!!!! >:3
Controller: Left Stick and A, X/RT
PC: WASD + mouse
Gameplay overview:
There is an ingame tutorial if you download the tutorial version, so you can just skim through the text :)
Release O2 from your tank to move vertically
You can even float, as long as your oxygen supply allows it!
Use combo moves to make the best out of your makeshift "jetpack" :)
Repair hull damage as fast as you can to stop your oxygen from draining even faster!
Luckily there's oxygen stations spread among the ship, where you can reload your supply - but also limited of course ;)
There is a highscore system, but don't add more than 40 characters or it won't work ;)
Anyway.. HAVE FUN IN SPACE and GOOD LUCK from all of us!! :3
Install instructions:
- Download the ZIP file
- Extract the ZIP file (right click -> Extract, simply double clicking on it won't do unfortunately)
- Double click the .exe file inside of the folder (the one with the funny galaxy cat icon)
- Enjoy! :)
We strongly recommend you play the post-jam tutorial version of this game. Technically I guess it counts as post jam, but there were no features or assets added (apart from a few explanatory illustrations) other than the tutorial level (using assets that already existed. (I mean, pretty much just duplicated the first level and did the tutorial) The jam version unfortunately is too confusing for most players because the controls aren't sufficiently explained!
You can afterwards download the original version for rating, and don't rate the tutorial, but how much fun you had after getting the mechanic or something like that ;D Thank you for playing! Appreciate <3
Changelog:
v2 (5.4.2022, 14:00 CEST): fixed a couple of bugs, camera didn't go all the way up, fixed colliders, balanced the whole thing according to LD Rules (no new features), was too hard before
Again, because people are skipping text ;)
We strongly recommend you play the post-jam tutorial version of this game to understand the mechanic.
Post-result-addition:
These are the total votes per category:
Ratings
| Overall | 219th | 3.922⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 281th | 3.758⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 266th | 3.727⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 652th | 3.688⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 236th | 4.212⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 63th | 4.18⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 235th | 3.81⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 278th | 3.883⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 94🗳️ | 192🗨️ |
It can be a little hard to get into, however, don't try to jump only often and short, you can also hold a little longer and your jump will be more powerfull (and while holding and draggin theres this line indicating where the jumo will go and how longer the line, the more powerful the jump)
So like, stand in front of a platform and calculate where you will jump :)
Thanks again for your comment! <3
So sometimes it's a good idea to jump more often in a short amount of time ;D
Anyway great submition and wish you luck :)
I understand it can be a bit challenging at first (matter of fact, when I first tried what the code gentlemen have presented to me I was complaining about the very same thing you guys did! haha)
As you all know, that is one downside of a gamejam, no one has time of a proper tutorial :D
I now added GIFs and text that hopefully explain it a bit better and maybe some of you want to give it another try :)
@Janku Yay, you figured it out without tutorial ^o^ we now added a second version where we fixed a bunch of LD conform stuff, also balancing, if you wanna give it a try :))
@EDUDD22 thank you for your interest! I'm trying to do that right now but just realized I havent downloaded the Linux Buuild support while installing Unity, now I have to figure out how to do this ^o^ I'll keep you updated! :)
And thank you guys again! <3
At first i was having a little bit of trouble but i shortly realized that i could just go past through all of the level design and just fly everywhere i need by smashing my mouse without having to get the oxygen back as spam jumping consumes only a little
I can't really say if the game was too easy or too hard; at first it was hard but once i figured how the mechanics work i just went through every level in a matter of seconds without sweating that much
@zsharpfire thanks for playing! :)
Yep, that can be abused, I already noticed that as well.. 😅 I wanted to add a penalty if you push more than a certain amount of time, but I realized it only today and that’s against jam rules ;)
But according to however long this is gonna take to implement, I might be able to annoy our programmer for a post jam version 😁
May I ask if you still found it difficult like how it’s described in the GIFS? So like if you couldn’t just float around ;) and had to jump and only a bunch of little jumps? :)
We actually made it easier because it was too hard! Also up there are harder sections in the upper parts (of not abusing the floating haha :b) so I think a penslty for abusing would be great.
(And technically you have to worry because the supplies will eventually run out haha :))
Thank you again for your feedback! :)
So you wanted to know how to teach the mechanics of your game. I went in without reading the game's page and yes, it was confusing. So the 3 important things are :
- you must repair the broken ship
- you must fill your depleating O2
- the jump mechanic
You are good at animation and SFX, you should rely on it more : start the game with a red alert, debris, and explosion noise. Players will understand the ship's state. Keep the consoles with the "press f to repair", it's good, don't throw everything at the player at once, exspecially when they don't need the info yet, DO NOT make your O2 already dropping when they read the tuto ! Bad idea.
For the O2, just add a O2 logo at the gauge and the same logo on the O2 tank, players will understand the rest by themselves.
The jump mechanic is the tricky part. You might have to actually explain it. I recommend making 2 introductionnary jumps : one that can be completed with one mouse click and one that needs more mouse clicks.
Just like that, you explain all the mechanics with a minimum of text and a max of clarity ! Check out my game, I introduce all the complicated mechanics without a single explainatory text.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do that, really appreciate it!
Thank you for your advice! I agree with all of it, however, some of it is hard to implement in 3 days time :)
We actually wanted like a camera movement from up there and show a meteor or something... yeah.. haha.. plans and gamejams :)
that's a real catch 22 with gamejams: I'd rather spend time on the actual game and mechanics than too much on a tutorial, y'know? (although they ARE important, no doubt!)
I agree on the level design tipp, it starts of waaaay too hard ^^ your summary was spot on though, thank you for taking the time! I will check out your game, it sounds lovely! Love me some Limbo :))
The aesthetic of the game was really nice. I loved the little editions of the cat pictures and drawing as well too, it helped create little moments of joy. The oxygen/flying mechanic is fun but hard to understand how to use the mechanic efficiently. I think that having a tool tip or a tutorial level to help show the player how to best utilize the mechanic would be extremely helpful.
Great game and keep up the good work :D
May I ask if you found the ingame tutorial I added sufficient enough to explain the mechanics to you or did you still struggle (in a way that made gameplay frustrating)?
Jep, it is like 2 totally different games! :D but aiming is easier on PC! Although I watched 2 streamers play it and the last one was always dragging which made the majority of his attempted jumps fail, guess with gameplay it comes more naturally what to do ;D
Thanks again! Appreciate it! <3
I actually played some more since my original comment only with a gamepad plugged in, and found it way easier to control (and the jump/thrust mechanic way more intuitive) with the gamepad instead of M+K.
Interesting! yeah it's like 2 completely different games. I now tweaked the tutorial level again and tried to sell it as a "feature", lol. (But I actually think it's interesting how the controls get different)
Anyway, thanks for playing again :)
@leyamez thank you, dear! :) Hope the controls weren't too tiresome ;D music was done by one of our teammates :) (Chriz) Glad you liked it!
@alexsolonnikovp4 Thank you so much, pal!! Do you mean the tutorial level or the main level? I added the tutorial afterwards because the mechanics were simply too confusing otherwise. I'm glad if it helped!! :)
Thanks for playing!
I've passed the tutorial, and thought that just can click in midair multiple times to get higher, but moving range was so small, and then I reilized that I can do an aiming and stretch red line in the midair too :smile_cat: Sometimes I got stuck in the corner of plaform that I jumped to, and gouldn't get higher, but then I get used to controls and it's ok.
I loved a lot how you change words in style of cat's speech, like "ameowsome" or "purrfect" haha it's hilarious.
And acapella soundtrack is so cool, you guys done a really great job, nice and solid entry! :sunglasses:
Good luck and have a great LDjam experience! :kissing_cat:
Anyway, one of the best entry I played so far, nice job!
Great animation and character design, I love chonky characters and of course chonky cat is the best kind of chonky. Also loved the level design, what a craigslist find!
Music was stellar! (get it?!?) I loved the little mews as notes every now and then. A playful space-epic, hard thing to pull off I imagine! I liked the vocals, whatever the lyrics were saying (in my head it's "We haaaaz no aaiiiirrr, meowmeowmeowmeow")
I was getting quite into the gameplay, timing the clicks is very important, there's sneaky little gaps here and there to make your trips quicker, also having to consider the orientation of your character, there's a surprising amount of complexity that once you understand you can improve your movement.
I had the thought at some point "I wonder if I can repair through walls by sneakily being still in the target radius" and felt like a genius when it worked. Then I realised that the game was glitched so I could actually repair any terminal no matter how far away from it I was :sweat_smile: I stopped playing after that. Got the highscore but it feels kinda cheap since I was repairing through walls, so feel free to remove me if you can.
FYI I played the tutorial version. Great jobs guyyssss! Basically 5 stars all round from meee
@niklas-zhaga Thank you! Although I have to point out I added the tutorial level afterwards, and also activated depth blur for the main level so the interactable platforms are more visible (I already had that in my postprocessing, but forgot to activate it again for the jam build, which literally only takes a second :D
So not really any new features but I just wanna be fair and honest - if you're interested about the genuine state of our game after 72 hours, check out the first build :))
Jep, that works as well :D (longer midair jump) (Pssst..: as well as running on the ground to build up acceleration - we wanted our players to experiment a bit and figure out the physics based fun :D
I'm so glad you loved the cat puns, those were my job :') Thank you again buddy! Wish you good luck too :) <3
\*cat-fistbump\*
@LPD Hi there! Great to hear the tutorial could help you understand the mechanic :) (It least that's what I gathered from your comment 8-))
Do you mean when you click it should load up faster? =) we're you playing with MKB or gamepad?
I'm glad you liked it so much! My teammate @chriz did them, the acapella bits etc. were all samples he either bought or that were free to use in non commercial projects afaik, not sure if he will see this so I'll ask him in discord if he has a soundcloud account (or if I can set up a Catronaut Soundcloud account or something :D)
Thanks again! <3
A phenomeow game. Really digging the music, it seems like it has some alt-J inspiration.
Ran into one small bug, I fell through the left-most moving platform a couple of times; as it moved up my cat phased through it. I can send a video over if that helps!
PS. My cat (Binx) approves.
The platforming is very hard. That first jump took far to long to manage.
The jump line being constrained to a box rather than being a circle was odd.
Your linux link says it's deleted.
The music especially was wonderful for setting the mood. Good level of difficulty for a platforming game in a jam, it wasn't a cakewalk, but was manageable once we got used to the trajectories and jump strength.
I was going to leave some constructive criticism to practice UI, but there are already some really good UI elements in there. Really, it was only the oxygen and repair meters that needed work. The instructional text and menu UI looked great! I would guess time was running out and the meters had to just get into the game FAST, which happens to all of us, no big deal. Thanks for making this and congrats on the job well done!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a622xwz3u7qo1vz/CatronautLinux.rar?dl=0
Yeppp... chonky is the preferred shape of cat! :D (not the healthiest one according to our vet.. but pfff.. what does SHE know... bet she's never even been to space! pfff.. indeed.)
YEAH totaly get it, that was very ameowsing :D :D and you're actually correct! That IS the correct translation! D:
Are you clairvoyent or did you simply study meowish at college?
In any way, thanks for playing our game!! And thanks for reporting that bug D: We have now fixed that issue :3 We also adjusted the balancing again, because ain't nobody got time to play a game for 30 minutes xD more meaningful if death is imminent :D So maybe you want to add a new highscore, hehe :)
Thank you! :) Yeah, that's important, because the original jam version starts with the main level and throws a bunch of text at you and it's very confusing all around :/ but other than that, the main level is basically the same :)) Just pointing out, with the tutorial it took longer than 72 hours, so please don't rate the tutorial ;D
Thank you dude! I'll have you know I did the same to your game because I was LMAO (laughin meow ass off), one of my top 3 favourite entries this jam :))
Cheers!!
@jcg thank you for playing, we're very glad if you enjoyed it <3
We know about that bug, turns out making physics work 100% in your game is a pain in the asssss and we weren't able to fix that unfirtunately! Erm, what I meant to say is: THAT'S A BUG, NOT A FEATURE! Yummm!! (get it? because cats eat bugs? well, at least mine do! And a portein rich diet is important while in space :3)
... I digress. Thank you for playing and please tell Binx we said hi!
@someone we’re glad you liked it :) Yeah, it's meant to be built around that mechanic and experimenting with it, which admittedly needs some time getting used to. Did you try playing with a controller? Most people say it's easier and more intuitive :) In any case, not every game is everyone's cup of tea, but we're glad you gave ours a try! Thank you <3
@mhorth you have no idea how good it feels to hear that! thanks! I was starting to worry most people don't enjoy the controls as we do, and a lot of time was spent on that so... I'm really glad you enjoyed it!! :)
you're absolutely right about the UI of these two things! I think what makes it especially bad is the default unity shape of the rounded rectangle used for the bar inside (the frame is fine I think) although in a perfect world it wouldn't be a bar but a circle filling up, me(ow)thinks :) (like in pikmin!)
But you're definitely right, UI and design is important <3
Meow-ch thanks to you for playingggg <3
Hello @steffo ! Oh no, that shouldn't have happened, sorry! -____-°
I think I was fixing something and deleted the old link and either forgot to update or the update wasn't registered (does the LD page behave weird on others too?)
Anyway, thanks for wanting to give our game a shot! now it should work, if you want to give it a try!
@conduit Thank you!! We're glad others are enjoying that mechanic too as the gameplay pretty much revolves around that, glad you liked it so much! I'm about to find out about the soundcloud info and get back at you as soon as our audio teammember tells me more :)
(I already annoyed 3 other streamers about it, so that tremendously helped with providing a tutorial! (That was also the reason I decided to add the tutorial level at all, because otherwise people we're sadly having real trouble with the mechanic :( )
So you really helped meow out there!! :) You'll always have a place in our heart (and highscore list) ;)
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450143040?t=3h53m57s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
Also very cool music. Enjoyed it a lot. Is there a playlist somewhere?
I just think I'm getting too old for the fast mouse clicking :D Good job on the game!
I've asked my teammate, but I thinl he took offscreen time for the weekend, so no answer yet, I'll let you guys know :D
Awww, but it's only like 5 additional clicks grandpa! :D
hehe nah ich get ya, most people said it's more intutive with a gamepad (jumps are more powerful), so if you've got one you could try again using that if you want :)
Thanks for playing! <3
I gave up fairly quickly with mouse and keyboard after barely getting out of the first section. Had a much easier time (as expected) with a gamepad.
I did manage to fall all the way from the top of the second section right back to the start by going to the far left of the ship, which was quite frustrating.
Overall very fun and very cute.
Yeah, the level design is a bit extreme hehe, and we didn't have time to check every corner to not have such frustrating things like the one happening to you, I'm sorry you got frustrated, I can understand that :(
Did you play the tutorial version? Just because you said "first section", I'm wondering what exactly you meant by that :) Because I really appreciate your feedback!
Thanks again for playing <3
I've played a bit more after going through the seven stages of grief regarding my earlier accident and I really enjoy this. I like how a new platform piece is introduced with each section. The movement is great too now I've got used to it. I'll definitely be coming back to this as it's a lot of fun.
@asize7shoe ohh in that case I understand why you were frustrated! :(
That's why I especially spend the days after the deadline on the tutorial build where there's a tutorial level explaining everything so people won't be frustrated (not really any new features really, just the tutorial, and added highscore list in the menu, and depth of field blur which I forgot to activate in the first build, so the interactable platforms are better to see) maybe you didn't see that? The first build is really, really overwhelming, especially how it starts so people weren't having fun I guess 🙈
However, that being said I'm impressed you still gave it a shot and even returned to try it again, wow! and I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as we do ^_____^ But just so you know - when I first tried it (I'm the artist, so I was presented with it, haha) I was super frustrated too 😄😄
Thanks buddy!! <3
The level-design combined with an unexpected way of traversing the space... might need a bit of work. I tried the tutorial version but still even after finishing tutorial the difficulty ramps up insanely fast making the player feel frustrated rather than challenged. I fell into this trap myself making my previous jam game and learned the hard way that any new game-mechanics that players see for the first time need a very smooth learning curve and a lot of repetition to avoid the frustration.
The difficulty is probably the hardest thing to do right in a jam, so overall still a very solid job!
I was streaming my playthrough of your game. Here's the recording in case you'd like to see it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudvDztkwdg
Glad you liked it! Yep, we did! Although just because it otherwise takes too fucking long and I watched streamers killing themselfes off before.. ^^ which I totally get, who wants to play a 30 min gamejam game, lol, so yeah, I reduced the O2 quantity again :) (We had that in the first build, but there was also a bug that after repairing that not even NOT helped with the oxygen drain, it made it even worse.. lol, so the second build kind of over-balanced that ^^)
Jep, floating feels good right :D I also think this function would have needed more control, like a penality if you jump more than 10 consecutive times while being midair or something, but that we really didn't have time for and thats definitely something for post jam :D (ACTUAL post jam, I still don't consider the Tutorial Version a postjam, although I recognize it technically is ^^)
Thanks again meow friend!! :) And keep your paws away from Craigslist spaceships!! They are clawful :( No meowtter the price discount...
@caudatecoder WOW, thank you so much, I'm so sorry I missed that :(
But you did goooood! :) Thanks for giving it a try so profoundly!
I agree that the level design was a bit very crazy for starting out, our level designer is a psychopath :P
just kidding, but as you've said it's easy getting lost in a gamejam and you forget that players don't have the knowledge and skill about your game you aquired while working on it 🤔
Tutorial could have been better of course but for that it's just a gamejam game I did the best I could :) (Font sizes and colours are varied so that you see the most important information first, and can skip through the blahblah story if you don’t feel like reading and still understand what you have to do, which you did :))
Although I still stand behind our gameplay choices and the controls, I think our programmers did an a-meow-zing job with that, I like physics based difficulty (like in Snake Pass or Octodad) ... but yeah, definitely frustrating when you get thrown into level 99, no doubt about that ^^°
But you gotta admit it felt goooood once you’ve reached that platform! :P
Thanks again for playing, I really appreciate it and the feedback was very valueable <3
@ghostofsheriff Thank you thank you!! :) Yep, that floating around needs to be controlled a bit :P
In general the idea was that if players play around with the physics based controls and environment and figure out ways/mechanics/shortcuts how to be faster by exploring that they get rewarded for it :D (reach platforms faster, better highscore etc :))
But yeah, floating was a bit too meow-ch OP, but regulating that sadly really wasn't doable in the timeframe :D hehe! Consider yourself a pro for figuring it out, also you found the RED ROCKET, RED ROCKET!!! I knew spending the last hours amongst other things on texturing that was NOT useless because of people like you <3 hehe.
Thank you, thank you! :))
Você tentou jogar a versão tutorial? :) Downloadlink: "WITH TUTORIAL (recommended!)"
obrigada for trying our game :) (that's the only thing that I remember from my Holiday in Lisbon ^^)
It can be a bit frustrating sometimes, I think because of the whole character turning along with its capsule collision. Otherwise really cute and polished entry! Nice little anims on this cat dude.
I have to deal with the management for the first time, but in general - everything is fine, thank you)
There is a really good core, but the physics were quite a bit janky at some times and I even fallen through platforms sometimes (that very fast one in particular). That's Unity physics for you, am I right ?
Keep up the good work !
@lenny-rudeberg Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it! :) you are right, the difficulty level definitely goes up way too fast, classic gamejam ^^ Still glad you gave it a try :)
@diegofreeman Thanks man! :D it's a cat though, although their snouts look really similar :D
@milan8890 really? wow, we're glad, we really built the game around this mechanic! I'm happy you enjoyed it, thanks for playing :)
@olguinne Wow, thanks for this nice review 🥺 I'm really glad you had fun with our game. And I did the Art and Cat puns sooo.. thanks, hehe. :3
@fromage thank you dude, yeah that was the idea, managing your ressources and be rewarded if you use the mechanic the best was what we wanted to achieve :)
@momo-hunter Thank you thank you! :) Hope you could also enjoy the rest :D
@harksa Thank you for checking out our game!!
haha, yeaaahhh.. although we now figured out by now that the player collission continuity just should have been ticked on or something ^^ But that would seriously be post-jam so we didn't do anything in that regard yet :D
Glad you liked it! Cheers :)
The graphics are very well done here, though with the lines you can see across the cat's face it almost looks like a stuffed toy. Music is unique, being acapella, but I'm rather indifferent towards it; despite that, it's also very well done. The sound effects do their job, but I feel they're a little bit boring.
The gameplay is a pretty interesting concept, and it's executed pretty good. I've played another entry that has a similar mechanic, but that one is different enough to not be the *exact* same premise.
**And now for a personal opinion absolutely no one asked for:**
I'm not so big a fan of all the puns in the text. Now yes, I know I must be *very* fun at parties, I'm aware of that, but cat puns are one of those types of puns that have been driven so far into the ground it dug a tunnel straight through the earth and is now travelling through interstellar space as I type this. Oh hey! Wouldn't you look at that, somehow I made this rant fit with the space motif.
Eh, well at least you didn't namedrop the theme on the entry page. Still happens in the game proper, though.
**End of the personal opinion absolutely no one asked for**
Actually, speaking of the entry page, it's very well constructed! Perfectly packed paragraphs paired with plenty of pictures parallel to the package! I tend to forget how much presentation matters regarding even the entry page. Of course, with multiple people working at this, page presentation can be done while other people are working on the last parts of the game.
This entry looks like it'll get a high score from it's looks alone, so consider that a badge of honor... well, alongside all the OTHER work that was done, o-of course! Hopefully you had a great day.
I agree with most of your critique (apart from the puns, but I‘ll get to that :b) but yeah, that was pretty much time induced, but we did the best we could :)
I actually commend you for seeing the lines haha, I realized that pretty soon after submitting and was bummed out, however I really didn’t want to improve that because I urge people to play the tutorial version to get the mechanic and to at least preserve a little bit of fairness for the voting, no features or graphical improvements were added, apart from the tutorial level, jam conforming bug fixes and depth of field blur to not be confused during gameplay (which I already had in the original Game but then forgot to activate with literally one click before building 🤦🏼♀️ Gaaah.) so I didn’t wanna push it you know, as I‘m sure people won’t be downloading both versions for rating 0:-)
That is btw caused by bad anti aliasing at the UV seams which for some reason is only noticeable far away or up close!? Gaaaah again. Never trust substance painter, apparently :b
Jup, more time could have been spend on sounds, those 4 we had were added (implemented) pretty much last minute, so definitely there could be more/better player feedback!
Thanks for liking our gameplay :)
About the cat puns (or puns in general for that matter): yeah, not everyone’s cup of tea, I get that, and that’s totally fine. I personally love all puns in a “it’s so silly, it’s funny (and cute)” sort of fashion. Idk. :D (also pretty much banking on the internet’s love for cats, not gonna lie! ^^)
Actually I did the game page after the build was done one hour before the deadline, but I kept improving and updating it all the time 😇 (Video, GIFs especially, changing text according to what I saw when I asked streamers to play our game etc.)
Thank you for your feedback :)
Yeah, well you know physics based movement as we implemented it took a lot of time to do and tweak, so that’s were most of the (main) programmers time went to, y’know :3 would have also liked a bit more stuff to do inside of the level, but alas, what can you do :)
The best we we were able to in 3 days :3
Midair Jump definitely could have been regulated a bit (already had a bunch of ideas, like penalties when you jump too often in a row, you need to touch the ground after 10 jumps etc.) but again, no time and that would definitely be a “real” postjam version :)
Thanks again for playing and your feedback, I appreciate it <3
Moving uses up so much fuel sometimes you're better off not moving at all because you will use less fuel even if you don't try to repair the breaches I felt like. Also I think this is an issue because of the movements: while the mechanic in itself works nicely, it's not super pleasant to use and the collisions are not always working very well, I often got stuck for no reason and had to use 10 more jumps to get out of situations, the hitbox of the cat is too weird and has too much friction.
Also the vertical format made it hard to strategize the movements, having to move through the entire map to fix one breach is so weird because it will use so much fuel to get back up there
I still think this is a solid entry, super graphics, very nice music, love the puns, nice job!
I think your game illustrates really well the case where you take single (maybe two) mechanic and make it feel really good.
Overall it was really fun and relaxing to guide the cute space kitten through it's own ship to avoid disasters. I also liked how you did the audio design.
Few questions / comments:
1. Is it intended that even at full charge going straight up to the first platform it's not possible to reach it? you have to use additional boosts to get on it. Just though that maybe you are ignoring framerate delta time when adding velocity / force impact in that case; Which in turn would lead to different `"jump"` height with different framerates.
2. Jumping 30-45 degree angle with sideways movement keys pressed gives way more velocity than I would expect it.
3. Boosting mid-air is really inefficient / frustrating:
* Once I get the full charge, I am almost midway back to to ground.
* Making lots of small `puffs` doesn't really get you anywhere.
* Not possible to keep `boosting / vectoring` once you charge it, as it's usually possible to do in space-like travelling games.
Did I mention that repairing animation made me laugh really hard. It's very cute.
Yep, the level design is kind of crazy alright, I already ripped our level designer a new one for starting out this insanely difficult :b
(that's why I added the tutorial level, people were really frustrated ^^)
Regarding your questions... ummmm.. concerning the physics based technical aspects, my teammate will get back in an own comment :D
Yep, I think the issue is that the line 8and therefore thrust?) isn't constrained inside of a circle but a square I think?
you're right, could definitely be easier, especially considering the level design ^^
However! :) it IS possible to do longer jumps in midair (and always remember to move the cursor with you to not jump back again, which I've seen a bunch of people do while forcing them to playtest, haha) and the little midair jumps are most effective immediately after a long charged up jump from the ground when you still have that.. acceleration? going on
about the longer jumps midair: I personally find it best ti differ between left and right jumps (so like, upper left, upper right, upper left.. if that makes sense?) and not taking too long between those :)
Also: it is way way WAY easier with a gamepad, because the charging happens not with the A button (although you need to press it to get this mechanic started) but with moving the joystick which then makes it very easy.
So M&KB is the "Pro Version" so to say :b
What do you mean by that? :)
"Not possible to keep boosting / vectoring once you charge it, as it’s usually possible to do in space-like travelling games."
Again, thanks dude! <3
A suggestion for M&KB controls to not make it so "Pro Player". Rather than waiting for jump power to fill up, maybe initiate charging with Mouse button, but assign the power via scroll wheel? It would then mimic controller behaviour a bit better. Though a bit clunky to control initially, it would be possible to get better at it.
Yea, making direction line constrained to square, and not normalizing the value makes diagonal jumps ~1.4 times more powerful than orthogonal ones :upside_down:
Regarding this `Not possible to keep boosting / vectoring once you charge it` I meant that usually space-like games offer not (only) jumps, but also to use your booster material (oxygen in this case) to continually expel it. Without gravity expelling more propellent over time would increase your speed over time. Don't know how well it could fit in your game, because the movement is more or less `jump` based... Maybe you could do a small delay check, for example ~0.3 s. If after releasing button to jump, the player would press button again in 0.3s timeframe, instead of preparing for another jump the character would start expelling propellent move away from the mouse. The challenge would be to 1) press mouse again quickly enough, 2) quickly move the mouse into opposite direction to add to the jump rather than hinder it. It would also allow to make powerful initial jump, but `break` in case it was too powerful. Somewhat explanation image:
