Escaping Precedent by DecrementedPalindrome

made by DecrementedPalindrome for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

A puzzle platformer where you have to escape the ghost of your past.

There are 3 collectible rings to find hidden in the levels, it should be possible to collect them all without dying.
Complete the main set of levels to unlock survival mode where the aim is to run as far as possible before being caught.

Most of the controls are described within the game, here are the ones I didn't have time to explain:
* Esc to return to the menu
* It doesn't matter how far away your mouse is, it's only the direction to the mouse and the distance from the player to the wall that matters
* Try to hover off the ground when sliding, there's much less friction in the air

Music from https://freesound.org/people/Doctor_Dreamchip/sounds/460358/
Line drawing and collision code adapted from https://github.com/mbrlabs/Lorien/tree/player

The audio is delayed in the web version. If you want to experience the music being in sync with the flickering lights then get one of the downloadable versions instead.

Link	http://www.decrementedpalindrome.com/games/LDJAM50/
Link	https://decrementedpalindrome.itch.io/escaping-precedent
Link	https://decrementedpalindrome.itch.io/escaping-precedent
Link	https://decrementedpalindrome.itch.io/escaping-precedent
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/escaping-precedent

Ratings

Overall	671^th	3.545⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Fun	497^th	3.568⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	266^th	3.727⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Theme	1036^th	3.341⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	638^th	3.705⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Humor	1124^th	1.895⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Mood	654^th	3.5⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Given		12🗳️	8🗨️

Feedback

Wizard_Frog

05. Apr 2022 · 00:40 UTC

Looks good. I enjoyed sliding around and I love the shadow mechanic!

eggsscrambled

05. Apr 2022 · 00:41 UTC

cool music, and neat mechanics! If I had any feedback to give, I would say give the player an animation. (also if you plan to keep working on this once you unlock survival mode, you can simply run off the screen to the left and gain infinite points)

DKMK100

05. Apr 2022 · 00:49 UTC

pretty fun, the movement was difficult at the start but once I got used to it I could do some fun stuff!

🎤 DecrementedPalindrome

05. Apr 2022 · 00:50 UTC

> give the player an animation

I wanted to do some inverse kinematics on the stick figure but there wasn't enough time in the jam sadly, perhaps in the future.

> you can simply run off the screen to the left and gain infinite points

Yeah I noticed that just before submitting, definitely something to fix when I next get a chance to work on it.
Thanks for the feedback!

Nexade

05. Apr 2022 · 00:59 UTC

Really fun and fast paced game. The only feedback from me is that I want to control the character mid air, so when I jump I have a lot more control where they land.

cottontshirtz

05. Apr 2022 · 01:21 UTC

Love the aesthetic!

How did you do the collisions working on the trail renderer?

Had some trouble with the slopes eating jump inputs, some coyote time or a wall jump could help.

🎤 DecrementedPalindrome

09. Apr 2022 · 11:43 UTC

> How did you do the collisions working on the trail renderer?

I used some code from an open source drawing tool called Lorien for the line drawing and collision.
The open source community around Godot is great :)
https://github.com/mbrlabs/Lorien/blob/player/lorien/BrushStroke/BrushStroke.gd

hgcummings

09. Apr 2022 · 16:30 UTC

The controls to this are great! It feels really fluid. Took me quite a while to get a hang of the boosting mechanic but it was really fun once I did. The core mechanics feel really solid and it seems like the game would stay engaging just with a larger/longer map. I can imagine different shapes of wall would introduce interesting emergent challenges.

Colossus_Gaming

10. Apr 2022 · 21:30 UTC

I loved the music, but I got infinite distance in survival mode by going the opposite direction. it was well made, but short. overall great job!

Sentmoraap

13. Apr 2022 · 19:07 UTC

Thank you for using physical scancodes instead of virtual keys.

Wow this is hard! Maybe that's because I suck at mouse aiming. I don't know how to get the third ring, it looks like you can do some kind of wall jump but I have not managed to pull it off.

The collisions can be improved, it looks like it's exactly the sprite so you can get stuck.

Good job for the neon graphics!

SketchyGalore

19. Apr 2022 · 20:29 UTC

When I first clicked on it, I misread it as "Escaping President", now it makes more sense XD Liked the neon look! Went well with the music!

Squerf

20. Apr 2022 · 13:41 UTC

I love the theme and the mechanic of the game but I found it really hard to control. I felt like I just didn't "get" it.

svemir

20. Apr 2022 · 16:39 UTC

Nice vibe from this game with a unique mechanic. It was hard to control at times, but the times there was flow to it, it was a really cool, fast paced experience

m.dam

20. Apr 2022 · 17:15 UTC

It's a nice concept, unfortunately I can't figure out how to get past the looping. I only got to the third checkpoint via a bug that lets you accelerate really fast right after the respawn animation. I'd make red trail dissipate after a short duration. controls are confusing, better suited for a controller. You don't really need the mouse click since its just a directional input and also holding the button all the time is also redundant.

I really appreciate the ingame tutorial. It would have been nice for the character to have a run animation.

lpettler

20. Apr 2022 · 17:53 UTC

The mechanic and concept is **very** cool even though I couldn't quite get the hang of it. I feel like I was getting better as I went along so chalk that up to a learning curve. Music is well selected and the whole project, over, works quite well! Not so certain that it fits with the theme...Great job!

zimny11

20. Apr 2022 · 17:53 UTC

Really interesting movement mechanics. Love the neon look of the game. I'm not particularly good at games like this, but I enjoyed it anyway. Good job!