Windy Mountain by InitialPosition

Discover the secrets and mysteries of the mountain trail ahead of you.
Controls
- Arrow keys: Move
- Space: Jump
- E: Interact
Unfortunately, I actually didn't get as much done as I wanted to this time. The game only has two levels, no proper intro or ending and lacks some sound effects. I still didn't want to submit this as unfinished since I think what is here is pretty feature complete and playable.
Also, I highly recommend downloading the Windows version if you can. It has color support for particles and the HTML5 version sometimes has issues with looping music properly.
Ratings
| Overall | 116th | 3.711⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 83th | 3.763⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 383th | 2.895⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 412th | 3.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 96th | 3.921⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 125th | 3.556⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 306th | 2.237⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 220th | 3.263⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 13🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
I have a small nitpick because everything else is really great: It's a little disorienting having the camera snap back to the center every time you stop moving. It'd be nice to just let the camera stay off center and then have it drift the other way when you move to the other direction.
I love the wind effects btw.
I'd love to see more on this!
But I am very bad in Jump'n'Runs, so I failed at the part where you have to jump over one orb and thon on some platforms to get to a lever at the end. After > 50 tries I got sometimes to the lever, but not back again...
However up to that point, the game made a lot of fun!
For me the screen-bouncing effect did not really matter.
Well done!
I think some of the platforming is a bit unforgiving, though. I had quite a bit of trouble jumping off of the green orb things.
It gets interesting in level 2 , but those green orbs.... hate them.
A lot of the mechanics are treading familiar ground with precision platformers, like the double-jump beads, levers, and springs. When I reached the button, I assumed I was at the end, but you still had another level! The second level introduces the title mechanic, wind, and adds a lot to the gameplay. Now you're not only trying to do the platforming, but you also have to race to get the puzzles done in time to catch the next updraft to your destination. You definitely develop a bit, and leave the player wanting more --- which is honestly probably a good thing for a jam game! Two great levels are better than ten stale ones.
The music is very pleasant and bouncy. Even on loop it doesn't grow old. I listened to it for ~20 minutes after finishing the game while drawing and still didn't get sick of it, which is a great compliment for game jam music.
The graphics are simple but get the job done. Despite the low pixel count, the player's walk cycle and jump are full of energy and character; I particularly liked the detail of the player looking up while jumping up and down while falling. I personally lean away from extremely low-resolution pixel graphics, and while you executed them quite well, I think it could look even better with a little more definition (maybe 16-pixel tiles). And it at least seems like you would have the art chops to pull it off well!
One common criticism I have for precision platformers is death animations that take too long, and you definitely avoided this trap. The frequent checkpoints and quick respawn made me want to keep trying even after messing up a tricky section.
I drew your climber character and added them to the fan art compilation on [my profile](https://ldjam.com/users/jeremy-ryan/).

Nice entry, and look forward to seeing how you do in the results!
First of all, I want to thank all of you for your feedback and praise. I've read all of it and as always it's such a good feeling to see that people enjoyed what I made.
@lancival @ghostbomb @asieke It's really interesting to see that the camera apparently was a problem this time. It was the first time I implemented a camera that allows you to look ahead further in the direction you're going and I thought I balanced the values for that pretty well, although while playing the game again a few weeks later I did notice something was off with the camera, even though I couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was. Apparently my camera coding still needs work :D I think making the camera move a bit slower horizontally could already solve this but I will experiment around to find out exactly what is feeling odd so I can avoid that in the future. Thanks for the feedback there!
@ukulelefury @aligator @alex-de-la-cour @chungostudios @deepfreeze @resacagames The jump orbs were a pain to get right and I'd agree with that they still aren't. I actually already gave them massively oversized hitboxes to compensate but playing the game again now I agree it's a bit unreliable. In retrospect I should have made them activate on their own and grant you a double jump when touched but that didn't even occur to me during development for some reason. It would be one of the first things I'd change should I ever come back to this project though. Thanks for your feedback :D
@ava-skoog The web version is unfortunately always a bit weird in unexpected ways, yeah. During development I only really test the Windows build because I can do that fast. Game Maker should theoretically run on all platforms with the code you write but there's always small things that end up being incompatible between platforms. This time it was a lot of sound based problems apparently. I will probably tidy up the code in the coming week and release a post jam update addressing the main criticisms people had and if I manage I'll fix up the other platforms as well. Thanks for bringing that to my attention :D
@jeremy-ryan Ok so first of all that drawing is incredible and when I saw it my brain ceased to function for about a minute. Never in my life did I expect to ever get someone with actual talent to make fanart of my quickly thrown together super low res pixel art so I was completely overwhelmed and happy when I saw it. Thank you so much. As for your confidence in my art skill, I use such low pixel counts because I can't draw anything of higher resolution without it looking absolutely terrible right now. I'm working on it and I'm confident that I'll improve (maybe I'll try to tackle larger sprites next jam :D) but for now this is the absolute best I can produce. If I get to a point where I'm confident with larger pixel counts one day, I'll remake the player sprite just to flex on my current self.
Congratulations, you have reached the end of this comment. Please take a 5 minute break now and hydrate yourself. Have a great day! :D