Swamp Axe by Erik Tate
Downloads and browser version also available on itch: https://soggybutter.itch.io/swamp-axe
Navigate an insect-ridden quagmire as the wielder of the formidable relic: "The Hydrofight". With this lilypad weapon, you must face off with a swamp swarm of various nasty buggers to rest upon lilypads so comfortable that you feel like you enter a completely different world. Use your stretchy tongue, a well-timed swing, and a hop or two to progress through a treacherous world where only the brave succeed. Wipe no tears - only your Swamp Axe.

ESC to quit and R for emergency restarts.
The rest of the controls are explained in-game!
SoggyButter (Erik) - Programming and level design
Lunaria - Art, animation, splash art, and level design
J0BUS - Art, animation, and level design
Shade - Music and art
| GitHub | https://github.com/epic-potato/ldjam56 |
| Itch (HTML5) | https://soggybutter.itch.io/swamp-axe |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/swamp-axe |
Ratings
| Overall | 92th | 4.1⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 19th | 4.3⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 271th | 3.625⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 330th | 3.925⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 93th | 4.425⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 479th | 3.158⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 315th | 3.8⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 5🗳️ | 14🗨️ |
Seriously great entry though, well done, favourite game I've played so far...
There is just soooo many levels, I had a blast playing it!

Fantastic audio-visuals! Quality of animations, clarity of the shapes, good contrast between middle-ground and background, everything from that side was a jam-highest quality and just pleasing to look at.
The core mechanics.. so tongue and axe, felt great to use. They are well polished and just satisfying to use.
Gameplay was a little to fast for my taste. I think some limiters for speed would be nice or at last little aim support because sometimes I just wasn't able to click on time.
From the level design perspective..
1. Good introduction to main mechanics overall however I think the difficulty increased too high too fast.
2. Some last levels felt much easier than middle ones.. not sure if that was intention or not.
3. And the last thing.. I didn't like an introduction to a new (and hard to pull off) secret mechanic at the end of the very hard level. I think if it was introduced at the beginning of the level and also at the end, that would make it much easier to learn and still would be required to make the jump at the end.
Overall very polished and well done challenging platformer!
You made together a great game and you should be proud of it.
I don't think you were present on stream when I played it, but you can see it all on Youtube now!
Beautiful game, well done :frog:
https://youtu.be/gQNnfYNIQJI
~XpMonster