postmortem + next up for ASHES ASHES

what is ASHES ASHES?

ASHES ASHES was my first non-tutorial Godot project, a first-person platformer based around not falling to your death. it involves starting at a top platform and jumping down "levels" of spiraling platforms, approximately 1 kilometer in depth, to a ground level, where the game will end (success). the game also ends (failure) if you fall to your death and strike a platform or the ground, or fall past the ground level. the difficulty in the game is in both precision of jumps and in-air movement and the endurance of having to weather jump after jump. you can survive a fall of maybe 20m at most so a successful descent might involve 50+ jumps. 

why did you do this?

my goal in creating this was to get over my near-hatred of jumping puzzles in games by creating a game that was, in and of itself, entirely jumping puzzle, and to make it in the form of a 3D atmospheric experience that is speed-runnable and has a high-score system (i have not built 3D games before or games that tend towards speed, etc.) as well as the goal of the pacifist jam, in which there is not a violent core mechanic present. i also wanted to build on the Godot skills i had picked up via tutorials by creating something myself from scratch, and to add a procedurally generated element.

i think i succeeded for the most part and also garnered some great feedback from players via the jam.

so what now?

i'd like to spend some time iterating on this and implementing some ideas i've had as well as ones folks have suggested in the jam reviews they left.

in no particular order:

• improved graphics, mainly by having more contrast between the platforms and the background skybox
• full gamepad support
• full keyboard support (i.e. ability to look and "aim" jumps without a mouse)
• variable difficulty, either through a menu allowing you to select the difficulty of your jumping course, or by completely tweak-able settings that you can then share with other players to challenge each other. maybe both?
• keeping track of high score in the browser version using JavaScript or something
• improved environment(s) -- various platform types, more interesting "ground" level, skybox, more atmospheric sounds, etc.

anyway, thanks to all who played and left a comment. feel free to follow and check out my other games!