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A jam submission

PogmenView game page

Skillcheck Platformer DEMO v2
Submitted by Rokas (@rokasvo) — 2 days, 21 hours before the deadline
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Comments

Submitted (1 edit)

Hey there, I played it, it was fun. Don't know if it's my kind of platformer, so I don't know if I'd buy it, but I'd be down to play more if you make more levels.

I'm a keyboard player, so that's what I tried at first, but the default rotation speed was too fast. Since control key makes it slower, I just held it down continuously. Eventually my pinky got tired, and I switched over to mouse. It felt pretty good actually, so I just used that until the end.

The mechanic were you lost your vision was weird to me. If you just want to clear the level, you'll just kill yourself to get it back, so I felt like it was a bit strange.

The vertical part was definitely the hardest, everything else was pretty reasonable in comparison. Although maybe that's just because I was still learning how the controls worked at that point.

The fact that R sends you back to the beginning, I didn't like. I didn't even notice it was possible to spawn from the last checkpoint at the beginning if you just died. Like, it shouldn't be possible to erase all your progress by accident, R should spawn you from the last checkpoint, and there should be another way to restart from the beginning, like from a menu

Anyway, it's cool! I kind of want to play a really hard level and get very tilted.

Developer

Interesting to see you use the rolling mode by default and extend it only in short bursts, a strong case for holding button to extend as an alternative to toggling. I also appreciate you being determined to use the vertical wall edge (ignoring it is easier, but slower). Thanks for playing and the feedback, useful.

Submitted

POGMEN
it's a fun game, even tho I suck at it. I might come back to it someday when I feel like suffering.

Submitted

I liked the game, even if it's not really my genre. Got to check 3, this game filters me hard.

I loved the animation in general and you have some great controls.

 I just have a few minor adjustments to suggest:

- I'm part of the group "on checkpoint let me refresh the eyes" that we suggested a few weeks ago on the tread. Because if I get to a new ck with one eye, why don't suicide? A player has no reason to keep going with half life, so there is no choice to make.

- I'm in accord that once you lose both eyes is useless to continue; since the game is super hard, going blind is almost an impossibility. Blood tracks your path, is useful but is not enough. So it's better to suicide, because again (I feel that) you have no choice. This is the my only real gripe with the game.

- I'm not sure about bullet time management like sndein suggested. But I agree that having the ability to go full bullet time is not optimal for this super hard game. Maybe you could have it in a  'ribbon' mode like iwbtg. Also an Harder mode with not BT at all.

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for playing.

I'll take this post as an opportunity to explain (not defend, there's no argument, it stays) my blind-alive state, which covers the eye recovery on checkpoint, "forced suicide" and even unlimited slow-motion:

- The game is focused on you completing the level in the shortest possible time.
- Losing eyes means you made mistakes.
- Losing eyes does not mean you lost time, which is the only valuable punishment, so instead it removes vision, which loses you time indirectly: you choosing to restart because you can't see wastes you seconds, which makes the run worse.
- As a bonus, you can reach the checkpoint even blind, which raises the stakes, making it both more tense and rewarding if you pull it off.

Same reasoning holds for infinite slow-motion: when you slow down, the game timer continues at the same speed. That means, by using slow motion, you are spending your time (measure for run quality) for improving your jump: you are choosing to get a worse time than you would if you made the jump without slow-motion. 

However, that doesn't mean the feedback is wasted or ignored, I think it highlights a crucial flaw within the game, which is that the emphasis on the level timer is nearly non-existent, since people do not value the time lost by suiciding, which is helpful and I am thankful and glad to know it needs more work. 


Submitted

> I think it highlights a crucial flaw within the game, which is that the emphasis on the level timer is nearly non-existent, since people do not value the time lost by suiciding, which is helpful and I am thankful and glad to know it needs more work. 

Bingo dud. Now I get your design, but remember that as it stands for almost all of us the struggle is not speedrun, but to make it out alive. 

(1 edit) (+1)

got to level 4 before i got 'rage bored'. i'm not sure if i got lucky or did the right thing on each section, which is strange, since you usually go 'aha, i have to do X'. i like everything you got so far, but as others have said, losing the second eyeball just forces you to self smash again, so maybe just restart automatically when the eyeball settles on the ground. i did like the whole eyeballs thing, but maybe you could incorporate damage as being a function of speed and angle of impact, so basically mashing your head when the dot product is 1 (or is it -1 ?) should kill you instantly.

i feel like you could have a lot more easy levels before the ones you got now, just so the player can get used to the movement, and maybe even some arrows on the background telling how you are supposed to go over it acting as a tutorial of sorts on the first challenges.


played the web build with Chromium and iGPU and performance was fine.

Submitted

I do not feel like a pogchamp. This definitely feels like a fun time waster. I only got to zone three.

Submitted

I love this.

The gameplay idea is really neat and the mouse controls are great.

The slow-mo feels cheesy. It's really easy to just cheese the game by going slow-mo all the time. There should be some mechanic to limit the amount of slow-mo you can use. The difference between normal speed and slow-mo is also pretty stark, maybe speed it up a bit.

I really like the health system visually but I don't much see the gameplay purpose of the lowered vision. The simple graphics look nice and pleasing. I could see this work exceptionally well as a mobile game.

(+1)

I like the eyeball drop reducing vision as a soft punishment for screwing up but there's no reason not to just kill yourself or restart once you lose both eyes since there doesn't seem to be a way to recover them. The controls are fantastic. Obviously it is very hard and the difficulty curve could do with some tweaking, but just bouncing and sliding feels great as does all the options to tune your controls. The wheel menu also feels intuitive with the rest of the game. Not sure if the environments are placeholder or not but right now they're the most bland part of the game.

Submitted

the way you added health to a pogo game feels really good and the graphics all work well

I respawned at the start even after reaching the start of zone 2 but I expected a checkpoint system, so I quit.

I think this would be more markettable if you started out far easier and introduced and tested concepts more slowly with a checkpoint system. you could tack on to the very end of the game a large marathon section to satisfy the Bennett Foddy desire

I did not like the eyeball gimmick.

Developer (2 edits)

Can you clarify what you mean by "added health"? In my mind, eyeballs are the health - is it that you're ok with eyeballs dropping but don't like the vision reduction? 

Also added the checkpoint restarting with LMB on death (menu restart still restarts the whole level).

Submitted (1 edit)

just taking visual damage as you play the game, including the eyeballs falling out as opposed to instantly dying like the game we’re all ripping off. I think the visibility following the eyeballs instead of your body is funny for a minute and then largely just annoying. Maybe if the player maintained a very small area of vision even with no eyes it would strike a good balance

The good

-The main little guy looks great. Simple and effective

-The ability to fine tune your controls on the fly creates a lot of possibility in future levels

The bad

-I am stupid and can't get past level two. I'm not faulting the game, it's just going to take me a bit to get used to it

-Losing your eyes is a great idea in theory, but at this stage of development losing your second eye is just an annoyance and a pointless obstacle. You can't continue any further so you might as well restart. If you could do a leap of faith to a checkpoint that would be a different story.

(+1)

God I can't remember the last time I played a game as instantly fun as this. I wanna go fast and die terribly. Although I spent a lot of trial/error to figure out how to achieve certain jumps.

Submitted

At zone 3 consider me filtered.

I think the main problem might be the ridiculous precision required. There's no way I can be consistent with position, speed and angle, all at the same time even if you give me bullet time and mouse controls. Even Celeste has frequent checkpoints, and controls wise it's a very tight game.

I like the idea of losing eyes as a partial setback, though it doesn't really add that much.

Submitted

I thought the eye mechanic was a bug, but it wasn't. It's hard. All I can really ask is that you put all the controls listed in the game itself.

(+1)

I gave up multiple times until I read the comments here and went "Wait, CONTROLS?" I had no idea you could do stuff outside of just orienting yourself with the mouse. That's probably gonna be a huge filter for people who simply hop into a game without reading anything. Doesn't need to be an ingame thing, just simply write out the controls under the web player.

Otherwise the difficulty was very crushing. I was never able to clear zone 2, despite getting decent at reaching it. Probably intentional since these games are meant to be very difficult? I don't play them often so I wouldn't know, but this would probably do well on Newgrounds, etc. As long as there's an incentive to keep playing, people will try hard to beat it.

The eye mechanic is very cool, but losing both eyes should be a game over, perhaps? I didn't see a point trying if I couldn't see anymore, so I'd just suicide and restart. Having only one eye is fine, though, it's nice and unique. Same with the green stains on the level, it adds a nice touch.

I think perhaps adding mode easy content to lure the player in would benefit. I never really liked starting a game and facing a brickwall 2 seconds in - if I'm forced to restart over and over before I'm hooked, I won't bother.

Otherwise it's nice. As I said, this would probably kill on Newgrounds or such.

Developer

Could you see yourself playing through a genereic platformer tier 2h campaign of this if the main levels were at friendlier difficulty?

Thanks for the feedback, added controls to the page just now. 

Maybe?

 I'm not saying you should dumb down your game's difficulty though - you can keep the same challenges as you have them - but space them out a bit with "easier" jumps to give a player some motivation. I'm sure it must be very frustrating to a player with a chronic skill deficiency to be hardlocked  only 3 seconds away from the spawning zone, because the game requires a difficult jump, followed by a difficult jump, and so on til the end.

It's especially hard when you can make a mistake due to the nature of pogo movement and propel yourself back, undoing progress due to there not being a lot of space between challenges.

Developer

Yeah, you're right, thanks for the feedback.

Submitted(+1)

Played the web version. I used the lowest sensitivity but a few times it would seem to "spaz out" and rotate really quickly for a short moment. I do like the losing eyes mechanic even though it might seem a bit useless. It works if you've died a lot in a previous area and can see the blood stains and just pressing R to restart is quick. But the controls should really be on the game page. Also I think customizable colors for the little dude would be great, maybe even something you'd unlock.

I don't really enjoy these types of games to begin with and am pretty bad at them, but maybe have at least a half-way checkpoint.

Submitted

I recorded some gameplay:

https://files.catbox.moe/pgoja8.mp4

There is no commentary, just me playing the game so I don't know how useful it is going to be for you (It was also my second time playing  after first playing for 5 minutes, and realizing I didn't start recording).

I am really bad at games like that, but I got much better at getting to zone 2.

I was not able to get to zone 4.

I think all the controls are wasd, mouse clicks, and space, right? I don't think you show controls anywhere.

If I lose eyes, then I might as well just restart. I wish I could recover eyes by either picking them up, or grow them back when I get to the next zone.

As someone really bad at games like that, I wish there were some checkpoints.

I think it is good, but way too hard for someone new. I understand you might be going for something skill based, or rage inducing, so take my feedback with a grain of salt.

Developer

You're right about the difficulty being unreasonable for starting players and they keyboard controls are only secondary as is, game is intended for mouse only. I am adamant on keeping the eye loss gimmick however, I think the ability to have a last blind (get it) faith attempt, which is reinforced by the previous deaths adds a lot to the game. 

Thanks for playing, video helps a lot. 

Submitted(+1)

Oh yeah, I played with the mouse, I probably should have mentioned that.

You say it's intended for mouse only, but I think slowing down time is only possible with spacebar. I didn't really use the slowing down time, so maybe it is not that important.

I look forward to seeing your game played by better players on streams.

Submitted

I managed to get to zone 4 couple of times, but it seems like the camera is bugged. Or maybe it's just the end of the demo?

here's the video:

https://litter.catbox.moe/luq2sk.mp4

expires in 3 days

Developer

You have to go back to the start zone (will make it more obvious), rip.

Submitted

Oh damn, that's what that arrow meant. Yeah, something like "go back to zone 1" would work well. Or maybe have some fairy companion to show you the way.

Submitted

I still have the old version without checkpoints saved on my computer, so that's what I have been playing.

Here's the first time I beaten the game:

That one time I finished with both eyes:

Here's my best time:


I also had a lot of fun rewatching your game being played on shipwreckdev's stream.

I think it would be cool if you could strategically place eyeballs in some spots. Moving eyes would be cool too.

I also had this idea for maybe a game mode where you start without eyes, and you gotta play the stage without them. Maybe have eyes somewhere for you to collect, and some doors that only open if you have both eyes, or something. I think what you have so far is fun, and there are many directions you can take your game. I look forward to playing more next DD.

Developer

Thanks for mentioning the stream, wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

>  there are many directions you can take your game
You're right, it'll be interesting to see what you think about the changes in the next demo, since most of it can be considered "cosmetic", I'm curious if that's the same intuition for someone looking from the outside in.

Pretty cool controls, feels great to play and there are quite a few interesting emerging properties and considerations to movement.

The destruction visibility gimmick is no good.  Let's face it, you can't proceed without seeing anything, so at that point you're just forcing the player to go through extra steps to get to a restart. 

The control scheme is confusing. Wheel mode should be a hold rather than a toggle, just like the time button. And time assigned to space is weird. I'd rather have it be on a right mouse click so that everything can be accessed from the mouse.

Base time is a bit too fast and slowdown is a bit too slow. If you are optimizing them for rehearsed, expert play, add a third speed in-between. And why is cursor sensitivity affected by time scale? That's just cumbersome.

I got what I think was a glitch where the pogo despawned by itself one time

I got to zone 4 or so and there was no apparent route to continue. I'm assuming that's all there is so far.

Developer (1 edit)

You have to go back to start start zone (arrows on the areas indicate it, yeah it's not intuitive).
You're also right about the controls being a mess, not sure if slowdowns should be a part of the game atm, and the despawn is a nice catch, I thought I had patched it out.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

Submitted(+1)

Very nice presentation, overall very cute with the green splashes and how the eyeball roll on the ground. I'm a bit squeamish about a character losing both eyeballs and going blind, but it might just be me. The difficulty is very hard in the grindy sense, even considering this is a rage game. Starting from the very start after dying might be overkill. Losing both eyeballs is a death sentence if you want to progress, so why continue? The very first part of the second area already requires a lot of precision.

If this is polished and with some nice sound effect, I'm sure you will have streamers giving this game a try.

Developer(+1)

> I'm a bit squeamish about a character losing both eyeballs and going blind
I am interested in this part, do you think if the game was more horror themed it would amplify the uneasiness of the mechanics and enhance the game overall? It's a direction I'm looking in taking the game right now and curious if that elevates or ruins the game.

Submitted(+1)

Right now is a bit odd. Since it happens all the time because it is a rage game, you quickly get desensitized to it, but the first time it is shocking ebfore you immediately die because smashing against a wall is so easy. I think you can dev with an horror theme in mind and it would be super interesting. I believe that by carefully feeding the player horror elements they could have more impact. Like for example you make the player smash their head against a specific surface safely to open doors, then later on a surface make you lose an eye and the mood suddenly changes.