The updated visuals are really nice looking. It reminds me of Cave Story. The gameplay however still suffers from the same gripes I've always had where it often feels like inputs are dropped and the frame rate is too low and clunky.
You mentioning that collecting the lights does nothing made me remember that I forgot to have the player go back to the level select when beating a level. The game keeps track of them there.
On combining jumping and hooking into a single button: That definitely won't happen. There's already a use for having them separate. Sometimes it's useful to throw the hook early while still holding the jump button. I also want to allow the player to just drop from the hook instead of jump which requires the second button.
I am impressed with my perseverance too. I wanted to make useful video to you, so it is not like I could quit at level 2.
Fair enough about the buttons. I am obviously not good enough at the game to even consider doing those things, which probably made solving some platforming puzzles much harder.
Art is better, I like the opening and level loading.
- I don't like the palette (super personal opinion, you can discard it)
- I'm afraid the "spelunky clone problem" we talked about in the tread is still very apparent.
- I like the secrets that are harder challenges, but you don't introduce them at all. Just put a sign post on the first one.
- Also, no signpost that tells you to hook the boxes for an health pickup. I know just because I'm an insider. Since you can walk through it, it could seem just scenery.
- You need a better icon to show that you can interact with signpost by pressing down
- I like the new levels, but they escalate in difficulty too quickly. By the fifth or sixth jump you are already asking to do an enemy hook jump on the left and while in air hook jump on the right. Unreasonable for a new player, I did it only because I know the game.
- I didn't remember the controls on keyboard were this strange. If you move with arrows, you use ZXC or crtl, alt, space for actions. Also Esc for pause, not Enter. Since you don't need an override you could just add them, but keep it in mind.
I'm not quite sure about it either yet. Looking through my screenshots from the different variations I miss how colorful some of them were.
More colorful biomes might fix that though.
I like the secrets that are harder challenges, but you don't introduce them at all. Just put a sign post on the first one.
They'll be what the setting and "story" revolve around so they'll be properly introduced eventually.
Also, no signpost that tells you to hook the boxes for an health pickup. I know just because I'm an insider. Since you can walk through it, it could seem just scenery. You need a better icon to show that you can interact with signpost by pressing down
I'll probably just make the crates solid. The signposts might get removed completely for a better form of introduction.
I like the new levels, but they escalate in difficulty too quickly. By the fifth or sixth jump you are already asking to do an enemy hook jump on the left and while in air hook jump on the right. Unreasonable for a new player, I did it only because I know the game.
Truth is, I shat out all the levels for all the demos I've made so far in like 1-2 days. I really ought to take more time for level design next time.
Truth is, I shat out all the levels for all the demos I've made so far in like 1-2 days. I really ought to take more time for level design next time.
Don't worry about that too much. I noticed only because I thought: "jesus I played this game before to completion, how the fuck can lv1 be hard for me?" XD.
Romero teach well and good, first level should be the last you complete because it's the most important. I'm indeed of this opinion, but for now just don't go overboard. If you see the streams, fishking had no problem complete the demo
Visuals: Look good, a solid pixel art aesthetic. The character and enemy design are fine, just a bit generic feeling though.
Gameplay: Took a hot minute to acclimate to the jump and claw, but towards the end it started to feel more natural to do the timing. The jump reminded me a lot of La Mulana, mostly a dedicated jump but with a little leeway to go back if you messed up. I will say the difficulty curve seems a little high, might be worth adding some more buildup to the mechanics to get the player used to the platforming. I would also recommend adding checkpoints of some kind, though I may just be babied from having per-room checkpoints in other indie precision platformers.
Sound: SFX was fine, though it felt very sad and empty without some music.
Weirdness: Turning fullscreen on then off kept the UI at the fullscreen size, I fixed it by closing then reopening. I mainly switched to controller since I thought keyboard was broken when pressing ENTER stopped working at several points. Though looking at the other comment it looks like it changed to A for some reason and I didn't realize it.
Comments
The updated visuals are really nice looking. It reminds me of Cave Story. The gameplay however still suffers from the same gripes I've always had where it often feels like inputs are dropped and the frame rate is too low and clunky.
Here's a video of me playing with commentary:
https://mega.nz/file/rAtABaxI#bbaxe8wzcRq6cszV71ZVwj45jMzBlR3dltR-hsL8l2U
I hope it's going to be useful to you.
Thanks for the video. I admire your perseverance.
You mentioning that collecting the lights does nothing made me remember that I forgot to have the player go back to the level select when beating a level. The game keeps track of them there.
On combining jumping and hooking into a single button: That definitely won't happen. There's already a use for having them separate. Sometimes it's useful to throw the hook early while still holding the jump button. I also want to allow the player to just drop from the hook instead of jump which requires the second button.
I am impressed with my perseverance too. I wanted to make useful video to you, so it is not like I could quit at level 2.
Fair enough about the buttons. I am obviously not good enough at the game to even consider doing those things, which probably made solving some platforming puzzles much harder.
Art is better, I like the opening and level loading.
- I don't like the palette (super personal opinion, you can discard it)
- I'm afraid the "spelunky clone problem" we talked about in the tread is still very apparent.
- I like the secrets that are harder challenges, but you don't introduce them at all. Just put a sign post on the first one.
- Also, no signpost that tells you to hook the boxes for an health pickup. I know just because I'm an insider. Since you can walk through it, it could seem just scenery.
- You need a better icon to show that you can interact with signpost by pressing down
- I like the new levels, but they escalate in difficulty too quickly. By the fifth or sixth jump you are already asking to do an enemy hook jump on the left and while in air hook jump on the right. Unreasonable for a new player, I did it only because I know the game.
- I didn't remember the controls on keyboard were this strange. If you move with arrows, you use ZXC or crtl, alt, space for actions. Also Esc for pause, not Enter. Since you don't need an override you could just add them, but keep it in mind.
Sorry for the harsh words; gl for next dd.
I'm not quite sure about it either yet. Looking through my screenshots from the different variations I miss how colorful some of them were.
More colorful biomes might fix that though.
They'll be what the setting and "story" revolve around so they'll be properly introduced eventually.
I'll probably just make the crates solid. The signposts might get removed completely for a better form of introduction.
Truth is, I shat out all the levels for all the demos I've made so far in like 1-2 days. I really ought to take more time for level design next time.
Don't worry about that too much. I noticed only because I thought: "jesus I played this game before to completion, how the fuck can lv1 be hard for me?" XD.
Romero teach well and good, first level should be the last you complete because it's the most important. I'm indeed of this opinion, but for now just don't go overboard. If you see the streams, fishking had no problem complete the demo
I beat the game(minus level 3) with a controller.
Visuals: Look good, a solid pixel art aesthetic. The character and enemy design are fine, just a bit generic feeling though.
Gameplay: Took a hot minute to acclimate to the jump and claw, but towards the end it started to feel more natural to do the timing. The jump reminded me a lot of La Mulana, mostly a dedicated jump but with a little leeway to go back if you messed up. I will say the difficulty curve seems a little high, might be worth adding some more buildup to the mechanics to get the player used to the platforming. I would also recommend adding checkpoints of some kind, though I may just be babied from having per-room checkpoints in other indie precision platformers.
Sound: SFX was fine, though it felt very sad and empty without some music.
Weirdness: Turning fullscreen on then off kept the UI at the fullscreen size, I fixed it by closing then reopening. I mainly switched to controller since I thought keyboard was broken when pressing ENTER stopped working at several points. Though looking at the other comment it looks like it changed to A for some reason and I didn't realize it.
- The pixel art looks really good.
- Controls took a bit to figure out though, between ENTER and A not being consistent on the menus.
- CONTROLS in OPTIONS doesn't appear to do anything.
- Personally not a fan of how tight some of the jumps/maneuvers are.
Once again there's a devlog
https://sndein.itch.io/chasmclimb/devlog/473695/demo-day-48