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A jam submission

Lasso | The Cowboy Bull (GDKO Round One & Two)View game page

Entry for GDKO Round One and Two. Unique Player with ability, then add a toy.
Submitted by EndmarkGames (@EndmarkGames) — 4 hours, 37 minutes before the deadline
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Play Lasso

Lasso | The Cowboy Bull (GDKO Round One & Two)'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality of the Character#14.4384.438
Overall Score#24.3134.313
How unique was the ability#44.2504.250

Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Super polished game, very suprised how it kept going and going, also enjoy the subtle hints in the landscape to help you progress without being in your face. Sorry I didnt get to rate it in time

Developer

No worries, I’m just glad you enjoyed playing it. 

Submitted(+1)

Feels almost like complete game.

Controls felt for me personally kinda hard on keyboard i think it would have been nice to be able to use mouse and have some aiming indicator, mouse1 for whip mouse2 for dash maybe.

Developer

Thank you so much for the feedback on keyboard controls. I don't use my keyboard for much other than typing, so I'm never quite sure how to map them to controls. This is great advice. Thanks again for playing.

Submitted(+1)

Super fun! I love the idea, and the execution.

Great job! I can't wait to see where this game goes.

Submitted(+1)

Nice conecpt. It was bit hard for me to play at first cause I played using keyboard. Sure it is more fun to play with controller but unfortunately I don't have one. Good job with mechanic, art and map too.  I love the combination of jump, rope and dash.

Developer

Thanks for playing and I’m glad you enjoyed it. 

I’m curious, if you were to map the keyboard controls from scratch, what do you think is the optimal layout? I mostly use a gamepad so I feel lost sometimes trying to figure out what feels right on keyboard and don’t want to force players into awkward feeling controls. 

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Like in this case, using lasso(J) and jump (I)  and Dash (L) keys are not optimal for player as they are not habitual to play like that, you can put lasso maybe on left mouse click, dash on right mouse click, and for jump Shift or Space would be fimilliar. As most players are used to play with WASD, Space, CTRL, Shift And Mouse for FPS games or WASD and Space for platformer. And I suggest, find some popular platformer which has more mechanic otherthan only move and jump and see what key binidng they are using.

Or you can try only Arrow keys for movement and left most part of keyboard ( [CTRL, Shift, Z, X, C] or [Q,W,E,R]) and Space key for other abilities/ mechamnics for let player play only with keyboard. which i've found common in most games.

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for the feedback. I’ll play around with that. 

Submitted(+1)

Awesome and unique entry!  Nice job

Developer

Thanks for playing and for sending the note on Discord. I watched a stream play of my game and saw the same issue, so I'm glad I was able to see where I can improve in teaching the player all the mechanics. I appreciate your feedback.

Submitted(+1)

Pretty awesome! While not my preferred control scheme The game still felt tight and the movement options were pretty great!  Looking forward to seeing how this expands!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and leaving feedback.

Did you play with a gamepad or the keyboard? I feel like I often pick a pretty bad control scheme for keyboard controls because I play most games with a gamepad. I'd love any recommendations you have.

Unless you played with a gamepad and meant you wish you could use the joystick instead of the d-pad. In which case I agree with you, but once I thought to implement it I didn't dare mess with the code that was working and just focused on some art and level design.

Thanks again for playing. If you have time to reply I'd appreciate it.

I downloaded PewPew Pete today along with the other PC only games I haven't rated yet. I'm trying to record all the Windows only games and give a brief recap in a stream since I can't play those when I stream (my main machine is a Mac and my HP laptop can't handle streaming). Should do that tomorrow some time. I'll be sure to tag you on Discord.

Submitted

Aah yep I played with keyboard for this one, I find that most users either go for WASD and the mouse buttons along with shift/space just because people are used to using fps controls.

There are a large number of games that also go with the arrow keys and ZXCV (usually towards the CV end if there's than 4 less buttons), occasionally using asdf for side things that arent used often. I personally prefer this one myself.

Thanks for downloading my one too!

Submitted(+1)

Really cool entry - the character feels great, has an insane amount of charm, and to top it all off we've got a tutorial, a fully fledged game with 4 levels, enemies... Damn, it's so good! Well done!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it and appreciate you taking the time to leave feedback.

Submitted(+1)

This was such a great experience! You had a great tutorial, you showcased all the abilities at the start and then also gave us a playground for each one. Not only that, but your world cohesion and art was super strong! (Almost as strong as a bull stuck inside the ground hehe). The cacti, amazing enemy design! The eyes following around, I mean come on! I really commend you on the choice of having no health bars. Plus, allowing quick reusage of the skills, resetting with the lasso etc.

It was a bit too hard for me with the lasso playgrounds, but you had so many things to do, I felt included as a noob climber.

Great work! Can't wait to see what else you make!

Developer(+1)

I can't tell you how much your positive feedback means after I played your stellar entry. Thanks for taking the time to play and explore the rooms and for noticing the little touches to animation.

I think I could have done a little more to teach players about how to recall the lasso and do things like get bigger jump bounces out of it, but that's for future rounds if we happen to revisit our entries. One choice I made that looking back I don't know why I did it was to have the lasso go into pursue mode if it hit a wall. I should have just had it start hovering at the wall instead! I think that would have made some of the more challenging rooms a lot more accessible. That's what jams are for—learning!

Thanks again for taking the time to play and leave feedback. I appreciate it.

Submitted(+1)

hehe, thank you for such a stellar entry!
I believe you did enough teaching the main mechanics and their existence. Combining and testing them out is usually something you leave to the players (as you did well done) so not everything is handed to them, but instead they feel the figured it out. And even if you did say: "lasso charge jump lasso jump jump lasso lasso charge" it would belong to a fighting game or a speedrun fanatic, both of which fanbases revel in researching and experimenting on systems themselves.  

Great work again! Loved it!

Developer

Excellent points.

Curious, when you said "bull stuck inside the ground" did you glitch into a wall while swinging? I only ask because I just had a friend play while I watched and didn't tell him anything, I just observed. He ended up slipping through up a swing and into the wall because I don't have a wall object above the swings because of how the rope interacts with walls and somehow he got stuck in the wall ... I saw it once when testing and thought I'd fixed it, but apparently not! Just wondering if that happened to you too.

I think I know the right fix for an update. Appreciate your time responding! And great feedback on the original post and follow up. Thanks a lot.

Submitted(+1)

I love the design and the gameplay. Please make it into a full game

Developer(+1)

On it!

Seriously though. Thank you for the kind words and feedback. It means a lot. I had a blast making this and I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it.

Submitted(+1)

This was so fun! I think the abilities are really well chosen and suit the character well. I was so proud when I chained the rush and lasso together correctly to finish the first stage.

Developer(+1)

That's awesome to hear! I'm glad you pulled off some of the more complex moves. I made two of the rooms fairly easy and then went hardcore on the other two. I know you should build a jam game in a way that everybody could play through the whole thing, but I wanted to make those challenging rooms feel more rewarding to pull off for those who manage to collect all the letters.

Thanks for playing and the feedback. I appreciate it!

Submitted(+1)

Very fun little game, I love the character and the lasso abilities!

Developer

Thank you very much for playing and leaving feedback. Funny coincidence, I just played and rated your game. I did it on stream if you wanted to watch.

Submitted(+1)

Good game but I don't know if it worked properly when I played it.

Developer

Thanks for playing, but I'm sorry to hear it gave you trouble. If you're able to share, what was the issue? I'd like to fix it, even if we don't keep this game going in future rounds. Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I think it was only a part time issue since it seems like it's working properly now.

Developer

Thanks for checking. I appreciate it!

Submitted(+1)

Awesome ability! I love the character, the unique abilities. Everything about this was great. Took awhile to learn how to use, but thats the point of a unique ability! 

Developer

Thanks so much for playing. Your jam entries always stand out to me in other jams we've both been in, so your comments means a lot. Thanks for the feedback! I played yours before the rating period (cracked me up!), but will revisit, rate and leave a comment.

Submitted(+1)

I just have one thing to say.... that part when i was swinging from bullhorn to bullhorn... i sang SPIDERBULL! SPIDERBULL! DOES WHATEVER A SPIDERBULL DO! lol amazing work! knocked it out the park the bull was the so cute! i want more! I WANT PICTURES OF SPIDERBULL

Developer(+1)

Spiderbull is a menace!!!

Thanks so much for playing. Your comment cracked me up and made my day. Now I'll sing that every time I'm Spiderbulling around.

Submitted(+1)

Great art and game-feel, awesome submission!

Developer

Thanks for giving it a play!

Submitted(+1)

getting over it, but with a bull haha

Developer(+1)

I haven't played it, but I remember watching a Snoman Gaming YouTube video about it a while back and thinking it looked like a really frustrating but fun and interesting game.

Can I guess, was it the top left room? The height challenge with all the swings? I was going to make it a little easier with some spots to breathe a little, but I was running up against the deadline and figured having two pretty easy rooms and two pretty difficult rooms was a good balance for players to choose their own adventure.

Thanks for playing and leaving a comment. I appreciate it!

Submitted(+1)

yes, indeed it was the top left haha

Submitted(+1)

Loved this entry! 😍

I got super into trying to get the coins, but sadly didn't finish 😔

All of the mechanics stacked really well and the different areas were really well designed. Also the character had such a vibe! Really really cool submission! 🤩

Developer

Thank you kindly! I'm happy to hear you had fun with it. I had a blast making it and coming up with different platforming challenges which ended up with me probably making too many rooms, but once I had the GDKO collectable idea I couldn't turn back

What room(s) gave you trouble?

I'm playing and rating tomorrow. I replied to one of your tweets, but trying your entry as one of the first.

Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback. I appreciate it.

Submitted

Awesome! Thanks for replying on Twitter!

I think across the board it was pretty hard after the intro level. It's mainly the "aerial" aspect of the levels that gave me trouble. The timing with some of the controls was very specific (like if I missed an action I feel down and had to redo 3 more previous steps to try again). 

Though as a whole this isn't  a completely bad thing I did end up playing for 10-20 minutes getting that "must complete level" flow going XD 

If anything I think it'd be more about ramping the difficulty a little more smoothly so players have time to learn/succeed a bit before they experience multiple fails (these generally happened when it involved swinging with a cactus enemy on a nearby ledge I needed to land on though you might have a way to solve for this I just couldn't figure out)

Developer

I think your feedback is spot on.

I'd ramp the difficulty if this became a bigger thing, but for this entry I figured two easy rooms and two difficult rooms, so then players could choose to challenge themselves or not.

The rope can be a little wonky on HTML. I'm still trying to figure out some of the intricacies with GMS2 HTML builds (I know floating numbers cause some movement issues), but the Windows build I'm fairly happy with and it helps if you use a gamepad. I don't play on computers much so I feel like I always pick the worst possible control layout for my games.

If it was a tiny cactus hazard, those are there to keep you off platforms for safe zones, but if it was the green enemy ones the trick is to rop them first so you can land next to them or land on them and kill them. I just updated my screenshots with a gif at the top sort of showing how it works. I would have liked to intro that in the tutorial and the fact that you can bullrush into your lasso for a boost of air, or throw your lasso down and call it back to you for an extra high jump, then once more for even more air, but geez did these two weeks fly by!

Thanks again for playing and for replying with more valuable feedback. Conversations like this are what make the community great. Thanks for being part of it.

Submitted(+1)

really cool! but a bit too hard

Developer

I agree. I wanted there to be the extra challenge there though for people who really wanted to push the mechanics.

I figured everybody would make it through the tutorial. So then I made two of the rooms relatively easy and the other two big challenges, one for getting height with the lasso and one for trying to maximize distance.

In a normal jam game I think I would have made it beatable for as many  people as possible, but since this was just about mechanics and ability I figured I could throw in those tougher rooms.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

How.... this is so well made, a bull is so unique and can cause some cool abilities to be made like the angry dash thing. Great job endmark, you've impressed me.

Developer(+1)

Dude, coming from you that is some high praise. I've enjoyed (and even been a bit jealous of) all the games of yours I've played, so this comment meant a lot to me.

The how, well, I hope I show some of that soon in a devlog. I recorded plenty of stuff, but the short answer is that I didn't do it at a sustainable rate. There's no way I could do what I did this round in future rounds. I wanted to come out swinging and I was really happy just with my dev art square, but as soon as I made him into a square bull it just spiraled out of control from there. I promised my wife future rounds will be a much better work/life/gamedev split ... I did late nights pretty much every night and a full day commitment each weekend. I tried to get creative with solutions as much as I could: like the enemy bullet particle and the character running particle are the same code essentially, just slight tweaks, same for the enemies dying and blocks breaking, and for art I reused my old robot rocket boost from Xander's last jam for the dash and went into my old pixel dailies submissions to see what I could rework for a background. Luckily I'd just finished a Slynyrd tutorial and made my own autotileset (way too complex for this character style) so I simplified the edges and limited the type of tiles. 

Even with all that though, this took a lot of of me (and I cut blocks and enemies you could pull with the lasso). I just had so much fun making the little world after I put together the tutorial I wanted more rooms and challenges to test what players could do. Future entries will be scoped way back so I can get enough rest and family time.

I'm playing and rating starting tomorrow and I've been excited to try yours out ever since you first started sharing on Twitter.

Thanks again!

Submitted(+1)

That's some good work right there,  I can see this truly took a lot to do. Thank you for informing me about your process, the particle reusage is really clever. Thanks for making this, you are truly making great strides.

Submitted(+1)

This game is one of my favourites!

Developer

Thank you so much for saying that! I way overdid it for the requirement, but this was the first jam where I didn't feel super overwhelmed and anxious. I put way too many hours in over the two weeks, but the time just flew by. This was a fun little world to build and I'm glad you liked it.

I'm starting playing and rating tomorrow. Still recovering from a late night to meet the deadline.

Submitted(+1)

Your effort really shows. Well done and wish you the best of luck