The sign to your right tells you to use CTRL to activate platforms. That key will either make platforms disappear or move. There are other levels that are easier, and even a level editor. Please feel free to give it another try. You can also use PageUp and PageDown for zoom as well as AWXD for moving the zoomed center. If you click and drag mouse you can pan to see the entire level ( the level size is much larger than the viewable screen ).
So again, simple controls are:
Arrow keys, space and control key
156 days ago (+1)
Ok, played it one more time. That’s a fine entry for a jam, the main character is eye catching and you’ve made a lot of content taking into account the jam timeframe.
Still some levels occupy just the part of the screen which honestly makes playing the game kind of hard, and not very pleasant.
Other levels are at lest centered, so it is possible to play but… the character controller is hard to handle because of the inertia. This is a skeleton and he is in the dungeon, it’s strange that he is moving that way (probably I’ve missed some LOR) and thus it’s very, very hard to play.
The other thing are the messages regarding the damage and current health, they are out of place. Consider making the progress bar for the play health instead of those notifications fitting the banking app.
Also, it’s almost impossible to get through the enemies without getting damage on some levels, jump is not high enough and there are no platforms, so the player just have to get the damage, which also does not feel good.
So my main recommendation for you is to analyze in detail how other games like you want to build are done and build your games using those as a reference. And the other recommendation is - it is usually better to make small amount of high quality content than a lot of low quality content.
I’m truly sorry if this review will upset you and hope that honest opinion will give you more to work with and grow on than just nice empty words.
156 days ago(+1)
Thank you, very good review and points well taken. I've been told that I need to play more games and conform to how they operate. You are right completely. I also did jam through this one to add a lot of lower quality content and features rather than a lot of polish. The message system was the easy wrong way of providing feedback in the game so your point there is also very well taken. In November I'll be submitting to the GitHub game jam and I will take my time and try to come up with a very polished idea. I've been jamming hard (I submitted to the past 6 jams) and explored both some 3D things (three JS), this platformer (matter JS) and some standard html, css, and javascript. Feel free to try most of my submissions and you'll hopefully find something adequate or enjoyable among them.
https://lostwords.itch.io/
156 days ago (+1)
The fact that you can take such a harsh feedback and convert in into a growth trajectory says that you are on the right track!
Wish you to build great games and all the best in general!
156 days ago(+1)
The angry pumpkins and skull can be attacked by jumping and landing on them with the arrow down key held - a pile driver attack. This should allow you to kill them without yourself taking damage. Again, thanks for your excellent review and very valid points.
156 days ago (+1)
Also, you have to work on presenting your games. Game’s icon is the first step of the player into your game and you have to make it interesting, and moreover, you have to make it clear. You current icon is too zoomed out to my taste, consider featuring the main character, something like this will probably be better.
