As soon as the level starts, go straight down into the gap between the snakes! The rat and snakes are synced up so that by staying close to the snake in front of you, you'll avoid the rat's first pass, and can grab the bottom cherry. Then go back into the snake gap and to the left side, and you can wait for the rat to pass before heading back up to safety (grabbing the key on the way).
Hope that helps, and thank you for enjoying the game!
Thank you so much! I was able to beat that portion in just 4 tries and literally 22 seconds. The second portion was easy to complete for that level because I had already solved that part countless times. I had narrowed down the puzzle to the 3rd or 11th rat pass but that made it a lot harder. It was your tip of going to the gap from the get-go that made it sooo much easier.
I really enjoyed the game and gave it an 8.5/10 (Great) and it is one of my favorite games on itch.io. It combines the old TI-83 version of Boulder Dash with Chip's Challenge level of speed and puzzles with the movement skills from competitive multiplayer Bomberman. I wanted to see how much harder the newer puzzles would become and it didn't disappoint. I do think it is possible to complete with the 3rd or 11th pass (not both options) but I am definitely not keen on trying that out! Got all the levels done, credits, and I appreciated how your home changes from completing levels.
One thing, I would critique is that the art style is really not my deal, but I stayed for the superior gameplay. I don't think many players will appreciate the level of work involved to making the difficult levels work being that this is a niche genre. Bomberman is not really popular in NA. I had competed in competitive multiplayer Bomberman on Nexon Korea's Seoul server. Asia has a lot of love for these type of games, but getting to said market would be difficult. I definitely would buy a sequel, but given that this game has such a low market value, I will not push you on that. It's definitely fun and got my rusty movement skills going to the higher level, especially because I had thought you completed that level with 3rd rat pass haha.
Edit: Out of curiosity, I tested the 3rd rat pass and 11th rat pass with Cheat Engine slowed down 0.250x and both are possible, the third moreso. The 3rd is possible using the method I was trying to use but it requires about 2-3 frame window to accomplish and at 1x speed is quite a feat. The 11th rat pass is even harder and almost impossible without TAS tools like CE because to outrace the rat, you have to go through two snakes after getting the cherry, but not the normal gap, but rather that small pixel window, go through and go up to safety at spawn point. 3rd is more humanly possible because you don't have to go through that small pixel gap between two snakes but rather a normal gap between the first and last snake.
I might try the 3rd rat pass route just for fun, but the 11th rat pass requires such precision that it would be on the level of SMB1 speedrunners.
Thank you, and I'm glad you enjoyed the game so much! I was actually inspired by the old Lolo NES games, so if you enjoy top-down puzzle games I can recommend checking those out. Designing appropriately difficult puzzles is super hard, so I'm glad they turned out well!
I do have plans to make a sequel, so you have that to look forward to! I want it to be a lot bigger and have more detailed graphics, more super nintendo-like than gameboy-like (though character designs and such will stay the same). So in a way, this game's like a teaser for the one I want to make!
... That said, since it IS a bit niche, I'm currently working on some other games to try and get my name out there a bit more. So it's not happening yet, haha.
