I wanna start out by saying the the pixel art, animations, and background look amazing! The movement also feels very responsive as well. Good work!
Below are some notes on the game as I played through.
- At the start of the game, dialogue appears explaining the controls. You should probably include somewhere that you have to click your mouse to continue. I was stuck on that "Move using A or D" sign for longer than i would like to admit lol.
- I think it is cool that the game requires the the player to shift dimensions right after jumping or in midair. It forces the player to think on their feet and I feel it makes the game more exciting.
- I think you should map your jump button to the "W" key or Up arrow. This would allow someone to more easily control all the movement keys with one hand while using the other to press shift to jump dimensions. Either that or offer a menu to allow the player to set their own keys to suit their preferences.
- You cannot shift dimensions if you are standing in an area that would have spikes in the other dimension. I think you should allow the player to shift and then die in this manner. I think it would add to the challenge and increase the importance of memorizing what the other dimension looks like.
- Addendum: at one point I did switch dimensions and it instantly killed me so the mechanic is a little inconsistent. However when it killed me i didn't have time to see what actually killed me because the game teleports you back to the start on death. If you were to include death by switching dimensions you should probably have the death screen linger a bit so the character can see what killed them.)
- Addendum: I realize this mechanic is also a double edged sword. I like to switch dimensions right after I jump and I suspect the game delays the switch until I am clear of the spikes which is nice. However a couple times I tried switching while jumping from a platform that had spikes in another dimension and the game never switched over causing me to land and die in a pit of spikes. I suspect it might have been because i tried switching too early and the delay between switching and clearing the spikes was long
- At one point, I had the character 1 level next to a ledge that had spikes on it. While the spikes were on a different level if my character pushed up against the ledge they would die when I expected them to just run up against the ledge safely since they were not in direct contact with the spikes. Maybe you could reduce the size of the player's hitbox or the size of the spikes hitbox at the sides of the spikes.
- At one point i jumped above the top of the screen and switched dimensions causing me to remain up above there. I think you may have some leftover platforms in the ceiling lol.
- When the buttons are introduced, I don't think it is made clear to the player that they have to push a button before they stand on the exit pad. Maybe include some dialogue to point the players in the correct direction.
- I think its pretty cool that some of the buttons exist in one dimension but not the other. Makes me paranoid tho to think I could be accidentally walking past one lol.
- I ran into a bug where if you teleported while jumping into the side of a platform your character's feet got stuck inside the platform. I thought it was funny at first but it actually caused the game to get softlocked since I couldn't escape no matter what I tried (And that was on the last level too :((( ). Maybe you can add a pause screen or a reset button so that the player can restart the level if they want to.
- The sound effects are good but I think the game could really benefit from some music! There are many websites that offer royalty free music. I have a spreadsheet that can help you find them https://gamedevelopmentwiki.readthedocs.io/en/latest/community/assets.html
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the game!
Btw I had a question. In order to switch between dimensions did you have 2 tile maps or did you do it using some other mechanism? I am wondering what method would be the most efficient for that kind of effect. In my game I had a 2 isometric tile maps (one for walls and one for the floor) and to switch between dimensions I swapped out the tiles based on a dictionary map.
P.S: I noticed that on the game page under the "More Information" section Robinaksen is the only listed author. If you want to add additional authors to the game, Robinaksen can do the following:
- Go to the dashboard and locate the game
- Under the "more" dropdown click "contributors"
- Paste other itch.io accounts to add them as admins to the game page
- Once added click the box next to their name that says "display as contributor"
P.S.S: In the future you should think about releasing WebGL builds for your projects. I think it makes the game more accessible since it is available to others regardless of the platform. Also some like myself are a little unnerved about downloading an unsecure program onto our computers.