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A jam submission

Neon ShiftView game page

Run as fast as you can along the rooftops of Neon City to escape... but who are you running from?
Submitted by Keywarn (@KeywarnDev), Ipidoo — 5 days, 8 hours before the deadline
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Neon Shift's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#84.0194.019
Graphics#114.2314.231
Fun#134.0004.000
Gameplay/Design#144.0774.077
Audio#143.7693.769

Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

What would you like feedback on?
As much as possible!

What did you update?
Main updates are:
- Player movement
- Sprites and animations
- Balance/making it slightly easier to catch yourself as the phantom

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Comments

Submitted

This is awesome. The music and art fit this neon drenched rooftop so well. The gameplay is simple but still challenging and fun. This is incredibly polished for a game jam game, more polished than a lot of the flash games I used to play. It doesn't do anything revolutionary gameplay wise, but it is very crisp and satisfying to play. And the addition of a leaderboard to remind me how much I suck (seriously how are y'all get 30 second times on this game?) is the cherry on top. This is a great game.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the kind feedback! Some of the times are getting pretty spicy!

Submitted(+1)

This is really well done for a jam game, great work! I got a bit addicted to playing around with the movement mechanics- even though you're not the first to make a game like this (e.g. SpeedRunners), I still had a blast experimenting with it all. Here is all of my feedback:

  • I agree with what a lot of other people have said about the collision & momentum issues, it feels unfun when you stub your toe or let go of a movement key and instantly lose all momentum. You're probably already making use of coyote time, but I think there are a lot more opportunities to 'cheat' with the inputs to make them feel player-friendly, for example by slightly delaying the character's hitbox shift from sliding->standing so they can still slide under a wall if they just let go of the button slightly too soon. I also think it might be better if the player didn't fall like a brick when letting go of the jump button, and was more floaty instead, with a separate button (s/down) that would let you fall fast/dive/slam/etc.
  • I love the physics interactions you can have with ramps where you can build a ton of speed if you hit them just right, and would love to see maps with rounded slopes/halfpipes that the character could run on or slide down almost like Sonic. The more options, the better! And keeping the options generic enough/scalable is a great idea so they can all work within your level editor once that is complete.
  • You mentioned that you were working on a fast restart that would skip the intro cutscene - this is a great idea, but it might be better if the skip would just happen automatically upon player input, as long as it hasn't been skipped at least once.
  • Speaking of player input, I wish the game would keep track of my inputs outside of their relevant game states so they could transition immediately when possible. For example, if I hold the slide button while in the air, I want my character to slide right when they touch the ground instead of requiring a second input. When I restart the level, if I was already holding the right arrow button, I want the character to start running right instantly.
  • I love the idea of the level editor, but I also think you should have a set of official levels to choose from, to teach the player the game mechanics, give 'base' options for players that can guarantee a good play experience, and to act as a guide for people when they venture into make custom levels (like Mario Maker).
  • The concept of chasing down a previous version of yourself is very cool and is what makes your game fit the role reversal theme in the first place, but in all honestly I don't think it's that well implemented currently. At present, it just means a speedrunner would have to slow down for half a second at the start of each run to guarantee that they would catch the ghost at the finish line. I don't know a perfect solution to this problem, but here's one suggestion that might work:
    You could make it possible to go 100% full speed throughout the initial run, but have map obstacles that change in a predictable way once the finish line is reached, so that your future self has some options to catch up without having to intentionally slow down. For example, doors that open up, walls that slide to one side, speed boosts that become active, level inversions, and so on (the ghost doesn't necessarily have to react to these changes). You might also consider allowing the player to chase their past selves indefinitely so long as they are within a distance radius. So if you mess up slightly in your chase of a perfect past self, you're not necessarily out of luck even if the finish line is passed, as long as you can keep up within reason.
    At first I thought it might also be a good idea to count the chase sequence time as part of the total time in the leaderboards to reward players who do well in both phases, but that would only work if it's not possible for speedrunners to get a better overall time by doing poorly in the first phase, so maybe keeping the total time as a secondary non-ranked stat would be better.
  • If you are open to expanding the scope of the game in future versions even further, I think it would be absolutely fantastic to build in a real-time multiplayer feature, as that is always a great time for these kinds of games and is very likely what would draw in a lot of new players who otherwise wouldn't be interested. There are a lot of interesting ways you could implement multiplayer, whether it would be a co-op only thing, or a lobby system with anywhere from 2 to 100 players, possibly with different gamemodes that all have their own implementation of the assassin phase shift concept. I'm imagining some crazy scenario where you could have 2 teams of players that get to take turns shifting between the assassin team and the runners team while both are playing simultaneously, there's a ton of potential for sure.
  • I would love to have the option to either race or chase down a player's ghost from the leaderboard, or my friends' ghosts.
  • A nice minor improvement to have would be an options menu with the ability to go fullscreen, and a game scale slider. I'm playing on an ultrawide monitor which this game could definitely benefit from if it would take up the extra space!
  • Generic controller support would be very appreciated as well.

Overall, this was a great experience!

Developer

Wow, thanks for the super detailed feedback. I won’t address every point here but there are some super helpful insights there and a few things we have currently planned too (a fast descend option, smoothing our controls/restart flow, official levels). 

Super happy you enjoyed the game and would love to chat some more! Maybe you’d consider joining our discord?

Submitted(+1)

Really fun little game just spend thirty minutes trying to get on the leaderboard... Which was a good idea by the way !

Movement is nice, collision are super punishing (and it makes me mad but I thinks its more of a personal thing really), graphism are cool

I think if you still want to add stuff at this point you could try to improve the juice, more special effect when you run faster, maybe shaking the camera a bit when you collide with something, etc... There's always a lot to do on this side

Anyway I had fun and that's the main thing :)

Developer(+1)

Glad to hear you enjoyed our game!


Polish and game-feel is definitely something we’d like to work on!

Submitted(+1)

Super good game! It would be a bit better if it was longer though

Submitted

What is the sense of this game?

Submitted(+1)

Super addicting, especially for someone like me. I like the style, I like the simple yet fluid movement mechanics, I like how the "kill" phase is basically the game's way of saying "do it better" and rewarding foreknowledge of the level design, I like the leaderboard, and I even managed to snag 4th place on it! I would've liked if there were more levels and if the tile graphics were a little more interesting, but otherwise...yeah, I like it a lot.

Developer

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! The focus for this build was really nailing the fundamentals and improving the overall flow/feel so super happy you like the gameplay. We're working hard on the art and adding more levels. Eventually you'll be able to share your levels with others too! Thanks for playing

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Your game is really fun! I enjoyed the balance of trying to get your best time but also not getting a time where you can't catch yourself. Creates a lot of really interesting gameplay opportunities.

The transition between the run & chase sections is also so fun to watch!

The level design is fun, but I would have enjoyed if there was one more floors/tiers to explore above the topmost one.

Developer

Thanks for playing, glad you liked the game! For sure the level isn’t super complex currently, in the future we plan on adding more levels with more variety

Submitted(+1)

I like your game, it reminds me of Vector, and I ended up playing it for like an hour xd. I think the level design is pretty good, at first I thought it was too simple, but the more I played it, the more I realized how many small things you can do to optimize your runs. The only things that I would add are: more levels (thats very obvious, I think); make it so you can hold the run to run button before the game starts, as it is right now, you have to hold it after the game starts so your character runs, and that's not ideal, I think. Also, new obstacles and mechanics, but I don't think you have to do anything  fancy, I like the simplicity, but that's just me.

Developer(+2)

Thanks for checking our game, spending an hour playing our (currently) small demo is a huge compliment! We have plans to expand the game by adding new obstacle types/mechanics and allow users to create/share levels which should hopefully add a lot of interesting content!

Submitted(+1)

sounds awesome, keep it up

Submitted(+1)

pretty game. fall down should have more works.

Submitted(+1)

Nice game! Liked the sprite for the main character and all of the sprites animations! VFX and PostFX after the twist also adds to the overall experience!

I found player movement to be a little bit rough, especially the gravity modifier after the jump and inertia. It creates some cool power fantasy if you time your jumps and slides correctly, but once you hit the wall — the whole speed is dying and recovery doesn't feel great. 

The idea for the game is really cool! I wasn't that great in my first attempt and I could meet the requirements for the end pretty easily, but it feels like the game could benefit from more mechanics, levels and even characters. Good job!

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! We’d love to keep working on Neon Shift to add more levels/mechanics/features!

Submitted

Love the game! It was very fun to play and I enjoyed the leaderboard system for a little competition :) I would love for there to be more maps (or even randomly generated maps!) but I love the art, music, and really cool take on role reversal!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! Glad you liked it, eventually we’re aiming towards having a map editor and a way for players to share their levels

Submitted(+1)

Ooh that would be sweet!

Submitted(+1)

I love the player movement, it is really responsive and I started to get speed at my second game although i don't usually play platformers so you did a very good job at making it intuitive.
If you could improve your game on one thing it is by changing the dotted texture. It is not shocking but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the art style in my opinion.
Anyway really cool gameđź‘Ť

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! Glad you like the game, we’ve got a few more updates coming this weekend so be sure to check them out later :)