Thanks! I’m glad it feels that way, I love challenging games but I really wanted to make the difficult parts as optional / accessible as possible. I’ll absolutely try to keep making games just like it :D
Thanks so much, I really appreciate hearing stuff like this!
I’m glad you feel that way, it’s a fairly simple move set compared to most modern metroidvanias but I didn’t wanna bite off more than I can could chew for my first real go at it :D
That’s very fair! I am planning on adding a story mode that doesn’t send you back to your last campfire on death, but it’ll be a while before the update is ready
By lost the ability, do you mean you could blow up rocks and brick walls but not can’t? I don’t think that’s supposed to happen if you’ve upgraded the boom boots to be kaboom boots they should do that permanently from then on.
Sorry for the issue, I hope I can help resolve it!
I’m glad you’re enjoying it! Yes, I can’t promise anything specific cause it’s based on how much I can fit into memory. atm I’m thinking of a few more jumping puzzles, a few small side character mini quests along with achievements and leaderboards. It depends what I can get done but I want to add a lot of the stuff I had to cut before release back in!
Sorry about this! I’ve heard of this bug happening 2 or 3 times now, I can’t work out exactly what’s causing it. Reloading triggers a fix I put in but I could probably also move that fix to also apply when trying to use the lift if you have the Ivory Blessing, there should be no way to get the blessing without also getting the stamp and yet it seems to sometimes happen.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the game and I can only apologise for that mishap, I’m hoping I can get a proper fix uploaded as part of the update later on this year!
Yeee, I can understand how easy it is to miss that one! I’m glad you got to 100% and that you enjoyed it, hopefully I can get the big update finished before you replay!
Ahh thanks so much, That’s such a kind thing to say! There is an object in the collectors room that will give you a hint to heart piece locations, I could be wrong but I might be able to guess the one you don’t have, if I’m right it’s near the start of the undergrowth, in the room below the entrance.
It’s hard to know really, mem leaks cause an “out of memory” crash and the game used to have a few that I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to fix. But with it being an e0 there’s no info about the cause, it’s at least rare enough that they haven’t made an error log for it.
I really wish I could do more to help, it might have something to do with repeated deaths, I can have a go at testing the death / respawn code a bunch!
Im sorry this is happening tho, it’s hard to understand what causes those cause they’re marked down as “truly unexpected” according to the docs.
If it happens on other games I’d contact panic, if not lemme know what happens before you get the crash, was it the same both times or were there at least similarities you can think of?
Thank you!! I love Meat Boy and Celeste, so the comparison is super appreciated.
For SceneManagement, SquidGod actually has a really good 15min tutorial for it here. I wanted a lot of control so I ended up building out a slightly different architecture for it, so I don’t really extend from sprites for anything that would be a manager and that includes scenes. Basically the first thing made is a GameManager, then that creates an instance of things like a SFX and VFX manager.
The last manager it makes is a scene manager and that just handles loading scenes, it does this by storing an active scene when it loads one, and calling a cleanup function in the active scene when unloading it.
A scene is just a script that has it’s own init and update loop, the scene manager has an update loop that just calls the active scenes update function.
I only have 3 scenes (Menu, Intro and Game) so it was probably a bit overkill but it’s not that much code, I reckon the SquidGod scene manager should be more than enough to start with!
I hope that helps, hopefully I can find time to make the rest of the dev log series and go over it in more detail.
Totally understandable request! I went back and forth about adding an assist mode, only due to the amount of time I had to work on it before release. The game has done well enough to put a bit more time into dev though so I’m almost defo gonna add some alternate game modes (some assist features and an extra hard one life mode) in the future, no eta yet tho. Thanks so much for playing the game!
Ahh thanks for the update, it’s not annoying at all, it’s the complete opposite! It’s super helpful to know these crashes are in there.
Is there any chance you have error logs? Are you playing it through playdate mirror to stream? Cause it doesn’t show any error screen when it crashes, usually it has “press a for more info” and that tells you what happened to cause it to crash.
Ahhh this is super helpful thank you!! I am still working on bugfixes when I have time, as soon as I get back home on Sunday I’ll have a look at fixing this crash!
I appreciate you spending your time speedruning it as well! I’m glad you’re enjoying it :D
Ahh thanks so much, it was really nice to see you enjoy it!! It’s absolutely okay to post the link here, I would have happily given you a promo code if I knew you were doing it!
I appreciate the interest! Yeah defo, I don’t know when cause work is busy for next month or 2, but it’ll likely launch on pc at some point next year, could be earlier but the latest would likely be mid summer.
Sorry about that, I’m gonna try and put out a fix for people that have had this soon, just had a lot on at work.
I’m gonna add an interactable that will re trigger the final cutscene, and try to fix future crashes, I’m pretty sure they’re “out of memory” errors, so I’ll need to garbage collect manually or something.
Thanks!! That’s fair, I tend to think of the screens as levels and the 4 groups of levels as areas, but you’re right that it’s probably not how players see them, I’ll think about changing it soon :)
That’s such a kind thing to say!! Thank you, I’m really glad you enjoyed the game :D it’s the kinda game I always wanted to play on it as well, I’m really looking forward to games like Comet and Owlets Embrace as well, in a year or 2 the playdates gonna have so many games that aim for a console-like experience! It’s tricky but the playdate is capable of so much!
I have thought about it, I think I’ll start with a pc launch just cause I want to work on a game without worrying about performance and memory limits for a bit haha
But I have done a mock up of how it could work on playdate so I might plan a small version of it for pd if I have time! It might be better with it’s own cute little story since I’d have to change a decent amount mechanically
Ahh thank you, it’s a little convoluted so I can understand the confusion, basically you just double jump near any breakable rock, the boom from your boots will smash the rock! :D
It was an attempt at a new kind of metroidvania ability, I’m unsure of it’s success design wise but it does feel a little cool
I’d love to make a little demo for it, but I don’t think I’ll be able to anytime soon, I’m back at work and mostly focusing my spare time on bug fixes / extra content for a later update at some point.
I also love demos and knowing me I’ll at least want to make it a fun little thing with an objective to complete :D
Thanks Orkn!! That means a lot coming from you, still lots to optimise but I wouldn’t have gotten a bunch of the bugs fixed as fast without your help, I appreciate it a lot!
Ahhh that’s awesome, thanks so much for playing the game!!
I’ll know in a month or 2 if I can justify the update that adds more to world, I hope so, it’s looking like it will so far! any update will add to the base 100% though so you’re completion will remain :D
Thanks, I love maps and pins but it becomes a grind if it’s all in there, stuff like this breaks up the gameplay and makes the world more real to me! I’m really glad it worked for you.
Ahh wow, thank you so much!! This is such a nice thing to read, I will absolutely try to address a few of these issues in updates!
Performance of the game, especially in the second trial, along with how hard it is to find the last heart piece should hopefully be taken care of in the next update and that should be up this weekend!
For the riddle, Apathy is supposed to relate to it causing no concern but overall, riddle design is somewhat new to me, I might take another stab at rewording it.
Completely agree on the ending, I would like to add a very tiny cutscene to at least give it a bit of a climax. It was a victim of having to wrap up the game for release. Defo something I’d like to rework if I can justify a big update.
The player character being so understated is something I can understand not liking, it’s a design choice that has pros and cons, they’re kind of a proto-link (zelda) and as silent a protagonist as possible.
This is my first game in this series and I imagine that I’ll follow a similar trajectory, developing flourishes on the design with each new story.
I appreciate all this feedback so so much, I’m still stunned people are finishing the game, let alone caring enough to tell what they would want to like it more! Thank you!!
Thank you!! I defo understand that and I appreciate the feedback, I playtested them on a few people and tried to refine them as best as possible, there is one I might update to be a little clearer but I was aiming for them to be side objectives so none are needed to complete the game.
