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Thank you for the kind words! I got that background effect working by complete chance. First you set up a grid-pattern for the background, then you need to set the background’s horizontal and vertical speed to something other than 0 and lastly you need to add an effect layer and set the effect type to “Distort”. Then you can play around with the “Amount” value and you’ll get this effect.

Also, let me explain how I got this idea out of the theme. Since “deeper” is just a variant of “depth”, I thought about depth as the third dimension. That reminded me of time as the fourth dimension, which then brought me to the idea of having some sort of time travel mechanic. So it has pretty much nothing to do with the theme.

Thank you for your feedback. I’m currently working on a post-jam version of this game, and one of the things I changed was to tie the speed of the player to real-time instead of the framerate, so it should be possible now. Consider checking that version out when the jam is over.

There are a few conditions for a successful jump, but the most important one is that there is simply a 2 in 3 chance for the jump to work, so it's mainly RNG-based. 

Besides that, there is something you could call a negative jump buffer. Basically, most platformers will let you jump, even if you pressed the jump button a moment before landing. I did the complete opposite, meaning that you cannot jump for the first 0.2 seconds on the ground.

The last thing might not be a condition, but it might make it seem like your jump didn't work. After pressing the jump button, there will be a delay that lasts for 0 to 8 frames. And because your vertical speed goes downwards if you release the jump button while jumping, and you might release the button in this 8 frame window, because you probably thought the jump didn't work, you will not gain any height.

Keep in mind that I put all the bad things into the gameplay itself, not the visual or audio. Also, I  ignored the theme completely because I thought of the game idea before the jam and I just couldn't fit the theme in.

I'm sorry, but I've already found an artist. If you haven't got a team yet, join the GMTK discord. There are a lot of people in need of artists.

Hey everyone. I'm a Gamemaker programmer looking for an artist. We're currently one programmer, one musician and one game designer.

So, it's been a while and I thought I would give you an update on the current state of the game. Cleaning up the code took longer than I thought, so there's not a lot of new stuff, but I will be able work way faster now. I also made my first song that's longer than a few seconds. I'm sure it will be changed later on, but for now I'm satisfied with it. I also created some assets for a new world and made 2 new possessable beings. Of course, it could be more, but life has been busy lately, so I didn't have as much time as I thought. Anyway, here's a small teaser for the new world. I also made a twitter account to get updates out more often and to popularize it a bit. Check it out if you want to:

https://twitter.com/One_Shades_Fate

Ah, okay. I think I know what you mean with the track. I had already fixed it before writing the last post, so I had to play the jam version to see it. By now I was never at the stage of polishing when making a game, except for jam games, but those are small and easy to polish. I have however seen people say that this is the part of the development that takes the longest amount of time, so before I quit the project near the end because of polishing, I just fix every issue I see right away.

Yes, this game will be commercial. It will be a full game, it takes time to make such a thing. But since it will be rather short, it's not going to cost too much. Maybe $5 at max. Really just depends on how long development takes. The problem is that I'm too young to actually have to means to receive the money, so I will have to wait for the release, even if I finish the game before that.

Well, most things that messed up the game weren't caused by the choices I made in the jam, but rather by adding things to the game that would make level creation much easier later in development, which on the other side completely destroys the jam version. The only thing I changed was the main tileset, which used to consist of just 4 tiles that I would manually adjust to fit the level, but now there are 47 tiles, and I also automated the process.

Since most of you pointed out are objectively bad things, I will try to fix them. But personally I like how the track of the soul still exists if you are possessing something. I'm not sure what I will do about that. Maybe decrease the length of the track or make it so you can turn it off.

Everything else should be easy to fix. I don't know what's causing the lag during the first boss, but why fix it if it isn't even in the game. It will be similar, but since the final boss in the full game will be different, I need to remake it.

I don't want this game to be too long because it would get boring after a while. I don't think I can make a game that surprises you for several hours. But I also don't want it to be too short. I will make it as long as I can, but I don't want it to just drag on near the end because I ran out of ideas.

The feedback I got for this game also helped a lot because I now know what's good about the game. The only problem now is that I don't know what's bad about it. If there's anything you don't like about the game, even if it's just a minor thing, please tell me.

So after answering a question you didn't even ask: What would a game designer say if I showed him the game in its current state? Well, he would say that it's a giant mess. While the things I changed were made to decrease the development time, it also completely screwed up all the levels in the jam version. However, I could redo them probably twice as fast as I could before.

I mean, I don't actually need budget because I don't have a team and I'm rather young, so there's nothing I need money for. And I am actually working on a full release for the game right now, which means that I thought about what to improve before. And there actually are three things.

First, there's the art. I want to keep the monochrome art style, but I think the sprites should have a bit more detail. I think the game doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look good either. The different areas shouldn't only be differentiated through the music and level design, but also through the optics. And I really need slopes to improve the looks of the first area of the second world.

Then there's the music. You said that you liked that the music was dynamic, and that will still be a thing in the full game, but I want the music to be longer than 16 seconds at best. For some reason I can't make even remotely long music tracks, which seems to be a problem very few people have.

And since the game is only about 5-10 minutes long, I need to make the game WAY longer. The worlds in the full game are going to be much longer, each of them probably being as long as this version, and there will be 15 of them. At least for one playthrough. At one point in the game you can decide on which path of world you want to do first, and because I don't want the difficulty curve to be a mess during that part, each of them will have 3 similar versions. So there actually will be a total of 33 worlds. 

Because that would take an immense amount of time, I made a level editor where I can test the levels in real time without having to wait a few seconds every time I start the game. The editor is almost ready, I just need to adjust some things to prevent the game from crashing when placing some objects.

So that's it: Art, music and length. Please tell me if you have some more questions. And thank you very much for every comment you've written so far. 

I just noticed how long this actually was, so I wil try to answer your question in a shorter way so you can actually get some information out of it.

1: The speed change at the final boss is something to improve the gameplay, but I thought I could do better, so I added a different version of the final boss theme which plays when the speed is changed.

The art style and audio were made in a way I thought it would fit the game and the atmosphere well.

2: I made it every time I took a break, which was when I finished some major element or when I was exhausted. This also meant that I still had in mind how everything was build up and I could make music that would fit the situation.

3: I started working on the story as soon as I chose the main mechanic for the game. I wanted the main mechanic to be a consequence of the beginning, so I had to make it rather early.

4: I wanted it to be a puzzle-platformer with a combat system. There are still a few puzzles, but I realized that I didn't have enough time for more.

5: I'm proud of the polishing because my games are usually very unbalanced, I'm proud of the organized code and a functioning music system, and I'm proud of the overall game and how it was received.

How did you manage to put these sprites together in such a short amount of time? And the shading is also great. This is one of the best looking games I've ever played in a game jam. The audio was also great, but the 3d effect on them was a bit irritating.

The gameplay was fun, but a bit awkward at times. The ice physics are strange because it prevents you from moving, and I think the springs should have a set height instead of letting you hold space to increase the height. Also I think a bit of feedback would've been nice. At first I wasn't sure if I activated the checkpoints.

But those are just minor issues. It's still a great game.

The game itself is really good. I like the art, the music and sound quality is extremely good and I like the differend mechanics. But in it's current state it's way too buggy. I couldn't get past the second level because the guy on the same floor as your spawnpoint seems to be invincable. I turned the lights off, but I still lost. Then another time I lost health eventhough I wasn't even on the same floor.

Please fix some of these bugs and update a post jam version. The game actually was a ton of fun and I wouldn't hesitate to play a fixed version.

Of course not. Ask whatever you like.

The last 3 days were pretty exhausting for me. I only slept a few hours a day, was stressed near the because of the deadline and on the last day i had a headache. And even if this ends up being the worst rated game of the jam: This comment made it all worth it. Thank you. I sat here for half an hour thinking about what to say. I had no words when i read this. The fact that someone I don't even know personally describes my game design as "brilliant" is just amazing.

And yes, there will be more. It will however have to wait because today I started working on a really complicated thing in my main project and I want to finish that first. But I will update this game in a month or two. It will feature a new world with some new mechanics and a new possessable object, a few extra levels per world, a new miniboss at the beginning of the last world and some small changes like bug fixes, level design changes and balancing.

And again, thank you very much for this comment. I haven't been this happy probably in weeks.

Is it allowed to download Music for example from incompetech and use it or do i have to make the music myself?