X - Place a seed to jump on, or mark the sun to boost when passing through it's rays.
(M) - Cycle through sound options (On, Off, half volume)
You are a sunflower whose mother has fallen ill. Use your inexplicable time-travel abilities to find something out there in the world that might bring her back to health.
This game is best-optimized to be played on Chrome due to its engine, CraftyJS.
Audio was made with Bosca Ceoil and BFXR.
Detailed Controls:
This game is an autorunner where pressing Z will "reverse time", or send you backwards. When going back in time you do not collide with anything but the floor and can retreat to a safe position if you fall into a pit of spikes (for example).
When going forward in time, pressing X will place a mark for the next time you time travel to focus the sun on that position. When you then hit that focused sun (when going forward in time), you'll be boosted forward.
When going backward in time, pressing X will place a seed. This seed, the next time you time travel, will grow into a plant which will bounce you if you run into it.
Despite having only two buttons, the things you can do with just these interactions is a bit complex, and the last puzzles in the game (along with the collectable sun-drops along the way) will demand that you've mastered these controls and their quirks, which may seem un-intuitive. Some hints towards these:
Going back in time drops your momentum entirely and gives you a default speed.
You only trigger new jump-plants and new sun-rays to spawn when switching from reverse-time to forward-time. You can only interact with jump-plants and sun-rays when going forward in time.
Hitting obstacles sets your speed to zero, but only during forward time.
Known bugs that aren't getting fixed for the ludum dare version:
If you try really hard you can make yourself move really slow by timing boosts / hitting spikes. Reset this by walking into a spike.
Replaying the game (once completed) without a refresh of the browser causes several things to break.
You can't skip the intro until the game has loaded the map, which it does in the background. (You can mash continue before the map is loaded, though)
Updates after deadline (CST):
10:00 PM Dec. 13: Fixed bug preventing ending from being reached. 2:00 AM Dec. 14: Fixed that same bug but for real this time. 11:00 PM Dec. 28: Fixed bug with piston positioning that would occasionally render game unfinishable.
Feels like it could improve with a little more time spent on it. Having the combination of boost and jump controlled by one button was a little confusing.
The art look simple but quite cool and it fits the game quite well. I love the idea of a single button do two things but it is also very challenging for me. I managed to get through quite a bit of it but got stuck in a section where there is a lot of platforming and a mistake requires me to redo the whole sequence. It is a fun game. The audio is nice too. Well done!
the tutorial was very helpful. It seems you spent a lot of thought on this, I can really sense a 'living' world, nice story, and really interesting gameplay.
I can see this taking a long time to master, and I'm really interested in more puzzles that you'll bring to this if you choose to continue with it [which I think you should].
Reminds me a little of spoiler alert, very fun, and well done! :)
Your game is really well thought-out. The game-mechanics make this more of a puzzler than a platformer, which is really cool. It reminded me of Braid, which is a good thing :) The music fits the art style, but the sound effects get a little annoying after a while. Also the intro screen didn't work in my case.
Very neat. I was surprised at the large number of things you can do with just those two abilities, and you did a nice job highlighting them with the level design. I appreciate that while the game is definitely very challenging, it's not overly punishing with no way to die and frequent "safe" spots to return to after missing a jump.
Really innovative mechanics and nice use of 2 button controls! I like how you managed to weave reflective problem solving nicely into the mechanics but still have it require some foresight when placing the light beams.
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Nice game overall! :)
I can see this taking a long time to master, and I'm really interested in more puzzles that you'll bring to this if you choose to continue with it [which I think you should].
Reminds me a little of spoiler alert, very fun, and well done! :)
Your game is really well thought-out. The game-mechanics make this more of a puzzler than a platformer, which is really cool. It reminded me of Braid, which is a good thing :)
The music fits the art style, but the sound effects get a little annoying after a while. Also the intro screen didn't work in my case.
Very good job!!