JamBear

Just a small note - we are aware of a rare bug in which the game stops the movement upwards and won't continue to the top. In the event of this, die and try and get there again, it should work 9/10!

This is a really beautiful game with nice sounds. The game idea is also cool.
My problem was that it was too difficult for me, perhaps due to the way the jumping works - even if I pressed the jump button twice at the same rate, sometimes I jumped high enough to get onto the platform but sometimes I didn't. And also, it may be so because I'm a bad player.
That aside, it's a good game overall.

Hi thanks for Playing the game and thanks for the feedback it takes a bit of practice to get used to the movement as we wanted it fast and twitchy. Thanks for the nice comment

Such a beautiful game. I can't believe you made it in 3 days!
I do have a few recommendations, though.
1) Make screen flash red to indicate you're getting hurt. Would make it clearer when you DO get hurt.
2) Add checkpoints.
3) Make it more forgiving to go the wrong way. (Or, I'm just bad.)

Really nice looking game, loved the atmosphere and feel of it. Unfortunately, the controls were quite floaty and unresponsive, which together with the rather brisk pace of the death-wall made it very difficult to get into. Maybe it's my computer or maybe I'm just not MLG enough, but its a darn shame because everything seems absolutely top notch.

Thanks for the feedback guys, we wanted it to be pretty difficult. checkpoints are a good idea for bigger and harder levels and yeah the feedback on the hurt is pretty hard to spot but a flash is a nice idea.

The presentation and graphics are really nice. The animated title screen really drew me in. It' waaaay to hard though. I couldn't get past the 4th platform (with the ghost). I would love to play the game without the grinding gears at the bottom, but it's just too difficult as it is.

thanks, we could use something like this as a mid to late level in the game, as for new players it is pretty difficult.

Great game! The best LD37 I've played yet. Super addicting, I could have played for hours if it was long/hard enough :P

I like the pixelart ;)

Really good entry ! The graphics and the music are nice, and the gameplay is pleasant to play and dynamic. Good work guys !

Just great! Have no words, it's a great game! Need some polish but even now it's great!

The graphics are beautiful. Found the game itself kinda difficult though, the jumping seemed a bit awkward.

The graphics of this game are amazing for an LD game. However, the controls really ruin the experience. First of all, it is never explained that you can double jump, which you need to do for the very first jump. I was really confused about that until I found out I could double jump. Training your players this through the levels is not a bad idea, only your execution of it was off. The fact that the player is pressured from the very start is probably the biggest problem. It would have worked better if the timer would only start if the player has already managed to jump to the first platform. This is the optimal strategy during the countdown anyways.

Aside from that, the jumping controls could have used a lot more work. It is not even specifically the jumping, but the way moving left and right works in the game. Since there's no form of acceleration, you're max speed instantly, it is REALLY hard to control sideways jumps, and I often found myself overshooting and getting stuck underneath the platforms I was aiming to jump, or plainly fall all the way down. This frustrated me a lot and I put the game down before I even got much too see of it.

TL;DR Art is really nice, but only a small part of the game experienced due to frustration with the controls. Try to focus more on getting those right next LD, and you'll guys will have yourselves an awesome game.

Beautiful graphics and environment. Love the level detail everywhere, it suits a one-level game like this. Title screen is great too. Good use of multiple routes through the level. I agree with others about the player physics, hurt feedback, difficulty. I feel like playtesting would help with this. Also, you might want to change the link name to "Windows and Mac" since I saw a mac download.

A *really* great looking game. Nice sound, nice concept, solid mechanics.

My areas for feedback would be that the 'letterbox' aspect ratio is slightly frustrating in a vertically scrolling game, would have been nice to see a bit more - I think this is what makes it so hard - can't really see enemies above you until it's too late (especially that ghost - damn him!) - or if you miss a jump, you have no time to recover because the play space is so restricted? Can make it feel ever so slightly unfair.

On the whole though, a really solid entry, you should all be very proud!

Well done, thanks for sharing!

Thanks Everyone for the awesome feedback we will keep all these ideas for the next LDjam, Thanks so much for playing and providing us with feedback

Wow what a wonderful game! I had so much fun playing it. The art work and audio went so well. I did manage to get the treasure. Overall a nice game to play. Keep it up!

Beautiful graphics and nice sounds, but man, it's so hard. Reminded me of hardcore NES games (or maybe I'm just too old and my reflexes are bad).

Art is really solid as is the arcade style theme of the game play.

Had some issues with the character controller being a little "sticky" making precise movement fairly tough. I couldn't quite tell if there was a lag in the jump->double jump code or not.

I feel like the timing of the level design is a little off as well (some segments that gate the player leave too much horizontal travel time v the vertical death timer).

Audio was well synced and it pairs well with the art theme.

Absolutely gorgeous game! Very challenging too, but rewarding once you beat it. There was one jump that I had a bugger of a time with, after a "staircase" left with a bunch of gears to the left, and then having to jump over to the right. There was a platform from the top left stair, but the double jump height never seemed to quite get me there. Love the mechanics though, the audio polish was quite nice too!

Game over all is very good but doesn't equal the sum of it's parts. Audio is great and matches perfectly with the enviroment, really sets the mood. Artwork is fantastic! everything from the character to the enemies to the backgrounds, all great. Gameplay is good too, I like the enemy variety and how they feel like you need a new strategy to combat each enemy type. Now for the bad parts, chroteus is right some indication you are hurt would be great, like a screenshake. To make it easier you should add a period where you are invunreable after being hit, this would make the game more enjoyable I think.

A lot of the fun factor in games like these is fully bound to the precision of the controls. The overall speed of your left-right running and gravity is too much, resulting in floaty controls and jump mechanics that are off. Also, while one could argue it's for the added difficulty, the camera not keeping up with me when I go faster is just plain annoying and only brings about those cheap deaths where you couldn't see what was coming because you weren't allowed to.

Other than that, the presentation is gorgeous, and I like difficult platformers so I'm inclined to give it a high rating despite the shortcomings :P

Very impressive for a jam, art and programing are pretty incredible for such a short time, I'm impressed!
Had hard time with jumps and that felt to me like the only issue, well done anyway!

Thanks everyone for the awesome feedback so far, we are glad you all enjoyed it and all the feedback will be taken on board to make the game even better. Thanks

Really beautiful game, but really really hard, couldn't stay alive more than 10 seconds ^^
Apart from that, the game is great :)

This game looks and sounds amazing but the it's just too unforgiving. Having the such a narrow horizontal view doesn't let us see what's coming up and we have little time to accommodate, the jumping feels inconsistent and frustrating especially when the fall speed is so quick. It feels like your punishing your players for not seeing into the future. I really wanted to like this game but it left me feeling annoyed and frustrated.

Good job.

Wow... just wow a really nice looking game with a bit of frustration factor.
Everything looks nice and is well stylized.
The player sound could be a bit louder through.

Wow... just wow a really nice looking game with a bit of frustration factor.
Everything looks nice and is well stylized.
The player sound could be a bit louder though.

Quite nice game, although as I'm super bad with platformer games I wasn't able to beat it.

Audio fits it well, I'd say it needs improved control and feedback for the player - but maybe that is my general feeling with all the platformers (as I'm indeed noob at them).

Very hard, was not able to finish it. But I loved everything else about it! Great art, great audio.

Wow I'm really impressed with the graphics and presentation of this game! I like difficult games, but this was way to difficult to start out with. The scrolling speed could have been slower, and increasingly harder as you go up, and the movement was too fast and could have had a bit of acceleration to make it smoother. A bit of polish and having some non-developers test this could make it really great!

Very nice game, like visual concept and music.

Cool game !

I played it a few times, and I'm really impressed by the whole mood and graphics. Awesome job. I think it needs some balancing because I died really fast and if I tried to be quick I just died to a enemy I couldn't see. The arrows felt really nice !

Awesome job !

Nice job, really polished graphics and sounds. Nothing too ground breaking, but overall good game and entry

The game looks great! I think what people have said below is true about the controls, but other than that everything is solid, amazing job!

Very cool style, I found the music to be very soothing.

Wow. Just wow. The graphics are just gorgeous, kinda reminded me of hyper light drifter and that character design is just soo good. The music is very enjoyable too and I also LOVE that it has that super meat boy vibe to it. This game has TONS of potential but it also has a lot of problems.
First of all, I agree that the controls need to be changed as for now the game feels absolutely disgusting and it almost completely threw me off but luckily those beautiful visuals kept me going till the end. Even though the soundtrack is very pleasing, the sound itself felt a bit weird when I played (even though I'm not really sure if that was intended or not). I'm also not sure in that use of the theme but I guess it's not that important. And as someone mentioned earlier the game needs some important details like the damage indicator, maybe temporary damage immunity on hits and so on.
Overall the game could use some improvements so that it could be a lot more comfortable (in that regard it actually feels very raw) but it's still one of the best ones I've seen so far. I hope you guys won't abandon the game as it looks very promising!

And just wanted to say this once more : the graphics are a m a z i n g. Props to Emil, keep it up man :D

thanks again everyone for the lovely connents we actully maybe turning this into a full game in the near future so keep up with our twitter profiles for news, since the last edit i have been making changes to the controls and the input methods so controller support now works and the game feels better to play, also a tutorial is in the works so people can learn the mechanics and get used to the character movement, thanks again :D so thankful for everyone's comments and thanks for playing and enjoying the game.

Really nice game, though I found it difficult as the controls weren't as responsive as I'd like. The art style is really good!

It's hard to play, I died too many times, but I love the concept, the sounds, especially the graphics :3 i think you did a good job in only 3 days, keep making games :)

Great job! The art/audio/mood was really great!

I did have some trouble playing the game though. It was fun, but the gears at the bottom tended to move up way too quickly, so when I first started out I hardly ever made it to the third platform before I had to start over.

It would be great if they only started to move up after you had moved up at least one platform. Maybe two. Sort of like it's out of view and then, after climbing a bit, you realize that you only have so much time. I'm thinking like... Sonic and the Chemical Plant here. It's only later on that you realize you only have so much time and you have enough time to get out, but also you're probably going to die.

Art and music are gorgeous and oustanding, 5/5, huge props to the artists.

HOWEVER, regarding design: zero momentum on movement and fixed-height jumps combined with the camera spoil a lot of fun. And I don't understand why did you letterbox the viewport. And maybe if it hadn't been so tiny, the gameplay would've felt different, but currently the gears need to be slowed down xor the camera should follow the player instead of them (but that's against the idea). The player has a way too short window of time for decision making and execution, and it doesn't help when one fall equals death. Difficuly should not necessarily equal being punishing.

Now a lot of these things have been mentioned earlier, and I don't know what have you changed since the release. These are just my impressions. I'm more of a critic than admirer, so I can't really write essays about how much I liked this gaem. But seriously, well done. This is amazing. I'm looking forward to an extended version.

The pixel art is some of the best I've seen. However, this game was incredibly frustrating.

First, the controls seemed really slippery. I'd often find myself falling off a platform that was off screen because I'd jumped too high and was still moving left from something I was doing before.

Then, whenever I reached a new part of the level, I would always die, because I would choose the wrong path at some point. The only way to get up safely was to memorize the path - and because I could only get up that high every once in a while, this made it very difficult to remember the correct path.

This game might work as an Impossible Game-type-game, but the problem is that death comes too quickly - that is, in a game like the Impossible Game, it feels rewarding to try again, as the music is well synced and it feels fun to hit all the blocks, but in this game it's merely frustrating, as there's no real reward for retrying. (Hopefully I explained that well - it's kind of hard to).

Amazing Graphics, you done great job, + I very like the game very dynamic and very good implementation.

Yay, I obtained the jam.

STOP MAKING BEAR GAMES, THERE'S NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR THE BEARTH OF US.

There were a lot of instant death givers for a game with a health system, I think if the tower was taller with checkpoints or something it would feel less high stakes (in a good way). But for jam timing, good job. And gratz on the first jam Emil.

That looks and sounds pretty nice, but I really couldn't play this game because of the controls. Somehow I was able to jump really high (simultaneous W and Space), I've found out there is double jump, but it was hard to master, so I've basically stuck on the bottom levels. I've beat Super Meat Boy playing on keyboard, so I think it's not me, but controls =)

Impressive ambiance and graphics, it reminds me of Towerfall.
But man that jump mechanic is killing your game, the jump height is not adapted for your level design. You should also use way more feedback, especially when you're hit by enemies.
You got a great basis, just tweak the controls a bit and you could have a cool little game in your hands!

Thanks everyone for the votes so far we will be taking your feedback on board and keep an eye out for Jambear as are probably developing the game further with new levels, better controls and more feedback

Man, sound and graphics are amazing. The game works well; controls could feel a bit tighter, but it's really well made considering the time you guys had! Congrats :)

Lovely graphics, challenging game! I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 37 games, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/j9hZwCBGmkI