The game feels really good until you die. The long death scenes in a game where you die so much is kind of a pain. Sorry if I'm a bit harsh here, but only incorporating the text based genre into the art style wasn't super innovative. On the other hand, the game has a lot of polish and is well made. Good job!
EDIT: Also, the camera shake made it a bit hard to see what I was doing at times. I would have to go on instinct when the camera shook.
Very fun game! It has an impressive number of levels for a game jam entry! I kept expecting to be at the end but unfortunately got stuck on one of the harder levels before finishing. The graphics being all ascii characters were distracting at first but once I got used to them, they didn't bother me anymore. I really like the effects and animations done with such a limited number of shapes.
Really hard game, that's what makes it fun in my opinion. I love your art style for this game, and sound effects are great. The levels and mechanics are really well tought. You did a great job with that!
This game is excellent. It has loads of interconnected levels, a beautiful aesthetic, lots of polish, and it's very fun. It feels like a real game rather than something made in a game jam. I highly recommend it
As @cmlsc mentioned, using only the art style of the text based genre isn't very innovative in terms of gameplay. However, this method of combining two incompatible genres does lead to a game that's actually fun to play and not conceptually broken. Combined with a great execution, this is a really good and beautiful game.
I'm totally not disappointed, it's very good! The LevelDesign is great, and you make a great realization of a plateformer (even it's a little bit classic despite the realization). Improvement suggestion : reset the falling plateform when you die, for avoid to die on an other to have to reset the stack.
I really like the aesthetic of the game. It makes it also a bit difficult to read a level and the various pitfall but I think that is part of the charm. Special kudos for the smoke effect that are really neat and really sell an atmosphere. The level design is also super well done and varied. At some point I got stuck in the game. I got an ank , died and the ank was not there anymore so I couldn't progress.
Very unique aesthetics, and I can't resist a platformer. Only feedback is maybe shorten the respawn delay, as I felt I needed to get right back in there every time I died :D
Striking aesthetic and solid gameplay. I have some small nitpicks though : * The screen shake is too strong, which can lead you into loosing track of your position or not understanding instantly where you died * The player animation are nice and smooth, but it can cause it to disappear for a frame when in mid air, again resulting in some confusion * The death timer is a little bit long, and the levels don't reset their "trap" timer when you respawn, which can lead to some frustration when you die too much in a level.
But despite all of that, this game is rock solid. You managed to pull off a unique atmosphere using only ascii character and 3 colors, and the game has an impressive amount of content and polish for a Compo game. Congrats !
Very cool game, I love the style of the game. It was sometimes hard to follow the player, and I occasionally lost track of it. I enjoyed playing it nonetheless, Great job! :)
Awesome aesthetics. I love how the use of text characters to represent images, especially those smoke effects. It's also pretty cool how all the levels can be seen and how you can see that they're linked. The sound effects are very fitting for the graphics style. And I like the little details of how the tiles tiles go red when you die near them ;) As a few others have mentioned above, the respawn timer does seem a little long, and sometimes when you die the falling platforms didn't get reset.
I love the aesthetic, I love the idea, and I love the levels. I kept telling myself I need to stop playing and do productive things, but I got hooked and saw it through to the (somewhat confusing, are those tears?) end - with `@:106`, I think.
Some nitpicks as is tradition: - As others have pointed out, respawn is way too long for a precision platformer - Even though I enjoyed the platforming, I did not like that my character kept moving after I let go of the movement keys. The level design didn't make this too annoying, but it feels like bad practice to have slippery controls in this genre. - The collectible (and neccessary) hearts don't differ at all from the background (and blocking-your-path) hearts, so -in the last (or second last?) level with hearts- I spent a good while trying to pick up the heart in the top left corner, before realizing it was part of the background. - There's a bug where the falling platforms won't respawn after a death, so there's no way to finish the level. - A lot of levels seem to be designed around getting all the hearts/keys and getting to the exit in one go. But if you die after getting a heart/key you keep it. This did help alleviate some frustration as compared to the alternative, but I can't shake the feeling the level design doesn't match the mechanics. - I really like the blood splatters, though they were only ever really visible on the falling platforms, where they looked out of place floating when the platform fell.
The animation's great, the sound design matches the theme, the color scheme is minimal but works (except, as mentioned, for the pickups. Same color and same symbol between what you can interact with and what's background is just bad form). Really enjoyed myself with this title. Great work, keep it up.
Great aesthetics as most have said. Who knew simple could be so complex? Little details here and there, like the mist and the jump animation really makes this game stand out. Controls well, and I like how no explanation is needed. I did get lost halfway through, starting from the level with two doors, but overall I had a great time! 4/5
Loved the game! Also loved following the progres on twitter. Controls we're pretty good albeit minimalistic. Didn't seem very optimised for laptops? Or lower-end hardware though? Possibly due to the fact you have all the levels loaded in the one scene? Other than that, awesome work!
Great game, the balance between aesthetic and readability is phenomenal. I also thought you did a great job with the difficulty curve. I am awful at platformers, yet the difficulty curve made it so that I could get used to the mechanics and actually complete it. Great job!
The aesthetics here are great, I can't adequately describe how cool this game looks. I love the flips and swirls the @ makes when leaping around! The ASCII steam and debris scattered around were other really nice touches. Unfortunately, I feel like the controls hold it back just a little bit, the player was a little too slippery to make this game feel as great as it looked. Besides that though, great work.
I really really like this game. The Graphics are great, the controls are good enough and the level design is the right mixture of minimalistic and increasingly complex. It doesn't really fit the theme too well, but that doesn't make it less of a fun game. I havn't quite gotten trough all stages yet but I certainly will =)
This was a lot of fun! I wasn't sure what to do after getting the first key. I couldn't really figure it out. But the controls and platforming is very fun! I LOVE the graphics! What were the two genres? Platforming and roguelike? Well done!
tight platforming ascii action. I like the overworld type thing that's going on (or i think is going on) where all the levels are layed out next to each other. Job well done
Incredible. No idea how you pulled this off in 48 hours! Love the black/white/red palette. The symbols remind me of when I was first learning to program in QBASIC in DOS. :) That last room is brutal.
My only complaint is I couldn't figure out what the hearts do. I picked them all up anyway but I'm not sure if I needed to.
Fantastic game! Only small nitpick I have is that since the player is floating a little bit, it makes precicion platforming a little bit harder, but it might be intentional to add dificulty. it is impressive how much you have made under 48 hours!
Holy guacamole, ASCII blood! =) Yeah, man, this game is so solid, making a platformer game of this quality should be a lot of work. Incredible animations, unusual for a chosen style, but look really impressive.
Hey @bwalter! You did a really great job on your game this time around. I can easily see you ranking in overall or graphics. As you've said some people complained about, the screenshake was a little much, but only really needs to be lessened whenever you successfully attack things, so that you can distinguish between dying and breaking a wall. Also, I beat it. Love the ending! And congratulations on your entry!
The aesthetics of this were really good! I'm a pretty big fan of platformers and I was glad to see a stylish and polished precision platformer :)
Thoughts: - Some of the levels felt repetitive since they were similar to previous levels but with more spikes. It would have been cool to have some harder levels that only focused on a certain type of obstacle (e.g. spikes only and there would be lots of small gaps along the spikes to require you to land in those gaps / wall-jump along those gaps. There was one level like that that I enjoyed) - I think the attacking mechanic felt like it wasn't very useful / didn't contribute much to the game. Perhaps there was some potential for levels that were full destructible? And if the key didn't persist, then it would have some puzzle aspect to it where you need to destroy blocks to get to the key but also make sure you leave blocks behind to get back to the door. - I feel like the hearts + keys should be reset when you die in a level rather than have it persist with you.
I think I did the same thing as Nyunesu's comment above. I entered the room requiring the "female" symbol key, the one with two hearts, and then left it, and couldn't get back, even when retracing all the levels. I softlocked twice to confirm this. In a game like this, where your objectives are intentionally cryptic, that's especially frustrating. Anyways, of what I played, the aesthetic and atmosphere are really well done! The player animation and mechanics are great. The level design with awkward jumps and timing wasn't so great in places; I think it could be made significantly easier while still being just as interesting.
Very cool game. I've seen similar concepts attempting to mix up ascii with some other genre. I think this is one of the best examples how the clarity can be still kept even with ascii graphics. Amazing job on that part!
The level design was a bit repetitive and mostly too easy for my liking. The controls were definitely good but sometimes I was left hoping that they would be a bit more responsive. There was some unnecessary slide to the character which caused some frustrating deaths.
But overall, very good implementation and I quite enjoyed it!
Feels fleshed out and juiced up for what it is. Well done making so much out of so little. My biggest gripe with it is that you don't respawn instantly like in ie. super meat boy. That makes the difficulty more tolerable
Great game! I found it very challenging! My only issue was that it was hard to keep track of the character as it often blended into the environment. But overall, amazing!
wow great job ! very challenging yet highly addictive. Love the style and sound.Spot on ! here's mine if you have a few https://gonz0.itch.io/spacescape
Parts of the platforming mechanics feel very tight, the wall jump for example I love the feel of, but as others have mentioned there's a sort of sliding effect after letting go of directional keys which cause some unnecessary deaths.
Because of the simplistic colors, sometimes there are moments of confusion, such as when I'm in front of a door in a room with multiple doors, I blend in and it's not immediately apparent where I am until I start moving and it takes me a moment to process. This could be solved by possibly even giving your player character a black background so there's never elements showing behind it. Normally, that would be silly, but for ASCII, characters wouldn't overlap so it makes sense for your theming.
Also, I encountered a potential bug where collecting a key, then dying, spawned me back at the door I started with the key, so I was able to skip a challenge through dying.
All in all, a beautifully made game for the time limit you had, and I think keeping the art clear and simple really adds a lot to the experience. Great work!
:sweat_smile: ASCII and J&R are two incompatible genres? You clearly haven't lived through the eighties mate :p Huge game, so many levels, i liked it a lot, also the effects you added which gave the gfx a nice flavour. Although i did not figure out what to do with the key once i had it :o
I loved the unique artstyle and the game feel! Was pretty fun, though level design could use some work and respawns could be faster. Not exactly sure the theme mix here - platformer/text adventure? Would have been cool to see that integrated in the mechanics.
This game caught my eye on Twitter and it's every bit as good as I hoped for it to be. The animations are slick, the controls are very reactive and predictable. Best of all, when you die it feels like you're responsible, not that it was bad luck. The mood is awesome and it's incredibly fun. Where's the 6th rating star???
Quite a nice little platformer, the jumping and wall jumping needs a bit more polish I think, but I had fun playing it. I'm not sure if/how it fits the theme. The graphics were nice.
The artstyle is certainly very neat, although it does get in the way of ease of legibility - its really hard to distinguish your character, the layout was confusing and after I got the ankh like I was a little lost and gave up. I guess the roguelike bits were a little missing here as well. Platforming and wall jumping was well done although less tight then I'd like it to be and a little slippery. Overall a cool entry!
Really nice platformer. I enjoyed the homage to textmode graphics. I wasn't sure how to read all the symbols, but picked up the important ones pretty quickly. The little tutorial hints that told you what to do were really well done. I'm going to have to check out your project source to see how this was done. Good work!
Comments82
The camera shake and graphics in general feels kind of overwhelming. It can be hard to see where my character is.
The controls are a little lacking as well.
Got a little mixed up after the second key part, think I started going backwards?
Love what you've done with the art, so much atmosphere for 3 colors.
EDIT: Also, the camera shake made it a bit hard to see what I was doing at times. I would have to go on instinct when the camera shook.
Special kudos for the smoke effect that are really neat and really sell an atmosphere.
The level design is also super well done and varied.
At some point I got stuck in the game. I got an ank , died and the ank was not there anymore so I couldn't progress.
* The screen shake is too strong, which can lead you into loosing track of your position or not understanding instantly where you died
* The player animation are nice and smooth, but it can cause it to disappear for a frame when in mid air, again resulting in some confusion
* The death timer is a little bit long, and the levels don't reset their "trap" timer when you respawn, which can lead to some frustration when you die too much in a level.
But despite all of that, this game is rock solid. You managed to pull off a unique atmosphere using only ascii character and 3 colors, and the game has an impressive amount of content and polish for a Compo game. Congrats !
I agree with valden above.
As a few others have mentioned above, the respawn timer does seem a little long, and sometimes when you die the falling platforms didn't get reset.
Some nitpicks as is tradition:
- As others have pointed out, respawn is way too long for a precision platformer
- Even though I enjoyed the platforming, I did not like that my character kept moving after I let go of the movement keys. The level design didn't make this too annoying, but it feels like bad practice to have slippery controls in this genre.
- The collectible (and neccessary) hearts don't differ at all from the background (and blocking-your-path) hearts, so -in the last (or second last?) level with hearts- I spent a good while trying to pick up the heart in the top left corner, before realizing it was part of the background.
- There's a bug where the falling platforms won't respawn after a death, so there's no way to finish the level.
- A lot of levels seem to be designed around getting all the hearts/keys and getting to the exit in one go. But if you die after getting a heart/key you keep it. This did help alleviate some frustration as compared to the alternative, but I can't shake the feeling the level design doesn't match the mechanics.
- I really like the blood splatters, though they were only ever really visible on the falling platforms, where they looked out of place floating when the platform fell.
The animation's great, the sound design matches the theme, the color scheme is minimal but works (except, as mentioned, for the pickups. Same color and same symbol between what you can interact with and what's background is just bad form). Really enjoyed myself with this title. Great work, keep it up.
Good aestethics and Very good mix of ASCII and platforming! :grinning:
---
#### ...Also, What engine did you use? :thinking:
It doesn't really fit the theme too well, but that doesn't make it less of a fun game.
I havn't quite gotten trough all stages yet but I certainly will =)
My only complaint is I couldn't figure out what the hearts do. I picked them all up anyway but I'm not sure if I needed to.
I don't really see how this fits the theme at all, it's just a platformer.
I really like the artstyle though!
As you've said some people complained about, the screenshake was a little much, but only really needs to be lessened whenever you successfully attack things, so that you can distinguish between dying and breaking a wall.
Also, I beat it. Love the ending! And congratulations on your entry!
I'm not one for precision platformers, but this game kept my attention for longer than many commercial titles of the genre. Well done.
I'd love to see controller support - this sort of game would be perfect on an old-school gamepad.
The aesthetics of this were really good! I'm a pretty big fan of platformers and I was glad to see a stylish and polished precision platformer :)
Thoughts:
- Some of the levels felt repetitive since they were similar to previous levels but with more spikes. It would have been cool to have some harder levels that only focused on a certain type of obstacle (e.g. spikes only and there would be lots of small gaps along the spikes to require you to land in those gaps / wall-jump along those gaps. There was one level like that that I enjoyed)
- I think the attacking mechanic felt like it wasn't very useful / didn't contribute much to the game. Perhaps there was some potential for levels that were full destructible? And if the key didn't persist, then it would have some puzzle aspect to it where you need to destroy blocks to get to the key but also make sure you leave blocks behind to get back to the door.
- I feel like the hearts + keys should be reset when you die in a level rather than have it persist with you.
Loved the ASCII theme and adventure feel, well done.
P.S. I got stuck on a door, came back from a door that required a key and couldn't get back. :/
Its not very unique or innovative, but it's a solid platformer and the controls feel good. (bad controls are the worst offender in most ld games IMHO)
The level design was a bit repetitive and mostly too easy for my liking. The controls were definitely good but sometimes I was left hoping that they would be a bit more responsive. There was some unnecessary slide to the character which caused some frustrating deaths.
But overall, very good implementation and I quite enjoyed it!
here's mine if you have a few https://gonz0.itch.io/spacescape
Because of the simplistic colors, sometimes there are moments of confusion, such as when I'm in front of a door in a room with multiple doors, I blend in and it's not immediately apparent where I am until I start moving and it takes me a moment to process. This could be solved by possibly even giving your player character a black background so there's never elements showing behind it. Normally, that would be silly, but for ASCII, characters wouldn't overlap so it makes sense for your theming.
Also, I encountered a potential bug where collecting a key, then dying, spawned me back at the door I started with the key, so I was able to skip a challenge through dying.
All in all, a beautifully made game for the time limit you had, and I think keeping the art clear and simple really adds a lot to the experience. Great work!
Huge game, so many levels, i liked it a lot, also the effects you added which gave the gfx a nice flavour.
Although i did not figure out what to do with the key once i had it :o
50% less screen shake and 100% less respawn time imo.
I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.
I hope you continue with the project.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape