The Ball's Path

by ericrou

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.57

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.53

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.17

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.32

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.50

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.31

Screen Shot 2019-05-01 at 3.57.17 PM.png

"The Ball's Path" is a challenging, control-based 3D platformer - with the unique twist of the possibility to "gamble' your life away.

Starting with a limited amount of health, the Ball gains the ability to "gamble" away life for certain abilities, i.e. lose 50% of health to gain a double jump, or 90% of health for a temporary invincibility. Certain parts of the game will be extremely difficult to complete without sacrificing some life, hence force the Ball to use its powers.

The Ball will travel across the The Land of Cubes, now taken over by the evil Triangles (actually tetrahedrons). The Ball is encounters Little Fairy Cube, who then gives the power of "life gambling". Running away from a mysterious shadow, the Ball runs towards the centre of the Pyramid to defeat the evil Triangles.

THERE IS A BUG IN THE TUTORIAL WHICH LOCK THE ABILITY TO SHOOT - PREVENTING GAMEPLAY - IF THAT HAPPENS, USE "1" + "0" TO SKIP TO NEXT LEVEL (or "1" + "9" to return to previous level). BEFORE SKIPPING TO NEXT LEVEL, YOU HAVE TO AT LEAST GET TO THE SECTION IN THE TUTORIAL WHERE YOU CAN JUMP AND SHOOT

Preview:

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Screen Shot 2019-05-01 at 3.51.07 PM.png

Comments27

Raphiell1 May 2019, 11:52

Well done! Having an ingame tutorial was refreshing, but I kept getting stuck at the beginning because if I got took close to the practice targets, my shooting got disabled. After I killed them from a distance, and moved on to the rest of the level, my shooting was once again disabled once reaching the triangles. I also enjoyed the dialog, especially "Hello (again) ball".

JofersGames1 May 2019, 11:57

Nice job :)

jharler1 May 2019, 12:09

Congrats on completing your entry. The visuals were simple, but were good enough to represent what was needed. The humor was good, nice work on that. I ran into an issue with the stairs. It was hard to judge distance, so I fell through the gaps a couple times. The second time I landed on something but couldn't see because the stairs were in the way, so I had to exit out.

johnnydalvi1 May 2019, 12:14

nice game, I think that there is a bug when you try to to shoot when jumping that makes you unable to shoot anymore, and also having some checkpoints would be very nice. I really liked the moving obstacles part, very funny to play

CodingNinjaJoas1 May 2019, 12:18

I came across the problem that whenever you get to close to the targets in the tutorial level, you cant shoot anymore. other than that it was a good game

Apace1 May 2019, 12:22

I would have liked to play more! However, even when I reached level 1 and died there, I had to restart back from the beginning of the tutorial. I think you should have included checkpoints. After several times of redoing the tutorial, I got a bit frustrated, especially because I ran into the "can't shoot more than once" bug several times. Also, it would have been awesome if you included some kind of visual effect that shows that the ball is actually rolling - right now it looks like it's gliding above the ground! But that was probably out of scope for the jam, so no worries!

Other than that though the controls were nice and I think this is a fun game concept.

Beelzeboss1 May 2019, 13:06

Very different from other submissions. Cool concept. As others pointed there are a few bugs, but i had fun so it doesn't really matter. Good job!

Heldernogunity1 May 2019, 13:36

nice work :)

SeriouslyCrunchy1 May 2019, 13:41

Great concept, unfortunately the bugs getting in the way was quite annoying. I would love to see a post-LD version as this looks like it will be great fun when the bugs are ironed out!

BoxedMeatRevolution1 May 2019, 13:42

I had the same problem as @codingninjajoas. I skipped ahead to level 2 using the 1-0 trick, and wow, does this game ever get difficult! I made it through lvl 2, but 3 and 4 were too difficult for me. Also, I noticed the game slowing down and dropping frames when lots of objects were spawning. My computer isn't the most powerful, but it is pretty strong, so I was surprised to find performance issues.

I thought the controls were good, and I liked the simplicity yet difficulty of the gameplay. I would have like a few more easy levels though :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Good entry!

DAVidus1 May 2019, 13:51

A fun game! But dying is very frustrating, becaue you must play so much again and it would be so much easier to play and I think it would get a better rating and more people would play it if you could play the game directly in the browser. With Unity you can simply change your game in the build settings to WEP-GL and upload it to e. g. itch. io or simmer. io.
But overall I really like the game :smiley:.

Aspect1 May 2019, 13:53

its a pitty it is a little buggy, otherwise pretty fun :). My shooting always stopped working after a while and the obstacles seem to be appearing and disappearing at some places, would be nicer if they were going from "infinite distance" to "infinite distance"

Nava1 May 2019, 13:55

I also faced the same bugs other people did, but apart from that it's a fun and challenging game that I enjoyed playing! And I like that you added a tutorial.

theustweak1 May 2019, 13:59

well done

wolar1 May 2019, 13:59

Congratulations on finishing the entry. I have few suggestions / ideas:
- Sometimes I had a problem to differentiate what is moving and what is notor if I'm even moving. Maybe putting some simple textures on the stuff would help.
- At least for me the game was very hard, I had really troubles completing even 2nd level
- I have died and the end of the stairs in first level right after tutorial, this a) fell kinda unfair to me and b) I had to go through the tutorial again

Fiiction1 May 2019, 14:05

Am I supposed to shoot only once? I can't avoid the bug even when I skipped the tutorial level...

Meibo1 May 2019, 14:09

The game is fun overall and i wanted to play it to the end, but the bugs stopped me from doing so... I was not able to "gamble" my life and as you said, without it the game is really difficult. I had a good laugh trying to go through levels without powerups tho !

Next time maybe try to add some music and/or sound effects if you can, it really can make your game much more enjoyable even with basic ones !

Hestrateja1 May 2019, 14:28

Cool concept but couldn't even finish the Level 1 as the shooting thing bugged and I wasn't able to shoot at the triangle enemies at the end of the level. I downloaded the Windows version if that helps to solve the bug. I think i couldn't shoot starting the jumps over logs thing.

Max_Torn1 May 2019, 15:46

After the first shot I could not shoot anymore. Restarted and did not help

Entropy1 May 2019, 16:23

I ran into the bug severall times and it didn't really help to skip to lvl 2, it's too bad because the game seems to be pretty neat :/
I would like to try it again if the game gets fixed !

Bakenshake1 May 2019, 16:30

The shooting bug prevented me from making it very far. I did climb the steps, and I appreciated the narrator. Pretty simple concept. Definitely an alpha!

Rancoud1 May 2019, 17:39

What you can improve:
* add a texture on the ball, like that we can see it rolling
* add sounds
* add checkpoints

Sometimes I lose life for nothing (I'm standing on a platform with no obstacle)

Roilbauk1 May 2019, 18:47

I'm curious about this game, would have definitely played more if I didn't encounter a shoot block bug during the tutorial. Seems good and has potential !

PixScope1 May 2019, 20:10

Very Challenging and funny. I loved playing it

Octopoid1 May 2019, 23:01

This really does get challenging! Fun to play, and the visuals, while basic, are effective for gameplay. Great job!

Notekri2 May 2019, 08:07

This game is really challenging, I personly think that checkpoints would good for the game, other than that good game, well done.

Gargantus2 May 2019, 21:33

The game looks pretty fun, but the graphics are very poor even for a jam game and I can't complete the tutorial, because my shooting get's disabled. Please fix this.