Flicker is a single-player platformer where your goal is to kindle your flame and avoid getting snuffed out by the constant downfall of water. All you need to do is maneuver through the environment, healing on campfire checkpoints along the way. This is intended to be a fairly difficult platformer. Feel free to post screenshots of your best times (record is 2:39).
This is our first game jam as a team and we had a lot of fun. Please enjoy!
The Art Was Really funny in your game and I really enjoyed it. Out of all the fire based games I have played this Jam yours is by far the most unique especially with your movement system. I hope you guys expand on this game in the future as it is real fun! There we some times where I got stuck on walls but over great game
I like the unique movement system you've given your game, it helps sets it apart from the rest of the crowd. The darkness mechanic is also interesting, in that the more your health decreases, the harder it is to see. The fire and rain sound effects are quite nice and relaxing.
Since your health is always decreasing, it really helps to solidify the idea of the theme through gameplay. You are always struggling to keep the flame alive in the rain, which is a nice touch. However, because of this survival-style gameplay, it is very important that you are able to find and collect the checkpoints. But between the darkly-colored fireplaces, and your limited field of vision, sometimes I can't even see far enough to where I'm going to land, let alone to see the next checkpoint.
The movement also feels a little bit sluggish. You should indicate to the player that they can jump after hitting a wall, I only realized that accidentally. Also, this type of game almost always feels better with higher gravity. If you did implement that as a change, though, you would have to increase the jump strength as well. The music is nice, but by default it's just a little bit too quiet for me to comfortably hear. The art is also nice, but again, hard to see because of the strict and small light circle.
For a first jam game, very nice job on the release. And good luck on any future games!
Super cool! I'm going to play this again when i'm not on my laptop. Being able to shoot yourself in the air so far was wonderful. Like the previous commenter, I also couldn't figure out how the checkpoint worked, so I kept getting sent back to the beginning. :( But other than that, great work!
Jumping around on walls is really fun. I kinda got screwed by the dark until I realized you could right click to light up an area. But when I was expected to jump onto and off of my little fire rockets, that's when I had to call it. Too hard for me! haha. Cool game.
Wow I had fun to play it. Like the gameplay. I guess it can be a nice little game if you had controller support and better collision managment (don't stop when the top of the player hit bottom of a platform).
This was awesome - probably one of the best I've played! The mechanic was very creative, level design was impressive, and the atmosphere was cool too. I thought the game had really good pacing and was intuitive. I would recommend making the rain particles and sounds slightly less intense, but other than that this was great :)
Everything was great about the game except for the difficulty curve. It was too hard straight out of the gate, and I couldn't get very far. The starting area shouldn't have any rain, so that the player can get used to the controls. Otherwise, well done.
Alright, I really like this game a lot. The visual polish of all of the effects, the smooth and intuitive movement, the fun traversal mechanics just begging for a speedrun mode, it's great!!
However, I will say that I wish the level design itself let me have more fun with the game. :( The checkpoints are waaaaaaayyyyy to spread out, and the margin of error you have to reach each one is razor thin. A good rule of thumb when designing a game is that if you as the designer feel like the difficulty curve is juuuust right, it's probably *way* to hard for the average player.
The fact of the matter is that aiming your way through tight vertical shafts where the slightest bump on a nearby platform can kill all of your momentum is very frustrating. I have way more fun when I'm bouncing between walls and shooting off at long distances without stopping too much to line up my next shot.
This all sounds pretty negative, but I'm trying to explain myself as best I can because I see a lot of potential in this one, and I would love to see it succeed in the future! You have a lot of the really important pieces down pat here, and I'll bet if you weren't under such strict time constraints like you were for this jam, you'd have no problem playtesting and polishing up the level design to really play to your game's strengths. :thumbsup:
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I think the game would beneit of having a nice chill soundtrack
Since your health is always decreasing, it really helps to solidify the idea of the theme through gameplay. You are always struggling to keep the flame alive in the rain, which is a nice touch. However, because of this survival-style gameplay, it is very important that you are able to find and collect the checkpoints. But between the darkly-colored fireplaces, and your limited field of vision, sometimes I can't even see far enough to where I'm going to land, let alone to see the next checkpoint.
The movement also feels a little bit sluggish. You should indicate to the player that they can jump after hitting a wall, I only realized that accidentally. Also, this type of game almost always feels better with higher gravity. If you did implement that as a change, though, you would have to increase the jump strength as well. The music is nice, but by default it's just a little bit too quiet for me to comfortably hear. The art is also nice, but again, hard to see because of the strict and small light circle.
For a first jam game, very nice job on the release. And good luck on any future games!
edit: I BEAT IT! Was challenging, thanks.
However, I will say that I wish the level design itself let me have more fun with the game. :( The checkpoints are waaaaaaayyyyy to spread out, and the margin of error you have to reach each one is razor thin. A good rule of thumb when designing a game is that if you as the designer feel like the difficulty curve is juuuust right, it's probably *way* to hard for the average player.
The fact of the matter is that aiming your way through tight vertical shafts where the slightest bump on a nearby platform can kill all of your momentum is very frustrating. I have way more fun when I'm bouncing between walls and shooting off at long distances without stopping too much to line up my next shot.
This all sounds pretty negative, but I'm trying to explain myself as best I can because I see a lot of potential in this one, and I would love to see it succeed in the future! You have a lot of the really important pieces down pat here, and I'll bet if you weren't under such strict time constraints like you were for this jam, you'd have no problem playtesting and polishing up the level design to really play to your game's strengths. :thumbsup: