Ludum Dare #53compo
Ultimate Pigeon Post
Deliver mail fast in this action platformer. As the Ultimate elite pigeon, you can beat up anything on you way to reach your goal: the *(surely ?)* holy letter box.
*(Inputs are explained in game)*
* __Move__ : *Left Stick/WASD/Arrows*
* __Jump__ : *Up Arrow/W*. Hold to full jump.
* __Slide__ : *East Gamepad Button* or *Space/Ctrl*
* __Dive__ : *North Gamepad Button* or *Down Arrow/S*
* __Kick__ : Press the slide button during or right after a slide.
* *Escape* or *Start* to retry.
* The grounded slide takes about a second to reload, white and blue stars will appears around the pigeon when it's ready again.
* The air slide can be performed once in the air (regardless of the grounded version's cooldown). If you kill something in the air, you can perform another air slide.
* You can't normally jump while in the air, but you get one air jump after killing something in the air.
* You can perform a kick in the air, but it has less range.
* You are invincible while performing skills.
* Final score is calculated by...uhhh...I mean the lower the time and highter the kills the better. I think cause it's not tested to be honest.
Version __1.2__ (the original compo version) is available at the bottom of the page.
Version __1.3__ (fixed) is played in browser with the following (minor) changes:
* Fixed the "finish" button in the last level.
* Fixed a wrong hitbox layer that made possible to kill dead enemies.
* Added a dead zone to the direction input.
* Replaced "maintain the button" by "hold the button" in the first tuto.
Inputs
*(Inputs are explained in game)*
* __Move__ : *Left Stick/WASD/Arrows*
* __Jump__ : *Up Arrow/W*. Hold to full jump.
* __Slide__ : *East Gamepad Button* or *Space/Ctrl*
* __Dive__ : *North Gamepad Button* or *Down Arrow/S*
* __Kick__ : Press the slide button during or right after a slide.
* *Escape* or *Start* to retry.
Tips
* The grounded slide takes about a second to reload, white and blue stars will appears around the pigeon when it's ready again.
* The air slide can be performed once in the air (regardless of the grounded version's cooldown). If you kill something in the air, you can perform another air slide.
* You can't normally jump while in the air, but you get one air jump after killing something in the air.
* You can perform a kick in the air, but it has less range.
* You are invincible while performing skills.
* Final score is calculated by...uhhh...I mean the lower the time and highter the kills the better. I think cause it's not tested to be honest.
Post Compo Fixes:
*I don't usually do those, but I had to fix the finish button in the last level that somehow reverted back to "Next", to make it clear when the game is over.*Version __1.2__ (the original compo version) is available at the bottom of the page.
Version __1.3__ (fixed) is played in browser with the following (minor) changes:
* Fixed the "finish" button in the last level.
* Fixed a wrong hitbox layer that made possible to kill dead enemies.
* Added a dead zone to the direction input.
* Replaced "maintain the button" by "hold the button" in the first tuto.
Comments42
@silkworm-sweatshop Yup that's actually something I struggled to balance on this game. Even more so that I couldn't decide what I wanted this game to be about. At some point I only wanted the game to feel great to play with no real challenge. Then I added a score system for no good reasons really, so from there I had to balance the difficulty a bit more...Should have sit down and think about it before doing things. Thanks for the feedback!
* Love the art and animations, really nicely done. Character animations, environment art, the tree parallax art in the background, pixel art attacks and fx, all of it was great
* Good stylistic font and presentation choices, very well polished
* Loved having controller support
* Music was surprisingly good for a 3 second loop. I turned it off eventually but I kept it on longer than I thought because as far as 3 second loops go, it held it's own surprisingly well.
I loved the KO sound :D and the attacking sounds. They were fantastic.
Maybe a little too loud but that's all.
The animations and partials were great.
The entire concept is just brilliant.
Nice job!:)
@candlesan Well by playing the music without the melody for a bit, then only the drum, then everything at once I think it gets to maybe 10sec or so, that helps. Tho it's still a miracle that it's good enough cause that was some very last minute work ahah. Thanks for the feedback!
I guess the only problem with this game I had is having cats as the enemies :c
The tutorial messages are a bit of a momentum killer upon restart and the theme seems like a bit of an afterthought. Other than that, no notes. Extremely solid compo entry.
@ljg @pdotjpg @deadlycupcake Yeah I knew while doing them that I should make sure to only show them once, but figured I would do it at the end when the game is all nice and playable. As if that moment ever happens during a game jam ahah. Should have done it right away it would have taken like a minute to do. Thanks for the feedback!
@anguium Thanks for playing! That was my goal so I'm glad it worked out in the end.
✔️ Explosions.
✔️ Nice pixel art.
✔️ Good variety of moves: lots of fun ripping through enemies!
➖ Sometimes the enemy projectiles are a bit hard to see. Maybe adding an outline could help?
Overall: Great job!
Very good idea to remove the power one level and then put it back in to appreciate its contribution in terms of feel. :green_heart:
Thanks for the coyote time and the input buffer :blush:
The game is great, the two only things I would add are: *screen shake* and, because enemy are placed to help the jump (good level design by the way), I would teleport the character to the destroyed position in order be at the *correct position* for using the bonus jump.
But, that's compo it already well well done :smile:
Edit: It was slightly annoying to have to click the intro text away each restart.
Good work!
@callbackthefunction I'm glad you liked it, thanks for the feedback!
@aune Ah screenshake was something I had planned as "very important", but still had to left behind because I struggled for a bit with my level building workflow. I also had some sort of *Ori and the blind forest* dash move planned that would have worked a bit like your idea, but that was way way too ambitious given the time I spent animating stuff. Thanks for the feedback!
@coderaurus I struggled to find the best control scheme so much, I changed it back and forth at least 3 times. There was probably something better but at some point I just decided to stick with one cause it was driving me crazy.
Ahah yeah announcer ended up much better than expected, given that it takes like 30 sec to make I should have made a bunch more.
Actually you can press space to click the button, but it's really not obvious.
Thanks for playing!
Aside from that - very good job :smile:
@conduit Thanks for the playthrough, it was fun!
@purpledartfrog I considered changing their palette at the end, but I was running out of time, liked how they looked and figured it kind of make sense for cat to be sneaky anyway. So I didn't bother, but I would have done something about them with more time for sure. Thanks for the feedback!
@f1krazy Yup I got kind of confused when doing the scoring system, cause the game didn't really needed one actually. For some reasons I did one anyway. So it exists but it's not really doing anything...I couldn't have made it more complete as you guessed, so I think I should have saved time by scrapping it and improving other things instead.
Thanks for the feedback!
@olddog Yeah I agree, it's missing visual cues when air jump is available. I think I could have made one in under 5 minutes but I had my mind stuck on other things at the end. I'm glad you like it, thanks for playing!
@bluedandelion Oh thanks! I'm glad you liked it, thanks for playing