You are a wizard in dire need of a midnight snack. What could be better than a nice piece of cheese? You decent into the depth of your cellar in search of the object of your desire. The terrain is treacherous for an old wizard like you, but you have the power to summon spectral blocks as steppingstones. Will you make it to the end?
As weird as that might sound, this is my first platformer. The game is written in Python (3.12), using Pygame-ce (2.4.1) for input, output, and some of the logic, as well as pytmx (3.13) to load level data created with Tiled. Graphical assets were created using Asesprite. It took some time to learn to use Tiled and Asesprite during the first day, but it was a lot of fun to use, once I figured out how to use them. For the idea I have been inspired by Trine, which I never finished, but had some fun as the wizard.
All graphical assets have been created by me (Archaeognathus, https://ldjam.com/users/archaeognathus/) for Ludum Dare 55. Drawing was done using Asesprite, level layout with Tiled.
How to play: - Move and jump using WASD/arrow keys/space. - Walk into the open door to pass into the next level, until you find what you came looking for. - Draw shapes by holding left mouse button. They materialize as constructs made of blocks. You can have a maximum of three constructs made of a total of nine blocks at once. This is indicated by the runes and the mana flask at the lower left corner of the screen. - Remove constructs by right clicking them. This will return mana and free up capacity to summon a new shape construct. - Pressing R will reset the current level, pressing ESC will make the game return to the title screen.
Hints: - You can summon boxes below you while jumping. - Create small stairs, climb, jump, repeat 😉
Nice game, loved dropping blocks into holes in the wall in the nick of time to stop myself from falling.
I think it would be nice if the level design was more forgiving. There were a few places were I fell, and the way back up was complicated and made me want to give up
Pretty fun puzzle platformer. I really liked the stepping stone mechanic. The only thing i would wish for is to make it more clear which stepping stones i will be removing when i right click.
@Marju I unfortunalty didn't have the time for many of the effects regarding the summoning and unbinding. I only managed a quick and dirty random color tint that sometimes helps to differentiate between constructs... but mostly beeing to subtle
I liked the primary block placing mechanic a lot, and the levels were designed in a way that took good advantage of the mechanic. I could see the same concept stretched even farther if there were environmental hazards that affected how you played (like regions you couldn't place blocks in, forcing you to be creative about positioning and making blocks fall). Of course, it's hard to scope extra stuff into a jam, especially as a solo developer.
Pixel art graphics were charming and the UI was very clear. The music you chose fit the mood well, although it would have been nice to have simple sound effects as well for at least the core actions of jumping, placing blocks, and removing blocks.
Always good to see more pygame developers in LD! Don't forget you can port to other platforms after the jam is over, if you wanted to experiment with getting a build in web with pygbag.
I like it! You might get better results by easing the player in with a tutorial or a simpler first level with obvious direction, but I think it was simple enough to figure out. Would have liked more gameplay variation, but what's here is well put together! Love the graphics! Great work!
Woah, this is one of the coolest and most under-rated games I've seen! I absolutely love the vibe; to me it feels like a chill game that's not trying to do too much, yet what it does it does perfectly. The mechanics are super interesting where you have to both do physics based puzzle solving AND resource management. The puzzle are well though through (and somewhat challenging). Plus the little torch sprites are cute. This is a great game I had a lot of fun playing! :)
My only feedback would to add some satisfying sound effects for castling spells :)
Very nice puzzle platformer with a chill atmosphere 😄 The difficulty progression is good, the levels are interesting to solve, but not frustrating. The Trine-like mechanic is nicely implemented, and the animation is cute.
It's an impressive solo project. Well done! Sure, it would be nice to have more sfx, but we all understand the jam time constraints 😁
Great implementation of the theme and the art style is cute and simple, same as the mechanic :) I like that you can figure out different ways of using the mechanic by yourself, it feels very rewarding and keeps you engaged. Great job!
Nice game and a cool tribute to the wizard in Trine! :) I like the mood you set in this little puzzle game. The mechanics and UI felt very intuitive for me. The controls also felt very good. I like that you used different colours for the blocks, when you summoned a new block chain. Maybe it would help if the colours were even more different, so you can distinguish them more, when you want to remove them. The "punishing system" for falling down on the other hand didn`t feel that good. Restarting was often a better option. Maybe you could use "real" pits, so that you die and get to the last plattform you were standing on. Kind of like in the game Celeste. The blocks could vanish if you fall into a pit. But it´s just a suggestion.
I really liked playing this game. The little practicle effects on summoning the blocks are a nice touch. The graphics are simple, but very clear. I think you should do a post-jam version. You can expand the gameplay with new obstacles, jumping plattforms, enemies and so on. Thanks for the fun I had with this game. :)
Thanks for all the nice feedback. It brings me great joy that you enjoyed playing the game :)
@jeremy-ryan Wow, thanks so much for the feedback and especially the doodle, I love it! I had so many ideas for more stuff to put into the game. Simple enemies like zombies that are trappable and can walk your platforms, or spiders that drop from above. With all this nice feedback I might continue with the development afterwards. I also havn"t heared of pygbag yet and will give it a try. Thanks a lot 😄
@lllarso Thanks for your in-depth feedback :) With so many nice comments there is a high chance that I will acutally expand upon the game post-jam. It was espacially challenging for me to get the difficulty right and I thought I was nice when allowing people to climb back, but your idea of having checkpoints seems very good. If I continue I will make sure to give it a try, together with adding some enemies and new obstacles :)
This game made me feel like a pro gamer when I finally got a hang of the summoning mechanic. Insanely polished game for only 3 days of solo developing!
this is pretty fun lil platformer, great twist.