Down climber (Pico-8)

very cool! nice sound effects!

Nice to see a Pico-8 game. This was a simple one but I like the mechanics. I must say the music got very repetitive after a while though- I would definitely mix it up some more on a post-jam version.

Nice job, and thank you for introducing me to PICO-8!

first time seen Pico-8 stack, looks extremely efficient. and like a retro style just like in arcades.

Well done not using a modern game engine. Looks very challenging to make a game this way. The movement in this game is certainly unique compared to other platformers. One issue is that you can fall to your death near the next checkpoint to make progress. The game really loses its challenge this way. You should probably add some check to make sure the player isn't falling before updating the checkpoint.

@yossarian sry about the music. I wasted last hours trying to get more levels system working (3h melting brains), which some of I could have made the music more complex(its only 2 pattenrs looping).

@dnp yeah i notice that bug but decided to let it be incase people notice and want to abuse it + not wanting to break anything (my collision is a mess).

Lovely little experience! Fun to play and obviously a great use of the theme. Great ending! :smile:

I like the mechanics, there is a little bit of jank to getting used to them, but ones you've got it its nice to use. good job!

Cool mechanics. Hadn't thought of this type of platforming option. Nice work!

Offline game jam is a very nice idea. I did a similar challange but I choose a game engine that I dont know, love2d, and a language that I dont know, lua, and tried my best to learn and build something in 48 hours. Next time I might do a offlien jam with something I have slight understanding of maybe.

The game itself works like a charm, I liked the feeling of old schoolness. Good job I would say.

I love playing pico-8! Absolutely love your pixel art. Working in offline mode is hard, you are a man!

Good game ^_^

falling into eternal blackness is right on theme :D i wonder how long one can fall before the game crashes.

Cool game. Reminds me of Lemmings. I remember your game from last jam about a race drawn on sheets of paper in a grid.

Seeing Pico-8 is always inspiring! i really dig this entry its simple but something about it really gets you hook to it! loved it- fantastic job!

good job, the chain mechanics are pleasing

Good job friend! I really like the gameplay!

Nice. It's a charming simplistic game! My only gripe is that the fall damage is a bit unforgiving. That last part was pretty frustrating for me, but I pushed through! Good job!

Awesome game! I really enjoyed the level design – it genuinely felt like I was exploring a cave. The rope mechanic was great and felt satisfying to use. It's also nice to see Pico-8 in action here! Keep the good work!

Great mechanics! A fully fleshed out game taking this idea further could be awesome

I like the climbing mechanics. I've got to try a pico8 game sometime, it has so much retro charm.

Fun game! I played through the whole thing. I like the retro feel.

Turning fall damage into a game in and of itself was not something I was expecting, especially not from a PICO-8 game. I felt compelled to see through to the end, minding my distance to find what waits for me at the bottom. How Down Climber plays really reinforces its aesthetic, dark and dangerous.

Reminds me of a DOS game; Crystal Caves. A game that in a similar vein that kills you a lot, but with a very different kind of play.

Great little puzzler platformer

Yes, that's really cool, and I love the approach, that u made it ofline, not using web and so on. This game has good vibe and I played it with great pleasure!

Movement can be glitchy at times but overall it was great!

I always love Pico games, the rope mechanic is really unique, must've been hard to implement :D

Really cool game! Your game brought me back to my childhood, I really like the retro test.

Very cool game, It was nice figuring out the movement tech by combining the various options and I made it to the void at the end.

It's cool to see a game that has no jumping and explores innovative mechanics around it, though the mechanics are glitchy. I like the sound design and the PICO-8 graphics. Good work!

ＶＯＩＤ

Cool. And PICO 8, nice

Neat game, I liked the climbing mechanic. Well done!

Really enjoyed this! Shame it didn't last much longer than the tutorial. The controls certainly could've done with some polish, but they worked well enough for me to get the idea. I think an expanded version of this could be really fun, if you were so inclined.

Some criticisms:
- The way you activate the rope didn't feel the most natural to me. Maybe Z could do that as well? It felt a bit awkward to just completely let go and trust the rope would kick in to save me.
- Some areas required me to sneak over an edge and catch a 1-tile wall to avoid falling. I wasn't a huge fan of those sections, especially since I wasn't entirely clear on what the hitboxes were. At least during the tutorial section, I think I would stay away from finicky movements like that.
- Twice the game seemed to force me to simply fall/glide down to a platform from a decent height, and there didn't seem to be a good way to avoid it. Both times, I simply respawned at the spawn point on the platform I was trying to land on. Maybe I just happened to touch the spawn point when landing...? But, I'm not sure I did. Is this some kind of failsafe? Do the spawn points just work differently than I thought?
- This is acceptable for a game jam project, but there was a lack of feedback. Dying just instantly cut to me standing next to my last spawn point, with no fanfare. Spawn points themselves also had no feedback; I'm only assuming they're spawn points because I don't know what else they could be, and I seemed to respawn next to them after dying. There was no explanation in-game. I'd recommend maybe just having some text that says "Checkpoint!" or something.

Good work overall. Might check this out again in the future if you decide to add more content in a post-jam update. I think there's some room for interesting level designs using this mechanic that this prototype didn't have the time to explore.

From another pico lover, this has a lot of potential, it's a very good gameplay idea and inserting the tutorial into the game is always a good idea ;)

Thank you all for the feedback.

@python-b5 Thanks a lot for the longer criticism! Point of the rope mechanic was to be somewhat a trust thing, you got to "trust" the rope when climbing etc. Also so its not too punishing to acidentally letting go when climbing a wall. But yes i agree that i could be weird to play with it like that. Sneak and catch a edge is a result of me failing to do proper "climb up/down a corner" mechanic (the climb up uses a bug to work). Initially i didnt mean to allow for any movement while in air. The spawnpoints activite when you get near it, and i didnt fix the "even if you fall miles into it" bug. And yes i wholy agree on lack of more feedback. There is a slight sprite change on checkpoint activation, and i wanted to keep some of that old school we dont tell things.

Nice short climber game! I thought I could drop down from heights but the checkpoint debunked that.
I like player have ability to climb walls up and down and use rope. Really helpful especially in deep drop.

Took me back to the beginning of the 90's. Fun game with cool mechanics

I jumped in the hole at the end and my man will be forever in the balck void ! :)
nice little game ! :)