Ludum Dare #58compo

Pumpkin Bumpkin

by automatonvx

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.05

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.33

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.21

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.64

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.57

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.60

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.26

The Evil Wicked Witch of the South-East has stolen all the pumpkins.

Its down to you Jack Bumpkin, a humble scarecrow to find and collect them all to save halloween,

Controls

WASD or Arrow Keys to Move, SPACE or Left Mouse to Jump.
Hit 'R' to reset the level if it glitches out (not that unusual :( )
Hit 'Q' to quit back to the main menu.

Notes

Fall Damage is a thing - you have been warned. Also no air movement here. This is pre-mario platformer design.

It is intended to be a borderline masochistic kind of platformer in the old old style, so I let you jump to any level from the title screen at least.

All Art, Code, Music made in 48 hours

- Font - Silkscreen
- SFX generated with bfxr

A game for Ludum Dare 58 Compo

Updates:

v1.01
- Fix a pretty game-breaking physics bug where the player would somtimes get stuck on the corners of platforms and soft-locked.
- Fix bug on Title screen where if you had previously been into the game clicking Start wouldn't take you to the first level anymore

Tags: #2d, #halloween, #pixel art

Genres: platformer

Tools: Bfxr, Unity

Comments19

AppoxGames5 Oct 2025, 23:28

You masochist! :) fall damage and ladders, the suffering. Well done and best of luck!

Nash6 Oct 2025, 11:57

This little game is a solid contender for a Compo entry, with a decent amount of content.

However, it’s a bit too tough for my taste. It’s not just about the number of things that kill you; it’s the sheer size of the levels compared to your character’s speed. In most levels, you spend most of your time either walking or climbing ladders. When you die, you have to do that again. And that gets tedious pretty quickly.

Overall, it’s a great game, but with a few tweaks to the move speed and level size, I think it could be even better!

breadstick7 Oct 2025, 20:30

I agree with what @Nash said here... the game looks solid and has a great retro feel, but death causing a full restart (combined with your slow move speed) means that you're frequently waiting for the little guy to just finish climbing a ladder. Faster move speeds would do a lot to make the game feel less punishing!
Nicely done, though, on evoking that old-school vibe

preef7 Oct 2025, 20:38

great old school feel. I agree with the other commenters that a bit more dynamic movement, or maybe smaller maps, would make the gameplay feel tighter. overall great work!

bjornstenlund7 Oct 2025, 23:15

It looks phenomenal and the music is great! Really nice mood and I'm really impressed with the cohesiveness of everything.

It was too punishing for my taste, I gave it a good try but I couldn't get past the second level :( I would love some cayote time on the jumps (or just not so pixel prefect) and maybe a pixel smaller collision on the cannonballs. But if you really going for pixel perfect input I think it would be nice with some easing in of the mechanics, so a small level with just three long jumps in row for example.

Anyways really solid compo!

automatonvxauthor7 Oct 2025, 23:17

@nash @breadstick @preef thanks for the feeback guys :heart: Yeah I definitely agree the movement speed is too slow, especially for the size of the levels.. probably should enable the player to control direction while in the air too, once you are used to it as a standard platformer control, going back to that older style just feels less fun. Hopefully if I feel enough post jam motivation i'll make a post LD version to improve that kind of thing and re-work it to have shorter levels.

Electric Sun8 Oct 2025, 00:13

It was fun but the levels got a bit too much for me. Might come back later to beat this one.

gamebuilder8 Oct 2025, 01:24

This game is impressive, at least in terms of aesthetics. The sound and graphics are excellent.

Alas, I am not good at platformers, so I didn't get very far. Still, I felt nostalgic — it reminded me of Lode Runner for the Commodore-64. A solid entry.

APDT10 Oct 2025, 04:55

I really like the picture, just like in ancient games on the console! I'm really looking forward to the next version)

LDJam user 38419110 Oct 2025, 10:37

As other have mentioned, I found the game a bit too punitive. I don't think that the absence of air control is an issue, but not being able to experiment and get a feel for jump distances without dying, combined with the slow movement and large levels makes the experience too tedious for me. That being said, I loved the retro pixel art and music. A very polished entry

spacecadet10 Oct 2025, 22:41

You have nice cool old school art style but the gameplay becomes frustrating really quickly because of the sudden deaths. Maybe some other feedback would be appreciated in the player object and think about maybe some less punishing approach.

Jajo11 Oct 2025, 12:49

I'm really impressed with the art, working in such a limited resolution while keeping it animated and pretty is really cool. It did feel very retro for better and worse (I think the inability to control your jump in the air really limits you). However, it did give strong ghosts and goblins vibes which is a plus.

milq11 Oct 2025, 20:30

How cool! It reminds me of an old MS-DOS game I used to play where you had to climb stairs and collect hats! Maybe the character moves a bit slowly and replaying a level can feel a little tedious, but even so, congratulations! I think it’s an excellent entry. Great game!

LDJam user 33733612 Oct 2025, 15:44

Solid core gameplay mechanic, congrats for finishing the game. As others has suggested, I feel it difficult for my taste, but overall the feeling is good. Maybe a little bit of coyote time would help for those tight jumps.

pres230013 Oct 2025, 03:58

This was a really solid platformer entry! As others have said, it was pretty tedious to do the entire level over again if you ever died, but I understand the classics worked that way (and I'm also just not very good at them). Overall, the music and SFX were really great and I'm impressed you got them done in the compo! Nice work!

SnowPriestess13 Oct 2025, 14:51

It was a bit too difficult for me to complete the levels but I like how the game is consistent in all aspects! Good job!

PieRo_PBeS_studio13 Oct 2025, 18:52

A little platformer is always fun, but the levels are a bit difficult, especially since they are long... maybe you still need to save a little before a tough challenge so you can come back more quickly. The character is also a bit clumsy and a bit stiff, while the traps are everywhere. On the other hand, the action is perfectly readable, and I like the big levels.

graebor13 Oct 2025, 21:54

Definitely very hard! lol

DGo13 Oct 2025, 23:56

The art and music work really well in this one. I feel like giving the character a bit more speed would balance things out a bit, but in general a great entry! Great job on the compo :smile:

Other games by @automatonvx

★3.33

★3.50

★3.72