Lost Focus

Hiya @helslo , nice work for your first LD, love the intro animation. I'm struggling to figure out how to progress, I see the signal bounce can become solid (also v cool mechanic) but not sure what to do? Any suggestions for myself and others?

Hi @Liam, whenever you shoot it always deletes your old signal, so you can jump and then shoot downward again to create stairs in the first room. The different colored blocks effect the signal, so the purple blocks it, blue allows it to bounce more. In that second room with the purple, you must shoot the signal into the black walls and use your returned signal as a wall for wall jumps. Thanks for playing and hopefully with the suggestions you'll be able to play through to the end (its very short).

I like the mechanics here but I really did struggle to use the signal consistently and wasn't able to progress far unfortunately. It was a bit challenging to understand.

:v:

Thanks @helslo, I made it to the 2nd room, it's tough but I'll try to master the wall jumps.

Great work for a first jam! It was a little bit on the tough side for me, but that could just be me. The mechanic was interesting and the way the puzzles built up worked out. If I could change one thing it would probably be to show the player looking down, even when they're grounded. Took me a minute to realize I could shoot down, which ended up being a game changer. Awesome work!

Very good for your first LD entry! I like the idea that your signal creates platforms to stand on. I did have some difficulty with the aiming, since both the movement and aiming use the same keys. Maybe it would feel smoother if you could aim with the mouse. The second level is already pretty challenging.
The starting animation was a nice addition :). Great work!

@liam, I have noticed in watching others play, the 2nd room seems to be the hardest, I suggest shooting at a good distance from the wall to allow the signal to get wide enough to make the wall jump easier. I did run out of time at the end to add good explanations of things. (If you do reach the final room you will want to shoot at the purple ball until it grows and turns red and then jump into it)

Hi! Good job for your first LD! I think this is a really good concept, but I had such a hard time even leaving the first room. I was able to get a small area below me to become solid once it hit me after I jumped, but I was never able to get high enough to actually jump to the ledge. Surely I am doing something wrong, but I think it would be really helpful to see a screenshot on this page so that we can see how it's intended to work for the first room. Again - really good concept and would totally play a puzzle platformer with this mechanic!

Nice graphics! Kind of struggle to understand how to play the game, but good job on the entry :)

@kristinamay, thanks for the suggestion for a screenshot. I have added a quick youtube video which should hopefully help out

@helslo thank you! I think the fact is, I am not adept enough to successfully execute moves like that, lol. I think it will definitely help other people though!

Cool idea! I managed to reach the 4th room. I feel like the propagating waves aren't very visible, red on gray contrast is already iffy, even more so when it's a thin rapidly moving wave. Has potential with a bit of polish and balancing (that was a lot of precise platforming).

It is nice you included the video because I stuck already at the second obstacle. I guess you mastered mechanics while playtesting, so everything might be easy for you, but for the new player it's a good challenge. I should say that main mechanic is very unique, I haven't seen something like that before, and the puzzles are clever. I can image how it would feel with audio and even cooler with additional visual effects, postprocessing, etc. Nice work.

The game really gets the theme spot-on.
I love how the main character being a wizard actually ties into the theme! So cooooooool!
It’s a bit tough gameplay-wise, but the idea is brilliant.

@cagibi, @skale, @rinnnzy Thanks for the feedback! Starting to realize that my countless hours in precision platformers might have made me blind to the difficulty, probably could have ramped it up quite a bit more gradually. I'm glad people are enjoying the mechanics though!

Funny mechanics)))
I've reached the end))

Very nice first entry, pretty amazing you got this much done :slight_smile:

I had some struggles with the wall jumping, ended up being able to do it but it feels like you kind of stick to it like glue sometimes. Very neat idea with the building platforms for yourself.

Arthouse. Just the way I like it. Nice play.

Congrats on you first ludum dare entry!
Your interpretation of the theme is super creative and the way one has to use the signal to create the platforms is very interesting!
I feel like the created platforms could have been a little bigger just to allow the player some more wiggle room!
The second room was hard! The third room was the perfect introduction for a new mechanic that then gets iterated upon on the next level!
Also the animation in the beginning was very cute! Good job!

@domenixius thanks for the feedback! I definitely agree about the platform size(and also the cleanliness when sometimes it gets broken). I originally wanted to make it so that once a signal particle hit the player, it would actually spawn a new platform that matched the player hitbox and then destroyed all particles that were inside of the new platforms hitbox on that frame to make a clean new surface. Unfortunately by the time I got the current iteration working it was already well into day 2 and all i had was a basic white Unity square as the player and a pit to test the particles and had to move on. Actually ended up finishing art and starting level/mechanics design at like 7:40pm in full panic mode. Luckily the way I setup the particles made it trivial to add those mechanics last second or otherwise it would have just been basically a repetition of the first room with different platforms.

I'm glad you enjoyed!

Daring Mechanic, very innovative. Controls are quite fiddly, I was already struggling with room 1.
Also the intro animation is quite nice.

The idea of making the signal as a part of platformer is very good. Kinda feel lack of level design

Great intro, innovative mechanics! Hard to master. Good job on your first LD! Very impressive!

That is awesome but insanely hard to control.
Im compelled to try and complete this one day.
All it needs is music.

Nice mechanic! It's pretty unusual, so it took me a while to figure out how to make the most of it. I think it would be easier if the signal moved a little slower.
Well done!