Death Percent [Wowie Jam 3.0]

gameoffate2018 · March 1, 2021, 5:07am

Hey everyone!

This past weekend, I did my 11th Game Jam and decided to try my hand at making a platformer. In this game, death is not the end. Turn into a ghost and fly to previously inaccessible areas. Can you finish every level in time?

This game was made for the Wowie Jam 3.0 and was made with the topic of “Failure is progress”.

This was my first time trying to make a platformer, I used the built in template as a jumping off point and am pretty happy with how it turned out. Any feedback would be really nice!

Pinchazumos · March 1, 2021, 8:33am

I had a very similar idea many years ago. Mine was more focused on puzzles and I quickly discovered that to keep puzzles interesting I would need to introduce other new elements.

Your focus on speedrunning is a good solution to make the game not feel too easy, without needing to create new mechanisms, good job.

Regarding bugs and all that, the character sometimes gets kind of stuck when falling next to a pile of bricks. You might also want to make him jump only when the button is pressed.

Pawel · March 1, 2021, 8:45am

A very fun game and a clever mechanics idea! I even managed to set some world records!

Were some Defold Assets useful for you?

gameoffate2018 · March 1, 2021, 2:29pm

Thanks for the feedback! You’re game sounds really cool, if you want to link it, I’d be happy to play it.

I was aware of the getting stuck bug, it came about while I was trying to implement a form of Coyote Time. As for the “only jump when the button is pressed”, did you have issues with the character randomly jumping or bouncing?

ZaTimou · March 2, 2021, 12:40am

Very noice game, I like it. Very fun. You can put the Dream Minecraft Speedrun music over it to make it sound like a meme.

Pinchazumos · March 2, 2021, 9:55am

Not really randomly, no, its just if you hold the jump button he just jumps nonstop which feels cheap and is probably not the intended behavior.

gameoffate2018 · March 8, 2021, 2:56pm

Results just came in!

Out of the 1,018 games submitted to the game jam, I got 19th overall (The Wowie Score) as well as 13th in fun and topic!

Pawel · March 8, 2021, 7:07pm

Congratulations! That’s something to be proud of!

dapetcu21 · March 11, 2021, 9:51pm

Congrats! This was pretty fun! I liked that you had to get creative to get some of the records. I also liked the music choice. It kept me engaged till the end and managed to get all the records as well.

I stumbled over a couple of bugs here and there (but that’s to be expected for a game jam game), but I’ll list them anyway so you’re aware:

If you press R on the same frame you die, you restart as a ghost. Happened to me a couple of times, so it’s probably reproduceable.
Jumping interacts weirdly with walls. Sometimes you can “jump” just by pushing yourself against a wall and sometimes you don’t fall if you push yourself into the wall.

gameoffate2018 · March 12, 2021, 6:53pm

Thanks for the feedback! I just finished patching those bugs as well as some others. Here’s the full list of things I’ve patched:

Timer starts on player moving instead of automatically
World Record Counter is now semi-transparent
Wall Jump glitch has been patched
Level 11 will no longer let the player up the tunnel
No more jumping off of spawn
No more dying and respawning as a ghost
Wall clip in level 12 has been fixed

thebone · March 12, 2021, 7:10pm

I really enjoyed this! It’s super well made and the idea shines through your design. I got really invested in getting the set a significant lead in some of this even if temporary. I love it.

Also, I don’t know if that was intentional but the coyote time seemed really long and messed me up a bit with some levels.

gameoffate2018 · March 15, 2021, 1:49am

The long Coyote Time was intentional, it’s somewhere around half a second. I made it super relaxed in an attempt to make the game easier for the Jam. It’s something I’ll play around with in the future. Do you know what a better time range for it would be?

thebone · March 15, 2021, 6:22pm

I don’t know about time range in seconds, per se, but I know a few times my character was well below the block I’d just jumped off and coyote time still kicked in. I think roughly half a second would still be good if the gravity curve was flatter at the top, so you wouldn’t have fallen as much before jumping.