Series Of Choices by joe40001
The major inspiration for this game was SpeedRunning. Often watching SpeedRunners I think about the choices that go into getting such impressive runs. The original idea was to have a game that showed all the inputs/timeline for a SpeedRun of a level, thus letting you see "Beneath the Surface" of a SpeedRun and seeing all the decisions involved in each moment.
"series of choices" starts as a standard platformer but turns into a puzzle game when you attempt to optimize your speed in a level. This challenge is something you really feel in Hardcore mode. [CAUTION: The game is quite difficult even on standard mode, and on hardcore mode most levels can only be completed with 2 seconds or less to spare]
Controls:
[Arrows/WASD]:[Move]
[Space]:[Jump]
(Press 'Enter' when it says "Press Start")
('R' to resume from timeline)
[VERY IMPORTANT NOTE]
You can skip the rewind controls introduction by pressing 'Enter' at any time after you die.
Notes: Originally this game was going to be less "Braid-like" and track/display inputs and feature many more levels/mechanics. If the game is well received I want to continue working on it, but as it is I'm happy with what I achieved in 72 hours.
Programming: Me (no outside libraries) Made in Unity
Art Assets (CC BY 3.0):
"Lars Doucet & Sean Choate","Carl Olsson"
Music Assets:
"Eric Skiff: Resistor Anthems" (CC BY 3.0)
"Vasculoid - I Want you to Know" (CC BY-SA 2.5)
Creative Commons 0 Additional Assets:
Branch Sound Effect/Cloud Image
Special thanks to: The internet folk who share their art/music so that Programmers like me have Assets to develop from.
"series of choices" starts as a standard platformer but turns into a puzzle game when you attempt to optimize your speed in a level. This challenge is something you really feel in Hardcore mode. [CAUTION: The game is quite difficult even on standard mode, and on hardcore mode most levels can only be completed with 2 seconds or less to spare]
Controls:
[Arrows/WASD]:[Move]
[Space]:[Jump]
(Press 'Enter' when it says "Press Start")
('R' to resume from timeline)
[VERY IMPORTANT NOTE]
You can skip the rewind controls introduction by pressing 'Enter' at any time after you die.
Notes: Originally this game was going to be less "Braid-like" and track/display inputs and feature many more levels/mechanics. If the game is well received I want to continue working on it, but as it is I'm happy with what I achieved in 72 hours.
Programming: Me (no outside libraries) Made in Unity
Art Assets (CC BY 3.0):
"Lars Doucet & Sean Choate","Carl Olsson"
Music Assets:
"Eric Skiff: Resistor Anthems" (CC BY 3.0)
"Vasculoid - I Want you to Know" (CC BY-SA 2.5)
Creative Commons 0 Additional Assets:
Branch Sound Effect/Cloud Image
Special thanks to: The internet folk who share their art/music so that Programmers like me have Assets to develop from.
| Web | http://www.kongregate.com/games/joe40001/series-of-choices |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=22192 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.23 | 358 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.20 | 304 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.09 | 313 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.28 | 410 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.37 | 451 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.05 | 352 |
| Mood(Jam) | 2.88 | 471 |
| Theme(Jam) | 1.90 | 733 |
I really love the graphics on this! They're crisp and clean with beautiful animations, and that fade-in gives an awesome feel. The character design is also the best I've seen so far this jam, so great job! Unfortunately, crossing Mario with Braid when Braid was already based on Mario to begin with doesn't make much sense. I also had a lot of trouble with jumping over some platforms due to placement, and I initially thought that "series of choices" meant I was supposed to run left instead of right, or something like that (instead of a rewind mechanic). Still, good job on the mood and audio. If you brush up on your mechanical design a bit, I think you could make some really adorable old-school platformers >w<
Also level 5 was my personal hell.
Pretty hard on jumps and felt it frustrating about the jump wide .. didn't really got it. great job!
Also thanks so much for the positive feedback. :)
I really like the Braidy rewinding mechanic. I do wish the interface switching was a lot faster. Also, a 5 second countdown is a bit lot. When you're experimenting to get past a hard part, you die a lot. And frankly, I did not finish the game just because it felt like a lot of the time I was just waiting to be able to try something else...
It really is a fun game though :)
I could do a post jam options menu so that you can set the 5 second timer to be lower, but I wouldn't want to break any rules with an edit like that. I'm still happy to hear everybody is enjoying it.
I'll agree with the comments that for this game, the theme is taken very non-literally, it's essentially "Beneath the surface of a gameplay experience are our gameplay choices". And then the timeline mechanic shows those choices.
Unfortunately for me I got stuck immediately after dying. No amount of key mashing would let me exit the "move around in time" mode.
Also, 5 seconds of preparation may be a bit too generous. I stopped playing because I was spending more time watching that countdown than anything else.
I have a bunch of ideas that would twist the mechanic even further in creative ways. I hope there is enough interest to justify me continuing to develop this game into a proper game.
It would be my dream to take a game like this, add like 9 other inventive timeline mechanics just like this one, make like 100 levels, polish off all the rough edges so it looks and plays super smoothly, and release it on steam for a couple bucks. But I don't know if that's a justifiable dream.
Anyway thank you very much shasharala, your kind words mean a lot.
I didn't beat all the hardcore levels, but I came close.
The graphics are good, even if there's nothing really special about them. The sounds are fine, as is the music. I especially like the audio at the rewind screen :D
A few things of mention:
1. I didn't really like the jumping mechanic that much. In my opinion, it forced the direction too much. What I mean is, when you press a directional arrow key and up at the same time and then let go, you'll still move much to the side. This is difficult when it comes to precision, which is probably the main reason I didn't feel like beating all the hardcore scenes XD
2. When you die, it would be nice if you could just double tap 'enter', instead of reaching for the 'R' :p
3. I feel like five seconds is a pretty long time to wait after each death. I'd say that 3 is enough for everyone to get ready :)
Otherwise, this was an awesome game. I can see how SpeedRunners has inspired this.
This isn't the first game to use a similar mechanic (rewinding), but it was a well made one!
The simple elements of the enemies and hazards worked well. Some times, you had to be pretty precise with your movements, but I managed.
Well done, and good luck! :'D
@terraco, yeah that's my bad, I was just trying to match mario's lead space, I guess mario might have given more lead space. It's a shame, because something like that is literally 1 number in the code that I could change. Not sure if making that change would violate LD rules.
Also to everybody giving feedback, I'd love to hear if you'd be interested in playing a much more fleshed out version of this game? With like 8-10 timeline mechanics, redone art/music. And all the mechanics polished and smooth? It wouldn't just be "Braid-lite" because while this game plays mostly as a rewind based game, my actual driving vision was to have a timeline for the whole level and various things like divergent and convergent timelines and some other time mechanics. So if you really like this game let me know if you think it's the kind of thing you'd be interested in seeing a really polished much bigger version of on steam for a couple bucks.
And once again thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it.
If this smaller LD project can be so entertaining, a more ambitious game with some more time put into it, as well as more gaming elements should be a lot of fun. So I'd say yeah for sure XD
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=37109
Thanks very much, yeah I'm really hoping to take this game idea further, and I'm glad you liked it, I'm sorry about the countdown timer, like I said to other people I added options menu post compo that fixes this issue (it's on the title screen before each level) but it was post jam so I understand if people don't use it.
The whole premise/theme would've made more sense if I had gotten to my next major goal which would be divergent/convergent timelines, so it wouldn't be "rewind" so much as "Diverge from here". These are mechanics that will definitely be in a fuller version of this game if I do make one. Feedback so far has been good. And I once again want to thank you and everybody else for your feedback and suggestions.
The LD community is a good one. Very kind, polite, and constructive. It makes these jams all the more fun. :)
I found it really hard sometimes, which I didn't mind except for the countdown timer (I haven't noticed options until later).
The player's movement felt hard to control.
I LOVED the rewind "world", it created most of the atmosphere and was really well executed.
I'd like to see a larger more polished game expanded from this, especially as you describe with divergent/convergent timelines - I can see some really interesting puzzle gameplay there.
(I've been thinking of something slightly similar to divergent timelines for possible continuation of Soulitude, though mostly story driven.).
@petey123567: Jump height is hardcoded by me, it is designed that your height is controlled by how long you hold spacebar (like in mario), the issue I think most people run into is that the collider dampens the jump height if you rub against a wall as you are jumping up. This is something I'd like to fix but simply didn't have time to do. You should always reach your max height if you aren't rubbing the wall as you jump (and hold space the whole time).
That said thank you for playing and your constructive feedback. :)
Also, I instantly liked the quaint graphics and the fading during the number sequence (I know it's a little thing, but for some reason I noticed it particularly). And the music worked well too.
Thank you very much for being honest about my game! (The figth beneath the surface), I loved some sincere feedback on it, and yes I know I could have put 5-10 times more work into it. Your comment was one of the very best that I got on my game, many others are just nonsense or cheesy. I wanted to thank you again because you spent a lot of time writing the review of my game, (it's so long :) ), it seemed a professional review, well done, fight ipocrisy!
@Meedoc and @MakeAGame after going back and forth on fixing it I decided I just would change the lead space, like I said it was a single number in the code and the fact that it was hurting several people's experience made me think it was enough of a bug that switching it wouldn't be breaking LD rules, but if you want to be 100% fair to me future reviewers then you should know that the lead space was a tiny bit worse in the original submission.
Thanks again to everybody for the positive feedback! Because of all the support I'm really thinking I'm going to evolve this into a real game to be released for a couple bucks on steam! :D
(Don't worry it's going to earn it's cost with many more mechanics, levels/worlds/improved art/audio/ease of play and much more) :)