I really like the idea behind this game, that's interesting to play and makes a clever level design, you just evolve in a small area that keeps changing. Nicely done ;)

I really like this idea of the world gradually becoming more difficult and complex. I also like the world design, backtracking through re-skinned areas and sometimes able to explore them more fully. I wish the changes had been more gradual though.

The most frustrating part was the collision. The player was easily hit by enemies, but the range of the attack was so small that attacking without being hit was rare for me. This was especially frustrating in the castle where some platforms were so small the enemies were unavoidable.

Altogether, I had fun and felt challenged.

Nice job! Great idea with the theme, although it would have been to cool to see if it kept advancing, although that would obviously start getting harder to do. Surprisingly, big world too!

Cool! Half-way through making my game I had a related idea (which I couldn't do at that point), so I was happy to see it more or less covered here. :) Boss battle, even! I played through to the end. The coins were a bit of a distraction since you can get as many as you want, and the controls are a little bit integer-y, but the level design and graphics and core idea were all good.

Nice! I hope nobody plays just 5 seconds of this and then gives up! D:

NICEEE Although kind annoying not being able to move whilst fighting

Very well done, lovely idea. I played 'till the end!

The art and game play were great! I also really enjoyed the concept! The only thing was I thought the combat could be improved a little.

Very nice indeed ! I found the 3 stages of evolution styles were very nicely chosen and executed.

If you decide to push this idea, I'd like to have better balance between the evolution states. Here the last part was much longer than the others. I'd also like too see more interactions between evolutions, for example go back one step, or a possibility to influence the next stage of evolution from the previous one, a little bit like in Ocarina of Time, but with more layers and more often.

Really nice.

I definitely enjoyed playing it.

Oh this is great. An evolving game! Great stuff for 48hours. The level designis very complex and clever. What mapeditor did you choose?

kind of remind me of my good ol alex kidd =)

Woo beat it! Great idea and execution. I liked that you could move while attacking midair, made it all a bit more fluid.

This is by far one of the most unique concepts I have stumbled across! Nice job with the graphics!

Nice game.

This game is wonderul. It really feels like an old platformer game. Great job!

I didn't know what was happening at first, thought something had gone wrong.
The 4th stage blew my mind!

Good game, played it till the end.

The best use of the theme, so far. Amazing thinking outside of the box! The game is fun, albeit a little too easy, the controls are tight, and great looking graphics that I'd have liked to see reach the 16 bits era. A surprisingly large world and long playing time, too!

My only "complaints" are with the music, that doesn't sound 8 bit-ish at all (NES-esque is another great term XD), and the story. Or the lack of one, actually. I would love to see the concept pushed much further, with a sort of meta-story on top of it about the evolution of the industry, and our own evolution as players.
The "You Win" final screen was all sorts of disappointing! :)

Finally, why did we have to kill those exceedingly cheerie creatures?

Congratulations! An awesome entry!

Great graphics and gameplay!

I can't say this game has an awesome graphics or outstanding sound, but the idea is just great! Really nice one.
Anyway, the ending seems to be unfinished, heh. =/

Excellent game and idea!

Love the art style over evolution phases!

Excellent! One of the best games I've played on this LD.
In my opinion it's lacking very basic bleep sounds at the first stage but all the other stages are great.

great game

Nice work, I love your interpretation of the theme! The sprites in the final evolution stage are really well done. I like that you're able to explore new areas as the stage evolve, really neat! The music got a little repetitive though. One thing that confused me in the beginning was that the checkpoints weren't visible in the first stage, so when I died in the second stage I didn't know where I had ended up. Not really a big deal since the world is so small though.

Simple idea, but very well executed. nice work !

Nice work of the level design. I think it could have benefited from going back to the very start for the final boss battle, and perhaps one more graphical shift. But good work for two days.

good job!

I've seen several other games with the same idea, but so far this one pulls it off the best.

This game is awesome. For evolving video game technologies, this is the best so far.

Amazing level design!

Cool game bro. A generic platformer at the later stages but I liked the gradual evolution from simple blocks to more complex level design and mechanics. Good take on the theme. One minor quibble was that the music got really annoying and repetitive.

Really good game. Really good implementation graphic evolution in videogames. But I think, it would better if you added more detailed 2D graphic such as vector and etc. But 48 hours... I understand =) Nice work anyway! Really nice.

Stunning.

Really nice job, levels are put together nicely...

Nice job. I first realized I had a sword when I was fighting the boss, so I guess I've been playing on hard mode ;)

Fun, clean, and challenging.

Good game!

There are several games to share the idea of evolution of evolution in graphics and gameplay. I must say this one was quite well done!

Well done! It looks like a good old school game! ;)

I really love this one!

The bad: music got repetitive. Coins seemed kinda pointless (unless I missed what they're used for). Took me a while to tell that the game even loaded or what was going on at first. Enemies got boring, fast. Boss battle felt a little anti-climactic.

The good: game was fun. Pacing was done fairly well for a compo game, length was about right (could've been longer, but it was fine). The changing environments was a cool effect. This is probably one of the better executed games I've played this Ludum Dare. Well done.

I can tell a lot of thought and work was put into this game. It's a very cool concept and I'd love to play a more polished version.

Really great. I love the art style in all three stages of evolution. I liked the movement and how true to old fashioned games it felt. I got lost occasionally, and some of the sections were a bit overhard (especially the last boss) but this is one of my favorite games I've played yet.

This game deserves some serious kudos! I enjoyed playing it so much once I figured out that you're -supposed- to start as a white square on a black background. The final iteration reminds me a lot of Alex Kidd or Wonder Boy in Monster Land or something from Sega 8-bit era that conjures really fond memories.

Really fun! Nice take on evolution. I've seen two games using this idea now and yours definitely does it better.

Your game is sort of a dream I had once.

I once had a dream that took place in a Perfect Dark (N64) multiplayer map. But when things took damage, like a person being hurt or a bicycle whose presence was unexplainable, it deteriorated into older-looking graphics. I woke up when I was reduced to a few solid-colored polygons.

Well done!

Great job, although a little intro screen would have prevented me from restarting the game a few time.

When I opened the game I thought something had went wrong, until I flicked back to this page and realised that's what the game looks like when it starts! You probably would have been better having some sort of menu at the start if I wasn't the only one who made that mistake!

I quite liked your graphics and the idea for the game (I recall seeing this concept somewhere else before, but a bit more played out). I notice you used the NES palette for the NES era, but (for future reference on making nes-esque graphics) you display too many colours from the palette in too small of an area for it to be realistic.

I felt the levels were nicely laid out through out, though I found the music to be annoyingly repetitive. The game felt relatively fleshed out for a 48hours, with a nice range of tiles making up the levels. I liked that it actually had an ending and a boss battle!

Thought I accidentally clicked on one of the images instead of the game link the first time I opened it.

Awesome work. The fact that all three segments of the game use the same map is what really sets this apart. Excellent level design.

Awkwardly enough, my favorite part of the game is the very beginning. Most of the additions (including graphics and audio) felt oddly extraneous. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was some sort of jab in the side at more modern gameplay. However, knowing exactly what the Ludum Dare crunch does to concepts, it plays out rather poetically about how less can be more in a Ludum Dare competition.

Played it all the way through and really enjoyed it. Wish the attack radius was a notch longer, it was nearly impossible at times to hit enemies with out taking damage. The checkpoint system really alleviated these problems though. Great Work!

Really great and complete.
I really like the part in the castle.

Great platformer - the platforms in the castle were a little hard for me to judge, but overall the graphics were great. I played through to the tower before I remembered I could attack. :P

great idea, good gameplay. sometimes on jump seems on top collision to "fly" a little bit. Anyway, good work!

Awesome! Love those entries about literal game evolution! Controls are smooth that allows for enjoyable experience! Good job.