Float by MickeyG

made by MickeyG for LD 39 (JAM)

You are stuck inside a ship probably (it doesn't really look like one) and you somehow have access to the ships main power but not anything else for some reason. Will you escape? Play to find out..

Note: The downloaded version of this game looks much nicer than the webpage version!

This was my third game jam, second time scripting in unity and first ludum dare thingy. The theme was "running out of power" and I kind of streatched it a bit into "toggling power" but hey ho! I think it turned out fairly interesting, tell me what you think!

Controls:

Arrow Keys to move (Please dont use wasd because then you can't jump, still improving!)

Space to toggle the ships power and "Float" TM

P to pause

ESC to quit game

Did a bug fix on the game, the spikes in one level didn't work because I forgot to check a box, seeing as spikes are the main obstical and the game is peas without it I'd say it's gamebreaking for them not to work so I think it's allowed!

Game created using unity, aseprite, tiled, tiled2unity and sfxr.

Not sure if this works on apple or linux but the unity build window assured me it did, please tell me if that's wrong!

Dropbox was being rubbish so I uploaded the source code to itch.io, may move it to dropbox later!

Windows	https://mickeyg.itch.io/float
macOS	https://mickeyg.itch.io/float
Linux	https://mickeyg.itch.io/float
HTML5 (web)	https://mickeyg.itch.io/float
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/float

Ratings

Overall	474^th	3.29⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Fun	415^th	3.161⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	107^th	3.71⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Theme	790^th	2.581⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	605^th	3⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Audio	535^th	2.345⭐	31🧑‍⚖️
Humor	478^th	2.214⭐	30🧑‍⚖️
Mood	613^th	2.833⭐	32🧑‍⚖️
Given		25🗳️	32🗨️

Feedback

WumpyC

01. Aug 2017 · 22:55 UTC

Great concept and execution, I can tell you kept the same level design approach as your first game, because the levels are still really *#!%*$£ difficult =P

TheLord

03. Aug 2017 · 07:07 UTC

Cool game! I love the mechanics!

sunnray

03. Aug 2017 · 08:09 UTC

I enjoyed playing it, nice mechanic too. Although the spikes had rather big hitboxes that led to me dying even when I was not supposed to.

Everbrave

03. Aug 2017 · 23:00 UTC

Well the WASD controls were fine for level one then I had to go hunting for the arrow keys. Maybe just tossing the controls on screen would have been nice. To be honest, I always forget controls when I read them in the description, if I read them at all. Mechanic is really interestig and fun, but it got old fast only because of the very annoying sound effects. Even my two year old came in and told me "Daddy, stop making that BWOOOOO sound!" Lol Fun game! Hope to see your next one!

ledez

04. Aug 2017 · 03:37 UTC

Pretty awesome game. The levels are kind of hard, took me a little bit to pass them, but hey who said games need to be easy :grin: .

alxm

04. Aug 2017 · 17:03 UTC

Nice game! I wish the player would respawn closer to where you died instead of always at the beginning - the levels got difficult fast :-) Also, noticed that if you die while the power is off, the respawned player sometimes does the jump you were doing just as you died without pressing any keys.

Veak

04. Aug 2017 · 19:26 UTC

Wow! Really nice mechanics, I like it. But sound effects could be better.
Good Job!

azziliz

04. Aug 2017 · 19:29 UTC

Unity and no webGL renderer? Why?

josehzz

04. Aug 2017 · 20:03 UTC

Its a really nice and creative mechanic, hope you polish this later on, great game overall.

🎤 MickeyG

05. Aug 2017 · 15:49 UTC

@azziliz Ah, I didn't realise you could do that with unity games! Do you recon I could add that at this stage because it's not changing the game itself? Or would it fall under altering the game?

haette

05. Aug 2017 · 22:32 UTC

Yeah, you're allowed to do ports to new platforms after submitting. It counts as "not changing the game, just letting more people play it" or something like that.

I like this game's mechanic a lot. It's instantly intuitive how it works, and it feels like there's a lot of potential that could be mined with some puzzly level design. Hope you expand on this one, it definitely seems like something I could get hooked on.

GenTel

07. Aug 2017 · 00:29 UTC

Nice work! Challenging platformer but the difficulty was tuned very well. I really like how solving the puzzles takes creative use of movement velocity, jump velocity, gravity, walls, the float mechanic, and post-float acceleration all together. This game reminds me a lot of the Steam game VVVVV, but really the mechanic in your game is in a lot of ways more interesting.

Stuff to improve:
- Game loops at the end instead of presenting a proper end screen.

- The spikes' hitboxes are a bit buggy in that touching them only on the very edge while jumping still gets you killed.

- Could stand to be a bit more connected to the theme. Maybe if you had a limited amount of power with which to use the float ability, that could be an additional challenge and make the game fit the theme better.

Overall great work - this has been my favorite game of everything I've reviewed thus far.

svntax

07. Aug 2017 · 00:33 UTC

Really interesting mechanics with the gravity! It took a bit of time to get used to the controls, but the game definitely has potential with more polish.

WillData

07. Aug 2017 · 00:45 UTC

I played the first level and saw tons of potential in this game. Two main factors took me out of it by level 2 and made me give up by level 3:

1. The controls are fairly slidey and leave to some icy platforming that could be tighter.
2. Most of the game is filled with leaps of faith where you need to jump first and know what is ahead later which leads to some unfair deaths.

Solving either issue would solve the other. If the game was less slidey I'd be ok with having to leap into unknown territory because it would be on me to react using tight controls. If the game didn't have a focus on platforming elements and reaction time to leaps of faith then the slidey controls wouldn't be a big deal.

In the end, it's just a jam and I admire what you did accomplish! Good entry!

EdwinGameDev

09. Aug 2017 · 01:27 UTC

Hey, your game is really fun! It's not easy but the idea are really great. The only thing i have to say is that the sound make me turn off the speakers, maybe you could work more on them. Good job!

PBG

09. Aug 2017 · 03:49 UTC

The mechanics of this game are excellent - I feel like i've seen several movies where they do something like this, and it's cool to actually do it yourself. I played the web version on my cheapo laptop and it ran just fine. My only critique is that the game is a tad bare-bones, but that is understandable for LD. Of all the games I have played, I would most like to see this one fleshed out. I think it would actaully work with a scary, horror theme. Cool game!

damdoshi

09. Aug 2017 · 21:13 UTC

I loved it. The mechanics, between puzzle and platform, are great.

The sound of gravity being turned on and off is a little annoying, that could certainly being improved if drawn in a soundtrack.

Jannes Nagel

09. Aug 2017 · 21:22 UTC

Nice such deep mechanics! Very cool made!
Really well done - I only found the sounds a bit annoying in the long run - especially since I needed to retry so often.

Vasco Rodrigues

09. Aug 2017 · 21:42 UTC

Simple game with a great mechanic that allows you to build a huge variety of puzzles. Really well made game and very challenging. The only thing missing is some kind of ending screen.
Great work!

keckles

09. Aug 2017 · 22:09 UTC

pretty good i strongly recommend making the spikes only kill you from the top however because a lot of the time i would just nick the side of one and die and that made the game way harder than it should have been in some parts. also the sound while not bad got kinda annoying after a while

simonhutchinson

09. Aug 2017 · 23:19 UTC

Great work. Really clever mechanics that feel pretty good. There seems to be a pretty intense difficulty curve here, so it's a bit rough for casual gamers like me. Overall, super-strong entry and really smart work.

schizoid2k

10. Aug 2017 · 00:20 UTC

I like the concept, but for some reason I just didn't master the controls. A couple of tweaks and perhaps some background music, and you got something here!

foodzilla

10. Aug 2017 · 05:48 UTC

Nice mechanic, though it gets too difficult too quickly. The second part just gets too difficult too fast maybe?

PavelSovushkin

11. Aug 2017 · 13:28 UTC

Intresting idea

Maldo19

13. Aug 2017 · 21:11 UTC

I like the idea of turning off the spaceship in order for you to stay afloat and move with the acceleration you had in the moment of jumping, I would have liked to see it with other objects besides the player, as it would be an interesting way of getting through a level.

And I would have liked that you teached the float/turn off mechanic and how it worked inside the game, I get that the first level is for that exactly as you can't clear it without knowing how it works, but adding some text inside the game that tells you something like "if you turn the ship's power off then you conserve your momentum you had while moving" Or maybe is just me.

I had a good time with this, if you add more stuff that is influenced by the ship turn off, it would be a nice game.

Belga54

16. Aug 2017 · 00:17 UTC

Good but was so hard ! Liked the graphics a lot ! The idea was good also !

ProdigalSon

18. Aug 2017 · 20:29 UTC

Took me a bit to understand that I was powering down the gravity so that I could move upwards but since I was not really moving upwards it took me a while to understand especially because it's more like "keep the momentum (upward/downward) you had before shutting things down. Other than that, the animation of the robot was cute, the graphics are decent, and the power down/up effect is cool.