I like this game's visuals and music. But for me, these controls just don't feel right. I wish you could also use W, A, S and D to move alongside the arrow keys. Also, it is WAY too easy to fall off, at least for me. And the last stage feels cheap, the enemies can kill you FAR too easily. Besides those cons that I have, this game is still pretty good

I agree with Ronan, the game is good but it's controls aren't.

Awesome game! I find the controls a little hard on myself though :P

Congrats on the entry!

I liked the difficulty, though perhaps the arrow keys should move relative to the grid rather than pure directions.

Thank you all for your feedback! I get that the controls are a bit hard, but I personally think it makes the game more interesting. If the arrow keys moved you in the directions relative to the grid the game would be way too easy. Also, I'll have to look into the WASD thing, as Pico-8 doesn't seem to support this (though it might be possible to artifically trigger the arrow key events when a WASD event is fired).

Fun pico:sparkles:game! Had some semi-traumatic flashbacks to kingsquest and walking over ravines/branches, but got the hang of it in the end.

The controls are indeed more old-school, and could have used some softening mechanics (2 heart loss instead of dropping off?).

I liked the opening text, I read it in a dramatic old-wizard voice. :crystal_ball:

Why do I feel like the first level was the hardest...

It was frustrating at first, but eventually I got the hang of it. Though I feel like me dodging the attacks was more luck than skill.

I quite like the look of the game, but yeah, kinda frustrating, kinda short too. But good job!

I kept falling off the level. It was difficult navigating an isometric world with orthographic(screen-normal) controls.

This is a great little game. There graphics are great and the animations are on point. It works really well together. Though there was a few concerns that i have. First off, as people have mentioned, the controls are a little bit difficult. I understand that you might have chosen this design decision to add some difficulty but this 'mechanic' is something new. To a brand new player playing your game, they have never experienced this sort of controls. So to account for this, you should have a much slower difficulty progression. Start off very simple and gradually rise in difficulty. Your own game starts to become second nature when you spend almost a whole two days developing the game. So it then becomes a game fit for your own skill level, which is not good for a new player. So what i recommend is to playtest, playtest and playtest. Before release, show the game to family or friends to test it out. If they react negatively then edit the game accordingly. That's all i have to say now. All in all, this is a great game, it has huge potential. Congratulations! :smile:

I like 8-bit rendering with Pico. And for a Compo, I think it looks good. Compared to other comments, I don't necessarily find the controls complicated, but I feel more like it's a collision problem. Sometimes I only have 2-3 pixels of a triangle tip sticking out and I fall.

I like the game but I'd change some things:

- Controls: As some people said, controls are difficult. I think that is because the isometric camera. If the movement were along the isometric axis, it would be far better, because you know exactly the direction you're moving.
- Enemies: It's hard to know whether a bullet is going to it you or not. Because it has no shadow, and you dont know the line were its supposed to hit you. The enemies also dont have shadow, but they aren't a danger for you, because hitting them doesn't hurt you.

Apart from that, the game looks nice and the music is fine.
Keep working :D!

I think the biggest problem isn't in the controls not following the isometric background, but in the background creating a false sense of space. If the tiles didn't lead you to think they were isometric but just showed you a path, it would be easier to accept it as your own fault instead of thinking the controls are weird. It's like drawing a road but you have to drive on it sideways to get where you need.