Watch Your Step by Kooky
Don't fall! Arrows/WASD to influence your speed/direction (but you can't stop, unless you get stuck). R to restart if you get stuck.
Every time you fail and respawn, you're rewarded with another leg. No, really! And everyone knows having more legs lets you move faster.
Every time one of your legs slips and threatens to fall into the vast nothingness below, you'll automatically detach it so the rest of your body may survive.

My first ever attempt at a Ludum Dare entry. I worked solo, so I decided to enter the Compo.

Game created using Construct 2.
SFX created using Bfxr.
Art created by me, using various programs (Construct 2, Paint.NET, FireAlpaca).
Textures created using TexGraph.
Music created using MuseNet.

(I've got a few other game jam entries on my itch.io page too, if you're interested!)
| Link | https://kooky.itch.io/watch-your-step |
| Link | https://kooky.itch.io/watch-your-step |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/watch-your-step |
Ratings
| Overall | 711th | 3.068⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 594th | 3.091⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 235th | 3.614⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 718th | 3.068⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 831th | 2.477⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 384th | 3.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 221th | 3.094⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 620th | 2.972⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 23🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
What a nice surprise - I liked the idea but got to thinking - can you actually fail in this..... 20 seconds later... where did one of my blue balls go (NOT those).... 15 seconds later the other one dropped.... yes yes yes I said that... :rofl: Ah well great entry actually :thumbsup_tone1:
I hope you'll drop by mine and give it a spin :wink:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
Haha, yeah, it's actually very difficult to fail near the beginning. I tried!
Ahaha, I'm glad you had fun! :laughing: Yes, I shall go check out your entry! Thank you for playing mine! :grin:
@erik-bermudez Ah, thank you, that's great to hear! I did worry that it was maybe a little too simple, or that the controls weren't good enough for it to be fun. I'm glad you liked it, thank you for the feedback!
My top score was 4005-- I'm not sure how good that is, but I'm pretty happy with it.
@vilcans Oops, yeah, I found a little tricky to explain concisely how the controls work. I'll try to explain in a bit more detail, for anyone who's curious:
• All feet are influenced simultaneously (you can't choose which ones to control).
• Left and right control your feet's horizontal speed, but ONLY when they're not on a platform. If they're on a platform, they automatically stop moving, to grip the platform and keep the rest of your feet rolling along in a general circular-ish formation. You can't stop your feet from moving right, you can only slow them down.
• Holding up or down halves or doubles your feet's gravity respectively (until you release said key), inflencing the speed of their ascent/descent.
So, in summary... it's a bit tricky to summarise, other than saying the arrows influence the overall intended direction of your feet. :sweat_smile:
I'm glad you loved the headphones! They were actually a spontaneous decision; originally there were no headphones! :smile:
@delicioussalad Thank you! I do seem to have a tendency to like doing slightly unique things with physics. :smile: I'm glad you enjoyed it!
There are certainly other similar tools out there, and each one has its own unique interface. Each can be tweaked in their own ways, some tools/programs more complicated than others, and with quite varied results. I really enjoy seeking them out, experimenting with them, and seeing what can be done!
This is great, nice job making this during the Compo time! The leg feature is a very unique addition, making it so each time you play you get an extra leg (essentially an extra life) definitely gives this some good replay value. I love the little legs flying all over the place!
In my opinion, there was one big problem, though: I never felt like my input was having much impact on what was going on on the screen. Or, put another way: I don't know what I can effectively do to improve my score!
I guess it felt a bit like the young kid "playing" with the disconnected controller given by the older brother, you know? I mean, I had some genuine fun until I started to suspect that something was not right. :wink: (To be clear, I am not claiming the controls are not doing anything, it's just how I felt while playing.)
I think this could be a very, very nice game with some overhaul on the controls.
Kudos for your Ludum Dare debut! Hope you'll be here again on the next one!
(Final note: the music sound a bit Jethro Tull-esque, nice!)
The rules about the leg are simple. As you said in one of your previous comment : the leg goes to the right, and bounces when hitting a platform.
But with enough legs, this simple rule really gives the impression that the creature is walking. Laying one leg after another, in a rolling movement.
I agree with previous comments saying that control is not easy and not immediatly understandable. But while I was typing this text, I looked back at the game. The creature has now about thirty legs. It advances alone. It learned from its previous failures. The numerous legs it decided to have, one after another, give it the capacity to pass obstacles, further and further.
My own personal and "deep" opinion about your game is that you should completely remove the controls by the player. A pure idle game. You watch the creature walk by itself. It does not need the player. It is alive. It realized by itself how to survive longer and longer in the hostile world where it has been placed.
I made a high score of 3037 when controlling it. I let the creature live by itself during about 20 minutes, and it made a high score of 3178. The creature is better than me, and is completely independant. It does not want to be controlled.
@peace-of-cake-games
Wow, well done on making it so far with just one leg! 😁
Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you liked playing! The extra-legs feature was actually kind of an afterthought; I thought, "Yes, I COULD just program this game to have just two legs... but why stop there? If I plan ahead, I can make it work with any number of legs!" and boom, I had the ingredients for leg sauce. 😁
I'm really glad you enjoyed all the extra legs so much! You're right, my intention was that the extra legs are supposed to be a bit like extra lives, to help you a bit for every time you've failed. They may or may not serve that purpose very well yet, but I'm very glad you could see what I was going for!
@lmb
Thank you, I'm glad you love the idea. I love crazy ideas too! I always enjoy trying to make something a bit different, so your feedback is really appreciated!
I agree about there being a lack of clear feedback showing how the player can get a better score. Originally there were going to be less legs, and the player would be in control of making sure the feet descended at the right speed to be timed correctly to land on each individual platform. But then instead of finetuning that idea, I ended up working on other things, like testing all the extra legs... (and the parallax background)
I really appreciate the feedback! I would definitely like to work on making the controls more responsive, so it feels like the player is more connected to the gameplay.
I do indeed very much hope to participate in the next Ludum Dare!
Finally, oh wow, I see what you mean re: Jethro Tull! That's really cool, thank you for pointing it out!
@turkey
Totally agree with you. Honestly, in this version of the game, that's how I usually play too, until I get down to the last legs. Hopefully I can make the controls a little more useful. Thank you for the feedback!
@recher
Oh right, I've played Heave Ho! That's a very nice comparison, thank you! I very much agree on enjoying emergent behaviour based on simple mechanics.
Indeed, I did have to program in some specifics to make sure the feet were rolling in a circular-ish fashion rather than just randomly bouncing in something of a tangled mess. Your description of the movement pinpoints what I was trying to achieve, so I'm happy to see you describe it this way!
Reading your comments about the creature advancing alone certainly inspires me to consider trying to program it to learn, evolve, and adapt. Very interesting to think about, thank you.
Your idea about it being an idle game certainly inspires me too! I've been having a think about this, and will do so some more. Thank you!
Your final remark certainly emphasises once more that I should definitely consider letting this creature evolve, and stop trying to tell it what to do.
@yurikun
Thank you for your kind words, and thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it.