Finding Time by b4ux1t3

[raw]
made by b4ux1t3 for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

Make your way to the clock, but beware; every ten seconds, the whole map rotates!

Best enjoyed in fullscreen mode. You can scroll in the Ludum Dare game window to find the fullscreen controls.

Move left and right with A and D, jump with space bar.

Gamepad support enabled. Use either D-pad or left joystick for movement, and the south button (X on PlayStation, A on Xbox, B on Switch, etc.) to jump.

Enjoy! Everything except the fonts are made by yours truly.

Also, yes, I'm aware of the bug where you can't start the game with a controller's jump button. You can, instead, press the start button!

Update: I'm also aware of the bug where you can't restart (and thus cannot exit the game from the game pause menu) from the game over screen. I've fixed the bug, and added a way to exit directly from the game over screen, but want to make sure it's actually okay for me to upload a fixed version now.

Ratings

Overall 1014th 3.05⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1038th 2.825⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 756th 3.125⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 599th 3.625⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1094th 2.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 695th 2.8⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 883th 2.25⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1159th 2.395⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 12🗳️ 22🗨️

Feedback

Jacob Diaz
04. Oct 2022 · 02:12 UTC
Love the music, and I enjoyed the complexity! Jumping was a little floaty but good once I got used to it :)
🎤 b4ux1t3
04. Oct 2022 · 02:13 UTC
@jacob-diaz Thanks for checking it out!
T C
04. Oct 2022 · 02:20 UTC
Tough to control, and a couple of places where you could get stuck, and have to wait for very long periods of time to even be able to backtrack, but the lighting and rotating world were cool, and found my way to the end eventually! Good job!
Cogent.Invalid
04. Oct 2022 · 02:23 UTC
I got it in 202.1357 seconds. Nice job, it was cool figuring out the way through the maze as the level rotates. The controls were a little slippery, though. It helps if the player quickly accelerates to their top speed and then stays there, rather than continuing to accelerate as you hold down the button. Having a double jump with a slower max speed might've made mobility a little easier.
Alviniano
04. Oct 2022 · 02:59 UTC
i really liked the idea!, it would be great to have more levels, but that level had a good design.
🎤 b4ux1t3
04. Oct 2022 · 12:46 UTC
@t-c Thanks for playing! Yeah, the controls are a sore point for me. I spent waaaaay too many hours trying to figure out how to make a kinematic rigidbody interact well with the level, but it just never turned out well. Glad to hear you made it through!

@cogent-invalid Yep, see above comment. I accidentally flipped around the "air control" and "ground control" modifiers. You were supposed to have quicker acceleration in the air, and slightly slower on the ground. Whoops! Double jump ended up being difficult to gauge without "static" colliders to check, so I went for the next best thing: You can actually jump if you fall off a platform, no matter how long you wait. So, if you get up to speed, fling yourself off a platform, and then jump after you fall a bit, you can maneuver underneath overhanging walls. ;)

@alviniano The original idea had a time attack, enemies, and more levels! Alas, time. . . Glad you enjoyed the design! Since I didn't have the time to add new levels or modes, I spent a pretty good chunk of time tweaking the level, making it so you can almost always get out of a hole.

Thanks a bunch for giving it a try, all of you!
SkullSprigs
05. Oct 2022 · 01:12 UTC
very cool concept!!!
JuanRod707
05. Oct 2022 · 13:51 UTC
It's a very cool game! Would've loved to get a more arcadey feel as I find rigidbody platformers to be kinda painful to get the precise jumps and stuff. But overall, loved the game
🎤 b4ux1t3
05. Oct 2022 · 14:05 UTC
@juanrod707 Thanks for playing! Yeah, the rigidbody controller is certainly a sore point for me. I started out with the intention of building a fully-custom controller, but it turns out that the non-static nature of the platforms made a lot of the assumptions I generally make when doing that. . .well, problematic. I'm really tempted to post jam this and spend the time to get a non-rigidbody controller working.
JuanRod707
05. Oct 2022 · 14:36 UTC
@b4ux1t3 I know, I get the struggle haha, first thing that comes to my mind as a possible solution is to freeze the movement while rotating the stage, this could be an easy workaround to avoid overlaps
LDJam user 277851
05. Oct 2022 · 23:33 UTC
Fun game. The rotating levels and the restricted view make this maze even more challenging.

Here's a tip about writing controllers in unity. Don't let physics 2d control your character, but let it tell you the state of your character (on the ground, hitting a wall, etc.).
🎤 b4ux1t3
06. Oct 2022 · 02:54 UTC
@thyoi Yep, that's where I started. I just ran into so many problems when I was doing a custom controller for it, due to the nature of the 100% kinematic environment, that I found I was having to reimplement a lot of physics to even get to a point where I could start moving around! Almost the majority of this stream is me beating my head against that: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1606360156 :sob:
MarcoDeevil
07. Oct 2022 · 17:32 UTC
Really nice idea, cool game! Movement could be less wooden.
EOShadows
09. Oct 2022 · 05:44 UTC
Nice game! Very cool and innovative concept. I found the controls a bit too floaty, but that was the only issue I found. Also I loved the main menu / game over screens, the idea of moving the cursor over the graphics and having them light up was pretty cool. Overall I thought this was a good game. Well done!
Erukolindo
09. Oct 2022 · 10:29 UTC
I like the idea and overall it seems to work fairly well, but it's really hard to tell if a sloped surface will let you jump from it or not.
PhoenixofForce
09. Oct 2022 · 11:46 UTC
The jump physics made a bit harder than it should be. Still great game!
🎤 b4ux1t3
10. Oct 2022 · 19:42 UTC
@eoshadows Thanks for the kind words! The main menu is literally my favorite part of the game. I enjoyed making the whole thing, but I'm _proud_ of the main menu.

@erukolindo Yeah, I had to strike a fine line with the platforming. Unfortunately, the "angle of jumping" ended up being down to the physics engine, as opposed to my original plan, which was to make it fairly obvious by only working on very flat-ish platforms. I've said it all over these comments, but I'll say it again: I really wish I'd started with the jam in mind early on instead of the compo, so I could have pulled in some better platforming code.

@phoenixofforce Yeah man, I appreciate you giving it a go, and thank you for the kind words. I'm probably going to end up post-jamming on those controls, just to be able to say that I covered all my bases. Fixing the controls wouldn't, unfortunately, qualify as "bug fixes", so I'm stuck with what I have for now :(
Flying Dog Fish
12. Oct 2022 · 19:57 UTC
I really dig the minimalistic design.
🎤 b4ux1t3
13. Oct 2022 · 16:59 UTC
@flying-dog-fish Thanks! I actually did start drafting out some art assets, but decided to just drop it and leave the minimal sprites and add some color and lighting instead. I don't hate how it turned out, but I did want to get a kind of neon outline shader built in. Ah well, post jam!