Slime Post by Sebhulhu

Description
Slime Post is a simple physics-based platformer in which you play as Slimey, a new employee in Slime Post delivery company. This is your first day, but they put you on graveyard shift anyway - and you can take it quite literally. Deliver a package to a drop zone before going into a portal, which will take you to another location. Avoid skeletons, throw tombstones on spikes to make way through them, and generally do anything to finish your job.

Controls:
Moving Left/Right: A/D, Arrows
Jump: Space
Grab item: E, Left Mouse Button
Drop item: E, Left Mouse Button
Throw item: Q, Right Mouse Button
Restart level: P Warning: this will result with loosing one of your hearts, but can be necessary if you will soft lock yourself.

Note from creator:
Hi, I'm glad that you are reading this right now. This is my first ever entry to Ludum Dare and even though I had few hard moments I'm quite happy that I managed to finish it. I'm aware that this game has some problems, but I think because of those, this is a fun and short rage platformer. After some rest, I will try to document how it went and what I would do different if I started again on my YouTube channel.
Even though I never intended to take part in compo, as a self-imposed challenge I wrote all code and made all art during jam. The same goes for background music (For sound effects, I used sfxr.me).
If you manage to finish a game, please let me know how long it took you. You can post screenshot from end screen or just comment it either here, on itch or on any of my socials.

Projects future
I would be more than happy to work on this game post-jam. At first, I need to finish my other project that I'm currently working on but after that I see myself reworking the whole thing with less wobbly physics, new graphics, more story and more levels as mere six of them seems to be just not enough.

My socials
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@sebhulhu
Twitter : https://twitter.com/sebhulhu
Itch.io : https://sebhulhu.itch.io/ - Still work in progress, but link works.
| Game on Itch.io | https://sebhulhu.itch.io/ludumdare53 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/slime-post |
Ratings
| Overall | 724th | 3.453⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 668th | 3.344⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1063th | 2.734⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 406th | 4.094⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 579th | 3.703⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 640th | 2.984⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 461th | 3.317⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 772th | 3.328⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 43🗳️ | 43🗨️ |
There's a bit too much text in the tutorial; the font used is a bit too wide and short, which doesn't help much. Maybe just increasing the line spacing would help with that. The text also sometimes stays for too long and kind of distracts you, and sometimes it stays not long enough, before I finished reading it (I had to restart the game to finish reading the message explaining how to throw stuff). I suggest to simply show the text if the player is below the text area, and hiding it otherwise. This way, only one text is visible at a time, so that it doesn't distract you much, and also the players can decide for themselves how long the text stays there.
-- the colour of spikes is almost the same as the background colour. This is very bad given the character can move quite fast and it's really hard to notice them.
-- given this is a platforming game, what I expect as a player is a consistent movement behaviour. Unfortunately jumping in your game is very incosistent and sometimes while jumping vertically I couldn't reach the ledge of a platform while other times I could. I'm not sure what causes this but this is definitely number one thing I would fix.
Otherwise I enjoyed picking up the parcles and throwing stuff around :)
Cheers!

For your post-jam version: Nearly all of the lives I lost resulted from the tombstones slipping out from under my feet. This can be a nice idea (e.g. levels with surfaces made of ice), but in my opinion it should be used rather rarely, because it is a bit frustrating. Also, a throw indicator might be helpful to know where the tombstone will land.
But really great first jam game! I had a lot of fun playing through it. :)
@zbugba - thanks, I think I will put border around spikes to better indicate that they are dangerous and so they can be more visible. About jumping I'm not sure myself what could be wrong but I will definitely take a look into that :-)
@le-don - indicator for throw is definitely must have for post-jam version :-) Thanks for feedback!
@iqoribou - <3 maybe I could made slime stretch a bit to reach packages :-) thanks!
@quoc - I'm glad you liked it :D
@najimi - Thanks a lot! Physics are definitely a little bit wobbly even though I spend more time on fine tuning them that I would like to admit :D
@michael-darling - thanks a lot :-) After thinking about it giving limited number of lives for game jam was not one of my brightest moments :D
@supermango - I'm glad you liked it - about mushroom -> It meant to be a bit of a trap, that why you see it from other side. In tutorial level there's info that you can press "P" to self-destruct slime to start level from beginning. I think I should put that info also in this level probably :-)
@bqq - thanks for feedback <3 I agree with you, hearts are too punishing especially for game-jam :-( Lesson learned.
@bashem - <3 I will definitely do! Need to finish my current project first though :D
@andidebob - Thanks a lot! Notes taken!
@lisyarus - thanks for feedback :-) fully agreed that difficulty needs to be more adjusted :-) It seems that first level for many people was actually hardest one x.x . About text - I wanted to put whole tutorial into game instead of description but now I think I could just put one or two "slides" with controls. Otherwise I could base displaying it on entering and leaving collider not only on entering and time.
@pfeyffer - thanks :D Will work on that :-)
@waptaincaffles - thanks for feedback - definitely I need to adjust difficulty, it seems that many people had most problems with first spike area.
@fiinrii - thanks <3 I'm glad you liked it :-)
This feels like a complete game, so you scoped it well. The mechanics were simple but pleasing. Chucking boxes and tombstones was quite fun. I like how the blob you play as carries the boxes in spite of its bugginess (obligatory in game jams!).
The limited lives might make the game a bit frustrating to some. It also creates a problem where if I lose a few too many lives on level 2 for example, I'm inclined to start over from the beginning simply because I don't think I can finish the rest of the game with too few lives, and I'd rather start over straight away than game over in a few levels.
Another issue is the physics or weight of the props could use a bit of tweaking as I'm sometimes falling through the tombstones and into some spikes. The packet would bounce from where I threw it and into spikes on occasion as well, at which point it cannot be picked up since you can't pick up things you're standing on.
But! Overall the impression is very good and for your first game jam you should be very proud indeed.
I beat the game in 275.04 seconds
@digitaldude555 thanks :D To be honest at the beginning I really disliked the theme, but after some time it grew on me :-)
I beat the game in 315.07 seconds!
@don-fouts I'm glad you liked it and thanks for feedback :-)