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[Gainsworthy]

You know, I think I've already posted about how much I like this, but, what the hey. I didn't mention how Fantastic the Primarius is. Enemy of the Year. The Vivisectors are great too- scooping up puppies WITH voice acting (yay!), but, when I'm playing and a Primarius enters play, he can kill me by proxy. I use all my attention to NOT be killed by one, and slip up in some other manner.

Something about the animation, or the behaviour, or the sound- whatever it is, he oozes menace. I only killed one yesterday. Reminds me of when I was little, and was genuinely scared of the occasional boss or enemy. Final boss of Jazz Jackrabbit comes to mind. And Knuckles' final boss in Sonic 3.

Anyways, well done!

And Annabelle, that piece is far too excellent. It's like the game has come to life! Um, moreso than it already had.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

Reminds me of when I was little, and was genuinely scared of the occasional boss or enemy.

i remember, and miss those days ;-;.. they were a long time ago...

(and for the record this game is still awesom)

[jbrodack2008]

This game is worth creating art like that for as its simply a great game even without considering the PG element of it.  I love how the PG element is just an essential part of the gameplay and not just some novelty.  It lets you have a huge amount of kind of levels without having to make each one yet they actually feel like they could have been made by hand the procedural generation is so well done.  The game is quick and simple yet very unique and really requires full concentration.  I hated the falling deaths at first yet once I started to be able to judge distances. look out for parts where the planes come close to intersecting, and be able to wisely use parachutes/rope I loved the mechanic of it. 

You have it up as "beta" yet I really don't know how you could improve it.  I usually like to give ideas for homebrew games but I honestly can't think of any without possibly ruining the perfect gameplay you've created. great job nenad

also Annabelle thats some great art for a great game that already has great (though obviously less detailed) art. good stuff.

[Disasterpeace]

among other things, in the final version the music will loop seamlessly

clearly as one who did music for it this brings me great joy

[nenad]

Thanks again for all the feedback, people! It's appreciated.

also i REALLY hope you do add to the game, to include the quirky story into gameplay.
i continue looking forward to it.

The story will not be exactly interwoven with the gameplay but it'll be there. Mostly to out the need for the readme file. Most people, myself included, tend to have a hard time having to read the readmes

Annabelle has inspired me to make fanart for this game too.

Awww stop it. I'm not sure I'll be able to handle this amount of fandom
Seriously thoug, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

[nenad]

I was getting seriously frustrated with the convention-breaking gameplay to start with, and nearly gave up, but I pushed on and man was it worth it.

I'm glad you persisted. If by 'convention-breaking' you mean dying from falls then yes, it feels a bit frustrating at first.

I'm not much of a platformer fan to begin with. I fully agree that death-falls are extremely annoying in games that are predominantly about jumping. They are rightfully considered ~deprecated~ in that context.

This is, however, not a typical platformer. I don't even consider it to be one at all. Great deal of the gameplay is concentrated around pathfinding and learning to read the terrain. Not really a canonical platformer mechanic.

Early on I decided I wanted the game to be about choosing the optimal path in time-critical situations. The whole mechanic kind of evolved from there. So in order to make that work with the concept of layered terrain I needed to make switching layers harder/impossible as the height difference gets larger. For going up, it's easy, just limit the jump height. For going down, however, the only seemingly natural choice was penalizing by death. Having some kind of "harmless barrier" would just seem awkvard in the case of descending. More so because we're dealing with a figurative representation of the outdoor scene.

If the high falls were allowed, as some people were suggesting, then the whole movement scheme would go seriously out of the balance because it'd make descends a lot easier to do then climbs. Then, naturally, the high jumps should be added to counterbalance. Now we're closer to the regular platformer movement scheme (to which most people are accustomed to) but the path-weighting aspect would be completely lost, making the game lose a good deal of it's juice. Same goes for the infinite number of parachutes and ropes. I think the way the game works now, there's much more depth to the gameplay, even though you need to overcome some initial bits of frustration. But this frustration is coming from nowhere else but the expectations of stereotypical platformer movement. As soon as you realize the game is not about that at all everything starts to fall into place. At least I hope so

[dmoonfire]

Concerning falls, the thing I kept thinking about was "My First Skydiving" and the broken bones as a measure of hitting things and eventual death. Might have been slightly different if you got injured from falls (the higher the fall, the more injured), but it may have been a bit subtle for some. Regardless, I found it enjoyable despite my constants splats.

[nenad]

Something about the animation, or the behaviour, or the sound- whatever it is, he oozes menace. I only killed one yesterday. Reminds me of when I was little, and was genuinely scared of the occasional boss or enemy. Final boss of Jazz Jackrabbit comes to mind. And Knuckles' final boss in Sonic 3.

You know, I'm so glad you pointed this out because that was exactly what I was aiming for with Primarius - and hopefully succeed to some extent - when you see him to go - Crap! Primarius! Ruun!

This type of genuinely deep fear of particular enemy is pretty hard to rationalize but I'm sure anyone who considers themself a gamer knows that feeling and - however weird this may sound - love it.

For me, one of the enemies I was deeply afraid of was the Shambler from Quake. In fact, it was kind of an inspiration point for the Primarius. If you stretch it far enough, you'll be able to see the similarities in looks (despite the different visual style) and in brutal manners between the two of them.

[nenad]

You have it up as "beta" yet I really don't know how you could improve it.  I usually like to give ideas for homebrew games but I honestly can't think of any without possibly ruining the perfect gameplay you've created. great job nenad

Thanks. I tagged it "beta" because the whole development process was rushed and there was literally zero testing time left. I wasn't really sure how the whole thing would work gameplay wise. Although it seemed fine to me you can't ever be sure without giving it to a lot of different people to try it out.

I'm pretty sure now I will not alter the gameplay any further. Still some cosmetic features are missing and there's a dozen of known bugs in there, like the one Rich was mentioning. Nothing really crucial but I'd like the final version to be wrapped up nicely.

[nenad]

Concerning falls, the thing I kept thinking about was "My First Skydiving" and the broken bones as a measure of hitting things and eventual death. Might have been slightly different if you got injured from falls (the higher the fall, the more injured), but it may have been a bit subtle for some. Regardless, I found it enjoyable despite my constants splats.

Well if you look at the mechanics on the strict abstract level, the parachutes are sort of an equivalent of a health bar. A bit more discrete and you need to activate them explicitly but it works pretty much the same - you have a resource that's gradually taken away from you as you make fatal falls.

I wanted the game not to be too forgiving. The death punishment is actually a good motivator for the player to keep pushing. Especially if the game "feels" fair as somebody already pointed out.

Slightly related - one thing that really makes me giggle is how the overall atmosphere, graphics, title etc. can at first mislead you into believing this is a cutesy casual game. The truth is quite opposite - it's a dead hardcore thing underneath. That is, of course, if casual-core dichotomy is still a matter of some relevance

[xerus]

Reminds me of when I was little, and was genuinely scared of the occasional boss or enemy.

i remember, and miss those days ;-;.. they were a long time ago...

(and for the record this game is still awesom)

Redeads from Ocarina of Time still scare the shit out of me.

[Alex May]

The death punishment is actually a good motivator for the player to keep pushing. Especially if the game "feels" fair as somebody already pointed out.

Slightly related - one thing that really makes me giggle is how the overall atmosphere, graphics, title etc. can at first mislead you into believing this is a cutesy casual game. The truth is quite opposite - it's a dead hardcore thing underneath. That is, of course, if casual-core dichotomy is still a matter of some relevance

Unfortunately I wasn't giggling - I tried the game on two different occasions and found it very unfair and difficult both times. On the second occasion this left such a negative impression on me that I closed the application forever. The death punishment certainly wasn't a motivator for me. It turned me right off. Sorry!

[Pip]

Don't the reams of praise from your fellow TIGsters make you want to reconsider that position?

[Alex May]

Not really - lots of people like hard games that make you die all the time. Doesn't mean I should suddenly start 

That said, I like my fair share of hard games, this just isn't one of them.

[Eric McQuiggan]

Redeads from Ocarina of Time still scare the shit out of me.

I was actually frightened by a game recently. The first time I encountered a wrath, he pulled off his hood and showed off his skeletal head, it startled me.