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[Beanallean]

Hey guys, it's mostly done now! The only major things left to do is add a menu, finish up the ending, and general polishing. For those who didn't play the previous demo, this game is a 2D exploration platformer in the likes of VVVVVV, You have to Win the Game, and other type games. The gameplay itself is made to play like a 3D mario game in 2D with dives, backflips, triple jumps, and walljumps. If you played the demo, then I really hope you'll come back to try this version because a lot has changed.

So yeah, I'd really like to know what you think of the gameplay. Particularly the newly added walljump, which is meant to work like an easier to pull off Super Metroid walljump. I also want to know what you think of the progression without demo restrictions.

What I'm looking for in feedback:
1. How's the difficulty?
2. How's the progression?
3. How's the platforming?


New Download

Since there is no menu, I've added a temporary loading system. Press backspace at any time to load your game.


Updated Screenshots (No screen tearing :O)











Thanks!

[vitorlanna]

Hello there! =] Just played the game, though not the entire demo. It's hard (or at least it was for me). Will continue later.

That's the first bit of feedback... The game is hard! Is it intentional? How steep the difficult curve is depends on what kind of public you want.

At first when I got the dive upgrade, I thought those initial paths were the wrong way since I wasn't able to cross them (even diving). Only after checking that there was no other way I kept trying 'till I managed it.

The blackflip isn't trivial to use either, at least at first. And then right after you get each of these upgrades, you have to use them with great skill... And after you get the blackflip, savepoints become less frequent.

So gameplaywise that's the feedback I have so far. I think the ones who will find the gameplay most engaging are achievers. I thought the music was strange at first, but it actually motivates a lot.

As for the story, at first I thought the protagonist was a skeleton... After that I thought he/she was a prisioner. Which makes sense, a prisioner trying to escape is a classic kind of story for a game.

[Beanallean]

Hello there! =] Just played the game, though not the entire demo. It's hard (or at least it was for me). Will continue later.

That's the first bit of feedback... The game is hard! Is it intentional? How steep the difficult curve is depends on what kind of public you want.

At first when I got the dive upgrade, I thought those initial paths were the wrong way since I wasn't able to cross them (even diving). Only after checking that there was no other way I kept trying 'till I managed it.

The blackflip isn't trivial to use either, at least at first. And then right after you get each of these upgrades, you have to use them with great skill... And after you get the blackflip, savepoints become less frequent.

So gameplaywise that's the feedback I have so far. I think the ones who will find the gameplay most engaging are achievers. I thought the music was strange at first, but it actually motivates a lot.

As for the story, at first I thought the protagonist was a skeleton... After that I thought he/she was a prisioner. Which makes sense, a prisioner trying to escape is a classic kind of story for a game.

That's good to know that you found it hard! I wasn't trying to make it hard enough to make someone give up, but it is supposed to have challenge. I'm curious as to where you had to quit though. My guess is the area in the fourth screenshot? As for checkpoints being less frequent, that's actually because that area was meant to be a challenge of sort. Past that, checkpoints are just as frequent as before.

Thanks for playing. :D

[debugchicken]

- How does the platforming feel? Is there any one thing/upgrade that you think could be better/just sucks?

I think there is a problem with the jump. If you start a forward jump and you let go of the arrow button, the character continues, I think it should stop. The way it is now looks like it is moving by itself.

When you die, i would suggest a fast die sound and change the character color. Like this game: http://gamejolt.com/games/platformer/under-the-moon/12561/

- Is progression relatively obvious? This the first part of the game, so it will be pretty linear (which will change in the rest of the game). But if you got lost/couldn't understand something, tell me.

Yes, its okay.

- Is the game engaging enough?

No. But almost there. (my opinion)

- Lastly, suggestions? I already know where I want this game to go for the most part, but I'm still up for good suggestions. Especially on the story. There will be a story, but the idea hasn't come into full yet.

I think the game mechanic is kinda complex for the keyboard. Although the movements really feel nice, I didn't like having to combine them to pass in the very sweet spots of the rooms. What I think is that these movements would be better in a more open place, maybe if the game was in a slighter a lower scale, with big places to climb, more fez-like than vvvvvv-like.

[Beanallean]

- How does the platforming feel? Is there any one thing/upgrade that you think could be better/just sucks?

I think there is a problem with the jump. If you start a forward jump and you let go of the arrow button, the character continues, I think it should stop. The way it is now looks like it is moving by itself.

When you die, i would suggest a fast die sound and change the character color. Like this game: http://gamejolt.com/games/platformer/under-the-moon/12561/

- Is progression relatively obvious? This the first part of the game, so it will be pretty linear (which will change in the rest of the game). But if you got lost/couldn't understand something, tell me.

Yes, its okay.

- Is the game engaging enough?

No. But almost there. (my opinion)

- Lastly, suggestions? I already know where I want this game to go for the most part, but I'm still up for good suggestions. Especially on the story. There will be a story, but the idea hasn't come into full yet.

I think the game mechanic is kinda complex for the keyboard. Although the movements really feel nice, I didn't like having to combine them to pass in the very sweet spots of the rooms. What I think is that these movements would be better in a more open place, maybe if the game was in a slighter a lower scale, with big places to climb, more fez-like than vvvvvv-like.

The jump is done like that on purpose. I think it works best like this because it allows you to have a feeling of momentum (which is similar to how fez plays). The death animation thing is something I plan on adding soon along with sound effects. I also get what you're saying with a bigger environment. That would totally work, but I feel like that would push the game to a higher focus on the platforming, which is fine, but I feel like the bigger worlds would make exploring feel less important. I want to go for the exploring in the small crevasses and caves as opposed to open fez worlds. I also like how slow paced the game is currently.

I'm not totally dismissing your idea though, I feel like I could make a completely different feeling game with more fast paced, platforming focused, parkour gameplay. That could be cool.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

[Quicksand-S]

I love the look and sound of it, but Firefox automatically blocks it from downloading with the message "May contain a virus or spyware".

[cakeandturtles]

I liked the powerups and was always liked the 3d mario game mechanics!

I would have liked to be able to "down + jump" through thin platforms but that's only a minor gripe.

Forgot I could dive through blocks until I looped all the way back to the beginning and back to the blocks after I got the dive powerup trying to find out what to do (I skipped the blocks and went straight to the orange bat area first).

Also always a fan of your music and art!

[Beanallean]

I love the look and sound of it, but Firefox automatically blocks it from downloading with the message "May contain a virus or spyware".

I don't know about firefox, but I do know that chrome is infamous for saying everything is a virus, even obviously trustable programs such as microsoft office or itunes. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way for me to fix it. If you don't feel comfortable downloading it, I understand. You've given me plenty of good feedback in the past anyway.

I liked the powerups and was always liked the 3d mario game mechanics!

I would have liked to be able to "down + jump" through thin platforms but that's only a minor gripe.

Forgot I could dive through blocks until I looped all the way back to the beginning and back to the blocks after I got the dive powerup trying to find out what to do (I skipped the blocks and went straight to the orange bat area first).

Also always a fan of your music and art!

Thanks man! :D

Yeah, you would think that the falling through platforms would be a given. I only didn't do it because I also wanted to use those platforms as a sort of one-way doors, but I guess I could just make that a sub-type.

[Quicksand-S]

I don't know about firefox, but I do know that chrome is infamous for saying everything is a virus, even obviously trustable programs such as microsoft office or itunes. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way for me to fix it.

Yeah, I tried Firefox and Chrome. Both gave the same message. Safari worked, though. My anti-virus and anti-malware programs showed no issues with the file. It might be a good idea to put it in a ZIP, RAR or 7z archive rather than putting up the EXE for download. Not only will that make some potential players more comfortable, but it might solve the problem with browsers blocking it.

Anyway, I gave it a try.

-For a long time, I had no idea what the arrows I kept flipping were. In an early room, there are two of them so I thought maybe they were telling me that the room I was in was an elevator or some sort, moving between areas. Seeing two in an early room probably made my subconscious go, "They can't possibly be checkpoints because there's no way there would be two here."

-Volume controls would be great.

-I liked the music but I felt like it repeated too often and it quickly got irritating.

-Every time I go off the edge of the screen, the next room has me start off-screen. That feels really wrong to me. If I've just entered the new area, I should be in the new area.

-Later in the game, near the beginning of the orange area, you have to jump over three pits without a checkpoint. I kept dying on the last one because neither the dive nor the backflip seemed able to get me across safely (Edit: It was really easy the last time, though. Weird), so I had to redo the first two jumps (plus two backflip maneuvers) over and over. Why are checkpoints so close together in most rooms and so far apart there?

-I'm not a big fan of jumps that retain my momentum with no air resistance. It always feels wrong to me, but that's just a personal preference thing.

-I really like the moves at my disposal. The controls weren't that clear, though. The backflip move says something like "<- + -> + Z" which suggests that they have to be pressed at the same time. Even the dive move was a bit misleading at first. The first few times I used it, I was jumping and then pressing both buttons to dive down diagonally. The triple-jump is misleading too. I thought it was like a double-jump with a third added on. I never would've tried a 3D Mario-style triple-jump without having played those games in the past.

-A quarter of the time when I tried to do the backflip, it wouldn't work. I think I was pressing jump before the second direction (ie. my fault), but maybe it would be nice if there was a little bit of leeway there.

-The purple area was annoying. There's so much going on in the background and 90% of it is non-interactive, so when I died because of what looked just as safe as everything else, I didn't like that.

-In a game with this sort of graphic style, I feel like the pixels should always be aligned. The bats (which look strangely like electrical plugs when hanging) have feet that aren't on the grid. The player character also hovers a little bit above the ground and isn't always aligned horizontally with the "grid".

-The timing on the yellow guys that pop out of the ground seems just perfect for hitting a player who doesn't know they're there. I would've liked a slightly longer delay to make me feel like I'd skillfully dodged something. Also, it might be worth considering making them stay hidden if you're standing on/near them (kind of like Piranha plants in the old Mario games).

-I feel like projectiles should get destroyed when you leave a room. After getting the triple-jump, I walked back a few screens and got killed by a projectile that was in the air as I entered.

-I would strongly suggest using keyboard_check() rather than keyboard_check_direct(). I don't think its ever a good thing for a character to move around while the player is doing something in another window.

-There are a few dead-ends that require the triple-jump to reach, but there's nothing in them. Are collectibles or something coming later?


I made it to the end. For the most part, I really like the visuals. Apart from the feel of the normal jumping, I really like the movement too. Apart from that one jump that I kept doing wrong, I didn't find it challenging at all. I think the only real challenge comes from figuring out what the tutorial messages actually mean. I really felt like it could use something more to make me want to keep going (ex. "You Have to Win the Game" has tons of collectibles). It didn't feel like I was exploring, since it's completely linear, so I was just moving forward and jumping over things with nothing else to really engage me. That said, I think it shows promise and I imagine you have things planned that will help (like the story).

[Beanallean]

I don't know about firefox, but I do know that chrome is infamous for saying everything is a virus, even obviously trustable programs such as microsoft office or itunes. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way for me to fix it.

Yeah, I tried Firefox and Chrome. Both gave the same message. Safari worked, though. My anti-virus and anti-malware programs showed no issues with the file. It might be a good idea to put it in a ZIP, RAR or 7z archive rather than putting up the EXE for download. Not only will that make some potential players more comfortable, but it might solve the problem with browsers blocking it.

Anyway, I gave it a try.

-For a long time, I had no idea what the arrows I kept flipping were. In an early room, there are two of them so I thought maybe they were telling me that the room I was in was an elevator or some sort, moving between areas. Seeing two in an early room probably made my subconscious go, "They can't possibly be checkpoints because there's no way there would be two here."

-Volume controls would be great.

-I liked the music but I felt like it repeated too often and it quickly got irritating.

-Every time I go off the edge of the screen, the next room has me start off-screen. That feels really wrong to me. If I've just entered the new area, I should be in the new area.

-Later in the game, near the beginning of the orange area, you have to jump over three pits without a checkpoint. I kept dying on the last one because neither the dive nor the backflip seemed able to get me across safely (Edit: It was really easy the last time, though. Weird), so I had to redo the first two jumps (plus two backflip maneuvers) over and over. Why are checkpoints so close together in most rooms and so far apart there?

-I'm not a big fan of jumps that retain my momentum with no air resistance. It always feels wrong to me, but that's just a personal preference thing.

-I really like the moves at my disposal. The controls weren't that clear, though. The backflip move says something like "<- + -> + Z" which suggests that they have to be pressed at the same time. Even the dive move was a bit misleading at first. The first few times I used it, I was jumping and then pressing both buttons to dive down diagonally. The triple-jump is misleading too. I thought it was like a double-jump with a third added on. I never would've tried a 3D Mario-style triple-jump without having played those games in the past.

-A quarter of the time when I tried to do the backflip, it wouldn't work. I think I was pressing jump before the second direction (ie. my fault), but maybe it would be nice if there was a little bit of leeway there.

-The purple area was annoying. There's so much going on in the background and 90% of it is non-interactive, so when I died because of what looked just as safe as everything else, I didn't like that.

-In a game with this sort of graphic style, I feel like the pixels should always be aligned. The bats (which look strangely like electrical plugs when hanging) have feet that aren't on the grid. The player character also hovers a little bit above the ground and isn't always aligned horizontally with the "grid".

-The timing on the yellow guys that pop out of the ground seems just perfect for hitting a player who doesn't know they're there. I would've liked a slightly longer delay to make me feel like I'd skillfully dodged something. Also, it might be worth considering making them stay hidden if you're standing on/near them (kind of like Piranha plants in the old Mario games).

-I feel like projectiles should get destroyed when you leave a room. After getting the triple-jump, I walked back a few screens and got killed by a projectile that was in the air as I entered.

-I would strongly suggest using keyboard_check() rather than keyboard_check_direct(). I don't think its ever a good thing for a character to move around while the player is doing something in another window.

-There are a few dead-ends that require the triple-jump to reach, but there's nothing in them. Are collectibles or something coming later?


I made it to the end. For the most part, I really like the visuals. Apart from the feel of the normal jumping, I really like the movement too. Apart from that one jump that I kept doing wrong, I didn't find it challenging at all. I think the only real challenge comes from figuring out what the tutorial messages actually mean. I really felt like it could use something more to make me want to keep going (ex. "You Have to Win the Game" has tons of collectibles). It didn't feel like I was exploring, since it's completely linear, so I was just moving forward and jumping over things with nothing else to really engage me. That said, I think it shows promise and I imagine you have things planned that will help (like the story).

- Game Maker sound is very limited, I'll look into it though.

- I'm still fiddling with the screen changing and it's definitely not perfect still. I just wanted to make sure the player couldn't get stuck for the demo. I'll definitely polish it out some more though.

- So, the part with few checkpoints was meant to be a challenge of sort. If I had a checkpoint after each jump than you'd be able to brute force it. Like if Super Meat Boy had a checkpoint after every challenging jump in a level, it would feel more tiresome and pointless than challenging. That being said, I could probably throw a checkpoint at the halfway mark.

- I don't really know if I know what you mean by this so I'll give an example: when you jump from standing still and are still able to go at full speed in the air, that's without air resistance. And if you aren't able to go full speed (or move at all if you're La-Mulana) than that would have air resistance. If that's it then yeah, I guess I should do that.

- So, the tutorialization is pretty bad, and I knew that when I made it. I plan on adding some Super Metroid animals to teach you how to do things, I just wanted to get a demo out fast.

- The backflip is a little finicky, but I've been surprised at how few people have said anything about having difficulty with it. I'll mess with changing the jump window a bit but I don't want it to be too large because I find doing a backflip when I don't want to is much more frustrating that screwing up once when I want to do it. But that's just me.

- Yeah another person has said something about the fish before, so I'll definitely try and make them stick out more, or at least give them some animation.

- The reason why everything isn't perfectly aligned with a grid is because I didn't want the platforming to become too pixelated and lose its fluidity. Currently, all spirtes originate in 16X16 and are scaled up 32X32. Then the entire game is scaled from 320X320 to 640X640. If something doesn't stick perfectly to the ground/ceiling it's because they don't have a black outline. Every tile has a 2 pixel space between each other tile but the player and bat don't because I just couldn't fit it in... If you look close, the hanging vines are only 1 pixel from the ceiling instead of 2 as well. When I made those sprites I wasn't really thinking of making everything perfectly align, only the tiles, so I should be able to change it.

- The yellow diglet enemies are sort of supposed to surprise kill you when you first see them. I'm not a fan of trial and error gameplay myself, but in portions it's a good thing. And there's a checkpoint right before him, so it isn't that big of a deal.

- Projectiles destroying when leaving room is something I meant to do but forgot, it'll definitely happen.

- I'm used to using direct because in most of my games I like being able to keep moving from one level to the next without having to re-press a key. Game Maker has a horrible way of not checking keyboard_check() when you go to a different room. In this game however, I made one huge room with a view that disables all objects outside of it, making keyboard_check_direct() unnecessary. Force of habit I guess, I'll change it.

- Dead ends are not dead, they all lead to future areas that either don't exits yet or I don't want to include in the demo. The idea in the is game is that you get all of your powerups in succession and then the world opens up in full for you to collect things. There will be at least 4 main collectibles scattered throughout the world and an assortment of keys/runes/whatever you want to call them. So to answer your other question, yes there will be more collectibles, but besides keys they won't give you new abilities.

- The challenge comes later

*whew* As always, thanks for the feedback. Look out for me in the coming months! I might post a pre-release type thing before I release the finished build. Among the other changes, it will include sound effects, a story, save/load, a menu screen, and maybe Gamejolt achievements. The game will have 100 rooms (demo had 31) and maybe some extra stuff.

[Quicksand-S]

- So, the part with few checkpoints was meant to be a challenge of sort. If I had a checkpoint after each jump than you'd be able to brute force it. Like if Super Meat Boy had a checkpoint after every challenging jump in a level, it would feel more tiresome and pointless than challenging. That being said, I could probably throw a checkpoint at the halfway mark.

It's probably fine after all, because it takes no time to get through there when you do it right. I think I was just being stupid. I was thinking that I had to jump early in order to avoid sliding into the bat.

- I don't really know if I know what you mean by this so I'll give an example: when you jump from standing still and are still able to go at full speed in the air, that's without air resistance. And if you aren't able to go full speed (or move at all if you're La-Mulana) than that would have air resistance. If that's it then yeah, I guess I should do that.

I mean that if you're standing on a ledge and you walk off of it, you keep moving to the left/right even if you let go of the button in the air. I don't personally like that because it makes me feel like I have less control over my character.

- The reason why everything isn't perfectly aligned with a grid is because I didn't want the platforming to become too pixelated and lose its fluidity.

It might be worth seeing how the game looks if you round the coordinates to the nearest multiple of two whenever an entity is stationary. That way, the actual movement won't be jerky but whenever you stop you'll be aligned with the grid.

- The yellow diglet enemies are sort of supposed to surprise kill you when you first see them. I'm not a fan of trial and error gameplay myself, but in portions it's a good thing. And there's a checkpoint right before him, so it isn't that big of a deal.

I would say that a death that feels unfair is a bad idea even if there's a checkpoint beforehand, but maybe that's just me. If I compare the difficulty of, for example, VVVVVV to the difficulty of I Wanna Be the Guy, VVVVVV is a much more enjoyable game for me because I know what the dangers/obstacles are and the challenge is just to deal with it all, not to predict the unpredictable.

- I'm used to using direct because in most of my games I like being able to keep moving from one level to the next without having to re-press a key.

Oh yeah. I completely forgot about that. It's been a while since I made a room-by-room game. I think what I used to do to get around that is store the keypresses global variables and then check those variables whenever a new room was entered. If the variable said a key was pressed, then it would move the player.

Another potential way around it (in case you make a game like that again in the future) would be to have the player character be set as "Persistent". In that case, you'd just need to keep track of where the player left the screen and teleport them to the proper position every time a new room is loaded.

- The challenge comes later

Personally, I think that what's currently there takes long enough to beat that by that point players should have a good idea of how hard the bulk of the game will be.

[debugchicken]

I mean that if you're standing on a ledge and you walk off of it, you keep moving to the left/right even if you let go of the button in the air. I don't personally like that because it makes me feel like I have less control over my character.

Yess I felt this too. not cool at all

[Beanallean]

Ohhhhh ok, I getcha. I can change that.

[vitorlanna]

That's good to know that you found it hard! I wasn't trying to make it hard enough to make someone give up, but it is supposed to have challenge. I'm curious as to where you had to quit though. My guess is the area in the fourth screenshot? As for checkpoints being less frequent, that's actually because that area was meant to be a challenge of sort. Past that, checkpoints are just as frequent as before.

Thanks for playing. :D

Yup, that area!

Also:

-A quarter of the time when I tried to do the backflip, it wouldn't work. I think I was pressing jump before the second direction (ie. my fault), but maybe it would be nice if there was a little bit of leeway there.

î That. Using the blackflip wasn't fun for me... Maybe if it worked more like a double jump, input-wise...?

I also took a while to understand the checkpoints for the same reason.

The "trial and error gameplay" you mentioned is something that rewards persistence, which is consistent with an achiever(bartle type)-oriented design, if that's your goal .

[Beanallean]

That's good to know that you found it hard! I wasn't trying to make it hard enough to make someone give up, but it is supposed to have challenge. I'm curious as to where you had to quit though. My guess is the area in the fourth screenshot? As for checkpoints being less frequent, that's actually because that area was meant to be a challenge of sort. Past that, checkpoints are just as frequent as before.

Thanks for playing. :D

Yup, that area!

Also:

-A quarter of the time when I tried to do the backflip, it wouldn't work. I think I was pressing jump before the second direction (ie. my fault), but maybe it would be nice if there was a little bit of leeway there.

î That. Using the blackflip wasn't fun for me... Maybe if it worked more like a double jump, input-wise...?

I also took a while to understand the checkpoints for the same reason.

The "trial and error gameplay" you mentioned is something that rewards persistence, which is consistent with an achiever(bartle type)-oriented design, if that's your goal .

Double jump input wise? How would that work without it being just... a double jump?

[Elwood Sharit]

Played through the whole thing. Was great pretty much. Graphics reminded me of Montezuma's Revenge.

My biggest gripe was the back flip was a little wonky at times and that most of the screens didn't permit decent timing for a lot of the maneuvers which lend the character a decent bit of horizontal momentum.

What I mean by that last part basically is there's not enough room to do triple jumps and make them feel solid.

The controls were a little finicky, I understand the type of control you're trying to give the player it just at times feels unresponsive and I'm not sure why.

Another problem I have is the room with the two dropping bats you have to dive under, it again suffers from the rooms not being very long, it causes you to have to back up and jump/fall a little before diving, this feels more gimmicky than a puzzle that requires timing.

[Beanallean]

Played through the whole thing. Was great pretty much. Graphics reminded me of Montezuma's Revenge.

My biggest gripe was the back flip was a little wonky at times and that most of the screens didn't permit decent timing for a lot of the maneuvers which lend the character a decent bit of horizontal momentum.

What I mean by that last part basically is there's not enough room to do triple jumps and make them feel solid.

The controls were a little finicky, I understand the type of control you're trying to give the player it just at times feels unresponsive and I'm not sure why.

Another problem I have is the room with the two dropping bats you have to dive under, it again suffers from the rooms not being very long, it causes you to have to back up and jump/fall a little before diving, this feels more gimmicky than a puzzle that requires timing.

The "not enough room" thing is what I'm trying to fix the most. It's very conflicting because I want the game to feel very compact with a lot of stuff in each room, but I also want to pull of the mario style combo platforming. I'm working on adding some bigger environments, for triple jumping in particular, and opening up other areas. I just can't do it too much because there isn't a lot shown on screen at a time, and I don't want the game to feel too segmented.

I think what most people are doing with the backflip is they're changing direction and jumping at the same time, and the jump is triggering before the movement, which makes you jump normally instead backflipping. This is something I literally just thought of, so I haven't tested it to see if that's an issue. And if that doesn't work I can also just increase the window for doing the backflip.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

[Quicksand-S]

For the triple-jump, you could potentially do it differently from Mario and have it that only the last jump is higher. That way, you don't need quite as much of a "runway" because the player doesn't take as much time to get back to the ground between bounces.

In most games with this sort of backflip maneuver, I think I generally try to press the opposite direction and the jump button at the same time (because pressing Jump second sometimes lets my character turn around first). That's what feels natural at this point, so having to do one before the other goes against what I've learned from games previously. That might be the issue for other people too.

From the comments I've read, I get the feeling people are doing what I originally did with the "dive" (jumping and then hitting the button to dive down at an angle). That name seems to suggest that it's what you're supposed to do. Once you get used to hitting both buttons almost simultaneously, it makes things like getting under those bats much easier (if I remember right). Maybe consider changing the name of the skill ("launch" maybe?).

[Beanallean]

For the triple-jump, you could potentially do it differently from Mario and have it that only the last jump is higher. That way, you don't need quite as much of a "runway" because the player doesn't take as much time to get back to the ground between bounces.

In most games with this sort of backflip maneuver, I think I generally try to press the opposite direction and the jump button at the same time (because pressing Jump second sometimes lets my character turn around first). That's what feels natural at this point, so having to do one before the other goes against what I've learned from games previously. That might be the issue for other people too.

From the comments I've read, I get the feeling people are doing what I originally did with the "dive" (jumping and then hitting the button to dive down at an angle). That name seems to suggest that it's what you're supposed to do. Once you get used to hitting both buttons almost simultaneously, it makes things like getting under those bats much easier (if I remember right). Maybe consider changing the name of the skill ("launch" maybe?).

That could work. I mean, the only reason why the second jump is higher is to give the player a visual that they're doing it right, but I guess a different jump sound (there will be sounds eventually) could work too. I'm working on getting the animals in to teach players how to do the jumps, so hopefully understanding the dive, backflip, triple jump will be a given soon.

[vitorlanna]

Double jump input wise? How would that work without it being just... a double jump?

Well... Visually, the animation is different, and mechanically, the backflip goes in the same direction as you came from (only, well, higher).
But anyway the suggestion was just so the backflip wasn't so inconvenient to use, but there are already some other suggestions here that might be better.