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[Kapser]

Saut is a simple but challenging one button platformer made for GameJolt's minimal contest. It's about a small guy unable to walk, making his way through a strange world by jumping and sliding.


Controls:
Use Spacebar to jump, and that's it.

Goal:
Finish the game with the fewer deaths then compete on leaderboards. There's also a VIP highscore table when you finish the game while collecting every coins in the game.  It's a bit difficult, but once you get used to the jumping and sliding mechanics, you'll beat the levels pretty quick!

I'd love some feedbacks, good or bad!

Download link:
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/saut/1043/

Screenshots:


Full screenshots:
http://img137.imageshack.us/i/screenshotsaut.jpg/
http://img233.imageshack.us/i/saulvl2slidescreenshot.jpg/
http://img233.imageshack.us/i/saulvl3slidescreenshot.jpg/

[pgil]

Looks cool, but your link doesn't work.

[Kapser]

Sorry about that, I've linked directly to Gamejolt instead. Should work fine now.

[bicilotti]

Interesting concept! I'm currently trying to keep the death count from skyrocketing: it plays smooth and it is easy to grasp. Nice job!

[gauthier]

Tough game! The sliding added a little more gameplay panache to this than you would find in a typical one-button platformer. The visual style is a bit cliché by this point, but it certainly wasn't distracting or ugly.

I kinda wish there were more challenges like those found in the area with the red background. Having to get past moving obstacles was a bit more interesting than simply jumping over gaps or sliding down hills.

Good luck in the contest <3

[JackNeil]

Just a bit about my gaming experience to put this in context:
I enjoyed to play Super Mario, Braid and some other platformers. I'm a quite experienced gamer in most genres. I've never played a one-button-platformer before.

I like the visual style and the concept is interesting.
I died 57 times and was not even able to reach the end of the second area, so I gave it up. The games is very challenging and quite frustrating for me.

- I died around 5 times, until I realized, that the duration I press down the space-bar influences the length of the jump.
- The coin is very small and hard to catch.
- A lot more coins would be nice. At least one on every platform. And a counter for it. It is not very motivating, that the only HUD-element is your death-counter.
- Sometimes I felt like I'm in a deadlock, because the next platform was very far away, but I was not able to make a small enough jump on the current platform.
- Checkpoints would be nice. For the second area the player has to perform more than 30 actions without a fault.
- Jumping during sliding doesn't work all the time. I think I died at last 15 times, just because of this.
- V-Sync would improve the visual quality.
- A reward at the end of each area would be very nice. I mean, it is really hard work to get there. And only very skilled players are probably able to get the coin. So an average player gets no reward at all, beside that he reached the end of the level. Possible rewards: Points, nice sound, level-end-screen with some stats, story, achievements, check mark on an overview map, kiss from a princess, cute little hamster that performs a you-are-awesome-dance, ...

This are my personal experiences and I don't know, if I'm in your target group. This may be exactly, what hardcore platform gamers want, but it is definitely to tough for me.

[ortoslon]

i found a bug - first i beat the game with 41 deaths, then i beat it with 11 deaths but my highscore table entry wasn't overwritten

[Amon26]

wa-heyheyhey! this was pretty fun!   

it's nice to see that those with a disability or a lack of fine-motor skills can still be treated to good gameplay.  This idea would also make a really nice little mobile phone game to pickup.

i imagine a level editor, sharing of maps.  I guess it's because it reminds me of N+ a bit.

really minimal graphics, but they do what they need to and look very clean and good.  Nice color palette.  music was also very smooth, felt like a little romp through a cooljazz evening.

add a cheshire cat somewhere :}

[Marchal_Mig12]

i found a bug - first i beat the game with 41 deaths, then i beat it with 11 deaths but my highscore table entry wasn't overwritten

Damn, my bad, the high score system overwrites only if the score is higher. It does not take into account that the best score should be the lowest one possible. We'll fix that as soon as possible and I will enter your score as well.

Thanks for reporting

[ortoslon]

i've recorded a playthrough, with a final score of 1 death

[tim_the_tam]

that was actually pretty good. but its no canabalt..

[CROS]

What's Canabalt?

By the way, I'll reserve my judgement of the game after the actual judging takes place.

Also, I agree, making an iPhone port of this may not actually be a bad idea. Of course, that's not exactly just something you do in an evening, so... yeah.

P.S. ortoslon, you're amazing.

[Kapser]

Thanks a lot guys, these are some good feedbacks.

Omnilith: Sorry about the bug and thanks for reporting it. And thank you very much for the video, I couldnt record one with such a good image quality myself. Good score btw :D

I also agree about the lack of moving obstacles, but I wanted to focus on the main mechanic and keep it simple without too many enemies and collectibles. It was made for a Minimal contest and had a 1 week constraint..

JackNeil: Thanks for you feedback on your experience. The game actually become really easy after some practice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe7taiOuuSY), but it is true it is insanely too hard for the average player. My target was not hardcore players but myself, and it was hard to build levels that are both fun for me and for everyone since the game is so easy when you master it. The game is a LOT harder than I tought, and I could not use that 'Mario technique' where the difficulty adapt to player's speed, you have to do the jumps right. I was actually afraid that people tie for the 0 death score.. I'll take your feedbacks in consideration in the next game since I'd like the game to be more accessible and more rewarding. I have no idea how to use V-sync though.

Amon26: I would indeed like to port the game on Iphone (level editor sounds great but too hard for me ). I am currently trying to reproduce the mechanic on GameSalad.

CROS: Canabalt is a one button platformer with a different mechanic(on-rail platformer). I don't like the gameplay that much, addictive though, but the game has a simply too cool style and awsome graphics.

[ortoslon]

i'm not Omnilith

[James Kaudewitz]

Wow, this was great! I completely over-looked this when I went through the list of entries on Game Jolt. I'd say this could definitely win! (or place at LEAST).

Graphics were good (although maybe a little blurry), gameplay was good (more interesting near the end), and sound was great (awesome music, I really like that kind of style, it reminded my of Block Dood by Mials).

The only thing I found annoying was that the difficulty curve was a little steep. From the 1st level to the 2nd was a big jump in skill level (although I took a like a breeze  ). Maybe working on that would make it a bit better.

I beat the game with 70 deaths and 14/16 coins. I placed 95th overall.