Lost Oxide

*Original post*

Hey! Thought i'd share my creation for the Ludum Dare competition!

In short, its all about creating a game from scratch in 48 hours. I spent around 20 hours of development, and the rest on socializing/sleeping.

I definitely should have slept less! Alot of introductional features didnt get in, as well as some polish. For example, notice when holding bubbles that its just floating on the player!

(Ludum Dare version)

*Update*

I've now done a complete overhaul of the game, in relation to a national game development contest.

Changes from Ludum Dare version:

• Updated art, polished art
• Updated control system
• Added/redid most animations
• Added a menu/GUI system
• And much, much more.

Check out the new version HERE.!

For comparison, you can view the old video (link further up in this post).

I don't know how you guys can create something like that just in 20hrs, amazing. There are some bugs etc., but considering the amount of hours spent on it, it's great. I don't know if you've designed the level this way, but I picked up the oxygen balls in order, from easier to harder to get, or at least I felt it that way. Ye, I've had fun, nice game.

Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked it! How did you feel about the controls? I intend to work more on this concept, but i'm not totally satisfied with the feel of the controls..

I second that, for something made in such a short time it is really great.

Most impressive is the art really. The use of lighting creates a very nice ambiance. And the character animation is very good BTW.

The controls IMHO do need a bit of work: Character "sticks" too much to the walls I think.

Great stuff though and worth expanding on ;)

That's creative using canvas effect

game is perfect it self, but there is a little bit lag on the controls, if you jump for 5-6 times continuously you can fell the lag, anyway, maybe its may computer :)

Art is amazing, super duper, good job

great job on the animation of the main character. I would like to know what software you used?

Thanks for the feedback!

For animations i used Photoshop, frame per frame (its only 5 frames). Reason why its rather nice now (compared to other stuff i've done) is that i borrowed an animation book from the work - The animators survival kit, and had kind of a crash course in animationt his weekend :)

On a related topic, i'm pleased with the run animations, but the jump and wall animations i'm gonna redo it :)

beautiful sir...

There's some ambiance to that tiny world indeed.

The layering of blurs, shadows, lights is pretty well down, and it seems to serve the level design.

I spent a few tries dying on spikes first before accidentaly falling on one of the orbs to collect.

From the moment I had the orb, the game made sense.

I'm not a big fan of the control that make it so that you jump up right/left from a wall if you were slowly sliding down along it.

It doesn't feel very expected and caused me some stupid deaths. (I'd expect to move out from the wall, but on the same Y, to prevent reaching top rotating spikes for examples).

The down sliding might also be a bit more accelerated to prevent that, the player would be less enclined to jump of the wall at a not opportune time.

Nice work though considered in the frame of ludum dare <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

With more time available a correction on the control bugs (sometimes, the sprite is mirroring/not mirroring at high pace if colliding with an angle of the scenery/wall) it will make for a cool little game to have a quick play with.

And thanks for your feedback on Out for arrest.

EDIT: Congrats on the cool votes in the ludum dare. You're like in the top 10 on coolness !

Good for C2 and deserved for you !

EDIT2: After having replayed and finished it, I'll come back on my comment about the controls.

Still I feel there's something "not natural" I can't put words on it, but I tended to play "stuck to the wall", holding the down key often when on walls to try to see what was coming up or down.

The speed of the slide down should be tweaked to get something more nervous maybe.

Also there's some kind of collision bug when touching the angle of a wall and holding the down key. That's where the fussy mirroring I was talking about happen.

Once you get the hang of the controls, the first two orbs are easy to get (those from the bottom and right section of the level).

The last orb (after the platform) was a bit trickier to get. The level design had me used to some "circular path" from the volcanoes to the orb/back to the volcanoes and the last orb didn't fit that pattern <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle">

I died, but fortunately the two previous orbs were still in place in the volcanoes. GLAD !

The first time I had played, death meant restarting the whole level again. And it caused quite a fast/frustrated quick as I was still working on my own entry for the jam.

Again, good job.

Thanks for the feedback, i appreciate constructive, detailed feedback!

I'm aware of the controls issues, but havent really looked into it yet. I've been very busy these days, but i really look forward to start tweaking the controls for this concept. The present level design isnt optimal at all, and the hazards were really just a "slap-on" close to the deadline - not a good idea it seems! I will add a huge amount of levels, with proper pacing/difficulty, spot-on controls, as well as some simplistic narrative.

I'll be back with more updates as time goes by, as i most likely will need others to test it as well :)

Again, thanks for the kind words!

Nice work on this Era.

Thanks! :)

Bump! Updated the original post with a fresh, huge update to the game! Check it ou :)