Penance: A Devilishly Difficult Platformer

I indirectly found out about Construct through SomethingAwful's fourth Game Development Challenge. I decided to participate and I also decided to give Construct a go. The rules of the challenge were simple enough: make the game however you want, with as many people as you want, as long as it revolves around the theme. This time around, the theme was: Deals with the Devil, and their horrible and inevitable consequences.

I actually surprised myself with the quality of the result, considering I technically had never used Construct before (although I was quite familiar with various Clickteam products), and also am generally not a graphics/sounds guy. However, I made every part of this game from scratch in the course of one month, and thought it would be worth showing off a Construct creation in the official forums.

I will, however, warn you that the general consensus is that the controls are too difficult. I didn't realize most people would find it so hard, since I can navigate the in-game world rather gracefully, but I guess my best advice is as follows: You have very little control over your character while in the air. Try to get the momentum you need, which is usually very little, before jumping, as you won't be able to greatly alter your trajectory mid-jump.

That being said, here's the download link for anyone who wishes to play it: http://home.comcast.net/~hammerbro/Penance.zip

Comments and questions are welcome -- I'll gladly respond to any questions about the inner mechanics, although I don't habitually browse these forums, so my posts might be slightly few and far between. And although I could very easily extend on the game (I find it's rather short once you get the hang of the physics) or make it easier, I'm not going to actually modify this particular project, in order to preserve the sanctity of the one-month restriction. Even if I did spend more than half of that month goofing off at friends' houses. Enjoy!

screen would be nice

edit@ i like it, but level seams unfinished, and it's a bit hard to controle the character.

Hi, I liked it. It's just bit too difficult for me. I would add some checkpoint. It took me 10min to get somewhere further, but than I died and the game kicked me back at the very start. Sorry if there is a save point, I was just too frustrated to start over

Very fun game i must admit, story line, graphics have nice style, my only complaint is controls add more deacceleration so character wont be walking on "ice".

As I said, I probably won't be changing this project just to keep it pure to its one month restriction, but if I ever use the engine again, friction and air control would be very easy to change since I didn't hard code them in. But I will say that everything was a breeze and a pleasure to code in Construct. The only thing I couldn't figure out how to do was have objects follow a predefined path easily, and I'm sure I just missed something there. Plus, with families and event sheets, I could probably easily export some of the movement routines for future usage.

Mostly, though, I just wanted a few people to have a bit of fun. Sorry if the controls are too frustrating; they do take a bit of adjusting to. And ironically, Doppel, I was thinking about adding some sections of icy platforms that had literally no friction, but I never got around to it.

Aside from the obvious "it's too hard " reply (which it is... I had to read the SA thread before I knew how to wall jump) I will say that the graphics and music were awesome. I loved the hand-drawn cutout style.

Good luck in the compo