you'r experimenting something, good work.
Author Comments
A game that I made for Quantron.
This was a failed Ludum Dare 53 entry, now finally finished. You can still visit the Ludum Dare page if you want to see the original version.
Please read this post for why it took so long and is still broken.
WARNING: This game is hard. And contains flashing screen effects. Press "F" on the title screen to toggle them.
How to play
Player 1
- WASD = Move/Jump
- Space = Attack/Charge ranged attack
- S = Command Sleeper's AI (see below)
- Esc = Pause
Player 2
- Arrow keys = Move/Jump
- Enter = Attack/Charge ranged attack
- Down arrow = Summon soul (in World 5)
- P = Pause
Players can respawn on the other player with their attack key, if the other player is not moving or attacking.
In singleplayer, Sleeper has an AI that plays the game with you instead of using the Player 2 control scheme. Press S to tell them to stop moving (however, you may find they won't always listen). Press Enter to respawn them whenever they die.
As of v1.0.2, Sleeper AI will not move while Reaper is dead unless the player tells them to by pressing S.
Devlog
I am going to do something different - April 27, 2023
What am I doing - May 18, 2023
Not jamming - June 22, 2023
The Will to Meaning - September 28, 2023
I will try to fix what I can, especially any crashes or soft-locks, but some of the other minor bugs just aren't worth it. Still, if you find something that isn't in the bug list below, let me know so I can add it and at least let everyone else know, too.
Known bugs
- There are a few cases where Sleeper’s AI will do something that isn’t very smart, usually resulting in their death
- Sleeper AI doesn’t always jump over tiles right after respawning, until Reaper goes to them or presses “S”
- Players’ attacking animations may sometimes skip a frame (visual bug)
- Taking damage and healing at the same time can cause a player’s health bar to be a point off from their actual health, until they take damage or heal again (visual bug)
- Crates cannot be opened while other tiles are breaking
- Collision shapes of breakable tiles are wonky, and players can get stuck on them (at the end of World 5, I gave them rounded corners so players would only sort of trip over them a little; it’s the best I could do, and it’s also kinda funny)
- Bugs (as in the flying enemies) get stuck on breakable tiles and stop moving
- After a player reaches the computer at the end of a level, both players automatically go to it, but can get stuck on tiles and won’t try to jump over them
- Sometimes the top UI is very briefly shown between cutscenes
- If a player respawns at the last second before the first boss is defeated, it may cause several bugs during the subsequent cutscene, as values/behaviors are not set correctly
- During the middle cutscene of the ending, fireballs may go in the wrong direction
- When transitioning to the final boss battle from the previous scene, the player isn’t in the same place they were before; they’re always positioned in a specific spot
- The B̵̧̦̉ạ̶͇͌͘s̶͓͆̈́i̸̦̇̓l̶̳͑̒ī̴̙s̶̪̫̾̂k̵̨̤̾k̵̡̛̯̠͇̳̖̜̓̿͊̈̀̽̾́͐̊͑̃k̴̻͕̺̖̣͎͕͂̆̿̃̀k̶̨͍̟͕̯̖̼̮̤̗̗̤̝̲̈́̈́̎̏͂͛͝ͅk̴̬̬̦͉͇̈́́̇̽́̆̌͛̕̚ḵ̷͓̺̙̠̱̰͇̹͌͑̀̊̊̇̎̅́̊́͋͊͘͠
Updates
v1.0.4
- Gravity boots are now disabled during cutscenes
- Fixed a bug where gravity boots weren’t disabled when deleting the save
- Fixed a bug where music from a level could sometimes resume after unpausing on the title screen
v1.0.3
- Added inertia-canceling gravity boots, which can be found at the start of World 1-1, and Reaper can drop them by pressing B (I have no idea what this will do to the physics or Sleeper AI)
v1.0.2
- If Reaper is dead, Sleeper AI now only moves when commanded to by pressing S, and stays idle otherwise
- The sound effect to command Sleeper AI now also plays if Reaper is dead
- Sleeper AI now can’t be commanded to stop running at the end of World 5
- Flashing effects can now be toggled by pressing F on the title screen
- World themes now start at later points in the song in later levels of the world
- Fixed a bug where the save icon would appear on top of the version number on the title screen
- Fixed a bug where false tiles would not completely fade back to 100% opacity after a player falls through them too quickly
- Fixed a bug where the secret warp computers would spawn the players at a checkpoint in their chosen world, not the start of the level
v1.0.1
- Fixed a bug where Sleeper wouldn’t hit breakable tiles if Reaper is dead
- Fixed a bug where Sleeper wouldn’t stop after entering the World 2 boss room, and continue to run up against the far wall during the cutscene and boss battle (now on entering, Reaper respawns even if they had no lives, and Sleeper will now stay in the middle during the battle)
- Sleeper now tries to jump right before the boss dashes
- Fixed a bug where UI wasn’t properly hidden after defeating the boss in World 2 if Reaper was dead and had to be respawned for the cutscene
Reused Assets
As promised, here is a list of reused assets from my other games.
- All sound effects were ripped from Reaper and a few of my other games
- The theme for World 5 is a remix of Creepers (which itself is also a remix)
- Other songs also have recurring motifs from other games
- The player, creeper, and soul sprites are derivatives of those same sprites from Reaper
- The souls’ movement code was ripped from Reaper
- The tome sprite is a recolored version from Lex Temporis
- The ship in the ending was ripped from Dead Stars
- The statues are sprites I’ve been working on for a while, before starting this game
- The font is of course reused
Some other sprites are from previous games, like the players’ ship, but are newly drawn instead of edited or recolored.
Thanks to jazz_horse for testing and feedback.
i was dying this entire game
game seems very fun, but the movement could use lots of polishing
Hmmm, I just felt kinda confused by this one. Maybe it's my fault for playing it as a single player, but the option was there, so keep that in mind.
While it seems like a decent 2D platformer in some respects, I just felt like the game was very repetitive and generic, lacking an intriguing core concept or satisfying feel to it all. It felt like once you've played it for a few minutes you've seen everything as it just keeps recycling the same enemies over and over and not introducing any new obstacles or mechanics. Aspects that could've been interesting, like the AI partner which you can somewhat guide, or the different world's gravity, or the upgrade system, lack focus and just feel token, not adding anything but just stuck on as if just by having them it'd make this plain game somehow seem better than it is. Eventually it gets some stuff like boss fights but for me that was too little too late as I had already quit from boredom.
The most interesting aspect of the game I encountered was when I died and I was left with only my AI partner, who I could still somewhat guide despite being dead by signaling him to move forward, but he would automate his jumps and attacks. This was a rather unique control scheme that could be interesting and reminded me of games like Gyromite, but it really felt like it wasn't intentional and the way to play. The AI was largely unreliable anyway, regularly getting stuck on things or falling into pits.
The controls felt terrible, in particular with the way jumps kept you moving forward with momentum despite no longer holding the forward button, which would usually kill your momentum in other platformers, made it very awkward and feeling like you're constantly sliding on ice. Combine this with the way enemies can just rush in quickly from the right and smash into you and you've got a real frustrating loop of damage that feels unavoidable.
To add to the pile further, I really disliked the unnecessary scanline filter, which only served to hurt my eyes.
I dunno, maybe there's something interesting in here that could be salvaged, but right now it just feels like an unfocused mish-mash with bad AI, bad jumping controls, and at its core just a rather bland and uninspired side-scroller. Again, maybe if you focused on that unique aspect of helping to guide an AI through the battle, it might be a unique experience at least? Might've been a case where you needed to 'follow the fun', but maybe that's just me.
ImmanentDeath responds:
Honestly, this whole game was just my attempt at salvaging an idea. I wanted to make a generic video game and put my own spin on it. But it was rushed and overscoped. There's a lot more I wanted to add or change, but I just couldn't.
It is supposed to be a game where you just goof around with another player or the AI for as long as you want, and either laugh or get frustrated when one of you does something silly, by accident or on purpose. You are supposed to get hurt and fall off cliffs because losing is fun. I wanted it to feel like you and your partner are in this together against this broken universe.
i hit the key to control the ai partner and it just made an exclamation mark come out of my head and i wasn't able to use the player 2 controls, despite the author description claiming that's how it worked.
what a huge oversight. practically half of the game doesn't work and you released this game?
ImmanentDeath responds:
I just want to clarify for anyone else who might be confused. In singleplayer, you don't control the other player character, Sleeper. They have an AI, so they'll act on their own.
When you press S, you're telling them to stop following you and stay put. As of v1.0.2, it's the reverse if you're dead and Sleeper isn't, and Sleeper will wait unless you tell them to move forward (I found it's easier that way, to communicate to them or to respawn yourself).
Sleeper won't always listen. And they're going to do something dumb quite a lot. I list that in the known bugs because there's some things I wish they wouldn't do. Sleeper is supposed to feel like another player who's bad at the game, and you're having to cooperate with them. They're my stand-in for a real player 2.
I hope I'm not coming off as pretentious, I'm just trying to explain my intentions with the game design.
Credits & Info
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Frontpaged September 29, 2023