Drop To Shop

Here is a play through for anyone that gets stuck or wants to see it done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7sL72Qg4G0
If you enjoyed the music, be sure to check out my other experimental music:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5jcLgytNHqWKIiElRE8jny

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Thank you so much for checking it out,
-- Qst0

Fun game! Feels pretty polished. The only thing I felt might be good to add is some sort of indicator on the character sprite itself that the jumps/shots had reloaded. Wasn't sure if I had touched the platforms or not.

Nice plateformer idee, good progress, fun game ! GG

Game design suggestion :
° jump with up
° add updgrade block highter in the level

at the beginning there were a few spots were the number of jumps made it really hard to make the jumps (before the jump upgrade).

having stuff shoot at you from way off screen made it hard at times to shoot them back, because you had to guess or be creative in your pathing to get close enought to see them.

game play was intresting.

jumps were a bit frustrating, some sort of coyotie time at the tops of each jump (or some sort of buffer that would let you chain the jumps perfectly) would be great.

was also not clear how you were scoring points (to busy dealing with bullets/etc to watch the score while playing).

The audio-visuals are solid and the simple design compelling, yet as much as I would like to play again for a bigger score I simply cannot due to two factors:

Factor 1.: Spamming inputs is not pleasant mentally or physically. Pressing the button down should keep repeating the action. This would work for both jumping and shooting just fine. More precise tapping can be utilized when the situation calls for it, not all the time.

Factor 2.: Going up and coming down is thematic, but also a waste of time. Sure, it does push the player to delay the upgrade trek further into the future and risk it with low health, but that more often than not results in death, which results in having to repeat everything all over again from the bottom, which results in more pain and suffering (see Factor 1.). No thanks!

Thus, I have to regrettably conclude that, despite a great effort on your part, the most important of all ratings, that of usability which does not exist and is replaced by the nebulous gameplay category, will be deemed most sour indeed. Ta ta!

Overall: Above Average (6.0)
Graphics: Good (7.0)
Audio: Good (7.0)
Gameplay: Painful! (2.0)
Originality: Above Average (6.0)
Theme: Good (7.0)

LogicaLinsanity,
Thanks for the feedback, I like these ideas and I'll add them to the post-jam version for sure.

RocketRager,
Glad you liked it. I figure simple does it.
It wouldn't be called drop to shop if you didn't have to drop, but I think I'll update with these ideas. Pressing up for jump is a really good idea. Sometimes the obvious idea/improvement is hidden.Thanks for the feedback.

AdroitConceptions,
Yeah the jumps are a bit tricky, you need at least 18 from my tests to make it all the way. The gems shoot you from 1.5 screens away, so I can see how that is annoying. I knew where I placed them and I even have to guess when shooting them. I'll lower the range and test that out. Scoring points was added just to allow for leaderboard / AKJ Tournament, you get 10k per gem saved and lose 1 point per frame. You get 50 Gems worth of points for grabbing the "win".

HuvaaKoodia,
Your honest feedback is appreciated Thank you.
I'll make the usability better with your input for a post-jam version.
You understand the theming behind the challange, but the usability fought your desire to retake up the challange.
Maybe I should allow the player to sacrifice points to return to the bottom or continue after death.
This could have made getting to the finish more attractive. But it would have hurt your score.

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Thank you everyone for playing and for the feedback again,

Now I ponder:
What if anything could be done to maintain the thematic "Dropping and Shopping" but still lead a player to take the challange of a high score and horde their gems for a difficult climb.
-- Qst0

Like others said, the mandatory spacebar spamming is as annoying as it gets - a different key/right mouse button would have helped, but it would be even better to be able to hold a key or have a higher doublejump.

Having gems count both for points and have them as currency is not ideal either imho, this makes you not want to buy things to get a higher score, and then barely not making jumps or having to go back because of low health is again frustrating. I think being able to collect both points and money would help in this regard.

Finally, adhering to the drop-to-shop wordplay is really not worth the player frustration in making this boring trip each time. Checkpoints/teleporters would be an obvious way to solve this.

Despite these gripes I found the game compelling enough to play it through until the end and beat the highscore, congratulations ;-) The artstyle is minimalistic of course but goes quite well with the overall feeling.

A solid game once I got the hang of it. Why stop at double jump if you can have upgradable multi-jump? While this is technically just another platformer, there's something about it that makes it different; maybe it's the graphics and music style, maybe the level design. I still suck at platformers though, so I didn't get far.

Good music too, but the sound effects could have been better in comparison.

DiningPhilosopher,
Congrats on the high score! Your feedback is appreciated very much so.
I'm happy you found the game compelling enough to make it to "The Win" with such a massive score!
I'll be revisiting this game I think, and I'll take what you suggested in mind.

thomastc,
Thanks for playing, I think you are right, I should spend more time on my sound effects to match the music. I make the muisic one I generated the sfx with https://jfxr.frozenfractal.com/ and they came out rather harsh sounding. I'll see what noises I can take from the song file when I revisit the game. They should match much better. I'm happy it has "something about it" I'll try to focus on that and bring it more clearly into the experience.

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-- Qst0