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Creative, I had quite a bit of fun playing it.

Pros
- Concept is cool and executed pretty well, especially dig the adaptive music when you switch.
- Movement feels good, especially wall jumping, and I like the squash animation on the cube a lot.
- Felt like a lot of levels, definite passion being put in here.

Cons
- You get stuck in platforms a lot though it's no deal breaker, I would have maybe written something that pushes the cube out if it gets stuck in collision.
- Not knowing how the level design is going to change when you switch leads to a tiny bit of trial and error, though the changes are usually pretty logical.
- A & D + Space aren't bad controls but when you're doing a big stretch of upwards wall jumping doing it all with your left hand is a little cumbersome.

Make more things, this was cool.

Hello everyone, Nathan here (concept + artist for the game).

I want this post to highlight some issues present in the Game Jam build, as well as some additional stuff like things that didn't make it in as well as some fun speedrun times for you to tackle if you enjoy that kind of thing. The game was built with speedrunning in mind and we find it's a great challenge to try and beat your best times!

First, here's some things that didn't make it into this build of the game. We originally planned many more levels for the game - a total of 25 names were made originally, but that got shortened to 10 after I realised that that would be way too many to draw up given the time we had. Levels 1-9 were fully drawn but we only got up to 5 being in the game. Collision can take a while to implement, we learned! If this game gets another build in the future, we'll totally add more levels into it, especially the other 5 that you can see on the level select screen. We also were planning on adding another timer to the left of the HUD that showed a record time that you'd aim to beat in the level. If you beat the time, you'd earn a trophy on the level select icon and every subsequent best time you got would replace it in the HUD. The big space that says "TIME" in the HUD was also going to be used for a countdown timer that would tick down during the game, making you hurry to complete a level. You'd earn extra time via pickups (Level 4 has a spot on the right where one was intended to go, if you were wondering what that's about) and Level 9 - Panic Attack was going to be all about that, having a really short timer and loads of time pickups about that you'd need to build up to finish the level. This was a bit ambitious of me to aim for considering we had only a day left at that time, but the state the game is in now is at the very least fully playable without totally falling apart (unlike some other projects me and Kieran tackled!).

Here's at least most of the known issues in this build of the game that would ideally be rectified in a future build:

• The title screen and level select screen should have a little light pulsing animation, but it goes unused in game.
• You have to double click the level select icons to select the level - should only be a single click.
• Level 2 has white text on the bottom for the level name (Lock & Key) where it should be blue.
• Level 3 has a Glitch enemy that moves too far to the right and can potentially spawnkill you.
• Level 3's rotations don't turn gradually like Level 1 and 2's do; they instead snap to the rotation instantly.
• Level 4 and 5's rotations don't work. Kind of an issue considering that's the whole gimmick of the game, but hey, makes it easier to play I suppose!
• Level 4's background is green when it should be yellow to fit with the rest of the level.
• Level 5 should have a Glitch enemy towards the start of the level that moves back and forth through a little path you have to sneak by.
• Level 5's key doors are there, but they're invisible for some reason.
• Level 5 uses Level 4's version of the portal entering animation: the ball should be purple, but it is instead yellow.
• The timer that appears at the top right of the HUD should reset upon death, but it doesn't, and makes recording speedrun times kind of a pain if you don't factor in deaths.
• No countdown timer or record timer in the HUD yet.
• No way to restart levels, quit levels or quit the game in game. To quit a level, you're gonna have to beat it, to restart it you'll have to pick it again from the level select menu and to quit the game you'll have to make do with pressing Alt+F4 for the time being.

We also want to address the biggest criticism of the game we heard during playtesting sessions, which is the sometimes glidey controls. While making the ball glide a little was intentional, we also kind of agree that it can mess you up on occasion and would probably tighten up the way the ball moves a little in a future build. The ball's movement was inspired by wire maze toys and as a result we wanted to capture the panicky, delicate movement you'd use while playing those, though we can agree certainly on diagonal movement it can veer too much. The mouse clicking speeds were an addition I'd thought of to add some more precision to your movement as well as to add more strategy to the speedrun aspect - I'd get used to using them as they can be a big help with controlling the game and remembering that you'll stop as soon as you let go of WASD is also a good tip to remember. We hear the feedback though, and we will take it into account. Thanks for everyone who gave us feedback, by the way. It helps a lot to make us improve.

Anyway, I've waffled on enough about things regarding the state of the game at the moment, so I'll set that aside for something more fun: speedrun times! Me and Kieran had a go at these earlier today when we were playtesting. They're by no means perfect, and some factor in our death times, but here are the best we managed to get!

L1 - Easy Street - 0:06.59s

L2 - Lock & Key - 0:15.23s

L3 - Glitch Chain - 0:18.76s

L4 - Back & Forth - 0:32.12s

L5 - Helter Skelter - 1:14.83s

We'd love to hear your best times and we hope you have some fun and frustration replaying the levels over and over again until you're sick of them and want to smash your computer to bits. I take a great amount of pride in making a game that made a Double Eleven member swear in front of me.

Thanks to everyone who played our game, and thanks to the rest of the people who participated in the Riverside Game Jam 2022 too! You all gave us a good challenge and a lot of your games were sick. Hope to see more from you guys in the future and we hope you hope to see more from us in the future!

- Nathan

My mistake, Level 4 was where I had the issue. The end bit has a lot of platforms kind of clumped together.

Art style is really cool and I like the concept, but I think the hit detection is quite dodgy and the controls are strange. Why left Shift and left Ctrl?  I think the hit detection could be fixed a bit by making the sword slashing a separate sprite that goes in front of the character - that way you've got some more range to work with and the hitbox for the sword is kept separate from the player. Overall I do like the game though, it just needs some tweaking.

The idea's sick, it just needs refining.

Build upon it in a future update and you have a cool game on your hands :p

There's nothing to this game, it's just a default Unreal project with some platforms and a modified character. I also can't reach the platform above. You had 10 and a half hours until the deadline - without trying to sound like a dick, why submit this?

I also can't get the game to open. You had 3 hours until the deadline, please test your stuff dude

Like the idea but the game is pretty tough and you're kind of thrown in without much guidance. The art is cool and I dig the whole lightning strikes and volcano skies theme. I think the game could benefit hugely from some sort of score counter or timer as without it, the game doesn't really have a goal to aim for.

Cool idea with the theme of Inside Out (taking cues from the movie) but the game really is in need of some form of checkpoint/respawn system. With the dodgy built in collision you end up dying a lot more than it feels you should, and kicking you back to the beginning feels harsh and discourages me from playing further. The artwork and concept is nice, but it feels like the game needs refining in certain aspects.

The game concept is really  cool and this feels very developed - doesn't feel like some unfinished demo, feels like a proper game. Only complaint is that the amount of enemies is insane and should ramp up more gradually - maybe like the rounds in COD Zombies or something. I do also wonder how this relates to the theme of Upside Down/Inside Out?

The idea of the game is sick, the art is charming and I love the control scheme of zipping around, but the level design is way too tough for a first level and most enemies don't have any indication for attacking so they end up blindsiding you most of the time. I do however also really like the idea of powerups being chosen and the level design changing. Different endings are cool but I find the game is too hard to actually see them.

Like the artwork and it's a cool concept, though the game itself is quite short and more of a test than something finalised.

Really fun and kept my attention for a while. Controls are good and told well via early level tutorials. Only complaint is that Level 4 has some kind of confusing level design towards the end, possible but I had to think more on where to go there.