To The Flame
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This game is great. The double-jump opens up a lot of movement potential, and it’s genuinely a blast using it in different ways. I can’t stress enough how nice the movement feels in this. I loved the music in The Tower, and the visuals/atmosphere throughout are very well done. The leaves on the trees and shrubs have this beautiful effect where they look painted.
I wonder if the spider should be made more punishing by increasing it’s speed, improving it’s tracking, or increasing hitbox size, etc. I think it’s a novel mechanic for a Foddian game, but I didn’t really have to interact with it much. After the first couple encounters with the spider, it didn’t feel threatening because it’s very slow and double-jump + short hops let you schmove around incredibly fast. I found the spider easy to dodge even when it was very close. There were times in tight spaces where the spider was in the way, and it felt more like a waiting game for it to move rather than a threatening moment.
From a speedrunning POV, adding a quick-restart shortcut button would be a welcome addition, though I’m sure this could also be handled via mods. It would also be neat to get a stats summary at the end, like the duration of the run, single-jump count, double-jump count, etc.
Thank you for making this excellent game!
Thank you so much for playing and taking the time to write this insightful post!
I see what you mean about the spider. You are clearly very skilled at the game, so it is not challenging to you, but it kind of needs to be that speed for newer players so they can get past it at all. HOWEVER, you're giving me an idea where it could speed up a lot if you get the double jump in, say, under 2 minutes (which would prove that you're speedrunning!). I'm not sure if we'll have time to add that, but I am now tempted to do so :)
Quick-restart is another thing that I don't want in the game off-the-bat since a new player accidentally clicking it would be very sad, but maybe I could bury it in a menu or cheat code somewhere... hmm
Stats summary is also a neat idea! I see why duration of a run but I'm less clear on the usefulness of single and double jump counts, could you explain why you want those?
HOWEVER, you’re giving me an idea where it could speed up a lot if you get the double jump in, say, under 2 minutes (which would prove that you’re speedrunning!).
That sounds fun!
Quick-restart is another thing that I don’t want in the game off-the-bat since a new player accidentally clicking it would be very sad, but maybe I could bury it in a menu or cheat code somewhere… hmm
Maybe it could be a key/button binding that isn’t mapped by default. That way, new players wouldn’t accidentally trigger it unless they explicitly mapped the button.
Stats summary is also a neat idea! I see why duration of a run but I’m less clear on the usefulness of single and double jump counts, could you explain why you want those?
The jump counts would be for rough understanding on run optimization, as a supplement to the run timing. I’m thinking of it from a Jump King POV, where the stats summary shows jumps and falls. Competitive timings for runs in JK’s main game will always have 0 falls, and the jump count is a squishier number but typically the lower it is, the more likely the run timing is competitive. A low jump count can be a rough indicator that the player optimized their longer jumps and slides so that they had to do very little (if any) short-hop jumps for micromovement/repositioning between the longer jumps, and also that they made few mistakes/falls in general. I didn’t notice a timing penalty on falling in To The Flame (no faceplant animation), so falls probably don’t make sense to show in the summary, but jump counts could still provide that squishier indicator of run performance.
In addition to the speedrunning angle, it also might be a generally fun number for added replay value. Even if a player isn’t focused on speedrunning, they may want to replay the game to work towards decreasing their jump counts from previous runs.
I see, thanks for explaining! Since the game is launching tomorrow I've prioritized the easier / most impactful things to add.
Tomorrow when we launch the build will have an instant restart, which will only work when speedrun mode is turned on. The default key is 'R' but you can rebind it. In addition, starting a new game in speedrun mode will not trigger the intro cutscene.
We won't have the jump count or aggressive spider that we discussed here, but I'll keep monitoring for interest and if it seems like there's a committed group of speedrunners who would benefit from those features then I'm open to adding them in the future.
This was my first ever rage game i've played on the channel, and my first rage game in a very long time. THIS IS A MUST PLAY ! The music is great, the game feels fluid, and the visuals are incredible. Even with this game being difficult and having me start from the beginning countless times, the amount of fun and satisfaction i had by the end was just insane. I highly recommend this to all. Amazing job !
Here is my playthrough if anyone is interested :)A horror, rage platformer with a adorable moth!
From what I saw of the environment looks great, the spider looked awesome and creepy! Loved its movements and the sounds it made. The art style is just very well done, beautiful!
The music was enjoyable, progressing the story by little bits here and there was interesting, making me curious about what is at the "top"
Playing wise, it felt like it worked smoothly, once I got started, I got what I needed to do with the jumps to progress and takes some practice for me.
You screw up, you get to enjoy fluttering all the way back unless you catch yourself but look at how cute the moth is, rage subsided!
There is options to customize how difficult your experience can, I kept it was it came though and didn't play with any changes.
I will throw this out there, I am not a regular platform jumping rage game player, my experience is very little, so others might progress a lot fast/farther/better then it did, while I did not make any grand progress, failed a lot, I did very much enjoy playing and had a positive experience and if I can figure out how to get around a spot I was stuck out, I'd be interested in continuing.
Once I got the powerup for double flutter, my world got blown up haha!
Great Job Rebel Jester Studios!
I played the game all the way through, and I have to say I LOVED IT! Controls were so smooth, music was extremely fitting and atmospheric, and the art style and design of the environment and little moth were so nice to look at! Here's my stream of it (Starts at around 12:20 in).
Keep up the good work guys!
Hi! I appreciate the feedback but this game is in a genre that is very much about NOT having checkpoints along the way (rage platformers). The intended experience is to fall down and be very frustrated about it. If it's not for you, I 100% understand. We also included a "slo mo" option in the settings which makes the game a bit easier, while still keeping that high stakes performance anxiety feeling that we're going for.