Staying Together: A puzzle platformer about relationships

Spent the better part of two days creating the freeze mechanic for chapter 3! In addition to what you see in this first level the ice block can be pushed around and jumped on top of. Hopefully this will lead to some cool puzzles

 

Looks amazing!! Keep up the good work! This is a unique concept to a platformer, which makes it better than most platformers out there! As I've said, I am a huge Zelda fan because I like how the puzzles make you think, just like with your game. Just going out and shooting people doesn't satisfy me for long, I eventually go brain dead, so I like to use my brain in games sometimes. Any idea on how many levels you intend to have in total?

-- Chris

 

Very interesting! A great addition to the game!!

-- Chris

 

At least for the initial release I plan to have 60 levels. There's always the chance that I'll add more after the initial release but who knows. I'm glad you like the concept

 

Been lazy this week so haven't had much to post. I've been working on sound effects which should be coming to the Webplayer build soon. Also started working on some Chapter 3 levels. Here is a sample of one way the ice mechanic will be used in puzzles.

 

Looking good! That's what I figured the ice would be used for.

-- Chris

 

I was building some levels today and I accidentally discovered a pretty cool way to utilize the existing properties of the ice mechanic! Also only 9 more levels to go and then all the fun bug fixing and polishing begins!!!

 

How did you find this out? Was it by some glitch or something? I definitely like the idea! Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you jump while frozen? It's sort of hard to tell in this image, but since the girl on the right double-jumps right when the guy on the left does a super-jump while frozen, it makes it look as though the guy is able to reach greater heights while frozen... Also, can you jump after becoming unfrozen, but before landing?

- Chris

 

I found a little glitch on level 18. Here's the screenshot:

If you notice the guy in the lower-left corner, here's between the wall and the spike. He is touching the spike (at least it looks that way), but he doesn't die. I tested if it would detect any collision at all with that spike by simply walking straight into it and that worked fine, it just that when jumping over it and hugging the wall, you land on the spike or right next to it and it doesn't acknowledge the collision. Maybe try moving the spike to the right a couple pixels or something? It's not a major glitch, it's just a little something you might want to take a look at.

- Chris

 

The same glitch occurs on level 20:

This time it's with the girl at the top. To trigger this one, I had to jump with the guy into the gap in the middle of this level and, while in mid-air, land the girl along the wall where she stands in this screenshot. It was much harder to pull off in this level, but I still found it by accident. I will be happy to help debug the game with you! As you can see, I'm rather good at debugging!

- Chris

 

Yeah there's a lot of little things like this in the existing levels. Once I'm done building the levels for chapter 3 I will have to go through every level and painstakingly tweak to perfection! The two issues you pointed out are just a matter of hit boxes not intersecting because I left too much space. Thanks for taking the time to report them!

 

Yet another glitch I found in level 25:

In this glitch, if the player falls off into the never-ending abyss, the level does not reset. This is a bigger glitch than the minor collision box ones.

I will keep debugging/playing the game!

EDIT: This glitch works with both characters and with any part of the level. I just jumped off with both characters at the same time and they're gone forever. The camera stops following them after a few seconds of falling, but the camera is out of the play field, so you don't see anything. If you click the magnifying glass to view the full level, you do not see the characters. This glitch forces you to manually reset.

EDIT: The same glitch happens on level 35.

- Chris

 

Yes this is a minor glitch caused by me just forgetting to copy in the fall-death-triggers. You'll encounter that in a few levels in chapter 2. Easy fix just haven't done it yet Nice to see you're progressing through the levels though!

 

Yup, it's a fun game! irritating at times, but fun. I'm not sure if this opinion just applies to me, but I wouldn't mind it if the characters could move a little bit faster than they do. Just a tad faster, not much.

- Chris

 

Haha! Got through level 40! Your game is too easy! Can't wait to play with the ice and fire! When do you plan to update the web player to add levels 41+?

- Chris

 

Once I finish making levels 41 - 60 I'll probably want to polish them up a bit and make sure there are no big glitches, then I'll throw a web build up so I can get some feedback on pacing and such. I'm getting close so hopefully I'll be able to put something up by the end of Sunday!

 

Great to hear!

- Chris

 

This game is going to be great.

 

Thanks a lot!!!

 

Couldn't agree more!

- Chris

 

Ok an webplayer with the levels from chapter 3 should now be live!!!

 

WHOOO!!

- Chris

 

Really cool The art style is so nice and the music so relaxing.

Good job!

 

Thanks! Based on the excellent art I've seen from 'The Intergalactic Trashman' I take that as a huge compliment! Also in an unrelated note I have to thank you because the GIFs you posted on your thread led me to discover gyfcat

 

This is a cool concept and it feels quite polished at this point - I spent a few mins with the demo. Nice learning curve to it - I just feels like a real game which is a good thing. I only have one piece of feedback that I can provided that has not already been mentioned: I read through the entire thread and this part of your pitch:
" puzzle platformer about relationships and the challenges of making them work. Success requires cooperation, compromise, and empathy."

Make it sound completely different from what it is. It's a platformer puzzle alright but 'relationships' and 'empathy' and stuff does not have a whole lot to do with it IMO.

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely have to play around with the promotional text before release. I appreciate you checking it out and providing criticism!

 

I added a link to an apk download to the first post but I'll put it here as well. As always any feedback is welcomed!

Android APK Download

 

Finally got around to making a gameplay video today

 

Looks good!

- Chris

 

I beat the game! There is just one complaint I have. It would be nice to show the level that you're on while playing the level because often, I want to see where I'm at, but to do that I have to leave the level and see what number I'm on in the level select screen. Maybe you could show the level you're on in the upper-right hand corner or something? Just a suggestion.

Also, I previously suggested an increase in movement speed of the players, but I'm reverting my suggestion! I like it just the way it is!

There is a minor glitch with the ice, especially prevalent in level 50. If you like to be fancy with the ice blocks (like me), you will try to do a quick double-jump to get that extra height whenever you can, and you can do this in level 50. However, by doing the double-jump in level 50, if the non-frozen character is quick enough to get under the frozen player before they land on the ground, so that the frozen character lands on top of the unfrozen character, you will notice that the unfrozen character is partway inside the ice block. While the unfrozen character is inside the ice block, keep moving the ice block to an edge of a cliff. At the edge of the cliff, both characters will sort of glitch out instead of falling right away as they should. I don't know how to explain this any better, but just try it in level 50. By the way, it is rather tricky to do that double-jump ice block trick at the start of level 50, but it is possible!

- Chris

 

Thanks for playing! Yes displaying the current level is a must and it's been on my todo list for while. Hopefully this weekend I'll get a chance to do some UI stuff and I'll implement that for sure. Thanks for reporting the glitch, I'll have to try and reproduce that behaviour.

 

Currently toying around with the art, trying to make it look more consistent overall and hopefully making it look cleaner on small mobile screens. Feedback?

 

The one on the left would look much better... if the mouse cursor wasn't in the way!! Lol. The left one looks better because the one on the right is too... I don't know how to say this... blocky? By blocky, I don't mean pixilated, it looks great, but it's that..... for example, the grass. The grass is much blockier at the bottom, which makes it look weird, but the one on the left looks perfect. Plus, why are you using hexagons as rocks on the right side? Are those supposed to be gems of some sort instead of rocks?

Also, I'm not sure if it's just me, but the hexagons on the right side look sort of blurry to me at first glance...

- Chris

 

My goal is to unify the style by making everything more geometric. At this point the characters are blocky and most of the environmental art is made out of simple shapes like triangles and hexagons so I wanted t bring the terrain in line with that by making it more simple and geometric. I might just go with the original but testing out different iterations is never a bad thing Thanks for the feedback

 

I agree with @Blue Bean Apps and prefer the original, I don't think anything in your level style is breaking the 'geometric' style you're going for

If you're looking to push the art further, I would look at making the different world types even more unique looking by losing more of the common colours / elements. For example on your frozen worlds you could: Make the sky a colder colour (maybe even a slight snowing effect), change the trees to use a very blue green, change the colour of the default dirt, changes the spikes to icicles and even go as far to create a frozen version of your stone elements.

Now i'm getting tempted to photoshop together an example... lol

 

Yeah I think you and @Blue Bean Apps are right, the revised style just doesn't work very well so I'm gonna stick with what I have (at least for now).

Thanks for all the ideas, you totally reminded me that I at some point planned to do icy versions of the stone elements and forgot about it lol. This is probably why people do documentation. I'll have to experiment with tweaking the colors and stuff. It's difficult to find a background color that goes well with the colors and contrasts with everything properly

I'd be stoked for you to throw a Photoshop example together.especially if I convince people that it's "fan art"

 

Personally prefer the rocks over the hexagons.

 

Well, I am a fan of your game, and it is art... so I guess that's what it is!

Here's what I came up with:

You were right about background colours... that was annoying. In the end I swapped the ground to be more snowy than icey to let me use ice colours for the stonework. I think it came out ok - feel free to use / abuse / ignore this as you see fit!

 

I really like that, @NomadKing! The stone objects (the moving platform, wall and the magical circle thing) look so much better than the standard grey stones @TheValar uses. The spikes look better too!

What could you use in the walls instead of rocks? Crystals maybe? If it's a snowy scene like this, then maybe you could use some dangling icicles? Personally, I would also add a snow particle effect for all the snow levels. I haven't looked, but I'm sure Unity might have some sort of built-in snow particle effect you can use. I got my bubble particle effect from them and I'm quite happy with it!

Just a thought on how to make this game a little more interesting. On the snowy levels, you could have the ground be ice, so the characters will slip and slide. I think sliding will make the levels much trickier and more fun!

- Chris

 

Cool stuff. The background color seems to contrast well with the characters and I dig the grungy texture thing you did with the ground. Can't say for certain what ideas I'll use here but it's helpful for some ideas to go off of Icicles replacing spikes is potentially nice and a snow particle effect could work well. Just gotta iterate and see what works. I should be updating the weblayer soon with some of my own visual enhancements.

 

Ok webplayer update is up. Tweaked a the earlier levels a bit getting them "just right". Also made some visual tweaks.
- cameras now start at their correct position when the level begins
- fade in/ fade out of levels
- added the main menu background to the levels (this is a proof of concept and will not look good in all levels yet)
- also a couple small bugs fixed that no one will notice
- There's a small bug now with the background size in the menu, I'll get to it but it's dinner time!

 

Thanks

I tried some lighter colour for the background, but as you said, finding something that contrasts to all the other elements is quite hard, so I ended up with a purpler-desaturated version of your original sky Also, the snow effect was meant to represent the flakes falling / fading in the background instead of the stars - something similar with leaves could work in your Autumn levels.

Personally, I'm not sure on the ground texture I did. It's nice in concept, but I'm not sure how well it fits with the rest of the visual style (everything else is just plain colours / shading and not 'textured' liked the ground). As @Blue Bean Apps mentioned, you could probably look at replacing the bordering stones, perhaps with something icey, or even with larger stones with snow on them (like the ones you did here).

Anyway, glad you didn't hate it.

 

The background kind of gives a cloud like effect to the sky, but I don't know which I prefer, I'll have to stare at it some more! You could also try a simple gradient as a 3rd option.

 

I just came up with a good question... why is it always night? Lol. As @NomadKing mentioned, the new background makes it look like clouds. That comment made me think about making the spring (grassy) levels daytime with a sun and scrolling clouds. Maybe have a small bird pass by the screen here and there? Why is it always night?

- Chris

 

Because during the day they go their own ways and night is they.... reunite.

 

lol nice. The only real reason I can give is that daytime is bright and a bright background contrasts badly with the characters

 

True, I didn't think of how it would contrast. Maybe the characters can go through this goth phase in spring where they wear all dark!! How about sunrise or sunset, so that it's not too bright, but still has a little sunlight?

Along the same lines, now that I think about it, you should maybe add some weather conditions to some levels (not all). For example, in a spring level, you could have a rain particle effect (if one exists ) and for an autumn level you could have some orange/brown leaves fall down from the trees! This will add soooo much to the game! Of course, you can't forget snow for the winter levels!

- Chris

 

Ok exciting stuff! I'm happy to announce that as of this weekend Staying Together is officially going to be published by Naquatic LLC!

Edit: realized this was worded poorly. The game won't be released this coming weekend. I meant that I have finalized a publishing agreement with Naquatic this past weekend. Release is likely still a month or two out.

 

Great news! Funny timing since it's looking like my game might be released this weekend too.

- Chris

 

well that's not actually what I meant (realizing that my post was poorly worded). I've edited my previous post to more clearly convey my actual meaning lol. But congrats on being close to the finish line yourself!