A lightly-narrative platformer made with Pocket Platformer.

A bit of a downer.


ESTIMATED PLAYTIME: 

10-20 minutes (or a 5-ish  speedrun).


CONTROLS:

Move with left/right arrows.

Jump with C or up arrow.

WASD is also OK I think.


Made for both the Pretentious Jam and the Pocket Platformer Jam #3.



TOOLS USED:

  • Pocket Platformer (by the_l0bster) is responsible for the much of the core stuff, including:
    • A bunch of prebuilt mechanics/objects (water, spikes, cannons, toggle blocks, etc -- I wrote code for zero new mechanics)
    • A bunch of default graphics (I used a many of these, including the default player sprite)
    • Several default sounds (I kept a few, like the jump and dialog)
    • A built-in font or two? (It renders blurry in the intro/outro screens, but whatever)
    • A way to build levels (it's primarily a level editor)
    • Making graphics (it has a very serviceable bitmap graphic editor)
  • JFXR (by Frozen Fractal) for making most sounds
  • JSFXR for making some other sounds
  • Visual Studio Code (with no AI features enabled) for editing the Pocket Platformer source code
  • LMMS for making the music & ambient loops (it has some great retro-game instruments included, as well as another port of sfxr)


DEV TIMELINE:

Made in about 5 consecutive days between work and other duties/adult stuff.

Day 1: Pocket Platformer ramp-up (first time trying it). Start on level design and rough plan. Jot down engine pain points. First 1/3 levels complete.

Day 2: Next 1/3 levels built. Polish first levels. Add a bit of writing. Plan narrative arc & goals.

Day 3: Everything but the ending is built. Polish earlier levels. Revise writing. Jot down additional pain points. Plan sounds and things to add/hack into Pocket Platformer.

Day 4: Ending drafted. Most sfx/sounds added. Additional effects/particles/animations added/hacked on to PP, after getting oriented to those parts of the codebase. (Note to future travelers: "SFXHandler" is NOT for sound effects, but for sprites/particles.)

Day 5: Music & ambience. Polish sfx. Add a few more sound features to PP. Polish writing. Minor tweaks to levels.

(Also made a post-jam update to fix keys being unnecessary and to incorporate a new Pocket Platformer fix for the player jumping after finishing auto-text.)


"PRETENTIOUS JAM" NOTES:

The jam prompt/pep-talk inspired me to make something after such a long hiatus! But I spotted it with just a week left and struggled with scoping something interesting until I spotted Pocket Platformer (through its own jam) after a few days. I wondered if it could be used for something more narrative and contiguous than mario or meatboy, and wanted to try pacing the challenge/intensity in a musical way, rather than purely ramping difficulty.

The theme for the jam is "BE BOLD; DO NOT DEFAULT TO A PUN" and I felt like maybe using the platformer genre for its sense of space and place and danger to describe a vaguely absurd videogame anxiety dream might be okay. Bonus: a slightly oblique historical reference and thematic foreign word/name.


"POCKET PLATFORM JAM #3" NOTES:

The themes were cats, stars, and halloween/spooky stuff. Pyrrhos is set under the stars and featured spooky stuff (maybe I'm using an older definition than intended though).

Hacks/changes to the Pocket Platformer Engine:

  • Portal changes: sounds, extra visual effects, and pausing for a few frames.
  • Death change: spawn extra stationary visual effect on death.
  • Water changes: enter & exit sounds, simple splash vfx
  • Disappearing block changes: sound for starting to disappear (separate sound for connected disappearing blocks)
  • Toggle Mine changes: sounds for arming and activating
  • Player-landing-on ground sound added too.
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars
(3 total ratings)
Authorwakeman
GenrePlatformer
TagsDreams, Pixel Art, Retro, Short

Comments

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A cool wee game, the movement is nice and snappy. Reading the comments after completing it I hadn't realised the step-flame tiles weren't on a timer the whole time, probably died quite a few times due to being in a rush to get off those.

A wonderful platformer! Lots of use of established mechanics and done so in really effective sequence. Narrative wise, a lovely, short subversion of platformer storytelling - the call being empty, an antagonist and catharsis absent. Thanks for participating in pretentious jam :) as an aside, I was stuck on the last level for 20 minutes.

Oof, sorry about that final level difficulty--that's quite a bit longer than I intended. Thanks for letting me know!

Also, thanks for hosting the Pretentious Jam! The call-to-action you wrote was incredibly motivating!

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It’s fine! I’m just not used to platformers and it took me a while to work out what I needed to do, mostly because I had misinterpreted the step-flame tiles. I thought they were on a timer, not that they switched to flames after being stepped off.

I’m glad it worked as a call-to-action!

One of the best level designs among all Pocket Platformer games :)

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Thanks for the kind words! I really hope you continue with SUTA KOREKUTA!

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Nice game here
You made a very good use of the "switching-while-jumping" tiles!

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Thank you! I was worried a few of those scenarios might be a little annoying, since it can kinda interrupt reflex/reaction mode and force you to switch to planning/solving mode mid-step.

probably the one with the best level design of this jam, only leaks with the keys on the levels that doesnt works

Thank you! I should probably fix that key thing. Will try to upload a new build tomorrow. Thanks for calling it out!

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that was cool! :) 

really enjoyed the lvel design.


(+1)

Thanks! I had a lot of fun using Pocket Platformer—thanks for making it!