Loophole - 2D Puzzle Platformer

[Korosu]

Loophole is a single player 2D Puzzle Platformer based on using multiple "players",

When you control a player the others are frozen and can be jumped on like platforms,

The game is on itch.io at: http://korosu.itch.io/loophole but the .love file is attached here.


Controls:
a, d - Left, Right
Space - Jump
w - Use
q - Swap
f - Flip
e - Show connections


Help/suggestions for the level design would be much appreciated as I'm running out of workable ideas

[Kasperelo]

Nice game, very smooth! You acceleration and deceleration makes it a bit hard to calculate jumps though

[Korosu]

I've changed the accel + friction to be infinite with a lower top speed, and changed the jump style to accommodate it

minor change to the swapping when the swapped to player is moving too, now totally stops for 1.5s and has a timer bar

[Kasperelo]

Nice! It makes the platforming a bit tighter, but the jumping is still a bit weird. The game is fun though

[Korosu]

Thanks I'm gald you like it, I agree the jumping is weird but I really can't put my finger on exactly why

[DeltaF1]

This is super interesting, but the weird jumping is very offputting. If I try and jump towards something, I overshoot if I have any momentum at all, yet can't move fast enough in the air to land where I want to go.

I like that the game introduces elements as they appear throughout the levels, it's a really nice way of tutorializing . However, it's a bit confusing as to what the dot on the players means, and under what circumstances it is filled or not.

[Korosu]

Changes:
Jump accel made higher, jump max speed lowered to accommodate,
Removed misc shader that caused game to not run on some PC's,
Changed launch screen so mouse can be hidden.

Still not sure about the jumping, this gives you more control but it still feels strange

[Kasperelo]

The jumping acceleration is way too low, you glide around making it hard to control your player.

[Connorses]

EDIT: I have proofread and changed this after posting. Again. Sorry for any inconvenience.
The good:
As much as I'm complaining about this game it's not a bad proof of concept. Switching between players has been done in other games but Loophole puts a new spin on it, since players freeze mid-air. You could easily make some great movement puzzles if you worked at it. There are some mechanics that aren't even touched on too much yet (such as maintaining momentum when teleporting) and I think there's potential here.

The controls:
In my humble opinion, the issue here stems from the characters being such a tiny target that you have to time your jump perfectly and/or leave the ground at just the right speed.

The jumping acceleration is way too low, you glide around making it hard to control your player.

I understand that a lot of platformers have less acceleration when you're jumping but honestly, it's unnecessary. I'd say Super Meat Boy is a good example since people seem to universally like the controls. Meat Boy controls exactly the same, as far as sideways acceleration, whether on the ground or in the air. In fact, Meat Boy has MORE acceleration when he's changing direction so you can slow down quicker and make hairpin turns.

Of course, there is another possible solution to this where you don't have to drastically change your controls: If the players were a bit wider, they would be far easier to jump onto.

The level design:
There are some neat levels here. The final level makes you do some quick keyboard work. It took me quite a few lives to beat it. I feel like there should be a permanent indicator of teleport connections so I don't have to hold "E" to know where I'm going.

Eventually the game will need a "tutorial section" with some relatively easy levels for brand new players. It would give people more time to get used to the movement of the characters, and perhaps they won't complain as much about the acceleration stuff. Not necessary for the current demo, but something to think about.

The flippin' mechanic:
This mechanic felt less "puzzle-y" and more like a new game where I can fly around by playing with gravity. It made the multiplayer cooperation unnecessary because if you rapidly press "V" you can just hover around the obstacles with no problem.

The "v0.2" controls:
Having the player pause for a moment with a visual timer is an interesting choice and it works all right, but it makes some maneuvers harder to pull off. For instance, in Level 10, I can no longer switch between players in order to get the yellow player to fall slowly until they reach the correct height for the green player to stand on them. Did that make sense? This review has a lot of run-on sentences. :1

Near-instant acceleration on the ground is nice but perhaps make it a little lower? Like, a compromise between the two versions?

[Korosu]

Thanks for the review Connorses, your breakdown of each element was very helpful

Changes: (basically everything in Connorses review, to some extent)
- Acceleration lowered + Air acceleration now the same as ground accel
- Jump Speed Raised
- Players made wider
- Flip section removed entirely

Considering a slowmotion button to address the timing issue, still WIP