Another episode of 'is this game hard or am I just bad' and once again, the answer is, I don't know, but I don't like it.
This game is cute, has great spritework, has great music and level design, but good god it felt so unfair at times. The control scheme feels a little wonky, and I wonder if it's on purpose or not, because it seems to go against a lot of 'natural' conventions of platformers. It could just be my own memory getting in the way, but there are certain things about the layout that seem odd.
For example, jump is X, not the up arrow, even though the up arrow serves no other purpose and the game is controlled with the arrow keys. Doors are also entered with down instead of up, which is odd but ultimately harmless I suppose. But right beside X is C, which ends up being used for the attack item once you get it. I too often found myself hitting the wrong one on accident and getting myself killed. Similarly, the placement of a lot of the enemies, specifically the bats, is typically just outside of your reach as the player-- you can't hit it while you're standing on the ground, but it can hit you. My instinct, then, was always to crouch to let it pass (especially in areas with ceiling hazards or small platforms) but there is no crouch, so it would hit me anyway, or to spam C to kill it, with my attacks completely missing. Not to mention that enemies and level hazards have insane knockback, and if at any point you fall into the water (even during invincibility frames) you get sent back to the door you came in from.
Whether or not this is 'good' difficulty is hard to say. It also feels inappropriate considering I do not like hard games. But what I will say is that it really sucked watching a combination of level hazards knock my character back six paces and into the water, teleporting me back to the beginning of the room like I had never left the door to begin with, all because I got a little too close to an enemy.
This game is cute, has great spritework, has great music and level design, but good god it felt so unfair at times. The control scheme feels a little wonky, and I wonder if it's on purpose or not, because it seems to go against a lot of 'natural' conventions of platformers. It could just be my own memory getting in the way, but there are certain things about the layout that seem odd.
For example, jump is X, not the up arrow, even though the up arrow serves no other purpose and the game is controlled with the arrow keys. Doors are also entered with down instead of up, which is odd but ultimately harmless I suppose. But right beside X is C, which ends up being used for the attack item once you get it. I too often found myself hitting the wrong one on accident and getting myself killed. Similarly, the placement of a lot of the enemies, specifically the bats, is typically just outside of your reach as the player-- you can't hit it while you're standing on the ground, but it can hit you. My instinct, then, was always to crouch to let it pass (especially in areas with ceiling hazards or small platforms) but there is no crouch, so it would hit me anyway, or to spam C to kill it, with my attacks completely missing. Not to mention that enemies and level hazards have insane knockback, and if at any point you fall into the water (even during invincibility frames) you get sent back to the door you came in from.
Whether or not this is 'good' difficulty is hard to say. It also feels inappropriate considering I do not like hard games. But what I will say is that it really sucked watching a combination of level hazards knock my character back six paces and into the water, teleporting me back to the beginning of the room like I had never left the door to begin with, all because I got a little too close to an enemy.