Dino Dash is a mashup of Celeste and VVVVVV.

Jump and dash your way through short levels - but you also need to switch gravity and play upside down.


1
Controls

Controller recommended!

X-Box Controller:

  • D-Pad or analog stick to move
  • A to jump
  • X to dash
  • Y to switch gravity

PS4 Controller:

  • D-Pad or analog stick to move
  • X to jump
  • Square to dash
  • Triangle to switch gravity

Keyboard:

  • arrow keys or WASD to move
  • space to jump
  • ctrl to dash
  • shift to switch gravity

2
Hints

  • your dash and your gravity switch can be used only once and recharges when you hit the ground again
  • you can dash in 8 directions - so you can dash diagonally
  • if possible you should use a controller, it's much easier to control the character than with the keyboard
  • there are 9 level to overcome

3
High Scores

  1. 00:24.37 - Riuku
  2. 00:53.00 - tehwave

4
Credits

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  • Ivanbje
    Patron

    Really love that dash. It's very satisfying.

    Really liked the game overall, level 8 took me a rather long time to figure out, I think that there should be more space at the start of the level to help people figure out they need to invert the gravity down there.

    I just wish there were more levels.

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Thanks for your kind words!

      I did know how important playtesting was before the jam, but I am even more sure about it now. It seems nearly everyone did level 8 the way you did (from what I read in the comments and have seen in streams). But that was actually never the intended way. You could jump + dash onto the first platform and then jump to the middle and then dash diagonally up to the right. Then the level is much easier. With the knowledge that people would try the level this way, I maybe would've made the dash option impossible and add one or two introduction-level to this technique before. And of course I could make the space at the start bigger then - but as I did not consider doing people it this way, I never thought about that.. ;-)

      Again, thanks for playing and for the feedback, its very appreciated!

  • Tero Hannula
    Patron

    Here is gameplay video which you already followed during stream, there are most comments https://youtu.be/QJG0bZJKyJU?t=1791

    Now what I want to point our which others have also done is that sound effects were bit harsh, maybe try making recordings (like hitting pillow for 'thumb' sound, can be creative ^^ ).

    GAME.
    Submitted

    GAME.

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    Nice game, couldn't get below 35 seconds :(

    My biggest gripe with the game are the sound effects, some are pretty rough and don't really go with the artstyle. I also noticed what I think is a small glitch. When dashing against the ceiling, it seems like it goes to max velocity right away. I noticed that in the last level, I kept hitting my head and the gravity change didn't have the time to make me change direction before hitting the spikes. Overall I felt that the gravity acceleration was a little slow when changing side, but it made for nice platforming before that point.

    That was really good overall, definitely would have played a few more levels!

  • WinuX
    Lv. 15

    Great art!
    The controls felt really good and were really responsive.
    As others have mentioned, the dash sound was really harsh to the ear and I had to turn the volume down quite a bit.
    But Overall a great entry!

    ASYNC
    Submitted

    ASYNC

  • SpritePainter
    Lv. 21

    First of all, thank you so much for the gamepad support. The platforming in this game is really solid and resoponsive. The art is great and the music bangs. Literally, my only criticism of the game is the dash sound. It was jarring and felt out of place.

    Really though, that's the only thing. Great work, and I would love to see more of this.

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Thank you so much for the kind words! Yeah, I am also not happy with the dash-sound. I used bfxr to generate the sound and could not come up with something better. I consider doing a post jam version and will definitively buy sound effects of people knowing what they do.. ;-)

  • Tydecon Games
    Patron

    I really liked the style and it was a well made game with some solid mechanics, the gameplay was smooth and the concept was great. The difficulty ramped up really quick but I liked what you'd done, hopefully you will expand on this as I'd like to see more! :)

    Hamboozled
    Submitted

    Hamboozled

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Yeah, I struggled a lot with the level design and getting a proper difficulty ramp. I think that you have two options in a game jam platformer: either have a steep difficulty ramp or end the ramp on a relatively easy level. Otherwise one would need lots of level to get a flatter ramp. Are there any other approaches to this problem? Would be really interested in!

      • Tydecon Games
        Patron

        I think it depends on how many levels you do but I tend to find, especially with a steeper curve, to not make it linear, throw a few easier levels in with the tougher later levels to give the player a sense of accomplishment when they're at those stages :)

  • Riuku
    Lv. 19

    That was fun! Short speedrunnable platformers are my weakness so I couldn't resist spending some time to get a good run. My best time is 00:24:37 with zero deaths. https://i.imgur.com/Z8a0foa.png.

    I appreciate how self-explanatory the game is. Starting up the game and seeing the first level made it very clear what the game was going to be about - it's a platformer and there's a timer and a death counter. The game mechanics and controls were introduced appropriately and clearly one at a time. Often jam games (including ours!) end up just dumping a screen with all possible controls with the hopes that the player might remember them later.

    I played with a controller and the controls feel pretty responsive and smooth. I had really only a couple of issues. The first one is that there's a bug where the player can get stuck in a floor/ceiling when swapping the direction of gravity right at the edge of the collision box. The second issue is that you can walk back to the previous level. This is very distracting in the case when you die while moving leftwards because then you probably end up accidentally moving back to the previous level and get lost for a second or two.

    Overall I liked it very much! It's got a minimal set of core mechanics which are implemented well and the scope of the design is concise. The levels are appropriately challenging and clearly designed around the core mechanics.

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Thank you so much for your detailled review! It means a lot to me. And then I have to say: whaaaat!? That's nearly twice as fast as my personal best time! :-D

      Thanks for pointing out the issues. I wasn't aware of the issue with the collision box until now and will have a look into it. Being able to move back to the previous level was actually intended at first, because the original plan was to let the players backtrack. When I threw away that plan I did not rethink the ability to go back. I understand that this is really annoying with this level design.

  • Zen00
    Lv. 15

    Level 8 was particularly tricky, as you have to use the little tiny bit of block at the start to flip upside down on before you can complete it.

    Slime Well
    Submitted

    Slime Well

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      That way was actually never intended by me (and I did not find that way by myself at all during development), but it seems that's the way most people solve that level. The intended way was to jump to the middle and then dash diagonally to the upper right. But I am glad you did it and I hope you had fun! Thank you for playing!

  • Bokonon
    Lv. 5

    In all honesty, this felt really good when playing with a gamepad. Best platforming character feel i've tried yet this jame. I like the puzzle concepts the dashing and grav flips introduced. Good job!

    Flotsam
    Submitted

    Flotsam

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Wow, thank you for your kind words. I put the most effort into the game feel so I am happy you liked it. I think the level design (and amount of course) could need some improvement though.

  • Chris
    Patron

    Definitely nicer with a gamepad. Figuring out the diagonal dash was key. Tough to acheive a deathless run.

  • PineTree
    Lv. 7

    I also got stuck on the same level as the previous commenter, but I'm also horrible at platformers! Using an xbox controller, the gameplay was very smooth and enjoyable. Loved the controller shake while dashing! Very cute platformer! I wasn't able to beat the game, so I'm not sure if this feature becomes important later, but quite a few times I died while moving left, and then found myself back in the previous room. I might have preferred if access to the previous room was blocked off. All-in-all super fun to play!

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Thank you for your feedback, I am glad you liked it! I planned to make going back into the previous room a feature from the begging and to make the levels not as linear as they turned out at the end. So now, with the linear level progression it is in fact a useless feature and I understand it can be annoying. Unfortunately I did not realize that I should remove it. That's what a lot of playtesting if for I guess.. :-)

  • Sid Fish
    Lv. 4

    Cool game. Like the idea of mixing the gravity change mechanic from VVVVV with Celeste dash. I totally got stuck on one level, managed to get to the first platform but not the spike section in the middle, actually seems impossible to me but I am probably too dumb to work it out. Would love to see how its done. https://ibb.co/pwzcLJL

    Fruit Pals
    Submitted

    Fruit Pals

    • Pixel Pincher
      Lv. 4
      Pixel Pincher Developer of Dino Dash

      3yrs ago

      Thank you for your kind words! The dash can be used diagonally as well, that's what will help you here. Do you use a gamepad? With the keyboard it's possible as well, but a bit tricky.