🎃👻

Jack the jack-o'-lantern is quite dissatisfied with life as a pumpkin.

He wants to move around, and see the world, before he rots away.

Luckily his Ghost friend might be able to help out...

spacer spacer

What is the gameplay like?

Imagine a digital version of this:

labyrinth spacer spacer

Expected playtime?

5-20 minutes or so, depending on how well you do.

spacer spacer

Got any tips?

Take your time :)

It's a good idea to re-center your mouse when moving between floors.

spacer spacer

Who did this?

Game: Baku

Music: kbjwes77

You must be logged in to leave feedback
Log in Register an account
  • yaneG
    Lv. 1

    Pumpkinman and Ghost 3D art is also a cute Halloween game. The game required very fine input and was very nervous. I will challenge even if I fall into the hole many times.Very difficult but very fun

  • Panda-K
    Lv. 17

    I had a lot of fun with this! I particularly liked the second key, it felt very zelda dungeonish to me.

    It was a little confusing at first how the 'center' for the tilting reset every floor. Maybe snapping the cursor back to the center of the screen would help communicate this?

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks, I'm glad you liked the level design. I thought having to fall through the holes after a while of just avoiding them was the logical way to take that mechanic one step further, in a simple way.

      Lots have been said by people about how the controls could have been made better. Lots of it has been wrong (I tried a lot of things!), but your suggestion seems like it could work without being too intrusive.

  • Tero Hannula
    Patron

    This one was though game, had to be precise and careful with your movement. Truth to be told, I hated the controls :D

    Story is simple, but does the job. I would have wanted to see the sight what pumpkin saw at the end ^^ It is good, that you used falling as gameplay mechanic, as it gives the meaning for floors and tower. If there was no falling and only hazards (restarting floor), it would be same as just different separate levels. Now the game gave feeling, that floors are top of each other, and later you need to use them accordingly.

    Anyhow, it is good game with nice music, and well done with 3D graphics yet again :) Overal it is great entry in this jam.

    Edit. Draw and put landscape on description what Jack is missing, and tell player to help Jack see it too :P

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks!!

      The controls and gameplay are certainly not everyone's cup of tea, that's understandable lol

      And believe me, if the jam had been 3 hours longer, you would've seen the sight that Jack saw! I just didn't have time to model a little landscape in time.

  • Nyveon
    Patron

    Everything about this game is superb! The level design, the story, the gameplay, the difficulty curve. I had no idea something like this was even possible with GMS. The only feedback I can think of is maybe having more sound effects as feedback for whats going on (rolling, bumping into walls, going up a floor). Motion controls would pair really well with this game, but if you don't have mobile export that's understandable. Great job :)

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks!!

      I was planning to add sound effects for those kinds of things, but it was very last minute and I didn't have time to write logic for how those sounds should be played, so the only sounds that got put in were the ones that didn't require additional code...

      I thought about porting to Android ...but I still haven't even gotten around to setting up the mobile export xD

  • Kyon
    Lv. 25

    Oof, tough game. I liked the dialogue and characters. But the gameplay wasn't that original for me. Also maybe some sort of "protection" when you fall down a level, because I fell down several levels by accident some times haha. Would be nice to see this on mobile though, and using gyroscope or something :)

    Tower Guy
    Submitted

    Tower Guy

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback!

      I thought about porting to Android ...but I still haven't even gotten around to setting up the mobile export xD

  • kris24
    Patron

    Man, that is one tough pumpkin, lol.

    Had fun playing it, definitely good use of 3D in GameMaker to make a game like this. And extra points for coming up with a Halloween theme!

  • Allison James
    Patron

    Visually, I absolutely adored this. Looked like you'd taken it straight out of one of those Net Yaroze compilations for PS1 - always weird getting nostalgic from a game I'm playing for the first time 😄

    Labyrinths make me nauseous with their difficulty but thank you for making a decent amount of "easier" levels rather than emulating the real ones and being impossible from about turn 2.

    Also, the intro cutscene was adorable!

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks! If you liked the intro, then I'm sure you would quite enjoy the ending as well - but I understand that the gameplay might not be for everyone.

  • Juzek
    Lv. 8

    Excellent game! I am impressed with your level design, and I think the theme is perfect. Of course I am climbing a tower, I am falling down it sometimes.

    The use of the holes intentionally getting used sometimes and falling down in the correct spots was clever and made for good continuity. The backstory was a good setup.

    I was originally going to dock some points for lack of creativity, as a marble maze has been around for a while, but you pushed the concept to a new place

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks! I had a lot of fun coming up with a justification for why you're controlling the floor, and not the pumpkin itself. I'm glad the little story seems well liked :D

  • Patrick
    Lv. 13

    Awesome submission, great work for 48 hours!

  • Luke No Further
    Lv. 14

    OMG so cute and wonderful :D I knew you could do 3D in Gamemaker but this is very impressive! Great art, tricky but great gameplay, a really smart game design - great stuff!

    Antigonish
    Submitted

    Antigonish

  • Hyper Freeze Games
    Lv. 17

    Awesome game! Very polished, looks and sounds great! The mecahnic is nothing new, but is played nice and was quite challenging!

    Maybe gamepad support would have been nice, but mouse worked well :)

    Wallrider
    Submitted

    Wallrider

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    4yrs ago

    Very nice looking game. The gameplay does get a little stale over time but it was just long enough to not be too bothersome. I loved the characters and the story along with them. The ending.. well I wont spoil it.

  • D0genutt
    Lv. 2

    I loved the little bits of dialogue in this game, especially at the end. That got a good chuckle out of me!

    Really loved the mouse control for this, excellent job on getting it to respond so well too. Only critique is that its a little frustrating that its so easy to roll back to the other floor via the stairs so I often ended having to overshoot to the right to avoid rolling back which caused quite a few headaches, but it was just a minor annoyance.

    I also liked the chill music here, really made a nice atmosphere and helped me to get quite immersed in.

    Pretty nicely made and polished ^^

    Also it reminds me of Super Monkey Ball quite a bit, was that an inspiration by any chance?

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks! :D

      And no, not directly anyway. I obviously know of Monkey Ball, maybe I thought of it a bit subconsciously, but the main inspiration was wooden marble labyrinths, where you control the rotation of the board with 2 knobs. Maybe Monkey Ball was also inspired by those.

  • WangleLine 🌸
    Patron

    I must say, the little chat at the start was beyond lovely. Such a well made and polished game!

    The only thing I disliked was that once entering a new layer, it was incredibly easy to just roll back and down the stairs, which was a tad bit annoying.

    Oh, and the art and music are a fantastic combo - Well done!

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of Jack Gets High

      4yrs ago

      Thanks line 💖

      There is in fact a small delay before you can start moving, but looking back it should've been longer for sure. Maybe after 48 hours I was getting too used to re-centering my mouse when switching floors 😅

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    I beat the game faster than Prob so it's getting 10's everywhere.

    (Loved how the levels were connected.)