The Last Miner

Very challenging, well made game! I included it in my GM48: One Tool, Many Uses compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/CSolNVWY9mU

This seems like it could be pretty cool. The pick-axe is used in a bunch of interesting ways and it feels good when you pull off the right moves. The graphics look great with some nice effects, and the sound effects are appropriate. The music is decent but gets a little annoying after a while.

Unfortunately, the difficulty curve is way too steep. Before you've even learnt all the basic mechanics you need to use very precise timing with no checkpoints to back you up. I managed to make it to the first checkpoint once but didn't realise it needed to be manually activated and got taken right back to the start. It might be okay to have limited checkpoints and small timing windows later on but it feels very unfair to have it at the start of the game. At the very least checkpoints should activate when you go near them so no player experiences what I did.

So, yeah, gotta agree with everyone's feedback. The difficulty curve is insane! Seltzy summarized the difficulty pretty well: "[the platforms] expect a lot of the player right out of the gate." The moves you gotta do to beat the first danger are 2-3 jumps with down-picks. The second danger is a succession of carefully timed press. That's way too complicated for beginners, even the harshest precision platformers have the beginning go simple (and in a jam, you can't expect people to have as much patience) :/ As stated, always try to remember that the difficulty you set will be far harder for newer players as you'd be the person who has played the game the most and knows the mechanic far better.

Note that the screenshot is just a bit helpful and there's not much you can do to "help" people beat it as they didn't have the occasion to practice the game as much as you do, even if it frustrates you. Especially since it's just a matter of timing (when reaching the top "slow down" is all you need to know)

You should really think about the way you introduce mechanics. It's important to give players a safe space to learn how to perform a certain action without any real danger of failing the first time around. I can't properly learn how to do the Up + Z maneuver if I constantly die while trying to do it, only to somehow miraculously survive after 7 minutes of doing the same thing over and over.

I got to a point with white particle effects like where I spawned in the beginning, happily thinking "yay,I got to a checkpoint". Then I died on some spikes and spawned all the way back at the beginning of the game. I sincerely hope that's a bug, and not another piece of sadistic game design.

Going through all of this to the tune of Axel F didn't exactly help. It felt like the game was basically laughing at my failure.

Looked promising at the start, but sadly the bad level design and difficulty curve took everything away from that.

Like many others already told you, putting the hardest jump at the start of the game is not a good idea, and not putting a checkpoint after that is even worse, which is a shame because the game looked genuinely fun. Work some more on the level design and try to always make it easier than what you think it should be, because as the dev you'll playtest it over and over again and forget how hard some parts actually are for a first time player.

I'm not one to give up easily but unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to complete this one. The platforming challenges were nice, but they expect a lot of the player right out of the gate. The biggest issue had was with the enemies. The bats and the slimes move very quickly and erratically, so fighting them felt like a roll of the dice. Either I lucked out and killed the enemy without dying, the enemy and I killed each other, or I just died. My range wasn't long enough to fight back safely. Like I said, the platforming sections were good, but being forced to do them over and over again because I die to an enemy makes it frustrating. This is amplified by the fact that there may be several enemies between each checkpoint. It felt pretty unfair.

Other than that, the visuals were simple and effective. Music was good (though i'm not 100% sure if covering an existing song is within the rules), and the movement was good. It's a solid entry but the difficulty is its biggest downfall.

I got to the second zip line two times after many many deaths and about 20 minutes. But both times I tried to activate the zip line I fell off instantly and died on the spikes. Getting back there was super challenging, so I gave up. There is no build up to these difficult challenges and even the tutorial was very hard.

Mechanics in IWBTG are simple enough to make up for the immediate difficulty (sort of), just moving, jumping and shooting. Plus that game has a lot of checkpoints to make up for the bullcrap deaths, and the gun has range... I literally died to the same bat over lava like 15 times because the axe has no range and the bat moves randomly and at the speed of light.

This is a shame because the presentation (except the meme music) is really great, and there's a lot of cool uses of the pickaxe once the player can figure them out, plus moving around is super fun in general. To be fair, I believe I made a similar mistake making my entry too hard. We can learn from this: playtest, playtest!

I should have known "precision platformer" wasn't a good sign..
Took me 20 minutes and 64 death to get past the Up + Z point, then got killed by a bat because WTF was that flying pattern ???
And it took me like 10 minutes to find a way to climb the chimney that would not just kill me instantly on the spike at the top.
Then 10 other minutes to manage to get a jump that would put me near the roof at the right spot, because I usually was close enough to bounce off the roof only at the start of the jump, which sent me on the first spikes.. What makes me mad is that those spike are there just to force us to use the roofbounce, and looking at the other feedback, you should really have found another way to make us use this move.
Precision platformer doesn't mean "play the game exactly as I do" :(

Anyway that's too bad I had to quit because the gameplay was actually very solid, and I would have loved to bounce and pogo my way through non-maddening levels. The art was pretty good too!

Absolutely loved it! The music perhaps gets a little repetitive, but the gameplay is solid! Really reminded me of Duck Tales and bouncing over spikes.

I've got to admit though I couldn't get past the Up+Z I just kept dying :( got up to 15 deaths before I had to give up.

Lovely use of the theme though, a pickaxe with many uses! Lovely graphical style too!

I am getting pretty excited to see that almost every game I played in the jam has an interesting touch to its genre or something new in. Overall pretty good job. It was too hard for me complete the first level itself. Maybe a check point just before the risky would have been nice. As Slyddar was saying even I wanted to see more of the game and how this Pick axe is being used more at different scenarios. Great job. All the best.

Totally self promotion for my game. Sorry :P Gravity Shooter: https://gm48.net/g/780 This is my game, go give it a try. I want to know how people are feeling about these kind of different mechanic where you use the gun recoil to move around and shoot enemies at.

Game seems good, presentation is great, colours and graphics set a nice mood. Unfortunately my skills are not good enough to get past the tutorial section. Got stuck on the hold down and Z section to cancel the wall climb. I could get up the walls, but die on the spikes on the floor at the top and side ones every time. Shame as I wanted to see more.

Maybe ramp up the difficulty a little more slowly as someone new to the game needs time to get used to the controls, as opposed to you who has worked on it from the start.

Great effort though, from what I could see.

That is one tough first screen. Good theme use though.