The Light (The Ascension II)

The ending was improvised last minutes ( = last hours) cause I was so late and wanted to have a "finished" game, so I made a quick "boss room". The enemies were intended to be introduced one by one and the last room is confusing and a mess lol. Yeah, theme was kind of weak, the issue being me insisting on making it a sequel to TA. To be fair, the heart was supposed to have a bit more use, but yeah, ran out of time.

Yeah, I wanted to "top" the first ascension with the heart mechanic buuuut it's what took me the most time and I kept reworking it and reworking it..

And yeaaaah the intro is an issue I realized at my first real playthrough (after the jam was over...) As Shaun Spalding said, it would have been way better if the player had some control over it to adjust the pace to his liking. My mistake was using lerp instead of an approach script.

Actually intended to add images, but again, ran out of time. The intro is not supposed to be what it is, but I should have made it simpler (adjustable pace)

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I initially planned the heart to have more usage, notable the explosion

Thank you for your feedback!

I would have liked to know more about what you meant by "abstract" and how you think I could improve that? (is it the controls on themselves? the lack of info regarding the controls? something else?)

Also not sure what you mean by "unfocused an abrupt"?

I might possibly work on a post jam version, so it'd be helpful to have feedback on these =]

Actually I've set up some "helpers" that tell you the controls or give you strong hints. But they're harder to trigger than I wanted to! I know how to change their conditions to make them better, but because of the deadline, playtesting wasn't much of a luxury I could afford. :( Helpers tell you to hold K, to "press down" (this one is subtle) and you're told you can explode your heart with J. I kind of expect the player to "figure out" how to play with the ball once their first spawned it. (like, letting it go once charged, etc). I think I'd need to have people to play the game to better get how to give that information to players. And yeeeeeah the intro is soooo long... Not to mention watching it entirely triggers a glitch (that may or may not affect your game depending on the alpha of the skip button)

The post jam version will have a better intro though :)

And yeah, sorry, deadline, the last room was improvised last hours =<

Yep, lacked time! Thanks for the feedback :)

Yeah, would make the intro a bit shorter (intended for slide show but lack of time.. bummer) Also yes, I kept telling myself to make the player slooowwwweeer but I don't know why, I kept forgetting it. It would help a lot as the character moves way too fast.

The last screen has weird trigger conditions... ^^' you actually need to trigger all spawners in the room for the room to be active (and nothing tells you that necessary info)

About the heart explosion, that helper text was intended for a later part where exploding your heart would be handy, but due to my lack of time, I preferred letting that text somewhere with no text to inform the player he can explode his heart (cause it gotta be the coolest effect in the game and it would be a shame not to use it)

Sadly, the deadline was soon and I even had to "improvise" the last room. :( I really hope I will still be motivated because I seriously want to make a post jam version!

Regarding the issues: Oh, the hitbox, yes! I should have thought about it. I guess I would have found out through more playtesting (which I lacked near the end) And yeah, I intend to make clearer doors for the post-jam version.

How they currently work is BAD, like, they have a timer to avoid teleporting you at the second you touch them because i use the same exit for side room exit and middle room exit. The end one requires you to trigger all spawners, and you're not told about it sooooo... yeah, confusing. :/ Lacked too much time for the last room

Hello, you NEED to skip, otherwise you won't be able to see everything correctly, and it makes the text impossible to read (and you kinda need it xD) (So you both miss the story, the visuals and the clues to unlock)

Are you holding the s key instead of just tapping it? Cause you have to hold it for about 2 seconds. (the skipping text stops blinking when you hold it - it's even the reason why it solves the issue) It's one of the simplest line of codes, it shouldn't fail (nobody had this issue so far)

But yes, the text is a bit too slow. But yes even with text, getting the last room is a bit confusing; i unfortunately was short on time and kind of improvised that room in the last few hours

Oh! (I didn't get why the huge spacing until I tried to send my "oh!")

Thanks for the feedback! You can choose wether to kill them or not :3

Yep, I added sound when they die too but... we can't hear much. It was supposed to be there I just... had other priorities before the deadline (like giving an end to the game, aha)

Thanks for your feedback!

It does! I was a bit short on time~ But there is a second ending (the first ending gives a clue to it) - although the sole difference is what is written aha You think the game is that similar to its prequel? :o I tried to give something new while doing a continuation. And thank you! :) Also thanks for playing!

PS: by the way, they're not technically "corrupt angels", they're different from the beings you find in the first Ascension; but maybe you'll find out more about it either in a sequel or the post-jam version of the game~

EDIT: Oh, I misread, you were stuck in the "boss" room. Yeah I admit, it's kinda confusing. Yeah the normal ending is getting the text, and the text changes depending what you've done (bad ending and good ending) So to jump back on my previous statement NO, the end does not end in that room, you gotta "exit" it

Thank you! Yes, destroying stuff is satisfying :)

Hello! For the "crashing", it might actually just be that you finished the game. :) I guess it's a bit too rough, but when the text gets on the screen (in orange, right), it's the ending! So when you hit any key, it closes the game.

(I hope it's what you meant, since you can't reply to this message; at the very worst, edit your message I guess?)

Also, thanks for the compliment!

REPLY: hitting a key in the second part with text on the screen( = the last screen) should end the game. (The game is short) It's weird that it freezes. Could you give me a screenshot of the concerned screen by e-mail? Kwisarts@gmail.com Also tell me if you were in full screen or not and i'll try to investigate; It helps to know if you did anything particular before that screen (if the game freezes there must be something that triggered it somehow) Also i'd like to know if you skipped the intro or not (as i did not attempt to play the glitched version of the game - by not skipping)

Hey there! Thanks for the feedback :) Yeah, near the end I was in a hurry and jot being able to play it with a fresh eyes makes it hard to know what's wrong and what's not; getting the hints from the voice is not triggered easily enough (to avoid triggering too soon...) I could arrange that with some codes but... Yeah lack of time! I hope you still had fun anyway =)