About this game:

You woke up in a distorted world, where the flow of time is fractured. What can you do to escape, when you can only live for 10 seconds?

"Rewinds" is a puzzle platformer, but here's the catch: due to a mysterious power, you are sent back to the past every 10 seconds. You cannot live, nor die, you are stuck in this time loop forever...

...or are you?

How tos:

The concepts are pretty simple: reach the end of each stage before your "time" runs out!

Move with Left / Right arrow keys, press X to interact with switches, jump with Z and hold it mid air to hover, be careful though as your time drains faster when hovering!

Future Plans:

I also published Rewinds on itch.io so maybe come drop me a few bucks if you really really liked the game. (`・ω・´)ノ

It's only 5 levels long for now, but I do plan on updating it post-jam. Level design still has its flaws, but it's hard to see when playtesting, as I am the only person working on this project and I knew all the answers to every puzzle beforehand.

Credits:
  • Designer: Saito

  • Developer: Saito

  • Artist: Saito

  • Composer: Saito

  • SFX are generated with BFXR, BGM are composed using Bosca Ceoil

  • The game is developed, compiled, and exported using Game Maker: Studio version 1.4.9999

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  • Tero Hannula
    Patron

    Oh damn, Baku always have said what I was going to say :U But sounds were nice, the player was bit squished. The game was nice, but there were some level design flaws, which had really annoying jumps, which caused to wait for the rewind. It was good game, I just gave up on the last level ^^"

    Reload
    Submitted

    Reload

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    It's a cool idea and I love time loops, but I feel like the rewind wasn't really exploited, and a simple respawn wouldn't have changed anything. That being said, I gave up at the start of level 5, so maybe you did something here..

    I have a lot of issues with the game though, mainly revolving around things that people mentioned earlier, so the wait and level design. So:

    • There's no real reason to use Z to jump, I know it's kind of a norm to use Z and X but that really doesn't make sense, especially since Z isn't at the same place on every keyboard (X and C usually are). Anyway, just try to provide options, here we could be jumping with up or space too.
    • I don't know how you tested your levels and if you had a "cheat" to respawn instantly, but yeah, waiting for a respawn is really boring at first, then extremely frustrating, because...
    • most of the level design revolves around trial and error and perfect execution. Sometimes you miss a jump 1 second into the level and it means you have to wait. Other time you HAVE to sacrifice a run because there's a switch you need to activate. The first level have some really tight jumps, and the second asks you to know exactly when to use your jetpack.
    • Which leads to a big thing to avoid in games: the "walking dead" / unwinnable state, where you have to continue playing but you already lost, whatever you do.
    • There's like two or three jump where there's a platform just above your head and you need to jump at the exact spot just before falling. you should really avoid these kind of situations in platforming games is you don't have a decent "coyote time" thing (for example those jump are really no problem in spelunky)
    • The bug turned feature is still really a bug, and just before that wall, I got stuck in a moving platform and could move. You should totally get rid of bugs like that, no matter how "smart" you can find use for them. (also even knowing you had to go through the wall, that part was still an issue for me).

    Aaand that's the character limit.

  • BitRapture
    Lv. 6

    Love the game and the music however I feel that the first level is a little bit hard mixed with the odd hover mechanic that triggers sometimes in place where a jump should be haha.

  • baku
    Patron

    Very cool idea (like, very very cool!!), unfortunately bogged down by bad level design and a slow "respawn".

    If you mess up a jump, you basically just have to sit there and wait until your timer runs out, which takes a while. And with all of those leaps of faith, unescapable pits and collision bugs, you end up sitting and waiting a lot.. :(

    I wish you could just press a button to instantly rewind time.

  • Nick Ver Voort
    Lv. 4

    I thought this was a pretty clever gameplay mechanic and it fit the theme well. The greyscale graphics were a little tough for me to tell what was what, but I understand the limitations of a time-crunched game jam. I really appreciate that you implemented the time-reversal visually as it was very cool and satisfying to see my actions play out in reverse. Overall good job!

    • saito197
      Lv. 1
      saito197 Developer of Rewinds

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback, I'm really glad you enjoyed the game!

      I did not notice how dark the game is, I was working indoor, and my room has no windows for natural lightings. Earlier today I showed the game to my friend in uni and we played it using his laptop, it looked horribly dark. I guess that is one more thing to add to the todo list!

  • Loates
    Lv. 10

    Alright, so this game was decently enjoyable, and revolved around the theme well, however, I do want to make a few points discussing the gameplay and level design

    A) The stuck in wall glitch: I've read your responses to the feedback, which I appreciate you giving. But I don't appreciate how you used the glitch as a feature due to how un-intuitive it is. While I did discover the glitch multiple times, not everybody might have, so using a glitch as a feature which we are shown in the first few levels to not help us at all, but harm us, doesn't make much sense.

    B) While we do respawn every ten seconds, falling into a pit is pretty frustrating, especially if you just gathered a coin. It is not very enjoyable at points where you fall into a pit on multiple restarts, and each time wait out up to 10 seconds just to get back into action.

    C) The gameplay is based on trial and error, which while it isn't usually an issue, in this case it is because there is no respawn button, every time you press a switch or do something else that'll allow your character to pass on the next life, it is pretty annoying to then, like said in the last point, wait out the whole time to then continue.

    Overall, I do quite enjoy the concept itself, and think it is pretty innovative, and I think the music works well with the art. Also, I like how the art's style differs from most art made for the gm48. I did enjoy the game to an extent but I wish that there was more consideration put into the level design.

    • saito197
      Lv. 1
      saito197 Developer of Rewinds

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback, it means a lot to me!

      I didn't realize the "have nothing to do while waiting for rewind" is such a big problem until the jam is over, I'll definitely fix it in the future if you want to play the game again!

      I will reconsider the wall glitch, while I do think it's fun to have something like "it's not a glitch it's a feature" in the game, maybe making a puzzle too unintuitive to solve is a bigger problem than I thought.

      About the visuals of the game, I specifically choose the theme "distorted world" for it because I suck at drawing. With this theme I can just make some weird stuffs (that mean literally nothing) and it'll work just fine. But I'm pretty surprised you enjoyed the music as well, it's my first time composing something, and I literally was watching tutorials on how to make a song during the jam.

      I'm really glad you enjoyed the game, the game received more positive feedback than I expected (considering this is my first game jam experience). There are still flaws but I believe there's always room for improvements!

  • Mohamed_DKD
    Lv. 2

    I like the idea of the game, it feels like a mixture between 10 seconds ninja and braid. The idea is nice, and the execution of the rewind and the level designs are really good too. However, I think the game is too hard (i don't know how many levels the game has, but I was stuck in level 4 or 5), some jumps are just so precise that one mistake and its back to square one!

    • saito197
      Lv. 1
      saito197 Developer of Rewinds

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it!

      About the difficulty of the game, because I planned to make it short, I had to try and put all the gimmicks into the level design. Level 1-2-3 were meant to show you the basic mechanics and gimmicks of the game, level 4-5 is where I put all of them together in the weirdest and most unintuitive way, that maybe is why you felt the difficulty gap.

      I do plan on polishing and updating the game post-jam, so maybe check my itch.io page out (`・ω・´)ノ

  • JCx64
    Lv. 3

    Nice one! I like these kind of games with a simple mechanic and a complex room building.

    RESS
    Submitted

    RESS

    • saito197
      Lv. 1
      saito197 Developer of Rewinds

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

      There is still a lot of rooms for improvement but I do plan on polishing and updating the game post-jam, so maybe check my itch.io page out (`・ω・´)ノ

  • Yosi
    Lv. 46

    This is a pretty good game, it really fits the theme. The main problem I have with it is that it is just not very motivating to try to win the levels. The levels are designed to make you mess up the first time, so you end up going through parts of each level multiple times before progressing. Every time you get stuck in a pit, you have to wait out the rest of the time to restart, so a lot of time is spent doing nothing. Also, you can get stuck in moving blocks, which wastes even more time. Overall I think the game concept and main mechanic are very good but the level design doesn't really make it fun to play. EDIT: Nice, I will make sure to check out your page!

    Leviatron
    Submitted

    Leviatron

    • saito197
      Lv. 1
      saito197 Developer of Rewinds

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it!

      Yea I do agree there is too much delay every time you are forced to wait for a restart, maybe I will work on that later.

      I turned the "stuck in walls" bug into a feature, you will know what I mean once you cleared level 4!

      I do plan on polishing and updating the game post-jam, so maybe check my itch.io page out (`・ω・´)ノ