WHEELPOINT (2023)
*Part of the 48-hour SYBO's Ship & Share Internal Game Jam, with the combined theme of "Round" and "Top-Down Perspective".
Description
Wheelpoint is a small puzzle platformer with 2 "viewpoints" and a lot of wheels. Collect all the stars in both viewpoints to win!
Controls
On Platform,
[MOUSE HOLD] to aim
[MOUSE RELEASE] to launch
On Wheels,
[MOUSE HOLD] to trigger slow-motion
[MOUSE RELEASE] to leave the wheel
Credits
Felix Leong - Programmer and Designer
Tiyezge Gondwe - Artist/Graphic Designer
Comments
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Very definition of easy to play, hard to master. A bit tricky to determine the trajectory path when you are on the smaller spinning wheel because it feels there's less 'buffer distance' to get the desired angle, even after slowing down.
Probably this could be solved with fixed angle on each distance interval. Like when the spinning wheel is at 0 degree to 15 degree, it shoots at X angel. Like giving player a margin of error?
But not sure if you implemented them already because the spinning wheel seems to spin at a fixed interval instead of smoothly.
Could really spice things up with moving spinning wheels, and wheels of different color that acts as obstacle, or even spinning wheels that have gravitational field that alters your traveling trajectory like spaceship entering into orbital track of planets.
Of course easier said than done, please take them with a grain of salt.
Overall it's a fun game. Hopefully it would expand with more levels, and potentially becoming commercialized.
Hey WH, thanks so much for your detailed feedback man.
Indeed the movement control is very challenging to master, sometimes even frustrating. But since it's a puzzle platformer, I don't want to make this too easy either (e.g. adding a trajectory line during slow motion).
The 'margin of error' idea is very constructive. Platformer games do have a lot of helper mechanics like coyote time and jump buffer. I guess in the WHEELPOINT case, maybe when the player releases the mouse button on a wheel, we cast an invisible 'cone detector' towards the trajectory path to check if there's a star nearby... If yes, the game will then alters the player's direction toward the star instead of the original trajectory😉So, the bigger the cone, the easier to catch a star. It should be subtle though!
During the jam, I tried the moving wheel idea but it broke my hacky physics system, so I ended up playing safe by scrapping it😂
Anyway, thanks againnnn! I'm glad you enjoyed this small project sur :D