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A jam submission

The Price Of ProgressView game page

A first-person parkour game where every ability costs precious seconds from your countdown timer.
Submitted by PMSAK — 15 hours, 39 minutes before the deadline
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The Price Of Progress's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#29993.5913.591
Enjoyment#66822.5002.500
Artwork#68152.5452.545
Narrative#73881.9551.955
Audio#93981.5001.500

Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
In my game "The Price of Progress", You start with only the ability to move and look around. Abilities like jumping, double jumping, and sprinting must be purchased using your own countdown timer. Buying an ability may unlock a faster route, but it also costs valuable time, and the longer path which generally doesn't cost anything isn't always slower. Get to the end with the least time wasted.

(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
LostSail

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit)

I like the concept of having to buy moves instead of a whole ability. Also the jumping and sprinting while rushing through the level felt fairly good.
The environment was basic but it created an interesting atmosphere.

I feel the timer was too generous and didn't build any pressure. Also  sfx/music would have greatly contributed to the feel of the game. But I am sure both were due to time constraints.

Either way, congrats on your first game jam submission!
Also quick tip if you want to avoid the two awkward overlapping fullscreen buttons next time:

Make the viewport dimensions setting on itch slightly taller than the game (e.g. 1280 x 720px -> 1280 x 770px) and disable the itch Fullscreen button.
Then you have the one fullscreen button from unity you can click and actually works.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game!

Yeah many people pointed out that the timer was way too long, I didn’t have enough time to play test the game enough so i thought 500 seconds would be a decent time for someone who doesn’t know about the game and is just experimenting and to people who read all the instructions and controls. 

Same with music, I made this game in 2.5 days because i am on vacation so I didn’t have time to add music (The shop itself took more than a day to make 😓)

I was struggling with both full screen buttons overlapping on itch and I had no idea how to solve it. Thank you so much for telling me the fix! 

Submitted

This is good game and spectacular concept and love the tone despite flaws.

Developer

Thank you so much 

Submitted

The first time I played, I beat it with 262 seconds left. I then went back and tried a few more times and ended up with 372 seconds left. Everyone's already suggested making the shop "on the fly" instead of a physical shop menu you have to open, and someone already pointed out the lack of sound, so I won't talk about either of those. My main points of feedback are:

1. A single sprint can carry you as long as you hold down the shift button, which makes it slightly overpowered since you can essentially pay 1 or 2 seconds to knock a huge percentage of your time off. If you want sprinting to be reserved for hard platforming sections, I'd suggest putting a time cap on it (again, this is where the "on the fly" system would shine).

2. Looking around itself costs time, so while the longer paths may have been shorter time wise, I feel like going "off path" is almost never worth it unless you're speedrunning and you already know which paths to take (source: me, who sorta did try speedrunning). If you want to encourage the player to strategize more, you could do something like allowing the player to scout out the path ahead of time. Note that this would turn the game into more of a puzzle platformer than an action platformer, which may be good or not depending on what you're going for.

Anyway, congratulations on your two month milestone!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing and rating!

1.Yeah that’s true, I should’ve play tested the game more to fix these sort of things. I will keep that in mine from next time

2. I mean the point of the game was to look at the paths as you run through the level and making quick decisions while saving time. I feel like allowing the player to scout ahead of time would ruin that purpose as they will know exactly what to do.

Thank you again

Submitted

I really like the concept of using time as currency! I do agree with some other comments about assigning keys to expend time, to perform the actions. Otherwise, the overall execution was very solid!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for playing and rating!

Yeah I agree, I should’ve assigned keys rather than a shop to make it more user friendly. Will keep that in mind from next time. Thank you 

Submitted

Concept is really great but I wonder if there's a way to maybe link the actions you can buy to a key because it's breaking the pace of the game to constantly go back to the shop. I wanted to buy things in advance but sometimes, my double jump were consumed when I was just doing a jump. I think the game is great though, very smart concept and perfectly executed. I'd love to see more of this!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing and rating!
Assigning keys for upgrades rather than a shop was my first idea but i went with the shop because it would be more organized that way

But i guess it does get annoying to open the shop and buy upgrades at some parts of the level 😭

Anyway thank you for playing!

Submitted

I love the concept of the game! Your time as your currency? SO SMART. I think it would have been a smoother experience if there wasn't a shop to buy actions. I think instead, you should be free to do what you like, just at a cost. I spent about 100 seconds at the start because I didn't realise there was a shop and was just running in circles until I accidentally pressed "E" instead of "R". All in all, a very cool game! Congratulations!

PS. Would have loved it if you added a sensitivity slider; my sensitivity was so high, I needed to change my mouse settings for it to be playable ahahah.

Developer

Thank you so much for playing and rating!

Yeah even other people suggested the same thing. The thing is that i was so consumed in making the shop that I didn’t even think of anything else. But I will surely keep this suggestion in mind when i am to make a similar kind of game in the future

Sorry about the sensitivity bit, when i was play testing in unity it was fine but when I uploaded it to itch then the sensitivity went crazy. Gotta make a sensitivity setting in my future games.

Once again thank you 

Submitted

Really cool idea! Great game!

Developer

Thank you so much!

Wow , great game!!

Developer

Thank you so much!

Submitted

Great concept! I'd say making the colors pop out a bit would make it visually appealing even more! Well done tho!!

Developer

Thank you for playing and rating the game!
I wanted to make this game lean towards sort of a dark sci-fi vibe so i dimmed the lights and used darker colors. But still thank you so much for the suggestion.

Submitted

That makes sense.

Submitted

Interesting concept! My first suggestion would be to make purchasing abilities done with hotkeys instead of using a menu. Needing to open the menu every few seconds to buy a jump felt like the game was getting in my way. It might even be better to forgo the store entirely, and just let the player jump, sprint etc. but deduct the time cost when they do it. That would make the experience smoother and ultimately more fun. Good luck, and I hope you continue to develop this!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game!

Yeah I think automatically deducting from the timer when the player uses the abilities is a much better idea. I was so consumed in making the shop that I didn’t even think of it. Thank you so much for the suggestion

Submitted

It was cool and creative game. I really liked your idea. The lack sound was my biggest problem with the game. Good job though! Just creating a full game in the limited time you had is a great accomplishment on its own.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for playing and game and rating it! 

I would’ve added sounds and some more additional features but i am on a vacation so I didn’t have enough time but i will make sure to make my future games much better. Once again thank you 

Submitted

Thank YOU for sharing your game with the world :D

Developer (2 edits)

To all the people who took the time out of their day to play and rate my game - I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. As a beginner game developer who started 2 months ago and participating in my first game jam, It is awesome to see other people play my game and I would appreciate if you rate the game honestly and leave a review to let me know where my game is lacking so I can improve.

Submitted

Time Left 158! I think the idea of making time currency is interesting. I agree with others I think the idea of paying attention to make these decisions would work better in a less maze-like game. 

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game! Yes i also had ideas to make the game based on a story first but i scraped it since i am on vacation and only had 2 days for this gamejam and i stuck with a maze like platformer game. But i will work on a similar style of game with a story in the future. Once again thank you so much!

Submitted

A solid concept and an interesting game, but I feel the idea of paying close attention to your surroundings would work a lot better in a less maze-like game. There are twists and turns, dead ends that don't feel like they play well into the core mechanic, which doesn't gel well with being lost. But the core mechanic was fun, and I quite enjoyed it.

It took me embarrassingly long to check the menu and figure out how to climb ladders >.<

Developer (2 edits)

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game! I wanted to make a story based game on this mechanic instead of a maze like platformer but i am on vacation and only had 2 days to work on this game so i stuck with a mazelike platformer. 

Yes i figured people were gonna struggle with the ladders bit and i wanted to put the text "Press R to climb ladders" right when they got close to the ladder but because of time constraints i put it in the controls tab. Sorry lol

Once again thank you so much

Submitted

Overall fun concept. Sometimes I felt like my jumps  were rest even though it said I had jumps left. 

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game! Yeah there are still a few bugs in the game since i only had 2 days to finish the game since i am on a vacation. But i will surely keep working on it to fix the bugs. Once again thank you

Submitted

The Idea is Great. Balancing is required. Its unique as well. I also suggest maybe decreasing the time the player has to reach the end

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game! I only has 2 days to finish the game since i am on vacation so i didn't really play test everything but i was sure that 500 seconds was a decent time. Maybe not lol. Once again thank you

Submitted

I like the idea, but it seems a bit unbalanced that the power_up are so cheap though. But with a bit balancing it seems like a cool thing to decide in a few seconds.

Developer

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game! Yeah now that i look at it, the powerups are kinda cheap considering the player gets 500 seconds. I will keep that in mind. Once again thank you

Submitted

i quite like the idea, and the gameplay is fun, but i have a bit of an issue with the overall visual style. it’s kinda unclear where you’re supposed to go and the lack of any markers or visual differences just makes the level design feel less cohesive.

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you so much for playing and rating my game! I wanted to put big red arrows to signify the path the player should take but i only has 2 days to work on this game as i am on vacation and last minute i completely forgot about the arrows but from next time i will keep that in mind. Once again thank you