r/IndieDev • u/raivk • 13h ago
Trying our hands on the "frustrating platformer" genre, but we're making the game "fair"
This is ULTRA VERTIGO, a fair first person platformer. Usually, these game features a ton of frustration and bugged platforming, and we tried removing everything that could be seen as unfair for the player. Also, made it with a ton of customization options to allow players to tailor the difficulty to their needs. We worked on a huge level with a ton of secrets to compensate for the lack of unique gameplay mechanics. We'll see if this works! Got a few speedrunners hooked recently during a private playtest.
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u/Abouter 13h ago
I'd love to see the platforms feel more organic but you certainly have my attention👀
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u/raivk 13h ago
Ohhh yeah we're short of a 3D artist to help us achieve that (learned Blender for this game but no a pro yet) but we'd love to add more details to the platforms and make them more "integrated" with the world!
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u/Bonzie_57 (Bad) Developer 11h ago
This is something I’m trying to figure out right now. How do make platforms feel part of the world
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u/DynamicMangos 12h ago
The problem isn't making it fair, that's pretty easy, anything where the player isn't being killed/hurt/set back by random stuff they can't predict is 'fair'.
The problem is making the difficulty be complexity, not just level design.
Look at 'Getting over it with Bennet Foddy". Most first-time players take upwards of 10 hours to finish the game. But then the second time only takes an hour or two, and the 100th time takes only 3 minutes.
THAT is what your game should strive for, and sadly, it looks like the movement is pretty standard with not much to learn about it
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u/raivk 12h ago
Hey there, thanks for the feedback. Indeed, it's not hard to make it fair. Making it interesting is way harder. We did get results like that while playtesting (player getting way faster after getting to master the character controler). However, the movement is indeed pretty standard, nothing too fancy. That's pretty interesting to keep in mind and we'll try to look into that!
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u/Upper_Stand 10h ago
Looks good! would be cool to have some platform variety. Some platforms that fall if you sit on them for too long. Or some moving platforms that you have to time your jump onto, etc. But either way, great job so far!
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u/NarcoZero 10h ago
I love 3D précision platformer but when it’s so precise and unforgiving, I feel like you need to have full body awareness. If you look down and don’t see where your feet are it makes it feel more unfair when your jumps are ill-timed.
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u/Illustrious-Dig4240 13h ago
Souls like platformer xD