It looks great! 
I was just looking at your other project on itch.io, Aero Ace.
It keeps those cartoonish characteristics while maintaining a unique style.
Well done!
Do you plan to distribute this as a mobile game for Android and iOS?
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Thanks!
At the moment I don’t have plans to distribute for mobile.
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This time I managed to rescue (all?) five dogs 
The controls (still) feel great - there were plenty of jumps I thought I’d never make with the manual camera etc, but distance reads really well. The simple straight-down shadow really helps too.
My notes:
- I still find the gameplay pretty difficult and unforgiving. Not dying from bottomless pits is definitely an improvement, but falling from any part of the west path (to the construction yard) resets the player to the start of it, where there is a checkpoint anyway.
Most sections involve a long series of jumps, where any missed jump means starting over. That’s a big punishment for potentially a very small mistake. I’d say, short of undoing progress (ie resetting a rescued pet), having to redo something is about the greatest punishment for a player. - As far as I know there’s no way to regain health - that feels very harsh too.
- Checkpoints should update somehow, so dying in the chimney area won’t reset the player to the construction yard for instance. That was a long walk.
It would also be nice with many more checkpoints, at least at the start and mid point of difficult sections, to minimize redoing the same paths.- On that note, it’s a long walk back to the hub with a dog, with no challenge or decisions to make (from the chimney area). There’s a gap in the fun.
- Maybe always have a way to return to the hub (without pet), or fast travel between cleared areas? That would help with the long walks, and might become even more relevant if the level area expands in the future.
- Probably eventually indicate characters that have a quest to offer.
- Out of curiosity, is the quest cat rescuable somewhere?
- Is it possible to get to the north area?
- Small bug: pressing up on controller during dialog selects the text area, making it pink
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Thank you again for the feedback!
Just as before, you make very good points.
This first level isn’t supposed be very difficult, so I will work on better balancing the difficulty.
Also adding more checkpoints in strategic places should help with that, as you suggested. That was something I was supposed to do on the latest update but I forgot to add it to my to-do list.
Very true! I actually already have a working health pick up, but I kinda forgot about that while making the level. I’ll add some for the next update.
I do plan on having fast-travel to already reached checkpoints, like in Mario Odyssey.
Yes, I’ll add a quest marker over the characters that have quests. The marker should also appear above the character icon on the compass. I’ll try to implement that soon.
Yes and yes. There are some platforms that you can jump on to get to the north area. That’s a level design fail on my part if it’s hard to find them. I’ll make it more obvious for the next update.
The cat is in the north area, on top of a building. For now, the “cat” uses the same placeholder mesh as the dogs, it’s just black instead of brown. And it wears a collar (pets that have owners will always wear collars, while stray pets won’t).
Thank you for reporting it. That’s very weird, it doesn’t happen when I test it. Maybe it’s specific to the linux build, which I don’t have a way of testing myself currently. I’ll make a note of it.
Thanks again for all the feedback!
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I have to test this when I am at a place where I can play! This took me instantly to my happy PS1 days <3 Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Croc, Ape Escape. BUT, based on the videos the game looks great!
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Thank you! Those were definitely inspirations (except for Ape Escape - I never played that one). Those and, obviously, Super Mario 64 (I was more of a Nintendo kid than a PlayStation kid back then).
I’m glad to hear it’s striking those chords. If you manage to play it, please let me know what you think!
I noticed it specifically when delivering a pet, in the congratulatory dialog. Maybe it only happens there?
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I like it. The animations are smooth, the art-style personally sticks with me, it’s really good. Keep it up.
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Sad face =( I am forced to face the fact that my computer is woefully unequipped to play any games. It works great for making music, but it doesn’t have the horse powers to play even the simplest of games it seems 
BUT, I maintain that from what I am able to see, when you are eventually done, this will be a fun game.
Oh, I’m sorry it didn’t work on your PC.
Can you share your system specs (OS, CPU, GPU, RAM)?
What happened when you tried it, was it too laggy or did it crash?
Frame rate was around 8-10. That’s all nothing more serious than that. Oh! Except.. In options, ‘Back’ button was on top of the lowest toggle box so I didn’t see what it said.
The machine is Win11/Intel i5-9500T. No dedicated GPU. 16 gigs of RAM. Very not gaming machine!
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Update: Version 0.0.7 is up on itchio:
Remember, if you have a save file from a previous version, don’t load it in the new version or some unexpected bugs might happen in game. Clear the save slot or start a new game in another save slot on this new version.
Several small updates, including:
- New Map menu. Press SELECT (or equivalent button in your controller) or TAB on Keyboard to open the Journal - it has a Map menu and a Quest Log menu that you can switch between.
- Fast Travel feature: on the map menu you can see all the chekpoints you’ve already reached. You can select any of them to Fast Travel (teleport) to it. You can’t teleport if you’re not on the ground or if you are carrying/grabbing anything.
- Some new art assets (mainly the airvents in the factory and the checkpoints flagpoles).
- Scene transitions and loading screen.
- Some performance optimizations
- Small level design updates (but no new areas for now)
Next on my least: adding some sound to the game (even if just placeholder sound FX and music).
@markuslappalainen this new version 0.0.7 has some performance optimization. I don’t how much of an impact they’d make on the performance on your computer, but it should be at least a little better now.
@phoenixdk would you like to be credited as a playtester in the game credits? If so, tell me how you want to be called in the credits (name, nickname or whatever you’d like).
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Great idea, and it looks like you’re doing a good job on it.
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By all means If the other credits are plain names, mine is Christopher Aaby.
I’ll check out the new build soon.
I love the high city area, there’s some actual feeling of acrophobia when jumping between skyscrapers Very nice with the new checkpoint system (and map) too, being able to get around quickly. I do wonder if checkpoints shouldn’t fill the player’s health, as there is currently no real penalty for dying, but health is important and scarce. I found myself jumping into chasms, ironically to get health by dying.
I think it would be good to distinguish graphical elements a bit more, specifically the structures and platforms. Even if it’s just placeholder, you can use color and the like to show the player where to go, call attention to some detail out of reach, and communicate what things do (like the slippery roofs). It might be good to start working with those tools in the level design toolbox, and flesh them out later, before too much work is done.
Notes:
- This stuff (name too) is selectable by pressing up on controller:
- The four angled springs toward the end of the high city cat quest is pretty brutal. Very difficult, and getting back there (by the shortcut) takes much longer than the actual next attempt, raising the stakes.
- The later section where you slide down, dodging bouncy rings, is so hard that I questioned whether it’s even supposed to be possible. I’ve beaten Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2, but I’m not getting through that section… and again, quite a long dull reset for just three more short tries.
- It’s possible to avoid the first road slide (the one with no obstacles) by dropping the pet from a moving platform, and jumping after it. Maybe pets should have “fall damage” regardless of whether they’re carried?
- Maybe a slash over an icon / gray it out when indicating something (like a lever) while carrying a pet, since it should display that it’s interactive, but not at the moment.
- A carried pet seems to update position less frequently than the player when riding up or down on a moving platform, making it look jittery.
- I’m not sure how (I was carrying the cat at the time), but it’s possible to get into viewing angles like this, making it impossible to straighten again. It happened several times:
Hey, great unique storyline, nice visuals. Go for it! Would love to see this one finished. Cheers.
@phoenixdk thanks again for the feedback! I’m glad you liked the High City section.
That’s so weird! I tested it many times on many dialogues, using keyboard, a generic Xinput controller and a Switch Pro controller, and couldn’t reproduce that bug.
Are you playing on Windows or Linux?
For the next build I’ll change the text and name nodes Focus Mode to None, that’ll hopefully prevent you from being able to change the ui focus to the text.
This is very weird too, I played the builds so many times and never did this happen. But I think I can add some code to the camera controller to prevent this from happening.
As for your other notes and suggestions, you make good points. The pets should definitely reset if they fall from a high altitude.
I’ll also work on the sections you mentioned were too difficult (or near impossible). I’m wondering if the game is running differently than it should or if it’s just the case that I’m so used to playing it that I can’t tell if something is too hard.
And the jittering pet while being carried is something I had noticed when falling from too high, but I had fixed it and didn’t notice it happening again.
When you play it, does the game run at a smooth 60 fps? Or is the framerate lower than that. or are there frequent drops?
@why-not thank you very much! I’d love to see it finished too, lol! I’ll do my best to make it happen.
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New build (v0.0.8) is up on itchio:
And a new video of this latest build:
Some of the things updated in this build:
- Finally started implementing sound. Music and some sound effects.
- Added more health collectibles to level, and crates that give health collectible as loot.
- Crates and Collectibles reset when level resets (upon dying and retrying), including health collectibles.
- Made some platforming sections easier.
- Animals reset to starting location if they fall from high.
- Some new environment art assets.
Would love to keep getting feedback.
As always, there’s a Windows and a Linux build.
@phoenixdk I changed some settings in the text nodes in the dialogues to prevent them from getting focus. I wasn’t able to reproduce the bug on my end so I don’t know if that fixed the issue or not.
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This has such A Hat in Time vibes! Very nice. I’ve downloaded the demo and will try later.
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Windows 11. I’m guessing it may only show up in the exported build, but disabling their focus mode is definitely a good idea.
I don’t think it’s a problem of speed, just a matter of very little room for error, with high stakes. Or there may be some strategy I’ve missed… I try to avoid the bouncy things in a slalom pattern. Would be nice if few other folks gave that area a spin
It hovers around 57-62 fps, and I haven’t experienced any lag or (frame) jittering that I recall. I have all three video options in settings on, and it’s running on an RTX 4060 (8 gb).
I’ll check the new build soon
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