I’m pleased to announce the demo release of Unicopia, a simple little retro platformer I’m developing in Godot 4 for release in late 2024.
It’s a 2D pixel art game, is necessarily small, and leans on the spirit of 80s arcade games. Jump, run, and and fall you way across multiple levels, searching for an exit key before being hunted down by the ghosts of bosses past.
Original artwork and music, derivative gameplay, and over-the-top CRT shaders, there’s something for everyone who harks back to the golden age of yesteryear.
The balancing between difficulty modes is a little off ATM, and a clock reset might be just the right thing for easy mode… Currently both Easy and Normal leave the clock alone after dying, while Hard takes you back to the beginning of the level, which in some cases is easier than the other modes.
I’ll add a task to the backlog to revisit timing after dying. It might make sense to partially reset the clock, but I’ll have a play and see what works best.
Okay, so I’ve just implemented a timer rewind feature for when you die. In Easy you now get back 50% of the time you’ve already spent, in Normal you now get back 25%, and in Hard you get no time back.
The rainbow trail is actually pretty simple. I’ve added a Line2D to the Unicorn, given the line a 1-pixel wide rainbow texture, and attached some script to the line to add and remove points as it moves.
Hi! Controls feel good, but the second level was too hard for me, especially the fruits/gems under the platform, I need to jump in the right moment to get them which is frustrating because after failed jump I’m on the start, maybe I’m noob
One question
The key spawns “keys” with disappear effect or is it a shader?
I’ve really got to tweak either the contols or the player physics a bit, because about 50% of players find timing the jumps hard to do, so there’s definitely something a bit off. I’ve got a few ideas to try, and my next door neighbour created a v. successful platformer, so I’m hoping he’ll have some suggestions on how to adjust the control or physics.
As for the key’s trail, I used a Particle2D node, and the colour ramp then increases the alpha value to make them fade.
Hey, so after lots of head-scratching, I’ve made some good progress on making the jump easier. There’s still a number of additional tweaks neeeded, but one critical change involved trimming down the Unicorn collider to avoid her hitting her head.
If you’re interested to learn more, I’ve just posted a DevLog on Itch.io, and I’ll shortly be releasing a new version that includes the change, and a load of other updates.
