ascent

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ascent

by johanp

Cart #ascent-0 | 2022-09-03 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

351

Ascent

Crashed on a desolate but mysterious planet you find yourself eye to eye with an ancient civilisation. Explore the planet, find powerful upgrades, and uncover its secrets.

CONTROLS

• move ⬅️➡️
• jump ⓩ
• climb ladders ⬆️⬇️
• special moves ❎ / ⓩ

CREDITS
Created during LowResJam 2022
Design/Art/Code: Johan Peitz (@johanpeitz)
Music/Sound: Vav ( @vavmusicmagic)

Great game! Good job.

Some of the powerups give more than meets the eye that it almost make me stuck until I discover it.
That being said, it's a nice short metroidvania!

Wow, @johanp ! The music really does make this game as well as tight controls, superb miniature sprites and animation.

Overall excellent and gold star work !

Really great game. i did 100% it and i do not regret it even a little bit!

Great game, and nice to see code-styles from other ppl... your coude is so small compared to what I normally do :) (and so many reclaimable tokens with _env...)

Very smooth game design and a lovely ending.

I can't figure out where to go after I get the

5/5 Nicely done :)
@ooooggll drop left

SPIRITS FOUND: 7/8
TIME: 24:44

BEATIFUL GAME, GOOD JOB

Got the ending where you get 1-7/8, got the ending where you get 8/8. Is it possible to get 0/8 and is there a different ending for that?

@joealarson : "Is it possible to get 0/8 and is there a different ending for that?"

Interesting question.

I think the minimum is 2 out of 8, unless someone can find a way to avoid collecting orbs close to the ground, like this one and one near the cliff west of the starting point.

Looking at the source code, I don't think there is any special case for zero orbs. So if you find a way to glitch past them all, you will probably see the character say "I hope it will work!" and the rest of the animation play despite no orbs being involved. But that is a guess, since I can't see a way to make it happen.

@Cowirrie That was kinda my conclusion as well. Couldn't clear them with a jump no matter how hard I tried.

@joealarson @Cowirrie
Well...

There is some commented-out code (in the 'player' tab, line 56) that, when reactivated, will start off the player with all of the power-ups in the game, so in theory this would be enough as you could simply ignore any of the paths that would unavoidably grant you a spirit (or you could use the dash maneuver to avoid them as I tested it and you can absolutely jump over the spirits with that ability). The problem? Well, look at the ending as shown in this gif:

So close! And, to clarify, yes, indeed, you are, in fact, seeing me bring the zero spirits of literally no one to the core to be rescued, and the spirits of no one replying back, just as Cowirrie predicted. What Cowirrie (and probably the rest of us) likely didn't expect however was the fact that the cliff spirit was still there, even during the ending. What's more, you can still interact with it... and you can't control your character at this time, making this one unavoidable as you pick it up due to actions taken by the character that are beyond your control. The only way to avoid this one would be to hack the game to either delete the spirits or disable their collision.

That being said, it seems like the ending doesn't change anyways as you enter the cliff-top scene with zero spirits and it plays out normally (minus me picking up a spirit during said ending), so I don't think it would be worth the effort to hack the game for a true zero spirit run, but that's up to you.

@Kaius : Thank you for putting that to the test. I'm both amused and impressed that the cutscene programming by @johanp is robust enough to play the conversation before continuing with the original ending. This is clearly the "correct" program response to this (probably) unreachable game state...

I got all 8 spirits! It was defenitly fun. Nice art, however i thing i like the starting area the most. The stone one a bit less.

What a brilliant adventure. It's amazing how vast the world can feel when you reduce the screen resolution!

Absolutely adorable, and so poignant.

wonderful work

I stucked here when I tried to dive down.

good job :)

Fun game =)

awesome game, 8/8 spirits

Whats wrong with this picture?

Incredible game!
I especially love the music.
This really captures a mood that isn't seen often on Pico 8. Very well done

absolutely perfect.
i have a suggestion.
make a save option.
the game is too lenghty to one-shot, it would be nice to be able to save.

i did it

Thanks for this great game. I especially enjoyed the music
and story elements, which made it all feel more meaningful.

good game! 7/10

fun game!

Amazing. Top-tier work here. Favorited.

fantastic work happy wheels game

Great experience. I loved the mood, the music and the story.

Do you know Ayerdhal, it's a french Sci-fi author, and he wrotes a short novel entitled "Scintillements" ("Flickers" in english) which evokes the story of a human being who sacrifices himself to save extraterrestrials.

I got a "happy" ending!
Very poignant, I loved the backstory.

Gg! 6/8 spirits. Nice game!!

I am a sucker for Metroidvania games. This is really well done!

8/8 Saved; ~28m to complete.

It appears my manual dexterity isn't quite what it used to be, so I found the last challenge the most difficult because:

Regardless, this was simply marvelous Johan and Vav, and to be quite frank, the perfect length. I hope you are able to collaborate together on more things like this in the future!

This is outstanding! Did I do something wrong? I'm at this cliff where I need to jump onto an ice cube (crystal?). I have the strong arms ability, the down-jump, the vines, and the dash, which you need to make it to this point. I'm super stumped as to what I'm supposed to do from here?

Really fun exploratory game! I don't normally play Metroidvanias due to my frustration when getting lost, so I'm happy to say the map was very well-designed and helped me organically remember the areas I have not yet explored. The fork-in-the-road-type areas (especially the jungle one and the desert area) were arranged in a way that I could easily keep track of them (+ potential abilities needed) and return later. I also enjoyed how each section after earning a new ability had a demonstration for the new ability before connecting to an earlier fork-in-the-road area. For me this made exploration more of a curious discovery rather than a frustration getting-lost scenario.

I found 8/8 Spirits in 22 minutes and 30 seconds!

I played this today and really enjoyed it. Environments are varied, platforming fun, there is a nice progression system with different abilities and even a little bit of story on top of all that. Good job!

Wow what a fun game! Min played 63, spirits saved 7/8. Will definitely try fro 8/8 another time.

Funny glitch, idk if intended:

Thanks for making this game :)

spirits: 8/8
time: 14:23
a very good game overall

This was great! I only got 4/8 my first play through yesterday... but I've been thinking about the game, I want to return to it and get more. I like the abilities. Movement abilities are very satisfyingly kinetic. Vine power seemed a bit underwhelming vs the others I got, but obviously necessary, and perhaps relevant to explain the ending...?

i really enjoyed this game and started speedrunning it, but i noticed the timer is very inaccurate? i beat the game with a 3:16 in-game time, and in real time it was 3:57. but on another run i beat the game slower in real time, but got a 3:10 in-game time. i highly doubt you'd want to come back to this game and update it again, but i really like the game and think the speedrun is very fun. but right now the in-game timer is just not very useful for determining the run's time unfortunately

This is the first Pico-8 game I've actually taken the time to finish. Got 7/8. Ending made me sad. Will have to try again to get the last spirit, see if there's a good ending.

This has to be my favorite PICO-8 game so far! Fantastic work, as always! I enjoyed the puzzles, built-in mini tutorials after each power-up, and the smoothness of the game mechanics. Fun story combined with beautiful low-res sprites made this a delight to play!

I’ve got 7/8 3 times, I thought to get the eighth one you had to beat it without dying but that’s not the case. I have no idea where the 8th one is and I’d love to find but I can’t. But cool game
My best is 5:30

SPIRITS FOUND: 8/8
TIME: 65:14

Very nice game, well balanced, a "must play" for every Metroid fan.
(and I love the secret passages by the way a la Mario).

Exploration Adventures are my favourite genre, and this is one of the
best of its kind. The dense atmosphere, the story, and the amazing
design within all it's limitations (lo-res) are just brilliant.
Thank you so much for this masterpiece!

Had a lot of fun playing this one. Nice work. Kept me wondering what was next as far as abilities and each complimented the other. Great game design.