After a freak laboratory accident, ninja-in-training Nina finds herself trapped in an alternate dimension where the walls shift each time she jumps. Now she must collect the scattered gears to fix this shattered world and escape! But with 32 challenging stages to outwit, that will be no easy task...
hey all!! sol here. it's been a while since my last game, but I haven't been resting on my laurels. this time around, I've made a puzzle-platformer with a focus on fast gameplay and a novel mechanic-- each time you press the jump button, the walls will shift between the foreground and background! you can also cling to walls and jump off of them to reach greater heights. I've built a lot of really tricky puzzles around this, so I hope y'all enjoy!
I would also like to give a special shoutout to my testers, whom I owe a debt of gratitude for playing the earlier, more frustrating builds of this game. It's thanks to them that I can present this polished final version to you!
and of course, feel free to reach out to me either on these forums or on twitter if you have any questions or comments!
have fun and good luck!
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Wow, this is terrific! Unforgiving, but fair about it.
I love the opening cinematic, too.
@Ulexes thank you so much! tried very hard to make it feel fair so I'm glad that came across.
I also really enjoyed making the cinematics, it started with me doodling little character ideas and when I drew dr. quail's sprite I was like, "oh I have to make something with dialogue out of this."
Took me 53 minutes and 247 deaths, but I beat it. (Yay, I suck! :D)
I really really like this a lot. It captivated me more than any Pico-8 game really ever has, even Celeste. Every project I've started has had pretty big ideas, maybe I should give something simple and to the point like this a go.
The short music loop isn't the greatest, and the difficulty curve is a little shaky at times, but other than that, I've got nothing but good things to say!
@Spaz48 I'm so glad you enjoyed it! comments like yours make the whole process worth it, truly. and yeah, SHIFTTRAP is a simple game, but ironically, the first prototype I made of it was in an entirely different engine… two years ago. sybil's tail, my first pico-8 game, was much bigger in scope, but I ended up finishing it first despite only thinking it up mid last year. so yeah, definitely experiment with smaller, simple stuff, but if it's the grander stuff that really lights your fire, that's perfectly valid, too.
and fwiw based on the numbers I've seen, 243 deaths and 53 minutes is a slightly better-than-average result for first time players. so I wouldn't say you suck!
that being said, I've managed to clear the game in under four minutes, but ofc that's because I've played it hundreds of times. still, I figured I'd throw that number out there in case any daredevils reading this are wondering how far they can push speedruns :3
@sol You're very welcome! My problem really is that even the grander stuff I set my sights on is usually too much for me to handle alone. I've started so, so many things over the years and abandoned them. I've been really trying recently to break past that and Pico-8 has been a huge help.
Also, sorry if this is poking my nose where it doesn't belong, but I took a peek on your twitter and noticed something. You said the original prototype was on 3DS, huh? Would that "entirely different engine" happen to be SmileBASIC? Because that's where I happened to start coding myself, heh.
@Spaz48 yeah it was SmileBASIC! I had a lot of coding experience prior to that so it wasn’t my first rodeo, but it was about when I started seriously considering making my own games, so I have fond memories of it.
don’t tell anyone, but Nina is loosely modeled after one of the included sprites in SmileBASIC, as I used that sprite in the prototype as well!
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Great, punishing platformer. A little too punishing, but it's still one of the best on the platform.
You're welcome, please continue making games for us during this pandemic!
hey! this was great! i really enjoyed playing this, wanted to ask how you made the sprites in cinematics so small? trying to make a game where the sprite appear this kind of size, would be v thankful to know
@jmsnsh thank you, I'm glad to hear that you had fun!
I'm interpreting your question to be referring to the background, not the sprites, since those aren't actually smaller. the parameters to map() let you adjust how many cels you want to draw.
What a good game!
Very tough and felt very complete!
100 deaths and 36:46 of fun xD
This game is great, but very hard! At least the first time i played it. i got stuck on one part when you first got the hourglass, though. at least the text for it is funny!
Really good Game. Took me 24 Minutes and 30 Seconds, died 26 times. Will visit again to collect the Scrolls^^.
I Love that the Mechanics works so well together. Everything feels polished in this Game.
@Astorek86 thank you so much! I'm glad new people are still finding this game and enjoying it! it gives me the encouragement to really put my all into my next project, too! good luck with the scrolls!
I have started taking up speedrunning this game and I’m doing pretty good!
@ElementalKid21 oh my gosh, I'm honored! thank you so much for speedrunning, I hope you have a fun time. my personal best is a little under 5 minutes, I had to get pretty good at the game to test things quickly, eheh.
using a well-timed jump at the edge of a platform you can make it go up one tile without dying
also pressing jump again while midair causes the platforms to not change
Awesome game! find out ninja-in-training Nina's next adventure
in shift trap 2!
This is a great game! Jumping around, timing jumps correctly... Tbh I haven't gotten far yet but wanted to leave a review!
Edit: Ok, the levels are REALLY difficult. But not impossible! Im not good at the timing yet but that will improve as the game goes on.
I have beaten the game and it's great. Just wondering...how do you get to the new game plus mode of the game? I was on the FIN screen at the end and then reset the game and it was still the normal mode.
I honestly found the hourglass harder to use, so I beat the game without using it instead
Very fun game,great level desgin!
I like this game, even if there's a bit of jankiness in the movement. Also, ShiftTrap has a speedrun leaderboard now, so feel free to submit your runs:
https://www.speedrun.com/ShiftTrap
That goes for you too, @sol, if you've recorded your best times :)
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