Best cactus game in a while. The title screen is well done too.

Got past the rabbits but I'm too dumb/impatient to get further. More save points please!

I can't seem to get this site to remember my details. That's annoying.

I finished the game now. I see the reason for the save point placement as well.

Odd and short game (the rabbits stage took me a while as well).

I think I encountered an odd bug though:
After reaching the bee, I managed to get killed in an instant (before the save point), I then decided to go back and check something out, so I went back a way and enabled an EARLIER checkpoint. After returning to where the bee was it was no longer there no matter how many times I died and went there, so I had to restart the game...

That bee bug should be fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out :)

Wow, that was fast :)

Forgot to add that the game itself was very unique, and while very short, I did enjoy most of it (the bee part is most likely the most frustrating part in the game ;) ).

Keep up the good work :)!

Simple but fun.

Two suggestions though:

Make it so that you jump only once per key press... It's very hard to time long jumps when you have to let go of the button before you land, lest you jump again...

Could you make the dialogs skippable if you reach the same screen more than once, e.g. after respawning?

@Lim-Dul: Alright, I'll fix the jumping tomorrow :)

Dunno about the dialouge. Isn't the current text skip feature enough? I know it's slightly frustrating, but it's a pretty short game.

Tapping z skips the text you know.

A video walkthrough for those who need it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCyMQ0StZs

Gosh, the dialogue is irritating me.

It is pretty annoying to go through the same dialogue every time you fail.

It is an interesting game though, I wouldn't say it is your best.

Very enjoyable, in my opinion, one of the best Cactus' masterpieces. Would be great to see more of it.

Tapping z skips the text you know.

I know - one speech buble at a time.

What I meant is exactly what Tr00jg is saying:

It is pretty annoying to go through the same dialogue every time you fail.

cactus: Dunno about the dialouge. Isn't the current text skip feature enough? I know it's slightly frustrating, but it's a pretty short game.

Yeah, you're probably right. I take my suggestion back. I mean - the investment in time to code some special dialog-skipping mechanic wouldn't yield much return in such a short game.

@Grawl: You don't have to jump over the bunnies, with the muscle guy you can just use z to punch the bunnies dead.

reminds me a lot of the Aeon Flux short "War", great idea!

I couldn't figure out what to do after killing myself as Jimmy. I had to watch the video walkthrough to get the just of the game. But after I got through that part I just did the whole thing in one run.

@Julius - I'm against violence. (read: thanks, didn't know that)

Haha, it this some kind of Knytt-parody? I can't help to get those vibes. Great game, short and sweet :)

Damn I need to go to cactus' house and spy on him to learn his work ethics.

He makes his games faster than make posts here.

raigan:
I just watched that on youtube (because of your mention). I'm guessing the only reason you say this is because of all the random killing and incomplete stories. But really this is nothing new. Far too rare, though. I wish there was more.

I made a small video of a bug and some extra dialogue I found, but didn't include in the previous video because I wasn't sure if it was possible time-wise (which was).

And thanks to Julius I also show you that you can hit the bunnies as Mitch.

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUbGUjrkoQM

sweet but too short.
the ending was just too random for my taste.

@Grawl: thanks to your video I also found out that you can get some extra dialogue with Mitch if you go back and talk to Shirl :p

Another comment. Maybe this doesn't need "fixing" in the current game but, I think, could be a useful suggestion for your future games, cactus.

In good platform games there's usually a acceleration period for sideways movement. Take e.g. all the Mario games (except for the first Gameboy version and the original Jumpman/Donkey Kong title). Even the Mario clones rarely get this right because they concentrate too much on the graphics and too little on emulating the jumping physics...

There's a reason for this behavior. First of all it's realistic - even if the in-flight physics (e.g. altering the direction of the jump in many games) aren't. You do not usually either move at full speed or not move at all - you ACCELERATE.

Acceleration allows for a much MORE precise movement model. The imperfections of the "no-acceleration" movement method were all too apperent in the frustrating "bee section".

Paradoxally it stood out even more because you got the vertical movement of the bee right. More often than not I crashed horizontally into the spikes because it's hard to coordinate the vertical movement which HAS acceleration (because of gravity) and the sideways movement which hasn't.
Usually the challenge in "moving by flapping your wings" is coping with the inertia of the movement (which is also done by using deacceleration coupled with acceleration in the other direction).

I'm looking forward to your next game and I strongly suggest that you at least take my comment into consideration if your next project will have anything to do with jumping or movement altogether (you never know =).

P.S. You can see that the jumping horizontal movement model isn't very good in the walkthrough video. Look how many times Grawl had to abruptly stop his jumps - in a proper movement model you can time them perfectly given some practice. That's because the human brain can't grasp things that are counter-intuitive. E.g. a lack of acceleration of moving objects. In this game you can explain it with something like zero-friction dream-physics.

@Julius: Heh, just doing a video for that may be a bit weird =p I may update the original video though, sometime tomorrow.

@Lim-Dul: I didn't think much of it, but you are right -- this is what makes it feel weird about the game.

@Cactus: I still love the game though, don't get me wrong.

I love games like this. Very cool.

"I'm guessing the only reason you say this is because of all the random killing and incomplete stories."

no -- it's because the same "character-hopping" goes on.

"war" starts with one character, then they die and a different character becomes the focus of the story, until _they_ die and we change to a new person, etc.. there's no one main character, the "hero" shifts every time the previous hero dies.

@Lim-Dul: I didn't think much of it, but you are right -- this is what makes it feel weird about the game.

Yep, most people don't think about such things but CAN feel that there's something wrong with e.g. the jump physics - they just can't put their finger on it.

Of course you don't have to use Mario-esque jump physics and still do them properly.

I think Muon doesn't use movement acceleration (except in the air where you don't change directions instantly) or uses such a tiny amount of it that it's just enough to make the game feel "right". And it's ALL about jumping and the physics of it are brilliant.

Ironically cactus is mentioned in the credits of Muon - did he help develop/test the game? So maybe he already CAN get the jumps right if he tries. I would expect no less from such a talented game developer. :-D

By the way - I just played Muon again and I wonder if the jumping is so perfect because of the well executed double-jump and booster feature and not the simple single-jump and left-right movement physics.

On another note. You can also OVERDO the whole acceleration thing so that characters start to "skate" all over the place and will seem to run on the spot when changing direction. This is at least as annoying as the primitive no-acceleration model. One example for this, IMHO, is New Super Mario Bros on the NDS... Mario64 and Mario Galaxy are a bit too accelerate-y for my taste as well...
Well - I'm very picky. ^^

Cave Story didn't have the acceleraty x movement. I think it's down to personal preference

Cave Story didn't have the acceleraty x movement. I think it's down to personal preference

Of course it had X acceleration. Check it out again - you might not have noticed it or don't remember it correctly because it felt so natural (let's face it - things like that ARE what made CS so great).

I'd say Cave Story had even more X acceleration than many other titles - it takes Quote over 1 second to reach full running speed and he stops after around a quarter of a second... What follows is also that it takes some time to change directions...

If you don't feel like playing the game you can just as well confirm what I said by watching some videos on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr0CCkH49g0

@Lim-Dul

Too much acceleration? Try the Punishment games.

@ Lim-Dul
That version of Muon do not feature horizontal acceleration of any kind. Also, it have the same horizontal movement on the ground as in the air.

The fun thing here is that cactus wrote that particular part of muon. When I started making Muon I asked cactus (he happen to be a good friend of mine) if he had a very basic platformer engine I could test a room generator on.

Apart from that, ace game cactus ;). Keep em coming.

@Lim-Dul

Too much acceleration? Try the Punishment games.

Already did. :-D
But the "skating on ice" effect has been included in them intentionally. The series is named "Punishment" for a reason.

That version of Muon do not feature horizontal acceleration of any kind. Also, it have the same horizontal movement on the ground as in the air.

Ah, so indeed I was right about the lack of acceleration in Muon and even predicted that cactus might have had something to do with it. LOL! So the jump physics in Muon indeed benefit mainly from the double-jump and boost features...

Well - no matter what - the jumping in Muon is more fun than in this little game. =)

Not sure if its a bug, but you can run under the bunnies as the non-muscle guy. You can do small jump and run under them. Then you get stuck because you actually need the muscle guy on the next stage but you wouldn't know it unless you accidently get killed by spikes.

@Yuri: What do you mean accidently? It was clear as crystal what I had to do.

@Lim-Dul
You misunderstood me. My point was that both games have the same controls, so I find it quite interesting that you dislike the controls in one game and likes the controls in the other.

Also, anyone that reads the credits in muon can guess that cactus had something to do with the game.

@Lim-Dul: The lack of acceleration is probably an old wound sustained from making shmups (where you get flamed if you even have a hint of inertia). I'm very capable of doing it, I just didn't think it was necessary for this game.

@raigan: I didn't even think of it but I actually did watch that "War" short a few days before making the game. Must've worked it's way into my mind subconsciously :)

Kvalsternacka:
You misunderstood me. My point was that both games have the same controls, so I find it quite interesting that you dislike the controls in one game and likes the controls in the other.

Well - read my posts again:

Lim-Dul:
Of course you don't have to use Mario-esque jump physics and still do them properly. [...]

I think Muon doesn't use movement acceleration [...]

Then in the next post:

Lim-Dul:
I just played Muon again and I wonder if the jumping is so perfect because of the well executed double-jump and booster feature and not the simple single-jump and left-right movement physics.

So yes, I do acknowledge the fact that Muon doesn't use X acceleration but if you design a game like that you have to provide other techniques that will make jumping fun but of course even less realistic like double- or even multiple-jumps as seen in Muon. =)

Kvalsternacka:
Also, anyone that reads the credits in muon can guess that cactus had something to do with the game.

Lim-Dul:
Ironically cactus is mentioned in the credits of Muon - did he help develop/test the game?

As you can see I have checked the credits but I wondered if he had anything to do with the jumping itself and you confirmed that. Apparently this doesn't overthrow my theory, it just makes it more specific.
That might be a good thing since it leads to more specific guidelines for games developers as to making proper jumping physics:

1. If you want jumping and movement feel natural to the player you have to use X Acceleration (Cave Story, Super Mario Games and loads and loads of other platformers).

2. If you want to make a very "gimmicky" jump model with double-jumps etc. (as seen in Muon) you might consider non-X-accelerating movement for that.

However, I still persist in the claim that:

You should never ever use no X-acceleration while using simple jumps AND if jumping is essential to your game.

This can be seen in many, many amateur games which, in my eyes, are very, very annoying.

Note that I don't say indie games in general, because many are not amateurish at all. =)

I even dare to say that if Psychosomnium were to be any longer I might not have finished it because even the simplest jumping sections turned out to be harder than they should because of the poor jumping model I described. =)

Phew - these are some long-ass comments on my side. I wonder if I shouldn't start a topic about that e.g. on the TIGSource forums, which might be a better place to discuss such things. =)

The game and it's arty randomness is just awkward to anyone but the independent gamers who relish in being the 'different' crowd. Cactus succeeds in wasting another 5 minutes of everyones time with a lame platformer nearly identical to his past efforts. *yawn* move on.

Dan Mu:
Cactus succeeds in wasting another 5 minutes of everyones time

Blah, blah. Don't like it? Don't play it! Remember that he spent more than 5 minutes actually making the game and NOBODY forces you to play it.

cactus:
The lack of acceleration is probably an old wound sustained from making shmups [...]. I'm very capable of doing it, I just didn't think it was necessary for this game.

Ah - that explains some things. =)
Yeah, it's true that shumps usually don't use inertia (how would you dodge all the bullets otherwise?) but they usually don't have much jumping in them, too. :-D

As to not including better jumping physics in a short and simple game like Psychosomnium... Yeah, I agree with you that one. That is, it isn't viable to design unique movement physics for a game like this BUT and it's a huge BUT(T) if you develop some generic movement physics in any other or subsequent game you could use them with easy in even the simplest of your next projects, couldn't you?

That's basically the same thing I said in my first post about jumping in Psychosomnium. :-D
Apparently your work can trickle down to other projects like apparently Muon so it'd be nice if you had something like that handy. =)

By the way cactus, would you mind if I posted the whole discussion on the TIGSource forums like I said in a previous post?

That would mean me copying all the relevant comments from this site and you know, not everybody likes being quoted. :-D

I could do it right away if the Forums weren't down - grrr...

It's nice to have a proper discussion about a relevant (I think) topic and it'd be a shame if it'd drown in the comments section and not be noticed by a wider public.

P.S. Don't treat your shmups as something that has left some scars. Some were brilliant. E.g. Akuchizoku was/is pure awesomeness and I still keep it on my hard-drive which I do only with indie-games that left an impression on me. =)
Ha! I think I might mention you in the 4-page article about indie games I'm currently writing for a prominent Polish computer game magazine. ^^

I don't mind really. Glad you liked Akuchizoku. I still think that no friction/inertia gives more precision, but that's just me. I've got engines which uses friction as well as slopes for instance, and while including them would've made the game more technically advanced, that wasn't part of my agenda.

However, since I'm sure that I would get less complaints if I started using acceleration, I guess I should consider using it for future games, as I personally don't mind much really :)

Oh, and I don't think you should lable non-accelerated movement as amateurish. Many popular games uses it, especially in the Run & Gun genre (Contra for instance), where precision is of essence. The Megaman series also has pretty non existant acceleration.

Oh, and I don't think you should lable non-accelerated movement as amateurish. Many popular games uses it, especially in the Run & Gun genre (Contra for instance), where precision is of essence. The Megaman series also has pretty non existant acceleration.

Yep, that's true. I just fired up MegaMan ZX Advent on my NDS to confirm that - it's a new title and you're still right. =)

However, MegaMan uses "gimmicky" movement - boosts, walljumps, slides etc. which all indeed allow for and in fact require very precise movement. Your brain automatically switches from the "I expect natural behavior" to the "I expect gimmicky behavior" mode. That's how I see it. :-D

Besides - the sensitivity and the movement speed in MegaMan is much lower, I noticed that in Contra 4 as well - maybe these are the issues I have with Psychosomnium although I still insist that using the flappy-wing-Y-movement with fixed-speed X-movement in the bee section is pure madness. You have a realistic movement model when it comes to up and down and an unrealistic model for left and right - your brain can't cope with that. Or maybe mine is just underdeveloped, although if anything it should be OVERDEVELOPED in that particular matter since I've been playing video games for 20 years now (I'm 24). :-D

Aha - the Contra series has been developed (except for the latest NDS release) for Arcade Machines and as far as I recall these had analogue joysticks, hence the precision was GREATLY enhanced when compared to the PC's digital "on/off" keyboard controls.

P.S. Since you mentioned your future projects using friction I'm really scared now - I hope my comments won't make you OVERDO them on the friction part. :-D

I've already overdone the friction part in another game, which was a puzzle platformer where you had to accelerate to the right speed to make long and difficult jumps. In this particular game it was also impossible to change direction when your feet left the floor. The game was still pretty fun, though. I wish I still had the demo somewhere, but I think I've lost it.

Anyway, I do games the way I want to, but I always take suggestions into consideration. It's not like I always know exactly how I want my games. And I often neglect to explore alternatives when I have something that seems to work fine for me :)

So, thanks for the input!

dammit, the game wss too short!
The whole thing with killing yourself to move on in the game was really really cool, though.

Controls were quite annoying, and a little more variation would have been nice in the graphics, but the concepts are really neat and i was one who got a kick out of the ending :)

i'd like to see more like this (with improved physics, of course).

Hey, question.

Do you accept ideas from people?

You would probably get flooded if you did, so maybe not.

Thanks anyways, wonderful game.

Truly IS art.

"

Hey, question.

Do you accept ideas from people?

You would probably get flooded if you did, so maybe not.

Thanks anyways, wonderful game.

Truly IS art."

By the way, email is trevor.the.clever@gmail.com if you want to contact.

Bah, like you will.

Nice work, cactus. Some very clever puzzles, really made my day :).

Nice one but the bee levels feel like hitting a wall:-(
Seriously, I played many jump and runs but there's no way in the world I'm gonna manouver that thing through such narrow spike tunnels. After trying countless times...the game ends for me here. That's not alearning curve, more like a learning wall.

If you're unable to step up to the challenge, feel free to press F11 while you're the bee to delete spikes...

Thanks, so I wasn't that far from the end after all...
Anyway, I hope you plan to experiment with jump and runs a little more. Would love to see one with the mood and style of Akuchizoku:-)

That was good.

The people moaning about acceleration coefficients: Shut up.

The movement was good for this game and was obviously a design decision, maybe it would make a difference, but the game doesn't use it. Deal with it:p.

you don't even need the muscle guy...

you can just do a tiny jump and go under the bunny.

Seriously: Why do all of Cactus' games end so unsatifyingly?

HI MARIO HOW R U DOING

HI MARIO HOW R U DOING