Heyo, should be P or right click for dash, X was put in on request from a left-hander, I will for sure be adding a full suite of custom control options but it's like... insanely hard for some reason
Thank you! This is borderline still a prototype, cause its main purpose is to get feedback so I can improve. The final version of the game would be called 'STRATA' and hopefully be more on par with something like Dustforce, Super Meat Boy etc in terms of visual fidelity and polish. Content wise I'm looking to hit about 3-5 hours for a first time casual playthrough, probably some time in 2026 I imagine.
Well gl, I cant wait to see where this goes, I've been loosely following the game for almost a year now, again though, Amazing game, I hope to see this in a few years thriving and doing well!
There's a hint if you climb up the skinny wall climb section above to wall-e Eve-looking guys. If you wouldn't mind, I'm curious about what your emotional response was to getting stuck there, do you feel like you wanna try and overcome it or did you bounce off?
The linux build doesn't seem to work very well for some reason. It could just be my setup, as I am using nixos, but I'm unable to walljump, or access the options menu.
So... how do i play it I/O. You've kept me from this treasure for long enough. I need this. You know I need this. I'm done asking. I demand to play this video game. I have never heard of this game before
It was pretty fun, but I couldn't beat it because I didn't understand how slide jumping works. I don't even get what sliding does, it seems to make me kind of faster, kind of slower, and for no apparent reason, so at the start of level 3 I just can't make the jump at all. I'm curious to see where this goes though.
Nice concept. Only played a few minutes so far, so can't really judge the movement. The moment in the second level which is actually shown in the screenshot on this pace seems very difficult to clear.
I tried to play on Mac but couldn't get the download to work. One of the folders on the drive (the Mac demo) was empty, and the other (Mac version.app) wouldn't open.
Game's settings screen's resolution is incorrect despite everything else seeming to be fine. Couldn't play the game due to the fat post processing stack running really poorly. Please fix the settings menu and add a toggle for the unnecessary FX.
idk if I'm doing it wrong, but wall jumping feels slow and clunky compared to the rest of the game, and I cannot figure out how to do a weird jump on level 2, I get close, but no matter what I do i cannot get the jump. Are the any videos showing what I could be doing wrong?
I completed the demo and I have to say I think with some further polishing of the gameplay that there is something here. I really like how the game makes you pay careful attention to the the structure of the levels and in turn allows for organic discovery of new routes. Funny enough I'm working on a similar genre platformer right now called Clown Meat (not out, but has a steam page) and it was interesting to see some of the overlap in ideas in the design department. A big focus for me when creating levels was to add many different paths that were naturally hidden in the terrain. I found that it similarly created a great deal of replayability, opportunity to improve, and rewarded exploration even for players not super experienced with platformers.
A few critiques I have off the top of my very tired head: - There is way too much opportunity to soft lock in this game. I understand that there is a button to solve this, but every time I realized that I was stuck it felt like an irritating walk of shame to have to initiate the games fail state for it. I believe most instances of this can be solved with intentional level design. One hole comes to mind that I got stuck in that could have reasonably be replaced with spikes of a bottomless pit.
- Some of the bottomless pits were really deep. I don't really have much to add to this one I just don't understand why some of them took like 5 seconds to fall down. Created similar frustrations to the soft locks.
- I personally felt that a lot of the vertical movement felt unengaging. The wall jumps give you very little height and the jump pads are just railroading the player in direction they're aimed at. Not the biggest deal if the game is strictly focused on horizontal movement (for the most part), but even in the speedruns that I saw those moments where you have to move vertically seemed to kill the pace a little bit.
Additional things that I liked: - Sliding and maintaining momentum by hopping felt really clean.
- How you can dash through jump pads without activating them. Made them feel like secret obstacles that were engaging to precisely execute around and helped to distract from ledges that they were nearby (made me feel like I was discovering sneaky routes).
Overall, very cool game and best of luck on your development journey. I know you've given me at least a little bit to reflect about on mine : - ). At the minimum I wish I had given further consideration to mechanics that allow you to build up very large amounts of momentum.
hey all, i've made a video about Strata speedrunning if you want to check it out! honestly it only scratches the surface on all the precise movements that were required to get the world record. -blitceed
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please mare it so that people can change their key-bindings. fast switching between 'x' and 's' for dash-slides is really awkward.
Heyo, should be P or right click for dash, X was put in on request from a left-hander, I will for sure be adding a full suite of custom control options but it's like... insanely hard for some reason
Amazing game, Is this the full version or is there more to come?
Thank you! This is borderline still a prototype, cause its main purpose is to get feedback so I can improve.
The final version of the game would be called 'STRATA' and hopefully be more on par with something like Dustforce, Super Meat Boy etc in terms of visual fidelity and polish. Content wise I'm looking to hit about 3-5 hours for a first time casual playthrough, probably some time in 2026 I imagine.
That's in the perfect world where I can pay and artist's salary for 1-2 years, so funding.
Well gl, I cant wait to see where this goes, I've been loosely following the game for almost a year now, again though, Amazing game, I hope to see this in a few years thriving and doing well!
Interesting game but I have no idea how to get past the first gap in level 3
There's a hint if you climb up the skinny wall climb section above to wall-e Eve-looking guys.
If you wouldn't mind, I'm curious about what your emotional response was to getting stuck there, do you feel like you wanna try and overcome it or did you bounce off?
Cheers for playing!
Could you please release a build for linux
Good point I shall get on that asap
Don't have build support installed and it's 3am here so might be a ttomorrow job. Edit: Done!
The linux build doesn't seem to work very well for some reason. It could just be my setup, as I am using nixos, but I'm unable to walljump, or access the options menu.
Very weird, I'll try and fix that in the next couple days, thanks for your patience!
Fellow nixos user here!
It works fine for me using steam-run if you don't mind unfree (according to SO nix-ld should also work but I haven't tried it yet)
So... how do i play it I/O. You've kept me from this treasure for long enough. I need this. You know I need this. I'm done asking. I demand to play this video game. I have never heard of this game before
Fixed now, apologies!
rad thanks mate
It was pretty fun, but I couldn't beat it because I didn't understand how slide jumping works. I don't even get what sliding does, it seems to make me kind of faster, kind of slower, and for no apparent reason, so at the start of level 3 I just can't make the jump at all. I'm curious to see where this goes though.
It's likely you're releasing slide before pressing jump, try basically never letting go of the slide button and see how that does ya
where is the discord cant find it.
How do you dash in mid air?
Nice concept. Only played a few minutes so far, so can't really judge the movement. The moment in the second level which is actually shown in the screenshot on this pace seems very difficult to clear.
i love the chair
Finally someone found the chair
Also seems like lots of people don't like the neutral jumping, idk why though because its really not bad at all.
I tried to play on Mac but couldn't get the download to work. One of the folders on the drive (the Mac demo) was empty, and the other (Mac version.app) wouldn't open.
Game's settings screen's resolution is incorrect despite everything else seeming to be fine. Couldn't play the game due to the fat post processing stack running really poorly. Please fix the settings menu and add a toggle for the unnecessary FX.
Adding that option will be easy so i'll get that done, on my machine the thing that's taking up most of the budget is my crappy code I will not lie
idk if I'm doing it wrong, but wall jumping feels slow and clunky compared to the rest of the game, and I cannot figure out how to do a weird jump on level 2, I get close, but no matter what I do i cannot get the jump. Are the any videos showing what I could be doing wrong?
you have to dash through the spikes not doube jump, then double jump to get to the end
I completed the demo and I have to say I think with some further polishing of the gameplay that there is something here. I really like how the game makes you pay careful attention to the the structure of the levels and in turn allows for organic discovery of new routes. Funny enough I'm working on a similar genre platformer right now called Clown Meat (not out, but has a steam page) and it was interesting to see some of the overlap in ideas in the design department. A big focus for me when creating levels was to add many different paths that were naturally hidden in the terrain. I found that it similarly created a great deal of replayability, opportunity to improve, and rewarded exploration even for players not super experienced with platformers.
A few critiques I have off the top of my very tired head:
- There is way too much opportunity to soft lock in this game. I understand that there is a button to solve this, but every time I realized that I was stuck it felt like an irritating walk of shame to have to initiate the games fail state for it. I believe most instances of this can be solved with intentional level design. One hole comes to mind that I got stuck in that could have reasonably be replaced with spikes of a bottomless pit.
- Some of the bottomless pits were really deep. I don't really have much to add to this one I just don't understand why some of them took like 5 seconds to fall down. Created similar frustrations to the soft locks.
- I personally felt that a lot of the vertical movement felt unengaging. The wall jumps give you very little height and the jump pads are just railroading the player in direction they're aimed at. Not the biggest deal if the game is strictly focused on horizontal movement (for the most part), but even in the speedruns that I saw those moments where you have to move vertically seemed to kill the pace a little bit.
Additional things that I liked:
- Sliding and maintaining momentum by hopping felt really clean.
- How you can dash through jump pads without activating them. Made them feel like secret obstacles that were engaging to precisely execute around and helped to distract from ledges that they were nearby (made me feel like I was discovering sneaky routes).
Overall, very cool game and best of luck on your development journey. I know you've given me at least a little bit to reflect about on mine : - ). At the minimum I wish I had given further consideration to mechanics that allow you to build up very large amounts of momentum.
Just wanted to say there's already a game named Strata on Steam. It has around 250 reviews there, so doesn't seem like it would be easy to run over
hey all, i've made a video about Strata speedrunning if you want to check it out! honestly it only scratches the surface on all the precise movements that were required to get the world record.
-blitceed