Platformers are one of the most popular game genres, and are almost never done well. The controls are sticky, the jump physics too strong or too weak, the levels so obtuse only a diehard perfectionist could ever beat them. Not so with Nolan Cooney's entry in the recent Ludum Dare 23 competition, Little Locations.
Our hero is a plucky little boy with a purple baseball cap whose only desire is to catch all the blue orbs he can. Nothing new there. But the twist of Little Locations is that when you fall off a platform, instead of a rage-inducing kill screen, you're sent to another world! There are four in all, each with 23 orbs to collect. Move and jump using the [arrow] keys and press [0] to mute the sound. Each time you switch worlds, your inventory will remember how many orbs you've collected there, but you'll still need to start at the beginning of the world each time.
Cooney manages to create a no-nonsense game with great physics and interesting backdrops that is challenging without being utterly impossible, all in under 48 hours. That being said, this is not an easy game and anyone playing on a limited schedule will find it hard to beat. Still, there's more than enough here to satisfy hardcore and casual platform players alike.
Really liked what he did there. Little Locations takes about 15 minutes to beat, but it's a great game, with nice graphics and sounds, that is not that easy to beat.
Well.. I did it. That one orb was evil.
Nice game. Interesting concept. Had one bug though - was warped in one level I already finished with 23/23 at one point.
That orb in the desert level hardly seems fair. I don't think I'm ever going to finish if I have to get back there every time I fail.
It was fun while it lasted though.
Scratch that, I did it. Just have to bang your head against it enough times.
Well... controls are ridiculously touchy, which dials down the fun factor by a good bit.
For the orb in the desert:
Your guy is always in the same horizontal position on the screen, so crossing the one-square platforms when you can't see him is easier if you
place your mouse cursor at the top of the screen at his position - this way you can at least realign yourself to the center of the block before each jump.
Once I did that I think I only died one more time, though I did fall back to the lower level several times.
I finished it in about 15 minutes, but they were 15 much more frustrating minutes than I would have liked.
I managed to finish it in about the same time as everyone else here. The difficulty is pretty stable once you get used to the way the player moves. I'd say the difficulty level is about 7 out of 10.
Didn't like the one orb in the desert either, but I managed it on a second attempt doing what Evan suggests, more or less.
Got the same bug as baba - I was warped back to the space level although that was the first one I finished.
New version uploaded that should fix the bug mentioned in earlier comments.
Fun little game, but the mass amount of invisible jumping gets tiring after the first thousand times.
The whole "invisible jump" thing feels like a quick, cheap trick just to draw the draw the game out. At least with Mario, once you get on top of the world (and off screen), you can just keep moving, or have a handful of big sloppy jumps to make, rather than 10+ pixel perfect ones to make (or have to restart the whole level).
If I'd looked at Evan's spoiler, I might have been able to get that one above the "desert", but by that time I'd already closed the game tab.
Personally I loved it. It was a refreshing way to spend 15 minutes and whilst it was a bit frustrating at times, once you got a hang of the controls it was brilliant.
The ending is disappointing.
Couldn't you at least get your final score?
I finished without getting the dessert orb and I missed a few of the other ones but I still got to:
the smiley screen
... is there and alternate ending if you get all the orbs?
Hi, I made this game. Thanks for the feedback! I wish I could have put in a better ending for winning and for collecting all the orbs, but I just ran out of time. I actually am planning to make an updated sequel (I'm not just saying that, it's really going to happen) to address the problems (too hard, touchy controls), put in some new features based on the feedback I got, and add new levels. It's going to take a while to get done but should be worth the wait.
That sounds awesome, thanks for making this cool game, Nolan :)
Jeremy
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