MikeCL Thanks!
You should definitely add some type of off-topic tag.
I was very close to rebuilding this in Godot but in the end pragmatically decided to use the bulk of existing C++ code simply as a less time consuming option, although having to work without shaders almost drove me insane 
If it ever comes to doing some sort of a sequel, I won't think twice about picking Godot.
A bit more update on testing: the game is actually pretty fun to play, but on level 5 it start to become quite crazy. The main concern I have is height and parachute especially, it's not so high considering character size and it's pretty short to activate the chute, perhaps increasing the three planes distance may be something to consider.
Also, quite related, I don't think it's good to have "items" interacting with the player regardless of their own plane, I mean it's unfortunate to be killed by an evil human sitting below us because he/she is tall enough to go over his/her own plane, same apply to beagle we might be able to rescue from above.
JusTiCe8 Glad you had some fun with it
For short jumps down you should decide in advance if you're gonna go with a parachute and activate it immediately (like a double tap down). On long falls you can wait until the last moment to open a chute so you get down faster if need be.
Game's spatial relations are kept from the original prototype which had very tiny sprites. The new ones are about x2 bigger. It doesn't look realistic but imho still works well from gameplay standpoint. I didn't want to touch the original "geometry" of the map because the play rhythm you get from it was quite satisfying.
The initial version I released back in the day was somewhat of a minor underground hit, especially loved by people who do game design, but the indie climate was different back then. There was quite a bit of discussion on things you mentioned (auto parachutes, cross-layer collisions...) and I tried many of suggested alternatives but none worked for the better so I kept the initial design for the most part.
For example, limiting collisions with enemies only to the same layer sounds reasonable in theory but in practice, due to very fast pace, it can result in many confusing situations where you die "suddenly" because it's wasn't apparent that a layer transition took place during a jump. Bringing all collisions into a single plane regardless of the layer, proved to work best from player's perspective. Also, distancing the layers vertically so that enemies don't "stick" above would impede the perception of obvious safe roundabout paths.
Most interventions that novice players tend to suggest would actually dilute the main three-option choice in the short term gameplay loop:
Game's design intentionally breaks some of the common platformer tropes. If you jump into it expecting a standard platformer behavior, you'll immediately want to issue an objection But stick with it some more until those expectations evaporate and you may enter a very pleasant zone. Some people find it quite addictive.
Btw, level 5 is still in the beginner ballpark. My wife who doesn't know what WASD means and only plays match 3 and hidden object games could reach level 10 after some practice
I would be honored to test your game! I requested access on steam (user ID Squad Leader) with a flashing skull icon. Going to avoid reading posts on this thread till I can give it a thorough play through. I could also stream it to you (personally I find it very insightful to see people trying to figure out something I’ve put together).
Just got access. Do you have to give access manually? Just curious. Will try it this weekend.
I played it for a bit but never made it past level 6. Must be very stressfull in the later levels. 95% of the deaths were by falling. 
I noticed 2 things:
Menu cannot be navigated with left stick (xbox one controller), only with d-pad.
Some icons have borders, or are they there on purpose?
Will try again with height indicator. 
How long will it be available for testing?
trizZzle Thanks! It gets easier with practice 
Yeah, menus can only be navigated via the pad. Not sure if it's customary to navigate by analog sticks.
The texture wrap issue was reported by some testers. Could you share your hardware configuration, GPU in particular?
The test will be available until the end of this month, so several more days.
Ok! As you probably already know, you did a really great job on this and I can tell a lot of time went into it. Excellent choice of color, sound, and music. The spatial awareness required was intuitive to learn and well conveyed. It took me 30 minutes and one visit to the controls & instructions pages to actually figure out how to play. The most difficult aspect by far was remapping my brain from space -> open parachute to space -> fire bat. After figuring out how to play I enjoyed all the game play elements introduced. The only thing that slightly caused me distress was dying from beagles passing by; I don't think I'd actually die if a beagle wandered too far away.
The steam achievements were also exactly what I expected and cute.
I don't personally like side scrolling anything- but I persevered until coming up against the last enemy shown in the index (he smoked me good).
I didn't encounter anything resembling a bug but I'm also an average PC windows user. Thanks for sharing and I was happy I could test!
Erich_L I don't think I'd actually die if a beagle wandered too far away
Lol. It's 1980s gameplay logic. Back then they didn't have any sophistication. The only means of making some pressure was a threat of impending death
Here's a completely totally rational explanation, if you're willing to invest massive amounts of suspension of disbelief; When a beagle runs away, the lab will surely catch it back. The game character, who is an extreme dog lover, dies instantly from a combination of broken heart and guilt 
Thanks for giving it a go! From now on I'll be using "Approved by Erich_L" sticker on all branding materials
My system specs:
Win11 Home 23H2
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER latest drivers
AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core Processor
Now I'm wondering if those textures borders are hardware specific. I had a transparent texture for a grass mesh in a godot project and there was one edge that had a border though I'm pretty sure the texture was transparent on this edge and the uvs were set up correctly.
trizZzle It's definitely hardware specific. It happens when texture wrapping is enabled and edge pixels are not fully transparent, regardless of correct (0-1) UVs. So far it was reported with some Intel integrated cards. May be related to anti-aliasing settings and/or running a display at non native resolutions. Weird that you got it on this nvidia gpu.
MikeCL I feel really uncomfortable about a non-godot project tag (I know it feels good to organize everything) but if xyz weren’t part of this community I would be annoyed with the post. We have off-topic and general threads which seem more than adequate.
@xyz I am going to have to try and make an approval sticker haha
Erich_L There actually isn't "off-topic" tag or I couldn't find it so I initially put it under "community". The thread is totally off topic but I think it doesn't go against forum rules. If it does, please remove it @MikeCL. My only intent was getting a few more testers. I'd actually prefer if people used the feedback thread on Steam instead of writing here.
Anyways, the testing will finish in couple of days, we'll let the thread die and you'll be able to sleep peacefully again Erich, but not before we see them approval sticker designs
xyz My only intent was getting a few more testers
Thank you for that, if you haven't did it, I would have missed a great game, truly. It's great to have a 80s style game made with modern capabilities without compromising the design.
It's hard at first but it's easy to get caught and play over and over, and by the way, some achievements are super tough (like skyline one as there is always a bad situation when chute is needed on a level, that's so evil !)
