Rescue: The Beagles - beta testers wanted

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:

• do I go via safe roundabout path (spending more time, and more mental effort to "calculate" the path)
• do I go on direct but more dangerous path
• should I use resources to make the path safer/faster

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

trizZzle Do you have to give access manually?

Yes, I currently have it set up that way, but Steam's playtest features let you choose between that and automatic instant access.

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.

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

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.

JusTiCe8 Thanks. Glad you liked playing it. Yeah, there's a short initial learning period until things start to click. Most old arcade games that I took inspiration from were like this.

That achievement is not the easiest but still doable. Your best chance, obviously, is to do it on first 5 levels. First 3 levels still don't use maximal elevation range so you can almost always find a safe path and then endure for 2 more levels. The trick is to wait for a good layer constellation to "scroll in" if there isn't one at the current moment. Of course, if you wait too long you risk losing a beagle