Brutal Times
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
A dark fantasy 2.5D puzzle platformer where you race against the clock, avoid deadly traps, collect bonus time to keep you in the game, solve some puzzles and collect treasure and abilities! What's not to like??
Thank you for viewing/trying out my game. First off, apologies for the size of the project. My first time participating in a jam, and if you're still reading this message it means I still haven't figured out how to cut down its size for itch.io and make it playable in a browser. It's just under 1GB (made with UE4,)but I promise you it's fun and worth the effort! I have it zipped in one folder, should play once extracted.
WINDOWS build only! Can use a keyboard, or a Windows-style/XBox controller (see relevant menu in-game). Oh yeah, do check out the menu options when you fire it up...
Forgive the occasional glitch / bug here and there, if you have any questions or problems let me know.
Download
Install instructions
As probably read above, this is a zipped folder with the the packaged files as provided by the Unreal Engine. You should be able to extract and play by clicking the executable. This should also be available on my github account (CodingRook/GameDevTVJam) if that's easier
Comments
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Also, just played the game! I really enjoyed it, haven't got to the end of the 4 levels because the precision on jumps takes trial and error for me atm. But it definitely feels liek you went through a lot of play testing to get positions right and timing!
The +- capsules was a good mechanic to make things interesting. My quest to see whats in the chests lives on! Haha (I will try again after testing others games ^.^)
THANK YOU!!!
where are you stuck? I can help. Chests just include an undetermined type of treasure atm. I contemplated hiding abilities there but 1) apart from climbing didn’t have time to implement much else (a run boost? Invincibility?) and also if you couldn’t get them (for example climbing) you wouldn’t be able to finish the game! So I separated the concepts. I’m the future I’m guessing the chests will have something more meaningful.
What’s your game? I’ll play it
I got to the 3rd checkpoint (I think, it was before at the first chest) before stopping. I got stuck not because of the game at this point, just skill/practice. I got to that area after about probably 30mins to 1hr with 5 lives and the risk reward got me on the first chest haha :P.
An idea for chests is they could possibly contain extra lives. And maybe the invincibility idea is like "you can get hit once and not die" which would be really useful! Chests could also maybe have like "puzzle pieces" sort of like collecting stars. So you the player can speed run through AND collect all the pieces just for bragging rights :P haha.
Another idea I just thought about which would provide flexibility is different difficulties. Say, casual, normal and elite (hardcore or whatever)
Casual you just have to worry about time not lives, if you die you just go back to the check point.
Normal could be as it is now.
Elite would require a lot of play testing but maybe having less lives available? Maybe the time capsules give less time? Perhaps you are given just enough capsules to get through if you do everything right?
My game is: https://audhumbla.itch.io/a-walk-through-time ^.^ (hope you like it)
omg, great ideas thanks! I do worry a bit that I made it a bit difficult. Level 4 is so cool, I’m sad people may not get to play it....
Honestly, I think you made it a practically a perfect balance of challenging but fun (imo)! People, including myself, will definitely get to experience Lv 4 :D - I've kept it in my collections! I will be victorious! I WILL! :P haha (I also recommended it to a couple of my friends who enjoy jump puzzles/platformers a lot, and typically beat them quicker than I can! haha)
where you alone or with a team for your project?
How do I get out of the first room??! I don't know if it's a bug, but sometimes if I drop the card it vanishes and can't get it again. Also, the way the sound plays abruptly, it scares the **** out of me ha ha. Is this supposed to be a horror game?!
Help me out of the first room...
I had one team mate.
And I'm currently trying to fix that bug, I don't know why it's being unreliable. I'm hoping to have an update before I start work today :P
First room you have to press E on the main system unit, should provide power (turn lights on). Then you wave the card over the green section.
I'm currently trying to improve the text cues too since apparently the "pad" isn't clear for everyone. I'm trying to work out what is the best way to handle it.
It's not a horror game, just a low lighting. The first part is a "power failure".
Ha ha, yeah, I'm now having trouble understanding where the "scanner" is for the second bit. You gotta make it crystal clear for players.
My other advice would be, for stuff like keycards etc, most (if not all) games have it as an inventory item. Using the physics component to hold it suspended in mid air in front of you doesn't quite work and looks and acts a bit clumsy. So I dropped it again, it got wedged under the computer unit in the second room (lol!) and even though it was visible, I pointed at it and clicked but couldn't hold it again!
I'm in the process of downloading the game. But if you're using unreal, did you select create compressed cook packages in your project build?
Go to project settings -> Packaging -> Packing section advanced -> "Create compressed cooked packages"
It should help reduce package size.
yup. It’s the compressed cook this one
Hmm, Im not sure, you mentioned using the starter content perhaps that's bulked it up a bit?
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Performance/ReducingPackageSize/index...
This might be helpful to you. :)