Trying To Make A 2D Platformer That Stands Out

Lost Resolve is available to wishlist on Steam! store.steampowered.com/app/29...
Let's face it, there's a lot of 2D Platformers out there, and unfortunately a lot of promising efforts from indie devs are going to slip between the cracks. In this video I'll go over what I'm doing to make my game, Lost Resolve, unique!
Made in Godot!
Twitch: / swinkly
Discord: / discord

[@pixelzarry9008]

As an IndieDEV myself, I like to watch devlogs of other devs from time to time and look up for some ideas, one may call it a "PrOfeSsIoNaL" interest. For some reason watching someone working on their projects is so fascinating and entertaining, real much fun. Ur game is no exception. When I first saw one of your early videos of it I watched it immediately and enjoyed it. But frankly speaking it was more of the fact that this video was "A DEVLOG VIDEO" rather than an interesting game, tho. At first I thought that it would likely end in an average so so platformer game, but after the video where you and your friend were speedrunning game and competing for best score I was quite amazed by how fun this game may be. NGL, now Im looking forward to play it myself

[@KVMII]

I agree totally with your philosophy. Make the movement fun in a closed room and the game is bound to follow. Looks great!

[@DarenKajiWolf]

How stand to out! Nice thumbnail!

[@AnimatingBeats]

Nice there’s another dev log! Keep up the good work on the project!

[@Swinkly_]

Thank you! I'll keep working hard on it! :)

[@melpeslier]

The game have a really great potential. Hope you the best !

[@DevJeremi]

2D Platfromer that I'm making (also in Godot) will be standing out in 3 ways: - it will be a 2.5D game with stylized graphic - as I don't know how to draw, but I'm quite good with 3D, - I want to recrate movment/gamplay feeling of Rayman 3 but in 2D - and combat feeling inspired by Elnden Ring

[@Swinkly_]

That sounds really cool! Best of luck!

[@FennirYT]

Amazing progress as always, eagerly waiting to see more of the cool ways in which this game develops.

[@Swinkly_]

Thanks so much! Always appreciate the kind words :)

[@mnoble5406]

I don't know what portion of the game you are playing as a "ghost", but I found the "body" color palette far more striking than the "ghost" palette. "Ghost" palette is fine for some introductory levels, but I think it will become stale quickly

[@Swinkly_]

Well, I can't say too much without spoilers but it's possible we may see the character's palette change at some point in the game, and after this feedback I am considering revisiting the "Soul" sprites to add a little more color diversity and contrast!

[@Reikha1987]

I think between the music you made and how you are utilizing the free assets the game is really forlorn and melancholic vibe, good job. keep honing in on what makes your gameplay fun!

[@Swinkly_]

Thank you, I'm really glad that you find the music fitting! It's been really fun thinking of ways to give this game an identity despite the lack of custom assets.

[@Quillslash]

this is the first of your dev logs that I've seen, so I don't know if it is a thing already, but would you consider putting in a rest animation (a player animation when you haven't been moving for say ~30 seconds). Great video by the way! definitely would like to play it when it comes out.

[@Swinkly_]

I would certainly like to have an animation like that, but since I'm using free assets for now that don't include a resting animation, I couldn't really do it without commissioning custom assets. Since this game is a smaller-scale project I probably won't do custom assets this time, but absolutely for my next one!

[@nubunto]

yoooo swinkly dev log let's go

[@luc1]

hear me out swinkly. allowing the player to input a jump off the wall within a certain time/frame limit to increase acceleration off the wall. Almost like a wall bounce? Not sure if it would handle well in what you've already built or if it would just mess with any feeling of fluidity, forcing the player to "buffer" their jump off a wall in order to prevent it when unwanted.

[@Swinkly_]

Hmmm I think I can see what you mean - maybe I can do some testing and see if this would be possible to implement!

[@YueZhuang-pt6ff]

Game look sick, and I would like to make a suggestion about collecting key as I find it repeating in a lot of games, so it would be great to have different things about the keys, it doesn't have to be big. (different color/texture keys or something else) Going to look forward into it!

[@Swinkly_]

That's an interesting idea! Could definitely try a few things to mix it up.

[@lout160]

"Disadvantaged by the fact I'm not a great artist." Me sitting here wishing I could make things that looked half as good 😭

[@Swinkly_]

Well, I didn't make any of the assets myself (besides the rain and particle effects for the most part, everything else is free or cheap assets from itch.io) but I'm trying to use them in a unique way! Eventually I'll have to buckle down and work on learning pixel art!

[@lout160]

@@Swinkly_ Oh. Well I'm buckled in for that pixel art ride. As a red-green blind guy, i get tripped up sometimes even making placeholder art. Been enjoying all the content you've been putting out, regardless.

[@cloudblade9177]

Very cool stuff! 😊

[@Swinkly_]

Thank you! 😁

[@Yaso-Nex]

please add an option to make the keys not follow you and just appear as a classic HUD maybe under the timer, I just can't focus on the player(myself) and instead my eyes keep going to the keys, thanks for developing this promosing game :)

[@Swinkly_]

Since this continues to be a request I'll see about adding an alternative that just adds them as an icon to the HUD :)

[@vuurmos6257]

Looks like an interesting project! Do you have a demo?

[@paddysdynamicvideos]

Not a great artist? Dude, it looks great. Clean design. Great colour palette. I'd say above average visuals by far,

[@paddysdynamicvideos]

Btw, any chance I could play test? I love me some fast movement mechanics.

[@Swinkly_]

@@paddysdynamicvideos Well, let me be clear that I didn't draw the assets - they're all free assets from itch.io by some very talented artists. I've been lucky to find some great assets that fit the feel of the game quite well. However, I'll definitely commission or try my hand at custom sprites in future projects!

[@dimanarinull9122]

Interesting insights, I see. Ideas for my game engine, I take.

[@Swinkly_]

Best of luck, I wish you!

[@Foodius]

I really like this devlog series and it's impressive how far you've come without much coding experience! 3-4$ seems soo underpriced though, even if it's "just" a few hours of gameplay. I feel like it's a typical indie thing to do and I get that you may not want to charge 10+$ for a shorter type of game (which I think would still be totally reasonable for the amount of work you put in). But personally I think, if I'd ever were to consider buying a game, my decision would not be influenced by whether it's 3$ or e.g. 7-8$

[@Swinkly_]

Glad you're enjoying the dev logs! I can always reconsider the price point, but my main goal with this first game is not primarily to make money but to learn everything that goes into making and distributing a completed game... If the development goes really well and I'm able to add additional content I could see charging $6 or $7, but I also want the price to be accessible for pretty much anyone!

[@xVacuum]

Probably just me but it feels like most of the indie games that do well recently has 3 things in common. 1 tits (or anything that actives the monkey neurons) there's a reason why "sex sells" is a saying 2 gameplay-from the footage i think u got this cover 3 lore- 1 and 2 is to grab the players but a good lore generates fandom hence keeping a player base for the game. Then again I'm not an expert just a guy on the net with an opinion that I think would help. Keep up the great work mate 👍

[@Swinkly_]

Welp, there aren't going to be any tits in this game, but as for gameplay and lore, definitely! 😂😂

[@itstruce.]

Maybe you should try reaching out to artists with videos of your game and get someone to join you?

[@Swinkly_]

I definitely want to collaborate with an artist to make custom assets in a future project, but since I've been able to get this far and create a semi-cohesive world without, I might stick to free or premade assets for Lost Resolve. I really do look forward to working on a game with completely custom characters and environments though!

[@lynxlagoon]

"How to make your game in this oversaturated genre stand out" -> Makes a game that is literally the same as any other game in the gerne. No shade my man, but don't call your video that if you're not going to actually make it STAND OUT. Name it "Making yet another platformer because I have no idea how to innovate" or some shi The real answer to making a game stand out is 1. Presentation, which means art and polish, also kind of hard 2. Innovation, which is hard 3. Captivation, which means it better be one of the greatest stories ever told or manipulate the player into thinking it is, at that point you don't need any innovation in gameplay, even art will be overlooked by players, very hard.

[@Swinkly_]

I'd love to let this one fall under the tried and true "everyone's entitled to their opinion," but alas, the heavy-handed and matter-of-fact way you've chosen to dispense your opinion merits at least some type of response. The title of this video is "TRYING to Make a Game That Stands Out," not "HOW TO," a fact that you've chosen to overlook (as well as the question mark in the thumbnail). I'm fully aware that my first game might fail to exceed the expectations of the populous at large, but I'm trying anyway, and I'm going to learn from how it performs. Second, your criteria are fairly vague and would suggest that visual polish, innovation and story are the only thing that matters. Let's look at Super Meat Boy for an example - in my opinion, the visuals for this game are downright ugly. You could call the gameplay "innovative," but if you look closely, nearly every single element of the platforming has already existed in some form or another in games before it. And while it has a story, I doubt that is remotely the main draw for most people who've played it. Yet it's sitting on a 94% positive rating with over 25k reviews (and that's just on Steam!) How did it do this? Perhaps because there's more to games than polish and presentation, there's more to being unique than doing something completely different, and there's more to captivation than having the greatest story ever told. If you have a cohesive product that's fun, sometimes the criteria that make it stand out defy description. If you look at any of my past videos, you'll notice that I have a pattern of listening closely to feedback, even very critical feedback, from viewers and playtesters alike. However, there's a limit to that. It's fairly easy to divine whether a comment was made with the intent of being helpful or whether that person is only interested in telling everyone their (often extremely subjective) take. So, no shade, but your comment is one I'm inclined to take with a grain of salt.

[@TheBingusBongus]

No shade my man, but with this comment you did an awful lot of talking and said absolutely nothing.

[@lynxlagoon]

​@@Swinkly_ Apologies for the way I wrote my comment, I had not considered how it came across. And you are right, I did misread the video title, my mistake. That being said, I have to stick with the core argument of my (admittedly extremist) statement, your example of super meat boy clearly highlights your fundamental misunderstanding of what the term "Innovation" even means, it is not the components that make something innovative, it is often the composition of the whole, there are countless examples of this throughout history and games to the point I'm questioning how you managed to even write that sentence without asking yourself if it made any sense to you. SMB is a game that proves my point beautifully actually, more still, Innovation does not even have to be S-Tier like the other two aspects need to be in order to outweigh a lack of it. In any way, I would like to note that I'm not saying your game bad (I mean you are taking components from other games and are innovating) I'm just saying your points are.

[@Swinkly_]

@@lynxlagoon Hey, no worries! Though we may have our differences of opinion I definitely appreciate your clarification and ability to have a respectful discourse over the internet. I think there's also a profound possibility that there are some aspects of this conversation getting lost in translation, since I certainly don't consider "innovation" to mean having a product entirely distinct from anything previous - from the way you worded your initial comment, that's the perspective I (perhaps wrongfully) assumed you held. In any case, I don't think it matters much whether we see eye-to-eye. I'm quite proud of the progress I've made on my game so far, and while 2D platformers may be a saturated medium in the indie game space, I've found enough of an identity in mine that at least a small crowd will enjoy and appreciate it (evidenced by the fact that several members of the Discord have competed in speedrunning the demo without my prompting - clearly there's a nice spark of potential there). I also think there's a distinct lack of momentum-based platformers on the market - it's far more common to see rigid movement mechanics in a precision platformer these days than an emphasis on building and maintaining speed. Anyway, irrespective of who's "right" in this case, keep doing your thing, and I'll keep doing mine!