What makes a good 2d platformer?

We optimize the Player Movement Controls in our Indie 2D Platformer and make the input feel responsive and precise.
Other great videos:
• Making a Jump You Can ...
• Ultimate 2D Platformer...
If you want to play around with different values by yourself:
gmtk.itch.io/platformer-toolkit

[@NowKnownMAWO]

Nice player controller :) A few suggestions to make the game feel even better: - Camera Controller (smooth follow and directional preview) - Stretch & Squeeze Animations (jumpstart, groundhit) - Random Audio Pitch (for sound which gets repeated often like jumping (I often use between: 0.9-1.1)) Have fun with developing :)

[@jero_villada]

the movement improved a lot. I'd suggest you tweak the camera's behavior a bit. A good example you can base this on is Hollow knight's camera or Celeste obviously.

[@OctagonalSquare]

Those are both great games but far from the only way to do 2D platformer cameras. And if you mostly have long levels and not a bunch of rooms, they aren’t the best

[@jero_villada]

​@@OctagonalSquareyeah I'm just giving some examples of games that managed to make the camera feel good, saying it's perfectly fine to get inspiration from those. Celeste's camera and hollow knight's may seem like they're the same but they're actually really different. Another great example is Webbed, though that one moves with your cursor. If you want to see different approaches to the camera problem there's a lot of games that solve it in different ways, like dead cells (slow moving camera with fast moving character), Sonic (fast moving character with even faster moving camera), geometry dash (camera fixed to a certain path instead of it being fixed to the character), etc. There's a great video from game maker's toolkit about cameras in videogames

[@sitrusjo]

Celest is motlys Static as it's room based, not sure how it would translate to this

[@jero_villada]

@@sitrusjo there's some longer stages later on, also the tutorial has one or two long stages iirc

[@titus1838]

I like how the movement turned out! Though I think the camera could deserve some love. This way the movement won't feel as rigid :D

[@shivanshchanana1]

Exactly what I thought

[@REVYMofficial]

Well done! A great developer really puts some consideration into designing the game's controls, and you've done that wonderfully! 😊

[@Poetax]

This is such a great video! I love that you showed all the improvements one by one.

[@ct2xperience749]

In Dark Witch 3 I not sure if this was a mechanic but I remember calling it magnet boots. The way it works is that there are platforms you can jump onto from below. If you jump a little too short often you fall back down to the previous platform, but with magnet boots you are considered to have made it onto that top platform. Another thing with this is that while falling if you were a few inches away from the ground you will immediately snap to it instead of fall the rest of the way. The way they did it made it very helpful to jump quickly after. Lastly, this isn't something about the mechanic but you can short hop. REALLY short hop like in the game in your vid quickly pressing the jump will still make you jump a curtain height, but doing that in this game will barely get you of the ground. In other words you have more control of how short you want your jumps to be.

[@ct2xperience749]

I play this forgotten indie game called Legend of Dark Witch 3. Truth is I played them all, but this one in particular hits the nail perfectly when it comes to the feel of the controls. Although there are some things you may not agree with I'll still would recommend you play it to know how good it feels. The only probably is though is that it's not very accessable like the other entries.

[@Z-713]

Great video! Helps a lot ❤️

[@Aqua-Ash]

One thing would to have the camera follow the player more smoothly. And maybe zoom it out a bit. This allows the player to more easily see what's going on and where they need to go. Also great improvements!

[@jarrettonions3392]

Very nice. Great tips, i have previously incorporated most, but the one about deceleration on land is a new one, i have felt the issue, but havent addressed it yet.

[@myrrysmiasi4866]

That's a lot of improvement! Have you considered making it possible to jump up through the smallest platforms? I think that would feel pretty correct and make getting up the "chimney" after the fall a lot less janky.

[@foreducation408]

really helpful tips gonna use them if I ever make a platformer game.

[@backyy07]

Cool game, I really like when games are smooth like this

[@platano8893]

Great work! One piece of feedback: with the camera being attached to the character, you can't see where you are falling.

[@Willow_and_Sage]

Amazing video!

[@owencmyk]

You should make the camera smoother and not follow the player so strictly. Preferably also make sure that the camera pans in the direction you're facing so you can see more ahead of you

[@danielalva2]

Great title and thumbnail! Subd immediately

[@jotomato]

I wish there’s a video for tiled movements common techniques.

[@AlGny2]

Cam delay ? or shake ?

[@hoshmandshahomohammed2676]

Well Done!

[@dbweb.creative]

Mimic controls of Felix The Cat 1992 on NES. Excellent feel for parkouring 2D. One of the best, if not The best feeling 2D platformer controls.

[@LusciousMin]

I love it when the controls are good because it makes me feel like I’m in control. (And every mistake or death is my fault 😂)

[@GalacticChimp]

I don't understand what's meant by giving the player a boost near the apex of the jump. 5:09 Can anyone help clarify what was meant by this, or how this might have been implemented?

[@GalacticChimp]

Looks like I found a video with the answer and an included a code example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aaS6ha2DqNKXrpo

[@jaspermori]

great video. I'd tweak the camera too. i felt sick watching you jump, probably some delay on the camera might help

[@Selrisitai]

The only thing I'd suggest after seeing the final version in this video, which is dramatically improved from the beginning of the video, is to add a couple of newly drawn frames to various animations. I know that tweening is easy, but it also looks and feels worse, and specifically stiffer, than frame-by-frame animation. You don't need to add 10 frames of animation to everything, but adding just two to three fully new frames could be the difference between decent and excellent.

[@FiddleStoneGames]

Thank you for your feedback! We absolutely agree with you! This is the curse of being open about the development, since you have to show very early pre alpha footage that would never end up in the final game like that (although we have some AAA titles in mind that did exactly that)

[@theclimbto1]

"It's not just one thing, it's two..." Crafty and clever, okay I'm prepared, here comes the 'Like and Subscribe' and actually, it was a good one. "Actual information on more things we fixed." Well played, guy making video. Well played.

[@LogicalKip]

*How to make a platformer feel good

[@pleasantlygrim6712]

Mechanic Idea: what if when you hold down the jump key in the air the player character starts to fall faster and lands on their belly giving them a slightly higher jump and when performing this action on a slope will propel the character further. I think this would be a fun way to add more depth to the gameplay while sticking with the theme.

[@R4v3nB14ck]

I think the vertical movement still too fast, makes me a little bit dizzy, but anyway you made a lot of improvement! pd: also horizontal movement changes to drastically, it could be smoother like in mario bros using acceleration

[@Taehc]

Coyote time still doesn't sit right with me. Platforming is about accuracy in pressing buttons. If we give leniency for jumping, why not also for, say, stomping on enemies?

[@ICLHStudio]

I agree, coyote time and jump buffering are often overdone, sometimes to the point of actually making things feel worse. When done right, they should be about compensating for input/display lag or discrepancies between hitboxes and visuals, it should be about making the timing challenges feel fair and correct to the limitations of human perception, not trivializing them (or worse, making them feel even less responsive than when they started).

[@finesseandstyle]

Hitting enemies is more skill based and that isn't being touched If you don't land well on enemies you might simply lose health. Coyote time is all about making the game less punishing. If you don't hit the jump before a ledge you lose a life, restart and frustrate the player. And why isn't buffering inputs also a problem then since it's pretty much the same thing but reversed?

[@Taehc]

@@finesseandstyle ...Isn't jumping on time also skill based? And isn't missing stomping an enemy at 1 health will also frustratingly force you to restart? But I don't wanna argue, let's just say I'll activate coyote jump on easy mode.

[@ledkicker2392]

@@Taehc Celeste is using coyote time, is it not a skill based game? It has some easy mode helper features, but coyote time is not among them

[@Taehc]

@@ledkicker2392 Well it's still literally "jumping late and still kick the air". Isn't that leniency? And not every platformer has to be Celeste. Honest question: Did Super Mario World SNES have coyote?

[@HalkerVeil]

Forgot the camera lerp. It's way too harsh.

[@nagg66vu]

If its still relevant, you can fix camera, it's feeling too much shaking

[@jubbsticksmusic]

kinda hurts to watch with the camera, but i understand thats a whole different thing from game-feel

[@DJ_POOP_IT_OUT_FEAT_LIL_WiiWii]

game is missing smooth scrolling too

[@williamworchibobeagomez9220]

poor chef probably lost some pounds doing all that exercise xD

[@HereIsANewGuest]

Just one question, for which I don't have an answer: Do players want to control a big chef with a big nose and no eyes?

[@FiddleStoneGames]

Hi @HereIsANewGuest, thank you for your feedback! When phrased like that, you can ask that question about most games :D especially nintendo games

[@HereIsANewGuest]

@@FiddleStoneGames Mario has been around for a long time, and in his time there was less competition. :-) And we see his eyes... and his last iterations are rather pretty nice, despite the original design. For me, it's a real question. My opinion is not important, because I am only one person ! But to be honest, as such, the character design wouldn't make me want to play. The game would really have to be very good. So, I hope it's sure that other players like this chef. Of course, I know nothing. Maybe with the settings, or the staging, or the style of play, its design will make totally sense. Maybe there will be multiple costumes, or characters. Maybe it will evolve, I don't know the project. Maybe it will be great just the way it is! I have no truth. :-) But if I compare its design with most other platformers, it's not love at first sight here (just for me). Dave the diver has shown that you can break into video games without being top model or super cute, but he has great charisma! :-D Good job anyway and thanks for the video !

[@orangelimesky]

You missed out on tweaking the camera as well. Player should always be slightly off center of the camera, camera should be less snappy, and the most important of all movements, there should be dead zones for the player so the camera isn't moving instantaneously with the player's slightest movement.

[@joseluispcr]

a game about a jumping italian steriotipe

[@CeylonGameCenter]

u need to improve the camera controller too

[@finesseandstyle]

The time improvement of course would make sense for these changes but it would also make sense if players simply memorized the level. Did you factor that?

[@FiddleStoneGames]

Thank you for your feedback! of course, we are sure that it definitely plays a major role. We memorized the course quite quick, however it shouldn't serve a scientific purpose ;-) We just needed a reference to see if the tweaking we did each time improved the feeling of solving the level, or if we made it worse

[@TanTanich]

"its easy to make a game" they say...

[@FortbloxNET]

i don't know what i expected from this video with that title, but this is the 100.000.000th player controller video i've seen. such a waste of time.

[@notTryio]

You sound a bit german but im not sure

[@chillithid8888]

"How to make it feel good." Is a statement, not a question. The question would be written as, "How can we/do we make it feel good?"

[@aberrantcurse8551]

🤓

[@EB-bl6cc]

cool video but definitely clickbaity since you only talked about fixing a player controller for a sidescrolling platformer; most of this information didn't have any relevance w regard to other types of games.

[@yusarimahubara]

Change the title to "How to make platformer games feel good?

[@VincenzoBarbato]

the background moving every time the player jumps is making me vomit

[@houssamassila6274]

You know what's really crap? a camera locked on the player in a jumping game! stop abruptly bouncing the camera it's irritating!!