Grats - running a download now will throw in some feedback as I play it.

Game looks good. Can only get as far as faceball who erases my butt everytime before I even get to the jump -- only quibble I really have is that the turning while driving forwards or backwards is not very responsive. I tend to need to stop to often in order to use the right or left turn by itself as I have run out of room whilst going forward trying to turn.

Oh and how do you exit?

Heck yeah man. Congrats on delivering! I'm too brain dead to give it a test after last night. I'm about to upload mine and take a long nap. /hifives

Since time is running out, I'm going through a few entries to test for people. I agree with Stormynature, the keyboard controls are a little rough, but I really like the level and notes along the way. Cool concept on the theme. The different hazards are interesting too.

@Stormy: Did you try the temp version, or the final submission (post-edit)?

The faceball is the boss, I was worried it would be easier than the 'level' (platform) right before it, I'm glad it's giving you some trouble :) Post-edit, I've increased acceleration of the car, so you can overtake the boss if you know what you're doing. It should make things simpler, but you never know.

I urge you to try it: the conclusion really helps understanding how I've used the theme :)

I've also increased rotation speed because I felt it was a bit clunky to use. Let me know if you feel it handles better if you get a sec to try it again!

Exit: alt-f4 (as suggested in the readme.txt). I realize that's a bit 'caveman', but I focused on gameplay alone (read: I have no good excuse for that!)

@Eck: Thanks. Did you pick the final build or the one before?

Your game is awesome. And extremely hard.

It started at Hard and went to Hell mode.

Kirk (@mrpossoms) and I played it for nearly an hour and managed to get to the electric orb thingy? and couldn't make it passed it.

The little story elements on the desk we're an awesome touch too.

Awesome glad you liked it!

I think the controls are making it harder than it should, I made a patch for final delivery, but it might have remained a tad too complex. My playtesters weren't typical playtesters, so I was fine with them struggling with some parts of the game because I felt gamers would be ok overcoming these obstacles, but I might have erred.

An hour eh? That's amazing! I was afraid it would last about 5-10 minutes tops. I can imagine the frustration after an hour of not being able to complete the game though. I don't think there's nearly enough content to keep people satisfied for a whole hour.

Electric Orb Thingy? Do you mean the four 'black rays' in cross-shape?

It's a shame you couldn't complete it, the last story element would really make you realize what the game really is about... I'll post a video walkthrough next week, along with my post mortem. Perhaps you can throw a glance at it then

(Thanks for taking the time to comment on this! Sure appreciate the feedback!)

Hey Orymus3 - yup not sure what version I used - probably the older one -- I will return to complete the game have no doubts on that - Just ended up testing a lot of the builds for various folks as the day went on -- It was mentioned by Eck and Garret but I think I should emphasise it again - the story elements were really well done.

Thanks Stormy. Glad you liked it :)

Let me know if you think something is too hard, or if difficulty origins primarily in defective controls. Even though the competition is over, I can still maintain this with minimal changes.

At first I didn't think the "falling" was working, cause it seemed so forgiving ... whoa was I wrong ... Never realized how cruel a fate being shoved off a desk by a spinning pencil could be. I didn't make it far my first game, it definitely ramps up the challenge pretty well. Good job.

Tanks Xai.

Yes, my post-mortem will address this "forgiving" problem. It originated as a wrong technical decision, but evolved into a "players will need this" pretty quickly.

I really like the first scripted obstacle (the pencil) because it clearly shows the player there's another dimension to the gameplay. It also marks the end of what I refer to as the tutorial levels (everything before that introduces new gameplay ingredients, but limited challenge).

Let me know if you end up beating it. Originally, I wanted to have a timer to give people an idea of how long it took them to beat the game, but given the recurring life system (with object permanence), I figured it wouldn't be fitting. Still, I think it could be cool to compare times ;)

Okay, so I just beat your game! I will list a couple good things a few things I would like to see improved for next time, and a couple more good things. A feedback sandwich if you will.

Good:

The car sound. Honestly, this was perfect. I read that you used jfxr to get some stuff quick. The sound was just loud enough I could hear it, but quiet enough that it was not distracting. I think it was great.

The difficulty. It increased with each passed desk. Which to me felt like levels. I felt like I got better at the game with each desk passed. Excuse my language, but f*** those pink erasers. hahah I felt accomplished when I got past them.

Improve upon:

Car controls. It felt like I was on ice most of the time. This also added to the difficulty I suspect and maybe it would be too easy if it handled with tight controls. But I would of liked to see some more expansion on each 'desk puzzle' with some small fast spinning pencils and pink erasers and more teachers stare.

At the end, instead of fading to black I would of liked to use WASD to simply fly around and see what I passed through. I would like to read the story I missed because I was too focused on getting to the lightbulbs.

Good Again:

I know it contradicts what I just said, but I will have to go and play through again just to read the story that I know I didn't have time to read. I suppose this forces a replay and is a good thing, but is a minor annoyance which is why I listed it up above. I suppose this is a design decision up to you.

The light bulb checkpoints. I had a serious fear that I would have to go all the way to the start again and was so happy that I got to start at my last lightbulb. Even though I wasn't facing towards where I needed to go when I respawned (it seemed random) I was happy enough that I got to start there.

Overall I would say great job for a week. I think that can be said about a lot of games done in a gamejam but I felt challenged, I felt success, and I swore a couple times. I think that is what makes a good game. Congrats.

Thanks 0sok! I appreciate the review!

Regarding car sounds, I created one in jfxr and filtered it through my tool of choice: Goldwave (I've had a license for this software for over a decade I believe!). It's all the same sound, but I've altered the pitch (while keeping the same length) and filtered the outro in a volume fade-out to limit clipping (there's still some, but it's not as bad...)

Originally, I had a song playing at the same time, and I felt they were competing for attention. In the end, I couldn't record a better track that wouldn't compete with the lows of the car sounds, and making the car pitch higher just didn't sound right, so I kept the car sounds alone hoping that it would be enough.

Regarding pink erasers (I thought they were red!), this was an idea from my gf actually. She's a big fan of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and she figured I should replicate the bumpers (these blue things in some dungeons) in some way, and she felt an eraser was the perfect fit for that. Plus, it was a fast reskin for me, so hey!

The Car controls were indeed a bit sloppy, but I couldn't make them just extra tight: a race track comes with a lot of drag afterall. Overall, I feel I ended up with something more playable than Micro-Machines (which was an old inspiration I haven't played in 20 or so years) so I was ok shipping that, particularly because this was a 7-days event.

Could you define more what you mean by "expansion on each desk puzzle"? You seem to be implying there are no small fast spinning pencils, but there are?

"At the end, instead of fading to black I would of liked to use WASD to simply fly around and see what I passed through"

Interesting. I could probably make that fix actually. All it would require is a mere condition on the altitude decline and light decay. That being said, there may yet be simpler or cleaner ways to allow you to read the full story. I haven't given this much thought, I guess I was ok with closing that "book" once this competition is over.

Re: Lightbulbs: The direction you faced when dying is the direction you'll face upon respawn. Since each bulb makes you spawn at a position where the expected respawn angle would be different, I didn't quite have time to implement a system that would always "know". Granted, I could've just made a public variable on the prefab, and refer to it for angle of spawn and set them up manually, but time was running short and I spent my last few hours on the parallax instead, which I believe added a lot to the game. Perhaps I should've focused more on this, but I guess I got used to it sufficiently that I didn't think it was much of an annoyance.

I like your definition of a good game: Challenge, Success, Swearing :)

Thanks again!

Could you define more what you mean by "expansion on each desk puzzle"? You seem to be implying there are no small fast spinning pencils, but there are?

So at the end you had the three very fast spinning pencils. I would of liked to see a couple desks stringed together next to each other(without rulers between them) that created longer "levels" and these would include combining the fast spinning pencils WITH the pink(or red erasers I may be color blind?) WITH the teacher's stare. I know this sounds like it could be very difficult, but I felt like your difficulty ramp up was just a little short of the highest difficulty you could have gone. That is a personal opinion though. Sometimes too hard is a bad thing.

I went back and replayed to get the story. Overall, well done. ps. you aged yourself with the goldwave comment :P

Could you define more what you mean by "expansion on each desk puzzle"? You seem to be implying there are no small fast spinning pencils, but there are?

So at the end you had the three very fast spinning pencils. I would of liked to see a couple desks stringed together next to each other(without rulers between them) that created longer "levels" and these would include combining the fast spinning pencils WITH the pink(or red erasers I may be color blind?) WITH the teacher's stare. I know this sounds like it could be very difficult, but I felt like your difficulty ramp up was just a little short of the highest difficulty you could have gone. That is a personal opinion though. Sometimes too hard is a bad thing.

I went back and replayed to get the story. Overall, well done. ps. you aged yourself with the goldwave comment

To be fair, most people are struggling enough as it is, but it is good to know you would've liked to play more of it :)

What I realized is that I created a sufficient amount of gameplay ingredients to generate much more levels than I did, but, short of time, I did not see fit to add plenty more. As a result, the game might be a tad short, but the levels I did implement tend to be "ok". I wouldn't have wanted to lower the quality bar for quantity, but in an unrestricted timeframe, it is perfectly possible to imagine this scaling up.

As for goldwave, I thought it was common knowledge that I'm not that young ;)

Then again, I have written my first "hello world" at the age of 7, so this could still be misleading...