when I posted my playthrough of your game here I made a joke that I broke the speedrun world record.
Well, I actually made a page for the game on speedrun.com (hope you don't mind) and I am now world record holder! This joke took a lot longer to get approved than I expected but, there you go
This is a completely different mechanic from Hatch - I used Due to test it, and This game to test it further. There is also a new climbing mechanic I made that allows you do go around corners FYI. It's also more forgiving if you miss-press the jump button. You can test it out in the Beta Sandbox if you're curious :)
And for anybody else seeing this, Vo0do0leW is a wonderful Youtuber - you should definitely check out his channel!
Hi, I just played the Beta. I think the overall experienced improved since the last time I tried your game. And I actually reached the top this time!
When I run, reach the edge of a platform and am about to jump, I quite often start falling too early, and miss the opportunity to jump. I thought I was still on the platform, when actually I wasn't. Am I the only one feeling like this?
I came across a bug however. I'll share a clip on your Discord server.
Seems like a lot of the time I'm sliding off of walls I should be grappling on to. Not the best feedback. Would much prefer a manual control of the climbing axes so I could know for sure I'm gonna lock on, as opposed to making leaps and just hoping the game decides to grip me to the wall.
Hmmm. what do you mean by manual control of climbing axes?
Also have you tried the mechanic-testing sandbox? I've made MANY improvements to the climbing mechanic there that haven't been incorporated into the jam game.
In the sandbox you can climb around corners, the ledge climbing and wall clinging are much more predictable, as well as a larger variety in jumping puzzles to test the mechanic in.
I'll give the sandbox a try. By manual control, I mean... For example, in Titanfall, you can plant yourself on a wall in place by aiming down the sights while wallrunning. It's a manual action you have to consciously make. For the axes here in your game, they seem to grab on their own as long as you're moving towards a wall facing the proper direction. It's all preference, but I would like if I had to, say, constantly hold spacebar to stay latched to a wall, and release to drop. Maybe alternating mouse buttons to climb up would be a step too far, though.
Just posted a video on this game, I loved it, the Climbing felt so realistic and it was overall just a super fun and relaxing game that will take you anywhere from about 15 to 30 minutes beat.
Pros:
The climbing is very realistic and enjoyable as I have said already.
The music provides a great atmosphere and it also makes things just a little more spooky.
The sound and animation for the death of the king was also very good.
There are a few Easter eggs hidden around the game.
Cons:
The "King" felt more like an emperor than a king and he also looked like Julius Caesar, I don't really mind this, but I thought that it might annoy some people so I put it in anyways.
And that is all I have to say about this game, really enjoyed it and would definitely play more games like this one! :)
The initial learning part was difficult but after a few trys, I got the hang of it and began climbing like a seasoned professional. Very fun concept and interesting story line poking at society.
I've beaten an old version of the game, gonna try again now and beat the game again. I've had a lot of fun playing (and after I've backtracked everything to the entrance of te last "room" trying to go back, amazing experience playing this game
And beaten the 24/may/20 version, I found a place that may be an easter egg? DK. But it was amazing, the mechanics of the game seem so natural and intuitive, thanks for this game and I'll keep playing it at every release (and when I'm able to, I'll support the game too)
I think you have an interesting concept on your hands and I overall truly appreciated the experience. I just think the climbing mechanic is a bit clunky. Especially jumping from wall to wall. Also, I don't know if this is just me but, I kept falling of platforms when I attempted jumping off them, like a pressed the button too late.
Nice game, i liked the message of the king being on the top of all that structures and also the vibe, the feeling created was authentic.
Things i would say you could upgrade on the game for now - The stamina bar is barely visible and i only saw that i had one later in the game, you could make it more visible somehow or add something that express you're losing stamina like the man start grunting or making exhaustion noises, that would say you are getting tired.
-There's one part in the game that i think you need to jump one wall from another(atleast i did this way), i find it hard to connect jump between the walls because of the game works, maybe you could level design better angles or polish some of the jump mechanic/switch walls jump.
-The only thing that annoyed me was that the king was in a pathernon, it looked like a greek philosopher, the image you got had a small human holding his cape(or something like it) and the blood mostly the blood, it needs an upgrade. The greek image resembles me a emperor not a king, so thats about what i'm saying.
-When you look down while climbing you still go up if you hold the up key
-You could approach in a more philosophical way on the village people, i found the phrases somehow cliche (that's up to you, not really necessary)
Pros
-The colors, i liked it very much
-The images for the "poor" people blurred was very cool
-The sounds were on point
-The fog realy combines with the game
-The feeling on climbing was good
-The game got a good time to be beaten
-The killing animation was good
-Most important, i got a good feeling playing the game, very chill and majestic
I think the creator is doing a little more polishing on it before he makes a whole new thing on the same idea.
He also has said that some of the game design isn't the best because it was a game jam game so he had limited time.
I'm not sure about the stamina bar thing, it's 1/6 the width of the screen but isn't too high to get in the way of the player's site, if someone needs to see their stamina it's not hard to just look down for a half a second to check it.
For the wall jump part, are you talking about the part right before the bridge to the island with the slide? (You have to jump onto a differently angled part of the wall and then onto the bridge) That part can be tricky if you haven't gotten a hang of climbing and aiming your wall jumps, but besides that it's not really hard.
As for the king I think the part with it looking like a pathernon is partly him going into the greek/roman (a bit weird) fusion and the fact that he didn't have too much time to do it (game jam) so he most likely made what wouldn't take long but also looks fansy, so something made of marble pillars and blocks, the king's sprite is from a statue of Augustus Caesar (the statue's name is "Augustus of Prima Porta") which is most likely the reason (it being a statue with one color) he colored the whole thing yellow, and the baby thing came with it and would most likely have taken a good chunk of time to delete with out having that leg look bad. As for the blood, I think it's just because of how little time they had since it was a game jam, so they used a very simple brush to paint the red on a bunch of all those sprites to make an animation.
Emperor and king are mostly the same (with emperor geernally just having more power/land unless you are bringing it up because it's KOTH and not EOTH.
Okay no, it would not be good to have the up and down arrow's uses switch just from looking up or down, that would mean when ever you want/have to look down but still want to climb up you have to switch which key you are using, it's a lot easy and gives a lot more control to always have the up arrow go uo and the same thing with the down arrow (eccept down wards).
I agree with the pros, though I do have to say that the poor npcs and the king are both pixilated the same amount, the king is just bigger (most likely so you jumping to kill him makes sense.)
Some constructive criticism (please know this is all in good intentions) 1. polish movement
right now the game's movement feels janky and buggy, and in several locations i had to progress in ways i thought were out-of-bounds
talking about out of bounds i get to my second point
2. Make progression clear
in several parts of the game (the floating islands part especially) i had absolutely no idea what to do and mindlessly climbed around for half an hour. now i dont know if im bad or something but it seems rushed
3. why does it take 15 seconds to die when i fall off
this is self explanatory
4. bug fix
i ran into multiple bugs on my own and hav noticed a lot of complaints in the comments about this
Overall the game feels very rushed and unpolished. i think the game has potential and could be great but i feel you got too exited and released the game early.
I indeed still have a lot of work to do polishing the movements. As some of the other comments mentioned, these are things I didn't catch when testing, so I'm glad I shared it with the wider public.
Progression can likely be fixed with more environmental cues, I'll keep this in mind.
A lot of these issues are due to the fact that it's a jam game I finished in about 4 days or so. I hope this doesn't put you off from the potential of the mechanic to be used in full games.
I'll likely continue to release small demos like this as I polish the climbing mechanic. When it's done I will work on a full game and take more time to polish it up.
Hope you enjoyed nonetheless, and that you follow my work! :)
Uhh, I've found how to break the climbing to let be climb into walls and stuff, like once you figure it out you start seeing places you can do it everywhere, at least 23 places so far. The spot I'm most proud of is getting right under the king.
Rubehi, If you want to know I can say it here or DM, in case you don't want it just explained on the main page.
Hi, I found a bug where if you pause while climbing and jump, you float in the direction of the camera until unpaused. I was trying to look for secrets and stuff but couldnt find any.
Really well made game, although maybe a little bit boring at times. The controls are nice and responsive and the short story with a dark twist is a nice addition.
I would maybe like to see more puzzle-like climbing - at the time you mostly just climb up, maybe some not so linear paths would be awesome for future game. Also is the fog effect intentional or as an optimisation? Because I think the game would look stunning without it.
Overall, short and sweet game, perfect for couple of free minutes in the evening. <3
I noticed that at the top the fog is reduced by a lot, so I'm guessing it's to fit with the atmosphere, but I agree it would look pretty cool if it cleared a bit earlier.
"maybe some not so linear paths" There is actually at least one part where there are two ways to go up, near the top you can either go up the island that leads to the grassy slide or directly up that goes past the "unwisely spent" paper and a dead tree. But yeah it would be cool to see more.
What would be really cool is if he made an open world type game with the same climbing mechanic, maybe even using pecdural generation for some of the land and a "puzzle piece" generation for climbable structures where some of them are harder to climb than others (have it so climbs for harder ones have a smaller room for error and less obvious paths) and some kind of reward at the top of each one that scales well with being able to repeat this.
Edit: the idea of this game but open world makes me think of Shadow of the Colossus in a way, just with structures instead of colossi and more of them (potential infinte if done well enough).
I am exploring the idea of an open world game with this mechanic. Where you have to progressively climb more trecherous towers to kill more Tyranous kings.
An alternative is a level based one with a central hub (like Doom) + a level editor and ranks like Mario maker
Or perhaps something where you have to keep going higher to more difficult climbs, and somebody holds the world record as the king of the hill (or tower in this case...)
Personally think the open world type works the best (totally unbias here) with the king of the tower one in second place (though you have to deal with the fact that it would probably be hard to deal with people cheating to become the K.O.T.T) and I think the level based one with hub would lose part of the charm that games you make like this have of being very real, though a level editor does sound rad.
"to kill more Tyranous kings." I don't know about that, at least if that is the only thing you do. What I think might be cool is that this world is pretty dim and dry like the lower part of "KtK.O.T.H." but after you get to the top of a tower you can let out the life giving water at the top (might be hard to have it pour water of the sides depending on how the tower is made though) and with it life returns to the land around it (and the fog/dust ,if there is any in the area, clears, though as Burace has said the fog kind of stops the player from seeing how cool the area is)
Maybe the area is overcast to start with and you can't see past the cloud layer that the towers go through, so you can still see a lot, but it's dim and you can't see all of the tower till you clear it. Just imagine getting to the half way point, maybe two thirds up, and passing the cloud layer to see a bright clear sky, and once you clear the whole tower you can see that bright sky from the ground around the tower.
Hmmm. You've given me a lot to think about... I like the shadow of collosus + restoring water to the land that was horded by a tyrant idea. It's a simple reason to build many levels, but around an overworld map. Might be a bit ambitious though - since an open world demands a lot more tech, and I am one person.
Also just FYI, the killing of the king is supposed to be like the flag at the end of old mario levels. Just a satisfying finish-line ritual - but everyone was expecting a boss fight it seems :P
Oh I wasn't expecting a boss fight, since there wasn't any combat anywhere else in the game.
Since it just felt a bit less polished since the platforms look a lot better than the sprite stuff and with the more shadow of collosus aspect it feels like a more lonely world (no kings, just towers) would fit better. Also a cool sequence of gears or mechanical parts moving to release the water could also be really satifying and a bit cinematic too.
Oh also it seems the game Hatch he made has a lot less fog, haven't played it since it costs three dollars but I think it just depends on the situation if he does fog or not.
Fog is just atmospheric as Edit pointed out, I kept it to obfuscate the fact that there isn't much terrain besides what you interact with :P
I'm exploring the idea of making a puzzle-like climbing game. Ripe for speed-running and all. Definitely will build on this mechanic, since it's near and dear to me.
If you want a bit more of a challenge, you can hunt the 4 notes. They are in harder to reach areas :)
I just realized that the fog also helps to hide the notes too, you have to really pay attention to any odd cliff you don't remember climbing to to find one of the notes, but very satisfying to find it.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
this was such a chill game to play, i was sad when it ended because i wanted to keep climbing
Loved the surrealist atmosphere.
first part of the game is too hard
the 3rd jump you got to do is broken on mac
My playthrough of your game
very good game, nice twist at the end
nice game
cant wait for the steam game to get be finished
I played your game
This game is super nice, more levels! :)
No Commentary
Hey Rubeki,
when I posted my playthrough of your game here I made a joke that I broke the speedrun world record.
Well, I actually made a page for the game on speedrun.com (hope you don't mind) and I am now world record holder! This joke took a lot longer to get approved than I expected but, there you go
https://www.speedrun.com/kill_the_k.o.t.h/full_game
Very cool! If you like speedrunning, you're in for a treat with my next release based on this game :)
I loved the game and the atmosphere especially the emptiness and the ambient sound.
Only thing to fix for the next game, would love to see the coyote jump mechanic.
Thanks for playing! Enjoyed your video as usual.
This is a completely different mechanic from Hatch - I used Due to test it, and This game to test it further. There is also a new climbing mechanic I made that allows you do go around corners FYI. It's also more forgiving if you miss-press the jump button. You can test it out in the Beta Sandbox if you're curious :)
And for anybody else seeing this, Vo0do0leW is a wonderful Youtuber - you should definitely check out his channel!
Hi, I just played the Beta. I think the overall experienced improved since the last time I tried your game. And I actually reached the top this time!
When I run, reach the edge of a platform and am about to jump, I quite often start falling too early, and miss the opportunity to jump. I thought I was still on the platform, when actually I wasn't. Am I the only one feeling like this?
I came across a bug however. I'll share a clip on your Discord server.
Glad you reached the top!
I responded to the feedback Discord :)
Seems like a lot of the time I'm sliding off of walls I should be grappling on to. Not the best feedback. Would much prefer a manual control of the climbing axes so I could know for sure I'm gonna lock on, as opposed to making leaps and just hoping the game decides to grip me to the wall.
Hmmm. what do you mean by manual control of climbing axes?
Also have you tried the mechanic-testing sandbox? I've made MANY improvements to the climbing mechanic there that haven't been incorporated into the jam game.
In the sandbox you can climb around corners, the ledge climbing and wall clinging are much more predictable, as well as a larger variety in jumping puzzles to test the mechanic in.
I'll give the sandbox a try. By manual control, I mean... For example, in Titanfall, you can plant yourself on a wall in place by aiming down the sights while wallrunning. It's a manual action you have to consciously make. For the axes here in your game, they seem to grab on their own as long as you're moving towards a wall facing the proper direction. It's all preference, but I would like if I had to, say, constantly hold spacebar to stay latched to a wall, and release to drop. Maybe alternating mouse buttons to climb up would be a step too far, though.
My latest gameplay here
Haha, yes I commissioned that from Trevor.
It's absolutely terrifying!
Also that background picture is from my apartment building's stariwell :D
gonna try the sandbox mode next, very excited!
Let me know if you want to join the Discord :)
I will try to do that, your best friend! Also my school will begin Tomorrow, I've gonna come to you back soon.
Just posted a video on this game, I loved it, the Climbing felt so realistic and it was overall just a super fun and relaxing game that will take you anywhere from about 15 to 30 minutes beat.
Pros:
The climbing is very realistic and enjoyable as I have said already.
The music provides a great atmosphere and it also makes things just a little more spooky.
The sound and animation for the death of the king was also very good.
There are a few Easter eggs hidden around the game.
Cons:
The "King" felt more like an emperor than a king and he also looked like Julius Caesar, I don't really mind this, but I thought that it might annoy some people so I put it in anyways.
And that is all I have to say about this game, really enjoyed it and would definitely play more games like this one! :)
The climbing aspect was hella fun to be honest.
The initial learning part was difficult but after a few trys, I got the hang of it and began climbing like a seasoned professional. Very fun concept and interesting story line poking at society.
I've beaten an old version of the game, gonna try again now and beat the game again. I've had a lot of fun playing (and after I've backtracked everything to the entrance of te last "room" trying to go back, amazing experience playing this game
And beaten the 24/may/20 version, I found a place that may be an easter egg? DK. But it was amazing, the mechanics of the game seem so natural and intuitive, thanks for this game and I'll keep playing it at every release (and when I'm able to, I'll support the game too)
I think you have an interesting concept on your hands and I overall truly appreciated the experience. I just think the climbing mechanic is a bit clunky. Especially jumping from wall to wall. Also, I don't know if this is just me but, I kept falling of platforms when I attempted jumping off them, like a pressed the button too late.
what will be new? i wonder
Really good game !
Nice game, i liked the message of the king being on the top of all that structures and also the vibe, the feeling created was authentic.
Things i would say you could upgrade on the game for now
- The stamina bar is barely visible and i only saw that i had one later in the game, you could make it more visible somehow or add something that express you're losing stamina like the man start grunting or making exhaustion noises, that would say you are getting tired.
-There's one part in the game that i think you need to jump one wall from another(atleast i did this way), i find it hard to connect jump between the walls because of the game works, maybe you could level design better angles or polish some of the jump mechanic/switch walls jump.
-The only thing that annoyed me was that the king was in a pathernon, it looked like a greek philosopher, the image you got had a small human holding his cape(or something like it) and the blood mostly the blood, it needs an upgrade. The greek image resembles me a emperor not a king, so thats about what i'm saying.
-When you look down while climbing you still go up if you hold the up key
-You could approach in a more philosophical way on the village people, i found the phrases somehow cliche (that's up to you, not really necessary)
Pros
-The colors, i liked it very much
-The images for the "poor" people blurred was very cool
-The sounds were on point
-The fog realy combines with the game
-The feeling on climbing was good
-The game got a good time to be beaten
-The killing animation was good
-Most important, i got a good feeling playing the game, very chill and majestic
I think the creator is doing a little more polishing on it before he makes a whole new thing on the same idea.
He also has said that some of the game design isn't the best because it was a game jam game so he had limited time.
I'm not sure about the stamina bar thing, it's 1/6 the width of the screen but isn't too high to get in the way of the player's site, if someone needs to see their stamina it's not hard to just look down for a half a second to check it.
For the wall jump part, are you talking about the part right before the bridge to the island with the slide? (You have to jump onto a differently angled part of the wall and then onto the bridge) That part can be tricky if you haven't gotten a hang of climbing and aiming your wall jumps, but besides that it's not really hard.
As for the king I think the part with it looking like a pathernon is partly him going into the greek/roman (a bit weird) fusion and the fact that he didn't have too much time to do it (game jam) so he most likely made what wouldn't take long but also looks fansy, so something made of marble pillars and blocks, the king's sprite is from a statue of Augustus Caesar (the statue's name is "Augustus of Prima Porta") which is most likely the reason (it being a statue with one color) he colored the whole thing yellow, and the baby thing came with it and would most likely have taken a good chunk of time to delete with out having that leg look bad. As for the blood, I think it's just because of how little time they had since it was a game jam, so they used a very simple brush to paint the red on a bunch of all those sprites to make an animation.
Emperor and king are mostly the same (with emperor geernally just having more power/land unless you are bringing it up because it's KOTH and not EOTH.
Okay no, it would not be good to have the up and down arrow's uses switch just from looking up or down, that would mean when ever you want/have to look down but still want to climb up you have to switch which key you are using, it's a lot easy and gives a lot more control to always have the up arrow go uo and the same thing with the down arrow (eccept down wards).
I agree with the pros, though I do have to say that the poor npcs and the king are both pixilated the same amount, the king is just bigger (most likely so you jumping to kill him makes sense.)
Nice game keep up the good work !!
I LOVED IT!
Amazing Game! Reminds me of Getting Over It! Keep up the good work
Great game, thanks!
well, your games are great and i am still loving every game graphics that you make everyday, your games are just that great! very neat thing!
Cool concept, I enjoyed playing it. You could definately expand on the concept if you wanted to. I would really enjoy climbing more hills.
I personally thought the movement was really smooth. It was really satisfying to play. I would buy a full release of this game.
Some constructive criticism (please know this is all in good intentions)
1. polish movement
right now the game's movement feels janky and buggy, and in several locations i had to progress in ways i thought were out-of-bounds
talking about out of bounds i get to my second point
2. Make progression clear
in several parts of the game (the floating islands part especially) i had absolutely no idea what to do and mindlessly climbed around for half an hour. now i dont know if im bad or something but it seems rushed
3. why does it take 15 seconds to die when i fall off
this is self explanatory
4. bug fix
i ran into multiple bugs on my own and hav noticed a lot of complaints in the comments about this
Overall the game feels very rushed and unpolished. i think the game has potential and could be great but i feel you got too exited and released the game early.
Thanks for the specific feedback, Dunamis!
I indeed still have a lot of work to do polishing the movements. As some of the other comments mentioned, these are things I didn't catch when testing, so I'm glad I shared it with the wider public.
Progression can likely be fixed with more environmental cues, I'll keep this in mind.
A lot of these issues are due to the fact that it's a jam game I finished in about 4 days or so. I hope this doesn't put you off from the potential of the mechanic to be used in full games.
I'll likely continue to release small demos like this as I polish the climbing mechanic. When it's done I will work on a full game and take more time to polish it up.
Hope you enjoyed nonetheless, and that you follow my work! :)
Ahh that makes more sense. its good for a jam game!
Uhh, I've found how to break the climbing to let be climb into walls and stuff, like once you figure it out you start seeing places you can do it everywhere, at least 23 places so far. The spot I'm most proud of is getting right under the king.
Rubehi, If you want to know I can say it here or DM, in case you don't want it just explained on the main page.
Hey Edit, please DM :P
Alright, I don't know how to DM on itch (if you can) could you DM on here or we could DM through discord.
I think I enabled public messages on twitter: https://twitter.com/_rubeki
You can message me there
Hi, I found a bug where if you pause while climbing and jump, you float in the direction of the camera until unpaused. I was trying to look for secrets and stuff but couldnt find any.
There shouldn't be a pause button...
When you jump off a wall, it will apply force in the direction you're looking at. Is that the same thing you are describing?
hitting p locks the controls and camera but has this weird interaction with climbing
I actually just saw a video of this.
I never implemented pausing, but the pre-made asset I built the climbing mechanic ontop of had an un-documented pause feature!
It's been patched. No pausing anymore :)
Fun and nice, the beginning was very hard. especially when it wouldn't register that i was on the wall
Really well made game, although maybe a little bit boring at times. The controls are nice and responsive and the short story with a dark twist is a nice addition.
I would maybe like to see more puzzle-like climbing - at the time you mostly just climb up, maybe some not so linear paths would be awesome for future game. Also is the fog effect intentional or as an optimisation? Because I think the game would look stunning without it.
Overall, short and sweet game, perfect for couple of free minutes in the evening. <3
I noticed that at the top the fog is reduced by a lot, so I'm guessing it's to fit with the atmosphere, but I agree it would look pretty cool if it cleared a bit earlier.
"maybe some not so linear paths"
There is actually at least one part where there are two ways to go up, near the top you can either go up the island that leads to the grassy slide or directly up that goes past the "unwisely spent" paper and a dead tree. But yeah it would be cool to see more.
What would be really cool is if he made an open world type game with the same climbing mechanic, maybe even using pecdural generation for some of the land and a "puzzle piece" generation for climbable structures where some of them are harder to climb than others (have it so climbs for harder ones have a smaller room for error and less obvious paths) and some kind of reward at the top of each one that scales well with being able to repeat this.
Edit: the idea of this game but open world makes me think of Shadow of the Colossus in a way, just with structures instead of colossi and more of them (potential infinte if done well enough).
I am exploring the idea of an open world game with this mechanic. Where you have to progressively climb more trecherous towers to kill more Tyranous kings.
An alternative is a level based one with a central hub (like Doom) + a level editor and ranks like Mario maker
Or perhaps something where you have to keep going higher to more difficult climbs, and somebody holds the world record as the king of the hill (or tower in this case...)
I have some thinking to do...
Amazing! Definitely will look into that once it is finished. Keep up the good work!
Personally think the open world type works the best (totally unbias here) with the king of the tower one in second place (though you have to deal with the fact that it would probably be hard to deal with people cheating to become the K.O.T.T) and I think the level based one with hub would lose part of the charm that games you make like this have of being very real, though a level editor does sound rad.
"to kill more Tyranous kings." I don't know about that, at least if that is the only thing you do. What I think might be cool is that this world is pretty dim and dry like the lower part of "KtK.O.T.H." but after you get to the top of a tower you can let out the life giving water at the top (might be hard to have it pour water of the sides depending on how the tower is made though) and with it life returns to the land around it (and the fog/dust ,if there is any in the area, clears, though as Burace has said the fog kind of stops the player from seeing how cool the area is)
Maybe the area is overcast to start with and you can't see past the cloud layer that the towers go through, so you can still see a lot, but it's dim and you can't see all of the tower till you clear it. Just imagine getting to the half way point, maybe two thirds up, and passing the cloud layer to see a bright clear sky, and once you clear the whole tower you can see that bright sky from the ground around the tower.
Hmmm. You've given me a lot to think about... I like the shadow of collosus + restoring water to the land that was horded by a tyrant idea. It's a simple reason to build many levels, but around an overworld map. Might be a bit ambitious though - since an open world demands a lot more tech, and I am one person.
Also just FYI, the killing of the king is supposed to be like the flag at the end of old mario levels. Just a satisfying finish-line ritual - but everyone was expecting a boss fight it seems :P
Oh I wasn't expecting a boss fight, since there wasn't any combat anywhere else in the game.
Since it just felt a bit less polished since the platforms look a lot better than the sprite stuff and with the more shadow of collosus aspect it feels like a more lonely world (no kings, just towers) would fit better. Also a cool sequence of gears or mechanical parts moving to release the water could also be really satifying and a bit cinematic too.
Oh also it seems the game Hatch he made has a lot less fog, haven't played it since it costs three dollars but I think it just depends on the situation if he does fog or not.
Fog is just atmospheric as Edit pointed out, I kept it to obfuscate the fact that there isn't much terrain besides what you interact with :P
I'm exploring the idea of making a puzzle-like climbing game. Ripe for speed-running and all. Definitely will build on this mechanic, since it's near and dear to me.
If you want a bit more of a challenge, you can hunt the 4 notes. They are in harder to reach areas :)
I just realized that the fog also helps to hide the notes too, you have to really pay attention to any odd cliff you don't remember climbing to to find one of the notes, but very satisfying to find it.
Oh and I think you miss counted the number of notes. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Biq6Gy1lWH8&feature=youtu.be