I finished my first ever Game Jam, GMTK 2024 with my puzzle-platformer, “The Nested Squares”. This is a long devlog reflecting on my game given the results and feedback.

This is the first time I have gotten so much feedback from a wide-range of people with 15 itch.io comments on my submission page and I observed and/or got 5 other comments from people not from itch.io.

There were 7,627 games in this Game Jam making it “another record-breaking jam for itch.io” [1]. My rankings are shown in the following table based on the 19 ratings my game received. 

Table 1: My Game Jam Results

*My raw score and score is the same as I did not suffer the penalty for being below the median number of ratings.

Enjoyment and creativity being in the top 1000 is a huge win for me. Interestingly, I achieved the highest rank of all games who’s style ranked in the bottom half of the Game Jam. The criteria of "Enjoyment," "Creativity," and "Style" are not independent; even if they were, humans fall victim to the halo effect (the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area). This leads me to believe my “style” score negatively influences the score on “enjoyment” and “creativity” while “enjoyment” and “creativity” could be boosting my score on style. Thus my style score may be an even larger bottleneck on my ranking than it initially appears.

The rest of this devlog analyzes ways to improve the game without discussing the style component, a critical part of games that I unfortunately have no interest or talent in.

Jumping

With 7 players expressing disdain for the jump. This is the most criticized part of the game.

Implementation

The jump uses the following length 10 array: [38, 34, 30, 26, 22, 18, 14, 10, 6, 2]

The jump that lasts 10 frames moves the player in the upwards direction by the magnitude corresponding to the index of the array.

The fall is also 10 frames traversing the array right to left, falling by the magnitude. (A longer fall will max out on falling the length of the first element.)

The medium-sized square takes the same array without the leftmost element giving a 9 frame jump and 9 frame fall.

The smallest-sized square removes the 2 leftmost elements, giving an 8 frame jump and 8 frame fall.

The game is run at 60 frames per second. The jump was so fast that 2 players commented on frame rate control.

Fast Jump

At the smallest square, a full jump takes 16 frames. 0.133 seconds to reach the max height and descend in another 0.133 seconds. Madeline from “Celeste” is described by Game Maker’s Toolkit as “going up and down very fast” [2] with a full jump of 36 frames.

We see how this jump affects gameplay both mechanically and by feel.

Difficulty of fast jump

As someone who loves Celeste and has played video games all my life, I did not think the jumps were going to provide difficulty to my players. The players that I am personally close with that I sent this game to who have similar video game experiences as I supported my hypothesis; however, about half of the people who I do not know personally found the jumping mechanic difficult.

Someone may think having a full jump in 16 frames will make jumps ridiculously difficult but jumping never requires landing on a precise platform nor does the game have variable jump heights so you always just continue pressing the direction you want the jump to complete the jump.

The only factor contributing to a successful jump is the distance the player makes the jump. If the player didn’t make the jump, they need to make the jump closer to the edge. If they fall off before jumping, they go too far.

Additionally, the game is generous in that sole variable contributing to the jump. In level 4, the most platforming-like level, players can make the jump by positioning both the red square and blue square with only half their body off the edge as shown in Figure 1. Players are able to exploit this leniency to achieve some interesting strategies as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3

Figure 1: an example of a possible jump distance to achieve a successful jump in level 4.

Figure 2: minimizing the jump distance in level 4 with precise positioning lets the blue square touch the wall without falling.

Figure 3: A speedrunning trick used by my friend dubbed the “Apple Pie skip”  uses the smallest square to platform over the gap.

There are not that many jumps in the game and all of them are relative to this difficulty. Additionally, failing a jump never takes you further back than five seconds of progress. The fast jump also may make players unable to process max height which may make puzzles harder to solve. I think what contributes to the dislike of the jump is not primarily the difficulty but actually the feel.

Feel of fast jump

I have two hypotheses on why a player may feel strongly against a fast jump.

The first is that the character has a weak platforming distance. The gap in level 4 looks very small but still requires some level of skill to make it across. Not being able to make it across a very small distance may be psychologically more frustrating to players than the same difficulty gap scaled accordingly with a slower jump. 

The second is familiarity, the jump is much faster than jumps of other games. The jump in The Nested Squares is not like the other games that they may have played and so the jump may not feel good for them.

Fast Fall

The fast jump means fast fall and having a fast fall means the final level has a timing window. About three players commented on the difficulty of the size of the timing window.

Platforming bad. Puzzle good.

I described this game as a puzzle-platformer but was forced to choose one and set the genre to platformer (with puzzle as a tag). This was not a problem as most game jammers will not see the genre; however, I chose the wrong main genre. The number of people who praised the puzzle component is 9. The number of people who praised me for the platformer component is 0.

The platforming part was only criticized (talked extensively in jump). While I thought I set the platforming difficulty bar low, I should consider setting it lower or getting rid of any platforming skill. This allows players to fully appreciate the puzzles which is what showcases the unique mechanics of the game whereas everyone has parkoured over a gap in a video game before.

Two Other Design Flaws

There are two flaws I wanted to highlight that I came up with an effective solution for.

Level 5 - Bunk Beds

This is the worst level in my opinion. None of the itch.io comments singled out this level. But the two players I watched as a live playtest implied they shared the same sentiment. The level is much longer than the other levels. The solution is one of the simplest but takes the longest to execute and contains the hardest jump in the game, the jump to the topmost bunk bed which probably contributed to the comments expressing dislike for the jumps. The original motivating idea for this level is one that highlights different sizes of squares in a new unique way.

Untaught push mechanic

Pushing is only required in level 6 and level 8. Players may not realize they can push for level 6. Two of my players fell into this category. This was a bad oversight on my part. The problem is compounded by the fact that the level design in level 6 invites unaware players to place their larger square into a wall preventing the ability to push.

A well-designed new level

I have designed a level as shown in Figure 4 to teach the push mechanic and replace the Bunk Beds level. The simple level will allow players to stumble upon pushing through limited options without them being likely to trap themselves by pushing into a wall. Additionally, it incorporates size-restricted spaces in a better way than Bunk Beds.

Figure 4: A newly designed level.

Communication

There was a few ways intent and information could have been communicated better to the players.

Instructions

One player suggested placing the simple controls/rules of the game directly into the game. It’s a simple feature to implement and players no longer have to consult my itch page upon implementation leading to a smoother experience.

Level number

One player suggested adding the level number while playing the game. I could have added this to the level completion text.

Cheese

Cheese refers to using an unintended solution. Three players questioned whether they cheesed on level 7 or 8. The only cheese in the game was the apple pie skip which was welcomed. I believe the reasons for thinking they cheesed varied from quickly coming upon the solution, the timing window execution being too difficult or not having faith in a game jam game. Upon cheesing, the player may feel clever, but it is more likely they feel disjointed and it reflects poorly on me as a level designer. One solution to this can be by giving the level names that are given to the players in the level completion text.

Examples:

• Level 5, “Bunk Beds”, completed
• Level 7, “Small Covers Two”, completed
• Level 8, “Push Jump”, completed

This also gives each level a little more personality which would have been nice for bunk beds which may have been more poetic than enjoyable to play.

Conclusion

I did well during this game jam. Through community feedback, I have more insights for future game development projects. I’m not sure if I will develop another game (or improve on this game). I really like game design but am currently not a big fan of game development. Who knows what the future holds. Thank you once again to all my players.

References 

[1] Game Maker’s Toolkit. The Best Games from GMTK Game Jam 2024. (Sept. 4, 2024). Accessed: Sept. 7, 2024. [Online Video]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqCAeFjB8Uo

[2] Game Maker’s Toolkit. Why Does Celeste Feel So Good to Play?. (Jul. 31, 2019). Accessed: Aug. 26, 2024. [Online Video]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yorTG9at90g