Pin cushion is a discovery platformer (a metroidvania without the "vania" part), where instead of exploring a vast open world, you have to figure out how the world around you changes in reaction to your movements. To keep within the theme, there are several points on the map where the whole room shifts, with parts of the foreground sliding away into the background, and parts of the background coming forward to make new platforms or obstacles.
I ran into some physics problems during the first day, so I ended up losing about four hours to that. As a result, the map isn't finished, there is no sound or music, and the player is just a blue block. I mainly wanted to focus on making a platformer with tight and responsive controls, so that's where I put most of the time.
Most of the controls are explained in-game. The only one that isn't is that you can press R or the back button (360 controller) to go back to where you last transitioned.
EDIT: I have updated the map to remove the spot that makes it unwinnable. I have also added a link to a map that shows where everything is.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 100% |
| #726 | Graphics | 2.80 |
| #830 | Overall | 2.93 |
| #874 | Theme | 3.34 |
| #882 | Innovation | 2.64 |
| #908 | Audio | 1.75 |
| #920 | Mood | 2.50 |
| #922 | Fun | 2.65 |
Comments
wouldve liked to play it but it lags waaay too mucn on my machine. oh well
I normally don't like platform games at all, but this I liked a lot more than most.
I enjoyed it, was fun gaining additional abilities, was there any end of game though?
Krz: Yes, there is an end. If you are having trouble finding it, check the guide map, it should give you an idea of where you need to go.
Big screen, laggy on my mackbook. I would use spikes on the walls.
This is a pretty decent platformer for being made in the LD time limit. A few things I ran into though... I collected the sandwich on the first level but then was stuck for a while. I back tracked through the level trying to get the environment to change but nothing happened. I didn't go far enough right after collecting the sandwich to trigger the next level. If I were redoing this I might just trigger the level switch on collection of the item to avoid confusion. Or at the least make the teleport zone overlap the item so it's not possible to collect it without warping. Also, what are the dark gray panels meant to be? I originally thought they were ladders and tried to climb one... to my blue squares demise.
doitle: good point about the sandwich, sometimes we get so used to a level or mechanic that we forget what it looks like to fresh eyes. As for the gray panels, it's supposed to be tightly-coiled concertina (razor) wire.
I really like the graphics, It makes the game stand out very well, Good job
I couldn't tell if it was laggy or if the controls are just kinda slippery. Whatever it was, I couldn't really get very far. Nice tiles, though!
Reminds me of my bathroom! No checkpoints made this frustrating.
Interesting concept. Interacting with invisible doors and objects makes it a bit weird, and some spaces are too tight to land while doing a wall jump. The fading and tiling is really nice though. Good work!
spacedoubt: are you on a mac? I've had a couple of people comment about poor performance on macs, but there should be very little inertia on the movement.
hazzahazzam: It should set a checkpoint every time hit a point that causes the map to change. If you hit 'r' or the back button on a gamepad, it should take you to your last checkpoint.
Cheshyr: Do you remember any spots in particular where it felt too tight?
Nice design on the environment! Too bad that you couldn't finish the player character :/
The controls work pretty well!
Hi there. Looked interesting on loading but couldn't jump out of the first stairwell, physics of the platforming seems a bit harsh.
I didnt quite get the wall jump right but other than that the concept of level shift is cool!
I like the subtle lighting effects and the transition effects are great!
Nice graphics on the background, the gameplay is quite solid,
it has the potential to turn into a cool game, all you need now is a character sprite to replace the block of blue and a bit of sound and music :) but yeah 48 hours is relatively short,
i really dig the idea of the metroidvania style progression where you gain new abilities.
I enjoyed playing this game! I really liked the transition effects to change the levels and the pull tile mechanic. Very cool!
Quite a challenging game! The only thing for me was at first I didn't realise which points you had to reach to move to the next level as it just looked like any other point in the map.
Nice looking tiles and lighting, although lag problems and lack of checkpoints makes this one quite punishing, especially in some of the harder sections. Still, nice work!
Had a problem with being sent back a screen each time I had to restart a level after the first. Also got reset mid-run one time for seemingly no reason. The controls were solid though and the theme seemed to fit the style well.
Platform mechanics were very nicely done. The exploring and power-up system is nice too, though it was hard to visualise a goal when the level changed in initially-invisible locations. Those kill-reset jumping puzzles can be tricky, though - hard to tell when to jump to work out when you'll make it.
Awesome concept, I think with more graphics and sound this could turn into a fun game. I got a little annoyed with how quickly the text disappeared from the screen, couldn't really read what everything did. Overall great job.
Interesting idea! Looks cool as well. I'm really pathetic when it comes to platformers but I think it's on the right side of challenging. Nice work!
Neat idea, and from the map it looks like you had it planned out well. I got stuck on the disappearing blocks in B.
WTF? The game doesn't run.
Error.
Failed to load mono.
Details:
Unable to load mono library from "C:/Users/PC/Desktop/Pincushion Natives/Pincushion_Data/Mono/mono.dll" (error = 126).
What is this error and how to fix it?
Run on Windows 7 64-bit
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Really like the tiling, and it looks so different each time. Never before have I jumped so well as a block of blue!