This devlog is a part of the submission for KIT109.

Magic Is Hard

Description

An absurdist platformer with cutesy effects and difficult controls. The game is easy to pick up and get started with, but has a very high skill ceiling, allowing the player to improve vastly over time despite levels getting very challenging. Depending on play style, Magic Is Hard can be fast paced and precise, or it can be slow, fun, and casual.

Controls

Quick-Reference

• Walk: A and D for Left and Right, respectively.
• Jump: W
• Fly: Space
• Rotate/Tilt: A and D for Left and Right, respectively. Only works if you have flown since last touching the ground.
• Return To Menu: Escape
• Instant Respawn: R

Details & Justification

The player can walk around and jump with the classic WASD controls, but the challenge comes from mastering flight: by holding Space, the player will fly straight upwards. To control which way they fly, the player has to tilt left or right with A or D respectively. When flying, the player travels with increasing speed, allowing them to travel extremely fast through levels if they choose to, but sometimes going too fast can get you killed!

Multiple Levels

The game has 5 levels, which can be traversed in order, or at the player's preference.

To play in order, the player may simply press Start on the main menu:

The main menu, with the Start button highlighted.

To play a given level directly, the player may go into the Levels menu and choose to either play normally, and progress through the levels from that point, or they may choose to do a Time Trial.

The level select screen

Time Trial

Time Trial is a game mode where you play a single level with no checkpoints, the difficult locked on Hard, and with level progression disabled. When a time trial level is completed, the timer in the top left will freeze, allowing the player to take a screenshot if they wish. While not significantly more difficult, the fact that the levels have no checkpoints on Time Trials means they may be difficult for new players, and so are not offered on the main menu.

A screenshot of the player after having finished Level 4 in 18.17 seconds.

Settings

The game offers a settings screen to customise some aspects of gameplay. The screen contains a Difficult button, which only affects the other settings on the page, and acts as a preset-settings option.

The settings menu, set to the Normal difficult.

The settings are listed below:

• Respawn Amount:
  • This is the amount of checkpoints the player will have in levels. When set to "High", extra respawn points will appear to help the player get through the level if they're new to the game, or if a level is too challenging. When set to "Low", some checkpoints available in the Normal difficulty won't be there, creating an extra challenge. This value can also be set to "None", which will remove checkpoints completely, akin to Time Trial. The "None" value is never used by the difficulty presets.
• Stunning:
  • A boolean value. When set to "On", the player may be "Stunned" if they hit something head-first while going too fast. When stunned, the player cannot fly. It lasts 0.6 seconds, but that can be enough to kill you if you fall onto some spikes!
• High Speed Death:
  • A boolean value. When set to "On", the player may die when hitting a wall head-first if they're moving too fast. The speed needed to kill the player is approximately double the speed needed to stun the player.

The difficulty presets are as below:

• Easy:
  • Respawn Amount: High
  • Stunning: Off
  • High Speed Death: Off
• Normal:
  • Respawn Amount: Default
  • Stunning: On
  • High Speed Death: Off
• Hard: 
  • Respawn Amount: Low
  • Stunning: On
  • High Speed Death: On