ANKEPs Demo

This demo is outdated! Go to https://hystrex.itch.io/ankeps-demo-2 to play the new one!

https://discord.gg/x2dPECQRdt

Hello and welcome to the demo! Please keep in mind that this game is still very early in development, so don't expect everything to be perfect. The main goals of this demo are 1 basically tell people this game exists and that I've made progress on it 2 mark a milestone in development 3 get feedback on primarily the movement and mechanics.

MAJOR changes are coming. In the past ~6 months I haven't had much time to work on development, but I have been able to think about the design. I've made the decision to turn the game into a roguelike, meaning all levels will be randomly generated. There are lots of reasons for this, but the short version is that it fits what I've wanted from the beginning much better than a designed-level structure. Other things are changing with that of course, feel free to talk about it with me on discord. I don't have an ETA as to when that will happen, but I expect to return to development in full in the summer.

THIS IS THE 5TH VERSION OF THE DEMO!!!

You can see all the noteworthy changes in the discord (all the @Minor Updates announcements), but the most important ones are:
NEW PLAYER GRAPHICS - drawn by @chs pls#6969 on discord! Unfortunately he's not able to continue as an artist for this game, but he did complete the base character, which I animated in Unity.
NEW TUTORIAL - the old tutorial didn't fulfill its purpose very well at all, so I've made a new (and hopefully much better) tutorial, which I split into 2 parts. The first part is basic movement and the second is level gimmicks, so if you've played past versions and you're comfortable with one or both of those, feel free to skip.
NEW LEVELS - I've added not one but TWO brand new non-tutorial levels! I have a new level design process, so tell me how much I've improved. They're levels 4 and 5.
NEW CAMERA - the camera will now frame the levels much better
NEW HEALTH SYSTEM - you now get a shield every time you enter a checkpoint, and lose health if you get hit without it
NEW INPUT OPTION - This was added the day after v5 dropped, but in the Remap menu, there's an option for "Multi". Based on which direction you're holding, this can perform Burst, Flip, Spin, or Interact/Twirl. Use this if you're having problems with having so many buttons.
[V4 STUFF]
NEW MOVEMENT OPTION - TWIRL! Press the Interact button or the dedicated Twirl button to give yourself a small boost while in the air. This will never get used up, but it has a significant cooldown.
REMAPPABLE CONTROLS - Remap when you boot up the game, or go to the Level Hub and click the button at the bottom right to enter the remapping scene.
[V3 STUFF]
Added several gimmicks, including wall jumps (on certain walls), tornados, moving enemies/obstacles, and more
New level to show off said mechanics
Level Hub where you can instantly access any level. Portals to the level hub can be found near the start of each level, usually to the left
[V2 STUFF]
-Brand new bonus level! This one is much harder.
-Completely changed how grounded burst works, now you have to hold it and release
-Changed how recharging moves works in many situations. Touching the floor, clinging to a ceiling, or latching to a claw will always fully recharge your moves.

Being so early in development, some things will be, well, bad. This includes but is not limited to:
-Graphics. This is barely enough to tell what's going on.
-Audio. There is none currently.
-Performance. I honestly have no idea how this will run on other devices.
-Graphics. Please just don't say anything about the graphics, you won't really make me feel bad but it's just not helpful.

PLEASE GIVE ME FEEDBACK!!!

HOW TO GIVE ME FEEDBACK:
Ideally, sending me stuff on discord in the #feedback or #playtesting channels in my discord: https://discord.gg/x2dPECQRdt. You can also comment on the itch page if you want, or DM me/respond in whatever server or platform you found this from. You can also chat with me about it on discord. Please give AS MUCH FEEDBACK AS POSSIBLE!!! A facecam + screen recording where you're talking about the game the whole time and full analysis is *ideal*, but clearly that's not reasonable, so general feedback, screen recording plus maybe voice recording, or really whatever is totally fine. Give feedback on everything from movement to level design to mechanics, except avoid graphics and audio because I know they're bad.

Some general info about the game:
ANKEPs (I kinda hate that title btw but it's all I have right now) is a 2D platformer with an emphasis on aerial movement. While most games have something like a jump, double jump, and maybe a dash, ANKEPs has 3 distinct movement options that can often be used multiple times before landing, as well as the ability to cling to ceilings. It's often possible to maneuver without ever touching the ground, although it can be tricky. Hopefully, when I'm ready for release, it'll be on itch and steam, for something like 10 USD.

Controls:
Just a note, the demo has controller support in theory, but I haven't been able to fully test it, so if you are able, please try using a controller. Face buttons will be East/West/North/South.
3 Control schemes are shown (in order): Default, Arrows, Controller. The first one is the default, the others are recommended schemes that you'll have to switch to yourself

Move: A/D, Right/Left, Dpad or Joystick Right/Left

Ceiling cling/claw latch: W, Up, Up

Drop from claw: U/S, B/Down, East/Down

Flip: I, C, North

Spin: O, X, West

Burst: J, V, South

Respawn: Q+E (both at once), Ctrl+Z, both bumpers at once

Interact: U, B, East

Latch (alternate mapping): Shift, Space, LT

Twirl (without interacting): Space, G, RT

MECHANICS:
The tutorials generally present them in an intuitive way, but here's an overview: your main platforming moves are Flip (moves up), Spin (moves forward), and Burst (small boost, allows you to readjust). You get a limited number of each before you need to refill them, as indicated in the top left. Touching the ground refills them, as well as touching ceilings. If you hold up while touching a ceiling, you'll stick to it as long as you hold the button. There's also Twirl, which provides a tiny boost, meant to extend mastery beyond the core 3 moves. You can hit enemies with your 3 main moves as shown in the tutorial, and doing so will recharge that move. You can also press Q+E (by default) to respawn at the last checkpoint (this will be removed in favor of a new health system).

KNOWN BUGS:
-Getting hit while on a moving ceiling does not deal knockback
-Spinning into a pole with certain spacing looks weird
-Hitting enemies with grounded flip was janky, I did a quick fix, hopefully it worked
-Grounded spin has a weird hitbox I think
-One or two textboxes still refer to controls as they were before they were made to be remappable
-Some stuff in the testing room that you won't see in the demo levels

OTHER STUFF:

The testing room: yes, this is my actual testing room. It has at least one of every mechanic, in various states from fully functional to scrapped and I used that layer for something else and now they act really weird. There are some bits of level, but they were mostly to test mechanics and movement.

The numbers at the top can go up to their normal maximum plus one. This is intentional, unless they go 2 above their normal maximum or higher.

Level design: In the final game, level design will be randomly generated. Still feel free to give me feedback on the existing level design, as it's still helpful.

Story: I'm cutting the story, it didn't really add to the game. Maybe I'll leave a tiny bit in, but that's a very low priority

If you are recording this to put in a video, or something along those lines, please make it clear that I know the art is bad. Also that it's early in development. But mostly that the art is bad.

I AM LOOKING FOR AN ARTIST. If you want to be the artist for this game, PLEASE DM me (on discord, @hiiistrex#0296). I have school right now, but I can still accept art if nothing else.

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/x2dPECQRdt

I HAVE NO OTHER OUTLETS FOR NOW

Sorry this has been so long, I won't hold you any longer, now go play my game or else.