Say hi to the Post-Jam Update!

A whole lot of Game Jam games are rushed, missing ideas and buggy beyond belief. Others are games that have extensively been playtested to get every single bug out of the way. As it's simple to see, we're in the first side of the fence. Dozens (quite literally) of you sent comments indicating bugs in the game that I hadn't catched before, and I felt obligated to fix them all, so here we are: an update that fixed the most noted game glitches, makes the power-ups more balanced and adds an extra thing or two.

A little heads-up

Let's start with this: I feel it's against the spirit of a Game Jam to update the game afterwards if it's not a massive expansion. All the bugs that are left in the game are part of the experience, and contribute to what is the finished (or not) state of the game. That being said, I would prefer if you played the original Game Jam submission before this one and rate it accordingly, and then played the fixed version as it would be better if the game was experienced with all its flaws in mind. After the GMTK Game Jam is over, the game will be updated to the PJU version, but for the duration of the GMTKGJ, it'll be in a separate page.  The Post-Jam Update is live now! Now, onto the updates!

Bugfixes and Quality of Life Upgrades

• Let's start with the most frequent one: the start sequence flipper-trickery is finally fixed: now the blocker flipper will react when you enter the play area, so you won't get stuck at the start of the game! Other issues with the start sequence were fixed too, such as clicking more than once on the game start would give you multiple power-ups at the same time and using a portal on the starting sequence would give you multiple powerups (discovered by DragonHeart000).
• Some exploits to get tons of points at once were patched up. Namely, an exploit where using a magnet and the rightmost ramp would award you with lots of points and practically infinite recovery, and a time-out on Big Dot.
• There's a custom loading screen! This was in the game from the beggining and was implemented in the final build, but due to time restraints it had to be cut from the game. If it's too long for your taste, click to advance immediately.
• Maker Mode now displays the grid correctly and is more transparent. While we're on that, the opacity-rectangle at the main menu didn't fully cover the screen at times, and the menu text wasn't correctly centered: both were recently fixed too.
•  Heartbeat Mode! To counteract difficult to use power-ups, in certain ones (Gun and Portal) the ball will slow down when reaching the end of the lane, so you have a chance to save the ball. This only applies if the ball hits a wall before, otherwise the momentum will be too fast for Heartbeat Mode to activate.

Buffs, Nerfs and Power-up Balancing

• To begin with, something that affects all Power-Ups: the stamina bar's cooldown has been lowered, from 2.5 seconds to reload to 2 seconds. Now it should be easier to save that ball after a stamina drain.
• The Gun was buffed: it now uses Heartbeat Mode, you waste 25% less stamina per shot and the firing hitbox is larger.
• The Portal was buffed: it now uses Heartbeat Mode, you waste 25% less stamina while the portal is open and the portal hitbox is larger.
• The Maker was slightly buffed: now you waste 20% less stamina per bumper created. That means you can use more bumpers on the map!
• The Flappy (or Wing) was nerfed: the flying force is lessened and you waste two times more stamina per flap.
• The Paddle was nerfed: now the paddle is smaller by a couple pixels.
• The Magnet was nerfed: you waste 25% more stamina while using it and the force is somewhat lessened, shifting focus from an offensive item (get as many points as possible) to an offensive-defensive (get points more easily, but make sure to not fall from the stage).

One last thing

This patch was made with the philosophy in mind that this was not a feature upgrade, and while Heartbeat Mode and the loading screen may seem like the biggest "features", this was either balancing or adding back features that were already in the game. Apart from that, I've received a lot of interesting ideas for a game expansion, for example a Sandbox mode where you choose the power-up you're playing with and changing power-ups in the middle of the run (originally a concept for the game). If I ever get to that, I'll let y'all know, but for now, I hope you have a great time playing Flippin' Out!

Play the Post-Jam Update!