Broken Knees

About:

This is a simple short 2D pixel-art platformer with a premise that fall damage now exists and in game it is explained by your character having glass-like fragile knees. Your goal is to get out of the cave you are in by traversing a number of levels you find. Each level was hand created and holds a special feature about it. What is that feature? Is it shortcuts, punishing routes or misdirection? It's up to you to find out now! Good luck and enjoy!

Controls:

You can learn how to play the game by accessing the Tutorial from the main screen of the game. Do note that the game is meant to be played with a gamepad, but can also be played with a keyboard. In order to switch between the types, just connect your gamepad to your computer and while in game press button on a controller to navigate your character. The game should pick up what you are using to play it. If you are having issues in-game with it, try pressing buttons on a keyboard and then on gamepad dedicated buttons (this way has shown to allow for a switch between the two to happen if a confusion for the system will arise).

1. Keyboard:
   1. Move Left and Right: 'A' and 'D' (alternative: Left and Right arrows)
   2. Jump: 'Space' (alternative: Up arrow)
   3. Zoom for the camera: 'Tab'
   4. Restart the level on death: 'R'
   5. Hidden Controls: if you want to switch between levels on the go press 'O' key to go one level back and 'P' key to go one level forwards. This feature is added in case you experience a bug or a crash or just want to see one specific level again and would like to not replay the whole game again. Do note when in the last level you cannot go forwards and when in the tutorial as it is considered level 0, you cannot go backwards. However if you start a game in a regular mode on level 1, you can go backwards, which will bring you to the tutorial.
2. Xbox controller:
   1. Move Left and Right: Left Joypad 'Left' or 'Right'
      
   2. Jump: 'A'
   3. Zoom for the camera: 'Left Trigger'
   4. Restart the level on death: 'Y'
   5. Hidden Controls: if you want to switch between levels on the go press 'Left Button' to go one level back and 'Right Button' to go one level forwards.
3. PS4 controller:
   1. Move Left and Right: Left Joypad 'Left' or 'Right'
      
   2. Jump: 'X'
   3. Zoom for the camera: 'L2'
   4. Restart the level on death: 'Triangle'
   5. Hidden Controls: if you want to switch between levels on the go press 'L1' to go one level back and 'R1' to go one level forwards.

Credits:

This game used a bunch of different assets to be built that were also re-shaped for the game purposes at times. The game is not seeking to be monetized and only was created as a passion project and love for games and games development. Although, fair credit is required for as much as I can address:

Art Assets:

• Tilemap by Adam Saltsman: https://adamatomic.itch.io/mc-caves
  
• Character: ZeggyGames: https://zegley.itch.io/2d-platformermetroidvania-asset-pack
  

Music Assets:

• Main Music In the game:
  
  • Track: Ludum Dare 28 - Track 1
    
  • Author: Abstraction
    
  • Authors' Links: http://abstractionmusic.bandcamp.com/
    
  • Itch.Io origin: https://tallbeard.itch.io/music-loop-bundle
    

Sounds Assets:

All additional sounds in the game have been downloaded from https://freesound.org/

• darkadders: https://freesound.org/people/darkadders/sounds/219405/
• 221Beimesche: https://freesound.org/people/221Beimesche/sounds/336425/
• abyeditsound: https://freesound.org/people/abyeditsound/sounds/450509/
• NeoSpica: https://freesound.org/people/NeoSpica/sounds/504618/
• InspectorJ: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/344265/
• CJspellsfish: https://freesound.org/people/CJspellsfish/sounds/686321/
• MessyAcousticApocalypse666: https://freesound.org/people/MessyAcousticApocalypse666/sounds/594894/
• Argenisflores: https://freesound.org/people/Argenisflores/sounds/638399/
• shaino123: https://freesound.org/people/shaino123/sounds/695547/
• deadrobotmusic: https://freesound.org/people/deadrobotmusic/sounds/609951/

Frequently Asked Questions (that no one really is asking :( ) :

Q: I downloaded the files and though the executable says BrokenKnees on it, the files next to it say VaultRunner. What the gives?

A: The game initially that was planned was called VaultRunner. But few things changed, ideas swapped and I continued development over the old template. I thought I managed to change all the references without breaking much in the code and the game, but it seems some artifacts of the past still haunt me. So it just happens so that the game initially was created with a different template name. Still learning here, hopefully in the future such confusion could be avoided.

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Q: This game looks quite simple. Why can't I play it in the browser and need to download it?

A: You are correct! The game was initially developed with in mind that it could be played on all 3 platforms: in the browser, on Windows and Linux for those who want to play it with a controller. However, I decided to use Godot v. 4.1.1. to make this game and very late into the project found out that as still of 2023/09 games developed with C#/.NET in this version cannot be exported as HTML games. The documentation might be updated by the time you read it, but this is the current note:

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/exporting_for_web.html

Attention

Projects written in C# using Godot 4 currently cannot be exported to the web. To use C# on web platforms, use Godot 3 instead.

The game unfortunately cannot be "demastered" to a lower version and it did sadden me when I found this out. Likely for the future games will be developed in Godot v3.5 to make them browser friendly as well.

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Q: You are not that good dealing with music and sound effects in game, are you?
A: No :( This is still a point that I'm learning and mixing of music and sound effects is a big struggle point so you might in fact find not the most balanced set of sounds.