The biggest complaint that I have had in play-testing is that the player can get stuck at the bottom of the map (below the “path”) with no way to move forward or return to the top.

The reintroduction of the “bad guy” partially solved this by killing a stuck player – especially when I made the AI specifically do that. But even then it seemed like a hack. It forced the player to have some knowledge of how the levels were generated, in order to play effectively. And when they fail because of this they get frustrated and blame the game.

The reason I haven’t fixed this before is that there is no easy way to get the player from the bottom half of the map to the top without putting blocks in the middle of the path. And that can’t be done because the path needs to be clear to allow the player room to swing across large gaps.

The solution seems obvious in hindsight: A block that the player can grab, but that allows the player to move through it. Introducing: The Girder.

The art for the girder is only temporary, and the way the AI destroys it needs to be fixed. But otherwise it works. You can download and try it out here.

There’s no new art yet. I’ve mostly been working on the opening screen, which I’ll probably post about when it gets added to the game itself.