LEVELS FOR MINIMALIST PLATFORMING:

Levels for Minimalist Platforming is an experimental game which seeks to apply the musical techniques pioneered by the minimalist composer Steve Reich to the context of platformer video games.

What does that look like? Part of the design process was figuring that out and the answer still remains elusive. A few answers dwell inside the game. One sees us applying Steve Reich's phasing to the level geometry, slowly shifting a piece of looping level geometry against an identical stationary level geometry, generating new level layouts until, finally, the geometry lines up again, being back "in phase." A planned level would see us manipulating player attributes as a small piece of looping geometry is traversed. Unfortunately, there was not enough time in the jam for this.

The original jam version was buggy and unfinished. It has since been minutely amended to fix issues such as the level not looping properly or tilesets not always displaying the right tile. The version presented here is meant to show the game as it was originally intended for the jam. Some issues persist. During the phasing, the player may get stuck as a gap in the geometry gets closed shut. Merely wait for the next phase, and the player will be freed.

CONTROLS:

A - Move left
D - Move right
Space Bar - Jump
Mouse - Reserved for menu interactions

CREDITS:

BgAlex - Design, Programming, Tileset Sprite
Aidan Krenz - Music
Lualikes - Protagonist Sprite

"Hello! This is BgAlex, the creator. This was a challenging game made in a challenging time for me. The final work here is not everything I would like it to be, but rather reflects what I was able to accomplish during GMTK Jam. If you would be interested in a more polished and mature version of this game, featuring more levels and experiments — stay tuned — one may very well manifest."