Dream Hook
A downloadable game for Windows and Linux
Gameplay in Dream Hook focuses on understanding the grappling hook and its physics. There's no lives or time limit; learn at your own pace and try to reach one of the multiple endings.
Music and sound effects by Pascal Bélisle. [Bandcamp | Twitter]
Download
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Development log
- Small FixesJun 12, 2022
- Version 1.0 is out!Jun 11, 2022
- Pulse CheckJun 06, 2020
- First Major Update. (It's about time!)Jun 21, 2019
Comments
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I just found a gold simple and cute game! my daughter will love to play this game :)
Thank for sharing, the game is very fun.
It is funny to unlock the fishing rod and remember how harder to control Umihara Kawaze is, Dream Hook is actually kind of the relaxing version of the game :) .
I got the ending A, B, C and judging by the map I might have completed all levels but 22, I'm still struggling to get the hook (I'm also trying with the rod since I managed to get the one from level 24 only by using the rod).
Good job, thanks again!
Thank you for playing! I'm glad to see you got the true ending :)
Yeah, Umihara Kawase is a different beast haha
I NEED THE COMPLETE VERSION,lol,this game is so good,I spent many afternoons with this game,i close the game 4 times i think,
Thank you! I'm working on it 😩
Do you mean you got to the 4 different endings? If so that's impressive!
no,i could not,because i'm not so good,but the game is great :)
This is fantastic, is a little hard to get use to the controls but the visual, the sound fx's and the gameplay are incredibly well done. Can't wait to play to complete game. :)
Thank you :)
Such a nice comment! Thank you :)
I'm planning to only add one last theme for the complete game. I think that'll be enough. You're right though; Currently, about 80% of levels have the same theme, even though there's 3 themes in the demo... It's partly because the current platform types I have were made specifically for the swamp theme. It should be more evenly divided in the final game for sure!
This is amazing! Can't wait for the finished game! :)
I do have some feedback, though:
P.S.: I take back the jump to grapple. I hadn't noticed that it's a checkbox in the menu. XD
P.P.S.: I also take back the global cycles... Going back to the main menu and continuing resets the stage back to a common initial state...
If only I could select which button toggles in/out, this would be perfect!
Thank you :) I'm still working hard to get it finished.
"Jump to grapple" was originally off by default but I decided to change it because it seems to be to most intuitive way to play for new players. I know though some people like you would prefer to have it disabled. There's just no way for me to please everyone :P
I made a note to allow separate keys for reel in/out in the complete version. Umihara kawase conditioned me to the current control scheme, but I understand why it may feel backward.
I don't think it would be realistic of me to expect anyone to speedrun my games, so I'm not thinking about that at the moment :P That said, I may change it to reset the levels like you suggest for level design purposes. The current behavious was simply the easiest solution for the demo.
Big thank you for the feedback!
No problems at all. This game is too good and I had to give some feedback. :)
About cycles in levels (if it isn't clear on my P.P.S.), going back to the main menu and continuing does reset the level to its original configuration. So, this feature is already in the game... it's only kinda hidden. ;) From this, it's mostly a design decision: do you want people to memorize levels or do you want them to react? In my opinion, the latter is more interesting for casual players and, at times, even for speedrunners (at the very least, for viewers).
I may eventually record a run of this game and try to make a leaderboard with it. I'll definitely let you know if that does happen.
The moving block level is definitely going to be changed. It seems to be the worst 'brick wall' of the game. Depending on the path you take, it can be brutal.. sorry for that.
I think I'm going to make 'jump to shoot' on by default. I'm reluctant because I'm afraid I'm going to trigger the opposite problem where people shoot without wanting to, especially on bouncy platforms. I realize though that less buttons is easier to manage. Anyway I can always roll back if it's too bad
About that bug, I'll fix that as soon as I can
Thanks a lot for the feeback!
suuuper awesome game. i just love the visuals, everything is so polished and thats probably what i enjoy most about any particular game. Like for example the rotating save icon, it just looks perfect. I need to learn how to accomplish that effect, is it just the RotSprite method (upscale > rotate > downscale)? anyway enough gushing about the details.
At the beginning i was kind of frustrated with the combination of slow movement + platforming. Before getting the feel for how to use the momentum to my advantage, i felt like i was spending too much of my time standing still, grappling, adjusting my length and swinging in order to make it to another spot, instead of grappling a few times and using momentum to get where i want. after going back to the beginning levels after beating it, the levels didn't feel as frustrating because i was used to the momentum. It felt like too much of a contrast between the 'slow, position-management' platforming and the 'fast momentum grappling' later. i feel like there could be a better way to handle this learning curve at the start, but im not sure how. Even the first jump was kind of weird, it took me a bit to even realize i could make it onto the next platform. the first two levels are pretty good, but im still not sure what the best method is to beat the end portion of the third level.
As for the controls, I was going to mention that i found myself mixing up jump and grapple a lot, and was going to suggest making jump be both actions, or at least having jump cancel the grapple. but i noticed you added that as an option and i enjoy it a lot more that way.
Is there any reason you can't reel in/out while while moving? I think that was what made me most annoyed about the grappling. you can reel while swinging with momentum, but only after letting go of the buttons. Also im curious as to why you chose 'up' to be extend and 'down' to be retract, i feel like it should be the other way around. Everything else felt nice though, the momentum is very good.
I think my favorite part was cheesing the red outlined block level by grappling the first block, letting it push me into the platform, and shooting me off to the right to skip half the stage. I wish there were more opportunities for me to do that again, that seemed like the only spot.
Also I figured out you can grapple at the ground and use the jumping effect to gain height from nothing:
not super helpful in most cases but still fun to do haha
anyway i can't wait to see where this project goes. the polish is absolutely my favorite part
Thanks! Means a lot :)
I usually use this website when I want to create smooth transitions for things like the save icon. So it's some easing function for the scaling + a sine wave for the rotation.
I've thought about your second paragraph troughout the day and I'm thinking I can't really remove the slowness and the potential frustration of the first levels. I think because the hook is not intuitive to use right away, the first levels are going to be slow no matter what. Currently, any level can be finished pretty fast; even the third level. It's a matter of getting used to the physics and discovering how to take advantage of it. Like you said, the second time was less frustrating because you got used to the momentum. I don't want to be completely dismissive though. Obviously I'd prefer if people didn't feel bad playing my game :~) I'll try to figure out something. Very helpful comment
I added that restriction to the reel in/out keys to avoid getting reeled in if you want to aim diagonally while swinging. It's a decision I took without even testing with and without, and now that you bring it up I'm not sure it was the right call. I kind of find it annoying too, but I'm so used to it that I don't notice the restriction anymore... I'm going to test without it but I think you're right :~)
I probably binded the up and down key like that because that's how Umihara Kawase does it. I took a lot of inspiration from that game.
I left a lot of intentional shortcuts , but that one isn't lol. I wonder what you mean by "I wish there were more opportunities for me to do that again". You mean cheesing the level, or stretching the grappling hook to shoot yourself? Either way there's probably gonna more of both in the final game :)
yeah.. I know about that bug while shooting down. I don't know if it's going to get fixed. It doesn't bother me that much and doesn't break anything. Let's ignore it for the moment.
Again, thank you for your help and nice comments :)
What i meant by the save icon being so nice is how it rotates without distortion. if you have a pixel sprite, rotating it will almost always cause some sort of jaggedness. I was going to make an image showing the difference, but while doing that i noticed that it actually is just a normal sprite rotation. probably because the icon uses pretty much only straight lines it looks fine. so my original point is meaningless haha
probably the reason i thought there was something unique was because it matched most of the other game (such as the black waves at the top or the checkpoint triangles rotating), but neither of those are sprites (i assume) so just drawing them wouldn't introduce those artifacts.
of course you could also just use higher resolution sprites and downscale them and it would have the same effect so i guess there isnt a technique im missing after all
I definitely saw the Umihara Kawase inspiration, which is great because it's an incredible game and like nobody knows about it? so one of the first things i was looking out for was a place to test if the hook wraps around objects. i was juust a bit disappointing to see it doesn't, but honestly that mechanic is so complicated, i don't think i would even be able to implement it. and it doesn't really add much to the game unless you specifically design the levels around it
and yeah, i meant just more opportunities to use the stretching grappling hook to shoot off things. the ability to cheese levels will come naturally ;)
I considered making the hook wrap around platforms, but i'd have to give up moving platforms and yeah it wouldn't have added alot. It isn't worth it I think. It's a nice challenge i'd like to solve someday though
Pretty fun game! Never did manage to get out of Frog-Land, but it was very good nonetheless! The controls feel great, although there are some leaps of faith with the grappling hook that got tiresome over time (COUGH moving platform aura level COUGH). Additionally, removing the functionality of the Z and V keys might be a good idea; I ended up pressing V a lot accidentally while trying to jump and grapple, which ended up having me aim down and miss my target.
You got to the last level before the end of the frog levels(there's only one other level after it also, so you didnt miss much); That's pretty good :)
I see what you mean about the leaps of faith.. The moving platform level you're talking about is probably the least playtested level, so I'm not too surprised. I'll work on it some more and keep it in mind for future levels. I might also increase the default resolution to help see further.
You bring a point I didn't think about there with the diagonal keys.. I added them mostly with the controllers in mind. I thought some people might find it more precise to have buttons binded to each diagonals. For the keyboard I don't think they're as useful. I'll see what I can do.
Thank you a lot for the feedback! I really hope the game wasnt too frustrating. I know I struggle a lot with difficulty..
Okay, so, I managed to beat the demo (after many deaths on the moving platform-aura room) and I think I figured out what was tripping me up so much.
In that one particular room, there are lots of little platforms scattered around and along the bottom of the stage. Because of this, I thought I had to go under everything, which ended up causing me to die a whole lot, when really the easier path is to go above everything. Also, there aren't any checkpoints in that room, so any mistake was effectively a reset (although the room was fairly small, so it wasn't too bad once I figured out what to do).
The controls feel much better by the way! Thank you for taking my thoughts into account!
Untitled? I'm going to give a name to the young girl, Tedilla Pinkari, and the title of the game would be: Tedilla & the Pink Hook. do you think it's OK?
It's better than any of my ideas for the moment :p Finding a good title truly is the hardest part about game dev..