TLDR: I'm not sure Jams are my jam. Waddle is less sluggish and has some new moves! Sound effects and music.

This game was created for my first Game Jam. As someone who has been coding at a relaxed, non-professional pace for a long time it was quite a different experience compared to what I am used to. I very much enjoyed having some community, and for me I think that is where Jams will shine, and the reason I will continue doing them. The rush job feeling of it and the stress of turning in a thing on a short deadline is not my style and I did not like that part. I know there are longer term Jams, and I might also look into doing that... but somehow I feel like I would get just as stressed about the deadline, only it would be worse in that it would be hanging over my head for much longer!

Looking back at what I was able to put together (with the help of an amazing artist!) in such a short time is pretty neat. I tend to have few projects and take them farther along the path towards "complete", (if you believe in that word in terms of video games anymore, I'm not sure I do) than what appears to be the normal here on Itch. I find it hard to leave a thing alone in a prototype state, but that is what I am planning to do with Waddle's Peak after this update (and... ok maybe one more but just tidying loose ends I swear!), in order to return to working on my frog game (currently titled Frog Platformer... likely a name change soon... thinking Allfrog or Spirit of Frog, something like that).

I like how many platformers these days have dash mechanics (credit Celeste if you like... personally I'm a bigger fan of Dust Force which was years earlier but less well known). I wanted something of a dash mechanic, and the kind that felt right for a penguin was a belly slide dive. I spent far too much of my precious 50hrs trying to get this right and overlooked some quite simple but glaring other problems. I was going for a physics engine, momentum flow feel, and I think that is why everyone had a hard time with the controls. I feel like I've managed to improve the feel I wanted, and also make Waddle a lot more responsive. I've added some new animation frames to help with user feedback, allowed him to exit the dive by pressing the opposite direction from it, and also re-dive mid air, as well as doing some other fine tuning around his movements. (They still aren't quite what I want them to be... calculus is hard, man!)  I put a world bottom in place so you don't drift into the abyss contemplating your existence for an eternity anymore, as well as a few fall-death trigger areas in the upper parts of the climb. The timers and checkpoints are now doing what I wanted them to and displaying nicer. "R" is now a full reset to the beginning, clearing all checkpoints, a critical hotkey in any type of precision/speedrun game. There are now sound effects... not sure I've got the best sounds for them, but at least they exist!... Something fun I realized was that I could trigger a sound effect on a specific animation frame... so his feet make noises exactly when they touch down! (Details like this I truly love.)

Certainly I've done some other things as well and already forgotten what they were. ;)

Hope you enjoy, please pass me your critiques (gently).

If you want to drill/fixate on your best time for a while... personal music recommendation:

https://open.spotify.com/album/10r7S676fixFTtTwhXk76i?si=OXwZTLOPRH61E34vC3rWOA