ArtFol

In the last article I talked about how speedrunners helped make the game better. This time I decided to answer the question - What is Ingression?

Ingression is a platformer game inspired by two classic games - Portal and Celeste. Set in the distant future, you play as a thief who must save the world from destruction. The story takes place in the 26th century, when the main character, Rina, is hired by a scientist named Kowalski (and yes, there is a reference to whom you think about right now) to steal an important part of a time machine that can save another world. This is not your typical "save the world" game, though.

What exactly is going on?

Rina must make her way through the Empire's research center, which is full of various dangers. Lasers, carnivorous plants, worms, robo-spiders, holograms, drones, and many, no, MANY, spikes. In this difficult path, she is helped by a former scientist of this very Empire, who has his own ulterior motives. He simultaneously seeks to save everyone and regain the invention that was stolen from him. And you will also be helped by portals (I always think that portals are cool), but behind them you can stumble upon something unexpected and very unpleasant.

Deaths

Each chapter has its own unique mechanics and threats, while the basis of the game remains fast reactions, portals, jumps, and deaths. Yes, you will die. Very much.

Death in the game is something that will happen to you not 1, not 10, and not 100 times. This is not a punishment here, but a part of learning the levels. Even those who have been working on the project since its beginning died at least a hundred or two times in one full game run. At the same time, death here is quick and does not really punish you, so you don't even think about their number (well, except for bosses, of course). There are no long animations, labels, or downloads. So after completing the game, you may be surprised that you died 1200 times (yes, this is my death count for the first playthrough), although it felt like it was only 100 times.

We also worked hard on the movement mechanics to make them as accurate as possible, and the fall into the spikes did not happen simply because Rina slipped off the platform or tripped over something. To help us polish the movement, we worked in collaboration with top speedrunners of the cult platformer and precision-platformer games. Yes, even in the development of the game, Speedrunners played a significant role. What I wrote about, for example, here (link).

Ingression relies very heavily and makes explicit curtsies towards hardcore players and speedrunners. So, the game has its own timer, and a leaderboard with a separate speedrunner level (and there will be more soon), and a death counter (there are already about 2500 deaths on my counter in the last save, 500 more and I will get the rarest achievement, finally).

By the way, the project looks really cool on all sorts of portable consoles, such as Steam Deck (the game has received Verified status), Rog Ally, etc., and, of course, work is already underway in two directions - a port to the Switch and the addition of a level editor so that everyone can create their own levels.

If you liked the project, subscribe and follow the news here or on Steam. By the way, on June 27 (today), a major update of the game will be released, with the new mechanics, levels and even more comfortable gameplay on handhelds!

Link to Steam - Ingression