I’d like to start by saying that I’m a huge platformer fan. I like games with good movement and therefore platformers are naturally one of my favorite video game genres. I love both Ori games (it’s why I’m here), they’re easily in my top 5 favorite games of all time.
With that said, I have mixed feelings on platforming in isometric games, not just with this game, but in general, simply because mouse and keyboard users are limited to 8 directions, and because the camera view makes it more difficult to judge angles and distance between platforms, leading to a less precise platforming experience. I think we can all agree that precision is a key element of a good platforming game, so it’s clear why this is an issue.
Now, I’m not saying the platforming should be removed from the game. I said I have mixed feelings on it because despite the lack of precision, I like it. It adds to the exploration and provides a nice little break from combat between encounters. And the platforming in this game is especially pretty cool, there’s some really nice level design here and when I’m not falling to my death, I’m having a lot of fun traversing the environment.
With that out of the way, to help make the platforming feel more precise in spite of the isometric view, I think there needs to be a hidden guidance system, especially for mouse and keyboard users. I’m not saying the character should snap to the platform, but there should be a little bit of course correction to help with those jumps where the angle was just slightly off. It should be just enough where it helps, but isn’t too noticeable to the player, so that it still feels natural and the player doesn’t feel like their hand is being held.
To give an example, some of the portals in the Portal games secretly have scripted momentum to make sure the player can’t miss a jump when they solve a puzzle correctly. Or when the player is falling towards a portal, they’re subtly pulled towards it, so they can’t miss it. It’s really subtle and most players don’t even know it’s a thing, but it helps a lot with the moment to moment gameplay. It prevents the player from feeling like they’re fighting against the game or against the controls.
I know it might sound backwards to suggest a guidance system when my earlier argument was that a platformer should have precise movement, but my point is that it simply needs to FEEL precise to the player. It just needs to feel like that the character is doing what the player wants them to do, and if such a system is implement well, no one should be able to notice it (aside from maybe speedrunners who will try to abuse it lol).
I don’t know how feasible it would be to implement something like this into this kind of game, but I wanted to throw the idea out there and I hope you will consider it.
tl;dr: add a really subtle course correction/guidance system to platforming to make it less of a death trap (especially for MKB)
I’m curious what other people’s opinions are on this, both the current state of platforming and the suggestion above, so feel free to discuss in the comments.