Ascent
Crashed on a desolate but mysterious planet you find yourself eye to eye with an ancient civilisation. Explore the planet, find powerful upgrades, and uncover its secrets.
CONTROLS
- move ⬅️➡️
- jump ⓩ
- climb ladders ⬆️⬇️
- special moves ❎ / ⓩ
CREDITS
Created during LowResJam 2022
Design/Art/Code: Johan Peitz (@johanpeitz)
Music/Sound: Vav ( @vavmusicmagic)


Got the ending where you get 1-7/8, got the ending where you get 8/8. Is it possible to get 0/8 and is there a different ending for that?


@joealarson : "Is it possible to get 0/8 and is there a different ending for that?"
Interesting question.


@Kaius : Thank you for putting that to the test. I'm both amused and impressed that the cutscene programming by @johanp is robust enough to play the conversation before continuing with the original ending. This is clearly the "correct" program response to this (probably) unreachable game state...


Incredible game!
I especially love the music.
This really captures a mood that isn't seen often on Pico 8. Very well done


absolutely perfect.
i have a suggestion.
make a save option.
the game is too lenghty to one-shot, it would be nice to be able to save.


Great experience. I loved the mood, the music and the story.
Do you know Ayerdhal, it's a french Sci-fi author, and he wrotes a short novel entitled "Scintillements" ("Flickers" in english) which evokes the story of a human being who sacrifices himself to save extraterrestrials.


8/8 Saved; ~28m to complete.
It appears my manual dexterity isn't quite what it used to be, so I found the last challenge the most difficult because:
Regardless, this was simply marvelous Johan and Vav, and to be quite frank, the perfect length. I hope you are able to collaborate together on more things like this in the future!


This is outstanding! Did I do something wrong? I'm at this cliff where I need to jump onto an ice cube (crystal?). I have the strong arms ability, the down-jump, the vines, and the dash, which you need to make it to this point. I'm super stumped as to what I'm supposed to do from here?


Really fun exploratory game! I don't normally play Metroidvanias due to my frustration when getting lost, so I'm happy to say the map was very well-designed and helped me organically remember the areas I have not yet explored. The fork-in-the-road-type areas (especially the jungle one and the desert area) were arranged in a way that I could easily keep track of them (+ potential abilities needed) and return later. I also enjoyed how each section after earning a new ability had a demonstration for the new ability before connecting to an earlier fork-in-the-road area. For me this made exploration more of a curious discovery rather than a frustration getting-lost scenario.
I found 8/8 Spirits in 22 minutes and 30 seconds!
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I played this today and really enjoyed it. Environments are varied, platforming fun, there is a nice progression system with different abilities and even a little bit of story on top of all that. Good job!


Me planning out the perfect speedrun route: "What if I were to death warp?" Your perfectly placed checkpoints: "Hold it right there, bucko..."


I did a speedy 8/8, although I might've been able to do it faster

Anyway, absolutely awesome game, the first time I played I took a good 30 minutes taking in the sights and finding all the spirits, and map out the world in my head. It all fits together very well, the colors and textures look great, and I don't think I ever ran into any issues other than accidentally going through mushrooms instead of jumping on them. Amazing 12/10


This was great! I only got 4/8 my first play through yesterday... but I've been thinking about the game, I want to return to it and get more. I like the abilities. Movement abilities are very satisfyingly kinetic. Vine power seemed a bit underwhelming vs the others I got, but obviously necessary, and perhaps relevant to explain the ending...?


i really enjoyed this game and started speedrunning it, but i noticed the timer is very inaccurate? i beat the game with a 3:16 in-game time, and in real time it was 3:57. but on another run i beat the game slower in real time, but got a 3:10 in-game time. i highly doubt you'd want to come back to this game and update it again, but i really like the game and think the speedrun is very fun. but right now the in-game timer is just not very useful for determining the run's time unfortunately
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