Разработчик: Paris Stalker
Описание
WHAT IS ERSATZ?
ERSATZ is a speed focused, hardcore Action Platformer with Rhythm elements. Featuring a multiple genre Original Electronic Soundtrack which dynamically builds and changes based on your progression!In ERSATZ, your dash is also your attack, and hitting enemies recharges a dash block instantly. So use it effectively in combination with your slam to chain actions together and speed through 8 challenging and increasingly intense levels as fast as you can. Can you get an S Rank on every level and playstyle?
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WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ERSATZ
"It’s the immaculate sound design and tremendous freedom of movement that makes Ersatz so satisfying to play."- Rock Paper Shotgun
"If you're a fan of seriously good music and challenging platformers, stop right now and go get it. It's very simple to get into, difficult to master and it's a damn treat for the ears."
- Gaming On Linux
"...Out of every game I've reviewed on this channel and probably every game I will review, this has got to be one of the most overlooked, under rated and underappreciated of them all."
- The Hidden Chest
"For a game made by one person, ERSATZ is one of the most polished games I've ever played!"
- Peppage
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Original Soundtrack by game's creator, with genres including:
House, Trance, Synthwave, DnB, Techno & More!
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Also Inlcuding:
- TYPE BETA & TYPE GAMMA: Unlockable alternative playstyles with their own times & grades
- JOURNEY MODE: Try & complete all 8 levels as fast as you can. Do it in under 60mins for a special reward. For experts & speedrunners!
- INFINITE MODE: Infinite dash energy, go wild and set crazy times on the mode's own leaderboards!
- SYNTH RUSH: Challenge any individual or ALL of the bosses of ERSATZ against the clock!
- STEAM LEADERBOARDS: See how your times stack up compared to other players all over the world on Windows, Mac & Linux (viewable in game!)
- VIBRATION: With full controller support. Feel your controller vibrate to the beat!
Design, Art, Animation, Programming & Music all by Paris Stalker (that's me!).
Поддерживаемые языки: english, russian
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows Vista and above
- Processor: 1.2 ghz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 768mb video memory
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 250 MB available space
Mac
- OS: OSX 10.10.2 (tested on)
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 14.04 (Tested on)
- Processor: 1.2GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 768mb video memory
- Storage: 250 MB available space
Отзывы пользователей
I really like this game, the mechanics of the game, and the art style, I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes challenging platformers.
Very hard... but very cool.
There's not really anything *wrong* with this game's design, except the learning curve is pretty much a cliff. Design wise there's a lot here, especially at first glance. So far I haven't seen any repeated bosses and the levels have required unique combinations of inputs to overcome new challenges each time. Unfortunately I won't be playing more because this game is far too difficult for me to want to put significant time investment in. And it would be *significant* time investment to properly master this game. So... cautious recommendation to anyone who loves playing ridiculously hard rhythm games or platformers, but it's not for me.
Mechanically welll designed platformer with exceptional soundtrack.
The main game is pretty short, but there are several alternative game modes, so there is lot's of replay value to be had.
While I do like the visual style, it can sometimes make it somewhat hard to keep track of what's going on,
especially on the final boss.
ERSATZ is a challenging platformer game with focus on the musical influence in the gameplay. Next to moving and jumping you're also able to dash, however your dashes need to recharge and you can only have up to three dashes available at the same time. Thus it is necessary for you to carefully time your movements in regards to the current musical cycle as well as to your dash availability.
The developer approached me on Twitter and introduced his game to me because I run the "Press Play to Jump" Steam group which focusses on games with gameplay mechanics built around their musical side, however I'll stress that I bough the game myself and I'm happy I did so.
The game is extremely challenging and once you're done beating the normal story mode there's much, MUCH more you can go through which includes getting better scores and times - this game has an excellent speedrunning implementation! - and unlocking and beating different and even harder game modes. While I have beaten the main campaign so far, there is still a lot I need and want to explore.
I need to stress that the one-man-developer, Paris Stalker, is extremely comitted to his creation and tries his very best to find and fix bugs and problems the community brings to him which leads to very frequent and useful updates. The game was created in Game Maker, which is a small downside, so the limitations of the audio engine are fairly early reached and I'm pretty certain Stalker found every thinkable possibility to give it the interactive music system that it uses but that is certainly more than I had expected Game Maker being capable of at all!
If you like challenging platformers that use the music as an integral part of the gameplay and you also like to go for speedruns in hard games, this is definitely a game you have to check out! :)
Strongly Recommended.
A very challening but equally rewarding game once you master the beats of a level. I really enjoyed playing this, the soundtrack is a treat and really helps you time the characters movement. Only critism would be I found it pretty hard in some of the boss fights, but the overwhelming joy of defeating them is great!
Ersatz is a fast paced, speed based, platformer, with a ridiculously good soundtrack. The controls are really simple and responsive, you have a jump button and a dash button. You can also press down mid-jump to terminate your jump and fall straight down with a stomp attack.
The whole game is centered around the dash ability. You can dash over pits, through obstacles, kill enemies with it, and damage bosses with it. Of course you also need to liberally dash everywhere in order to get a good rank on each stage. You have a dash meter, you can dash 3 times in a row before having to wait for the meter to refill, the meter refills fairly quickly so you won't go too long without the ability to dash. There are 8 levels in the game(with a whole mess of extras that open up when you beat it), but each level gives you a rank based on your speed. In order to unlock the last level you must achieve at least a D rank on the first 7 levels. You have infinite lives, and very liberal checkpoints, but each time you die 20 seconds get added to your time, there are also heal stations sprinkled throughout the levels that add 2 seconds to your time for each point you heal(you have a total of 6 health).
Level design in this game is spectacular, every level has a unique twist, with unique enemies, and unique environmental hazards. You won't see anything repeat until the last level, which is kind of a mash-up of the first 7. The levels are challenging, but very fair, and are all ludicrously fun to play.
The standout feature for me in this game are the boss battles. Every boss is super fun to fight, most of them will kick your ass the first time you fight them, and you will curse as you watch your rating sink with each time they kill you, but it is extremely satisfying when you learn their patterns and flawlessly beat a boss who seemed nearly impossible when you first met them.
Ersatz is a phenomenal game and a must play for any fan of challenging, speed based, rythm platformers.
OMG I LOVE THIS GAME!!! It's a music styled platformer with charming and fast-paced level design, the game itself it easy to play and difficult to master, it's made especially to make you rage, with a stopwatch and a grade at the upper right corner which tests u how good u are at this game. The bosses, omg i love the boss design so much, but they are hard to beat them, there are in total of 14 unique bosses (counting the minibosses), however the final boss has in total of 8 phases which gives u the biggest challenge in the game. the levels are named "simulation" and the bosses are named "synth". If you find this game too difficult, don't buy it, but i highly recommend to buy it, it's only 7 quid and i have a developer who lives in the same country as me. I don't know about u guys but i got addicted to this game.
Check if i made any spelling mistakes or grammar errors.
Pros:
+Music Based Platformer
+Challenging
+Made in GameMaker Studio 2
+A developer who lives in my current living country
Cons:
-Rather a simple plain platformer
-Bosses are OP
Final Thoughts: 9/10
I wondered why this has so few reviews, probably because it's way too inspired by many indie games, might be cuz the developer is incompetant or without any ideas to create. At least the idea is to put electronic music on to make it interesting, unfortunately it didn't, however it's not that bad.
Summary:
Recommended if you are a masochist like me.
Details:
+ Insanely difficult, but very rewarding once you understand a segment and can execute it without major errors.
+ Chill music, and objects that move with the beat, makes it easy to get in the flow.
+ Pleasant to look at
+ Unique and fun bossfights (except the first one, fuck that flower)
+ Multiple Unlockable Playstyles
+ Liberal use of Checkpoints
- Colors sometimes make it hard to see tiny bullets
- Crashed once
~ Perfect for speedrunning. It's easy to get high in the leaderboards because nobody plays the game (seriously, people come play this game)
This game is interesting visually, musically, and design-wise.
This game sells itself as: 'a minimalist Action Platformer, featuring an Original Dynamically Progressive Soundtrack and rhythm elements' and they're not wrong. It does achieve what it claims to.
Art:
The art is minimalist but not in the "programmer art" way. I think most of the art is quite good looking, with most of the appeal coming from the stark colour contrasts and polygonal shapes. I think some of the early game art (such as in level 1) are fairly low quality compared to the rest of the game, but by no means is the early art bad. Personally I think the style is quite unique and attractive *most* of the time. There can be issues with being able to see though rare, but I have terrible eyesight so who knows YMMV.
Music and Sound Effects:
The music is very varied in genre, and whilst some tracks are weaker (usually the earlier levels again. I think you can tell the developer improved over development in almost all areas, because the design also improves later on; though that may have to do with extended freedom in terms of difficulty). The music is written in what appears to be layers, with different layers and sections programmatically unlocking as the level progresses so you'll struggle to get bored of the music.
Bandcamp link for those who want to have a listen:
https://parisstalker.bandcamp.com/releases.
Programming/System:
The game generally runs extremely well (on release there were some issues with performance but they have since been ironed out; at least for me). The options are a tad empty, but there's about enough there to do what you'd want. More exact resolution selection would've been cool but the multiples (e.g. 2x, 4x initial resolution) used are no gamebreaker as the game supports fullscreen well. The camera usually works very well, with only a few rare exceptions most of which have been fixed since release. There were a few immediate bugs on launch that have since been fixed. The developer is pretty quick to fix stuff, which is nice.
Story:
Despite immediate thoughts when I started the game, it does indeed have a story. There's a hidden key in every level that unlocks a single message (think of a diary entry or an email or whatever) expanding on the lore of the game. It's nothing to go crazy over in terms of depth, but a nice little touch. You don't have to care if you don't want to, as the game doesn't really shove it in your face which works out quite well for the game and allows the player to . I found some of the keys quite tricky to find. Other than that, the levels, enemies, mechanics and bosses are themed and named after the supposed 8 functions of life which is a really nice touch, whilst not amazingly deep adds some level of cohesiveness to what you otherwise be somewhat disparate.
Design:
The game has 8 levels, each one taking anywhere between 5 minutes to 15 minutes if you're extremely good at the game. Some levels can easily take up to an hour depending on how many times you die. The game also has several game styles that give the player character slightly different mechanics which affect the way you play a surprising amount.
The basic "alpha playstyle" that you start off with is focused around the core mechanics of:
- Dashing to manoeuvre and kill enemies and break barriers/objects (you have 3 use dash bar that refills over time. Kills refill 1 block of dash, so theoretically you could dash forever)
- Jumping (bog standard stuff, though the game also plays with different physics somewhat)
[*] Ground-slamming to manoeuvre and kill enemies and break barriers/objects (again, fills up the dash upon kills).
Bullets and platforms are synchronised to the beat of the song playing, which combined with the core game mechanics cause a cool result in terms of player routing and play.
In terms of design focus, Ersatz is imo a speed-run focused game. What I mean by this is that the game itself, whilst fairly difficult at times, is not difficult by any inherent virtue. Instead the game is designed down to its very core for the player to *perfect* their run. Pick the best path, use the best strategies for killing bosses, never stop moving, sync up with the game's rhythm and score the best time. At its best, Ersatz is neatly laid out to cause a kind of musical synchro when the player absolutely nails something (this is super hard to describe) -- There is a rhythm to this game, and damn does it know it.
Except when it doesn't.
In every level there are several unique mechanics that somewhat fit the theme of the level, and these are all neat little things that I found surprisingly intuitive. Now the issue lies with one of the later levels. This level is both my favourite, and my least favourite. I like the unique mechanics and the music and the aesthetic and the level layout, but frankly it doesn't gel with what the game is. The game whole being screams the opposite of what that level tries to enforce on the player. It's still fun, but imo it's the antithesis of what makes this game what it is. Thankfully the game doesn't drop the ball too badly elsewhere.
In terms of difficulty, I'd say the game starts of incredibly easy, and then ramps upon the 3rd and then 5th levels and then every level after that. I wouldn't recommend judging based on the first 1 or 2. That said, this is no needle/iwbtgfan game. This game wants you to perfect it, but it doesn't force you to :P. Then again, if you want to get good ranks on the levels be prepared to work hard - top tier play of this game is not easy to achieve and that is certainly one of this game's strengths
(NOTE: There's a marathon mode unlockable called Journey Mode that lets you run the whole game in one go, but I haven't messed with that or the other playstyles too much. The other playstyles in particular change the way the game is played on a fairly fundamental level and add that little extra to the game's replay value. Marathon mode is one challenging mode, at least for me :) )
Conclusion:
I'd recommend this game. It's good fun and it managed to keep me absorbed for a whole continuous run through which is something a whole host of games simply fail at achieving nowadays. Make no mistake, this is no steam shovelware. Whilst not terribly long for a single run (think 2-3 hours for your first time if you're bad like me) there's a hell of a lot of replay value, and the game is basically designed for perfecting your routes, tricks and runs to get the best times. I can see this being a very fun game to stream and definitely one you'll find yourself repeatedly coming back to.
RECOMMENDED - It's not a perfect game (no games are!), but it fills a fairly unique niche and actually has content in it unlike a few games I've seen attempt the same kind of thing. I'm very, very satisfied with it. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I really got across what it is that's good and bad about this game. I think this is the kind of game you have to try and get a feel of.
Ersatz is a reflex oriented platformer with a heavy emphasis on speedruns. It is not a particularly punishing game because it has an abundance of checkpoints. About 80 percent of the features like extra modes require you to speedrun certain parts to unlock. So you do need at least some level of competent reflexes to get the full experience. As you can see I dropped 24+ hours into the game and I still have things to do. There are 3 regular modes that change mechanics, journey mode, and infinite mode. If you like that kind of gameplay where you have to learn the layout of the level it has a lot of replay value. As far as music and aesthetic part go I absolutely love it. I think for some $9 may seem a lot of a speedrun game but the price is well justified with content.
Gameplay
The game is focused on speedruns and each stage times your playthrough. When you die it simply adds 20 seconds to your time and puts you maybe 10 seconds back at most. You can even buy hit points at a cost of 2 seconds per charge. The controls feel very fluid and easy to pick up. I just love the how mobile the character is with 3 charges of the dash which you can use in air, on the ground or while sliding. To attack you just repeatedly ram into things as many times as dash can allow which is extremely satisfying. Unlike most similar games there is a health bar. Not instantly dying to everything is nice although the game makes up for it with an absurd amount of things that can hit you. Most of the boss fights are unique and very well made (most). Pretty much like any wall jumping game you ever played but very refined if that makes sense.
Soundtrack
Ersatz has some of the best use of sound effects and music. Each time you move into a new room the soundtrack gets another lair. Certain enemies have attack timed to the score so they actually create a beat for the music (seems intentional).The soundtrack is very dynamic and does not feel like an afterthought loop. So many sound effects like huge explosions that make me think of Atari. Man, I even enjoy just clicking around the menu. I could not compliment the audio in this game enough, it is just awesome.
Aesthetic
It looks simple but I can tell there is a lot of effort went into making this. I am not just talking about backgrounds, there are so many cool visuals effects from character or screen transitions. Those explosions after killing bosses.... Another Atari nostalgia vibe. Each level has a different theme going on with unique stage mechanics. It is kinda hard to react to projectiles though because there is just so much going on visually. Just a very well presented game.
Pros:
+ Dynamic platforming
+ Smooth controls
+ Fantastic Music/Sound effects
+ Good pace & friendly checkpoints
+ Lots of stage mechancis
+ Good level variety
+ Challenging but fair difficulty
+ Very appealing visually
+ Decent replay value
Cons:
- Kind of hard to see things because of constant effects and color choices.
- Few hitbox problems with bosses
- Achievements could be a little more forgiving. You get 1 and the rest are like uber level hard.
Final Thought: 9/10
In my humble opinion, this is the best game I ever played in this hardcore platformer format. There are so many games that repeat the same old formula with minimum effort. Someone actually put a lot of effort into this one, how refreshing. If you like this kind of games based on repetition,speedrun and learning the layout of the level give it a try. I really can't give it enough justice through words.
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For more hidden gems:
http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Paris Stalker |
| Платформы | Windows, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 15.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 100% положительных (11) |