I agree Hop! 2D may be frustrating sometimes. To me, as a tribute to vintage platformers and arcade games in general, it is a part of the challenge not to succeed at first and get used to controls to better understand how the main character behaves in different situations. That is why I included a training mode to practice first without any time limit and no enemy to avoid or kill (this mode ends right before the 1st boss). Though not really “arcade-esque”, the possibility to restart from any unlocked world is another way not to discourage players. Due to the possible length of a game (it can exceed an hour and a half if you complete every level), I added the save/reload option a bit later, this may help too.

Your suggestions about controls are interesting. Due to their simplicity, I first chose what I thought was the most intuitive ones (left and right arrow keys) and asked myself about another implementation (I later added left and right mouse buttons, which sounds quite unorthodox but works actually quite well once you get used to it). WASD (AD, actually) buttons was another possible choice but the main constraint to implement it is which type of keyboard to consider (QWERTY or AZERTY) so I gave up this option. The best solution may be to allow the player to choose its own keys but I have to study more tutorials before being able to implement this. I did not think at all about gamepads as I unfortunately don’t own one. Given the game mechanics, I’m not sure analog controls would fit as the player already has to deal with momentum and rebounds. Moreover, some jumps need instant full acceleration so using an analog control device would in my opinion make the game harder to handle.

Blind jumps ? Yes, they’re definitely intentional ! For the first ones in the game, you can have a look first at the place where you’re supposed to “land” so, once it is checked and memorised, the jump becomes much easier. Later in the game, blind jumps become part of the challenge but you always have the possibility to save a game at the end of a level to restart the next one as many times as you want if you don’t succeed the first time.

About timers, the current version of the game is likely to be easier than the one you tried a year ago as Hop’s energy now depletes more slowly (after considering player feedback, I modified it and it now takes 50s to die if you don’t find any energy bonus instead of 40s in previous versions). v1.0 is the official current version of the game and mechanics won’t change from now on. incoming v1.1 will bring minor bug fixes and extra menu options (among them, direct access to the game’s online leaderboard). I also intend to launch an android version later.

From your comments, I can tell you have at least completed world 1. You should consider participating in the contest (the 3rd best player lost in level 9) and send screen captures here. What do you think about it ?

Thanks again, I will add your name in next version’s credits and I’m looking forward to having some news soon