Jacob Pariseau and Marcus Pasell have a challenge for you... are you ready to grab the meme by the horns? Prove you've got the swagger and the skills in Challenge Accepted, a high-difficulty puzzle platformer about one cat with more than his share of lives, a bunch of rooms that defy physics, and a whole lot of spikes. Are you ready to put your skills where your mouth is?... no, you don't make any sense!
Use the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to move your cat around the level. Your objective is to get to the button that opens the exit, and then make your way to that shining beacon. Simple, right? Well, can you do it without jumping? How about while only moving left? In fifteen seconds? While rubbing your belly and patting your head simultaneously? Okay, I made that last one up, but as you play, you'll find that the levels become more fiendish and the challenges more... uh... challenging. If you get stuck, hit [R] to restart, and you can pick up wherever you left off if you take a break by selecting "continue a challenge" from the main menu. Note that you may find that the game responds more slowly in Firefox, so if you have a problem with the timed levels, you may need to try another browser such as Chrome instead.
While the setup and design are vaguely reminiscent of This is the Only Level, here the objective is less adorable pachyderm cavorting and more meme-fuelled nightmare platforming. Some of the levels are downright punishing; level six coats the floor in a slippery substances, and when, after many tries I finally made it to the button, I died a little inside when I realised I had to make it safely all the way back to the exit. More casual platformers might be put off by the quick reflexes demanded in certain levels... while not quite Super Meat Boy, it definitely isn't Super Mario Bros either. But with a winning style, a snappy soundtrack, and a meme-tastic premise, Challenge Accepted just might quench your thirst for a spot of sneaky, tricky platforming. And then next time you go sailing into a bed of spikes, take a deep breath and ask yourself... U MAD BRO?
Update: Jacob has addressed the 2 major complaints that players brought up in the comments and the new version has been uploaded and now available to play here at JIG.
Looks interesting, but I couldn't get past level four thanks to the browser issue. Pity.
In Firefox 15s wasn't quite enough time to make it through the maze, and in IE the cat moved visibly slower. Is it only playable in Chrome, or does hardware speed factor in as well?
YES! Your theme is CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!! And the title bar shown at each level contains a clue. Sometimes. So you it every time you die. Lovely.
However, it also obscures the screen for a few seconds And for a game that, realistically, is going to take a bunch of tries, forcing someone to stop and look at your pretty graphics for a few seconds each time, lest they jump into a now-invisible hazard, is just a silly design. I'm going to let this one go.
I found the first half of the game to be kinda fun, but the second half is just frustrating. And the no-friction stages! I can only imagine what went through the developer's head so that making the game's mechanics a complete wreck seemed reasonable. Also, one of the later levels is designed in a way that you can't see what you are doing because a huge floating timer blocks the view of the path, which, incidentally, is littered with spikes and spinning thingies. Whether that was accidental or on purpose is beyond me, but it's pretty rage-inducing either way.
I can only say: Challenge accepted. Challenge beaten. Not worth it.
The developer/s need to learn more game making conveniences including the preloader needs working on someone might think it's not loading.
The m key functions as a mute button.
The thing that really peeves me off about this game is that there's this huge "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" banner in front of the level every time you start again. It's okay the first time, but to have to wait a while on every restart before the level and all its obstacles are fully visible gets really annoying.
Other than that, the game is... mildly amusing. I'm currently on level 11, and I'm not really impressed or let down. It's just a nice game to waste some time on.
I also haven't found a pause key yet, does it exist?
oh man... if i die i don't need to see every time a big banner that hide hal level for three second! i have understand that i can't turn right!
I have to agree with Donut. Maybe I'm naive, but I always believed that people made games so other people could have some fun playing them. And that's the major difference between something like this and This Is the Only Level.
I'll give it one mushroom because I'm a nice person and one because there's a cat in it, but then substract one for lack of an obvious mute button...
I got some horrific slowdown around level 6. It got so bad I stopped at level 10.
I like the idea of each level presenting a challenge to you (and I thought the no-friction level was fun) but then some of the levels are just bland. Level 10 was just a perfectly ordinary platforming level.
Quit on level 10. Didn't really excite me.
More variety to the music, and more graphical variety in the levels would have motivated me to play it through.
Challenge rejected.
76000, which feels terrible. Oh well.
Good to see some more difficult platformers, but I do have to agree with the people concerned with the banner every time you spawn, which got pretty irritating, haha.
(and every time I began to see 'no friction stage!' again a little part of me died)
Pretty lovely game nonetheless, though.
I don't think it's a very good game. It slows down a LOT, but there doesn't appear to be anything taxing happening, so it looks like there was a design flaw somewhere.
The slowdown looks like it fixes itself if you leave and come back, so I'm pretty sure I'm right about something like a gradual memory leak or accumulation of objects.
Level 11 was it for me.. a good twenty tries and only three times I made it to the button.. yeah no, sorry.
Made it to level 21, then had to quit before ragequit occurred.
Um, whenever I click start the challenge, I see a black page and something that tells me to the press the button. I click the SteakGames button but nothing happens. Help please.
[Try reloading the game. That shouldn't happen. Also, make sure your Flash Player is up to date. -Jay]
Real trouble: a game with levels that include time limits needs to program its timer such that if the gameplay slows down due to lag or processor limitations or whatever, the timer slows down as well. As-is, the 15sec maze level is impossible given how my browser is currently handling the game.
Add me to the list of fail on level 4. I've noticed this and brought it up about other games before too, tres annoying.
another level 4 failure! kind of sad really, i wanted to see how the rest of the game turned out!
[Try using Chrome. -Jay]
I couldn't do level 4 either.
[Try using Chrome. -Jay]
anyone know how to pass level 12?
Simply isn't enough time to do Level 4.
And I'm using Chrome.
I liked the first three levels and wanted to keep on, but I have the same experience of being unable to get through more than about 1/2 of level 4 before running out of time. It's actually a worse experience on my computer playing in Chrome than in Firefox--about 50% slower.
There's always something blocking the screen. The "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" or somtimes a timer that tries and fails to move out of the way..
Jacob Pariseau here, that is, the developer here. First off, I found this review amusing as hell and the comments made me laugh also. Yes, I'll get to work fixing the challenge dialog and the timer issues for you all. Thanks for playing!
Actually, while I'm here, as a user how would you do the challenge dialog? I'd rather not make a mistake and come up with a system worse or equally as bad as the one I already have. It has to stay on the screen long enough to be readable, and it has to disappear fast enough to not obscure the screen.
That's a good question, Jacob. I'm not sure I have the best answer for you, but here is my observation:
When I first played the game, I often missed the challenge banner on my first attempt, then made sure I read it the 2nd time through a level. Once I got further on in the game I made sure I read it to begin with.
I have 2 ideas:
Make the banner disappear immediately if/when the player presses one of the movement keys.
Show the banner only on the first attempt at the level. If the player dies, restart the level immediately without the banner. If the player presses [space] to reset, then show the banner again, but only until they press one of the movement keys.
games that are impossible when played under multiple common web browsers are not good games.
(timed levels don't work for me under either safari or firefox)
I may be a bit late, but I have a similar suggestion to Jay's:
The first time a level is tried or reloaded from a save, show the level's "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" banner and force a user button-press (any button, in the sense of "press any button to continue") to make the banner go away.
I don't see any need to add any additional text to the banner (except maybe on a new game's first level) to indicate to the user that "press any button" is the necessary step. Most people in the casual game audience would expect that.
Any subsequent time, do not display the banner.
A simple solution, I think. Only involves one variable, and boolean at that.
I'll put that in, great idea. And to everyone: I'm sorry it didn't work on your browser; it worked fine for me while developing and nobody while testing came up with the issue. I will fix this though, and my next game will have some more extensive testing.
Okay, I uploaded a fixed version of the game to Newgrounds, and I'll email Jay the new version. Thanks for your comments!
Nice job, Jacob!
I can confirm that the timer is fixed and the initial banner isn't displayed repeatedly upon restarting a level.
I've updated the JIG hosted version with this latest one.
How do you get past level 1?
Level 12 my button disappeared :| I was not a happy camper.
In Level 1, you hit the red button and climb up to the newly opened white door that is on the right side. The challenge for level 12 is to reach terminal velocity. Just get in an endless fall loop and the button will appear after a few seconds.
It was really good though too short! I liked the floating timer btw
Thanks! There will definitely be a sequel. I'm going to have to work at getting the level progression right, and balancing the difficulty so the levels are challenging rather than hard. There's a subtle difference I didn't know about when I started on this one. I haven't started on the sequel yet, but I have big plans for it :)
Update