As PlataGO! grows rapidly within Early Access, it can be hard to keep up with developments. Therefore here is a new guide for advanced jumping and player features - that users can now customise.

Before diving into this advanced guide, please read the ‘PLATAGO! Beginner’s Guide and Overview’ and ‘The Jumping Guide.’ The aforementioned two guides provide basics for getting up to speed with the game. This new guide expands solely on jumping, player moves, and a few other player agency features. With that said - I encourage everyone to play around and experiment with all the player settings. That’s ultimately the best way to learn about everything on offer. The amount of customisability at this point is vast.

Note: this guide will be up to date at the time it’s published. New features will no doubt be added within Early Access.

Gravity is customisable.

Right click the WORLD icon (at the top left of editor) to open Gravity settings.

You may select between 0 - 20. Selecting 0 will result in zero gravity. Selecting 20 will produce the strongest/highest gravity. A good starting, default setting, is 10. Play around with this and see what you like! Setting gravity between 1 and 3 results in some fun Moon jumping!

Player friction/physics has a bearing on how slippery/grippy movement feels, as well as some bearing on player speed. There is incredible variation to be tuned to your liking in this field.

Right click the player character to find Player settings. Included within player settings is the control field. You will find the following:

Horizontal Air Friction
Vertical Air Friction
Ground Friction

When you first right click these settings, they each show you good starting default values. If you use each of these defaults - movement will feel good, controllable, and not too slippery.

But then the fun begins..

If you move any or every slider leftwards, this will reduce friction - meaning that movement slowly but surely becomes a bit faster, a bit looser, and more slippery. Move the values to the far left – and you will produce the most slippery, loosest movement available. Move values rightwards, and movement starts to tighten up. At the most rightwards friction settings - running and air movement is VERY slow, the player feels heavy - but control is absolute. Play around with what feels right for you.

Regarding Ground Friction specifically– this means your basic walking friction. Setting this between 0 - 0.3 makes player slide on ground excessively, while ground running speed is immensely fast. Most people should have the best results selecting between 0.4 and 0.8. Experiment with what feels natural for you, how fast you like running, keeping in mind what level design you wish to make.

Selecting 0.4 is still very slippery, with fast ground running, but manageable. Selecting 0.8 means slow ground running, great grip turning left and right, with an overall tight/precise feel on the ground.

Selecting 1 will be for very specific purposes only, but do try it and be creative in your level design. Perhaps there are magnets under your metal feet? 1 provides so much grip on the ground - you will walk at a snail’s pace.

My usual ground settings fall between 0.6 and 0.7 – both provide good running speed, while not too slippery to turn.

Below the settings to change Player Friction - you can find the absolutely essential Player Responsiveness settings.

While reading about friction directly above, you will have noted that player movement speed is somewhat influenced by friciton. While this is very true, it's only a fraction of the story. If you wish to get the most out of your desired movement speed, you will need to customise responsiveness. This includes:

Air Responsiveness
Ground Responsiveness

These settings impact how twitchy your player movement becomes, acceleration, max speed, and turning speed (in the air and on the ground).

My best way to highlight the difference between friction and responsiveness is this: friction sets how grippy/slippery your movement is, responsiveness sets your acceleration speed. Pretend responsiveness is set very high - and at the press of the left button - your player accelerates rapidly leftwards.

Set to their default values - your player will feel just fine to move around. But would you like to have a super speedy character? Move the responsiveness sliders rightwards. Slower character? Move sliders leftwards. Play around with what feels fun for you, but note that the extreme left and right tend not to be the best options. Far right is too twitchy - far left your player barely moves.

I personally like a fast character, so I slide both air and ground responsiveness (just) a few numbers rightwards.

One more crucial thing to note - is that friction and responsiveness will affect each other. You must balance them. So while I enjoy super speedy responsiveness, I always increase the relative friction ever so slightly for balance. This allows me to accelerate rapidly, in the air and on the ground, but I can stop just like that (or turn around)!

Think about how you, and your audience of players, will respond to the controls!

Turn on the Triple Jump setting for a third jump in air, prior to resetting jump quota via landing on ground. Self explanatory.

You may find you cannot pull off double or triple jumps some of the time. There are some specific laws that complicate things...

During the jump ascent, you should never have trouble doing double and triple jumps. Around the jump apex (highest point) you should, again, have no trouble doing double/triple jumps.

However once you're falling again (and dropped out of the apex) you have a severely reduced chance of executing multiple jumps. Essentially once you've risen THEN fallen far enough, you cannot jump again at all. This is just one quirk and interesting system in the game.

The last, most interesting feature is ONE final law. If you fall off a ledge or platform (don't jump - just run off the side) you can actually fall for as LONG as you like, then execute one more jump in the air.

However, you may not wish to adhere to the game's standard jumping laws, as outlined above. Luckily for us, there are Jump Fall Effect settings.

Jump Fall Effect settings can slide between 1 (default) and 0 (utilising 0.1 increments). Keeping the default setting of 1 means all laws outlined above are maintained. If you select 0, you disable the Jump Fall Effect. Selecting 0 will mean you can jump, then fall as far as you like, then jump again. There is no risk of dropping too far down from the jump apex.

Experiment by changing the Jump Fall Effect settings. The closer to 1 you select, the closer to the jump apex you will have to initiate your 2nd and 3rd jumps. The closer to 0 you select, the timing becomes much looser and forgiving, meaning you can drop very far in air before worrying you may fail to jump again. Select 0, and you may drop as far as you like without worry.

(The above sounds dense and technical. While that is somewhat true - Jump Fall Effect settings can be as simplified or deep as you like. Think about how you can use these settings to keep players on their toes. They offer a highly technical jump system, especially when triple jump is enabled).

Select Permanent Stomp if you wish to jump on every enemy, all the time.

(There is a separate, secondary potion pick-up in the game - that acts as a temporary enemy stomp. This potion may be placed anywhere in a level. Upon pick-up, for a temporary time period all enemies can be stomped).

This section is probably the most important part of the guide. While everyone can play around with the settings and figure things out slowly, below are a few pointers.

Essentially this awesome feature allows for utmost control over player jump heights. Do you recall the ‘jump power’ information within ‘The Jumping Guide’ (one of the other guides available)?? I recommend you read that again then dive into this section. There is a very important difference between Jump Power and the new Variable Jump.

Start by looking at the Variable Jump slider. Set to 0 - there is absolutely no change to how your player jumps. You’ll notice that every jump feels the same. There’s a good reason for that. When you hold down the jump button, your player will jump up to the same height EVERY single time. Regardless of how long you hold down the jump button, your jumps will ALWAYS be the same height.

This is where things get interesting.

Slowly move the slider for Variable Jump to the right (with slight increments of 0.1 each time, you can slide all the way up to 2). You will find that each and every time you move 0.1 to the right - your player will now have an ever increasing distance between minimum and maximum jump height, relative to the duration of time you HOLD the jump button.

Say what now?

What this means is that you can create your own, customised, min and max jump heights, based on how long you hold jump! A slight tap of the jump button will make the player jump to the lowest set height. A long jump hold will allow you to get to max jump height.

Remember that you can change Jump Power, which is a separate setting, which controls default jump height based on jump acceleration. Jump Power controls basic overall jump inertia, NOT the gap between min/max jumps!

Slide the Variable Jump settings as far to the right as you’d like, creating an ever increasing gap between min and max jump heights. See what feels right to you. I prefer quite a large min/max jump difference, so I often use settings between 1 and 2. Remember, setting 0 means jumps will always be the same, regardless of button press hold time. Setting 2 will create such a large gap that your jumps will be so different, all dependent on if you hold down that jump button or tap it!!

Have fun experimenting and see where you fall.

This is not a physically customisable setting as such - it’s more so a feature of Variable Jump settings. You may notice that the higher the number you place for Variable Jump, there is an ever increasing sense that gravity is lowered, especially as you hold the jump button for longer. When maxing out the jump apex, it almost feels like time might be slowing! I believe this has a cool impact on the game.

The higher you rise, as you hold jump for longer, you may want good aerial control entering the jump apex, as well as just before falling back to ground. With the awesome low gravity effect, you gain utmost control of your player before they start falling - so if there are dangers below - this helps you line up where you wish to land. It’s very interesting. I very much appreciate the heightened sense of control as you gracefully handle your flight path during the jump apex.

Set Variable Jump to 2 to maximise this feature.

Do try and see for yourself!

Wall jumping is an option in PlataGO! It's very fun to use and allows for novel level design.

Select the Wall Jump option within Jump settings to turn this on.

If you wish to slide up and down walls slowly during wall jumps, set the wall friction slightly rightwards of its default value. This is desirable for improving the sense of control when wall sliding. It is always easier to control your character when friction is slightly sticky, because it slows down the action somewhat.

Also, for your wall friction to feel natural and smooth (compared to regular vertical friction) - perhaps try setting wall friction ever so slightly higher than standard vertical friction. I often set wall friction to 0.4, and set vertical friction to 0.3. This results in a noticably smooth, fluid, but sticky enough wall slide - that gives utmost control.

With friction sorted out, we can now move on to some important features of wall jumps that require some skilled gameplay.

When sliding on a wall (preparing to jump again) you can input the directional buttons in 1 of 3 ways:

-no directional input
-direction input away from wall
-direction input towards wall

-Try holding no direction, then press jump, and you will jump directly up the wall again.

-Try holiding away from the wall, VERY quicky press jump, and you will perfectly execute a jump away from the wall.

-Try holding direction towards wall, then press jump. This is great if you wish to stay closely attached to the wall. It's also perfect if you're near the top of the wall you're climbing, and wish to jump directly over it.

Get a good feel for wall jumping by experimenting with wall friction. Remember the directional buttons have an impact on your wall navigation moveset.

Have fun with this awesome wall jump system!

PlataGO! allows you to fire weapons placed in levels. Hold the right trigger on the Xbox gamepad to shoot. Further, in a recent update, 8-way directional shooting was added to the game. Users can now place enemies all around a level and shoot them from any direction with ease. Try it out!

Select this via the 8 Way Shooting option.

Using any projectile weapon, with moderate recoil settings, will allow for some extremely addictive recoil jumping mayhem!

What does that mean? Well.. shoot downwards, but fly/recoil upwards - shoot leftwards, but fly/recoil rightwards!! Insanity. This is basically a novel, inverse player movement system with a high skill ceiling.

Here are some good settings to start you off. But do modify these, as you please, to refine your perfect feel. Some users may find these settings too slow, too fast, or whatever! Have fun messing around. Gravity impacts things - so if you want to float very slowly - set gravity quite low. I prefer to replicate a slow, but normal jump arc - so I set gravity to 8.

Level settings:

- Gravity (8)

Player settings:

- Diagonal shooting (tick this box)
- Horizontal air friction (0.50)
- Air responsiveness (0)
- Jump power (0)

Weapon settings:

- Fire rate (5)
- Shot speed (10)
- Recoil (8)

And there you go.. choose your projectile weapon of choice.. and start inverse jumping to your heart's content!

This is not a customisable setting, but rather a newly added feature in the game. Holding the right bumper on the Xbox gamepad will hold the player still. This is useful for precise, 8-way directional shooting. It's especially helpful while standing up ladders. You may now lock firmly onto ladders and aim with 8-way directional shooting. The player will not fall off ladders using this feature.

Player hit boxes, in a nutshell, tell the game when your player will collide with hazards or enemies on screen. There are now two selectable player hit boxes in the game.

The default hit box is called exact, sometimes also called pixel perfect, and will mean collisions in game will occur immediately as you brush against or collide with something dangerous. The default hit box is very traditional, very old school in approach, and generally considered quite difficult.

If you select the new Smaller Hit box, your player border can have more overlap with hazards before collision is registered by the game. This is quite standard in modern platformers. This new option allows for a more modern game play feel, greater accessibility, plus a feeling of fairness and forgiving difficulty.

Smaller hit boxes tend to allow for much tighter, compact level design - where precision in movement and jumps is important. If you wish to make some very narrow areas for hardcore precision levels, using the smaller player hit box offers an overall ‘hard but fair’ feel to game play. You may be surprised just how limited the default hit box is when making very compact and dangerous areas. Or you may absolutely love the default hit box.

Try both hit boxes to see which you prefer.

With so many player settings, it can be tricky to decide on where to start, and what level design will be appropriate.

Here are a few tips:

- Want to use a little or low powered jump? - Create fairly compact, small levels.
- A big jump? - Spread out potential hazards and have large, open level design.
- A speedy character or a speedrun level? - Perhaps increase player friction a little, to balance that
speed.
- Rage inducing difficulty? - Place many checkpoints, or make smaller levels. Or not - if designed as
an absolute gauntlet of madness - don't use any checkpoints!

This guide has focused on exhaustive player settings - but there are more items and features not discussed that FURTHER influence player movement. Two such items, are the Gravity Flipping Pads and the Time Controller pick up.

- Try placing Gravity Flipping Pads within a level to reoreint your footing. Walk on the floor, the walls, or on ceilings! Every time you run, jump, or move, having ever changing gravity can challenge your movement, your brain, and your skills. This keeps gameplay fresh and fun.
- Try using the Time Controller pick up, to temporarily slow down time, for particularly difficult sections of a level!

So while player settings themselves are vastly changable - there are still more items in PlataGO! that multiply, and increase player customisability. Experiment, have fun, and create anything and everything!

As game continues to develop, more features will be added. For now, I hope these explanations will help some people, inspire some creative level design, and player customisation.

Lastly, I’ve described control input in terms of an Xbox gamepad, but as keyboard function is finalised as well as key remapping allowed in a future update, the keys will become more flexible. You can still do everything above with a keyboard.

Have fun!