huzzah, if you were finding the game so unbearably hard, why didn't you play on EASY mode? You have unlimited lives and every checkpoint counts as a purple checkpoint. It's rather annoying to hear people complain about the difficulty when they can CHANGE it...
Huzzah! Finally! Rank S again! Which means it IS possible, thankfully. It took me 9:29 on Expert mode, so if you're wondering about whether S is actually achievable or not, there you go. (I've been trying for the last three days to get this and I MADE the game, so that gives you an idea of what it takes... Impossible badge material, probably. o_O)
I cannot understand how people are having problems with a basic manoeuvre like ladder grabbing... You just need to press or hold UP while going by the ladder... Perhaps though you customised the controls so that it's awkward to do, but I suppose that's what you get for not using the default controls, which were planned as they are for good reasons... Hmm.
Oh, and the game is still only in its first few days of public exposure, so this is my last chance to make any changes. I'll stop tweaking things in a few days though, when it's ready to be released to other sites.
Also, I've got S rank before, but that was before I started making these modifications. I keep making tweaks so then it's easier to get S rank and yet also more challenging at the same time (some rooms were just TOO easy). If NOBODY can get S though, even with a truly perfect run, then I'll likely end up making more changes to some places in order to make it more possible. But as it is, the S rank is basically a way of saying that you did indeed do a perfect run, so you should think of it as something that you need to raise your skill to achieve, rather than asking me to bring it down to your level. Or something. o_O
kylead, sorry, but you were playing a version I uploaded after making some tweaks where that platform was accidentally deleted. I fixed it as quickly as I could, but I knew that someone would be inconvenienced by it...
articuno1508, it IS possible, I think, to get an S rank; I got that high score of mine on Intermediate mode, so if I was on Expert mode, I'd have got S. I know that the person who currently has the highest score is capable of it since he's a member on my site, and has been playing the game for a while as a tester, usually managing to beat things before the other testers did.
I've been tweaking a few rooms as I've been playing through it myself, which is why some of them look different to how they did when I first uploaded it.
I was hoping that people would realise various controls from the How To Play section, which specifically mentions how to read signs and what skills you have... I suppose I could say that it is the player's 'own fault' for not knowing the controls because they didn't read about them, yet for a while I've been concerned that I should add some kind of tutorial thing, or at LEAST have a thing that appears on the screen saying 'press [whatever key you set; default UP] to read this sign!' as you approached it, since other tips are written on signs... I might do that.
Thank you for your long response, raitendo; it's appreciated.
Before I made this game, I played a load of NES and SNES games and other independent games based on them, and analysed their things like jump physics and such. In the vast majority of them, there were none of the fancy modern things like acceleration or relatively complex physics, and in several your head slid along the roof instead of falling. I found it amusing, and I consciously decided to include that in this, even as a necessary manoeuvre at some points. I know they're not on par with the expected physics in modern platformers, but that wasn't the point originally anyway.
Icy_Blaze, did you do something silly like configure the controls such that the key for moving left is something strange or a key used for another action, like *moving right* or something?
Also, I am really glad to see that the game has attracted a few people who actually do remember the good old games which were actually challenging, which you could play for ages without really getting anywhere because you kept dying, but when you did, it felt like such a satisfying accomplishment... Modern games, with their instant gratification and 'Death is a slap on the wrist' mechanics don't really have this same feeling...
"next time and put some more time into your games"
I find that very insulting, because obviously you have no idea how much time goes into ANY game... And I very much doubt that you realise how much time went into this one. Ugh.
I've spent the last three days just tweaking things that people bring up, which gives an idea of how much of my time and attention I'm putting into this.
A game 'this long'? Hmm... It only takes like ten minutes to finish it unless you spend a lot of time dying, and if you do, then the next time you return to it (if you do at all), you'll find yourself more skilled and able to return to where you last were quite quickly, and get more practice in the process. A save function isn't really necessary, and would actually be sort of disruptive to the game's intent.
marti000, you have to finish without dying once in order to get S at all, and anyone who can finish all other rooms without dying is unlikely to find the changed rooms tragically more difficult and deadly.
Since it was entirely possible before to finish in 9 minutes or less and you need to do it in under 10 to get an S rank, the new changes shouldn't create much of a difference. I hope. If it proves to be really frustratingly impossible, I make some changes somewhere, but until then I'll just hope that it's okay as it is.
 "Raider: Episode 1")