Heh, yes... people are noticing the minor changes to rooms, I see! I was playing through the game and found them annoyingly effortless, as I did from the start, so I decided to make them actually challenging instead.
ShadowOfHollow, I just tested that, using the default controls but with UP for jump, and I can grab onto ladders easily. The key to grab ladders is whatever you assigned to the 'use doors/signs' key though, so it'd be that. (I suppose I should specify this on the Configure Keys screen...)
Efreeti, there are many people here who have completed this game, so it's certainly not impossible. When I first played it myself after/while making it, I was poor at it to, but the more I played it, the more my skill increased and now I can basically breeze through the level and beat the boss without getting hit. It IS a matter of skill, and to call the game itself flawed because you can't win without having to really try is rather arrogant and self-righteous. "I'm not at fault for failing, THE GAME IS. After all, how could *I* be at fault?!"
If this game lags for you, either you have a REALLY ancient computer (probably made of stone or something), or there's a browser-related problem, perhaps. Try another browser, but if that doesn't work, then I really am sorry, but it seems that you should take it as a hint that your computer may be in need of replacing. It takes a while to add new features, and I can't add configuration settings for minorities such as people with obsolete hardware, people who are blind, people who have postage-stamp-sized monochrome monitors, etc... o_O
Mario, please read the instructions. Natter91, no, there's no saving, but it's not really necessary since you can finish the whole thing in less than ten minutes.
oak11oak, are you using IE8? I think that browser might interfere with games like this for no good reason...
Because if you keep pressing A, the game actually takes you through all the actual intro that I took the time to make. How simple do you want things to be?! The ability to skip the intro isn't enough; it has to be done with one key?!
You CAN grab ladders in this; it's just that you're probably assuming that controls from some other game(s) that you happen to be used to should transfer over to this, which isn't the case and isn't a fair assumption either. In this game, you grab ladders by using UP while jumping, but you have to press UP as you go past the ladder. You don't just automatically grab them.
I've noticed that a few people have reported laggy or broken controls, but I have no idea why that might be... Is it an issue with a certain browser? IE8 comes to mind. Or maybe related to some other software or hardware nuance? Either way, I've never experienced it before, and it's really unfortunate that anyone should experience it at all but I don't think there's much I can do about it until I know what causes it.
I originally intended to have no penalty for finishing on Medium, and a bonus for finishing on Hard, but then I decided to do it the way it is now since, after all, the ranks just show your level of skill at the game. An S rank - the highest - would be best awarded to someone who not only beat the game 'perfectly', but on the highest difficulty too, so it would rightly represent his supreme accomplishment. You can get S rank on Intermediate, which is actually easier, even with the point penalty, though.
People, if you seem to be doing poorly at the game, please try to realise that so many other people here have completed it just fine, so it is likely your ineptitude more than a fault of the game that is causing you to fail. Don't blame me that you can't have victory just handed to you like in most other games; you have to EARN it here.
I have now added the ability to return to the main menu at any point from the Pause screen, as requested! However, only I've tested it, and not all that thoroughly (I don't have the time), so it *might* be buggy in some way. It's unlikely, but possible.
I'll add a thing on the 'death menus' that allows you to return to the title screen tomorrow... and/or a way to return from the game, like by pressing ESC or something. I don't want to do it right this second though because it's late and I'm tired...
Use Z to skip the dialogue completely... though this doesn't seem to work while the words are, uh, 'flowing in'...
Hmm... Have I been belittling people here, unfairly? I suppose it's just from frustration that people put no effort into paying attention to things like difficulty settings, etc, then complain as if it's entirely my fault that they don't bother to focus or something... I don't know.
satansFinger, it is condescending and self-righteous of you to speak as if your preferred control scheme is the only one that any sane person would prefer... I personally HATE games that use 'up' for jump because it feels clunky, awkward and amateur, and made a conscious decision to use a different key instead.
Also, I only added the key config thing because of complains in this very comment section, earlier today in fact, long after the beta testing phase of the game. The players here, and myself, are its only testers so far.
What would you suggest I do instead for falling through platforms if UP is jump?
The fact that you can configure the controls to your liking should really stop the comments about the supposedly poor control scheme, but since it doesn't, I suppose I should make it clearer that such a thing is possible...
Rather than 'sitting back confident in my own brilliance', I feel more like I'm panicking because people 'ignore what is in front of their face', so to speak, and react critically because of it... I took the time to include difficulty settings that I thought WERE reasonable, yet it 'doesn't work'... Agh, it's worrying, because I don't know what I can possibly DO about it...
Are you people simply UNAWARE of the Difficulty settings, despite it being something that you have to select in order to start? On Easy mode, you have infinite lives and restart at the last checkpoint every time. The game is also, of course, EASIER. If you feel that the game is too hard, is it so unthought of to try an easier difficulty?
aracari, can you be more specific? I thought I'd separated all the hard bits with checkpoints. Of course, what is actually hard depends a lot on the player, so what you find hard, I probably didn't.
 "Raider: Episode 1")