Jump button doesn't always work

[Unknownlight]

This happens frequently enough that's it's been bothering me, but it was also rare enough that it took me a bit to realize what was happening.

When you run up a slope, there's a brief moment during the transition from sloped ground to flat ground that your character isn't actually touching the floor. If you press the jump button during that time it doesn't work. You're "in the air", after all.

The best way to fix this would be to implement "Coyote Time" (where you're still allowed to jump for a few frames after leaving the ground). Most platformers do this, and it's a good QOL improvement in general.

 

[sluggard]

Huh, so it's not just me. I thought my keyboard was acting up.

 

[Unknownlight]

Alternatively, if Coyote Time doesn’t consistently work because of the high variance in movement speed (e.g. what feels good when Sonic is moving at low speed doesn’t work when Sonic is moving at the Speed of Thok), then I have another suggestion that you could try instead. Or do both. Or do something else entirely. Who knows?

You could set it so that that character can still jump even if they’re not directly touching the ground. As an example, say that Sonic has a jump height of 100 units, and say that you set it so that Sonic can jump if he’s between 0-10 units away from the floor—with that number subtracted from his jump height. If you press jump when Sonic is 0 units from the floor (he’s touching the ground; the normal way jumps work), then he jumps 100 units high. If you press jump when Sonic is 8 units from the floor, he still jumps but at a height of 92 units. (This is mostly to prevent Knuckles from getting into places he shouldn’t.)