My very first game ever!!! - Feedback MOST WELCOME

Hi everyone,

I am a graphics artist & animator newly turned game developer thanks to the team at Scirra!

a HUGE thank you to Scirra & their team for making it possible for people like me to get in on the fun of game development!

Game w BUGS:

http://caito.coffeecup.com/newt_bugs/index.html

Game w current FIXES: (thanks to help here on the forum)

http://caito.coffeecup.com/newt/index.html

& CAPX file:

http://caito.coffeecup.com/capx/newts_bag-it_wip.capx

Anyhow, I finished my first game last year for a client, which in turn was chock full of Bugs, Bugs, & MORE Bugs! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

It's an educational game for young children to learn the differences in food choices in their diets.

Which is tied to an online cartoon series that should be out sometime this or next year.

I learned an IMMENSE amount thanks to the active community here, & was able to sift out most of them on my own by searching & reading through the forums, but for there are several things that still evade my limited knowledge on how to fix them.

So I am turning to the community for any/all help regarding my first venture into gaming

in hopes that you can help me figure out where i went wrong

BUGS- (there are several, but i'll limit it to just 3 for this forum)

The biggest offenders are the audio glitches-

1- AUDIO ECHOES

When picking up the foods the audio bytes repeat themselves several times unintentionally,

Im unsure how to limit this to just playing ONCE then not playing until another food is picked up.

2- BACKGROUND MUSIC DOES NOT RESET

The music plays endlessly, which is fine, but never resets itself for when the player goes back to the begining or Main Menu.

3- ANIMATED GLITCH

Theres a slight graphics glitch with one of the Newt characters during gameplay, the boy Newt (to the right) skips and transforms one of the frames of the animation and I cannot tell why. The frames in C2 are all in there & seem to be in their appropriate place, but during gameplay they make a sudden 'jump' when he is helping the player by nurturing them with positive reinforcement when making a 'good' move. I tried my best to sync the sound to the animation as well, and can only figure that perhaps having to play both of these at the same time might be the culprit? But i really dont know.

anyhow- thats it for the bugs, so on to:

WORKFLOW & BEST PRACTICES-

In general, if there is any constructive criticism or tips on my setup i would GREATLY appreciate it.

As this is my first ever video game,

Im positive there are MUCH better ways of setting up the game logic, but as a newbie,

I am unaware of what the 'best practices' might be.

The community here has been a HUGE help, and I tried to be as organised as i could, using FAMILIES and grouping together objects & instances as well as labeling the Event Sheet and keeping it as sparse as I could with my limited knowledge were capable of.

but PLEASE FEEL FREE to point out any mistakes I have made, OBVIOUS or NOT OBVIOUS

so that i may have the opportunity of becoming a better game developer.

many thanks in advance for any help that can be thrown my way!!!

and again a HUGE thankyou to Ashley & his team at Scirra

You guys are AWESOME !!!

Sweet game, haven't tested all the bugs you posted, but the last one im 99% certain is due to an imagepoint that have been moved by mistake.

wow, thanks for the quick reply! and for your kind words on my project.

I'll check on the image point. That hadnt even occured to me.

Perhaps I inadvertantly moved it on a frame or something.

I'll check & get back to you on that.

many THANKS again. Your feedback is immensly appreciated!

This community is AWESOME!

Sweet game, haven't tested all the bugs you posted, but the last one im 99% certain is due to an imagepoint that have been moved by mistake.

nimos100

SPOT ON! you were RIGHT nimos!

JUST fixed it! MANY MANY thanks for that.

any guesses on the audio glitches?

The others are a bit harder since you have not provided any code. But the first one might be solved with a "trigger once", and the second one you could probably restart Music in the start of layout event. But without code its just guesses

nimos100

THANKS AGAIN!

you were right.

ok. i *THINK i fixed the capx link above, let me know if you still have any issues.

heres the capx again just in case:

http://caito.coffeecup.com/capx/newts_bag-it_wip.capx

tks in advance!

Carlos

[quote:2d6vh452]let me know if you still have any issues.

Actually hadn't noticed you had already linked it, but it didn't seem to work anyway when I tried, maybe you removed the linked in the first post again? Anyway the last one you added worked, so it good....except that you use some behaviour plugins which I don't, so it wont allow me to open it

However I tried to play it with sound, and regarding problem one, you need to add some check to the player so if they are currently carrying some food item, and the sound have already been played it shouldn't play it again. You can do that if you add a Boolean to the player which by default is set to True, lets call it "Play_Food_Sound", then when the player picks up a piece of food, you add a condition to where you play the sound that this need to be true, and then you set this to False as you play the sound. In you "Space" event which drop the food, you set it to True again. That should solve it.

Regarding the 2 problem I don't seem to get any music at all, I get that opening sound and then nothing. So not really sure about that.

Anyway as I played it some more, I have a few suggestions for you:

1. Add a exit to main menu. Maybe if the player press "ESC" or just a button, not being able to quit is really annoying

2. I noticed that some of the platform does that some of the food is half outside the screen, which is not good, as I assume that the kids are suppose to guess what they are as well, but also looks weird why they should be outside like that.

3. Depending on if you are done working on it, but you could maybe add a Evil character that walked around that they also had to avoid, maybe some unhealthy food

But think the kids will like it, the graphic is very clear, colourful and cartoonish

First of all, MANY THANKS nimos100 for taking the time to reach out & help out a newbie

I am VERY much appreciative of your kindness

regarding your comments:

1. LOVE the idea of an unhealthy food character! Gotta run that one by my client

2. Exit Menu is also very cool idea, & should be easy enough to implement

3. The food half-off screen was not even something i thought of, but your sooo right! again, an easy fix thank goodness

not sure why the music isnt working for you, but ill see what i can do for that

(i found out recently that importing into the sounds folder instead of the music folder seems to work better for whatever reason)

4. Im going to have to wrap my brain around your Boolean Solution.

I *think* i understand where your going with that, and Im going to give it a whirl

but I may have to hit you back up if I run into a wall if thats okay

this is all still very new to me and i have sooo much to learn

anyhow. TKS AGAIN! VERY MUCH appreciated.

[quote:2qjw41m1]not sure why the music isnt working for you, but ill see what i can do for that

You might want a second opinion on it, as my sound in the browsers have never been very stabile. For instant in IE I don't get any sound at all.

Wonderful game for kids! I love the idea of a game that teaches while you play.

I found a few small bugs, though:

1) On stage 2 in the middle right section of the map it is possible to stand without a platform (I supplied a screencap)

2) The hamburger patties (I assume) do not have a sound associated with them when your player moves over them

3) Occasionally, I was unable to pick up any more groceries after I dropped one into a cart. This seems to happen if I drop a grocery and then try to pick up another before the previous drop has completed.

Wonderful job! Keep up the good work!

Wonderful game for kids! I love the idea of a game that teaches while you play.

...Wonderful job! Keep up the good work!

taokodr

THANK YOU for your kind words and for taking the time out to test the game out.

1) On stage 2 in the middle right section of the map it is possible to stand without a platform (I supplied a screencap)

2) The hamburger patties (I assume) do not have a sound associated with them when your player moves over them

3) Occasionally, I was unable to pick up any more groceries after I dropped one into a cart. This seems to happen if I drop a grocery and then try to pick up another before the previous drop has completed.

regarding the bugs:

again THANKS so MUCH for helping. I was able to tackle the first 2 already, and will post it by the end of today hopefully.

Just as an FYI if it helps anyone else out:

1- The problem was that her collision was the default box given to her sprite.

I cropped her and all her different animation cycles and that took care of it!

2- you were RIGHT! there were so many foods to keep track of, i missed that one,

but i mapped it with the correct audio, and it works now Luckily I have an Eventsheet Master,

so i only had to make the change once, and it propagates to all the other levels.

the 3rd...im unsure of how to fix. If you have an suggestions, i am open to trying it out, as this problem has been with me since the begining.

THANKS again. i cannot tell you how appreciative I am for the commentary & advice!

Glad to help. I'm new to Construct 2 and it's so much fun seeing the creative uses of the resource.

For #3, I don't know a definite answer without seeing code. The only possible thing I can think of is to make sure the falling grocery event isn't tied to the carrying/not carrying status of your player(?). Also, does your space bar toggle the player's carrying status or does it definitively set it to the not carrying state?

In any case, good luck and keep up the good work!

Glad to help. I'm new to Construct 2 and it's so much fun seeing the creative uses of the resource.

For #3, I don't know a definite answer without seeing code. The only possible thing I can think of is to make sure the falling grocery event isn't tied to the carrying/not carrying status of your player(?). Also, does your space bar toggle the player's carrying status or does it definitively set it to the not carrying state?

In any case, good luck and keep up the good work! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

taokodr

Thanks again man!

If you'd like to see the code, I've provided the following link to the .capx file at the beg of this post:

http://caito.coffeecup.com/capx/newts_bag-it_wip.capx

Feel free to give me any tips/suggestions regarding best practices as well

since im such a newbie at this,

Im sure my Event Sheets, Layouts, and code decisions in general, could use some help.

If you have any recommends regarding such, I am all ears. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

Re your ?'s on the spacebar:

The food is automatically 'pinned' to the character when he passes through it.

It then sets a pinned variable to True so he doesn't pick up any other foods.

Then awaits a spacebar click to drop the food off.

its not a toggle, but as you deduced,

a definitive change to 'unpin' the food to the character.

I hadn't thought of a toggle, but now that you mention it,

it could be a better system to help the child make a decisive choice

instead of being unintentionally latched on to a new food.

Thinking it over, I like that idea better,

but I'll have to run that one by my client,

as its definitely a different approach to how they envisioned it.

again. MANY thanks for your time & consideration.

Its reassuring to know there are others out there willing to help one another out in the spirit of good will alone.

tks for that, & best wishes dude!

nimos100

[quote:1096nfsb]However I tried to play it with sound, and regarding problem one, you need to add some check to the player so if they are currently carrying some food item, and the sound have already been played it shouldn't play it again. You can do that if you add a Boolean to the player which by default is set to True, lets call it "Play_Food_Sound", then when the player picks up a piece of food, you add a condition to where you play the sound that this need to be true, and then you set this to False as you play the sound. In you "Space" event which drop the food, you set it to True again. That should solve it.

TOTALLY worked nimos, THANK YOU!!!

i also fixed the foods that were "half-off"

and added your suggestion of a <esc> for main menu,

many thanks for the GREAT TIP!

which gave me the idea of putting in a reset when you press <return> in case anything goes wrong

so THANKS AGAIN for your time & reaching out

best regards-

Carlos

nice game interesting idea