Katon the soulless (platformer/puzzle/pixel) (BETA)

Hello everyone, as a goal for 2015, I will try to put this game in greenlight and pass it!

Right now i'm working in all the media needed for this, and trying to make a fanbase, I need to make a website too. When i have all the media prepared, i will sign up in greenlight

The game is a puzzle/platformer (more puzzle than platformer) where you are a dark wizard that was jailed by his brother. You must escape using your dark powers and kill him.

The main idea is to make at least 50 levels more or less accesible, with new game mechanics every 10 levels. Then i want to add another 25 optional and more complex levels.

Controls:

Arrows = moving (if i must tell you other controls, something is wrong in my game <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">)

Test it here (new link)

http://byr.comze.com/katonbeta/

If you played this game before, my advice is to delete cache from byr.comze.com, or you wont see the new version.

Its a BETA version. All levels are opened but you should play them in order. If you see something wrong, please, tell me.

IndieDB:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/katon-the-soulless-wizard

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ByR_RGP

Promotional video:

video:

Screenshots: (How can i make them smaller?)

Hi!

Your game is really nice and almost feel finished, there's really good things in it, you can be proud!

Here's a list of things I saw:

It reminds me of escape goat. Did you play it? Athough it just feels like an inspiration, it's not bad for the game and can be good actually. I Didn't play escape goat yet, though.

Your game is a bit slow on my computer. And my computer is not a totally bad computer, it's kinda fine, I can usually play, so.. maybe you should make your code a bit faster (was running your game at like 20-25fps. It's fine for playing, but for the moments when you have to go back to your soul before you hit the spikes, it has been really frustrating. I'm not sure about this mechanic by the way. It frustrated me a lot and I didn't find it interesting so much.. )

I think you're giving too much Textual information to the player. Your game should have none or almost.

I have a bit of a problem with how the guy is jumping. Cause sometime he jumps lower and I don't understand why and it's frustrating. (when I'm not moving maybe. But I don't see why it would do that?)

The mechanic of "if your soul hits the spike it will not die" is not really intuitive I think. I'll talk about that a bit more when I'll talk about lvls, but it's a problem.

You have a little buggy thing with the respawn: If you create a soul and then die, the soul stays in place. (Or did you want that? it feels like it's a bug.)

So, I'm just going to talk about each lvl individually, it will be more easy and more clear for you to fix things:

On the first lvl: the thing of putting a switch in the way, to make the player notice that it makes the rocks fall is good. But it's useless for the gameplay here. You could have made something meaningful easily. Like, (1) it would make the rocks fall in front of the player and not behind him, so it would be an obstacle (he would have to jump) or (2) the exit could be on the top of the lvl and once you hit the switch you have to go back and jump on the rocks to get through the exit.

see what I mean? The idea of the first lvl is good, but not meaningful for me.

Second lvl is really nice and intuitive. Good work here.

Third lvl: Once again I'm not sure of that mechanic of "You have to go back to your soul before you die." it's frustrating and not adding so much to the game. Specially since it's slow on my computer.

4th lvl was really good. But once again.. That thing with the spikes.. grr.

I really like the 5th lvl, but once again the "your soul can go through spikes" is not intuitive.

Actually I feel like you should interchange Lvl 5 and lvl 6. In the lvl 6, you can "see" that your soul will get through spikes. Because of the moving platform. It's just intuitive. And then in lvl 5, if you know that already it'll be okay.

Talking about lvl 6: I love it! Good use of the checkpoint in this one.

Lvl 7 : Good one, but, I had issue for the moment where there's the checkpoint. It's difficult and it doesnt have to be. I think you should add some space on the right. Like one cube or something.

And I didn't get why you put the thing with the fire bullets (except introducing the bullet of fire, but it feels forced actually). Feels useless. Could be nice but something is missing to make it meaningful I think

Lvl 8: This one has problems. Figuring how to solve it was hard and not so fun (but it could still be nice though, sometime puzzle game does this.), and the checkpoint feels bad. it feels like "oh here's the last danger so incase you die you would respaw okay?"

Lvl 9 : What a pain. I broke the game here, trying to solve the puzzle (attached a screenshot.). The puzzle felt "difficult because it's not clear" more than "difficult because I'm stupid" ; but I can't tell, didnt finish it because of the crash.

You should add a lvl select at the begining, because if I want to get back to the lvl 9 and 10 and give you feedbacks, I have to do the whole game again and I don't feel like doing it.

So, this was a cool game, it's alpha and there's still things to improve here, it's normal. I tried to give the more feedbacks and advices I could. But you're in a good way What kind of game will it be? Like, a free play in browser game, or a full game that you plan to greenlight (If you work hard and make it really really good it could be a thing I think.)? You have any idea?

Bye

Wow, thats a deep analysis, thanks a lot!! I will try to answer you:

-The game is inspired in escape goat and some other games so you are right.

-I don't know if you are playing the last version, if you don't see a crappy title screen then is the old one, in the new one i reduced the number of objects and collision checks by 2 or 3 times so the game should run smoother. Please try to refresh or delete the cookies of the game and tell me fps again.

-The problem with the jump is because of FPS, so maybe now feels better. About the "jump to the spikes" mechanic, i will try to place the spikes farther.

-The respawn with soul is intended, but now you said it i think that maybe i can remove it, but then i should be more careful when i design the levels.

-LEVEL1: You are right, the idea is to teach that you need to press a button to open the door, but the positioning of the objects is not correct

-LEVEL3: this mechanic can be frustrating in slow machines but i will try to put the spikes farther as i said

-LEVEL5-6 i will switch them, you are totally right in this one.

-LEVEL7: again, the fps problems. At 60fps the level is easy but i will try to make the "third floor" a bit easier. The fireball one is to teach the player that fireballs can kill slimes but well, i can design a whole new level for that.

-LEVEL8: Maybe it's a bit hard to discover how to play it, you are right, i want to maintain the mechanics in the level but i will try to do it more clear.

-LEVEL9-10: this level is a very old one, I will change it soon, it's more a placeholder than anything. Anyway, i never thinked about that situation, that's why i should not test the levels . And level 10 is a boss that i dont like it so much but it's only to see the concept.

-LEVEL SELECT: right now you can select the level you play pressing 1,2,3,4...0. I'm working in a level selection screen but with 10 levels it's fine and i want to do other things first.

-Even you can continue playing after level 10, the levels are not tested so, test them if you want but they will change for sure.

THANKS A LOT for your impressions and constructive criticism

EDIT: I just have an idea, what do you think about if you have a soul out and die, you return to your soul? The game will be a lot less frustrating and the feel of "power" is greater.

You're welcome, it's good game design exercice to give analysis to indie dev's :)

I think I'm playing the new version. Still 20-25fps. But I did not see the on/off shaders option though. With shaders off I'm at 25-30 fps.

Oh okay well I'm gonna play lvl 9 and more, I didn't know we could chose :)

Great to see you appriciate critisism by the way

[quote:224tz2db]EDIT: I just have an idea, what do you think about if you have a soul out and die, you return to your soul? The game will be a lot less frustrating and the feel of "power" is greater.

I thought of that. But it will kinda change the gameplay a lot. Can be a way to fix that but there may be things to change on some lvl considering that new mechanic. Depends on what you want to do, basically. But yes, it can be a thing to try at least

Sooo.. Let's start again where I stopped:

Lvl 9: At the end the idea is pretty good, even though technicall you don't need all those box if you're quick. (I guess it's supposed to stop the fire bullets for a moment.) I'd say maybe you can change all those boxes for one rock? The player would have to put the rock on the left of the box on which he'll jump to activate the switch, and then the rock will stop all the fire bullets?.

Anyway it's cool but needs to be more clear, and maybe with more useful things in it.

Oh and there is kind of a bug with the switch that is the more on the left. If you touch it twice really quickly it does some weird things.

Lvl 10: Okay, this one is good really. At first I didn't like the fact that it gets really easy if you put your soul on the begining, but it's actually good, it means that, if the player undertand the game well, he will success easilly. I might have like it more if there was like, different ways to hit the boss everytime. But it's fine

let's talk a bit about the 10+ lvl not finished work things also since I'm there:

Lvl 11: I like this already. The switch on the top and right is not doing anything for now I think but I like the fire killing the player when he touch it.

Lvl 12: Didn't finished it but understood most of it. The main problem is "you can't go back" really often, I don't know how you could fix that here ^^"

That was nice

Lvl 12 couldn't be finished i think, i just uploaded a new version with some changes. I hate the fps issue because i don't know where the bottleneck is, but i will try to do it better. I'm thinking on redoing all the code because some things were donde long time ago and now C2 have features that help with these things.

Things changed right now:

-If you die with a soul released, you come back to the soul and don't die. The game is WAY less frustrating with this.

-Checkpoints doesn't save souls anymore

-Lvl1: Changed to be a better training to the player

-Lvl3: spikes are more depth but now you cant die with a soul released so... doesn't matter. Anyway, i think that the level is not a teaching one so maybe i change it.

-Lvl4: removed some spikes, the player can learn here that falling boxes in the head hurts a lot.

-Lvl5: & 6 switched Tutorial text removed

-Lvl 7: less slimes, I'm thinking about how to change the last part.

-Lvl12: now has solution.

More bugs can appear i will continue testing the new mechanics.

The fps starts to be huge here with the shaders on, now it apears to run at15-23fps with shaders on and still 30 with the shaders off (wiht the shaders off it almost feel like it's better than what it used to.. weird.)

I really like the new lvl 4 By the way =)

Keep working on it, you doing well

[Edit]

Hey ByR (I hope this will notify you)

Seen your PM, but can't awnser because of being new in this forum.

So, the test thing you sent me is running at 38fps on my computer (but sometime it drops at 30fps for like one second or less but that's okay)

But in the test there's basically nothing that was making he frame rate dropping. Like having a soul created (I was usually losing 5fps for this, more or less, depending on the lvl) or having the shaders activated.

I'm getting 60 fps, no problems here

Hey ByR (I hope this will notify you)

Seen your PM, but can't awnser because of being new in this forum.

So, the test thing you sent me is running at 38fps on my computer (but sometime it drops at 30fps for like one second or less but that's okay)

But in the test there's basically nothing that was making he frame rate dropping. Like having a soul created (I was usually losing 5fps for this, more or less, depending on the lvl) or having the shaders activated.

Thanks, the test has a little code (near nothing) so i'm aware it's not a code problem, so i can't fix it, because removing objects or effects is not an option. I think that with node-webkit in a window the performance is improved, i will upload it today.

I'm getting 60 fps, no problems here

Thanks! In general people get 60fps but there are some hardware where not, and it's not too old for that

NEWS:

-LEVEL7: bottom part changed

-LEVEL8: completly new

-LEVEL 9: modified to be more clear

-GRAPHICS: I'm making some changes and i will change more things today, like shadows, spikes or bricks.

example "after/before":

another example:

Updated first post with goals and current state!