Is this level easy to accomplish? Please TEST!

Hi,

this is an extraction of my game in an alpha-testing-phase. The fluidity of the animations is important, but should not cause the player to struggle or prevent him from having a tight feeling of control.

UPDATED: Tweaked movement, animations are not so smooth anymore. First task is to find out, how the control settings suit you.

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Please give it a try, if you can finish Level 2 in this test version:

http://www.exitthegame.eu/movement/

(For testing MOVEMENT in LEVEL 2 ONLY!)

Sorry for a longer loading time on the first start. Please be patient and focus on the movement issue <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink">

If you encounter any performance or loading problems, simply press F5 in your browser.

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PLEASE POST SCREENSHOTS IF YOU ENCOUNTER ANY BUGS!

(e. g. stuck animations when landed, or being stuck at doors)

Please give me some feedback, if you could manage to finish this level. If not, please also include, why not - describing your reason as precisely possible.

For further information and discussions about the game, please visit:

viewtopic.php?f=180&t=122540

Enjoy!

Hey MC, the game has a cool atmosphere to it. I enjoyed the head popping off animation when you run into a wall haha. I like the turning around animations. Overall the feel is good, I died in the fire pits a few times..I tried a few times and died..so I don't think its too easy

I like the idea of the game, but I don't like the unresponsiveness when you try to turn around or take the first step forward. Also the thing where you can't jump and move in a direction when next to a wall I don't care for. I know those things are built into the game on purpose but to me it's just too annoying. I didn't finish the level because of them. I like the graphics and the music a lot, but it takes way too long to load for what it is imo.

The turn around time needs to be faster. I didn't understand why my head kept falling off. There needs to be more feedback that you've hit a wall that causes the head to fall off. I found the level to be fine in general. I made it to level 3, which clearly doesn't work yet.

Thanks for the first replies!

— Did you manage to finish Level 2 at all? How long did you play? Why did you give up, if you did so?

Burvey Sorry you don't like that kind of movement concepts. The game loads completely, thus taking longer to load.

blackhornet Since this issue never came up, just to make it clear: when you hit a wall with full speed while running on the floor, you hear a Foley sound and actually see the guy smashing against the wall first, then loosing its head, which bumps off the wall right?

If so, please help me understand, why there is a problem between cause and reaction for you. (The description "why my head kept falling off" sounds rather, like the animation got stuck. Not sure how to understand that.)

Please note, that this is a test version of the new movement behavior in level 2 only.

I think the problem is, when you are running, the window is also scrolling, so the smashing animation is lost in the whole movement of the window itself. I just tried this several time now, and it really isn't obvious that there is a smashing animation at that point. Also, the eye tends to be looking ahead, so unless you expect to run into the wall (which you wouldn't), you aren't actually looking directly at that spot. The sound effect is also just a bump sound, so not really dramatic enough to indicate that something catastrophic (like your head falling off) just happened.

blackhornet Well, it's not catastrophic at all, it should be just a fun animation.

It's not that I didn't like the movement concept, I did like it. I just don't think it's been tweaked enough. It takes way too long to turn around for example and if you are standing still it takes a while before you're able to jump, which means almost certain death if you are between a wall and a pit.

blackhornet I thought the same thing about the head falling off until I noticed the idle animation with the player juggling his own head between his shoulders. Then I figured it must just be a silly animation style.

Believe me guys, it took me a hell lot of time to adjust the movement and controls to achieve this kind of fluid animation. That's the charm of the character.

I know it is a compromise to solve it this way, but the game around it is designed according to those movements (e.g. you don't really need to turn that often, especially not quick). Surely you need to get the hang out of it first, but all test players I saw playing life, got along with it.

Turning around can be adjusted, it is just not easy to do smooth animations for all cases. I will see, what I can do to make turns quicker.

The second issue of space needed for jumps: yes indeed, you can not jump as far, when you are slow, as you can, when you are quicker. Acceleration is adjusted though the way, that a tiny bit of movement (less then a quarter of a tile) to a direction before your jump is long enough to get over those pits in level 2, like a quarter of a tile. Is it not normal to need to run, to accomplish longer jumps? I can adjust acceleration, but accelerating to maximum speed when jumping from standing immediately, is a bad idea too (since you don't manage to make shorter jumps anymore.)

About the head falling off: others made it smile. Sorry, that did not happen to you.

What do you guys suggest? How could the movement model be tweaked the way you would like it?

I like the idea of that smooth animating, turn arounds should be imo a lil faster tho. I also like the idea of head popping off, I don't see anything what's unclear in there.

One bug I ran to twice. The character's stucking on this, and only this door and I can't do anything except restarting the game:

—: Thanks for your feedback. Concerning the bug: if you could be so kind, and reproduce the bug making a screenshot of it with the debug-display on. You can switch on debug-display by pressing CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+D in the game.

Do you get stuck like this exactly? Does this happen, when you jump up from the lower right floor-part? Does this animation get stuck playing over and over again?

Finished it on my third try - the level itself isn't that hard, but there's a strong feeling of control being sacrificed in exchange for fluid animations - when you hit up and are unsure if your guy will jump now or in a couple of pixels when he has finished his smooth running animation that's a little annoying.

Also I encountered several animation bugs, where the character would hang in the air stuck in a landing animation or simply be stuck standing for a bit.

Other than that the aesthetics are quite nice and the idea in general seems neat and has plenty of potential (insane crumbling levels later on, etc).

I think the controls could be good enough for a pure puzzle game (but still somewhat uncomfortable). However for platforming it's not smooth enough. I guess it depends what the main focus of the game is.

Somebody Thanks, the debugging concerning those things is gonna happen too, if the movement is finalized.

Erfeo That is about the case, it is not a fast jump and run. Rather exploring, solving puzzles and just a bit of jumping. Just check it out here:

Right here, it is just about accomplishing this specific level. If its not annoying and too hard, the rest will be fine...

Yeah I played it but from what I've seen a large part of the gameplay consists of jumping and I got to say it's not a pleasurable activity right now.