Dave Hailwood's Forum Posts

  • well, I had just written a whole load of feedback, but for the second time the website decided to say I don't have permission to post here, and wiped everything I'd written! Arrrrgh!

    I will try and remember what I said, and comment later when I'm on my tea break.

    Though in short: text descriptions on planet data could do with being larger, two types of text comes up and overlaps when being almost fatally attacked, making it tricky to read. Stations could do with some sort of marker making it obvious which direction to fly to find them. Really like the new Korelos title!

  • Just got beaten when playing against my own 'Village Idiot' level A.I. and I haven't even finished working on it yet. Next time I'm gonna try hard to create a game that I don't suck at...

  • tchem

    Hi Tchem,

    I've just had a longer play of the alpha version. I've got just past the waterfall area, to the part where you have to jump on the moving platforms.

    I really like the way you add to the light and darkness dynamics as the game progresses, with you having to keep within searchlights to avoid shadows etc, and the overall pixel art style is absolutely spot on. The thing I'd say that doesn't quite work at the moment is the jump-cuts when the scene pulls back to a longshot or zooms in closer during the action. I find this very jarring, especially since I was moving the character around at the time, and it actually gave me a bit of a headache after a while. What I would suggest is either keep to a long shot or a close-up until a checkpoint or area of interaction is reached, and then change to close up/long shot.

    I really like the style of the bell checkpoints that you have to ring as you pass through, and found the Mood status at the left of the screen intriguing. Will this influence anything in the final game? Does it influence anything now? Perhaps I missed its point.

    I found a few spelling mistakes on the forest level: 'a entrance' should be 'an entrance' and 'waterfall basis' should be 'waterfall base'. Nice and easy to correct!

    Anyway, I'll be sure to play more later and leave comments again. Keep up the good work, as once you've ironed out a few things I'm sure this game is going to be eyepoppingly beautiful.

  • NotionGames

    Hurrah for Super Ubi Land!   Well done on meeting your first kickstarter goal, chaps. Hope the Wii U development goes smoothly.

  • zordork

    A nice start. I liked the inventory system, character choice and rpg style to the game. There's a few spelling mistakes that you might want to correct (Experience doesn't have an 'a' in it, and there was another word in the inventory that had an 'a' which shouldn't have been there. Can't remember what word it was offhand). I also found the controls a bit fiddly (I was playing on an ipad 3) but they can always be refined by moving them around a bit (they will probably need adapting for whichever devices your aiming to create the game for).

    Anyway, keep up the good work. I look forward to encountering some enemies and having a bit of a rumble at a later date.

  • Suro

    If you go through every page of the manual whilst you're logged on, that'll give you the 150 rep points you need. (One of the things it doesn't seem to take into account is that some people download the manual and read it offline).

  • farflamex

    Very strange! I've got the file size down to three megs so it shouldn't take that long (though all the pieces you mentioned - background, character HUD and dice are usually the first to load. The traps, enemies, board and potions are loaded at random from details stored in an array). I've tried it on both Chrome and Safari on my ipad, and there's no problems. If I get the chance later I'll see if my laptops encountering any problems. Out of curiosity, is the old version still working okay for you (the link to that is still active on the front page)?

    Been busy working on the Village Idiot level a.i. today. It's going better than expected so far, though I'm bound to encounter more joyous problems!

  • farflamex

    I've just updated the link. The audio preload has been disabled (so there's likely to be a delay on Sfx playing for the first time) and I've also removed all unnecessary Sfx, and reduced the art size so the game should load three times faster.

    For anyone looking to reduce their art file size, you'll find this article of use: https://www.scirra.com/manual/129/image-format

    Hope it works alright!

  • farflamex

    I'll try and preload less Sfx at the start, and update the link in the morning to see if that clears it up. If anyone else is experiencing the same problem, please let me know.

    I think I read somewhere on the forum that if you preload too many Sfx at once (I only have about ten) it can choke the browser. The problem is that without preloading the Sfx there seems to be a massive delay with the Sfx start time. There's probably just something I'm neglecting to do, as I hadn't tackled audio until last week so its all quite new to me.

    Anyway, thanks for trying, and please let me know if you encounter any other problems if you ever manage to actually get into the game.

  • farflamex

    Thanks for letting me know - its probably to do with the preloading Sfx problem (unless its a Dropbox thing, which is doubtful) which I thought I had fixed. I tried the link myself and it worked fine, though that's not to say it won't occasionally cause problems.   Maybe try refreshing your browser (or a different browser?) and see if that works.

    Hope to have it sorted out by next Fridays update, if I don't encounter more problems (which is often the way of things).

    tchem

    I'm glad you enjoyed the game, and I'm hoping to give yours a bit more testing tomorrow. If I get the chance, more feedback will be on its way.

    Cheers, chaps!

  • farflamex

    I think I read somewhere that changing the sprites opacity can cause mixed results on Non Web Gl devices, but I may have a bit of an experiment if I get the chance (I have also drawn a glowing outline sprite for some of the heroes, which I will try out as well).

    Kuso

    Thanks for the new feedback. The sounds can be quite hit and miss depending on browser used (I found Firefox on my laptop to be quite bad). I did try preloading all Sfx during the menu screen, but this caused the menu to sometimes freeze, which was a much worse end result. I'm sure I'll get things working better over the next month though.

    As for the dice rerolls, I think I'll probably keep it at three for now, as it can be even more frustrating if you have to wait ages to get a hero out. I still have to make a few adjustments as currently if your only hero on the board dies on a roll of six, you get six rerolls!

    Thanks for the feedback, chaps. Have a nice Easter.

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  • Latest Update 29/3

    Hullo folks!

    On the first post of this thread I have put the link to Version 2 of Board Horde. Incase you missed it, here it is again: Board Horde V2 (newest) 29/3.

    Huge thanks to all those people who've given me feedback so far, its been really helpful.

    Change List

    Rules which explain how to play the game are now on the menu. They're a bit rough around the edges as I just knocked them up today, but I'll tidy them up when I get the chance.

    Sound Effects!   There's some lovely retro noises, mostly courtesy of the rather marvellous Sfx that come with the Construct 2 Personal Edition. I still have to tweak these a lot so they don't overlap or run over long (and occasionally they may not fire up, or have a delay depending on browser in use. Hopefully I'll be able to fix that!)

    A new Potion Power: God Finger! With this power, simply touch an opponent or enemy and watch the little perisher fly off the screen. Hurrah for mindless carnage!

    Alteration to Change Places potion. Rather than being automatic, you now get to choose which opponent you change places with. For the dumb Warrior, this may occasionally result in him having to change places with an opponent that's behind him.

    A few visual improvements here and there, and I think that's everything for this week. By next week I'm hoping to have Village Idiot level A.I. vaguely operational, and have updated the HUD art to reflect the characters in play.

    Newest Bugs: a few things I've encountered, and would be interested in knowing if anyone else encounters them:

    Sometimes when a hero treads on an enemy, the collision doesn't happen and you have to reset the game (only happened twice to me. I may have fixed it, but I'm not sure).

    Game froze several times on start up, and menu screen buttons couldn't be pressed. I think I've fixed this now, as it was possibly down to me not opening the next group until all Sfx had been preloaded, but please tell me if its still happening.

    Barbarian flew off to the left after being killed by an enemy, then suddenly changed direction for no reason at all and went upward. Looked pretty cool, but not quite the effect I was aiming for!

    Feather potion still active after other potions have been collected. Should be pretty easy to fix, when I remember.

    Right, I think that's it for now. I best go say 'hullo' to my wife, so she remembers I still exist.

    I look forward to more feedback, and thank you all for playing.

    -Dave

    Edit: oh yes, forgot to mention I also made two balance changes to keep things interesting. Occasionally new enemies or potions will spawn when numbers are getting low.

  • fixious

    Just had a quick play of your Crane game. Entertaining stuff, which had me cursing many a time when I missed the cuddly bear. With luck I'll be able to get my wife addicted to this, so she stops spending all my 20ps in Brighton seafronts arcade (the only time I ever won anything on one of those machines, I got a soft toy of a decrepit old man on a toilet. To be honest, I'd been hoping for Kermit).

  • farflamex

    I agree about the point you made regarding making it more obvious who can move and who can't. Eventually, this'll probably be done with a few related animations, though I may not have time to do it before the Newgrounds competition deadline.

    I'd love to simply make the characters flash when selectable, but effects can be very temperamental when it comes to being viewed on touch devices; at one point, I accidentally changed the dices blend mode from Normal to Source, and it completely stopped all other artwork from showing up on my ipad (everything looked fine on desktop, though). It took me four hours to figure out what the problem was, which is why I'm now trying to make all effects hand drawn sprites.

    The potions will be explained in the How To Play pop up when I've made it (for now you can read about them in the first entry of this thread). I'm also hoping to put in a lot more visual helpers as to what's going on, when I get the chance.

    Your feedback is hugely appreciated, and I'm glad you enjoyed the artwork (I made it all using Inkpad on the ipad. Drawing with your fingers is the way forward!)

    A marketing topic is a good plan, if it hasn't already been done. It will be interesting to see people's responses.

    Anyway, I've got to go write some Sketches and eat some form of Potato-based substance.

    Cheers!

  • farflamex

    Typically, the one thing I forgot to mention when writing the brief 'how to play' guide at the start of this thread was how to get your characters on the board! Basically, after rolling the dice click on one of the HUD pictures at the top (the three at the top left are for the blue player, and the three red ones to the right are for the red player). You can only get one character out at a time, until you roll a six (at which point, HUD pics of available reinforcements will light up with a yellow border, and you can either get another character out or move a character already on the board).

    Good idea about putting a six on the dice to draw more attention to it; its simple things like that which can so easily be overlooked. The dice was even harder to spot in the earlier version of the game, as it was half the size and exactly the same colour as the devils.

    Anyway, after the update I plan for tomorrow, the next three things on the agenda will be; updated HUD pictures that actually match the characters, a How To Play guide on the menu screen, and some sort of rudimentary Village Idiot level A.I, as I'm fed up of having to play against myself, and lose all the time!

    I look forward to seeing how your Frontier game develops (its a damn site more polished than mine!). I also enjoyed playing your robot game on the arcade - a good Puzzle Bolderdash!