regisRquoi's Forum Posts

  • I like the way the camera move for teleporter

    Yes I know that's kind of the point of a metroid kind of game, but the loop here is really short, so it feels like it's a bit different and could be cool with some lvl design work. I dunno. Maybe I didn't played metroid enough also

    I'd say the "passing a screen by jumping" is still a bit annoying, but it's clearly better now! Think of this when you do some lvl design on this game, it can be a tricky thing! It's really better now though!

    Oh, and, I forgot last time, but I feel like the enemy of the 2nd screen (when you fall just after launching the first lvl, see?) is really frustrating, the player can't really see him coming, and it feels like "I had to lose that health", not a good feeling about one of the first enemies you see in the game

    Sound is kinda cool also (I miss music, I know it's a prototype but it changes a game to have just a bit of sound playing ^^), don't know if it was there last time, didn't had sound on my computer, ahah

    Bye

  • Just played your demo,

    The main problem I noticed would be when I played is that when you pass from a screen to another by jumping, you have no idea where you're going.

    I know it might be because it's a 80's style game but, this mechanic was really a thing that annoying and that still is.

    (I attached a screen if you don't understand what I mean)

    Maybe you could add a plateform that makes the player not falling when he's in the next screen?

    I don't know if it's supposed to be a real feature in the full game, but I kinda like the fact that the lvl design makes a loop (you're just doing the level again and again until you find the artefact, in that way you don't have to go back like in some games.)

    Not so much other things to say, it runs fine, the art is already fine too by the way (the decor feels a bit uniformly blue though^^)

    Keep working on this

  • Why are you changing the key for next lvl for just spacebar? I used to press Return actually ._.

    Also, forgot to say earlier, I think when you die, you respawn too quickly (the animation for dying could be longer, or it could be "touch [Key] to respawn" I think. Feels weird for me now.

    Hm.. The new 16th level is not in breaking the level order I think. It should be after 17 and 18, where you learn about keys breaking platforms, I think. I found that lvl 17 was a great way to make the player learn!

    (btw, couldn't lauch the game in browser at first, had to refresh it)

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  • mh, I think the stars difficulty are fine, I mostly had 2 at my first try, which mean I still have to re-do them if I want the max score, but I don't feel like I'm a bad player So that's nice!

    I dont know how many levels you plan to have, but it might be good that it get more difficult at the end (like, I would get 1 star at the end and I will feel like "oh my god it's a damn hard level!", ahah! ^^ )

    I don't know if level 19 is hard because of the order of the levels or because of level/game design (not enough room? enemies too quick?). But maybe. Try that and we'll find out!

    You're welcome

  • Yeeeah, a playable thing! Was waiting for this!

    To begin with general remarks, I don't know if the main mechanic is really intuitive. I think it is, but I'm not sure.

    The thing is, I knew I was going to be able to reverse the screen before I started to play the game, so I looked for the good control for it. But I feel like a random person might be lost at the 2nd lvl without indications on the controls... I don't know. You should try to get random people to play your game and do some playtesting to know if this is intuitive

    Also I feel like the level design might feel "forced" sometime, like, when I was playing the first level, I didn't feel like "Oh I learn that I can jump!" but more like "Oh the game designer want me to learn that I can jump". There is really good things too in your level design (I'll talk about it later), but sometime it made me feel like "forced", like a direct application of game design theories.

    Oh and the bottom of your levels feels really weird! (How can I explain that..?)

    In level 10 for exemple, when I was on the to left of the screen (after jumping in the first 3 boucing things.), I was thinking that I would fall in the void and died if I jumped. You would need some border, or indication that you can't actually fall and die because you're out of the layout. See what I mean?

    I didn't experience any special problem (frame rate or bug) =)

    Here's feedbacks on some levels:

    I really enjoyed the level 13's puzzle, with the ennemies. The fact that the player have to jump above the first ennemy and then reverse the screen, because else if he reverse the screen before passing the enemy, he would not be able to jump. That was good!

    level 16 was really repetitive I think. It's not 4 time the same thing, but almost, it bored me a bit (specially because I died dumbly at the end.). It's long and not really fun. It brokes the rythm a little bit.

    The thing in the level 17 that makes the platforms destroyed by the keys is really good! Enjoyed that!

    Specially because you used this again in level 18. Which makes the 17th level really useful for the player!

    Great to see you used the level design of level 13 again in level 19! This is a clever thing that surprises the player! Good game design here )

    level 20 was super cool! Great use of all your mechanics here!

    Okay, I think that's all I have to say for now.

    It has been fun really! I hope you'll keep working like this on the game! And I hope my feedbacks will be useful :)

    Can't wait to see more of this

    PS: I attached the stars I got at first try. Thought it might be useful for you to ballance the game

  • Really looking good!

    The retro art and retro gameplay seems to work pretty well for now.

    Would just say that the camera stopping to move at 0:20 when you're on the left limit of the lvl made me feel weird. I don't know if it's meant to stay, but I don't like it when camera does that in platformers, it confuses me. I prefer to see the wall on the left and the camera still acting as it used to (following the player)

    Also, I guess the art of the cube you move at 0:40 will change in the future? It feels weird because it's really uniform colors compared to the rest

    Otherwise I love the gameplay mechanics and how it looks. Will definitly follow this

  • Inversion:

    I really like difficulty in games. But not from the begining like this. Maybe I'm bad player, but I feel like there is too much to learn in a single level.

    Of course, maybe when atomoso will add a tutorial, it will be an awesome first level. But in my mind there's too much information to get here and it could be a problem for some player. Of course there's a public for this too, and I'm sure a lot of people would enjoy being learning mechanics in the hard way. But you can lose players by doing this, it can be dangerous.

    But I mostly agree with you!^^ (and moving to stop building might be a really idea cool by the way ).

    For the oil thing. It's not that bad of course, and we're talking about details here.

    The player will get that it's because of oil (at least after several times), of course. But it seems to me that the effect is a little bit weird, that's all ^^ (and I thought it may explain why someone thought it was a bug -but maybe I misread and nobody said that ? In which case it's all fine :p )

  • Hey Prazon

    Hm, what are you trying to show us exactly. I'd be happy to give feedback, but with the version you give, it's basically just a character jumping and moving.

    So.. I'll still tell you what problems I noticed, But there's no real gameplay (or I didn't find it?) so I don't have so many feedbacks to give you.

    Your menu is.. argh.

    It took me a lot of time to understand how to select a character.. Which is not good!

    the "next" button is really little. And useless too.

    Why isn't the game going to the next screen when I select a character, that would be waaaay more simple!

    Also, I got a little bug. My character went litteraly in the sprite of the lvl. I was in the dirt thing. I don't know if it happens a lot but it happend the first time I played ^^

    (and I'm not sure about those "flying platforms" in the lvl. It seems to be placed randomly, and without even thinking of "is it logic to have a platform here?". Weird.)

    Anyway, keep working on the project, can be good with gameplay.

  • [quote:3ti1oq5h]Can please explain how you have managed to complete the level without gadgets ( turrets, helicopters ) I am not sure which build you have played as I just uploaded the "correct" one. Maybe you've visited the homepage yesterday as I was preparing it for you guys? Anyway pls give it another try and see if this is still the case. You have to download it again. ( for some reason it takes some time for the browser to detect the new version, so my best advice is to Download it again )

    Well, I did use something to kill the enemies of course (even if I was thinking of killing them with the turrets that are sometime here at the begining. But I was like "okay, they're not spawning everytime so there must be something else.")

    So basically, I just ran. I was running in the lvl for 10 minutes without knowing what I should do.

    (All the waves of enemies were chasing me at the same time, it was pretty huge -and still running in a good frame rate by the way). And at a moment, something spawn, like, a power up or something, with laser beam coming from the sky, and it killed them all.

    So I just finished the first lvl without digging anything or buying turrets and placing them in the middle.

    That is not how I was supposed to do it isn't it?

    I played your game again, and one thing that I noticed (and you know already I guess), is that, more tan being not intuitive, your game is haaaaard x3

    You said you're playtesting by yourself, I think that's where it leads actually. I guess you know your game and how it works pretty well, so you must find the "tutorial without turial - first lvl" really easy.

    But I can barely finish it.

    Specially for a first lvl, it really need to be the basics, even if there's not for now a tutorial, you have to make easier level, and manage to place them in the good order so the player could learn thing step by step.

    I dunno how exactly, but you could give the player a lot of health in first lvls for exemple, to make sure he's not gonna die and say "this game sucks" (Is there anyway to regain health right now? It'd be cool to have health spawning randomly when you're digging for exemple!)

    Oh and talking of digging, I think, to make it more explicit that it makes the player earn some resources, you could add something like "+1" blinking around the current amount of resources when you're digging. Because it can feel a bit like "oh cool I'm digging... And so what? (If the player find out that he can dig, actually, ahah :p )

    I thought a bit about your "constructing turret thing". I saw you put something to stop the constructing, that's good. But escape key, man? Whhhhy? Ahah!

    hm, what about

    _You have to hold the key to construct and it stop if you stop holding the key

    _You have to press the construct key again to stop constructing.

    That would make much more sense I think.

    Coming with this: What about a "construction progress bar" that would tell to the player if it's gonna take long or not. right now it feels like "Maybe I'll finish constructing before I die... Oh no."

    I saw someone complaining about the oil tha makes the player slipping, because he thought it was a buggy direction thing.

    And the reason why he thought that is simple: it feel like it is.

    You may need more visual feedbacks to make this clearer (the oil following the player is quite not clear I think).

    But it actually feels bad basically in the gameplay. Because it's just like, making the player move to the right for ever if he press the "move to right" key just once. There should be something to make the player going slower and slower if there's no imput, it would feel more real!

    As your game is difficult, I didn't even pass the second level or been in more deeper gameplay, but it still feels nice although there's a lot to do here on ballancing, making things intuitive and everything else ^^"

    Keep working! You doin' well!

    I'll play it again when you'll add/correct some stuff again.

  • Hey atomoso !

    Your game seems pretty cool, but I can't play it really as an european player!

    It's qwerty based. That's bad, cause I have an azerty keyboard. (well I can switch but you know.. Player won't switch.). Are you using the arrows in your game? Even if you don't have the time to make a full azerty alpha, just making the demplacement with the arrow too would make it easier for lot of people I think.

    Anyway. I switch so here's what I think of the game, what I think should be better and everything:

    Firstly.. It's really not intuitive. I mean, guys, I know there's a menu for explaining controls, but players won't read it, and.. I mean. I'm not english guys, there's some words I don't understand so I better "see" what to do, cause if I have read it I'm not gonna finish any lvl of your game.

    I finished the 1st lvl without knowing that we could dig with E!!!! And without knowing that we could place things like turrets (or how to do it at least) around the central computer!! That's not supposed to happen!

    So, what about an icon with "E" spawning and blinking when the player is near a thing he can dig. At least in the tutorial lvl.. I mean, the tutorial lvl didn't teach me anything. I felt lost with nobody helping me.

    Same for turning off and on the computer.. And the player should easily be knowing why he'd have to turn off and on the computer.

    Same for the things we can buy.. What about putting numbers on them so the player could guess you buy it with the 0-9 keys?

    Being able to stop "crafting" something would be cool also. Because if you press a number without wanting it, or if you didn't know it would take that long, well you're gonna die dumbly. And it would be frustrating.

    We can't pause the game. I think it's bad.

    I'll check your game more deeply later cause it seems interesting.

    But seriously, your game is pretty, and you seem to have a lot of lvls already.. But that will not be useful if players can't pass the first lvl (not adaptated controls, no easy tutorial, etc)

    And maybe I'm just idiot and everyone think it's fine and easy to learn (I don't think I've read anyone here sayin' it was hard to understand.), so don't take this too seriously, but I think some players will be like me. Did you made any playtest sessions yet? Showing your game to some strangers, I don't know, your family or whatever?

    The art is pretty great, the gameplay in itself seems pretty good. But it still need a lot of work to make people enjoy it I think.

    Good luck with this anyway. That's still a pretty huge work.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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

  • this will definitly be useful Proxymity , thanks!

  • I love Limbo too

    The reason why I say "Be careful I think your game looks a bit like limbo." is exactly because of this. If you make a game "that looks like [insert game]", well, people will compare it to that game, and it'd be fair I guess.

    But, do you have 6 years of development for EQUAL? I guess no. And so obviously, your game will not be better than limbo. Cause Limbo is great really.

    And a game doesnt have to be better than limbo in fact, I like a lot of games that are not better than limbo. BUT. They are different.

    If your first talk about your game is "oh well my game is like limbo and..", well you better have a game that will be really good. Cause you don't have to just make a "good limbo". If I want to play a good limbo, I'll play limbo.

    If your game is not better than the original it should copy the original the less possible.

    Of course you probably have a lot of thing in that game that are waaayyy different from limbo mechanics. It's probably in fact a totally different experience.

    But here we can't know that, because your just showing us a .png , and so you're saying "oh it's like limbo". And all the feedback you can have is "Yes it does look like limbo. I wanna play limbo and never play your game now."

    That's why I say "Be careful". It can be really tricky.

    It's okay to have a game that is inspired by another, or that looks like another. But that shouldn't be the thing you will show to your audience, they will guess that alone, they're clever. And you should NEVER just show the fact that it's like this other game and then not saying anything else. Because all it will do is making the people you talk to want to play the original game instead of yours.

    See the point?

    I'll check what your game is when you'll show more anyway, but, be careful with that. You will lose potential player because of that kind of thing.

    Excited to see what your game is. Hoping it's not limbo. 'Cause I already played it :')