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 :')

It's nice!

Here's a list of thing I saw (you probably know most of them already but anyway I don't know what kind of feedbacks you want ^^ ):

I feel like it's a bit slow, but it depends on the type of game it will be, could be cool like this at the end.

I like the thing like, "if you press the down arrow while you jump you can kill the enemies, Otherwise they'll just be stunned" it can be interesting

The pause menu is weird, you can still move (there's still the annimation) so it feels like the game is broken if you press the space bar by accident. But I guess you know that already

You have a little collison polygon problem with enemies I think (see the picture I linked)

By the way the provisional (I guess lol) animation for explosion made me laugh so much, ahah :p

It's nice anyway, looks good! Keep goin :')

Hey guys.

I'm just a beginer with construct2 (and with game making in general, I just have theorical knowledge basically) trying to do some stuff, but I noticed that if you try your game with a shitty computer, well, all the frames will not be happening or something, and so it can affect the gameplay.

For exemple, if you make a platformer, well the player may get through a wall that has the solid behavior if the computer is too slow.

It's not really a big deal because anyway, if the computer is that slow, the game is already almost not playable, but it's still a problem I think (and "pro" games doesnt seem to have that kind of problem really.. Well. I saw that in super meat boy, like, there was a trick, if you push the shift key, it would make the game really slow and you could finish a lvl by running in walls and get through them, but it doesnt happen so much in finished games.).

Is there any way to fix that kind of problem with construct2? I'm curious.

It looks really nice! I like the main mechanic and it seems to be well used. I hope you'll use it completely and cleverly

By the way, I'm not really sure how you did the moving saws if the black and white thing is made with a simple sprite. Looks nice anyway ^_^

hum...

What feedback are you looking for, exactly?

For now all I'd have to say is: Be careful I think your game looks a bit like limbo.

Hey! Your game is becoming really nice! Is it (will it be) playable on smartphones and everything (maybe that's why it's on the playstore? I'm not really aware of those things :p ) ? Would be cool!

First thing I saw: the "power cancelled" thing is really too much big. It takes all the attention, because it's red and big. Once it had come in the screen, I had difficulties to focus on the gameplay really. Also I don't know if this power up is really meaningful, at the end it's just like a power up that is saying "this power up and the next one will not do anything", and it makes the player not feeling like taking the next one. (actually my only motivation to take a power up after getting it was to make the big red icon go away :p )

[after re-playing it: I'm not really sure what it does at the end. Cause the next power up is actually active. Is it just a thing like it doesnt do anything? But why is the icon staying? There's a little problem with this, I don't understand :p ]

Oh, I had a bit of an idea to make the game more difficult, but it might be difficult to ballance. So.. Maybe a thing to try, maybe not a thing to keep:

The more you play this game, the more it gets easy, because you identify more quickly the shapes and you know where you have to click for a specific shape.

To confuse the player with this, you could add something like, a power up, or an event when you pass an amount of tombs, that would make the shapes (on right and left) interchange their positions. In that way the player will have to really look for the good shape in the screen and it would be more difficult.

Why you shouldnt listen to that idea:

It's hard to ballance. Cause if you put it as a power up, the beginers will be confused if they get this power up in their first runs. And if you put this as an event at a specific moment, well it'd be deep in the game and the tombs would come really quickly. Too much for the player to get used to the new positions.. So maybe you would have to make the tombs come slower, like if it was "wave n°2" or something, but it would change a bit the gamplay.

Sooo, yeah, maybe it's a thing to try, but be careful cause it could make everything worse. although a "wave n°2" thing could be cool, but would ask some time of work and would change the game a lot. (maybe it'd make the game better, maybe worse. it's a thing to try, once again.)

I think you could add an audio feedback for when a bad shape is chosen. For the good shape chosen it would be annoying because it happens a lot of times, but for an error of the player, you could try to add a little sound that indicate he did something wrong ^^"

The ranking this is nice. But maybe it'd need to look a bit better, cause it's basically just text for now x)

Oh and a little text error I think (I'm not an english expert, but I guess it's an error :p ), you wrote "automatic choise", I guess it's choice? :')

I couldnt notice but: how much does the "score increase" thing is increasing the score? I feel like it's just a +1. Should not be. It's not enough. It's not worth the risk you take by taking a power up (eventually having tombs come faster and everything)

Little thing I noticed also: when you pause the game, the position of the icon moves a tiny little bit. It's nothing, but I'm still saying it. I would feel more "pro" if it'd stay in place :p

Anyway, your game is getting to look pretty much finished I think. It feels really nice now

Hey alejovilla227

Sorry I just seen this, ahah, and I can't test your game properly right now Because I'm having some issues with my computer right now

Here's what I can notice for now:

I see you added a login option. That's nice! but I'd say it sometimes scares people a bit, or bores them at least, they just wanna play. I'd say it should be just an option and not something that you have to do absolutely

Also, you added kind of a tutorial. I can't see if it's good right now, but here's a suggestion for you: since you have a login system, it might be cool if we were able to skip the tutorial if we already did it

Oh and the visual feedback when you have the good shape feels really nice

I'll come back on this later in the week (I hope^^) to say things about actual gameplay

still thinking it's a cool project

Bye!