[Feedback Friday #3] - October 31, 2014!

[Happy Halloween!]

Want design feedback for your new game? Then you’ve found the right thread! Post your game, and let us know which parts of the design need feedback. Discuss as much as you want until next Friday, when we’ll lock the old and start anew.

How To Get Folks To Checkout Your Game?

  • Show - Be Interesting! Which means - pics, videos, or best of all, a playable game!
  • Be Concise - Who’s got time for a wall of text? Be concise and interesting.
  • Be Specific - What do you need feedback on?
  • Read This - More great guidance is here in @@superpig’s post here.

How To Give Good Feedback?

  • Be Positive - Offer at least one thing you like before ripping it to shreds ;).
  • Be Respectful - They want to improve, and they want your thoughts, as long as it’s respectful.
  • Focus On The Work - Not the developer.
  • Be Specific - “Your game sucks!” is for nubs.

Good luck!
Gigi

[PS - Feedback Friday #2 is here]

Okay, I will throw my platform game out there for some feedback. This is my attempt at making a retro style platform game. I am not intentionally going after low-resolution pixel art. My goal is to produce the kind of game you’d find on an NES, Genesis or even in the arcade 20 years ago. But programmed “better”. I used to play those games a lot and while I appreciated what the developers had in mind I always thought, geesh they should have executed the idea better.

Keep in mind, this game (Treasure Quest… is the working title) is early in development. I spent about a month just battling glitches regarding sprite and tile rendering and getting the workflow down for how best to work with Unity3D for 2D. This current web player version represents about 40 hours of actual development at this point. There will be more things to do in time. More enemies and obstacles to interact with. More objectives. That is already planned just need to get to it. I only spend one to two hours per night on this project.

I’d like to thank @RJ-MacReady for creating the graphics for the stage platforms and back wall images. Thanks man! I appreciate it and definitely looks better. I think the game has a good clean (albeit simple) look.

Collision detection for the snake’s venom and egg bomb explosions are not implemented yet. But you can play like they are to get a feel for how much they will effect the game difficulty.

Your Goal:
Collect all of the treasures to make the key appear
Collect the key to open the door
Exit the door to clear the level (this is not implemented yet)

Control for PS3 Game-Pad:
The stock controllers do not work but a generic PS3 / PC controller plugged into the USB port does.
D-pad left and right to move
Triangle or X to Jump. Hold to jump a little higher. Press D-pad first then press X to jump further horizontally.
Square or Circle to Throw stones

or

Keyboard control:
Left and Right Arrow keys to move
X to Jump. Hold to jump a little higher. Press Left or Right first then press X to jump further horizontally.
C to Attack. Currently this is only throwing stones. You start with 50 of them in this W.I.P.
P to Pause / Resume the game.

The game starts out paused so… PRESS P TO START PLAYING!

***** Please play-test the game here *****

Specifically, I’d like feedback on the following?

  1. Your overall impression of the game in its current state. Do you think it is “on the right track” to be a fun game?

  2. The controls. Games from that time were well known for requiring precise jumps and timing and so forth. I have tried to capture that while not making the jumps and such too picky.

  3. The enemies. Okay, so far only one… so… the enemy. Is it a challenging enemy that seems to be aware of your presence?

  4. Impossibility / Frustration. Does it feel like the snake & game “plays fair” or does it seem like you often end up in a situation where it is impossible to not be hit?

  5. What do you like the best about this game? Why?

  6. What do you like the least about this game? Why?

2 Likes

@GarBenjamin - Thank you for sharing and glad to see your first release! It shows you’ve been bringing your ideas to life. I like how the graphics, audio, and gameplay tie together nicely to create an overall cohesive feel - like the old platform games from the Atari days and C64 days (ex Lode Runner and Indianna Jones). Here are a few thoughts that may help improve the design.

  • Faster experience - the movement, level design, jumping (up/down), and monsters could be faster and more fluid - currently it’s oldschool sluggish, in a bad way.
  • Jump difficulty - the jumping could be much less finicky. I found myself taking extreme care for every jump. … backup exactly this far, run exactly this far, and time the jump just so … only to BUMP into the lip of the next platform. Instead of frustrating, the primary mechanic could be fluid, springy, and fun. Consider modeling the design of 80s/90s platformers (ex Mario) where every jump was a joy. Boing, Boing, Boing - ba-ding!
  • Unclear Goal - Am I supposed to collect everything, make it to the door, or just not get hit? Instead of so many objects (i.e. points), consider having a SINGLE objective - ex - Get the whip, Get the Key, or Get the Gem before running to the door! That has the mystery of wanting to get one object and get out, to see what’s next. I felt like I was just mucking around and I never exited the first level. Even better, consider designing levels where the player runs to pickup their weapon (whip, rock, …), then fight snakes/whatever to get to the key, and then exit. Sounds fun.
  • Crush the snakes - It took me a while to realize the snakes don’t kill - they just annoy. And annoy, and annoy. I’m guessing they don’t kill because that would be extremely difficult. Might be fun to be able to jump on them to kill.
  • Juice - Juice is almost always fun. Add bounce, movement, and wiggling in response to player input. This is sort of what happens at the beginning, when the camera moves - it’s the tiniest bit of juice.
  • Keys - Instead of pressing ‘P’ to start, consider using the space key - and also consider using the space key to jump.
  • Scaffold the Learning - I read the instructions and then immediately forgot I could throw rocks. In fact, I didn’t remember until just now! Consider making a first level where you jump over a snake. Then, make a second level where you must use your rock to kill a snake. Then a 3rd level where you combine both, and so on. Gives me progression and slowly introduce the concepts, just-in-time - win-win!

Gigi

2 Likes
  1. It’s hard to say if the game will end up being fun or not based on the size of the demo. There are certainly some things that I’d fix, but overall what you have right now is decently solid…I didn’t fall through the floor or anything, I was able to put snakes to sleep with rocks, etc. I think the concept is cool. It reminds me of an old India Jones game a friend and I used to play on PC.

  2. Agree with Gigiwoo that the jumping is too frustrating. It’s hard to find the right trajectory with jumps also requiring momentum. I think one thing that’s really bugging me here is that the player doesn’t control like I’d expect. Based on the proportions of the sprite, I imagine more of a Prince of Persia / Flashback methodical platforming experience, and it doesn’t look like he should be able to jump that high. I guess I’m just trained to expect that more cartoony characters have less realistic physics (like Mario, La Mulana, Spelunky, etc.).

  3. The enemy seemed really challenging at first. The snakes are aggressive, and I got pushed off that first ledge a bunch of times. Then I figured out that it doesn’t really hurt you, and was able to progress much more quickly after that. Reminds me of the snakes in La Mulana with how they charge the player. If they are going to end up being able to hurt the player and remain aggressive, I’d make them not the first enemy in the game. Let the player get some platforming in before stomping them.

  4. I’d like to come back to this after I get a chance to play with a controller. Never been a fan of keyboard platforming =P

  5. I like the satisfying “thunk” when you land. I don’t know why, it just resonated with me. I also like that the rocks I threw stayed where they were thrown. I was expecting them to disappear when they hit the ground, so that was neat.

  6. As mentioned, my perceived conflict between the style of sprites and type of physics.

Edit: Thinking about the controls some more, I would use A/D for movement, space for jumping, and F for attacking. Just because WASD is so standard now.

2 Likes

1. Your overall impression of the game in its current state. Do you think it is “on the right track” to be a fun game?

Overall, I think it definitely feels like an extremely early version of a game. Variables need tweaking, concepts need adjusting*.* The movement of the enemies is pretty cool, very smooth. I want to get to the treasures to see what happens but I can’t. I can’t make most of the jumps. I just move too slowly horizontally to get on the platforms or jump the snakes. Rock throwing works well. Conceptually, you’ve got an essentially impotent character trying to collect treasure. It can be cool.

2. The controls. Games from that time were well known for requiring precise jumps and timing and so forth. I have tried to capture that while not making the jumps and such too picky.

Movement is too slow, that’s all. Especially in the air.

3. The enemies. Okay, so far only one… so… the enemy. Is it a challenging enemy that seems to be aware of your presence?

When the enemy is disabled, he can still block a treasure. This happened 5 times while I was playing around. And the enemy can still damage you when stunned. Which is debatable…

4. Impossibility / Frustration. Does it feel like the snake & game “plays fair” or does it seem like you often end up in a situation where it is impossible to not be hit?

Impossible frustration more often than not, due to an uncontrollable character who moves like his shoes are full of lead. It happens, you get used to the speed you test at. Happened with the first gamemaker game I made… later I played it and it was like it was in slow motion.

5. What do you like the best about this game? Why?

I’m the asian kid from Indiana Jones.

6. What do you like the least about this game? Why?

Slow movement, lack of control of character.

1 Like

Yay! I’m not the only person posting prototypes anymore! But, I do have an updated one.

Prototype Build of Sara the Shieldmage

Controls:
A/D - Move
Space - Jump
LMB - Cast Spells
Z - Interact

Objective:
Get the treasure chest inside the Hall of Spikes, and return to the entrance via the top route. Pretend that after you open the chest, some obstacle prevents you from simply backtracking along the lower route.

Outstanding areas of improvement:
I’ve been a slacker this week, and sick in the early part of the week. So, I’ve taken note of the following things from last week, and am considering how best to use them:

1: Spell interface placement.
2: ‘Effect Ghost’ shading - red if you can’t cast, green if you can, more transparent in both cases so it’s obviously a ghost.
3: Physics still feel abrupt when jumping (it feels like you’re teleporting upwards in the early ticks of a jump.)

Feedback:
This week, I haven’t done much to the game, other than alter some minor cosmetic things, and update the level design. The cosmetic things, Sara’s run cycle and the fact that there is a new animation and setup for Sara holding the contents of a chest in front of her chest, simply doesn’t belong in this section. So…

1: Level Design. Does the level’s layout feel suitable to being an early-game optional mini-dungeon? Do the obstacles seem sufficiently challenging, without being unfair? More specifically, the final obstacle of the upper path - what are the general thoughts on that? (It’s designed to be an obstacle that requires two mana charges to scale, as well as to force the player to try something with Summon Block.)

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it.

LOL! So… I am not sure… but I got the impression something needs to be tweaked with the jumping?

Okay, I agree. In the very beginning I had the player jumping differently. “Well this is just too darn easy, I want these jumps to be challenging the way they were on so many old school games”, I thought… so I clamped it down. I received feedback about the jumping being way too hard. So I made it easier. Now with the consensus being jumping is still too hard… I reverted back to the original way. Jumping should be no challenge now. You still jump further if you are walking when you jump but overall jumping is much easier.

Also… just throwing this out there… maybe part of the difficulty in jumping is because I just assumed players would hold the jump button/key and the d-pad/key to jump further. Holding jump makes you jump higher. Holding jump and directional while doing a running jump and you jump a little further horizontally.

I also increased the player movement speed by 14%. I do not want to go beyond this so hopefully this makes it a more pleasant experience. He is definitely zippier now.

If any of you get a chance, give it a quick test and see if the jumping is better for you now.

I never saw the “final obstacle of the upper path” but the level looks good.

The control / spell casting is much better than the last time I play-tested. The last time I was only able to make it across about 3 magical blocks before dying. This time I made it through a couple different areas of the spikes. BIG improvement in spell casting. It still feels like the mana recharge is a bit too slow but overall it is workable because you (well I feel at least) want a game to be challenging. It should feel hard at first until a player masters it. That is a big point of games I think. If everything is easy then what is the point, right? :wink:

@GarBenjamin Might want to think about climbing and ledge grabbing. Right now the biggest issue is the level is built to require the maximum jump height which you only get from a running jump. There is at least one jump that requires you to teeter on the edge of the platform to build up enough speed.

The snakes aren’t too good at the moment. Right now they have two states: hostile roadrunners and statues made of spikes. Not really sure what the point of the stun is other than to make sure they don’t move.

@AndrewGrayGames Right now it still feels like a battle of figuring out the mechanisms that are determining mana/block casting conditions. After that it isn’t really that difficult. The solution is simple but the execution is usually what fumbles.

2 Likes

Thanks for the feedback! I actually considered the idea of a ledge grab and being able to climb up or drop down! Be easy enough to implement but I decided it was not really something I wanted to get into in this game. Mainly, I am trying to build a game fairly minimalistic yet have more to it than something like an infinite runner. :wink:

That is good to know about the snake. Very interesting they only come across as having two states! They actually currently have 7 states (1) patrolling, (2) pausing at the edge of the ledges looking around (not animated yet but will be), (3) chasing, (4) startled (slithering away when hit from behind with a rock), (5) spitting venom (they telegraph their attack by bobbing their heads up and down first), (6) laying an egg bomb and (7) stunned. They also are play-balanced a bit in that if the player is too close to them they will not go into the chasing state. So… I thought I had designed those fairly well. I may do another design round on them and see if I can make them more interesting.

Regarding them still dealing damage when stunned that will change. They definitely will not harm you when they are stunned. I just have not implemented that yet.

Thanks for all of the feedback so far everyone! I really appreciate it!

1 Like

I’m mostly summing up the states as actively moving and trying to kill me or set in stone and probably an obstacle. Goes to show what the player actually cares about.

2 Likes

That makes sense. They probably will have only two states in that sense. A threat. And not a threat. It’s all of the little details to bring them to life in those two extremes I focused on. I am thinking of possibly allowing the player to kill them. But I had an idea of trying to get away from all of the killing in games (although it is a lot of fun)… so came up with traps to temporarily immobilize the enemies. As a quick way of testing that I just added rock throwing to knock them out. lol

Anyway, appreciate the feedback!

If you didn’t notice the final mobility challenge of the upper path, that’s a very good sign; that means to you it was intuitive, which is a very positive thing. You cannot pass that obstacle with only one mana charge, it’s mathematically (and, practically, I was sure to playtest my level!) impossible. You would have noticed had I not given you enough resources to work with. Specifically you’d have had to fall back to a spike-less block (which, per previous suggestions, I added to ensure that players knew what to do.)

This seems like an extremely interesting bit of feedback. Reading into what you said, it seems like you did figure out the relationship in question, but found the presentation that made you able to make the connection lacking. What would you suggest changing to make it more obvious?

Further, when you noted that the solution is simple, but the execution fumbles, what did you mean by the execution fumbles, exactly?

Fumbling is mostly an issue with platforming. The spiked bottleneck in particular is bad. Having it staggered to actually account for the jump arc would help.

The only issue I had at the end was figuring out that there was an opening at the top which doesn’t stand out well.

1 Like

Okay, just a quick update here. I got in a 20-minute dev session this morning…

Two Enhancements:

1. Alternate keyboard control has been implemented:

A or Left Arrow or D-Pad to move left.
D or Right Arrow or D-Pad to move right.
Space or X or Button X or Triangle to jump.
F or C or Button Square or Circle to attack.

I know WASD has been a standard for a long time and I have always hated it. If a game doesn’t allow movement via arrow keys or (better yet) configurable, I don’t play it. The Arrow, X and C keys control scheme comes from the majority of retro game sites. That is the standard controls for people into web page retro game playing. But, I am all for supporting other configs (may even add a config for it in time) so I implemented your A/D/Space/F. :slight_smile:

2. I implemented the snakes truly being stunned. Meaning they will not harm you when asleep.

I probably should have done that before throwing the game out for feedback. But, you know how it goes, this is very much an early WIP. There are many things not implemented yet. :wink:

Anyway, the update is available. It should be much more playable now.

If anyone gets a chance, please try the current state and let me know how it goes.

On a side note here, I think I have found the greatest game ever created: finally tried Life of a Pixel. Fantastic game. Completely blows away almost every other game I have played. LOL! Okay, it might not be the best but it really is an awesome game and I think anybody into Game Design should check it out. Learn that graphics, music and sounds do not make a great game.

Halloween with the kiddy last night, work now… will play when I’m on a pc.

WASD works the best, btw. You can always have dual input where arrow keys and WASD control movement…

@GarBenjamin Definitely a lot easier to control. The stunned snakes no longer doing damage definitely helps, now the only improvement to them would be animation cues for when it’s about to wake up.

1 Like

Thanks man! Hopefully it will be a more enjoyable experience. I am about to leave for the day too. I just wanted to get some work done early this morning so I could address some of the biggest issues before I get into busy work for the day.

WASD sucks! :slight_smile: But I know many people like it so that is exactly what I did. Well not W and S but I added the A/D/Space/F control scheme. The arrows/C/X and game pad are still in as well.

Good deal! Thanks. I wondered if I should do that. There is a cue but it must not be very good since you did not notice it. The Zs stop spawning a short time before the snake wakes up. So when there are no big Zs right above its head that is the cue to get away.

Either it’s not a long enough period, or I’m too busy to notice. Probably the latter. Ideally, the snake would lay down when stunned and would rise up during a recovery period, but requires more artwork. That “should” be enough of a visual state change that it’s easy to notice. Food for thought.

1 Like