Feedback Friday #32 is CLOSED. The next FF opens Friday, Sept 11!
Want design feedback for your new game? Then you’ve found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until 8/28, when we’ll lock this thread to start the two week break.
How To Ask For Feedback?
Show - Pics, videos, or best of all, a playable game!
Be Concise - Who’s got time for Wall 'O Text? Less is more
How To Give Feedback?
Be Positive - Finding redeeming qualities in the worst of games, is in itself a game
Focus On The Design - Not the designer
Be Specific - “Your game sucks!” is for nubs
What To Show?
Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play >>> everything else
There are millions of zombies in the world, but there is only one KING ZOMBIE.
King Zombie: Escape is a hybrid roguelike/shooter. It was heavily inspired by eighties two joystick games like Robotron, Splat!, Smash TV and Total Carnage. It also utilizes a upgrade leveling system similar to RPG games.
Escape from the dungeon in which you were created and teach the other zombies once and for all who ‘s KING ZOMBIE!
Controls:
wsad/arrow keys to move.
Click and hold in the direction you want to fire/attack
Randomly generated levels: Each level is based on a level template, and the level templates have a range of appearance (except bosses which are every five levels) so each game should be different.
Currently 9 useable weapons and 50+ skills
Over 15 unique monster types and counting + 7 bosses.
Update 8/19/15:
re-wrote interface code and implemented a bunch of fixes. For a full list see the WIP thread.
Here’s another update of Alpha 5. The last feedback on this forum was ultra helpful. Taken a lot from it. UX, sounds, game flow etc. You can say it’s redesigned based upon the feedback.
Hello! I really liked your game, but it had some problems (for me):
1, When enemies are too close you cant hit them (so if you are surrounded by 2 enemies in a corridor you cant do anything)
2, I wanted to fully clear a level, killed them all, but i didnt destroy a tomb, so when i was about the exit the level, one spawned in and i didnt get the bonus
3, When the exit room was too small or i was just not looking out i accidentally entered the exit, and didnt get the bonus
4, A weapon was right next to the exit (and I couldnt get it without exiting)
5, Level exit was right next to the player spawn room
6, I had 2 axes in one room
7, A lot of my time was spent just walking, and the corridors can be very big
8, Level 10 boss room was next to spawn, and when i died, i didnt have any weapons beside my pistol
9, I can kill most enemies, die, and I will have the exp from the enems that i killed before dying
10, When i click on a inventory category, I cant choose other inventory categories or exit out from it, so I have to select a weapon from that tab and go to an other tab after it
11, When I pick up the axe and i have 10 arrows, it says i have 10 ammo for the axe(dont know if its with the other weapons too)
12, I think column colliders are too big
13, When I opened my skill trees, I shot, alerting nearby enems
14, I was on the other side of the tomb when a zombie spawned from it and came after me and when i shot him he dropped a weapon on top of the tomb
15, I entered a room and an enemy was hitting another door
16, My traps attacked me
17, Level 20 boss was too hard, because they always surrounded me and I couldnt shoot the ones close to me, but on the 2nd try, when nobody came after me when i shot, only the boss + enemies in that room, i attacked him in a corridor where he would just stand still summoning stuff, wich i could easily kill (but i died from normal enemies after killing it, and i gave up after around 7 tries)
18, On level 15 I spawned in a big open room with 2 doors, one wich lead to a closed room(so nothing came from there after i killed the enemies in that room), and it was too easy just going around in circles and shooting the boss
19, When an enemy is coming out from a tomb i have to wait for the whole animation to finish, wich is quite annoying
20, I cant tapshoot with my weapons
+(I read that you know about it) I Snap to corners and edges
Thank you so much for your response! This list is awesome I am going to save it as a “to do” list! Allot of the things you point out are strait up bugs I have to fix. But I do have a couple of questions that maybe you can help me with.
As far as traps attacking you. They will stop attacking if you pick the “Smart Fuzes” skill from the traps panel. If I changed the description of the Smart Fuzes skill from “You will not trigger your own traps.” To “You will not trigger your own traps and they will not attack you.” Would that seem fair?
The level 20 boss – I call him the Necromancer only resurrects dead zombies he does not spawn them. Apparently it’s not clear that he is not just spawning them. If I made it more clear that he was just resurrecting the bodies around him and if you get him away from dead bodies he cant do that would he feel more fair? Or is he just to hard?
This is probably a stupid question but what is “tapshoot”?
About the traps, i was not fully playing attention when i read the trap skills, but it is clear IF you read it, but there will be probably more people who dont really care about traps and will be confused when they plop down their first traps. Altough its not a big problem, and most people will probably figure it out quick (I think).
Yeah the Necromancer boss would have been doable if I knew that he would only resurrect zombies, so you only need to make it more clear(altough I played a bit more and got to level 26 ).
Tapshooting is when you only click once and shoot once (immediately). (I suspect that the time between 2 shots (the firerate) only goes down when you are holding the shoot button?)
Thanks again! Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the feedback!
I went back and re-wrote the interface buttons with your suggestions in mind, so much better now (added keyboard shortcuts as well)… I think I just had gotten in the habit of ignoring it’s shortcomings. Same with the untargetable spawns and big stair colliders.
Your absolutly right about the fire rate. I’m re-tackling that problem today. The reason I screwed it up in the first place was trying to work around the “shoot when the interface is pressed problem”. My original approach was simply to freeze the game when a interface button was pressed and let that keep the weapons from firing. Obviously that’s not going to work. I think I am going to code in dead zones for the buttons so that the input handler does not ray-trace if a button is pressed. Should allow tap shooting and constant weapon cooling since there is no chance of the weapon firing when an interface button is pressed.
Hello!
Ive been working on a Boxhead-like game (wave based top down 8 directional SHUMP) for 6 weeks now (this is my first project that i think i will release), but Im not sure if the core gameplay is good enough, so I decided to upload it here, hoping for feedback. Please note that I am (/mainly wanto to be and enjoy being) a programmer, and I have only started learning how to create art, so the only object with art is the player, wich is from following along a tutorial. Also, there are some stuff i would have liked to fix before uploading, but Im not even sure at this point if the base game is fun enough to continue developing this.
Notes:
-There is a 2 player mode
-You have infinite total ammo in every weapon at the moment, so the second number in the buyzones have no meaning now(they are supposed to be the ammo refills price for that weapon)
-There isnt a lot of content right now, only 2 maps, 3 weapons and around 10 minutes of playtime in one game (altough the waves can go on infinitely)
-The first map is smaller and harder, so if you are always dying early because you are surrounded, try the 2nd map
Controls:
-Player 1 move: AWSD
-Player 1 shoot in NoAim mode: spacebar/left mouse click (you cant aim seperately - you shoot in the direction you are facing)
-Player 1 shoot Twinstick mode: arrow keys
-Player 1 interact(buy) : F
-Player 1 change weapons: Q/E
-Player 2 move: arrow keys
-Player 2 shoot: right crtl/numpad 0
-Player 2 interact(buy): numpad 3
-Player 2 change weapons: numpad 1/numpad 2
-Pause: Escape
-Aimlock in NoAim mode: Shoot button
Instructions:
-The bar under your weapon name in the top left corner repesents your current ammo in the magazine
-You buy new weapons by going into the dark box with a weapon name in it, and if you have enough money for it (the prize is indicated under the weapon name) and keep holding down the interact button, you will get that weapon
-At the start, you only have one pistol, and if you buy a new weapon, it will be given in a new weapons slot, but if you buy a 3rd weapon, it will be swapped out from the current weapon you are holding
What i want feedback on:
-How fun is it
-The difficulty (on both maps)
-The ammo capacity of the guns
-The shotgun spread and range
And everything else if you have notes on it.
Thank you for your time!
Update: I fixed the 0 player “bug”, and 2 player mode also works now! Update2: See my post below (#28)!
I like how it sort of feels like Robotron, the beginning game play is coming together, and you’ve got the first stages of a working prototype. I also appreciate the courage it takes to share these early prototypes with the community - kudos! Below are some thoughts which may help make it even stronger.
Shooting in the direction you face is an anti-pattern. Movement is how you survive, shooting is how you win, and the two don’t work together. One possible fix - use the arrow keys for fire, WASD for movement.
I could not figure out how to purchase weapons or swap weapons. I see the ‘shotgun’ and ‘SMG’ things, I just don’t understand how, when, or what I’m supposed to do (yes, I tried F/Q/E). My suggestion is to just have them spawn periodically, this creates a mini-game for players, which adds to the interest curve.
The AI can be improved - the targets will hit a wall, facing west, and I’ll be 50 pixels away, and they don’t slide along the wall to get me.
Is there a reason for the openings on top and bottom? Consider making this a simple room, though then the game is robotron. Not sure where to go with that.
I’ve built multiple prototypes of robotron - it’s one of my all time favorites. Good choice :).
I enjoyed playing your game I think with some work it could be a lot of fun. I played the game for 3-4 waves on each level. I could not manage to earn enough money for the shotgun so I think maybe it is overpriced.
Your bound checking or colliders on the enemies and player is very nice. Makes your packs look good and I love the collision and knock back mechanics.
The difficulty seems about right, though the first map is allot harder (as you said). Maybe if you changed the spawn rates for the first map.
Needs a pause button and a way to return to level select bad. What if the boss walks in;)
I think if you set it so if you hold down the fire button you keep your facing it would really help, since then you could move and shoot in different directions
Found the restart key “r” by accident… opps;)
Which of the two numbers in the buy zone is the price is hard to tell… maybe if you put a “$” on one
I like the idea of two player on the same computer.
I think i will have 3 control types - the current (for if you are playing 2 player mode on one keyboard), the twin-stick one and i will test the one MJNuchia suggested.
I will definetely improve the buying/interacting system with a text guiding you + making the buyzone texture different shades if you can buy it or it has been bought.
Yeah the AI is very primitive at the moment but im working on A* pathfinding (slowly).
I will do that right now - altough the first map wil still be harder because its a lot easier to get surrounded in such a small place.
Yep, thats going to be top priority now.
Oops, i forgot that, it isnt supposed to be in this build.
Thanks for both of your feedback! You guys are awesome!
I don’t know if it will help, but here is a link to an a* demo I made when I was coding the engine for King Zombie. It was my first try at allot of things including custom pathing and this really helped me visualize what was going on. I’ll be happy to share the source code too, though it’s more than a little messy.
Thanks for your help! Altough I already have the main search algorithim done, those extra parts on the end of the tutorial you linked will definetely help!
Thank you again!
Bear in mind I’ve never played an 8-directional shmup but I was aching to use the mouse to aim and just found it difficult to hit anything.
The fact that the player and the enemies don’t seem to be locked to specific paths on the map, but you have the 8-directional movement, means that you might miss something by a hairs breadth and need to do a 3-step manoeuvre (turn away from target, move, turn back to target) to line up again, which I feel is a bit tedious.
However I don’t really play games of this style so I might just not be accustomed to it.
Edit: I think what @MJNuchia said is very helpful, to be able to continue pointing in the same direction while moving in any direction, this would get rid of the tediousness of lining up the target. I didn’t even realise his/her zombie game was 8-directional at first.
I understand that you want to have two players on the same keyboard but I feel you just won’t give the player enough control for the range of movement that your characters are capable of.
Pretty fun to play! It might be the first zombie game I’ve ever played
I think @ogike1 did a pretty good job of reviewing it but let me suggest a rifle melee attack when the enemies are in range, whack them with the stock or something
I will make it so you can choose your “control type” from the twin-stick, the current, and the one @MJNuchia said (i can hopefully make it so this week).
About the 3-step manoeuvre, i actually wanted to include a slight auto-aim, but i got used to it, so i tottaly forgot it. Thanks for reminding me!
Now that’s a cool idea! Gonna have to work on that and see how it goes.
Part of the reason I’m torn on this is that I really want the player to be afraid of, or at least kiting zombies if they are not using a melee weapon (sword, axe, claws). Even if they are using melee weapons I want there to be a constant “do I need to run now” question. Still I really like the way @ogike1 's game lets you knock the critters out of your way if you charge right into them.
I’ll just have to try it and see how it goes… Thank you for the feedback sir!!
@FlyingRobot – Your game is beautiful! The art, animation, and sound are extremely well done and the interface is clean and solid looking.
It really needs a tutorial however. I have played three maps and I am still not sure I understand the game mechanics.
Best I can tell it is a hybrid between a tower defense and a real time shooter, but the interface was very confusing for me. I figured out how to place soldiers, how to upgrade their weapons, and how to make them duck, not sure if that is all there is too it. If so, maybe let the player pick where to move his soldiers instead of having fixed positions and allow the soldiers to move to support each other?
The enemy AI seemed a bit fuzzy, I like the Icons that tell you when they are confused (again this game looks GOOD!), but they often seem to be walking around aimlessly.
Air raid was extremely frustrating because I had all of my soldiers duck and the enemy just strolls into the base. Then the air strike comes and it does not hurt the enemy at all.
I think this could be a great game, but it needs to be a little more clearly explained.
Just make it significantly weaker than the zombie attack or the melee weapon attacks, even if it isn’t really all that useful in general it gives the player something to do in a split second or if the zombie is almost dead. But pointing that long rifle at a zombie right next to you just doesn’t look right.
Update game so that now if you are using a ranged weapon and facing a zombie and he gets in kick range, you kick and knock him back a bit. Probably still needs some tweaking, but let me know what you think. Thanks for the awesome idea @Billy4184 !
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