Feedback Friday #40 is OPEN until Friday May 13th!
What games spring to mind? Spring is in the air!
Want design feedback for your new game? Then you’ve found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until we lock the 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
The game I’m currently working on is currently called Purrr (WIP!)
The main idea is, that it is a small relaxing game, where you search for and collect little magical orbs, that are scattered in a beautiful landscape, with help of shapeshifting your character into different forms, that have different specialities, to make it a little bit more interesting. Focus of the game lies in exploring though, so the underlying game mechanics are very very simple (good for someone who isn’t that good in programming yet)
I got a “working” demo, which includes the basic movement elements, which are flying, climbing (on trees only currently), and smelling aswell as shapeshifting itself.
Characters are a bird, a cat and a mouse, latter ones ability is being able to fit in tight and small places.
Since it will be heavily relying on interesting graphics and places to explore and maybe also interact with, I’m not sure how much the demo and screenshots are giving away yet, but who knows I shall not deny the opportunity of getting feedback for free
I should mention that especially the controls will get a huge overhaul XD just in case someone is getting frustrated from some odd rotations it’s not intended XD
Controls are currently:
Arrow Keys or WASD for moving the character
Space for flying and jumping
1,2,3 for shapeshifting (same order as icons on the bottom)
F for sniffing out where nearby orbs are (it has a cooldown timer)
I like the spirit of the game, peaceful exploration of beautiful worlds.
This is an indie game that was very popular way back when that was like that: Seiklus. It had several different areas, interesting music, and eye catching visual ideas, with no combat at all. Not even jumping on enemies heads, no way to die. But it told a story.
The characters remind me of Pokemon. This demo shows me that there will have to be some motivation to collect the orbs. Since that’s all there is to do, I’d anticipate some kind of reward, such as access to a new area with new music and new visuals.
As noted, the rotations and jitter need fixing. Since so much of the game is just running around, this needs to be very polished and satisfying. A game that was mostly running around was Spyro. Very playable game, just thru juiciness and polish.
In all, solid controls, good physics and no glaring issues. Looks good, sounds decent. Just need to develop it into a more whole experience.
thanks that seems pretty accurate observation, considering that I grew up with Pokemon and loved to play spyro.
good point with unlocking new areas! thats something I did not even think about yet
Please give the web player demo a try. Use the Brain button (bottom-left when you start) to review the three “runes” you would have learned by this point in the game (represents maybe 10 minutes in, once you’ve explored the town, been armed with several runes, and found your way into the dungeons).
And this is intended to be played on a mobile phone (or tablet?) in portrait mode, so please think about that when it comes to button placement and UI conventions.
I’m particularly curious whether the rather atypical mix of JRPG-style orthographic projection with Roguelike lighting model and turn-based movement/combat is working for you. I’m decided on the Roguelike gameplay, but could perhaps be convinced to abandon the JRPG-style graphics if it’s just too confusing.
But, I’ll be thankful to hear any reactions at all!
@Farelle , this looks really great. I don’t have Windows; would you consider a WebGL or WebPlayer build?
I like the basic premise, and shape-shifting into different critters with different abilities sounds like a lot of fun. Instead of or in addition to unlocking new areas, I might suggest unlocking different forms, too. Maybe instead of just glowing balls, you collect little animal tokens. When you have enough of a certain token, you gain the ability to become that animal.
This would offer some neat benefits: you have several you’re currently collecting, but then you stumble upon something you haven’t seen before. What’s this? A gopher?!? Am I going to get to dig? Excitement ensues. Also, you could have some areas in the beginning that are only reachable by forms you don’t get until later. This gives the player a reason to revisit them after they’ve unlocked the necessary form (as well as more reason to be excited about a new form — hey, I bet if I get all the Kangaroo tokens I could jump up on that ledge in the beginning!).
I think you’re really on to something here… goodness knows the world doesn’t need more games based on homicidal mania. Keep up the great work!
You particular curiosity: Graphics and the whole rogue-like exploration works great for me. It makes total sense.
The battling completely falls apart for me, because it is tedious. Attack Rune/Defense Rune/Attack Rune/Defense Rune… HP is low… shit I have no time to heal, shit I’m dead. It just doesn’t feel like it’s my fault that I am dying. It feels like the game is letting me down by not allowing me to do any better. I kept feeling like I should be able to enter in multi-rune combos rig*ht from the start. Minimum is a rune that does a powerful attack and a rune that recovers a little health. Balancing between which of those to use seems like beginning of game business. The only reason I should be exchanging blows with these little bats is like… if I’m out of spell casting points, or if I fail to remember my spell, then it does a tiny amount of damage. For me, I would expect to be able to fry four bats in four turns.
The bat sound effect may have caused permanent hearing damage.
Just start me out with this spell:
ファ “Fa”
イ “I”
ア “A”
Now that would be fun. Especially with Fox’s voice…
Actually, I am disappoint (bad English… hehe) because I would like a game that’s even more weaboo. Sandwiches? Pfft. I need dumplings on a stick, man. Your target audience is people like me. Slap me with a big old stick of Japanese. Each enemy could have their name in English and in Japanese. This idea is, admittedly, not a bad idea. Your battle system just hasn’t spent enough time outside the lab. It’s too slow-paced.
I also had some issues with navigation, clicking on the ground didn’t always cause the character to move. Also, the turn pacing was odd. You should make it so that there is a minimum number of milliseconds between two consecutive attacks, so that there is always a consistent rhythm. I’m not even sure I like items. I feel like you could just regen HP and MP between battles and take a page out of FFX and make the save points also fully restore HP & MP.
Good luck, if you do a good job you’ll have at least one player. Haha XP
Edit: To explain why you shouldn’t put the focus as much on the roguelike and just make me recover HP and MP as I walk… the game’s focus is learning Japanese. I want to be challenged to learn Japanese… there’s a reason Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing games are simply linear experiences and not a real time strategy game. Haha. To do better at the game, should mean learning Japanese better and therefore, kicking more ass with spells… rewarding the core mechanic. The enemies should just be cannon fodder for a person with good memorization skills, satisfying to blow up and bursting with coins and goodies and exp.
Just employ a basic elemental system and players will be forced to memorize at least four different spells.
TL;DR: A developer should read every word of feedback. Haha.
Yeah, the bats are probably tougher than they should be. The point of that part of the demo was to demonstrate how using your environment is advantageous, or even necessary — anyone with Roguelike experience will immediately back into a corridor, where they can only attack you one at a time, at which point they’re pretty easy to defeat (especially if you have some snacks in your backpack). And I was also trying to keep things tough enough that if you use a Bless scroll, it actually makes things noticeably easier — hard to do that if you’re one-shotting the enemies already.
But, yeah, I can see how that part gets a bit tedious.
Your comments about the timing ring true. I tweaked the pace of individual attacks down in an attempt to fix the rhythm, but instead I now feel I should have kept the attacks fast, but put more space in between.
As for making spells with multiple characters, the plan is that you will be able to create your own scrolls — and you do this by actually writing (with your finger or a stylus) the characters that spell out a word. We might even be able to make the strength of the effect depend on how neatly/accurately you form the characters. And of course if you screw it up, the expensive parchment you were writing on is ruined. In my head this is a delightful and unique crafting mechanic, that will also have great educational value, but we haven’t gotten that far in the prototype yet, so we’ll see.
I hear what you’re saying about taking out most of the “game” from this game, and just making it more of a drill app with power-up trappings. I dunno, though… that only gets you so far. I think having a deeper game, with exploration and gear and an ultimate goal, will keep people playing longer and ultimately reviewing their katakana more. And there are a fair number of simple drill apps out there already.
Still, because such a drill app (even with combat/level-up trappings) is so much simpler, I suppose we could do both. Then we could directly compare which app (1) generates more sales, and (2) keeps people playing longer. (Those may or may not turn out to be the same one!)
thanks and I can sadly not make a web build version of it, I tried, but apparently the webplayer has problems containing the mouse inside the window and there is nothing I can do about that and it’s crucial for the movement. you don’t have anything like linux or mac or so? and maybe i can implement a mobile version at some point, but thats probably for next feedback friday then
oh, just noticed, you didn’t say webgl player so I can try the normal unity webplayer
also I’m playing your game currently and one thing that I noticed about the fights, it feels tedious, because it’s not always the same rune being used as defense or attack rune. It feels like I’m playing a vocabulary test without relation to the game (I have the feeling that game IS actually about learning while playing ) point is, maybe you could set runes for specific purposes, like have bu always be attack rune, su always be defense rune etc. it would be less confusing that way and then I could concentrate more on the game and less on the vocabulary and I’m pretty sure, just seeing the symbols or the rune name then would be alot easier, when it’s not interrupted by : oh, did i do it right now? nothing seemed to happen…ohhhh! it was defense rune this time, so it just reduced damage!
it feels the change of their purpose is just adding confusion
Other than that though, I really like where this game is going, I had no problems with any ui whatsoever on the webbuild and I liked it’s cute artstyle. I actually felt like playing an rpg and the runes reminded me a little of stonekeeps runesystem even though i don’t remember exactly how it worked, just that one could use runes for fighting, buffs etc.
I also liked that the incantations were being spoken out loud
and no, i didn’t think the bats were difficult, when rowing them up in a tight corridor hehe
@Farelle , thanks for the feedback! You’re right, learning the “runes” (actually Japanese katakana) is the real point, and I would be very up-front about this in the game description, so players would only be likely to download it if that was something they were already motivated to do. But this means I can’t link particular characters to particular effects… instead the system will keep track of how well you know each of them, and present the ones you most need to review (hopefully, right before you forget them — this is the basic premise of any spaced repetition system).
But you’re right, on defense, you can take a point or two of damage even when you get it right. So there is no very obvious feedback on whether you got it right or wrong. I’ll definitely have to do something about that! Perhaps different sounds: a metallic bonk (as if off a shield) when you get it right, and a squishy meaty sound when you miss? And on offense, we should have a “whiff” or “fizzle” sound when your attack fails because you picked the wrong pronunciation.
One thing that I think wasn’t clear to you was that you’re always picking the pronunciation (or “incantation” in the game fiction) when attacking, and always picking the character (“rune”) when defending. I’ll think about how to make that clearer. Probably the full game will have some wise old mentor who walks you through the basics at first before sending you down into the dungeons. (Or, better: walks you through the basics, inspires you to accept the quest, and then is killed by the bad guys, leaving you to fight the good fight alone!)
Anyway, thanks for giving it a try. I’ll go try your game right now!
yes, I guess you are right that it’s mostly about the feedback I really didn’t notice that there was a logic behind when a katakana would be displayed or when the latin letters of it would be
I tried it, @Farelle . It is fun! Yeah, the odd rotations were the only major problem I had — but you’re already planning to overhaul the navigation, so enough said about that.
The other thing is that for the glowy balls you have to jump for, I found it hard to tell when I was lined up correctly. They don’t cast shadows and there’s no good size reference, so it took a lot of trial and error to get them. I’m not sure what to do about that… maybe they could cast a light on the ground below them? Or you could make them something more solid and have them cast shadows, but on the other hand, the glowy balls are pretty.
Anyway, it’s a great start and I look forward to playing it more as it develops! (And if you get stuck on any coding problems, feel free to ask; I’m always happy to help.)
oh ! thats something I noticed, but couldn’t quite think of how to make the perspective clearer, but the shadows/glow effect could be actually the solution thanks
I’ts possible I could attach some small lights to them, currently they are self emitting, but thats not very visible :o, maybe they could also have a larger aura, that is showing up on the character when getting closer to them
@Farelle I like the flying creature, that was pretty nice to move around. Sometimes the orientation of the animals goes a little haywire, like the creature is stuck in a slanted position, are you rotating locally, or globally?
yeah I’m aware of that, bird is also not moving forward based on looking direction. All points that are planned for the movement overhaul (I actually did that successfully before, but whenever I start a new unity project I forget how I had done it before, resulting always with this same exact issue XD, so I know I have a solution for it already)
@Farelle - Fun game prototype and grats on being brave enough to put it out for people to dissect! The use of animal swapping for game mechanics is cute. The graphics are fun, the music creates nice ambiance, and the overall idea has a lot of potential. Here are a few thoughts that can help make it even stronger.
“Shut Up and Watch” - Give this to players, say, “I’m working to improve a new game. It’s got lots of issues. Can I watch you play to see where I need to improve?” Then give them the game and say nothing else. Don’t explain, don’t ask, just watch. Do this with 4 people. Improve the game. Repeat.
Camera - Once you ‘watch’, you’ll see that the camera can be improved. Camera movement is HARD. And it matters. Camera creates perspective, which makes it hard to see when the mouse is trying to pick up sparklies.
Movement - After you ‘watch’, you’ll see that movement can also be improved.
Piece-by-piece - As you improve the gameplay, look for ways to begin ‘adding’ in the content. So, they don’t get all features right away, instead, they earn them, by collecting the sparkles to unlock ‘mouse’ and ‘bird’.
Bird - the bird movement is not fun. It can be the most amazing feature ever, something that they can only sustain for a short period (or maybe glidding is infinite, where flapping is not). The controls aren’t quite right though. This will be a massively awesome feature once you nail the controls.
Okay i played it. lt was good start you just need to polish it abit and flesh it out.You know it needs animation, particle effect (when you transform), maybe a radar, maybe some kind of you magnet (that attracts the orb if your close enough), it needs, maybe some kind of enemy or something that kills you (or not), it needs the camera stop going through the geometry.
thanks for your feedback
and that magnet thing for the orbs sounds great I will put it on my list for polishing ^^
and regarding difficulty, I probably gonna add some sort of collision event, when reaching certain speeds (from falling or flying) and then collide with something, that it will stun your character/make it unable to shift for a while or something similar, but I have not worked it out completely yet, since I would need to test the different options for that, after I have finished revamping the controls
and yeah, camera collision is a big topic since the map will be alot denser later on.
edit: apparently I felt like doing the magnetic orbs, now they are magnetic ;D, but I have not made a new build yet with the changes will probably happen in a month or so.
I shall not deny the opportunity of getting feedback for free 
since the map will be alot denser later on.