Recently, I released a game on Kongregate, f2p, better than most games on kongregate, or so I thought, but of coarse I’m biased =D.
Looking for comments to make the game better from a game dev perspective, even though I thought it was done 4 weeks ago, i find myself continually adding to it.
I never said this was the best game, but I certainly said it has never been done before. I literally received a private message in a chat room, from a long time kongregate user that my game was being down-voted simply for the fact it is a unity3d game and not a flash game. WTF, seriously. Any webplayer dev knows my pain, when a user has to install a unity3d plugin. What are your thoughts on this?
Even with this downvoting, my unity game has garnered a 3.5 rating on kongregate, even though the game is not finished.
It is something, but the very fact someone said “can you even die”, implicitly implies they did not play the game for more than a few minutes. I appreciate criticism, but I don’t appreciate pre-conceived ideas about a game that they never played. So eloquently spoken, I can assure you the first comment-er didn’t give the game more than 2 minutes hence the reason the question was “can i die”.
the fact is, you may cry all you want about “my game not being uber”, but as soon as a unity3d game appears on top games, they are downvoted, this is a fact:
Imagine, just for a moment, you are a flash developer with 4 years experience making flash games… everything you know is thrown under the table because of a new technology you don’t understand… how would you feel? How would you tell all your twitter followers, “hey guys, remember I made the flash game that is like a pop-up book you can get from a library and unity3d is threatening my 4 year investment in pop-up books.” How would you feel? How would you react?
It reminded me of that ski game that older versions of windows had. That you would go down a slope and at a point a snowman would appear.
The thing with this game is that i didn’t really know exactly where to go. I just had the W key pressed.
Btw, did you try to take out the fog and put some sky?
From what I originally took from the OP as to the topic of this thread (both in the subject and in the initial post), was that it was being down voted because it was developed in Unity 3D.
Oddly enough I have seen this sentiment being posted in other places as well; most recently I noticed it in the forums for a game on Steam where they knocked it because the developer had created it in Unity. All of a sudden there were others that dog piled into the discussion with comments being made along the lines of “I have yet to play a good game that was developed in Unity”.
Seriously?
I am bit curious as to where that could be coming from.
At the end of the day, pull out the constructive criticism and move forward while ignoring those that are just out to poke hole in everything.
It seems you are looking for honest reviews… so here goes mine:
The closest thing gameplay wise would be the skiing mechanic in Tribes Ascend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lrSVumR7l8 Though hitting slopes at the right angle is very hard here and not rewarding enough, which is disappointing. The main problem I see, though, is that you can’t see very far and plan your jumps for whats ahead… that makes the game very luck based. I noticed there is no real goal of the game. Just keep going faster and faster until you inevitably die. To add up on the rant, the boosting mechanic seems quite confusing. I bought and applied a bunch of the boosters, but I didn’t notice going any faster. On the other hand, I’m loving the sounds… it gives the game a nice touch. The trophy system doesn’t appeal to me personally, but I can see the benefit of it. The shop seems quite pointless so far, but I take the game is still in development.
So all in all, it’s definitely not unique in gameplay. You’re not the first one who thought of turning skiing (or riding down a hill in the general sense) into a game. The implementation is not bad, but it feels to me more work was put in all the misc stuff around the game than in the actual gameplay. I’ve played it for only about 20 minutes and won’t probably return to it again (these “achievement” tricks simply don’t work on me), but I quite enjoyed those 20 minutes. So I think it deserves the rating it got.
It wasn’t trolling. You can look at my post feedback.
I got so bored and found the game pointless. So yes I played for a few minutes and your game failed to make me want to play for more. That in itself is feedback. People shouldn’t have to fight through the boredom to get to the good part of your game, I assume that is what you are implying.
The game starts with a one page rant about the technical side of things. Gamers don’t care about this.
Anyway I am sorry you didn’t like my feedback but at least it was honest.
OK I’ll bite, though I do have to say that you come off a little high and mighty on what is a developer forum. Making the high claim that your game is so unique it’s never been done before is a little outlandish. I simply see you combining several mechanics that have all been done in many shapes and forms. That claim would be like saying that Borderlands had never been done before. Sure, OK, maybe no one had yet to combine RPG with FPS, but other than the combination, everything had been done before. That was and is not what makes Borderlands amazing, it’s the perfect execution that Gearbox achieved which makes the game a stand out.
As for games, a quick search of “downhill skiing game” yields thousands of results. I found this one:
Which has very similar mechanics to your game. You go down hill, you collect stuff, you can die. So you have a shop and boost and a few others things and of course you have nice 3D however at a core level, your game is pretty much the same.
So to a focused critique. I found the feel of your game very reminicent of 1980’s arcade games, toobin came to mind. The sound and in your face achievements is what really put that feel into my head. I found the menu popping up while the game was already going behind it very disconcerting. If menu is open, pause game play. There were way to many controls listed on the keyboard controller that was open while the game was going which really distracted my attention. Though I do appIaude your use of color for the keys, that made it very easy to zero in on what keys were important. But I wasn’t sure if I should be playing, or reading all the many control buttons for what I thought was going to be a simple runner type game. It was very difficult to understand the difference between the boost and pressing the ‘W’ key, maybe particle effects or a boost timer? Am I always supposed to hold the ‘W’ key down? Am I always supposed to be spamming the boost button?
The path, feels endles, I guess, which is cool, however based on the placement of the gold coins, there really didn’t seem like the player was allowed to deviate from the path. The little child like drawings, while cute, didn’t really seem very legible within the browser window I was using. I was confused about what I was supposed to be doing. Am I supposed to collect stuff? Why? What are stinky stools for? Am I supposed to do tricks? Why? What am I doing? Other than racing head long down an endless mountain.
I think you need to set up the goal of the game in the beginning better. Sure, you get it, you designed it, but your players need to understand the point of the expierence so they can better enjoy it. Instead of an endless runner, have a beginnng and end. Have a course. Then in between you can use your money for upgrades and consumables. See the flow of Super Off Road - Wikipedia for an example. You race, you gain , you use on upgrades, you race some more. Goal: get all the upgrades, be the best racer.
Perhaps a tutorial level that pauses when you hit varrious elements in the game and then gives you a description, once you pass 1 of each thing you need to understand, the game says, good luck, go get 'em tiger.
The speed difference between the first person view and the really far back 3rd person view is drastically different. I found the first person view much more exciting, but I couldn’t really see what I was doing and with the coins only really appearing down one centeral path, there really wasn’t much thought to wich way I should be going.
The blue ice blocks? Again were unclear, do I avoid them? which was my first thought, then I crashed into one, but instead I did a trick I think? I only say this because a bro like approving voice over said something like, “Hardcore!” so that must be good? But then I loose health for doing jumps and such, so wait, am I supposed to be doing this? I get encouraging comments, I get awards, I get coins, yet when I land I loose health. That seems like dinamically opposed aspects.
I found myself hoping that jumps, or arrows or flags or any kind of direction of “hey, try and go this way” would turn up, just so I felt like I was heading in the right direction. Mainly this again was due to the items only showing up in one route, yet it felt nice that you could go in any direction.
The spacing and slope on the mountains with the low maneuverabilty of the sled were in conflict. I felt that my attempt to steer didn’t really matter much as when I tried to turn, I would inevitably end up hitting a slope and coming to a near halt. So then I just kind of stoped trying and let myself go where I would, but then I didn’t really feel like I was in much control of the sled and was simply at the mercy of what seems to be a random endless slope generator.
The sound is great, the graphics are really good for web. Its was sort of enjoyable but ultimately I felt there were too many ideas crammed together with no clear idea of the why or purpose of what I was trying to do. I’d suggest a tutorial, better explanation of what the purpose of play is and a clearer idea of rewards and why the player is trying to get them.
Do you have a 1 sentence log-line for the game? If not I’d suggest that you start there. What is the player going to do and how are they going to do it and what is the reward for successful completion.
I played the game a few more times and the feeling of rushing down the slope is fun, but again, there was just all these things popping up, red and blue balls?? Stools and bowls?? Niether of which made sense for why they were on the mountain.
My suggestion is for you to make a choice, either have coins on the ground that you collect or get coins for doing tricks. This way the player knows what they are trying to do. They are either supposed to follow the coins and do their best to stay on track, or they can go buck wild all over the mountain and are rewarded for being more daring and crazy. Embrace the arcade feeling of the game, your sound does, so bring the visual cues up to par, with boost, get TONS 'O Particles. Maybe a cooldown meeter. Instead of holding down W (my finger started hurting) have a closer 3rd person view and when you press the button once, you lean forward. This way the user can tell what they are doing when they controling the player.
All that said, congratulations on compleeting a game. That is no easy task. It’s got some nice aspects to it and with a bit more focus I think you have a fun expierence on your hands.
Wow,…your very first response to a decent opinion of your work and you sound like you flew off the rail. I know the ‘interwebs’ is difficult to hear inflection, but you should of politely verified if his intent was hostile or not first.
and I am with Pelajesh,…I didn’t even bother after that,…I am glad I read further. I’m gonna go play Gunslinger.
actually,…I find the issue of some aversion to any game, web game, made with Unity to be more interesting. Is it that big of a deal? people download plug insupdates all the time.
People don’t downvote your game because it uses Unity. Some of the most popular and highly-rated games on Kongregate are Unity games. If some do, it will be the minority.
You should concern yourself with why the majority is not upvoting your game, not focusing on the small few who vote it unfairly.
I loved this community because users were very simple and humble, but since unity 4 this community has become so arrogant even people who have nothing to show, i have no idea why… -.-
