So, I started working on a new game the other day which I hope to sell on Steam. It's not a BYOND game, so, I am putting it here in off topic. Sadly, BYOND was my life for so long that I'm not a part of any other communities, so this is the only place I can turn to to get feedback.
The game is very very early, but the basic idea is it is a puzzle adventure platformer. You pretty much solve puzzles, avoid traps, and just plain kill things.
The current version of the game only has two completed levels, the second level is missing background assets, however. The game will obviously get more complex and there will be many different sceneries and what not as things progress. There will also be bosses, special events/fights, and many unique monsters and puzzles. You will also get new weapons and abilities as you play through. I actually plan to add the first mini bosses (two henchmen for the main boss of the "castle" levels) which will reward you with a sword after defeating them. Later in the game you will get other weapons and tools to use, along with new abilities like the ability to block, charge head first into somewhat solid things, jump extra high, and so on. The story is somewhat planned out already and I think it's pretty interesting and unique. There will be many cutscenes and interesting story happening. But nothing too fancy.
Ideally the game will be very polished with hours of play. My desire is to sell it on Steam for $10 to $15 depending on the end quality. The feedback I am looking for is if you guys think the game is headed in the right direction and if (assuming I deliver on everything I have said with a quality product) any of you think you might purchase such a game. Also, how does the art style feel and how well does the current version play for you. Along with any other various feedback.
Depending on the feedback given, I may update this post with new information as things progress.
I know it's still super early in development, but it's good to know now how people feel. Also, hearing feedback helps motivate me to get things done. Usually I work on projects in secret and then give up because lack of feedback.
So without further ado, here is the link to the game.
http://sirblob.com/
ID:1837498
 Apr 19 2015, 9:11 pm (Edited on Apr 22 2015, 12:25 pm)
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Apr 20 2015, 12:12 am
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EmpirezTeam
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is it just me or does pressing up arrow cause your dude to jump infinitely
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
is it just me or does pressing up arrow cause your dude to jump infinitely Fixed. Thanks. | |
Double tap those jars with your man titties to win.
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Zecronious wrote:
Double tap those jars with your man titties to win. Haha. That's good. Now I can't look at it the same anymore. Your character is a blob/slime with a knight helmet on. In the intro (which isn't done) a group of slimes are minding their own business when a heroic knight adventurer bursts in and starts slaying slimes. The last slime left defeats the adventurer, "levels up", steals the knight's helmet, and becomes... Sir Blob! When he attacks, it's his little arms he creates from his ball of blob body. | |
it's really, really hard. but not in a fair way, and more in a "oh look you got stuck in a corner with 2 enemies and insta-died, restart the whole level" way. i couldn't beat the first level. perhaps make it so jumping on the enemies kills them, too? or add knockback to the combat so that there's a little bit more play/counterplay? or increase the hitboxes/improve the attack animation? idk, it just doesn't seem fun at all yet
also, you should add a crouching animation so that jumping has a bit more flavor. jumping also feels really fast and probably isn't easy to control(i say probably because the only thing i did in the first level was jump over a couple traps). things that you can do to improve the feel of the controls include adding slippery momentum so that the character slides a decreasing tiny bit after you stop moving, tilting the character to the left or right while you move through the air, adding particle effects as tiny bits of dust to fall off of the character's feet when you jump and a tiny wave for when you land, decreasing the fall speed/making the vertical momentum increase and decrease as you rise/fall etc. | |
Poker isn't a new game, pretty sure that's been out for a while now.
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Nix wrote:
it's really, really hard. but not in a fair way, and more in a "oh look you got stuck in a corner with 2 enemies and insta-died, restart the whole level" way. i couldn't beat the first level. perhaps make it so jumping on the enemies kills them, too? or add knockback to the combat so that there's a little bit more play/counterplay? or increase the hitboxes/improve the attack animation? idk, it just doesn't seem fun at all yet Thanks for the feedback. When you attack the slimes they bounce into the air. As long as you don't run into them you should be able to keep attacking them to kill them without taking any damage. Knocking them back would probably make them harder to kill because you'd have to run up to them again (which itself is risky because you can run into them and take damage). The fourth level will be a miniboss which rewards a sword after defeating them, which will have a longer attack range. But with that said, I will look into adding a few pixels of range to the default attack. Your jump actually does decrease in speed as you get closer to top of it, just not a whole lot. I can make minor adjustments to that as needed. Also I think adding slippery movement would make things harder, not easier. And as for the jump animation stuff, I will look to add more finer detail as the game progresses. I also plan to give a shield which lets you block damage from a certain direction, but not move. I might be able to give that sooner than previous planned. It is supposed to be hard, but not impossible. I have played through the two levels countless times, so it is very doable. You shouldn't be insta-dying from enemies, though. It should take three hits from them to kill you. I think maybe you're just constantly running into them and not stopping before you reach them? That's just a gameplay mechanic you'd have to learn and adjust to, like any game. I can increase the player health for each level if needed, though. With that said, if you thought the first level was hard, the second level would blow your mind. Haha. The first level is more of an intro level. The second level is where all the fun starts. There's currently a test command in the game that lets you skip levels. If you press 'c' it'll take you to the next level. | |
I think maybe one of the reasons you had issues was because movement was so fast. So I slowed it a tad. I also made a few changes to jumping, added a couple new animations, and gave the attack range a few extra pixels. Hopefully it plays a bit better for you now.
Thanks again for the feedback. | |
It is definitely an interesting game from the first time I played it. One thing I like most is how simple the graphics are. As I've always come to believe, no matter how bad your graphics are, if they are consistent it will compliment itself. I'm not saying the graphics are bad either. I'm saying they're not some fancy piece of work that if you saw it alone you'd say to yourself, "Mother of pearl! Take my money now and give me that sprite!" Nah. They're very simple and easy on the eyes. I hope it stays that way.
Another thing is that the keybindings take in to account just about every play-style. That is, the WASD & Arrow Keys. Not only that, it makes good use of the mouse as well which keeps both hands busy. I find this to keep the user interactive. If anything, one suggestion I can give is a bit of screen-shaking when they are hit (occasionally so it doesn't become annoying, or when a damage threshold is met). Or some visual effects when they are hurt. It tends to make games more immersive, even if it is 2D. A lot of developers pass this by (and I have yet to implement it either). If you get by to doing this, I'm sure it would make a big difference. But, I could be wrong. I also like the dropping method you chose. Thick blocks can't be passed through, whereas thin gray blocks, if you press the down arrow or S, allows you to go beneath them. One thing I can see this being a great use in would be secret passages beneath the ground. Many games today seems to be forgetting the whole fun brought by cheat codes and hidden secrets that doesn't have a damn thing to do with the actual game's story. Just something to take your mind off of the seriousness of completing the game. In all, I think your game looks pretty damn good and has a great start to it. Especially the tutorial. Great way of incorporating it in to the actual playing of the game. I look forward to seeing more updates on it soon. | |
Xirre wrote:
"simple art style is nice" | |
Nix wrote:
"simple art style is nice" Just stating an opinion. If I feel as if something was done right, I find it to be helpful to tell the developer to stick along with what they are currently doing. bland observation that arrow keys + wasd makes sense(wow), and that combat should use hit effects(omg no way) A lot of people tend to remove extra keybinds or add too much. What he has currently is a good balance. Once again, I just think it would be beneficial to point it out so things aren't changed, at least not drastically. zero actual gameplay feedback Sorry, I just thought I'd cover the things I hadn't already talked to him about seeing as how I had to time to give my opinions on what else he has so far. | |
The art style is here to stay. The idea of the whole thing is a sort of grayscale with random vibrant colors to make things pop like blood, lights, so on. There are a few other variables that determine what shade/color I make something as well, but I wont go into detail on all that.
I'll experiment with the screen shaking when hit a bit when I get a chance. I do know already that there will be screen shaking, though. After you defeat the first mini-boss(es) the screen will shake and the floor will be destroyed, leading into the next level which will be a sort of "bonus" level where you fall and try to collect coins. The coins, by the way, will allow you to purchase certain consumables and what not. Most of the coins are sort of hidden or out of the way, so they aren't really collected naturally. Some even require solving special puzzles to get to them. The idea of the coins and purchasing various consumables is so players have a sort of boost to help them get through a level that is being difficult for them. You will even be able to view a world map and go back and play previous levels to collect more coins or get other things you missed. Tad off topic, but oh well. As for the dropping method, I like it as well. As the game progresses I hope to add many more things like it. Ideally every level will have some new mechanic or monster or whatever. Thanks for the feedback, Xirre. | |
I haven't gotten the chance to tackle level two yet, since I tried this right after it was posted up and didn't get a chance to comment some things I noticed that slowed me down have already been fixed.
However. Level two did look very interesting, and I enjoyed level 1. The art style is nice and simple, I did wonder about the characters design, but of course that was already explained and eased my mind. I think the game-play is pretty solid, and has the foundation to be very fun as things carry on based off the plans mentioned. The only things I noticed that haven't already been mentioned is that I had to leap over the urns and get around them at first because of how late attack is explained, and I kept destroying them expecting to see something and get nothing. I imagine something will be added later, but if not I would maybe make a coin rarely drop from one or something. Additionally, I had some trouble at the part of level 1 where you need to jump on to the little ledge on the far right side of the screen right above a spike. It took me at least 4 or 5 attempts to get it because I kept not quite going over far enough somehow, and at one point I questioned whether the ledge could even be stood on. This could of been a freak mistake on my part that can be ignored, it could be unintentionally fixed by jump changes, or it could be fixed by making the character able to land on the ledge a couple pixels sooner. Anyway. That about covers it. I like the game a lot, and it has the makings to be a lot like the platformers and sidescrollers I enjoyed a lot in the 90's so I definitely want to see it carry forward. I really don't see that kind of quality much anymore, like someone said before, people don't think of half the stuff others used to anymore. I am kind of surprised it's not made with BYOND since, albeit I have no experience with this game type to back this up, but it seems pretty manageable on it so far. I'm guessing it has to do with FPS/performance/pixel precision, or some features being added in later on though. | |
Toddab503 wrote:
I think the game-play is pretty solid, and has the foundation to be very fun as things carry on based off the plans mentioned. The only things I noticed that haven't already been mentioned is that I had to leap over the urns and get around them at first because of how late attack is explained, and I kept destroying them expecting to see something and get nothing. I imagine something will be added later, but if not I would maybe make a coin rarely drop from one or something. Random jars do have coins and health "hearts" which restore health. The reason there are a couple jars before attack is explained is both for aesthetic reasons and just to be as obstacles. Nothing is in any of the ones before attack is explained, but maybe it might make somebody have to decide if they want to go back and get the others or move forward. Toddab503 wrote: Additionally, I had some trouble at the part of level 1 where you need to jump on to the little ledge on the far right side of the screen right above a spike. It took me at least 4 or 5 attempts to get it because I kept not quite going over far enough somehow, and at one point I questioned whether the ledge could even be stood on. This could of been a freak mistake on my part that can be ignored, it could be unintentionally fixed by jump changes, or it could be fixed by making the character able to land on the ledge a couple pixels sooner. Hmm. Not quite sure what ledge you are referring to. The small double ledges by the exit door above a single spike? If so, not sure why you had issues with that one. I'll keep an eye out, though. Toddab503 wrote: Anyway. That about covers it. I like the game a lot, and it has the makings to be a lot like the platformers and sidescrollers I enjoyed a lot in the 90's so I definitely want to see it carry forward. I really don't see that kind of quality much anymore, like someone said before, people don't think of half the stuff others used to anymore. The reason this is not made with BYOND is because I have created (still a work in progress, really) my own game creation service which I am using to make the game and it would be silly not to use it after putting years of work into it. And the obvious reason of showing people what the engine can do. Thanks for the feedback! I hope to deliver a solid product in the end. | |
Aaiko wrote:
Random jars do have coins and health "hearts" which restore health. The reason there are a couple jars before attack is explained is both for aesthetic reasons and just to be as obstacles. Nothing is in any of the ones before attack is explained, but maybe it might make somebody have to decide if they want to go back and get the others or move forward. Oh that makes sense, then. Aaiko wrote: Hmm. Not quite sure what ledge you are referring to. The small double ledges by the exit door above a single spike? If so, not sure why you had issues with that one. I'll keep an eye out, though. Yeah, that is the one. I just ran over to it real quick to double check, and I'm noticing jumping feels a bit different than the last time I played in a positive way. I couldn't reproduce the issue, so it may of been unintentionally fixed, or some mistake on my part. Aaiko wrote: The reason this is not made with BYOND is because I have created (still a work in progress, really) my own game creation service which I am using to make the game and it would be silly not to use it after putting years of work into it. And the obvious reason of showing people what the engine can do. Oh! That makes sense. I remember hearing something about that, but I didn't realize you were so far along with it. That's pretty awesome. Sure, anytime! Please make sure to post a link up if you end up moving most future information about the game to another website, blog, facebook, or anything. I'd really like to follow it, and keep up with everything you do with it and the engine you're using. Otherwise I'll try to catch it if you post anything else around BYOND. | |
Toddab503 wrote:
Oh! That makes sense. I remember hearing something about that, but I didn't realize you were so far along with it. That's pretty awesome. I'm enjoying the feedback here so far. It has been very helpful. So, I will continue to update this post as I make progress. As for the game creation service/engine, I wont be directly advertising it here on BYOND, but if you tried, you could get to it. | |
Just an update. Added a little Iccusion splash at the start of the game and a basic main menu. Also did a little work on level 3 and added a bit of parallax scrolling background to the first level. The other levels will get the same backgrounds once I get to adding them to other levels.
Hope to add a little intro cutscene, finish level 3 with a little cutscene after it as well, then add level 4 (which is a single screen mini-boss), and maybe do a bit of level 5 (which is a "bonus" level where you fall and collect coins) work next. | |
Another update. More feedback would be appreciated. Added a silly little intro, which took way longer than I had hoped. Also added some little fade in/out effects when changing screens. Along with other minor things here and there.
Hopefully I can finish level 3, 4, and 5 tomorrow. | |
Your fancy corner-sliding causes me to slip off of platform edges when landing on the edge.
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