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A jam submission

ROLLING BALL GAME DXView game page

Marble rolling action game featuring unique playable characters!
Submitted by Jeremias (@jer_mint) — 2 days, 23 hours before the deadline
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ROLLING BALL GAME DX's itch.io page

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Comments

(1 edit)

Very stylish art and UI and enjoyable gameplay but I think those early levels need to be much more forgiving to give new players a chance to get used to the movement mechanics. I saw you're already going to fix the menu highlighting but I was going to mention that too. The dialogue system has a lot of personality, I like the character reactions. With parts where the track can overlap other parts of track, the ground closer to the camera obscures the lower track that you're moving on so a transparency setting or being able to move the camera would be nice features.

Edit: Being able to select a character by clicking anywhere on the character not just the small circle would be a nice QoL feature. Also for the level / character select screen, as the levels are on the left, I selected that first but once you select a level, it starts right away so maybe a confirmation button for when you're happy with both options instead.

Developer

You can move the camera using Q/E on keyboard on the bumpers on controller. It's only 90 degree rotation, I might change that though. Transparency when behind certain walls is something that existed in previous versions but it was kinda wonky and didn't work right all the time so it was removed. I could try to add it again if I can get it working right but I find that there aren't many areas that actually need it since most of the time you can just rotate the camera and it's fine. Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Submitted

graying out the selected button on the UI is a terrible way to highlight them

characters seem to have different abilities when charged up? a brief explanation of them would be great

when going up a curved ramp, the character in the ball rotates smoothly but then when reaching the floor at the end of the climb the character snaps 90 degress back to standing normally, it's minor but looks off

went through one of those black rings but nothing seemed to change?

other than that, great fundamental gameplay, keep it up!

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

I've already started fixing the menu buttons. It's something I've been wanting to do, just haven't gotten around to it until now.

Yeah, the characters do each have a unique special move. I may add some sort of section explaining things like that and other game mechanics somewhere in the extras menu.

The character's slope alignment snapping like that is something I've been aware of. I tried fixing it early on but couldn't find a proper fix that looked right. It's something I'll probably go back and look into again once more important things are done.

The floating hoops give you +200 points. It's not really clear right now but I did request a batch of additional lines from the voice actors so they'll have a line attatched to that soon.

Thanks for playing! :)

Submitted

This is truly a rolling ball game. 

I'm afraid that the ball keeps shrinking randomly on restart sometimes. 

Are there any gameplay differences between the characters? I'm also interested as to what the story could be. I suggest adding a skip dialog button because unskipabble story sequences are generally a bad match for arcadey games.

Another suggestion is that it would be cool to have a 3D preview of the level ahead of time.

I'm still too bad to beat most of the stages, and I think they lack an escalating feeling of challenge in general which they should probably have considering the length. 

I like the UI a lot. It looks very SEGA.

Keep up the good work.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Regarding that glitch, as I've said to others it's weird because it seems to only happen to certain people. Would you be able to tell me what specs you're using, I'm suspecting it may be hardware related right now but I don't know for sure, since it doesn't happen to me on either computer i use.

The characters all control the same, the difference is they each have different special moves. I will definitely add a button that skips the entire scene, I just didn't get around to adding that.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted (1 edit)

"Hey, a cool, comfy rolling ball game!" - that's what I thought, but instead I got "Getting Over It"! First levels are hard, other levels are close to impossible. Metallic world has one section with very thin ledge with enemy at the end and checkpoint after it, not before It doesn't help that to get there you have to make very precise rolls to jump on a very thin platform. I feel that stairs shouldn't be in that type of game, it feels awkward climbing them. Disco world has a half-pipe that I just can't get out! Maybe it's my setup, I definitely have to test it on my desktop as my laptop can't maintain stble FPS in the garden level. I also had the problem with shrinking ball after death, but it returns to normal after choosing restart from the menu (but lives aren't reset). I tried tutorial but I guess there's nothing more than blast attack and camera rotation, right? Also there were stars hidden on the levels and areas that are just impossible to access, even in the first stage. After many tries I finally got the hang of it and managed to beat first stage, other levels were longer and harder.

Menu seems off. Selection getting so bright feels like it's locked, I'd recommend having two distinct colors. Jumping through the hoops seems to do nothing but turns out they give you points. It'd be nice to have points floating upward after clearing it, maybe even for killing single enemies, not only for doing multikills. I really liked the planetary level, I was tring to beat it the longest time. Those saturn rings being part of the level were cool. First level being just gray checkerboard is not. Also you have only four set positions for the camera and at some point you introduced thin paths with 45 degrees turns? Not cool. Overall, ease up with the difficulty! Maybe add tiny little ramps at the edges so it's harder to fall? At hte end I thought I was doing very well but one small mistake and I was falling down the infinite void anyway.

Developer (2 edits)

Yeah difficulty is something I've kept trying to adjust. I keep making new versions of the starting level, with the current one being the easiest. I thought that one would be fine but I guess not. Not sure if I'll keep making easier ones, I'll have to think about it once I finish making the levels that are currently planned, if not I can just keep adjusting. The metallic level is gonna be changed completely, something new with a similar concept. I just kept it in there so there's another level to play after it was removed from previous demo versions.

The shrinking glitch, it's so strange. Maybe it happens on lower end computers since you said you had FPS issues on the grass level? Though I have played on my laptop before that also has low FPS on that level and it still doesn't happen there. Maybe you could tell me what specs you have and I can ask the other people it happens to, maybe there's a correlation there?

Lives aren't meant to reset until you lose them all, you can gain more by collecting the yellow Sun Crystals.

The characters each have different special moves that may help you with certain areas or give you different ways to defeat enemies. None of the levels require a specific move but it can change the way you approach things.

I do intend to change the menu buttons and maybe the camera, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Thank you for playing my game! :)

Submitted

From the start the game menu felt nice and polished. Great music. Reminded me of Dreamcast-era Sega: super energetic and exciting.

Dialogue test looked good.

First time playing, the opening level was surprisingly challenging. Took me just under 5 mins to complete. I’d suggest having a few shorter levels to introduce each mechanic (basic movement, jumps, combat, etc.) then have your current opener as a test putting it all together.

Played on macOS, game ran well and didn’t experience the shrinking ball glitch.

Submitted

Also would be nice to be able to control the camera with my right hand on the keyboard so I can adjust it while left had does WASD duties. J and L maybe?

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! Area 2 of the first world was originally the first level and I added the current Area 1 to make it even easier. I'm not sure if I'll come up with an even easier level, but it's something I'll think about after I make the rest of the levels that are already planned. For the camera controls, that's a good idea to have an alternate key binding for those who want to play it like that.

Submitted

I really like the music in all of your demos so far.

Aside from the menu buttons, it seems like the restart/quit option virtually hides the selected one, making the other option look like it's selected. And the victory screen has tiny buttons for seemingly no reason.

Developer(+1)

Yeah, the menu stuff is something I wanna change, just haven't gotten around to it. Will probably make the highlighted buttons change colors instead or something simple like that. Thanks for playing. :)

Submitted (1 edit)

Hello Jeremias, the game is still as challenging as ever but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm afraid I have to report the same bug as before, the one that made the ball smaller every time I lost a life (pic related). 

Not really sure what is causing it, I'm suspecting it might have something to do with an animation that plays out when your character drops out of the stage and doesn't reset properly? If it only happens to a few players maybe it's an FPS issue like you are calling a function at a certain framerate (that scales the ball or something) so it looks normal to some people but not for others? As you can see it also causes some UI issues at the bottom left of the screen.

Apart from that I beat most levels, but I got filtered by the "Scarlet Space" and "Discotheque District" levels - the small ball bug issue does affect gameplay unfortunately so I always had to restart the levels from the very beginning.

That said the game does have that effect of "I want to get better at it". Keep at it bro.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Hey, thanks for playing again! Yeah, that bug is so strange, and it's difficult for me to know what causes it since it seems to only happen to some people. Since it consistently happens to you, maybe it's hardware related? I'm not sure why that would be but it's the only thing I can think of. There's nothing in the code that affects its size so I don't think it can be that. I've played this game on my laptop as well and it doesn't happen to me there either. It's also weird that she clips out of the ball in the display as well, that seems to be a different issue than the scale of the marble. It's very strange. I'll try to figure it out.

Submitted

Buttons are so big it makes it look like a mobile game (guessing it will be?) . Menu SFX are terrible (sound like farts) and keep overlapping. UI is overall broken. The open levels don't mesh with the gameplay, especially with how limited the camera controls are. Feels like it should be a linear rage-bait platformer. Game looks pretty, at least.

Developer

The game only really supports 16:9 aspect ratio, if you're playing on a different ratio the UI and Menu elements will be misaligned or cut off. I will probably make it so the game forces you into  16:9 and if you're on anything else you'll just have black bars on the sides or whatever. No plans for a mobile release. Thanks for playing.

(+1)

the main menu destroys me. why is the focussed button the less saturated one? also ran out of lives and gave up

Developer(+1)

I'm gonna change the menu buttons.

Submitted

After 1 fall ball become smaller and harder to control. Character with each death moves away from position on HUD. Going to 2nd map does not reset live counter. I cannot select other characters.

Developer (3 edits) (+1)

That seems to be a very strange glitch, I have no idea what's causing it because to me it doesn't happen. I saw it happen on someone's stream earlier so it's concerning. (Was that your stream?) It doesn't happen to most players either,  it seems to be a very rare occurrence but it's been reported once or twice before. Lives aren't supposed to reset unless you lose them all, there are yellow Sun Crystals to collect and gain more. I'm not sure what you mean with the character select.

Just so you're aware the Mac build doesn't work. Tried running it on my Macbook and it won't run.

Developer (1 edit)

I don't have a Mac to test it out but I'm pretty sure it just has to do with Mac being weird running games. I had someone else try this and the game worked for them, let me know if it works for you as well: 

Submitted

Heya, when i launched the game it locked itself to the aspect ratio of my vertical side monitor. Windowed did not allow resizing Game got kind of stuck with giant borders on every edge and i'm seeing past the viewport limits in the menu. I managed to fix it by going into into windowed then pressing alt-enter from there.

In level one if you go to the bottom right  go along the underpass the camera clips into the level geometry really bad. I managed to find the camera rotation on E which helped.

I found an exploit where if you slowly move away from one of the bouncer enemies, the bouncer sometimes collides into you but you do not collide into it, leading to it getting bounced back but you not getting pushed at all.

For some reason on level 2 when i was trying to use the moving platform to get onto the ledge, when the pusher enemy came to bounce me it blew up without falling off the ledge, i'm guessing some kind of odd interaction with the moving platform.

I'm pretty bad at games like this, but it was fun.


Developer

Yeah, right now the game only really supports 16:9 aspect ratio, with anything else UI/menu elements will be cut off or misaligned. I will probably make the game force 16:9 aspect ratio no matter what and if your monitor is anything else you'll just get black bars on the sides. What you mentioned with the bump inconsistency, does it happen when you get bumped multiple times in short amount of time? It may have something to do with a cooldown that exists, which I could probably disable, I'll have to check to make sure. The way bumping works, if you can technically bump them from below, and they'll be launched up, so that counts as them falling as well. The thing with the ledge it could probably be that or sometimes the detection is just weird and because they're so close to the edge it detects as if they fell or something. It's pretty common for that to happen but idk if it should be patched out entirely because it could prevent players from getting stuck in certain areas. Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you had fun playing the game! :)

Submitted

There's progress here since the last time I played 4 or so months ago, but I still have some issues:
Gravity seems too floaty still - I just think the grav being this low makes for some unsatisfying platforming sections. You could include ramp boost pads if you still want players to close gaps.
Camera doesn't clip out obstacles - There are some points where the character is under the terrain and you can't see them. You could solve this with a simple raycast + camera "near" value system probably.
Combat feels tedious - If you're gonna put combat in this game, I'd make it more punchy and impactful,
Movement is still a bit drifty for my liking.
Focusing on title menu UI element buttons doesn't seem like they're focused - why are you decreasing opacity on focus?


Take everything I said with a grain of salt, thought I  have played my fair share of marble blast / monkey ball likes in my life. Refine the core movement and gameplay systems before you invest more into character design IMO
God speed anon

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Not sure how much player physics can be changed at this point, if I were to change it, that would require pretty much every level to be adjusted to accommodate. The player physics have already been significantly changed compared to earlier versions of the game.  I do plan to make further changes to UI/menu related things, particularly when highlighting buttons and stuff, just haven't gotten around to it.  Thanks for playing. 

Submitted(+1)

Ah, I see. Yeah that's a bind. One thing you could do (if you're not already) is tie stats like friction/driftiness to other characters and see which players like the most

Developer (1 edit) (+2)

I did think of that, but I decided that the special moves should be the only thing different between them, with the movement staying the same to keep things simple. It wouldn't be difficult for me to adjust other stats, but it's definitely something I'd have to think about further before making such a change. 

Submitted(+1)

Let's see what others say. This type of game requires a lot of different hands imo
I'm tainted from the last 25 years of these types of games. Maybe someone with a fresh perspective will feel diff

Developer(+1)

Yeah, I find that when it comes to stuff like the physics, the feedback on it is always varied. I have a lot of people tell me they like it the way it is now, but others want it tighter similar to a more standard marble game. This game is also quite different from traditional marble games than it looks on the surface, the enemies and longer platformer-style levels really do change things a lot. Your suggestions are always insightful though, so I appreciate it.

Submitted

Second all of this

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

As usual I have posted update notes if you're interested in seeing exactly what's new! This demo contains three brand new levels, as well as a restored version of Metallic Mirage - Area 1 from older demo versions. Please check them out! I can also confirm that there will be a new demo of ROLLING BALL GAME DX at the upcoming SAGE 2025, once the event begins on September 19th. Any feedback from Demo V3 will be very helpful as I prepare for that event. Please look forward to it and thank you for your support! :)

Edit: If you were one of the first to download, please note that I accidentally left a mistake on Metallic Mirage - Area 1. I quickly replaced the build with a fixed version so please redownload it for that. Thanks!