Good sound effects and controls, though I feel like the base jump isn't high enough. I don't know if having to crouch to do a high jump is a good idea. Shooting still needs some work.
Bummer about no keyboard support, had some issues detecting my PS4 controller. There should be an option to use the sticks as the dpad.
Also there's some HUD flicker, I imagine you made it so when the player is not moving the HUD would appear and when you start moving it would disappear but the implementation makes it flicker some times.
Overall not bad for an early build, has some potential.
The jump height was one of major critiques from Demo Day. I've increased it in my current unpublic build. I'm still trying figure out a good balance for the gun play. ATM they're pretty useless. I want them to be a fun tool for range.
I'll be adding keyboard support and looking into getting PS controller support. GMS1.4 has a weird bug with PS controllers that I'm sure a plugin/extension exists somewhere.
The flickering is intentional, but it does go in & out lot. Gonna change it so it does it at the beginning of the level.
I'm glad you gave the game a try. Thanks for the feedback.
Cool to finally get a chance to play this after seeing all the progress you've posted in the threads. I really like the art. I played for about 20 minutes but couldn't figure out how to reach the top of the tower.
Some thoughts while playing:
- You might want to get keyboard controls working asap. Controller-only support is enough friction to turn people away from trying the game.
- Does the dash button work? If I press and hold the right bumper, she does a little dodge/spin animation, but I didn't notice any speed increase.
- Ladder collision seems a little off. I have to climb a good tile above where the ladder sprite ends before I can get off it, so it looks like the mc is floating above it.
- The mc has a really slow initial run speed. You might want to increase that a bit so movement feels less slippery.
- When you throw items, the throw arc starts from the player's head instead of their front, which makes it really hard to hit enemies.
- It's very easy to miss what's interactable. I discovered the gun containers completely by accident while fighting an enemy. Similarly, it took me a while to realize you could punch the vase that you can jump on. I thought it was just level dressing.
- Enemies need to telegraph their attacks a lot more. The plant enemy basically insta-attacks as soon as you're in range.
- Sometimes I'd drop through platforms when I meant to do a crouch jump. Having those two actions mapped the way they are could become a problem.
- Okay, so I realized the idea with the crouch jump is to enter the crouch state and then jump. You're not expected to press both at the same time, and I guess dropping through platforms is what happens when you do. The biggest problem is that you're currently unable to crouch jump while moving in the crouch state, so every crouch jump kills all of your momentum unless you want to risk dropping through the platform instead.
- The previous point leans into a broader observation. I'm not really sure what kind of mechanical vibe the game is going for. The slow run acceleration and slide mechanic suggest a more Sonic-esque platformer where you're meant to build and maintain momentum, but a lot of common actions abruptly kill it. Punching, grabbing ledges, and crouching all bring you to a screeching halt. On the other hand, if you're aiming for a more precision-platformer feel, I wouldn't expect the running physics to behave like they do, and the regular jump height feels extremely short.
I liked what I played. I think the movement and combat could use some tuning, but the animation work is already very expressive. I'm looking forward to checking it out again once more of the art and assets are finalized.
Thanks for giving my game a try and for leaving this feedback.
My mindset for the movement and jumping was to keep it realistic (fairly slow build up and low jump), but I failed to see that the crouch jump took over the purpose that was meant for the normal jump. After seeing people try it out, I saw that it was a bit backwards thinking on my end. For the acceleration, I got too use to it when testing. I will be changing both to feel a bit more expected for platformer game. Same with blending the speed & feel of some actions so that it doesn't kill the flow.
The dash is an unlockable that you get when grabbing an orb. I probably shouldn't have had it listed in the controls page when the player can't do it by default. Speaking of, I am changing the drop down to be a "double tab down" instead of sharing an input with the crouch jump. I think overall a lot of controls where set up for confusion with very little guidance like which object can be picked up or not. I'll be making sure things are a bit more straight forward.
Will also fix up the other issues you and others have had with the game. I'm glad that generally people liked my game prototype even with it's many faults. First time sharing a game build with anyone and joining a jam. Big thanks for liking my animations too. Hopefully I can have a better build in a future Demo Day.
Comments
Cute character design.
Good sound effects and controls, though I feel like the base jump isn't high enough. I don't know if having to crouch to do a high jump is a good idea. Shooting still needs some work.
Bummer about no keyboard support, had some issues detecting my PS4 controller. There should be an option to use the sticks as the dpad.
Also there's some HUD flicker, I imagine you made it so when the player is not moving the HUD would appear and when you start moving it would disappear but the implementation makes it flicker some times.
Overall not bad for an early build, has some potential.
Thank you!
The jump height was one of major critiques from Demo Day. I've increased it in my current unpublic build. I'm still trying figure out a good balance for the gun play. ATM they're pretty useless. I want them to be a fun tool for range.
I'll be adding keyboard support and looking into getting PS controller support. GMS1.4 has a weird bug with PS controllers that I'm sure a plugin/extension exists somewhere.
The flickering is intentional, but it does go in & out lot. Gonna change it so it does it at the beginning of the level.
I'm glad you gave the game a try. Thanks for the feedback.
very nice controlling game! nice spritework and overall mobility options. seriously it feels quite good to play.
i'd say please let us flip the A and B buttons, it seems just awkward to have them like that
Thank you! I'm glad to hear that you liked playing through it.
Will add the option to flip buttons around and even allow keyboard input in a future build.
Cool to finally get a chance to play this after seeing all the progress you've posted in the threads. I really like the art. I played for about 20 minutes but couldn't figure out how to reach the top of the tower.
Some thoughts while playing:
- You might want to get keyboard controls working asap. Controller-only support is enough friction to turn people away from trying the game.
- Does the dash button work? If I press and hold the right bumper, she does a little dodge/spin animation, but I didn't notice any speed increase.
- Ladder collision seems a little off. I have to climb a good tile above where the ladder sprite ends before I can get off it, so it looks like the mc is floating above it.
- The mc has a really slow initial run speed. You might want to increase that a bit so movement feels less slippery.
- When you throw items, the throw arc starts from the player's head instead of their front, which makes it really hard to hit enemies.
- It's very easy to miss what's interactable. I discovered the gun containers completely by accident while fighting an enemy. Similarly, it took me a while to realize you could punch the vase that you can jump on. I thought it was just level dressing.
- Enemies need to telegraph their attacks a lot more. The plant enemy basically insta-attacks as soon as you're in range.
- Sometimes I'd drop through platforms when I meant to do a crouch jump. Having those two actions mapped the way they are could become a problem.
- Okay, so I realized the idea with the crouch jump is to enter the crouch state and then jump. You're not expected to press both at the same time, and I guess dropping through platforms is what happens when you do. The biggest problem is that you're currently unable to crouch jump while moving in the crouch state, so every crouch jump kills all of your momentum unless you want to risk dropping through the platform instead.
- The previous point leans into a broader observation. I'm not really sure what kind of mechanical vibe the game is going for. The slow run acceleration and slide mechanic suggest a more Sonic-esque platformer where you're meant to build and maintain momentum, but a lot of common actions abruptly kill it. Punching, grabbing ledges, and crouching all bring you to a screeching halt. On the other hand, if you're aiming for a more precision-platformer feel, I wouldn't expect the running physics to behave like they do, and the regular jump height feels extremely short.
I liked what I played. I think the movement and combat could use some tuning, but the animation work is already very expressive. I'm looking forward to checking it out again once more of the art and assets are finalized.
Thanks for giving my game a try and for leaving this feedback.
My mindset for the movement and jumping was to keep it realistic (fairly slow build up and low jump), but I failed to see that the crouch jump took over the purpose that was meant for the normal jump. After seeing people try it out, I saw that it was a bit backwards thinking on my end. For the acceleration, I got too use to it when testing. I will be changing both to feel a bit more expected for platformer game. Same with blending the speed & feel of some actions so that it doesn't kill the flow.
The dash is an unlockable that you get when grabbing an orb. I probably shouldn't have had it listed in the controls page when the player can't do it by default. Speaking of, I am changing the drop down to be a "double tab down" instead of sharing an input with the crouch jump. I think overall a lot of controls where set up for confusion with very little guidance like which object can be picked up or not. I'll be making sure things are a bit more straight forward.
Will also fix up the other issues you and others have had with the game. I'm glad that generally people liked my game prototype even with it's many faults. First time sharing a game build with anyone and joining a jam. Big thanks for liking my animations too. Hopefully I can have a better build in a future Demo Day.