that's very sweet of you, and yeah, I suppose the nature of the game as it currently exists doesn't really force the player to do anything interesting with any of the masks. And beyond some condescension from the game (which only comes up once) and the occasional easter egg... hmm, given me something to consider, thank you.
you seem the most interested in this game on the board, so I wanted to run something by you for how I plan to address "not forcing anything interesting with the masks" I'm adding bonus stages to each act, minus the bosses, so 4 in total for the demo. Each room will force a specific mask combo and present a unique platforming challenge that forces the user to use both abilities to overcome some slightly tougher, but shorter, levels. with a cosmetic prize for beating all in a chapter. I also feel like Sorrow is missing something, conceptually its supposed to feel like the most difficult to use, but it lacks a sense of power or presence that the others do (besides squishing Mary's sprite), I'm going to try to add some visual effects and add a small explosion on landing if you fall from a height greater than your max jump... that increases in size.
I like how the blocks break cleanly into more shapes, I'm guessing you have the cube replaced with two models rendered based on
the position and angle they were struck at?
spotted a glitch? mainly from the blocks after they break, shrapnel can cause a following block to be knocked off course
and become unhittable, I also had a piece of shrapnel somehow launch me in the air.
the sound on the breaking of glass is a bit loud by default, even after turning my volume down a couple times, granted there's
no exact way to know what volume someone else's setup would be, I'd recommend putting some placeholder music at the start
to give the viewer an idea of whether they should turn the volume up/down.
angling is a little awkward in real time, and given the player doesn't need to move when making a strike as the blocks are
facing them, I'd suggest reducing the amount of input necessary to make angled cuts, perhaps if holding right click
made the user "free cut?" if you've ever played games like daggerfall, kingdom come deliverance, or bannerlord...
Its a good start mechanically though, kinda reminds me of fruit ninja.
Hello, controls at first when you use c for the wall bounce is pretty tough on keyboard and mouse, I usually use gamepad for these games but want to give kbm mouse a go. maybe give a mini notice when you start a new game that this is a slightly challenging platformer so players know what to expect. The difficulty in the rehersal could be a lot for some players. I am gonna carry on with sorrow mask in rehearsal, so far I like the vibe and story telling :) some thing happened around when I was in the sorrow mask explanation maybe tabbed over here typing but my frames tanked catastrophically, I am gonna reload the page to see if I can continue with better frames. currently my frames are now unplayable. when I reloaded the page the controller input prompts wont go away but I dont have a controller connected, just keyboard and mouse! I pressed arrow keys and this was able to swap in the input mode but clicking around in the window maybe should swap the control input display from the gamepad to keyboard and mouse or slightly adjust the detection for gamepad! I like the auto save because I was able to continue where I left when I had to reload the page! however I was not able to actually load into my progress the continue button opens the controls panel with keyboard, displaying gamepad. im gonna click unlock all just to play around a bit more. I am really enjoying the first level and it was intuitive and comedic to smack the first knight charging at me with the umbrella! I really liked that. the mask use in dialogue is really cool. playing with ham is hilarious. smacking the knights after ham victory is great. ending the scene with the rope is super neat. my ropes attached to my character got visually bugged at some point so I had these black lines across my screen, but it did not stop the gameplay. I got the frame bug again maybe from tabbing out to type here when I was on the dock level, so this frame thing might be common when the game loses the focus of the player/window. the frames fixed themselves this time tho I did not need to restart/refresh the page.. I was a little confused where to go with the metal in the start of the level after the kidnapping, perhaps if a player does not progress to the next scene after a time, you could point an arrow towards where the player should go next? I think you may wish to consider breaking the first level into parts because it is quite long for a first player, I am tryin to get through it but feel a touch of burnout that if maybe i had completed 2/3 segments or chapters or something, acts, idk, then if I knew I just had one more I would be more inclined to finish the last one if I think that I will be saving the kidnapee soon, I will push on here. I was a little confused that I had to hit the barrel into the window to get into what I assume is the tower, because previously I was unable to hit barrels with the rose.. I think maybe you could add some names under the text window so we know the name of the character talking, and you could potentially add names and thereby a slight bit of personality to each knight. my game bugged/froze during the boss fight(image attached) sadly so I will end my playthrough here, very nice so far :) ! I was jumping and attacking when it froze.
Yeaaaaah, Itch.io can be pretty inconsistent when hosting webbuilds of game maker games, I'm thinking I'll just have to take it down. That being said, you wrote a very thorough review, and I greatly appreciate it, if you'd like, I can DM you a Steam cd key for the playtest version. I especially appreciate the constructive criticism. I think your point about names beneath character portraits is a great idea, I could put the character they're playing in parenthesis. I've toyed with the idea of showing a preview of the level, scrolling from the end, to the beginning at the start of each level, to avoid any confusion as to where to go and what will be ahead.
2 bonus stages made so far, one's based on the new sorrow/confusion combo, the other's a race focusing on rage/joy. these levels are focused on mechanics, and thus their backgrounds are minimalistic, and based on the mask combination set for them, the actual platforms will be getting some treatment though, so they won't just be basic white blocks.
bonus levels are now live, along with the new sorrow mechanics, on the Demo build. Some things are still unfinished or unpolished, but everything should be functional on a mechanical level at least, I was eager to share what I've been working on with everyone, so you can check it now on Steam or Itch!
one requested feature was to have character names appear beneath their portraits. For characters without portraits, the names will still appear to clarify whose talking.
some basic coloring for platforms/obstacles in bonus levels as well
I'll check out your game late tonight, thank you for your feedback, yeah I could add a velocity dampning effect to when the player pushes against a wall while falling, as well as when they hit a wall above a certain speed. I can remove the flip on wall jump as well, but honestly in my experience it makes chaining wall jumps harder... perhaps I should make the tutorial further emphasize the importance of holding down A.
Also, I'll be updating my game tonight based on your feedback, so if you want to hold off until tomorrow I can make some of those changes for you.
*EDIT* found a bug with it, give me one moment.
Update has been posted, admittedly I've only done a little bit to bug test the new features, I'm making a gif to the wall slide, after that I'll play your game and post a review of it.
If you make a board for reviews on here, I can post it there too, it helps build user engagement.
I played about 3 waves, until it seemed like things were going to loop
very clean visuals, very snappy, quick to open up to player engagement,
sprites are well animated, animations are great, however I am a little lost as to how to play the game as things progress.
perhaps a tutorial appearing on the side, maybe some visual queues on a first run would be good? I accidentally attacked my own guy. The frog's lick only seems to do damage, including to friendlies.
Combo system with characters based on D&D classes/monsters is a great setup, and for many I suspect wouldn't take much learning to figure out, still I think a few more clues/hints along the way would be good. I do wish I had known what my character's movesets were going to be before I picked them.
"strength" is spelled "strenght" on the card for the monk
Maybe an alternative key for ending the turn would be good? some games use a space bar, you could put a checkbox next to the End Turn button to allow for spacebar to end a turn incase some players don't want that on by default.
I was a little confused about how to switch character moves? the menu that pops up when you double click a character is great, but I think a simplified version showing their moves in a corner on the screen might inform the player that they have a specific move set, or that they can even change character moves in the first place. When I took the healing perk for healing from movement, it seemed to instead heal every time any of my characters made an action. When I mouse over a character, the perk displays, but the text is small and unreadable
I like the idea that the perk you don't take is the one the monsters get. I love the design overall, I think this is a great premise for a game. I think the sprites are incredibly charming and the overall aesthetic is wonderful, great for either cozy game material, casual mobile game material, or possible a unique epic RPG depending on how you want to take this game.
(as an aside, you have a frog bard, you could make a joke about "its not easy being green")
Oh my goodness, thank you so much! this is incredibly valuable just skimming through already. I've gone ahead and reworked the boss at the end, it should be a bit easier now (depending on the masks you wear). I'll watch the rest of your playthrough, take notes, and then record myself playing your game :)
*edit* you requested a playtest copy before you played, would you still like one?
Here's my review.
I'm a little thrown off by the smith building, I think I misunderstood what "increases production in neighboring tiles by 100%" means.
I didn't spot any bugs, unless that was one. But I think the game could use some form of either a failure state (food as a resource, that drains over time, and if you run out, game over?) or a timer or something to create a sense of tension. You suggested people post their high scores, but as it stands, there's nothing to differentiate between someone who had a good strategy from someone who simply left the game running. An option to replace buildings with their upgraded variants would be neat, although you can already essentially do that by removing a building and then building something better, small QoL features like that can help players better understand how to play your game. Some variety in roles each resource can serve might also be good, as it stands the main difference between resources that I could tell was just how expensive they are, and that each resource requires the less valuable resources to be obtained.
Solid core premise though, I think just a failure state or something that proves a player had a strong strategy could do a lot for it!
There's now a proper prize for collecting every bonus star in Chapter 1, a costume based on the boss's outfit, a Judge's gown, wig, and gavel
You're right, I had that rule as a safeguard against trolls/bots but I think I was a bit overconcerned there. I'll also go ahead and add several more screenshots, gifs, and more text explaining what's happening in the game, as well as the game's trailer off of steam. I'll also update the OP to offer a playtest copy if someone just asks.
*edit* I'll also do something about the bloat, it really does take up much more space than it should, although it is a somewhat large for a gamemaker demo anyways.
