itch.io

It's crazy how you can be convinced of your own delusion and not believe I played your game. Do you have log files? In any case I don't need to pretend to play games, I don't have this kind of time to waste. I have joined the community recently and started playing people's games fairly but I guess like any community you can't escape trolls comments & reactions. Shame man. I play games because it's fun and I 'm happy to take part of the game dev community.

Other people will see these messages and wondered if it's worth trying your game if then the dev will tell them they're lying.

Hi Bren123, you got me wrong. First of all I think it's great not to agree all the time otherwise we would be making the same game, which would be boring. Then, I honestly didn't realize the challenges were mandatory: basically I was trying to pot all the balls before running out of lives and I couldn't do it. So I didn't look at the challenges to start with. Many games have a default gameplay you try to master and then trophies you can unlock, that's how I assumed (wrongly) that your game would work. You can think this is stupid, but that's how I approached your game with no hidden agenda contrary to what you think. I actually played your game twice, found a kind of usability issue and took the time to write a post... That's much more than you did with my game since it seems you didn't play it. So who is actually not playing fair here? 😅 When I get a chance I'll look into the challenges, maybe the first ones are easier than potting all the balls with 7 lives.

Thanks for your reply! Yes this challenge is for a trophy fortunately, not to reach the official ending. But I agree if you create the game you should be able to beat it to some extent, but for score based games the creator is not necessarily the one who will own the world record... Players tend to find ways, glitch and sometimes spend an incredible amount of hours to achieve platinum.

Hey Aamir, yes I plan to release it for browsers too, hopefully in a couple of weeks. Thanks for reaching the game page!

Thank you for your feedback, Emzizl! Could you elaborate a little bit on why it was difficult? Was it the controls on the keyboard you didn't find convenient or are you talking about the actual difficulty of the levels of the game itself? On the difficulty, did you try to have Infinite Lives enabled to be easier? If the keyboard arrows were an issue, it's possible to use a gamepad with a small tool like Joytokey for PC so that you can map the left/right arrows to the D-pad and down arrow to the X button for instance. It may be more comfortable this way... A next version will have native support for gamepad, as well as a Web version.

On my end I have downloaded the file, but unfortunately I won't be able to test the game until I come back from my leave.

Thanks man, I'll definitely test your game! Now I'm leaving tomorrow for a week and I probably won't be able to test it until I come back, but I'll do it. Question: there are 2 downloads, KOSMOOOOOOOOOOOO.zip and kosmo-ultimate-.zip, could explain the 2 files? I guess the ultimate one is the main game?

Hello! I'm glad you didn't hate me after my message and found it useful 😅 And as you can read, somebody else said they liked the trailer... But I think you understood well what I meant. You don't need to spoil your game by revealing all the types of puzzles and riddles available, not matter how clever they are. What you need, and it's the hard part, is to choose which ones are both easy to understand but give the impression that there is so much more to explore. Aim for suspense. From what I can remember, there is a chasing sequence with a kind of goat at some point. It can be only a few seconds long no more. Like a text that reads "Everyone is after you..." or "Watch out for unfriendly company" and then you show the sequence where you're chased by the goat for a few seconds... Ok, my text is lame, but it's just to illustrate. And maybe you don't need to have systematically a text and then an illustration, you can maybe have a longer text explanation/overlay, and then chain together a couple of in-game sequence with a subtle transition. Here are some typical steps for this type of trailer, to be tailored to your game:

- Hook (0 to 5s): a striking, unexplained visual (or sound?) that raises a question to grab attention straightaway. 

- World/tone (from 5 to 15s): quick shots that set the atmosphere and setting: environment, art style, lighting, ambient sound design. The message is: "here's the kind of place you'll be trapped in" with some but not too much text (from your game page!).

- Core gameplay (from 15 to 30s): show the puzzle-solving loop: picking up items, examining clues, manipulating mechanisms. Basically this is what you have in a very long version at the moment with the current trailer.

- Rising tension / escalation (from 30 to 45s): pacing, shorter shots, intensity. Show horror elements beyond the puzzle-solving (depression?).

- Peak/climax moment (from 45 to 55s): if possible your single best, most shareable shot  (A chase like mentioned before? A monster? A clever puzzle payoff?).

- Quick-cut montage (from 55 to 65s, optional): a flurry of fast cuts showing variety: different rooms, different puzzle types, different threats, to communicate scope --> careful not to overdo it, you don't want to spoil every puzzle. This is also what you have at the moment.

- Game title (from 65 to 70s): title, clean and simple, often with a tagline to reinforce the initial hook ("Someone is always watching...")

- Release info (from 70 to 75s): platform, release date, etc.

This is just an example, but as you can see, each step lasts between 5 and 15 seconds. They can also be grouped, ex: game title+release info.

Hope this helps. Let us know when you have a new version of the trailer.

Thanks for playing woodsmoke! 5 levels on first go is quite good compared to most of my friends who tried the game... You'd be likely to go much further quickly. And for a more chilled experience, you can always enable Infinite Lives mode. Amegas is a definitely an inspiration, well spotted ;-)

Thanks for your reply DarkBloodbane. Of course I have also playtested my game so many hours, as you said for pace, balance, stability, etc, but beating the most difficult challenges in the game proved to be hard. And sometimes you set a trophy or a challenge, and you know it's possible, but very tricky to get. I'm thinking of people testing the platinum trophies in real conditions. They don't get it first go, especially on platformers and the likes. In my case, finishing individual levels in 1 life was easy, but achieving 40 of them in a row in 1 life is tough. But doable with enough practice.

Hey! I'm going to give you some feedback about the trailer... actually I typed a very long message and lost it as I clicked a link to visit your page so it's taking a lot motivation to type everything again... hopefully it will still sound fresh. Anyway, I'm sorry to say that, as a trailer, it's really missing the point and doesn't do justice to your game and that's a real shame.

I watched it without reading the game page to watch with no preconceived idea about the game. Then I wrote my message, then I read your game page... I'll try to remember everything I had in mind. But before I do it, let me stress that I'm focusing on the trailer, not the game. The game itself, or what I gathered from my initial watch, has some pretty neat features apparently, and I could see myself playing it. But man, you could make it shine so much more than with the current trailer. Let me explain why - though these are my own views and people could disagree...

• It's much much too long: it should be 30, 45 seconds max! Even for a 3h feature Holywood film you never see a trailer going over 1,5 min and that's already too long. I mean if you can't tell someone what your game is about in less than 3 minutes, something is wrong. I was actually very patient to watch until the end...
• It doesn't provide the key information about the game!What kind of game is it? An escape game? Are there different unrelated rooms like levels? Who am I? Am I a prisoner? A detective? Where am I? Am I trapped in a huge mansion? What is at stake? What is to fear? What if I don't succeed? Is there a time limit? The trailer doesn't give any of these information and that's exactly what I'd need. If I know I'm going to solve puzzles, I want to understand the story a bit you see.
• It doesn't say/show what makes your game stand out: how different is it from games that may look like it but are different? It's not just a horror adventure game? Why then? It's not just an escape game? Then why? It's not your typical story? Then how is it different? I see the meters on the top-lefthand side of the screen, something you might not notice in a trailer, but I had time to look around... I saw depression, wound... how are these measured, impacted? They seem important.

Then as I told you, I went to check out the page for the game and.... everything was there!!! Very clear and nicely laid out. Why didn't you use any of these to create your trailer? Going through minutes of slow-paced gameplay is not efficient for a trailer. Illustrate all the things you've written on your game page is what you really need. Point out to the story, make us care about the character and why you should help/play him. On a side note, maybe it's a shame the character hasn't got an official name, it would help make the story feel more real. Or, if you want to make it so that the player IS the character, then word it clearly this way: "you're so and so, you'll need to do this and that". Not sure what you're aiming for.

The trailer needs to have a pace, with different steps, like a movie. You need to think about it, though I feel that the game page has almost the whole thing figured out. You could always check with an AI to help breaking down the different scenes and the description of the scenes. I'm not saying to use the AI to generate the trailer! But rather, help break down the short movie, in 3 to 5 steps, each one with a purpose and a choice of what you show. And then you cut it, edit the gameplay sequences with some text overlay. You see what I mean?

Anyway, I hope this helps... I was very close to give up on this feedback when I lost my initial post. Hopefully you'll hear what I'm saying. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't, but you asked for feedback, I gave you some ;-)

JerkyHips

PS: I recently put out my first game and had to create a trailer too, but I only had 1 day to do it... I know it's not perfect and it's for a very different type of game, but I really tried to apply what I said above, with the material I had. Feel free to criticize it 😅 

Hi Bren123, I've just had a go at your game. I agree with mercstudios, the general physics feels good. I guess the small line they talked about only appears when the white ball is very close to a yellow ball. It's fine by me in principles, but when talking about the difficulty it maybe something to have systematically for beginners otherwise the game is rather hard. On my first 2 goes, I couldn't pot all the balls in beginner level, so I didn't check the challenges as I felt if I couldn't even do that, I would probably be unable to achieve a challenge. I liked the sound effects of the balls and hits. I have a few remarks for the layout/navigation:

- One frustrating thing that happened is that my game disappeared because I accidentally clicked on one of the challenges button and without any warning it quit my game and asked about going into the challenge. (I played with a finger pad) There definitely should be a pop-up asking if you really want to quit the current game... but I'm not even sure that having the challenges displayed and clickable there during a game is the best option. If you're playing a game, you're not going to suddenly start a challenge. Maybe you could have a menu to have a choice of playing "standard game" with difficulty levels, or try a challenge, and then, while playing, the challenge number or the type of game is displayed. I think I'd give the navigation layout another thought.

- It might be a "pool" key word I don't know, but seeing "English" on top of the white ball on the right-hand corner is strange if it is about the language of the game, especially when not clickable. If not localized, you can remove it, it's obvious what language is used. If you can change the language, have an option screen to do so. At the top of the white ball, you could put "effects" or something like that.

- Personally I would like to have a help or instruction page somewhere as it took a few tries to know my way round.

I'd play again and try to pot at least all the balls in beginner level.

Don't hesitate to give me some feedback about Bouncenoid, https://jerkyhips.itch.io/bouncenoid, my twisted/reversed brick-breaker game inspired by the 80s pixel-art arcade games.

Thanks a lot for the game and experience! I've been clicking my way around for quite some times, trying to reach all the possible endings. The game's really got a great mood with the subtle music and sound effect, which go very well with the graphic design. Great little game and congrats for the hand drawing!

Hello itchers!

I couldn't find a similar topic but I'm new here, so apologies if it comes as a duplicate...

Anyway, as I finally managed to beat my own game this week as in "finishing it fair and square", I wondered if it's generally the case that game developers really manage to go all the way in their own game. Of course it depends on the kind of game, but generally ones that have official endings or challenges to unlock. In my case, as you may read, it took a little while and I'm definitely not finished with the trophies I created, especially the likes of "complete 20, 30, 40 levels in 1 life only"...

What about you? Are you so into your game that you could crush it blindfolded after hours of playtest? Or are you admitting that you struggled to reach the end in a normal player setting? Is it a sign that it's too hard or does it show depth and a longer shelf-life?

Very curious to know how it goes for you ;-)

JerkyHips

Care for 80s pixel-art arcade games? Meet "Boucenoid" https://jerkyhips.itch.io/bouncenoid a kind of reversed brick-breaker game with live story-telling and cool music ;-) It's my first released game as I'm approaching 50, so it's never too late! Guide the Spark, defy gravity and uncover the signal... and most importantly, have fun with the game!

Hello Flertal!

I've just played your game for the first time. Congrats! It definitely got my attention and I had fun. I got to Human on the first go ;-) Second time I also got to Human but close to the next stage that I would like to reach. Here's some of the things I liked and what I thought could be maybe improved:

I liked:

• The intro dialog with Darwin/God got my attention, I thought it was funny and made me want to know more.
• The mechanics. I'm a big fan of the original suika game, so I'm biased but adding the skill for trajectory and strength is a good idea to make it more interesting.
• It was easy to play straight away, even if there are a couple of things I didn't get at first.
• The throwing felt right
• Darwin's comments during the game

What could be improved in my humble opinion:

• A bit of music could be nice, but I understand this asset will come at a later stage.
• I think you could add a "pointy bit" to the segment showing the direction of the throw, like an arrow. And maybe increase the width of the line as the "load" of the throw increases, not just the color.
• I wasn't sure what would the bomb would do. I think the first time I used it it killed everything on the board so I thought that it should never touched anything and when the next one appeared, I threw it slowly to the side and tried to avoid afterwards. Then I got another bomb and destroyed the first one with it. Later I realised that it didn't necessarily kill everything, but might actually be useful to get rid of some items... I think you could easily add some Darwin comments on the first game as a kind of intro/tutorial so that when the bomb appears for the first time, Darwin tells you what you can do with it.
• More Darwin's comments please! I think this could be developed to comment the game live as you go, it does provide a little more interest to it. It's something I added to my game if you try it (see below) and it's qui cool, though it requires quite a lot of writing time to have plenty of messages to avoid repetition.
• Like mentioned before there could be several incentives to want to finish the game. Chill mode would be what you have, but other modes like time attack, or trophies when you reach certain points... but I guess this could come later.

I played twice, on a web browser on Mac, Google chrome, not going into full screen. I'd happily play again to see what's after Human.

I hope these remarks were useful. And if you want to give it a go on my game, it's called "Bouncenoid", it's a kind of revered brick-breaker game with story-telling, inspired by classic 80s arcade games: https://jerkyhips.itch.io/bouncenoid If you play, you'll notice what I called the "Intercom" where the main character, the Spark, is telling the story as you progress and comment on your playing. Let met know what you think ;-)

JerkyHips

Hello Bounenoiders!

You'd think that since I created Bouncenoid, designed every single level and tested them many hundred times, I'd be able to finish the game easily... but that's not the case. The truth is, finishing the game without infinite lives requires quite a lot of practice and a good knowledge of each level - plus a lot of focus. And yes, I practiced each individual level, so many times that I don't have to think about "how to complete them", but actually executing the right trajectory many times in a row is another story.

And if you feel that the difficulty is too high, imagine that it was much harder at first! Initially there was no "Extra boost" option and no "Extra boost" bricks. These were added at a late stage of development, after having designed all the levels. And to be honest, I'm still playing in that mode, I mean, like I don't have Extra boost, trying to finish each level in 1 life if I can.

I didn't want to be too focused on finishing the game throughout the development. I did a few "real" games for fun, usually reaching level 22 or around, but my mind was more occupied with the dev rather than absolutely finishing. And then there was this one time, when I wanted to have a proper go and finally died at level 47, one before the last one 😱 I was really gutted, especially when I didn't grab the Extra life as I thought I had a couple of lives left... At least it showed me that it was doable. And since then, I always had at the back of my mind the fact that I really needed to beat Bouncenoid in a official game. At least for my conscience ;-)

And it finally happened this week on Monday. Not that I felt particularly focused, but I wanted to give it a chance, playing with my PS5 gamepad, just to see how far I could go, as I usually play with the keyboard. And I finally reached and finished the last level, level 48, with a few lives to spare and a couple of Extra Boosts as well, totally a score of 209,800 points. I was able to see the official game ending in a "fair context" (not as an admin directly testing the feature) and it was really satisfying. Now this is definitely not a great score, though I got the 200,000 points trophy, as I died several times in places when I usually succeed in one life. And I admit that I used the Extra boost maybe twice... but I finished it and it felt that a kind of closure: I released the game and managed to beat it, bliss... ;-)

What about you? Are you any close to finishing it? With infinite lives? Without? Tell us how long it took!

Happy Bouncing!

JerkyHips

Hello itch.io community!

From what I read on some other posts, the use of AI to develop of a game is at best frowned upon and usually strongly criticized... Maybe there are some nuances to bring to the discussion and that's what I intend to do while uncovering honestly how I came to develop and release Bouncenoid recently, on a series of devlog posts. And like anyone releasing their first game, I'm both excited and proud about it 😅 And yet, yes, I had help from Claude AI for quite a lot of the python code (I used to be a developer a long time ago and I am a data scientist as well) and some help from ChatGPT to improve the initial graphics (I'm definitely not a graphic designer). 

Does it make the game unworthy? I don't think so. Does it make me an unworthy game dev? I don't think so either.

At the end of the day a real "good game" is not a quick demo, a proof of concept and or test, it's a product that should be polished to maximize the players' experience and joy, and I don't think releasing such a "good game" is related to using or not using AI. AI can generate code, AI can generate graphics, sounds, etc. but AI cannot play the game and feel what players would feel, it cannot feel how difficulty is crafted and how much frustration or happiness somebody would have on a given level. That's what makes us game developers, not the other way round where AI would be the game developer. But leveraging great tools to explore more ideas, to speed development is a normal thing. I mean we are all using so many packages, platforms, tools and software developed for us by talented people. Even using itch.io is leveraging a cool tool to improve our development and nobody is saying "the guy has posted a message using a forum he hasn't developed himself, don't read it".

So why is it different with AI?

One of the reaction I read was that devs using AI for their game are lazy. So in fact, it seems that what we don't like is not the AI result itself, it's the fact that somebody might not have put the expected and necessary efforts for their creation. I can relate to that. But I have yet to see and play a game that I feel is a great game, that somebody has put together with AI in no time, not caring much. Personally, the rude part here would not be "using AI", but "not caring". It doesn't matter what AI you use, if you want to craft an excellent game, you need to care about it and about the people playing it. If you don't care, you're probably going to waste my time with an unfinished product, and I  would call you lazy, but not for using AI.

To illustrate my point, I'd like to share a video from a French Youtuber I checkout now and then, called Aywen, it's the one called in French "J'ai laissé 24h à Claude pour créer GTA 6 (c'est une dinguerie)", "I gave Claude 24h to create GTA6 (the result is crazy)". The guy is not a game dev, but he's sharing unusual coding experiments and he released several videos, where he benchmarked different AI to recreate famous games. It's quite fun to watch and there are really impressive stuff about the models, which are able to recreate 3D worlds, AI Characters and sounds and much more, only from prompts (costing hours of compute and several hundreds of dollars). It's all great but nobody is fooled: mocking about with an AI to create a whole game for you is definitely not the way best way to create a really "good game". And Aywen is not saying the result is worth of a real game, it's more about evaluating models' performances, which is useful and interesting.

There, that should set the mood for my devlog series about Boucenoid. What I'd like to share in these future posts, is what I learnt developing a game with some AI help, what worked, what didn't work, what I gained, etc. But no matter what, at the end of the day, I certainly don't consider that Bouncenoid is an AI-generated game at all. It's all my ideas, my sweat, my late nights, my countless hours of testings, my decisions... except for the music that comes from one of my best friends and composer ;-) And all of that is 100% human!

What's your views and experience so far with AI-leveraged games?

JerkyHips

I'm starting this thread so that players can comment on their favorite levels or ask about how to beat difficult ones.

Rules: 

• 1 level commented by post,
• Specify the Zone, number and name in the title, ex: "Zone 2 - Level N15 Minefield" to make sure it's clear for everyone.
• Check whether the level hasn't got a dedicated post before posting a new message.

Hi everyone!

I'm JerkyHips, diving for the first time in the itch.io community for a splash of friendly exchange.  

I guess at nearly 50 I might be some sort of dinosaur here, but one that has just proudly released his first game (Bouncenoid) ;-) I never really stopped playing games (although with ups and downs), but going back to coding one brings a weird time-travel feeling, back in the days where I used to copy code in Basic (or Assembly!) directly from magazines I bought, for my Amstrad and my Apple II C or for a friend's Atari 520 ST... Just one mistake then and you'd get "syntax error" or more obscure messages and you had to try and find it, even if you didn't really understand the whole thing 😅

Fast forward 40 years, after a pro life of C# developer, IS consultant, data scientist and Bio tech program manager, and finding myself suddenly without a job, and in need of a side project to keep my sanity. And what was initially a small toy idea became a full blown game a few months later. And it feels good ;-) I had fun discovering what tools, languages and packages are available now and just tried to do my best.

I don't know yet where this will bring me, but I'm definitely happy to meet the community, try out games and potentially know that people would enjoy my first game.

Cheers,

JerkyHips

Bouncenoid

New players may find the game a bit difficult at first but it's really a matter of getting used to the physics, like many games. That said I think it's useful to point out a few things and provide tips to enjoy it even more.

• All levels are designed to be finished in 1 life only and without Extra-boost. Of course it's not easy to perform on all levels, but with a bit of practice, you'll work out a strategy for each level, and sometimes you will uncover a brand new and easier strategy, even after hours of playing. It happened to me, even watching beginners playing ;-) The Extra boost is nice, but it's actually a kind of "late" feature I added after designing all the levels, to help players. Initially there were only 3 extra-boost and nothing more for the whole game, but then I thought of adding a new type of brick to make the game even easier... And for those who don't use the boost, you'll get a lot of extra points at the end! Last, in all levels it's possible to finish in 1 life only, without Extra-Boost AND picking up all the bonus bricks, but it's tough and risky on some levels.

• Pay attention to your "launch meter" when you throw the Spark: at first you might not care too much for the exact power of your throw, but as you progress, you'll find useful to remember the power value you're using to maximize your chance. For some levels the right value range + / - 5 is the key to your best shot to finish the level in 1 life.

• Study the level before launching and aim for the top bricks: though many levels are obvious, it's a good idea to take a few seconds at the beginning of each level to define you bouncing strategy. As the ball loses height/energy after each bounce (unless bouncing on a special brick), it's usually better to aim for the top bricks first to ensure you'll be able to break them before you're too low. But keep in mind that they are many ways to finish a level, so you'll have to find the one that suits you.

• Arrow keys/ D-pad controls to steer the ball: at first you might press the arrow keys repeatedly to move the ball to the right or to the left, which is fine. But if you keep the keys down (or the D-pad pressed), you'll see that the ball accelerates to the sides, allowing you to reach much further. From the launch pad, it is possible to reach bricks located all the way on the left-hand side, provided the bricks aren't to high on the screen. Repeated key presses work better for small adjustments. Also when you stop pressing the arrow key, the horizontal speed goes down very quickly, allowing the ball to return to a vertical fall. So if you aim for a specific brick, you may stay pressed on the arrow key and release it as soon as you're above the brick to fall on it.

• Play with infinite lives: as the name suggests, the Infinite lives mode lets you play the game with infinite tries on any level, which could be a good way to get to know the physics better and the strategy for each level. Now infinite mode doesn't mean you're going to finish the game with absolute certainty as you might get stuck on a very rare levels if you have used up all your Extra-Boosts and destroyed some key bricks. It could happen on very few levels. So if you play with infinite lives, try not to use the Extra-boost unless absolutely necessary to view the official ending. Even when playing with Infinite lives mode, you'll earn trophies, which is satisfying.

• Practice levels you've already beaten: each time you finish a level during an official game (starting from level 1), the level becomes available to play directly through the "Select a level" option from the menu. This is a good way to improve your technique so that the next time you reach that level in a official game, you get through easily.

• Listen  to (or rather read) the Spark through the Intercom: the Spark is usually trying to help you through your journey as you progress. It communicates with you through the Intercom screen on the right-hand side of the game area. Whenever you start a new level, the Spark will comment it and usually provide some tips on how to approach the level. If it says "full throttle", it usually means that you should throw the ball with maximum speed to finish of level.

• Read the Help pages: all the rules and mechanics are described in the Help pages, so you may find it useful to have a quick glance in case you missed something.

And maybe above all, practice makes perfect, so don't be too impatient to become a Bouncenoid master ;-)  And even more importantly, enjoy the game no matter what.

Happy Bouncing!

JerkyHips

Hey itch.io community!

I'm very happy to share Bouncenoid my first video game! If you like classic 80s based pixel art arcade games, you might enjoy it ;-)

I had the original idea of a "reversed" brick-breaking" game years ago, and I never thought I'd actually develop it. But while struggling to find a new job (not in video games!), I needed a project to keep my sanity and this idea came back to me... It was a side-project at first, mainly to proof-test the idea and try some AI tools to evaluate how much help I could gain. And little by little the game got to me and I started to have so many ideas to add that I finally decided to go all the way and try and craft something a bit polished. And the other important thing is that my best friend and composer Hubert Razack offered to create the soundtrack for the game. From there I had no choice but to create a game that would live up to the music 😅

It's a pygame-based game for now, though I plan to release a web version at some point. Though it's inspired by 80s games, it comes with trophies, many levels, options and other features for casual and hard-core gamers alike. I'd love to receive some feedback and know that people are trying to beat the game and reach the end of the 48 levels, enjoying the live comments from "the Spark", the ball of energy you guide to uncover the mysterious distress signal...

Anyway, enjoy it! Happy bouncing ;-)

JerkyHips

----> Bouncenoid on itch.io