RangerX
Member
Thank you Mockgames, you are really encouraging. When I first read your message you actually made my day!BTW @RangerX I tried the demo and I was immediately drawn in. Good controls, good story line, good graphics and very addictive music which is still playing in my head. I look forward to update revisions. I think you may have a hit on your hands here. I love the graphical style and use of colors.
Firstly I want to say the non game screens were very nice. The title, the control selection, and even the detail of idling for a few seconds and you tell the player where they can find help or pause. Very thoughtful, and well done. The controls were overall very nice, although I think (just my opinion, take it for what it is), I think when jumping, some folks may like an "extended" jump effect, just slight one even when holding the jump down. Or maybe there is one but too slight for me to notice? I don't know. Also he slides a bit when you move in a direction initially. That part may have been my imagination as I am very tired. Anyway, again, I am very impressed with this work. Thank you for offering the demo.
The character jumps in full if you really hold the key/button. If you tap it only, you won't make the full jump. The effect is more noticeable when you'll get the high jump though.
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it alot.Really enjoying the demo. I think the movement feels good. I tried the main game before the tutorial and got a little stuck. . . .but then I suppose that's why there is a tutorial! All became clear after going through the tutorial and found the game really immersive. I felt the tutorial would be a good first 'level' of the game to help ease the player into the game and play around a bit with the mechanics...I understand the point you made earlier though that some people just like to get stuck in, and admittedly its a while since I've played similar games so maybe I'm just rusty ha. The enemies are well animated and think the look of the game hangs together really well. When the player bounces on the spring, could the animation show the character looking upwards? (bit like in sonic?) just a thought. Really looking great!
I am not a fan of integrated tutorials. I aim at making a game where the player chooses if we wants clear instructions or if he wants to mess around by himself. Its a bit harder to design a game like this but its important to me.
I like your suggestion of bouncing with some "ala Sonic" pose for the character lol. I might implement it along the way in some later polishing phase.
So I realized I never played your latest demo, so I played it today. I defeated the red mage and made it a bit further before dying and come back here to post.
What struck me the most was your attention to detail to all sorts of things. *Lots* of cool animations, like the red mage himself, the shark jumping from the water. Even the sword swing animation was sharp, and I like how you auto-disable it if you're too close to a wall. I found a few secrets which felt great - boy I love secrets in games like this.
As a platformer I wish the controls were tighter. Your horizontal momentum gives you a certain weight, but some of the platforms and obstacles I had to navigate didn't seem tuned to my momentum. Those short stone platform (with the fish?) were pretty hard to land on at times.
Similarly, if I had to guess I'd say your drop speed is a constant change - meaning that no matter how far you fell, you dropped at the same speed. This made it tricky, as a lot of platforms use acceleration-based gravity.
Finally, some of the dialogue wasn't the greatest. Obviously that's not a priority in a metroidvaia, but there was a lot of it. Maybe something to consider.
But beyond those things it's really obvious that what you have already shows a lot of promise.
Thanks again for this precious feedback. I am also deceived that you passed on my thread while the game is still this old version. I worked quite a bit during summer on a new one I hope to post soon. I changed quite alot of things that will influence your opinions up there and maybe change the feel of the game (for the better I hope!!). Amongst other things. I entirely redone the attack system and code making it more fluid, reworked some player collisions and slopes collisions (that are much less janky now). I also had a balancing pass where I made quite a bit of jumps easier, ajusted some ennemies AI and placement.
Lastly, the dialogues are just a first draft. So yeah they probably are quite sucky as english a foreign language to me + its a first draft. I will definetely will have a huge text pass at some point. I know you have great dialogue in your game, I might poke you for help or feedback. I trust the high quality standards you are showing through your own project. Oh and congrats again for the kickstarter going well!!