Free OPEN BETA: BHSL (iOS, Android)

[SIG.]

App store description:

Play the most dangerous game! You are a space lizard, despondent, on the cusp of a new awakening. Journey through 20 levels over four stages in this turn-based strategy game focusing on tactical movement around small maps. The game saves progress constantly, so it can be put down and then resumed at any time.

The only IAP is to remove ads.

This game is immediately fun and playable, but it has enough depth to stay interesting for a long time. It could be called a roguelike-alike. You can change the terrain by destroying walls, creating flames, and calling in some distant relatives. Enemies employ a common-sense AI to chase, shoot, and bomb you. There are four unique bosses with their own special behaviors. The lizard's journey will motivate you to keep moving forward, but the story won't get in your way. This is a unique game from true indie devs, and we hope you enjoy it.

Trailer:

iOS opt-in link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/ToY7aYrZ

Android opt-in link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/stayinsidegames.com.SIG.BHSL

If you make it to level 6, send me a PM and I'll send you a remove-ads code once the game releases. As far as I can tell, Apple won't generate promotional codes for the beta version.

I've moved this over from Work in Progress now that we have links for both iOS and Android, and also to reflect that the game is essentially finished. I'm looking for bugs and playability issues, though any other feedback is appreciated to help in future projects.

 

[Nocturne]

This looks too cute not to play it...

I've signed up for the beta (on Android) and will give some feedback once I've played a while.

 

[Nocturne]

Okay, been playing this last half hour... Some comments!

1) The credits screen... I expected things to happen automatically and was staring at the blank screen for a while waiting for the credits to roll past! When they didn't I tapped and they appeared, so I'd make the credits role automatically.

2) Introduction text to the main game suffers the same problem as above. Personally, I'd make each segment fade in automatically, and then if the ser taps the screen show the whole page. Tap again to go to the next page, and fade in, then tap to show, and tap to skip, etc... A lot of people don't really care about intro text (which I though was really good and pretty funny!), so having to tap, tap, tap, tap, constantly to skip it will annoy them.

3) I found some of the tutorial screens would appear a few times before finally disappearing (this was in game, not in the tutorial itself). Not sure whether that's because they are tied to a level being completed or not, but it was slightly annoying to see the same message everytime I started a level. I'd make the tutorial text that pops up in game only show once regardless of whether the level was complete or not. I'd also add an "X" to the corner or something to be able to dismiss them as it's not obvious how to get rid of them. Oh, and maybe an option to reset them so they will all show again?

4) Movement was slightly annoying... I would have expected that tapping anywhere left/right/up/down would move the lizard one square, but you have to tap right beside it. I'd like to have been able to just tap anywhere to move in that direction.

5) Swiping to shoot was a bit hit and miss... Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't (mostly worked, but those times it didn't were a bit frustrating).

6) LEVEL 5 MAN!!!!! What is it with that level!?!?! I suspect it requires a bit more strategy than I'm giving it, but on this first play through, I reached it about a dozen times and just could NOT pass it... So maybe think about ramping down the difficulty curve there a bit.

So, that's it for issues! What about the game itself? Loved it! Graphics are lovely, and the sound and music is good, although the actual gameplay music I felt didn't quite fit with the action on screen. But at least it was pleasant and not annoying! The mechanics themselves are solid, and it seems pretty well thought out and balanced (except that damned level 5!). I like the mix of actions available, and the limits put on shooting and bombs gives the game a nice strategy element, and I like the "wait rats"! That's a great idea to prevent users just camping in one spot and waiting for the enemy to come to them.

All in all, I really liked it and will definitely be playing it again. Good job!

 

[SIG.]

Sorry for the delay, my actual job inconveniently kicked into gear.

I'm really happy you, specifically, like the game! Way back when we started, I pointed the artist, Amy, to Skein as a reference for the kind of pixel art I imagined, in addition to watabou's Pixel Dungeon.

I'll put timed-display of the story screens and credits on the list. The player does get the option to skip the story after the first viewing, but I can see how a person could end up thinking the game is simply nonresponsive.

The controls, what a running pain. Thank you very much for mentioning this. I focused hard on the controls from the get-go, because I think that mobile games live or die by their ease of use. Once I got the game to testers, though, things got complicated. I had to balance accidental touches with responsive taps and swipes. It turns out that different phones have different degrees of sensitivity. I was previously (and I DM'ed you this, but I'll repeat it in case any mobile devs read this) using the following rules: (1) drag distance is set to .1 so that most touches register as drag; (2) everything is parsed by drag time and distance; (3) to shoot, the drag distance must be farther than one tile (16px in-game space); and (4) to shoot, it must register as a "flick," with flick_speed set to 1. I've now decided, after logging swipe times and distances and playing around with a wide range of flick_speed settings, that GMS2's flick gesture doesn't behave as I would expect. Since your feedback, I've increased the drag distance threshold to 20px and, instead of using flick detection, I ask whether the drag time is less than 400ms. This works well even on my worst phone, a Kyocera running KitKat that has been most reliably terrible.

As for normal movement, that's a tough one. I've played a lot of games like this. The thing where you tap anywhere and the game parses it as "up/down/left/right" has always annoyed me because I want to be able to "run" to a destination. Here, I looked to my two favorite mobile games, Pixel Dungeon and Hoplite. If I were to re-do the controls, I'd probably completely adopt Hoplite's approach, which allows you to "run" when all the enemies are gone, moves you with one tap if you pick an adjacent tile, and highlights a potential path and then moves you over two taps if you pick a non-adjacent tile.

The tutorial screens---yeah, I'll ratchet those back. They repeat until you've started the level X number of times, which is opaque. It does seem worth the time to add a "reset tutorials" button.

Thank you also for the level 5 feedback!! I've nerfed Secbot as part of the next update. My testers have been either non-gamers (like Amy, my aged co-workers, and Amy's artist friends) or hardcore strategy- and board-game guys. It's enormously helpful to know that a normal game-playing person thinks that level 5 is too hard.

 

[Nocturne]

As for normal movement, that's a tough one. I've played a lot of games like this. The thing where you tap anywhere and the game parses it as "up/down/left/right" has always annoyed me because I want to be able to "run" to a destination. Here, I looked to my two favorite mobile games, Pixel Dungeon and Hoplite. If I were to re-do the controls, I'd probably completely adopt Hoplite's approach, which allows you to "run" when all the enemies are gone, moves you with one tap if you pick an adjacent tile, and highlights a potential path and then moves you over two taps if you pick a non-adjacent tile.

I only noticed the "run to destination" change in movement the other day, and it's great for getting out of a finished level quickly. As for the rest of my comments, tbh, it may be a case of "you can't please all of the people all of the time", so take what I say with a pinch od falt. I'll still play the game regardless and this was a minor annoyance...

Thank you also for the level 5 feedback!! I've nerfed Secbot as part of the next update. My testers have been either non-gamers (like Amy, my aged co-workers, and Amy's artist friends) or hardcore strategy- and board-game guys. It's enormously helpful to know that a normal game-playing person thinks that level 5 is too hard.

I actually got past it and have now made it to level 7! Woohoo! Although, I will be honest and say that I think it was more pure luck than anything else that made that possible...

I have a bit more feedback too... You may want to check the Adaptive Icon options for the game, as on my screen the Icon looks a bit iffy I'm afraid:



Also, maybe consider unlocking a level select screen for starting? Like split the levels into groups of 5 or something so that when you start a new game you can start from a higher level if you've passed the threshold (maybe with a bonus multiplier or something to make up for lost score/lives/bullets?) It's slightly demoralising to have to go back and play through ALL the initial levels again and again to try and get further. Again, this is just a personal opinion and if nobody else has mentioned it then feel free to ignore!