64Completition reviews (colseed)

Posted by colseed on July 24, 2013, 8:42 p.m.

Done in alphabetical order, since that's how they were listed.

—— Abysmal (Polystyrene Man) ——

I am a little green dude with sunglasses. I spend my first in-game moments jumping on rooftops, then run upwards, jump on a red platform button, get grav-lifted to another red platform, jump to a purple platform, fall off, land on the bottom side of another purple platform, become depressed once I realize I can't get back on the button sides of the platforms without going back up, and commit suicide. (After restarting, I realized there was some kind of green trampoline structure under the main platform that could be used to get back up to zero level without having to restart/lose coins, and got 101 coins before dying as result.)

So, impressions and things:

- Gameplay is fun. Collecting coins and getting beamed up by Scotty works well. Lower levels being darker is a nice indicator of depth.

- Controls are…slightly clumsier than I expected? Maybe it's the turning speed or something, but the player character controls a bit sluggish at times. Landing after falling for a while is rather difficult.

- I have no idea how to use powerups or how they work at all. I know the character turns pink after collecting all coins on a blue platform, and suspect that collecting all the coins on a purple platform is what makes that purple bar thingy show up, but what actual effects these things have is beyond me.

- Menus: flashing options/buttons are trippy and I don't know how to react to them. Also you may want to consider making it so that menu options can be more quickly selected by pressing the arrow key that most closely corresponds to its direction relative to the center of the screen - i.e. up arrow key selects the top option, down arrow key selects the bottom option. The rotating thing does work okay, I just found myself trying to select the top and bottom options by hitting the up/down arrow keys a lot.

- Seems like there's a bug when collecting coins - for some reason, upon collecting a few coins in quick succession, a giant pair of coins will start following the player around, sometimes flickering in and out of existence when jumping between platforms.

This set started moving to the left by itself, too.

And this set mysteriously grew to platform-eating size.

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- How was performance?
Pretty good, generally - I ran it on Good quality in a 1024x768 window (default settings I think), and there was some lag when the level starts and when the player dies, but that was about it.

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- Could you reach the top?
Alas no - I was lucky to get maybe 5 levels up.

I guess you could say I'm just abysmal at this game.

—— Blob: Invasion (Pirate-Rob) ——

"What the heck is that?!" - the protagonist, when the first enemy shows up (but also me, the entire game, trying to figure out how to do precise platforming in a grid-based system)

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- Is the game too hard?
Right up until I figured out I could just switch to super-blob mode to make my platforming woes go away, yes. After that, no. The enemies were essentially no challenge - I tried fighting them at first, but then figured out that I could just run through the level while ignoring the enemies and get to the next level that way.

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- Does the story make sense?
The reason the main villain is the villain is because he is too stupid to realize that all his problems could be solved by ditching the ship he's flying on, and only makes this realization once the player character points it out to him. Having realized how much of a liability he is to the evolution of his species with the recognition of his own stupidity, he - on a dime - makes the noble decision to remove himself from the gene pool by crash-landing the ship with himself still onboard. Also maybe because someone needs to pilot the ship to its demise and heroics blah blah.

So no, not really.

However, I will say that it could work - while the current iteration of the story is severely lacking, the premise is definitely salvageable. I mean, you'd probably have to completely rewrite/rethink the last half of the story (the ship captain's motivations, how the ship itself works, etc.), and it still might not work completely, but I think it's still possible to spin it in a good direction.

(Other things relating to story: Cursing was unnecessary and can be taken out. Villagers' dialogue was mildly amusing.)

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- Should health packs be added in?
Seeing as I could just run past/jump over most enemies to finish levels without firing a shot, I don't think that health is really a problem. If I were taking the time to actually fight enemies, then maybe.

—— Fire Point (Cesque and Aeron) ——

I only knew how to climb stairs and ladders because everyone else has been having problems with it. Everything besides what you mentioned in that opening screen as being not-implemented/bugged is perfect and you should keep up the good work.

(didn't think that letting a person get set on fire so they would panic and jump out the window would be a valid way to save them as a firefighter, but hey whatever works I guess)

—— Magical Castle (Daggerhog) ——

"STAGE 5 IS NEXT / YOUR PASSWORD IS MEGA" - i c wut u did thar daggr

Pretty straightforward in operation, but having to experiment to figure out how to defeat the different types of enemies using the different spell types is what keeps it interesting. Admittedly the solution to most of them is quick-kill-it-with-fire, but things like the demon and the ghost were not so easy to figure out on first try. Plus the one-hit-kill feature complements this by raising the stakes nicely.

—— Maiko Fuse (hel) ——

Definitely improved since the last version. Bullet visibility/readability is much better, and having the powerups makes things a lot easier.

I know you've mentioned that they could be difficult to implement, but sound effects really would be a nice touch. As for the background music - it almost sounds…too mellow? For the first 3 tracks, at least - as soon as stage 4 starts and Akumazoku no Arashi comes on, flying and dodging feels about 10x awesomer than usual.

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i *really* need feedback on the difficulty curve. at what levels people start to max out. when it *is* fun and when it isn't, and why.
I played 3 or 4 times before I started getting tired; I only ever died because I ran out of health, and usually around level 6 or 7. So some kind of health powerup might be nice I guess. And the game was definitely more fun when the more action-oriented/driving music came on. Appropriate music really does help the player stay alert and interested, I think.

I like how this is going though. Keep it up, etc.

—— No More Evil (Zac1790) ——

Arena shooter idea has potential, but needs work. Ergo, list of things:

- Melee combat is clumsy at the moment. Partially because the range on the bat is really short, but also because judging range is easier when attacking left/right versus when attacking up/down. Could be helped by making the swing visible and/or increasing the range? Not sure though.

- No way of telling how much health the player has left. Also you may want to make it more evident when the player takes damage, because right now the only indicators are the player's face changing a bit and getting thrown back slightly.

- Enemies aren't much of a challenge. The only reason I took damage was because I would accidentally bump into them when trying to conserve ammo and get close enough to clock them with the bat.

- Objectives aren't readily apparent. I wasted all the gas I was given and was confused as to why the game wouldn't let me take any loot after the matches until one of the game tips mentioned that you have to defeat a certain number of enemies to be able to do so. Similar thing for the level select - I only realized how the progression system (where each level that uses gas takes you farther on the road) worked after I had quit the game.

- Does saving/loading work at all? I selected Slot 1 when I first played and accidentally exited when trying to pause the game; when I restarted and selected Slot 1 again it didn't seem to have saved anything.

The crosshair is a nice touch for ranged combat, though - having that ground reference helps with aiming. And I like how there's a chance for the player to drop their weapon when hurt.

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- How do you feel about the game's progression? Does it feel too grindy? If so, on what scale. In a battle, or as a whole, involving the accumulation of items?
It does feel a bit grindy when walking around and hitting things with the bat - partially because of how using the bat works at the moment, but also because the enemies aren't particularly intelligent and don't pose much of a threat.

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- How do you feel about the game's difficulty? Are you unable to progress? Did you get stuck?
Rather easy at the moment, in terms of how combat plays out. Didn't progress far because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing (used 3 gas cans to play 3 levels and then did one defense mission).

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- Did you come across anything that could be interpreted as a bug?
Not really. I thought the dropping-weapon-when-hurt thing was a bug when I first encountered it, so you might want to make it more apparent when that happens.

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- How many people did you play with?
Just me because I have no friends.

hue hue

—— Regions (Cosine) ——

I like this puzzler. Simple, but with elegant execution and deceiving difficulty.

Only graphical thing I noticed was that the path arrows will sometimes often clip behind the region tiles when the region tiles do their ambient-movement thing towards the screen. (seemed like this happened a lot more when I went to the intermission levels but idk)

comme ca

—— The Twilight Realm (Kilin) ——

(in progress)

Comments

Pirate-rob 10 years, 8 months ago

Thanks!

Yeah the games now been fix that you have only 8 hp and *everything* hurts you, making flying through levels harder. Dialogue still needs to be fixed. Glad someone liked the random natterings of the villagers.

Polystyrene Man 10 years, 8 months ago

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I have no idea how to use powerups or how they work at all
yeah, I redid the upgrade store right before I submitted the game so there's no explanation for anything. You don't have to do anything to use powerups, they go into effect automatically. Generally they just make the player more effective at pressing buttons, collecting coins, and jumping. The parachute deploys automatically when you're falling.

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I know the character turns pink after collecting all coins on a blue platform
not quite, and this is why I should probably make a short tutorial. you turn pink after collecting enough crystals (the triangular bonuses).

the purple bonuses slow down the speed of the wheel, but only by a small amount (the higher you go up, the more effective the bonuses are, so for instance, collecting a yellow bonus will slow the wheel substantially). I added an RPM meter to make this a bit more obvious.

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- Menus: flashing options/buttons are trippy and I don't know how to react to them. Also you may want to consider making it so that menu options can be more quickly selected by pressing the arrow key that most closely corresponds to its direction relative to the center of the screen - i.e. up arrow key selects the top option, down arrow key selects the bottom option. The rotating thing does work okay, I just found myself trying to select the top and bottom options by hitting the up/down arrow keys a lot.
I would agree except that some menus (will) have more than 4 options (for instance, the difficulty menu currently in the game has 5)

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- Seems like there's a bug when collecting coins - for some reason, upon collecting a few coins in quick succession, a giant pair of coins will start following the player around, sometimes flickering in and out of existence when jumping between platforms.
thanks, I will fix this. those are fucking enormous coins.

Pirate-rob 10 years, 8 months ago

Oh yeah, Polystyrene, maybe make it so you can't eat gems while full? You wouldn't need a tutorial then because it would be self explanatory?

Polystyrene Man 10 years, 8 months ago

I'll do that, thanks.