Cosine's completititition reviews

Posted by Cosine on July 26, 2013, 1:36 p.m.

Nothing I wrote is really coherent, just a bunch of bullet points

Abysmal (Hora?)

-Took me a while to get a grasp on the perspective

-Pretty fun

-You should put more of an emphasis on getting coins, I spent most of the time trying to reach the top without any powerups before I realized that's probably not the way it was intended to be played

-First time I "died" the game didn't reset itself, had to quit and re-play

-If you "fall out" of the one plane that all of the platforms are in, it can be really hard to figure out exactly where you are

-Some strange glitches started happening when I "died" the second time:

1) Sometimes, collecting coins would make them start floating around inside of me http://puu.sh/3Ei65.jpg

2) The screen would darken way too quickly

3) Sometimes, collecting all the coins on a platform wouldn't activate its bonus (probably related to the floating coins)

-The crystal shop never showed anything, but I got money when I pressed space http://puu.sh/3EiIi.png (actually, sometimes it showed things and other times it didn't, idk. might not be worth pursuing to fix because I couldn't reproduce it and it might've been my fault)

-Sometimes platforms didn't render, this happened more and more as the game went on http://puu.sh/3Ej0l.jpg

-The game has a really unique feel to it, very memorable and fun to play. I think it'll be like 5x cooler with sound and music (and hopefully less glitches!)

-Game ran fine

-I could not reach the top, I eventually gave up. Powerups took a long time to get

Firebug

-Definitely needs a tutorial, the game's controls are self-explanatory but the strategies are not

-Needs to be explained that you hold up to go up stairs/ladders

-Sometimes I fell through ladders while trying to climb them

-Maybe make movement more smooth? Walking around felt fidgety

-Kinda fun, but didn't really feel like a game. I expect having a level select and objectives and whatever will improve this

-Some way to better keep track of where people would be good. A person rescued/trapped count on the HUD would be good, as well as maybe arrows pointing to people offscreen

-Graphics were really nice, the fire effect was cool. It might be a bit to ask, but adding wallpaper would be hella cool

Blob Invasion

-The enemies were kinda strange. Sometimes they would roll at me while falling in the air, and also trying to shoot them while they were rolling would sometimes cause them to multiply

-I'm confused by the health system. I expected the 4 hearts to be a counter of my entire health, rather than the hearts being simulatenously a counter of my health and lives left. I also wasn't sure how damage was dealt - is it relative to how long you spend inside an enemy? I heard the sound being played multiple times.

-I expected Esc to pause rather than quit the game

-Bug in the city level, I can stand here http://puu.sh/3KFtE.png

-Also the mother blob got stuck http://puu.sh/3KFuq.png

-At the boss, you can walk off the right side of the screen and die

-Best strategy to get through levels with lots of enemies is hold right and jump a bunch

-Health should refill between levels, going into a level with low health is just frustrating

-The log jumping over lava part was kinda not fun, since the jumping is a bit unpredictable with where you'll land, and screwing up meant losing an entire life (unlike any other part of the game, really)

-I was able to beat the final boss by not activating the dialogue and just shooting him to "death." Also, his jumps are a bit weird - if you shoot one square above him, he'll jump into it and get hurt.

-It was kinda hard to tell when an enemy would hurt you or not, maybe make them turn redder when they're rolling at you

-Game difficulty was kinda weird. If you tried to play the game normally and kill everything, it was mostly an exercise of patience and not getting hit by things. If you just try and beat every level as quickly as possible, it was very easy to get through

-The story and the gameplay seem really separate, as if I'm just playing a game and flipping the page of a storybook every time I beat a level

-I wouldn't add healthpacks in, but maybe just refill the player's health at the beginning of each level.

Cut

-Street cleaning simulator 2013

-Ran fine on my computer

Walk

-I didn't expect the shield to follow me when I charged it fully, but it could be cool when the rest of the gameplay is implemented. idk

-Sometimes walking on ramps was buggy and the player jittered/moved slowly

-I have no idea what purpose being able to teleport to the first area could possibly have, if it becomes something important I would make it so you have to press space on it to use it

I'll be trying to touch on Maiko Fuse and TTR later. I'm really bad at top-down action games, so I might not leave any useful feedback for No More Evil, but we'll see.

Comments

Cesque 11 years, 5 months ago

@the part relevant to my interests:

Quote:
the game's controls are self-explanatory but the strategies are not

That's… kind of the point.

Quote:
-Maybe make movement more smooth? Walking around felt fidgety

I have no idea what you mean. Animation? Collisions?

The rest of your complaints has been at least partially addressed by now (to the extent that my artistic vision has allowed :}).

Cosine 11 years, 5 months ago

Quote:
That's… kind of the point.
…the Firepoint? (It's probably just a symptom of not having enough levels, so I wouldn't worry about it)

The fidgety movement was because letting go of a movement button instantly stopped the character; there wasn't any sort of speedup/slowdown when the player walked. The current movement system is probably intentional with the arcadey direction you're taking things, but it doesn't quite feel natural to me.

Cesque 11 years, 5 months ago

Ah, alright.

Polystyrene Man 11 years, 5 months ago

Screenshots are a big help, thank you.

Quote:
-You should put more of an emphasis on getting coins, I spent most of the time trying to reach the top without any powerups before I realized that's probably not the way it was intended to be played
And I think you're the only person who picked up on this. I added a new mechanic a couple days ago to encourage coin-collecting, but it still needs tweaking. I'll also lower the prices on the upgrades.

Quote:
The crystal shop never showed anything
That's weird… are you sure you were collecting crystals (triangular bonuses) and not pills (spherical bonuses)?

I knew about spacebar adding a coin, but i'm happy to see you noticed it… you've got a good eye.

Pirate-rob 11 years, 5 months ago

Thanks, I'll this this into consideration!

Cosine 11 years, 5 months ago

Quote:
That's weird… are you sure you were collecting crystals (triangular bonuses) and not pills (spherical bonuses)?

I knew about spacebar adding a coin, but i'm happy to see you noticed it… you've got a good eye.
Chances are I only thought I had collected crystals, and assumed my coin count went up because I couldn't see what I had collected.

colseed 11 years, 5 months ago

Quote:
-Street cleaning simulator 2013
lololol

Quote:
-Sometimes walking on ramps was buggy and the player jittered/moved slowly
Did this happen on all ramps? Slower movement is supposed to happen when going up-slope; not sure where the jittering would be from though.

And yeah, the teleport thing is a leftover from testing that'll be taken out when I redo the level design.