YAY!

Thernz is back!

I'm going to play this game and then say some stuff about it soon.

Edit:

Fun.

It bothered me that I had to get so dangerously close to the enemies in order to attack them with melee. But I did finish the game and see the "ending"

Spoiler:

Oh, this is a cool game — *gets knocked back into a pit* — Nevermind. *exits*

It's a pretty game, but… The knockback is kinda insane, and OHKOs aren't fun in any capacity. Instead of unmarked instant death pits, you should clearly distinguish them from just an empty space, and they should not instantly kill you (maybe take a bit of health and send you back to the last spot you were landed on). I'm also not sure why knockback makes you fly backwards… taking cues from Castlevania? Remember that THAT game had different physics, so you shouldn't really copy the same knockback style (trust me, it doesn't work here).

Also, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is not a game you should look at for level design tips. That game was awful. It's only held in a high regard by a small group of fans. Sonic 2 was clearly superior, and also sold 6x as much — not that I'd point out any Sega Genesis game for having great level design, though.

I'm not sure what the point of the light blue things was, since they kept draining before I got a chance to see what they did. I ran through the area as fast as I could and it was still only less than halfway full… and I hope the "Lv1" at the top-left is ironic, there's really no reason to include leveling-up in a game like this. Or is it a display of the current level you're on? That would be redundant since the level itself is a pretty good indicator of what level you're in.

The first area isn't inspiring. I don't think "wow, what a cool area!" like I'm supposed to. You need to have some element of exploration and choice. The player's personality needs to emerge and become dominant in your game. There should be ways of avoiding confrontations in certain places, and there should be different paths to go on (no, not like Sonic 3). Even the original Super Mario Brothers had more choice in how to proceed through the level (now THAT'S a game worth checking out the level design on, yo). I also like how in the Kirby games, there are small houses and doors you can go through which have little benefit other than providing some alternative ability or healing item. Maybe you could think about something like that.

I read the readme and it says something about it being a speedrunning game? I really don't get that vibe. Games like, for example, Super Metroid, are good to speedrun because there is a lot of choice in how to proceed through the game's world (and even individual areas/rooms). When a person plays Super Metroid, their personality is important, due to the game's freedom. You can really tell how a person plays by whether or not they go for a certain item first, or if they try to do some advanced trick to get further in the game earlier on.

I only recall three enemies in this first area. The boar, the bat, and the goblin archer. Is that right? I'm on my fourth playthrough of the initial area and just now noticed the tree branches have something above them, but I can't reach them. I've once again been knocked into a pit by some bat that I couldn't really avoid. I also see some strange enemy placement (there are two goblin archers in spots where I can't reasonably hit them unless I wait for the purple shard attack to expand fully). I also just noticed that I can't go back when the view scrolls right? That's a really arbitrary and unnecessary mechanic, so I'm not sure why you bothered to include it, but okay.

Anyway, neat, I guess. I hope you change some things before you start working on the full version though. Good luck, Thernody.

i said sky sanctuary in sonic generations, not knuckles. the knuckles one is terrible, even if it doesn't even have the flaws the other knuckles levels have lol.

plus, the place was more like let's just slam together shit to test mechanics. i agree it's awful and it doesn't do anything i want it to at the moment. there probably wont even be any death pits when there's final level design put in.

my idea for the level design is lots of different branching points and converging paths that still all seem like linear/straightforward paths, no open-ended fuckery and aimless exploring. that would be where the player's choice and skill comes into play where knowledge of mechanics will allow players to reach different places. that branch is an (and the only) example.

nevertheless, i still want an emphasis on careful treading, so i guess it's just a bizarre mix of classicvania with branching i want. well, rondo does that but in a different way. though rondo does share some branching characteristics i want to rip off. especially with how it deals with pits.

there's actually a lot of maneuverability to be gained from using the air dashes and stomps well. unfortunately, your other regular attacks don't do much in the way of providing choice. on the other hand, learning how to use those advanced maneuvers and etc is actually supposed to be obfuscated. something where the player goes hey look at that, and uses their newfound knowledge to, idk, do stuff that isn't in the game.

the game itself has pretty similar principles like castlevania, with the restrained jump controls and etc, and dependency on zoning and carefulness (even if that acts against the "speedrun" aspect of the game). what would you do to allow for the same knockback?

i think that issue is more in line with the current level design and enemies rather than the physics itself

example of sky sanctuary:

oh yeah, the level mechanic

if you fill up your bar, your projectile attack spreads out faster, gets more range, turns bigger, and deals more range.

it doesn't really work well unless you're sonic though

hopefully when i actually code in the actual enemy behaviors and have enough assets, i can actually make a level i like, but so far the tileset doesn't really provide much in the way of verticality or tiered structure. it's just really really flat.

^ Sorry, my mistake. I made an assumption based on the rest of your typing that you omitted the rest of the sentence or something when you said "gen". I'm silly.

Wait, stomps? Huh. I didn't see any stomps. *plays a sixth time* You're right… I guess I should have read the readme more carefully. That stomp doesn't seem very easy to use, though. I keep getting hit when I try.

And OK, well, I don't know what you mean by obfuscating the air actions. Something in the terminology there is off. Can you give me a more clear example? I don't think it's a good idea to complicate the control scheme with this sort of thing (I imagine something 'obfuscated' would work in a game with more technical mechanics, but I thought this demo was really simple?).

I have to ask, what makes you think your game is similar to Castlevania? Even the later games don't really have the same jumping mechanics. Your game controls much more freely, except the dash/stomp which limit your movement while they're in action (which I personally think is a mistake, but I think that's more subjective). I really think you should just replace the current knockback with something like a slight pause in action and being pushed back 8-16 pixels, more like Super Metroid. Flying backwards is just frustrating, especially when paired with flying enemies and instant-death pits (granted that you seem intent on removing the pits though).

btw I hate to make this kind of suggestion, but maybe you should have waited a bit to release this demo. It would really help to have an idea of what you're really going for in terms of level design in the full game, and I can't tell from this first area. I understand you were just testing mechanics, but level design is an important part of a game, and you should look for critique on that subject once things get farther along. Could you say a bit more on the area progression? Will it be entirely linear? Are you going to remove the backtracking restriction in the view?

e: I didn't see your edit, oops. I'll read it.

edit again: well I did finally manage to level up, I think to 3, but it seems like it doesn't have much purpose. I'm not sure if you should directly encourage speedrunning by giving bonuses to people who go faster. I can't think of one popularly speedrun'd game that does that, and honestly it seems un-intuitive (as odd as it might seem). Most games that people speedrun seem to do the opposite, i.e. give bonuses to people who spend more time (finding upgrades and similar things) so they have to strike a balance between going fast and slow. That may just be my opinion though, did you plan out any alternative weapon/leveling systems?

Oops, that shows I played my own game, when I remember it having a lot more friction in the air than it actually does. I'm a big dumb, the game isn't CV-ish, though I guess there's a certain need and commitment to the actions you perform.

I wooooould change the knockback to a twitch, but I kinda hate that flashing stuff. It lacks punch for me. If anything, I'll add more invincibility when you're hurt, and have more invincibility flashing occur when you hit the ground, tone down how far you're flung too i guess. I think I am just going to fine-tune it more so that the idea of careful combat comes into play more. Though for dashes, I'll probably let the player cancel out of that with attacks. Maybe a shadow for the characters so stomping becomes easier to use.

I'm honestly probably gonna ditch the speedrunning idea, and put around upgrades and etc that support the leveling mechanic, or other cute gimmicks. And also, just make leveling easier to build and keep. Probably make it start going down once you're hit or something.

I didn't really mean to obfuscate controls, more so the physics behind them. Where players have to learn the quirks of each move, to use them more successfully. If anything I have a problem with how complicated the controls probably can be and how to convey instruction to the player because I just really hate text.

also yeah this is a really early demo im a big poop

i just decided to poop it out because the player's stuff was mostly done. i mostly wanted comments on where i should take it, because everything else is in brainstorm limbo.

i really like your feedback thanks

edit: i increased the range on the stomp so it isn't hell to use

not gonna upload