I think I beat the game? I can't figure out what to do after getting to the elevator, i have to presume the demo just ends abruptly there. oh well.
Anyway here's some feedback: I overall liked the demo, the only reason There's more negatives here than positives is that usually criticisms are more helpful.
-Overall, I liked the controls. They felt decently nice. I especially enjoyed spamming jump to climb up tight spaces quickly. Not being able to do a shorter jump was jarring at first, but i got used to it quickly. I think it would be fun if you made it so the character falls faster when you hold down. that way you can fall faster down long falls, and you can decrease your jump height by pressing down right as you jump.
-The level design was very fun when I was playing a challenge, but exploring the warehouse got stale pretty quickly. I initially really liked exploring and finding secrets, but then I learned that there was no real reward from doing it. Then after a while I was really wishing for a map, since I had no idea if I had fully explored the area. I think adding a map that fills out as you find new rooms would work very well in this game.
-the controls screen lies. F is interact, not X. You'll probably add changeable controls in the final game so i guess this is only a demo problem.
-I wanted to try and use WASD to move and the up arrow to jump, but at random times, the up arrow would swap from letting me jump to just making my character look up. for some reason this ate my left and right inputs which made this not work. I think the up arrow should stick to just being jump in the final game, since it doesn't do much right now. (but still let players bind keys to multiple actions if they want to, having wacky control schemes is fun and more options is a good thing.)
-the floating chunkfish in the background of the warehouse are cute, i like how they look, but they look way too real. I tried to land on them twice. I'm willing to accept this if you can't keep them looking as good, it does feel like a silly mistake on the player's end, which could cause some laughter if kept in the game.
-I don't like how the music completely stops when you open the pause screen, especially in the main menu.
-I didn't like not being able to skip the cutscene where you're airlifted into the level.
-having to double tap the exit button was unintuitive. the first press gives very little feedback, so i was confused every time i wanted to press it.
-if you hold e while walking you should be able to move around while spinning. don't bother making a whole new animation or anything, just have the character move while spinning.
-A lot of games let you click on the volume icons to instantly mute the volume. It would be convenient to have that here.
-I was disappointed the flashing of the down elevator button wasn't morse code. i must've spent like 30 minutes trying to decode it.
Overall the game was a fun time, but suffered from a lack of direction. I look forward to seeing how it evolves for the full release!
i figured it out. you have to click the elevator button.
I guess not much changes about my review, except now I know that I missed a few things. I'm probably not going to go back in to find them, I'm already bored of exploring the warehouse. If there was a map to tell me where I missed, I would.
-Swappy mode was very fun, i liked it a lot, though I liked it because I imagined I had to go fast, maybe a time limit could work in those.
-why is there no way to get out of the win screen outside of pausing and leaving
Hey! Love the feedback. Many of these critiques are valid, and have been worked on in the next update coming very soon! (v0.7.1). We do have a plan of direction, but unfortunately our demo doesn't quite capture the story yet.
Again, thank you for the feedback! I would've never thought of some of these, and I'll sure to be implementing some of them.
unrelated, you comented asking how to get a secret in an idle ball game, i ask you to please go along with it to trick others. just say "Thanks for the advice" and that you're glad that you got the secret or sumn. the real secret is just getting a rainbow ball outside of the map.
Great platformer! tons of potential! I thoroughly enjoyed what I played of the demo and it is just oozing with potential. The game is great both visually and musically, just brimming with style. I have backed the kickstarter.
That being said, I do have a little bit of feedback on some of the mechanics. for one, wall jumping feels strange and unreliable. It never quite felt right. Second, while exploration was great and fun, it felt a little hollow without collectibles and just felt like I was skipping part of the game for no real gain. That being said I do enjoy the idea of skipping parts of the level with enough skill that is present here! My only other complaint is that the bouncy fish don't feel like they give you enough control over where you end up after bouncing and can lean into unfair territory. While I enjoyed the visuals, the darkness made the level feel quite dull, which could be remedied if there was something like a circle of light around the player slime.
Overall I enjoyed my time with this demo and am really looking forward to seeing where this game goes!
Amazing platformer with endless potential, I can’t stress that enough. But, in Warehouse, if I fall down a hole when platforming, I’m still alive, but the camera won’t follow me.
Slide animation on the top right/left corners playing when you're barely on the block, but sliding into it, feels a bit weird. Could be nice if sliding could only occur when most of your body is next to the wall.
Dying screen feels like it goes by a biiit too fast, or might just be from the lack of a full death anim. Just my preference tho, and I'd completely understand if its that way to make gameplay faster (more playing, less loading in when you die)
I like the little peeking over the edge animation that plays when you're near an edge, as its a really small detail and its cool. Problem is, it stops playing if you move forward slightly, aka when your character is "off" the platform, but your hitbox size keeps you on it, and not falling.
No short hops :c (I like short hops)
Anyways, this demo was fun to play c:
I really enjoyed all the "little things" that can sometimes be glossed over when making a game. The Warehouse felt really lived in.
The art is just amazing, both the 3d intro & all of the pixel art. I absolutely love it
The soundtrack is also amazing, and I really loved all the songs. They were nice to listen to while doing all the platforming sections, and the song that plays when the elevator falls really fits the mood
Really, just a major good job to everyone making this game. I always love indie games & indie devs, and everything in the demo felt like it had so much work, effort, and talent put into it. Thank you for making this!
great job! you provide a cozy and charming experience.
the world is field fun secrets and interaction to keep the player engage, the platforming is a little standard but I am sure that with more polish and platforming mechanics introduced later could be much better. (not that this is a bad starting point its actually decent, I had fun)
controls:
-input jump buffer is to small or none existing (jump input doesn't save for few milliseconds if you are not on the ground yet)
-*jump height isn't different depending on how long the jump button is held.
(just the stuff you see in every how to make a good platformer controller tutorial)
*if you need help implementing this (I found it takes a lot of time to get right) I could send you code I used to achieve this
art:
-it might be temporary but the backgrounds are drawn on a much smaller size (or maybe aren't detailed enough) and than the sprites looks off in contras with the background.
-shadows and lighting in cutscenes is weird, cartoons don't have real time lighting
-chunk fish (i think) with too much shade on them looks like a part of the background
nitpicks:
-the chunk fish is great, the sound the animation its very polished in contrast to the main character the slime who for some reason doesn't have sound effects (weird priorities in the sound design)
-some animation for the main character are missing: landing (i would also add some more slime particles here), on ground and holding move against wall (should squish against the wall)
-for some reason the speakers dialog is skippable (why? you don't have to read it and I accidentally skipped it)
slime does have some sound effects, though granted they are a bit quiet. as for the loudspeakers, if you accidentally exit their detection range before they're done, you can just go back and they'll say what they usually say again.
the wall pushing thing is admittedly an oversight, though - i meant to make one but just forgot 😅 thanks for playing though!! the platforming is a bit generic but this is the sort of intro "tutorial" area - we have lots of plans to shake it up a bit later on
On the programming side: Jump buffer exists, although it may have been too small for you to notice. I’ll keep that in mind when fine tuning the movement.
For jump height, I’ve already achieved it, but chose to omit it as a design choice. I believed it allowed for more creativity with mixing wall jumping and jumping, as well as allowing other “power ups” to shine in the future. The decision isn’t final.
interesting, I would suggest to just make a consistent jump height for wall jump (and maybe other power ups?) and one that changes for regular jumps.
the only potential down side is that players might find this confusing, at any case the jump needs to feel a little more responsive to player input.
Regardless of your final decision I would like to mention that the way I implanted this before is that there is a minimum amount of time you have to hold the jump button in order for the character to jump.
the benefits for this approach are
1:the jump button isn't overly sensitive (which matters less when you use space bar, but I like to use up arrow\W)
2:more importantly that gives a minimum jump height.
now you would have a maximum jump height and a minimum jump height, and this is useful when designing a precise jump because as a developer you know exactly what size gup equals an easy jump (max - min) and what size gup are harder jumps (max\\min\\max-d (d>min))
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I got my self stuck when I tried to see what was up there in the room below lol
[spoilers]
you can get above the broken bridge by climbing the right wall in swappee mode
I think I beat the game? I can't figure out what to do after getting to the elevator, i have to presume the demo just ends abruptly there. oh well.
Anyway here's some feedback: I overall liked the demo, the only reason There's more negatives here than positives is that usually criticisms are more helpful.
-Overall, I liked the controls. They felt decently nice. I especially enjoyed spamming jump to climb up tight spaces quickly. Not being able to do a shorter jump was jarring at first, but i got used to it quickly. I think it would be fun if you made it so the character falls faster when you hold down. that way you can fall faster down long falls, and you can decrease your jump height by pressing down right as you jump.
-The level design was very fun when I was playing a challenge, but exploring the warehouse got stale pretty quickly. I initially really liked exploring and finding secrets, but then I learned that there was no real reward from doing it. Then after a while I was really wishing for a map, since I had no idea if I had fully explored the area. I think adding a map that fills out as you find new rooms would work very well in this game.
-the controls screen lies. F is interact, not X. You'll probably add changeable controls in the final game so i guess this is only a demo problem.
-I wanted to try and use WASD to move and the up arrow to jump, but at random times, the up arrow would swap from letting me jump to just making my character look up. for some reason this ate my left and right inputs which made this not work. I think the up arrow should stick to just being jump in the final game, since it doesn't do much right now. (but still let players bind keys to multiple actions if they want to, having wacky control schemes is fun and more options is a good thing.)
-the floating chunkfish in the background of the warehouse are cute, i like how they look, but they look way too real. I tried to land on them twice. I'm willing to accept this if you can't keep them looking as good, it does feel like a silly mistake on the player's end, which could cause some laughter if kept in the game.
-I don't like how the music completely stops when you open the pause screen, especially in the main menu.
-I didn't like not being able to skip the cutscene where you're airlifted into the level.
-having to double tap the exit button was unintuitive. the first press gives very little feedback, so i was confused every time i wanted to press it.
-if you hold e while walking you should be able to move around while spinning. don't bother making a whole new animation or anything, just have the character move while spinning.
-A lot of games let you click on the volume icons to instantly mute the volume. It would be convenient to have that here.
-I was disappointed the flashing of the down elevator button wasn't morse code. i must've spent like 30 minutes trying to decode it.
Overall the game was a fun time, but suffered from a lack of direction. I look forward to seeing how it evolves for the full release!
i figured it out. you have to click the elevator button.
I guess not much changes about my review, except now I know that I missed a few things. I'm probably not going to go back in to find them, I'm already bored of exploring the warehouse. If there was a map to tell me where I missed, I would.
-Swappy mode was very fun, i liked it a lot, though I liked it because I imagined I had to go fast, maybe a time limit could work in those.
-why is there no way to get out of the win screen outside of pausing and leaving
Hey! Love the feedback.
Many of these critiques are valid, and have been worked on in the next update coming very soon! (v0.7.1).
We do have a plan of direction, but unfortunately our demo doesn't quite capture the story yet.
Again, thank you for the feedback! I would've never thought of some of these, and I'll sure to be implementing some of them.
I CAN'T FIND THE LAST ROOM IN THE WAREHOUSE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
unrelated, you comented asking how to get a secret in an idle ball game, i ask you to please go along with it to trick others. just say "Thanks for the advice" and that you're glad that you got the secret or sumn. the real secret is just getting a rainbow ball outside of the map.
How exactly? Anytime I get any ball out of bounds it just teleports back in.
its called we do a little trolling, theres a troll face in the top left of the screen, you just click it
Made a video
Hi, I played all the way through the demo and made a video sharing my first impressions.
Great platformer! tons of potential! I thoroughly enjoyed what I played of the demo and it is just oozing with potential. The game is great both visually and musically, just brimming with style. I have backed the kickstarter.
That being said, I do have a little bit of feedback on some of the mechanics. for one, wall jumping feels strange and unreliable. It never quite felt right. Second, while exploration was great and fun, it felt a little hollow without collectibles and just felt like I was skipping part of the game for no real gain. That being said I do enjoy the idea of skipping parts of the level with enough skill that is present here! My only other complaint is that the bouncy fish don't feel like they give you enough control over where you end up after bouncing and can lean into unfair territory. While I enjoyed the visuals, the darkness made the level feel quite dull, which could be remedied if there was something like a circle of light around the player slime.
Overall I enjoyed my time with this demo and am really looking forward to seeing where this game goes!
Valuable feedback!
We have gotten quite a bit of critique about inconsistency all around, so we are currently aiming to fix that next update!
Amazing platformer with endless potential, I can’t stress that enough. But, in Warehouse, if I fall down a hole when platforming, I’m still alive, but the camera won’t follow me.
Whoa cool :OOO
Feedback stuffs:
Slide animation on the top right/left corners playing when you're barely on the block, but sliding into it, feels a bit weird. Could be nice if sliding could only occur when most of your body is next to the wall.
Dying screen feels like it goes by a biiit too fast, or might just be from the lack of a full death anim. Just my preference tho, and I'd completely understand if its that way to make gameplay faster (more playing, less loading in when you die)
I like the little peeking over the edge animation that plays when you're near an edge, as its a really small detail and its cool. Problem is, it stops playing if you move forward slightly, aka when your character is "off" the platform, but your hitbox size keeps you on it, and not falling.
No short hops :c (I like short hops)
Anyways, this demo was fun to play c:
I really enjoyed all the "little things" that can sometimes be glossed over when making a game. The Warehouse felt really lived in.
The art is just amazing, both the 3d intro & all of the pixel art. I absolutely love it
The soundtrack is also amazing, and I really loved all the songs. They were nice to listen to while doing all the platforming sections, and the song that plays when the elevator falls really fits the mood
Really, just a major good job to everyone making this game. I always love indie games & indie devs, and everything in the demo felt like it had so much work, effort, and talent put into it. Thank you for making this!
Thanks for playing! Great feedback, appreciate it.
great job! you provide a cozy and charming experience.
the world is field fun secrets and interaction to keep the player engage, the platforming is a little standard but I am sure that with more polish and platforming mechanics introduced later could be much better. (not that this is a bad starting point its actually decent, I had fun)
controls:
-input jump buffer is to small or none existing (jump input doesn't save for few milliseconds if you are not on the ground yet)
-*jump height isn't different depending on how long the jump button is held.
(just the stuff you see in every how to make a good platformer controller tutorial)
*if you need help implementing this (I found it takes a lot of time to get right) I could send you code I used to achieve this
art:
-it might be temporary but the backgrounds are drawn on a much smaller size (or maybe aren't detailed enough) and than the sprites looks off in contras with the background.
-shadows and lighting in cutscenes is weird, cartoons don't have real time lighting
-chunk fish (i think) with too much shade on them looks like a part of the background
nitpicks:
-the chunk fish is great, the sound the animation its very polished in contrast to the main character the slime who for some reason doesn't have sound effects (weird priorities in the sound design)
-some animation for the main character are missing: landing (i would also add some more slime particles here), on ground and holding move against wall (should squish against the wall)
-for some reason the speakers dialog is skippable (why? you don't have to read it and I accidentally skipped it)
slime does have some sound effects, though granted they are a bit quiet. as for the loudspeakers, if you accidentally exit their detection range before they're done, you can just go back and they'll say what they usually say again.
the wall pushing thing is admittedly an oversight, though - i meant to make one but just forgot 😅 thanks for playing though!! the platforming is a bit generic but this is the sort of intro "tutorial" area - we have lots of plans to shake it up a bit later on
Hi MitziTheDev! Thanks for playing.
On the programming side:
Jump buffer exists, although it may have been too small for you to notice. I’ll keep that in mind when fine tuning the movement.
For jump height, I’ve already achieved it, but chose to omit it as a design choice. I believed it allowed for more creativity with mixing wall jumping and jumping, as well as allowing other “power ups” to shine in the future. The decision isn’t final.
Thank you for playing and the insight provided!
interesting, I would suggest to just make a consistent jump height for wall jump (and maybe other power ups?) and one that changes for regular jumps.
the only potential down side is that players might find this confusing, at any case the jump needs to feel a little more responsive to player input.
Regardless of your final decision I would like to mention that the way I implanted this before is that there is a minimum amount of time you have to hold the jump button in order for the character to jump.
the benefits for this approach are
1:the jump button isn't overly sensitive (which matters less when you use space bar, but I like to use up arrow\W)
2:more importantly that gives a minimum jump height.
now you would have a maximum jump height and a minimum jump height, and this is useful when designing a precise jump because as a developer you know exactly what size gup equals an easy jump (max - min) and what size gup are harder jumps (max\\min\\max-d (d>min))
I hope this helps, good luck!
this game is amazing highly recommend, going to back it on kickstarter now.