Some issues that prevented me from playing more than a few minutes, in roughly the order I encountered them:
-There's some weird grey vertical lines in the intro section that I don't think are supposed to be there. I thought they were some sort of Space Elevators in the distance until I realized they were flickering on and off. Now I suspect they're graphical anomalies as the pure blue sky tiles jitter back and forth against a grey world background. There's probably a way to fix it involving the sky sprite import settings, but it might be easier to just make the Unity world sky blue. (Everything with a hyphen is a deal-breaker.)
- Intro section is far too long. I guess the water is pretty, but you can't do anything here, so it's just a waste of the player's time. What's the point?
- I couldn't jump in the intro section. This is annoying, since a long empty intro section is the perfect place to learn the controls.
- Even after I could jump, I couldn't see what the controls were. Later, I saw that they were on the itch.io page under the game. THIS IS POINTLESS. PUT THE TEXT ON THE SCREEN IN THE GAME! Ideally in the sky in that long, pointless intro section.
- Space, S, and F? No, no, no. Don't make up your own control conventions for a bog-standard 2D platformer. Please just use the same controls everybody else uses: either WASD + Space + Shift (American-style) , or Arrow Keys + Z/X/C (Japanese-style) Fun fact: you can implement both at once and they will coexist together. There's no need to make up your own weird control schemes when everybody else already knows these two classic keyboard control conventions! Innovate through mechanics. Game verbs. Aesthetics. Not key choices.
- After dropping into the dungeon and gaining the ability to jump, sometimes it just doesn't work. The player character keeps running in place in one spot without moving when you let go of the move buttons. In this state, you can't jump or attack. You have to wiggle back and forth to break out of it. It happens infrequently enough to be difficult to say what causes it, but frequently enough that it made me want to stop playing. This bug really surprised me. I thought after years of development, Corgi Engine was more solid than this.
- Player attacks are too short-range. You can walk up behind the first basic worm and attack and it will always miss because the worm is too fast somehow.
- I'm not sure what the dash is useful for. Every time I used the dash, it made me hit an enemy. You should make it so that if you're coming out of a dash, and the player is overlapping an enemy, the dash continues for juuuuust long enough that the player lands behind the enemy instead of on top of them. It's Coyote Time, but for dashes. Fun trivia fact: Dead Cells swears by little tweaks like this.
Overall: Please contrast the first two minutes of this game with the first two minutes of other indie platformers such as Cave Story, Cuphead, Celeste, Trine, Momodora, or Shovel Knight. (Not menus or cutscenes, the first two full minutes of gameplay.) Especially note the rate at which the player learns new things about how to play the game.
I mean, even mashing random buttons didn't teach me anything, because you'd secretly disabled the jump and attack functions for that first scene! That's just aggressively anti-player, and a terrible way to make a first impression.
You ought to have me fighting harmless enemies that bounce around but can't die or hurt you in that opening section, while the controls are written in the sky. Maybe some ledges to jump on and coins or crystals to collect. Just so it feels like I'm accomplishing something while I learn the controls.
If I had access, I would contact you directly, but this is the next best thing.
I apologize if this sounds too forward, but it sounds like your music is currently in "placeholder" status. I am looking to stretch my legs creatively and would love to create some fantasy/retro/chiptune/dungeon-crawling music for you--free of charge.
Hi Veugenea, thank you very! Currently this game is just a prototype, in case I will find a publisher interested I would consider your proposal! If you visit my Itchio profile, you can send me an email or add me on Facebook or Twitter.
Thank you! Yes, I could had add it, but I didn't have ready an animation for an attack in air, so I said "ok, I will do it later" but at the end I realised that I did not had enough time :p
Introduction seemed too long. Player control feels a bit weird. There's something strange going on with the sprites, but I like them, they're nicely done (backgrounds, trees, fire-spitting gargoyles -> my favorites). Keep it up!
The original introduction was cut for lack of time, it was supposed to showing the hero traveling towards different environments (on a boat, walking on the snow and during a storm). I wanted to include at least a bit of travel at the beginning, but at the current status it was went well. For the sprites I think I should had set the sprite resolution to 16x16 to solve resolution problems + some Z-fighting and dynamic lights issues. Thank you for the encoragements :)
Absolutely agree with you, I recognize the problems you are mentioning. I think making it an action game, where the controls has problems and the mechanics are too linear and basic, is something that does not work. In 16 hours available for the game, I thought that the atmospheren, art and music could "hide" in a sense these issues you are mentioning. Knowing that the prototype has potentials is something that I could consider when I need to decide which game I will continue to develop. Thank you for your feedback! :)
For the skeleton I should had used a poligon instead of a box collided to fix the wrong shadow contacts (as I did for the hero). The controls are not very responsive, it would be very time consuming (coding and tuning side) to get it right, for this prototype there was not much time, something that I will work on.
WebGL is easier to play on-the-fly have feedbacks, I never thought that anyone could be interested in other platforms. Depends on the number of request I could think about in making a build for Windows (no Linux and Mac at home sorry :( )
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Some issues that prevented me from playing more than a few minutes, in roughly the order I encountered them:
-There's some weird grey vertical lines in the intro section that I don't think are supposed to be there. I thought they were some sort of Space Elevators in the distance until I realized they were flickering on and off. Now I suspect they're graphical anomalies as the pure blue sky tiles jitter back and forth against a grey world background. There's probably a way to fix it involving the sky sprite import settings, but it might be easier to just make the Unity world sky blue. (Everything with a hyphen is a deal-breaker.)
- Intro section is far too long. I guess the water is pretty, but you can't do anything here, so it's just a waste of the player's time. What's the point?
- I couldn't jump in the intro section. This is annoying, since a long empty intro section is the perfect place to learn the controls.
- Even after I could jump, I couldn't see what the controls were. Later, I saw that they were on the itch.io page under the game. THIS IS POINTLESS. PUT THE TEXT ON THE SCREEN IN THE GAME! Ideally in the sky in that long, pointless intro section.
- Space, S, and F? No, no, no. Don't make up your own control conventions for a bog-standard 2D platformer. Please just use the same controls everybody else uses: either WASD + Space + Shift (American-style) , or Arrow Keys + Z/X/C (Japanese-style) Fun fact: you can implement both at once and they will coexist together. There's no need to make up your own weird control schemes when everybody else already knows these two classic keyboard control conventions! Innovate through mechanics. Game verbs. Aesthetics. Not key choices.
- After dropping into the dungeon and gaining the ability to jump, sometimes it just doesn't work. The player character keeps running in place in one spot without moving when you let go of the move buttons. In this state, you can't jump or attack. You have to wiggle back and forth to break out of it. It happens infrequently enough to be difficult to say what causes it, but frequently enough that it made me want to stop playing. This bug really surprised me. I thought after years of development, Corgi Engine was more solid than this.
- Player attacks are too short-range. You can walk up behind the first basic worm and attack and it will always miss because the worm is too fast somehow.
- I'm not sure what the dash is useful for. Every time I used the dash, it made me hit an enemy. You should make it so that if you're coming out of a dash, and the player is overlapping an enemy, the dash continues for juuuuust long enough that the player lands behind the enemy instead of on top of them. It's Coyote Time, but for dashes. Fun trivia fact: Dead Cells swears by little tweaks like this.
Overall: Please contrast the first two minutes of this game with the first two minutes of other indie platformers such as Cave Story, Cuphead, Celeste, Trine, Momodora, or Shovel Knight. (Not menus or cutscenes, the first two full minutes of gameplay.) Especially note the rate at which the player learns new things about how to play the game.
I mean, even mashing random buttons didn't teach me anything, because you'd secretly disabled the jump and attack functions for that first scene! That's just aggressively anti-player, and a terrible way to make a first impression.
You ought to have me fighting harmless enemies that bounce around but can't die or hurt you in that opening section, while the controls are written in the sky. Maybe some ledges to jump on and coins or crystals to collect. Just so it feels like I'm accomplishing something while I learn the controls.
Good luck. I think you can do better than this.
This game has some texture issues and the attack button does not work
good but quality varies throughout the game. like why is the player character blurry?
Hi Ekim, thanks for playing! I am sorry for the blurry, which is probably a wrong filter setup I applied to the character texture.
great game
If I had access, I would contact you directly, but this is the next best thing.
I apologize if this sounds too forward, but it sounds like your music is currently in "placeholder" status. I am looking to stretch my legs creatively and would love to create some fantasy/retro/chiptune/dungeon-crawling music for you--free of charge.
No pressure, of course. Just fun stuff to create.
Hi Veugenea, thank you very! Currently this game is just a prototype, in case I will find a publisher interested I would consider your proposal! If you visit my Itchio profile, you can send me an email or add me on Facebook or Twitter.
The fire breathing heads from WayForward "Shantae" game series. You don't mention that anywhere.
I apologize, I was rushing to finish the prototype and I forgot to mention it! I will provide to add a mention immediately. Thank you nsobject :)
amazing game! i just wish you could attack while jumping
Thank you! Yes, I could had add it, but I didn't have ready an animation for an attack in air, so I said "ok, I will do it later" but at the end I realised that I did not had enough time :p
Introduction seemed too long. Player control feels a bit weird. There's something strange going on with the sprites, but I like them, they're nicely done (backgrounds, trees, fire-spitting gargoyles -> my favorites). Keep it up!
The original introduction was cut for lack of time, it was supposed to showing the hero traveling towards different environments (on a boat, walking on the snow and during a storm). I wanted to include at least a bit of travel at the beginning, but at the current status it was went well. For the sprites I think I should had set the sprite resolution to 16x16 to solve resolution problems + some Z-fighting and dynamic lights issues. Thank you for the encoragements :)
Absolutely agree with you, I recognize the problems you are mentioning. I think making it an action game, where the controls has problems and the mechanics are too linear and basic, is something that does not work. In 16 hours available for the game, I thought that the atmospheren, art and music could "hide" in a sense these issues you are mentioning. Knowing that the prototype has potentials is something that I could consider when I need to decide which game I will continue to develop. Thank you for your feedback! :)
The art's a little buggy (concerning the lighting and the blurred art), and the gameplay is kinda iffy.
For the skeleton I should had used a poligon instead of a box collided to fix the wrong shadow contacts (as I did for the hero). The controls are not very responsive, it would be very time consuming (coding and tuning side) to get it right, for this prototype there was not much time, something that I will work on.
Why don't you compile it to Windows/Linux/mac??
WebGL is easier to play on-the-fly have feedbacks, I never thought that anyone could be interested in other platforms. Depends on the number of request I could think about in making a build for Windows (no Linux and Mac at home sorry :( )
Okay then