I wanted to try out this build, but for some reason the performance in-game is much worse: it runs at about 5-10 fps and also doesn't react on any input.
So... the only thing I'll say is that with those human eyes the bear became somewhat creepy.
It appears that there was an issue with key bindings, and the performance decrease could be due to the obscene amount of error messages(that sometimes happens with games I develop, even though they run in browser). And the problem with key bindings could be because different builds of game share data.
Anyway, I rebound all the keys and it started working.
Thank you so much!! Really appreciate you doing this on request, this feedback is so helpful. There's a lot to process, and I'll be rewatching this a few times to make sure I get everything. But general thoughts:
I'm glad you had fun in that middle bit where everything seemed to "flow". I think you're spot on that the game should be more of that type of gameplay. And you're also right that I should hide more secrets and paths down that type of behavior. I can still reward exploration somewhat, but bias towards rewarding the faster flow gameplay like that.
You missed one critical thing in the tutorial, which is "Landing flips increases combo meter". This was my fault for not having that text more noticeable in the tutorial, I'll work on it. There is no combo meter boost for a "perfect landing", just boosts for landing front flips and back flips. This is the way to keep up speed and combos, not just eating enemies. It rewards the player to do fun tricks and take a risk to keep the combo up (just like Tony Hawk). I'd be curious of your thoughts on keeping up the combo with this information.
Lots of other small things to address, like the "quarter pipe" direction change not being instant, some awkard level design moments, other things you said. I'll watch the video again, but seriously thank you so much. These videos are extremely helpful to me, cheers.
I'm glad it helps. I think I said it already in the video but honestly if you ignore everything else I said and work on making the levels more like that one part I think you'll be golden.
About the combo meter and the flips, I tried it out briefly and it definitely does add something in terms of being able to get the meter up more frequently. Is it "enough" though? I'm not sure. It's sometimes a little hard to tell where you can or can't complete a flip (I think this might be more related to the flip speed being so variable), and while doing so is fun enough I can't help but think it's maybe a little too simplistic to be very interesting all on its own. Maybe if you added some other way(s) to gain combo meter too it would be nice. Maybe some different types of enemies, different ways to kill them other than just drive into them, and different mechanisms you can interact with on-the-fly. You've got the launcher springs for example but what about things that the player can use their given abilities to activate or get more of a boost out of instead of just working automatically or simply pressing a button when you're near it? Something to add a bit more skill and complexity.
I'm also feeling the effects of not having separate left/right and rotation controls more now (I tried with the default keyboard controls this time; I know there's the other method) since not only am I trying to get more flips in but I'm also wanting to like just hold right while I'm combo speedboosted for the speed and sometimes I rotate unintentionally. And sometimes I get flipped around from the direction I want to go when I land or something and I lose a lot of momentum and maybe lose the combo.
I think the idea of "perfect landings" keeping your meter up even if they don't give you the initial combo boost (similar to how you have it with the booster wheel things) is a nice idea, especially once you start getting the wackier terrain with loop de loops and things. For that matter, why not reward extra for flips that are landed "perfect" as opposed to "good enough?"
I'm sure if you get your combo thing feeling good and nail the level design this will be a blast. Also this is more thematic than anything but more things to get that "bear on a motorcycle rampage" carnage feeling would be great. I think you just need more destruction overall, and maybe crashing through walls and such could even work with your combo boost meter.
I wanted to like this but it kind of felt too simple? I suppose the next world could introduce more depth with different items, but the basic movement and using interactables seems pretty one-dimensional. 99% of the time you can only move left or right which means you have less control than Super Mario Bros. (I don't know if items will become way more common in later levels)
From the comments, I think you just introduced rotating and movement as two separate keys for that one selection? Obviously you know what you're doing with your game more than me but I'd suggest just making that the only option and leaning more towards that Trials/Happy Wheels kind of thing. I'd want to be able to rotate on the ground, do wheelies and have to really care about managing my weight and rotational velocity, and hitting slopes correctly.
I also really didn't like how the rotation speed in the air takes a moment to kick in and then has no velocity/inertia. It would probably feel way more satisfying if it just increased in speed the whole time you were holding it (with a speed cap or friction so you can't rotate TOO fast). And then had inertia so you really had to line yourself up with the ground before landing, basically like Trials/etc.
It could just be that you're trying to make a fairly casual game and it's just not for me, though. These are mostly all suggestions to add depth (and the possibility for frustration) that you might not want in your game.
Thanks for the honest feedback, its really appreciated. And the video is great too, super helpful.
It is hard make a game that is fun for both advanced gamers like yourself and the general audience. The approach I'm trying to do is Nintendo's newer approach with games like Mario Odyssey -- make a game that is very easy for beginners and casual gamers, then add in extra optional challenges for advanced players. That's what the space rocks and other paths are supposed to test, advanced execution of mechanics.
You are right that the gameplay is 1 dimensional -- at the moment, you can just move left and right and interact with things. I think this is OK for the first level, as you don't want to overwhelm the player with mechanics. The fact that you breezed through it is a good sign, as advanced gamers breeze through sonic 1-1 and mario 1-1 and get challenged in later levels. Future levels are planned to use a spring item & a rocket booster item to add more verticality and complexity. I'm choosing to drip-feed in these things slowly, saving for later levels as the player gets used to it.
Balance and rotational inertia are fun for trials/happy wheels type games. I guess I'm aiming for a simpler game and trying to straddle that awkward balance of a platformer and a racing game. Going for more of a Tony Hawk style. I will definitely decrease the air time to rotate though, I think you're right on.
Again, thanks for the feedback. I have a lot to reflect upon and improve upon before next DD, cheers.
- nice nom noises - spinning for tricks has a velocity boost around 270 degrees that i wasn't expecting - bike controls are nice - there's no drawbacks to mashing z while driving around overall pretty good throwback, reminds me of playing Rocky Rider in middle school
Thank you! Yeah I can be a bit too forgiving with the 270 degrees for flip boosts, I'll look into making it a bit stricter. Glad it was a good throwback for you and you enjoyed it, cheers
this doesn't seem to have full controller support, i tried to do right trigger+the bottom face button for the boost pad thing and it didn't work, worked fine on keyboard tho
it's obviously a mobile game and i don't know a lot about those but i can say that on a large desktop monitor it doesn't look great, i tried the switching languages thing and i thought that having to restart the game after each language change was really weird and not something i've ever seen before.
it's fine, i got a bit of early 2000s flash nostalgia from it, gj
Its fun, didn't encounter any bugs, most of the game boiled down to "hold right use whatever activatable is in front of you and occasionally rotate to not crash", but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment. Eating the Park rangers felt a bit awkward as I couldn't find a good loop to cycle through, and had to repeatedly stop and turn around. Rocketbooster audio in the city level sounds weird, and while understandable your German translation isn't really correct most of the time (i.e. you translated exit with Ausgang while the correct term would be something like beenden or Spiel beenden.)
Still, nice and relaxing game looking forward to playing more levels next DD.
Thanks so much for the feedback! The language translations are just fed through a script that calls a Google Translate API, so I'm surprised it's even slightly understandable lol. I'm planning on getting legit translations done for major languages before final release.
Glad to hear you played in a "hold right use whatever activatable is in front of you and occasionally rotate to not crash" way. This is one way to play and should still be enjoyable. There are other hidden paths and gems etc to collect if you want to push to the limit, but it all depends on how you want to play. Glad you enjoyed, cheers
I'll +1 what someone said earlier about rotation being distinct from movement. I love the "trials" games and that sort of movement set doesn't work if you can't do each separately.
Oh man, the changes between DD38 and DD39 are a huge improvement!
On a technical side:
When I picked the platformer controls (left/right for both movement and rotation), I couldn't rotate at all. I had to change controls to rotate with up/down instead.
There are some places where the ground has odd lines of grass coming from below. You can even see it in one of the gifs attached to the demo day submission!
On game design side:
Fucking A+ level design improvements. You pulled off the Sonic style of intertwining paths pretty well. When I missed a spring or a booster, I could keep going anyway, just with less food to take. The ranger section was particularly nice, with an open area and multiple directions to go to
Rocket boost is a really fun power-up. It's appropriately unwieldy, but it feels good to fly through the level. I hope you're planning to hide powerups throughout all levels, I would love to search for them; They're a great exploration reward
With that said, Suburbia level felt less polished, like it was a tutorial for the rocket boost. I could fly anywhere I wanted, but there was nothing for me to find in the sky (or I missed it?). It's an unfinished level anyway so no big deal. I'm glad it's not a back and forth with buttons anyway
The game doesn't really have a lose condition (at least not one that could reasonably happen), what are your plans to add some challenge to the game? Will there be more threatening enemies in the future, or something like Sonic's rank system dependent on your speed and score? As of now, replayability is a bit low, but again, it's just a demo so no biggie
And one more amusing thing - it's possible to go over the end of level wall in suburbia, because rocket boost recharges when you touch the wall when standing vertically.
Excellent job, will definitely check it out in 2 months
Thanks so much!! I'm glad to hear the level design is improved, that's pretty much what I put all my effort into this past month. You definitely were right with that feedback from before, levels flow much better now. So thanks for helping me go in this new better direction.
Yes I am planning on hiding powerups in levels and rewarding "exploration". Surburbia was thrown together very last minute, it'll be reworked by next DD. And you are also right with there not really being a lose condition -- that'll be the bulk of my work for next DD.
Just curious, what did you think of the new combo system? The electricity and speed boosts keeping up a combo, flips adding to and keeping up a combo. Did that make sense to you, or was it easy to overlook and not understand?
I didn't notice the combo meter while it was filling up, though I definitely noticed when it was full and the UI was "electrified". I didn't really know what triggered it, I only guessed it was from good performance or something. I also didn't notice any change after it was filled up
Yeah, now it works just fine. Cool fun game, finished its available complete levels. It was a bit strange that all rangers were scattered all around a map, it looked like a bit daunting task at first glance. It is funny how it looks like a sonicgame, do you consider adding losing all your food on damage taken/death? :D
Thanks! Yeah sonic games are a big inspiration. Not sure if I'll do losing of food on damage, but I do need to work more on making death a bit more plausible. That'll be my work cut out for me for next DD, cheers
Thanks for the indepth feedback!! Really appreciate it. I'll try to address it bit by bit
>There is a 'shop' button in the menu screen. Is that for in-between-levels XP/'money'/'nutrition' upgrades? Or for future in-app purchases? I am toying with the idea of having this application be free to download, with in-app purchases for purely cosmetic changes (like Rocket League). Real money purchases to play with a panda bear riding a hover bike, etc. This seems to be the most ethical way widespread adoption and make some $$, but nothing is finalized I have to do some more research in this area.
>Will you be publishing to Google Play (and App Store) in the future? Yes I am hoping to publish to Google Play and App store. I'll have to keep content ratings and targeting a younger audience in mind, because I have heard that this game could be good for kids. We'll see, again requires some more research
>The rocket boosters at the end was fun and challenging, but physics in this genre of game is already difficult enough - if you could make it work it would be great, but you would likely have to ensure that there are no really bad corner cases Yes that rocket launcher is chaotic -- I am planning on only using for some levels, in parts of it, and making it forgiving. It probably won't make its way until at least level 3, after the user has gotten more used to the mechanics.
Thanks again! Really appreciated the feedback, cheers
Thanks for playing!! Glad it’s working for you and glad you liked it. Sonic mixed with other games is what I’m going for.
Yeah I agree that separate buttons for speed/rotation is the superior way to play. This is possible on the desktop version since keyboards and controllers have more keys.
Can you think of a layout for mobile that would work for separate rotate/speed? Motion controls? Two onscreen joysticks? I’ll implement it if I can think of an intuitive way to do it without cluttering the screen
Having the same problem, playing on Windows 10, the game crashes occasionally on trampoline jumps when trying to get all food in the tutorial. First, two times played with a gamepad and on a third try with a keyboard.
Comments
I wanted to try out this build, but for some reason the performance in-game is much worse: it runs at about 5-10 fps and also doesn't react on any input.
So... the only thing I'll say is that with those human eyes the bear became somewhat creepy.
sorry to hear you’re having issues. Do you mind sharing specs about your PC? OS/RAM/graphics card/etc. Do you normally have issues playing games?
Windows 10 64bit
CPU: Intel Core i7 8550u
GPU: Radeon RX 550
RAM: 16 GB
I don't really have issues unless you count low FPS in AAA games.
hmmm ok. This game is a low graphics game so it should work fine on your computer with your specs…
If you don’t mind, could you run the game again — but this time:
open the folder containing the .exe in file explorer
Shift + right click anywhere in that folder and press “Open Command Window Here”.
In this windows CMD, run the game by typing .\bearcycle.exe and press enter
play the game until you get low performance
Copy the output from the CMD and send it to me.
It might be helpful, but no worries if this is too much work — I’ll try to add better log sending in the future..
Ok, I found the log file: https://pastebin.pl/view/882876a5
It appears that there was an issue with key bindings, and the performance decrease could be due to the obscene amount of error messages(that sometimes happens with games I develop, even though they run in browser). And the problem with key bindings could be because different builds of game share data.
Anyway, I rebound all the keys and it started working.
Thank you so much!! Really appreciate you doing this on request, this feedback is so helpful. There's a lot to process, and I'll be rewatching this a few times to make sure I get everything. But general thoughts:
I'm glad you had fun in that middle bit where everything seemed to "flow". I think you're spot on that the game should be more of that type of gameplay. And you're also right that I should hide more secrets and paths down that type of behavior. I can still reward exploration somewhat, but bias towards rewarding the faster flow gameplay like that.
You missed one critical thing in the tutorial, which is "Landing flips increases combo meter". This was my fault for not having that text more noticeable in the tutorial, I'll work on it. There is no combo meter boost for a "perfect landing", just boosts for landing front flips and back flips. This is the way to keep up speed and combos, not just eating enemies. It rewards the player to do fun tricks and take a risk to keep the combo up (just like Tony Hawk). I'd be curious of your thoughts on keeping up the combo with this information.
Lots of other small things to address, like the "quarter pipe" direction change not being instant, some awkard level design moments, other things you said. I'll watch the video again, but seriously thank you so much. These videos are extremely helpful to me, cheers.
I'm glad it helps. I think I said it already in the video but honestly if you ignore everything else I said and work on making the levels more like that one part I think you'll be golden.
About the combo meter and the flips, I tried it out briefly and it definitely does add something in terms of being able to get the meter up more frequently. Is it "enough" though? I'm not sure. It's sometimes a little hard to tell where you can or can't complete a flip (I think this might be more related to the flip speed being so variable), and while doing so is fun enough I can't help but think it's maybe a little too simplistic to be very interesting all on its own. Maybe if you added some other way(s) to gain combo meter too it would be nice. Maybe some different types of enemies, different ways to kill them other than just drive into them, and different mechanisms you can interact with on-the-fly. You've got the launcher springs for example but what about things that the player can use their given abilities to activate or get more of a boost out of instead of just working automatically or simply pressing a button when you're near it? Something to add a bit more skill and complexity.
I'm also feeling the effects of not having separate left/right and rotation controls more now (I tried with the default keyboard controls this time; I know there's the other method) since not only am I trying to get more flips in but I'm also wanting to like just hold right while I'm combo speedboosted for the speed and sometimes I rotate unintentionally. And sometimes I get flipped around from the direction I want to go when I land or something and I lose a lot of momentum and maybe lose the combo.
I think the idea of "perfect landings" keeping your meter up even if they don't give you the initial combo boost (similar to how you have it with the booster wheel things) is a nice idea, especially once you start getting the wackier terrain with loop de loops and things. For that matter, why not reward extra for flips that are landed "perfect" as opposed to "good enough?"
I'm sure if you get your combo thing feeling good and nail the level design this will be a blast. Also this is more thematic than anything but more things to get that "bear on a motorcycle rampage" carnage feeling would be great. I think you just need more destruction overall, and maybe crashing through walls and such could even work with your combo boost meter.
love the changes u made to this games basics
the screenshake is a bit excessive tho
Thank you!! Glad to hear you like the reworks, I think I'm going in the right direction -- all thanks to your (& other's) feedback from last time.
I'll scale down the screenshake, thanks for bringing that up. What resolution were you playing at? I don't think I normalized it for screen size..
1920x1080
I wanted to like this but it kind of felt too simple? I suppose the next world could introduce more depth with different items, but the basic movement and using interactables seems pretty one-dimensional. 99% of the time you can only move left or right which means you have less control than Super Mario Bros. (I don't know if items will become way more common in later levels)
From the comments, I think you just introduced rotating and movement as two separate keys for that one selection? Obviously you know what you're doing with your game more than me but I'd suggest just making that the only option and leaning more towards that Trials/Happy Wheels kind of thing. I'd want to be able to rotate on the ground, do wheelies and have to really care about managing my weight and rotational velocity, and hitting slopes correctly.
I also really didn't like how the rotation speed in the air takes a moment to kick in and then has no velocity/inertia. It would probably feel way more satisfying if it just increased in speed the whole time you were holding it (with a speed cap or friction so you can't rotate TOO fast). And then had inertia so you really had to line yourself up with the ground before landing, basically like Trials/etc.
It could just be that you're trying to make a fairly casual game and it's just not for me, though. These are mostly all suggestions to add depth (and the possibility for frustration) that you might not want in your game.
Gameplay video here:
Thanks for the honest feedback, its really appreciated. And the video is great too, super helpful.
It is hard make a game that is fun for both advanced gamers like yourself and the general audience. The approach I'm trying to do is Nintendo's newer approach with games like Mario Odyssey -- make a game that is very easy for beginners and casual gamers, then add in extra optional challenges for advanced players. That's what the space rocks and other paths are supposed to test, advanced execution of mechanics.
You are right that the gameplay is 1 dimensional -- at the moment, you can just move left and right and interact with things. I think this is OK for the first level, as you don't want to overwhelm the player with mechanics. The fact that you breezed through it is a good sign, as advanced gamers breeze through sonic 1-1 and mario 1-1 and get challenged in later levels. Future levels are planned to use a spring item & a rocket booster item to add more verticality and complexity. I'm choosing to drip-feed in these things slowly, saving for later levels as the player gets used to it.
Balance and rotational inertia are fun for trials/happy wheels type games. I guess I'm aiming for a simpler game and trying to straddle that awkward balance of a platformer and a racing game. Going for more of a Tony Hawk style. I will definitely decrease the air time to rotate though, I think you're right on.
Again, thanks for the feedback. I have a lot to reflect upon and improve upon before next DD, cheers.
- nice nom noises
- spinning for tricks has a velocity boost around 270 degrees that i wasn't expecting
- bike controls are nice
- there's no drawbacks to mashing z while driving around
overall pretty good throwback, reminds me of playing Rocky Rider in middle school
Thank you! Yeah I can be a bit too forgiving with the 270 degrees for flip boosts, I'll look into making it a bit stricter. Glad it was a good throwback for you and you enjoyed it, cheers
this doesn't seem to have full controller support, i tried to do right trigger+the bottom face button for the boost pad thing and it didn't work, worked fine on keyboard tho
it's obviously a mobile game and i don't know a lot about those but i can say that on a large desktop monitor it doesn't look great, i tried the switching languages thing and i thought that having to restart the game after each language change was really weird and not something i've ever seen before.
it's fine, i got a bit of early 2000s flash nostalgia from it, gj
Thanks for the feedback! What controller were you using? I've only been able to test with XInput/XBox
Yes the language restart is a bug I need to work through. Thanks for bringing that up
8bitdo sn30pro wired
Its fun, didn't encounter any bugs, most of the game boiled down to "hold right use whatever activatable is in front of you and occasionally rotate to not crash", but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment. Eating the Park rangers felt a bit awkward as I couldn't find a good loop to cycle through, and had to repeatedly stop and turn around. Rocketbooster audio in the city level sounds weird, and while understandable your German translation isn't really correct most of the time (i.e. you translated exit with Ausgang while the correct term would be something like beenden or Spiel beenden.)
Still, nice and relaxing game looking forward to playing more levels next DD.
Thanks so much for the feedback! The language translations are just fed through a script that calls a Google Translate API, so I'm surprised it's even slightly understandable lol. I'm planning on getting legit translations done for major languages before final release.
Glad to hear you played in a "hold right use whatever activatable is in front of you and occasionally rotate to not crash" way. This is one way to play and should still be enjoyable. There are other hidden paths and gems etc to collect if you want to push to the limit, but it all depends on how you want to play. Glad you enjoyed, cheers
Very soulful and unique game.
I'll +1 what someone said earlier about rotation being distinct from movement. I love the "trials" games and that sort of movement set doesn't work if you can't do each separately.
Thank you! Yes, rotation separate from movement seems to be a must-have. Glad you enjoyed it, cheers
Oh man, the changes between DD38 and DD39 are a huge improvement!
On a technical side:
On game design side:
And one more amusing thing - it's possible to go over the end of level wall in suburbia, because rocket boost recharges when you touch the wall when standing vertically.
Excellent job, will definitely check it out in 2 months
Thanks so much!! I'm glad to hear the level design is improved, that's pretty much what I put all my effort into this past month. You definitely were right with that feedback from before, levels flow much better now. So thanks for helping me go in this new better direction.
Yes I am planning on hiding powerups in levels and rewarding "exploration". Surburbia was thrown together very last minute, it'll be reworked by next DD. And you are also right with there not really being a lose condition -- that'll be the bulk of my work for next DD.
Just curious, what did you think of the new combo system? The electricity and speed boosts keeping up a combo, flips adding to and keeping up a combo. Did that make sense to you, or was it easy to overlook and not understand?
I didn't notice the combo meter while it was filling up, though I definitely noticed when it was full and the UI was "electrified". I didn't really know what triggered it, I only guessed it was from good performance or something. I also didn't notice any change after it was filled up
Yeah, now it works just fine. Cool fun game, finished its available complete levels. It was a bit strange that all rangers were scattered all around a map, it looked like a bit daunting task at first glance.
It is funny how it looks like a sonicgame, do you consider adding losing all your food on damage taken/death? :D
Thanks! Yeah sonic games are a big inspiration. Not sure if I'll do losing of food on damage, but I do need to work more on making death a bit more plausible. That'll be my work cut out for me for next DD, cheers
Thanks for the indepth feedback!! Really appreciate it. I'll try to address it bit by bit
>There is a 'shop' button in the menu screen. Is that for in-between-levels XP/'money'/'nutrition' upgrades? Or for future in-app purchases?
I am toying with the idea of having this application be free to download, with in-app purchases for purely cosmetic changes (like Rocket League). Real money purchases to play with a panda bear riding a hover bike, etc. This seems to be the most ethical way widespread adoption and make some $$, but nothing is finalized I have to do some more research in this area.
>Will you be publishing to Google Play (and App Store) in the future?
Yes I am hoping to publish to Google Play and App store. I'll have to keep content ratings and targeting a younger audience in mind, because I have heard that this game could be good for kids. We'll see, again requires some more research
>The rocket boosters at the end was fun and challenging, but physics in this genre of game is already difficult enough - if you could make it work it would be great, but you would likely have to ensure that there are no really bad corner cases
Yes that rocket launcher is chaotic -- I am planning on only using for some levels, in parts of it, and making it forgiving. It probably won't make its way until at least level 3, after the user has gotten more used to the mechanics.
Thanks again! Really appreciated the feedback, cheers
Thanks for playing!! Glad it’s working for you and glad you liked it. Sonic mixed with other games is what I’m going for.
Yeah I agree that separate buttons for speed/rotation is the superior way to play. This is possible on the desktop version since keyboards and controllers have more keys.
Can you think of a layout for mobile that would work for separate rotate/speed? Motion controls? Two onscreen joysticks? I’ll implement it if I can think of an intuitive way to do it without cluttering the screen
Yeah this is something I could maybe see working. Definitely worth prototyping out to see how it feels, I’ll try it out in the next few weeks.
Thanks again, cheers mate. Looking forward to playing yours!
Having the same problem, playing on Windows 10, the game crashes occasionally on trampoline jumps when trying to get all food in the tutorial. First, two times played with a gamepad and on a third try with a keyboard.
Hey I'm so sorry you had to deal with that -- this stupid gray screen bug is intermittent and hard to reproduce.
I have uploaded a new build (v0.2.1) that might fix it. Can you download and play again and let me know if you still run into problems?
Hey I'm so sorry you had to deal with that -- this stupid gray screen bug is intermittent and hard to reproduce.
I have uploaded a new build (v0.2.1) that might fix it. Can you download and play again and let me know if you still run into problems?