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Reef Runner - any ideas whats missing or stuff that feels bad/bugs? Thank you:)

A topic by Maxf08 created Aug 02, 2025 Views: 157 Replies: 7
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My friend and I have been working on this project for like half a year now, and I feel like something is missing (you know what I mean). It would be so nice of you guys to check it out and tell us about any bugs, new features, or skins. Thx and have a great day!

https://maxf08.itch.io/reef-runner

The game is quite good for a first project, simple and “complete”.

Few suggestions:

  • Add progress bar to loading screen
  • Animation does not show final frame(s) when hitting an obstacle. This creates sense of “unfairness”, as the game displays your fish far away from the obstacle yet you lose.
  • Maybe add concept of “lifes” to make more room for gradual difficulty increase
  • Game spams console with errors: “RenderPass: Missing resolve surface for attachment 0. Are you tring to resolve a bindMS rendertarget?” (I play on Firefox / Windows)

Oh wow, thanks for the quick response! About the lives: we’re planning to add an option to watch an ad or pay coins for a second chance. The animation idea is a great point: do you have any suggestions on how we could approach that? I’ll also take a look at the error. Thanks again, man. And where would you recommend a progress bar?

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The animation idea is a great point: do you have any suggestions on how we could approach that?

Presumably look at the order of operations, maybe move collision detection after the scene drawing. I have no idea what your code looks like, so can’t help more, sorry.

where would you recommend a progress bar?

When I click “Run game”, I see empty screen for a few seconds before the game fully loads. Look at many other web games here, many have a loading bar on that screen.

Perfect thanks. I ll get right at it. U’re the best!

The menu music is great, and the overall art is also very fine. Game concept is easy to learn, hard to master. Good start.
What you are missing is the feedback.
The player needs a satisfying feedback, when smashes the fish to the ground. For eg an animation with splash when it touches the ground. (If it's random at every time -> the better) And also a popping sound when it happens. You know, I have to WANT to do that smash again. And again. And again. It must be like those bubble wrap foils 😉 You can't stop popping them 😄
Maybe if the fish will rotate somehow when you press the button... Now it remains always 100% horizontal and it feels so mechanical. 
You do all game mechanic well, but at the end only one thing that matters: how the player will feel it. 
Think about Super Mario. Without the jingling sound of the coins at pickup it will be a mediocre experience to collect them. It's a tiny thing, but gives a huge feeling to it.
To fine tune this, you need a lot of experimentation.
For example you should have a fading +1 popup above the fish when it pops to the ground to indicate the gaining of score.
Or you could try to move the fish above or below randomly to the starting height after a pop instead of resetting to the fixed height.
Try out new things (lots of them), and some will just "click in" the game 😉

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Damn! Thank you so much. Actually, really awesome ideas. I also thought about maybe adding a camera animation with each smash. You’re the best, thanks! I’m on holiday at the moment, so it might take me a little while to do though.

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You are welcome! Keep us updated 😉