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(2 edits) (+1)

Note: This feedback is for the web build of the game, as that was the version submitted to this jam.

My first impression of this game left me baffled. The page description has an entire list of things of what NOT to do in the game, and the game itself has a whole menu of options, with no clear indication of what I am "supposed" to do. "Arena", "Skills" and "Challenges"? I think I clicked on the tutorial level, but I'm not entirely sure.

What is the point of having all of these options in the game that don't work yet? I'm unfamiliar with how your project is structured, so forgive me if I'm wrong on this, but in Godot you should be able to disable button nodes easily by toggling the visibility off. It's fine for a demo to have limited features, but adding features that you are aware don't work and aren't implemented is very strange to me.

Anyways, onto to the game itself. A platformer with clones chasing you is an exciting concept, but the controls are what matter in a game like this. It sounds weird, but it felt like I was controlling a bag of pudding. There's a delay to jumping, the movement is somewhat arduous, and when I stop moving the character slides for a little bit. It doesn't feel good right now. I could kind of double jump by launching against a wall, but even that felt kind of hit or miss.

There's also some sort of red slowdown mechanic that seems really cool, but I never figured out what it's purpose is.

This web build feels too ambitious, like setting the cart before the horse. 

My advice is to stop everything else and focus on the character movement. Fiddle with it, experiment, and keep tweaking until it feels fluid, responsive, and more fun to control. If you're already doing that in the playtest build, that's perfect.

Interesting dev fact: during development of Super Mario 64, most of that time was spent just on making Mario fun to control. Once Nintendo achieved that, then they built levels around Mario's toolkit. So keep at it, and good luck!

EDIT: I didn't even REALIZE there was a dash button! I figured out how to unlock it, and although using SHIFT is clunky, the dash itself is really fun. This is exactly the kind of experimentation I was looking for! You should make it a default part of the player's toolkit instead of making them unlock it, cause it's really good fun. 

(+1)

Hi there! I appreciate the candid feedback :)

As for the state of the project, I found out about this jam from a friend fairly last minute, so I struggled in trying to implement everything I was hoping by the 'end' of the jam, particularly because I am a solo developer 😅I'm currently working on trying to get the onboarding section of the game relatively finished, since the state it is in is not really very helpful to new players.

There's also some sort of red slowdown mechanic that seems really cool, but I never figured out what it's purpose is.

The next build should have some better onboarding for this mechanic. It's definitely one of the less obvious but also very important systems, so I do want to make sure players have a pretty good sense of how it works early on.

Anyways, onto to the game itself. A platformer with clones chasing you is an exciting concept, but the controls are what matter in a game like this. It sounds weird, but it felt like I was controlling a bag of pudding. There's a delay to jumping, the movement is somewhat arduous, and when I stop moving the character slides for a little bit. It doesn't feel good right now. I could kind of double jump by launching against a wall, but even that felt kind of hit or miss.

If you would be open to it, I'd love to either do a screenshare or get some footage with you talking over the footage describing what parts of the player controller feel worst or behave unexpectedly. For right now there are a handful of aspects about the player controller that I hope to address soon, but it's good to get a wider variety of feedback since there are aspects that might seem fine to me but frustrating to others. At the very least I'd love to hear what are some platformers that have controls that you jive with, and ones that you don't (apart from Shattered Echoes I mean lol)?

Thanks again for the feedback. If you're interested I can reach out to you a build or two down the line to get a gauge on some of these issues being addressed.

Yes, I would be honored to try out future builds!

I don't think I could describe in great detail what I'm experiencing with the controls in a live video (I also keep my face and voice private on this account). I went back and played your game a bit more, trying to understand what exactly I didn't like about it. Here's what I didn't like and my attempt at understanding why I didn't like those aspects:

-the biggest thing I didn't like is the slippery-ness of the character. When I let go of WASD, it slides forward a bit. Sometimes, when I hop over a wall and onto solid ground (like a block), I'll overshoot it. Not enough times to get frustrated, but enough to feel like "man, I shouldn't have fallen off there".

-the weight of the character. Some game characters are floaty, and some fall to the ground like a brick. This character somehow felt heavy and floaty, and to me that felt icky. Like I don't fall as fast as I want to, but I still manage to slip off platforms a lot. Maybe the slippery-ness compounds the problem?

-walls. Trying to "wall-jump" and just barely not making it, and then sloooowly sliding down like heavy cream, feels bad. It also seems like, whenever I try to move away from a wall as I'm sliding down it, it tends to stick to the wall for just a split second before it "detaches", but that might just be the way the character turns around mid-air.

You asked for platformers with controls I jive with, and the one that came to mind first and most vividly is Super Mario 64. I know, using a n64 game as a reference for the pinnacle of good controls is strange. But there are a lot of things it does right:

-When you let go of the control stick, Mario doesn't stop immediately---he slows to a stop. That seems bad at first, but the degree to which it is done is subtle, and makes Mario feel natural and fluid.

-More notably, when you tilt the control stick, Mario doesn't get up to full speed immediately---he accelerates. This also makes Mario feel natural and fluid, but it never becomes a problem. You never think, "man, if only Mario moved faster, I could avoided getting hit by that goomba". That's because Super Mario 64 is a game that you take at your own pace. If you get hit by a goomba, it's not because you couldn't react in time or couldn't see it, thus it feels like your own fault, not the game's. Mario's acceleration would be a bad design choice in other platformers, but it's a good choice here because the levels are, literally, designed around Mario's capabilities.

-Mario's weight feels great. Sadly, I can't really "describe" why, as a character's ideal weight is just something we devs need to tinker with and find out.

I think the reason I did not like the controls in your game is that the levels don't feel like they are designed around the character. You have a game which requires a fair amount of precise platforming and evil clones chasing you, yet the character feels slippery, slow, and ever so slightly imprecise to control. If this character were put in a slow paced puzzle platformer, it would feel better, and it might even be perfect. But to make a funny analogy, and apologies for the trite comparison, it feels like I'm playing Celeste with a bag of pudding.

As a final note, if you feel the game plays great and everyone else feels the game plays great, it could be that the game just isn't my cup of tea. But I hope my comments are at least of some use to you for improving your game!