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ObsidianBlk3 years ago(+1)

This game is a mixed bag for me. I can definitely see ideas in the game that would make for a great game, in my opinion, but a lot of things just seem to fall flat for me. I totally understand that a lot of this could be because you didn’t get the time to fully implement everything you had in mind, and I totally relate to that, but here are my observations…

  1. I liked the idea of the boat moving through the level, but, the faster the boat moved, the more it effected the player’s jump. At full speed I had a lot of trouble trying to jump to the right and simply jumping strait up pushed me left. I’m not entirely sure if that was part of the challenge, but it felt a lot more like a bug to me.

  2. “Death” didn’t feel fully realized. I don’t think I ever finished the first level without having lost all of my health bar(?) after which both the player and boat turn green… but that didn’t seem to effect anything. The birds were still attacking, and the level still completed, giving me access to the next level. This lack of consequence carried into other levels as I didn’t have a huge sense of worry as things were happening.

  3. The bird didn’t seem effected when I hit them… I mean, they did flash red and died, but, the birds were dive bombing me and even though my weapon struck them, they kept moving, unimpeded, through me, causing me to take damage. If the health system had a consequence, then this loss to health would have been very unfair. I think the birds should have either been pushed back upon being struck, or had their ability to do damage disabled while they blinked red (or both).

  4. I really liked the tutorials being part of the character’s monologues, but, the windows moved around as the player moved. I lost some of the text at one point because I was standing on the platforms of the mast and the dialog went off screen.

  5. this is a minor gripe, here, but, on the third level, it’s said you can only pick up two planks, however, the icon used for a “plank” looks like four planks! I didn’t notice this at first and thought I had picked up 8 planks and was confused both in thinking I had that many, then finding that I didn’t. It’s really just down to that icon. Ultimately, the system worked, but it’s just confusingly represented in the UI.

Over all, like I said, I liked a lot of the ideas in the game. If they get fleshed out, this could be a very entertaining little adventure! :)

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CroSnake3 years ago

Thanks so much for playing and the elaborate feedback! I want to address your points:

1) Indeed, I was going to implement it so that the boat gives the player the same speed it's currently going at for more realistic and easier maneuverability, but I saw many other issues coming up with that and I didn't have the time anymore to spend so much time on this, even though it really is one of the really important things, as you spend 99% of the game on the ship, so then I left it with the adjustment for the speed, which works kinda OK if you put the ship on its lowest speed

2) The dying in combat (i.e. seagulls drain all your health) and the ship sinking by taking too much damage both have the same outcome: You turn green ("Zombie" since you don't have a soul) and you're able to still complete the level - this is for one of the wild cards mainly where "Failure is just another path to victory". Only falling off the ship means certain death and you have to restart the level. However, in order to unlock the 7th and last level, all first six levels need to be completed without dying first. The character does point it out in level 1, but it should have been better explained

3) I did have an issue with the player's hitboxes, that at times other instances' hurtboxes wouldn't react to them if the hitbox is already inside it when the player hits, though I do seem to set the "deferred" value correctly for the hitboxes, but that's definitely something I need to look into. The player himself becomes invincible for a short period of time (while the player flashes), a state of invincibility, but this state could be a bit longer. Thanks for pointing that out!

4) While I developed the game, I intendedly placed most of the dialogues in the beginning of the level so that the player could easily reset the game to read through the dialogues again. I also didn't want the dialogues to show up somewhere where they would obstruct the player's view on important areas of the ship, but I agree I could have solved this better (with more time, same as everything hehe)

5) Gotcha! I was hoping that the icons would be self explanatory, but I agree that it would be better visible by changing the icon to one plank only each. Point taken

Thanks very much for playing and the feedback! Much appreciated

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