An atmospheric puzzle-platformer-adventure. · By
Save for the wee hangup on the boat, I was pretty impressed by this. The gameplay is minimal but it's more about exploring and figuring out the situation. The ambient music and lighting works perfectly with the large open areas and the ruins, plus the mix of ancient ad futuristic tech is always welcome. Thanks for replying to my older posts so the video didn't end horribly. <3
I just finished watching your playthrough, thank you for making and posting it!
You make some very good points on how the game plays and where it does and doesn't work, and I agree with almost all of them. Especially the boat sequence is very unfair and frustrating. Also the pacing with the long waiting time is bad. I think the general "slowness" of this section and also the insta-kills are generally ok, but having the player go through all of this again in full length if they don't make it, is as you said bad design. Also I totally missed that the player can actually go behind the boxes and I should have make it so that either the player can't go there or that he is safe from the search light.
The crouching thing is on you, though :P No not really, but I was wondering if that searchlight insta-kill machanic comes too abruptly. Maybe I should have introduced that a bit earlier in the game and at the same time explain the crouch mechanic to the player through gameplay. At one point I wanted to have a simpler version of that mechanic in the temple area, but I had to cut it due to jam time constraints.
Regarding the controls/camera work - sometimes it is quite wonky. In the control screen I have a message saying that the game is intended to be played with a gamepad, as I think this provides more control. It still is a little weird even with a gamepad and the camera freaks out very often when you don't walk the "ideal" path, but I think it plays way better than with a keyboard (I included keyboard controls, because I didn't want to lock out players who don't own a gamepad).
I'm thinking about working on a small update that adresses some of these issues. Mainly the boat section and the first platforming section in the canyon, which is an area where a few players got stuck with that infinite falling collision bug. I also think the platforming part there is unnecessarilycomplicated.
Other than that, I had a really good time watching your playthrough! The editing was quite funny, so in that way - as a neutral viewer - even the bugs provided some entertainment :)
(Also good catch on that SOMA-reference!)
Glad to hear you enjoyed the video!
I really should have tried playing with a a gamepad, it might have mitigated a lot of the smaller issues with the camera and movement interactions.
The pacing of the game is great overall, it makes clear at the very beginning that it's going to be a slower paced experience. As for the crouching, maybe a single obstacle where the player is forced to crouch, maybe early in the cave, could have gone a long way to mitigating the frustrations of thee boat section.
With the boat, the slow rate is perfect for a single trip but not for anything more than that. There already exists a point on the path that could be used for a closer respawn, the rock outcropping that I attempted to jump off onto. It would allow the boat section to remain largely unchanged but remove a considerable part of the retread to the spotlight section.
As for my feedback in general, were there any parts I was flat out wrong or mistaken in? I have no formal training in any sort of game design or production and always worry that my criticisms are either unreasonable or unfounded.
I was wondering if the SOMA reference was intentional or coincidental ^_^
Well, I don't have any formal training in any of those fields either, so I cannot say if there was anything "wrong". ;)
But as I said, I thought the points you made were all valid and also presented in a way I can work with. I didn't feel offended or like there is someone angry or "didn't get the game". It was good criticism and I think few people know how to do it. That you got frustrated at one part is not wrong or you being mistaken. It was a good insight for me for why this part might not worked as I initially intended.
Regarding that SOMA reference, it wasn't exactly intentional. So I didn't say "Well let's put a reference in there!" I think it was more like a subcontious thing. SOMA is that kind of game that sits in the back of your, well, brain when you played it and it clicked with you. At one point during development I played through the part with those "lightblobs" (that's what I called them in the gameengine) and realized that they look a lot like SOMA and just went with it, calling it a happy accident :)
