itch.io

Thank you for your comment.

Thanks for your quick reply. I guess it's time to hook up my Joy Cons :D

Nicely done. I really like your audio design, it's on point! Just love that "meow" sound of the kitty selling orange juice, something we all need more of at these temperatures :D

At first I had a little trouble with the bike controls. I expected up to be "move forward" but instead it's a direct mapping of the direction. Which is fine for a character running, but it feels a little counter intuitive on the bike because the design suggests forward movement (bikes rarely move sideways).

Tiny bug: On QWERTZ layout keyboards Z and Y are swapped but the game does not recognize that. Also the UI shows a blank white square instead of Y. I guess both have the same root cause.

I read on reddit that it took you 8 months to build. How big was/is your team?

This is impressive work considering the short time period. A great graduation project. I am sure it will open some doors for you.

Thank you for sharing your game with the community. Mérci!

I am glad it was helpful :-)

Lovely little game! - Found it through the tigsource forum (left some feedback there ;-). My only real complaint: it is too short!!

Hi Rémi and thank you for your detailed feedback :-)

1) No controller? - Yes, controller support will come. It's half way implemented and still causes some errors. If you disconnect the controller the remapping of the keys should work. I will address this in future updates. Thanks for letting me know about the touch controls reemerging in the settings. This bug is haunting me :/

2) No feedback at the end. - The menu structure and end screen will change a lot. There will be a score board etc. at the end and also the main menu will change. So this one is just a menu quickly thrown together to allow players to test the game feel (controls). I should have done a better job explaining that at the start of the game. All your feedback concerning the current menu it is very true. I am surprised you even noticed the aliased triangle, good eye for details (that's because it's not a graphic but a mesh cutting it off).

The underlying issue with this whole "messy" UI (both visual and flow) is that I wanted to get a playable version out quick to test the controls. I admit, the UI was not a priority on this one.

3) Thanks for the bug report on the booster etc., will take a look at that.

4) Hm, I chose "Airborne" deliberately to give the title some contrast to "Motocross" but "Airborne" alone should not be the title (did you encounter it without the "Motocross" anywhere? If yes, then that's not on purpose). The intention is to make people curious, like: "Wait a minute, motocross bikes are not airborne by default, what's this?"

Mérci pour "testing" mon jeux et bonné chance avéc vox jeux aussi (sorry my french is very rusty).

Hi,
I've just released a new version of my demo and would be delighted to hear your feedback.
It's a motocross game with exploration, loot and puzzles.

https://kamgam.itch.io/airborne

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Thank for your detailed response. I am glad my feedback was useful. Detailed feedback is really scarce, even here on itch you don't get much.

A word of caution before you switch to urp completely. I had my fair share of problems with it (mainly performance with post pro effects and custom shadergraph functions misbehaving [_worldLightPos0, lightColor], all on mobile, desktop seems fine). If you want to go mobile too then maybe do some shader test builds before the switch.

Also, thanks for playing and filling out the form :)

Happy New Year to you too.

Thanks, to you too. And thank you for your quick reply. Take your time. I did not mean to disturbe your holidays :)

Hi, I played your game.
Brace yourselves, this will be a lengthy comment with some ciriticism included (no harm intended) ;)

1) I love the idea of exploring such lively sceneries with a little drone. I admit I spent more time just flying around than racing. Which brings me to my first point: Maybe you could capitalize more on the "exploration" of the world than the racing aspect of your gameplay (just a though, also a nice USP). From what I gathered from your screenshots the scenery is your main marketing angle. It would fit a more explorative game well (imho).

2) Why drones? That mechanical, hard edged look of a drone kind of breaks immersion a bit (at least in the bandit and western scenes). I can see that you are maybe going full "Assassins Creed" with a kind of modern backstory to explain it all. Just not sure if the drones are the best fit. I noticed the skins one can unlock. Maybe you can not only make drones, helicopters etc. but also offer some other "organic" stuff (birds, balloons, zeppelins, ...) - I would love a bird.

3) Are you sure this 6 degrees of freedom controls are the right thing to start off with right at the beginning? You will have a pretty steep learning curve for newcomers. There is a reason drone piloting is a profession on its own. Not sure how, but maybe simplify it for the first few levels and then introduce it more gradually.

4) I am sure your ui/ux is still work in progress but the ui in games is kind of a pet peeve of mine, so here we go. Your text is (imho) not adequatly spaced and there are some inconsistencies within your design language. Here are some screenshots of me attempting a quick "fix" (just suggestions).

4a) Popup text box (text spacing)

4b) Is that a submenu? Turns out it is not (or I didn't understand how to access it).

4c) Long text should not be center aligned. Maybe even make the header text left aligned. Also, nice blur effect in the background but sadly it distracts from the text. And: all caps font for a long text to read, hm, not sure about that. Aaand the menu text (menu, back etc.) on the left is all over the place (no horizontal alignment).

4d) Inconsistent highlight effects (just a minor one)

4e) Oh, so many font types on one single screen. And the lock icon sticks into the text (now I am getting really picky, sorry)

5) The rotors of the drones could use some blur. You can easily fake it with a transparent plane and some "pre blurred" rotors. I have quickly faked this here to show the effect.

6) The drone shadows seems to be very low res compared to the evironment but both are dynamic shadows. What's up with that?

7) Okay, now I am hungry too :D

I hope my feedback will be helpful and I did not hurt your feelings too much. I meant no ill, just wanted to give you an honest first impression.

And since I have now criticised you so heavily, I would love if maybe you could do the same for me and hurt my feelings in return ;).

Thank you for making this!

Hi, I saw your post on tigsource but decided to comment here. I played your game and made it to level 2.

Here are some things I noticed. Some points are critical (no harm intended).

1) Nice minimalist artstyle, it fits a hyper casual game well.

2) The tutorial starts from the beginning every time you die. I think that is not necessary. Imho people will understand what to do after the first run. What they need is practice, not the "here is what you should do" info again. Maybe add a skip option for the tutorial text once it has been shown for the first time. Let the player try again as fast as possible ("super meat boy" is a great example of doing that right, also a very hard game). Another suggestion: Maybe start the first levels with reflecting walls and only later introduce death if off-screen. It might ease the learning curve at lot. Making a game too hard is terribly easy, it usually always is. Especially with these "simple" (not meant in a bad way) games you will not want to spook people with too early frustration.

3) Please do not add ads in your demo builds. That is not part of what you want to waste your early testers on. They are not here to watch unity demo ads to check that your ad sdk implementation works. Monetization testing comes much later. Sorry for my critical remarks here but I think this really will put people off and your game will suffer because less people will test it.

4) The text in the credits seems to overlap (the title and names), a layout issue maybe. I am not sure how well you know unity, so maybe you already know, but just in case: turn your game view to "free aspect" and then resize it to different aspect ratios, that way you can easily spot how or when your ui layout breaks.

5) I think the game remembered the direction of gravity from level to level. Because the ball kept speeding off to one direction. No matter what I did it just went off screen immediately after start.

6) It was not very clear to me when exactly my input starts to take effect at level start. Sometimes it reacted, sometimes not. Is there a time limit? Maybe add an effect to show when it starts, not sure.

7) I like the wave controls idea, this might work pretty well.

Hope my feedback will help you and most importantly: do not listen to what I suggested as solutions. You know your game best. Find the root cause of my problems and fix that.

Would be glad if you could test my demo too (geo on tigsource) ;)

Thanks for making this game and keep it up!

No problem, it happens to the best of us ^^.
I usually try to make a clean test before publishing. That means clearing all Payer Prefs with "PlayerPrefs.DeleteAll();" and also clearing all registry entries (RegEdit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\[yourcompanyname]\[yourgamename]). Once that's all deleted and it still works as expected you can be pretty sure it will work for others too.

Btw.: if you can find the time I would appreciate your feedback on my game (demo) here ;-)

Update Dec 26th (version 7fe2761): I noticed that in your playthrough you (accidentally) hit the "Start from beginning" button instead of the "Start from last Checkpoint" button after crashing in the tutorial.

This was due to a wrong button being auto-selected. This is now fixed.

I also made the space for the jump a little bigger so other players will not bump into the ceiling.

Thanks again for your feedback, already caused some change :D

Update Dec 26th (version 7fe2761): cursor is now hidden during the race (thanks for the hint). Though it will be shown if you move your mouse (I did that to avoid confusion). It will hide again after ~1 Sek without movement.

Thank you for playing.

•  Sound will be in the finished game (if you have any recommendations for music, I am all ears).
• If you search around in the DEMO level you will find a booster.
• There will be async multiplayer in the final game, so your race will be recorded and anyone who wants can compete against you.
• The cave in the snow area is kind of a trap. You will have to puzzle your way out of it. Though it is completely optional at the moment. Most players will skip it by default. You can find the access at the start of the snow area. Hint: there is also another item in the level (turn left right at the start in the demo level ;-)
• Can't help you with that last one, sorry. But I wish you good luck!

Thank you for playing. I have commented on your youtube channel as well. Not sure if there should be some audio commentary in the video (I heard none) but it fit's my game since it also has no sound (yet) :D

Thanks again.

Hi, I tried it again today but I can not get past the menu screen. It seems there is a "coins" screen but all I can do is go back.

Hi, thanks for making this :-)
Here is an early version of my game. It's a motcross racing game with exploration and (optional) physics puzzles.
There is a tutorial level and a demo level. Playtime should be around 5-20 minutes. I am looking for feedback (especially on the controls).

You can find it here on Itch:
https://kamgam.itch.io/airborne

Or here on the website:
https://airborne.kamgam.com/

Direct Download Links:
Windows (zip with .exe): https://airborne.kamgam.com/build-files/AirborneMotocross-0ca5962.zip
Android (.apk): https://airborne.kamgam.com/build-files/sbr2-v1.0.0-b206.apk

There is a short feedback form within the game (if you want to fill it out).
Looking forward to your comments on the game!

Thank you

Sadly "Ride the Sky" seems already taken by other games. So, now here is the title I chose :-)

Hi,

I played your game though I have to say I am not an experienced platformer player.
Very nice art and sound. I also like that everything can be controlled via keyboard  :)
Do you have controller support (haven't tested it)? - forget I asked, just read that indeed you do support those (shame on me for not reading it all).

Some of my feedback will be critical, so I hope you don't mind. It's meant to help describe my experience, not diminish your achievement with your game . What I am trying to say, don't take it personal ;)

1) The scrolling text in the intro may be a common thing in your genre (not sure) but I think I once read that it was originally done in old/handheld games because of restrictions like screen size. You don't suffer from these restrictions. Don't scoll your text, it makes it hard to read. I constantly have to reposition my eyes to follow it.

Another "issue" would be speed of reading. Some people read faster, others solwer. Your game assumes a constant reading speed which you defined for all your players. I would rather have more lines on one screen with a "press X to resume" button. I for one found it too slowly timed, yet hard to read (hope this makes sense).

I like that scrolling background (trees!).

Just and idea but: if you have most screens with multiple lines of text and just at the end a screen with only one line, then this gives that lonely sentence a feel of importance. If you do it for every line then that's no longer true. I suggest to keept the tool of the lonely sentence in your box until you need it for the last intro screen.

One more (sorry): If I press any key the "Hold space text" flashes ALL THE TIME through the intro. I know it's meant to grab your attention but again this distracts from reading your text. And I think it's an attempt to fix the "skip/reading speed" issue which could be avoided. In addition: it is hard to look at the text while something is flashing below. I have compiled a screenshot of how I would have prefered this at the end (just an idea ^^).

Also the font feels a bit heavy on a fullscreen monitor. I am not sure if you are targeting some smaller devices, so maybe it's necessary for legibility but maybe another font for the big screen might be an option? I spend so much time on this because your game seems to be a story heavy one and then you should make reading as pleasant as possible (imho). Also, why not use (Escape) as the default "skip" key? Or maybe just pause the intro when escape is pressed. Think of people being distracted unexpectedly (or slow readers).

2) Not sure if a game with an installer is the best for people to try it out. Can you make a WebGL build? I assume you would get more people to try it out with a web build.

3) Love the Desktop Icon :D - It looks cool!

4) The Menu does not support mouse clicking - maybe hide the cursor then. Found myself trying to click. Gotta say: I tabbed out a lot to take notes, so maybe not an issue for "real" players.

5) I don't like the invisible wall on the left at the start. It breaks immersion immediately. Can you put a rock or something there?

6) How are those jumps timed? As I said I am not a platformer player but it feels like the character falls very fast. I remember reading once that super mario kind of defined 1.# seconds as "the" duration for jumps (I assume you already know :). Maybe it's spot on, not sure, felt quite fast to me. I would have liked to jump with "space" but that's just my personal perference.

7) Please put your controls into the pause menu or somewhere into the game. I had to browse back to itch to find it (it's not on the download page therefore I really had to got "back"). I know the figure teaches it but hey: I didn't know how to jump because I am lazy and don't read all the text on your itch page (I am exagerating of course, or am I?). Why am I picky about this: well not many people will do what I did. Instead they will just rant about the controls (unjustified) and quit (have seen it happen). - I like that tutorial character btw. :)

8) The contrast of the red text could be better (have scaled it down in my collage at the end to make the effect more visible). It's hard to read.

9) Sadly I failed at the wall jump. I got it once, jumped down to retry and never made it up again. It's just too difficult for me (call me a noob if need be, I can take it ^^). Those timings are surely doable but it takes practice I assume. I am a firm believer in that a hard game should never be hard because of the controls. Yet again, I almost never play platformers so maybe it's just me. Here is a nice gdc talk regarding "make forgiving controls". Maybe I can persuade you to watch it: https://gdcvault.com/play/1026606/Forgiveness-Mechanics-Reading-Minds-for

Sadly I am out of time for this one. I hope my feedback was helpful.
Btw.: don't listen to what I say. I am just one random player.
I once read that you should not cater to the wishes of your testers but rather look for the root cause and fix that (if needed). After all, you know your game best :)

Thanks for making this and putting it out into the world.

Thanks for your feedback :-)

Hi,
I played your game but it seems I have run into some bugs.
I have compiled a screenshot to illustrate the problems:

1) The ui seems all over the place. Maybe you have misplaced some of the ui anchors. Try to set the "game" view in unity to "free aspect" ratio and then resize the window. This is usually the quickest way to spot those problems.

2) After the tutorial "level 05" was unlocked for me but I was stuck there. I assume pressing "E" should reveal some info but I did not see anything (did pass right trough that other glowing cube.

3) As a rule of thumb, try to give your text some pace. A good ratio is 20% padding 60% text 20% padding (in the vertical). Give it a try, it will make your ui look much better :-) - If you want to learn more about this, here is a nice video (I am not affiliated with the creator. It's just the first that came to mind):

4) Your pause menu seems to overlap the tutorial keys. Looks a bit weird.

5) Your menu flow is a bit all over the place too. For example: if you go to options then leaving those drops you into the levels screen. That's unlogical. It is convention to put the player back where he/she came from. In this case "the main menu".

Thank you for sharing your first game.
I know it's though to hear such "found errors" feedback but "this is the way" to learn (if you forgive the Mandalorian pun here ^^).

Glad to help. You're taking it really well, good job :)

> "But be aware, next time you go with this amount of honesty I will be forced to report you for abuse of youngling game developer. :D"

Haha, okay, I'll weigh my words more carefully then next time. Don't want to get reported ;-)

Hi,

I played it just now. Very neat. I liked that sound slider on the start screen. A nice way to hint on the game mechanics. Also like those colors :)

Now I'll play devils advocat, so I'll be brutal (hope you don't mind, no harm intended). I think honest feedback is the best. Of course all I say is highly subjective.

* The first two screens are very nice with bright colors and then the level screen is all "grey" with very minimal text. That felt like a little downer to me. The level afterwards is very nice again. So that screen just feels off. Same goes for the pause screen. It is just visually inconsistent (roundcornders on the buttons).

* I am writing this being "in" the first level. Honestly I did not understand why the "switch" button at the bottom is necessary. Maybe it's necessary for some mechanic to work later on. But even then I think it would be better to introduce that when it is needed.

Why can I not just drag both (blocks and pill) at the same time? If it's a ux issue (accidental drag of blocks while the player wants the pill) then maybe another solution can be found to solve that root cause. First I tried to move the pill without looking at the button below and was puzzled why nothing happened (had cleared the blocks first).

The pill and blocks glow shortly after switching. That's nice but imho this hints on a deeper problem, namely: it is unclear from just looking at the screen which elements (blocks or pills) are currently active. This offloads the bookkeeping on which "mode" is active to the players brain, not really desireable. If you look away (just talk to someone for a moment) you forget which mode you are in and thus are frustrated once you try to move a part only to realise that you have to switch modes. It's quickly corrected but kills the flow. I really think that this game could improve a lot if you "fix" this.

Also, why can I not flick the pill around just like the blocks. I think that would be a lot of fun :D.

Sidenote/Idea: maybe you could make the pill emmit some white lines and then let the ball (also white) emmit some lines too (all at the start of the level). It would be to hint on their relation (also would have to be minimal to match your style). Maybe similar to this:

* Maybe a bug, not sure. I once had a block being stoppen by a very tiny overlap with another block (screenshot at the end). That felt like breaking the theme of the game (it being logic based, not physics based and finicky).

Very minor things:
* The gradient in the main menu is not as smooth as it could be. Is this a compressed image? Maybe it's my device but if it's an image then you could use a shader on a sprite to get nice uncompressed gradients. If I remember correctly then there are some very nice solutions in the asset store.

* The menu sound repeats after a few seconds. It's nice at first but gets repetitive very quickly. Maybe add 2,3 more loops and mix them up.

* I think it could profit from some minor transition animations between menus.

* Your youtube video seem to be broken (see screenshot)?

I hope I did not hurt your feelings too much. I wrote it in the interest of makeing your game better and I know it's always hard to get/accept that critique.

Also, don't listen to what I say. You know your game best. So, think about why I had the experience I had and maybe you can fix the root cause instead of just catering to any reviewers wishes.

Thank you for making this and grats on getting a finished game out the door :)

Hi, I'll jump right in with some pretty pictures (text below).
Thanks to everyone who's reading / helping :-)

It's a motocross racing game with loot (gear, hidden items). It features a mix of exploration, racing and some optional physics puzzles along the way. In the tutorial you will get a glider. So the player will be airborne quite often.

Here are some gifs (very bad quality to keep the file size low):

Name ideas which I had (maybe these will spark new ideas, my favourites are first):
airborne motocross
take wing motocross
spring bike ("Spring Break", "Spring colors and emotions", "Spring like in jumping")
wing-mounted motocross / Wing Mount Motocross
jump a Motocross (pun like "jump-a-cross", badum tss, meh)
rise Up Motocross (lots of games are called "rise up" already)
on the wing
ride the sky
ravine Racing (lots of ravines in the game. I am not a native speaker, so not sure.)

Please give some feedback on the names listed above or if you have new ideas I am all ears.

Also, if you want to know more, here is the (temporary) homepage: https://sbr2.kamgam.com
Itch game page will follow once I have a name :D

Thank you !!!

Yes, there will be plenty of new stuff and features in there. You will have more than enough items to spend your coins on in the new game ;-).

As for new ideas: sure just post 'em here so others may contribute as well. Be aware though that I have already settled on and implemented most of the basic features. This means that I will soon have a "feature freeze" (no new ideas). But of course some new inspiration is always welcome. I won't be able to reply to every message but I'll chime in every couple weeks or so.

Thanks for your passion concerning my game!

Hi, nothing to be sorry about. It was a valid question and good observation.

The new game will still take quite some time though. I am aiming for a Q1 2021 release but we all know that it usually takes longer than planned (something unexpected will always happen). I will make some test builds along the way and share them here or in the play store, not sure yet where and when exactly.

I know you may be disappointed reading this, but I think there is no use in giving false information as to when it will be ready.

Good oberservation, you are right about the late game (glowar+), there is none, except for the daily and weekly events. I am currently working on a new game (one could call it "part 2"), therefore I simply don't have the capacity to also add new features into sunset bike racer. Keeping it functional is enough work at the moment (it's a 4 year old game now).

Hi, I am sorry to hear the game is acting up on your machine. I have just sent the new voucher code. So, this happens directly after a windows update? The 2 week delay seems very odd to me. Thanks for letting me know.

It's always nice to watch someone playing the game, lots of opportunities for me to learn. Maybe I should add a hint in the level where you have to roll backwards to proceed. It seems like you missed the "opponent" feature. Too bad, racing vs someone else makes it much more exciting. I'll have to highlight that more. Glad you figured out the first challenge, they are meant to be puzzling at first.

If I may add somehting: your voice seems a little too low in volume, I sometimes had troube hearing you (but maybe that's because I am not a native speaker). All in all a great video, thank you for making it!

Hi, glad it is working again. I have reset the "hero rider" name on the server so you should be able to use "hero rider" again.

Hm, if it does not open then please try to reinstall it. If it does not open after a clean install then I fear there is something broken which I can not fix.

Hi, I just sent the voucher code to you. Please check your inbox (spam too). Please also let me know if it worked.

Hi, I am glad you like my game. The error you are getting means that your local saved data is somehow lost or broken ("empty" or "null" on programmer speak). I have taken a look and it seems I can not restore your data from the server but I can offer to send you as many coins as you need to get your bikes back. You will have to play the career again though (if you want to unlock all the levels).

I am currently out of town, so just limited access to my dev environment, but if you send me a message to app-support@kamgam.com I will reply with a voucher code for the coins.

Oh btw. there is a support form within the game which will let you contact me directly and it also sends some data to me which may help with analysing the error.

Thank you for your patience.

Thanks, I am glad you like it. You can play on Android too if you want. Just search the Play Store for "Sunset Bike Racer".

I don't know exactly how long it took because I didn't keep a record of my working hours. If I had to guess it would be around 70 full work days. I made it beside my regular day job, so in terms of actual time until version 1.0 was done we are talking about at least half a year.

I already knew Unity from my job. If you are new to the engine it would certainly take longer because you would have to learn the engine first. I also chose the black/orange aesthetic deliberately to keep graphics work low. I am not really an artist myself. If you want to make it with nice colored graphics, add a minimum of one month of work to your schedule. I have made continuous updates through the years too, so in total it's certainly more.

The game is now in its 4th year. It actually started out on Blackberry (yes, it's that old) and also made its way to Samsungs Tizen OS (mostly known in India), even won a contest there (with prize money, yay).

I am currently working on a new bike game full-time (still in early prototype phase though).

Thanks, no I am currently using my very own camera setup which is tweaked to fit my needs. I may switch to this Asset here in the future: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/camera/pro-camera-2d-the-definitive-... . I looks quite feature complete (haven't yet tested it myself though).

Concerning cameras, I remember some very nice talks from GDC2014/2015 about camera control. One is still online in the vault (free edition) and the other is on youtube: https://gdcvault.com/play/1020460/50-Camera and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdvCO97jOQk

Hi, it's nothing special really, just some wheel joints, see here https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-WheelJoint2D.html. There are a plethora of tutorials out there on how to use them. Of course the tweaking is then unique to how you want your game to feel.

The LTS part is the important bit for me. Long Term Support Releases (LTS) ensure that it will get patches for two years after release. My goal is to avoid changing major versions after release since major version upgrades are always quite a lot of work. Link: https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/lts-releases

As for your questions: can you please post them in the Unity forums and maybe link here? You have a higher chance of getting quality answers there and others may also benefit from the shared problem solving.

Yes, I am using 2019.3 now and I plan to switch to 2019.4 LTS once that's released.

Sure, I have create a video once of how a level is made in the game. You can find it here: https://kamgam.com/sunsetracer (the second video on the page).

The engine is Unity3D (started with 4.6 back in the day, but now it's on 2018.4 LTS).