Game has a really good first impression, but it's really annoying you have to mash the jump button every time you die. I was getting more irritated the longer I played. I made it to the boss once but I didn't want to do the last few annoying jumps every time until it died so I called it there. I wanna keep watch though because everything was so polished, I can't imagine this game needing anything other than slight changes to level/enemy design down the road.
There's a lot of potential with this, glad I got to play it. I do gotta admit the combat at the moment is too shallow for me to want to do anything but abuse the infinite healing nothings when fighting the "boss". I have no idea what the absorb command is supposed to be or if there's even a use case for it in the game yet, but I wish it and the dodge button were swapped. Not sure why you would want to sheathe your sword but I'm assuming you'll actually get to see a real civilization for once in these kinds of games? The other biggest things on my wishlist are that you can hold the dodge button to run and being able to shoot with the gun. I really can't wait to use the gun.
Aesthetics kinda have that Runescape/Morrowind charm that grew on me the more I played. Can't wait for the next one.
I can tell this is like a first or early project of yours, so it's kinda hard to figure out what kind of criticism to give. -The bouncing mechanic is fun and gives the game an identity, and honestly I think it needs the most attention given to. Trying to get to grips with how the bounce mechanics work, I couldn't bounce high enough to reach the highest parts of the stage the first time because I ran out of berries trying to figure it out. I'd honestly encourage you to just remove the limiter altogether because at the moment all it's doing is limiting the fun.
-The signs look kinda ugly with words cutting out, spilling over the text box graphic and not being layered correctly. I'm sure it was a last second addition but for the next demo I'd suggest copying a bit more from SMW and making a big black textbox that covers more than you think you need for text, and pause the game while it's open. Make each textbox about one thing (one for controls, one for a quirk with bouncing, ect.) and only interject personality in service for the point you're trying to make with the text box.
-You should look into having different control binds. I don't have much to say on it just pick arrows or WASD and stick with it. If you stick with one default control scheme it will be easier to make it good even if some people may not like them at first. Also of course add gamepad support down the line as well.
-So for the physics, I'd describe them as molasses-y. Like Blorbguy's acceleration feels extremely rigid making it feel like he's trudging through mud or molasses. There are some great games with awkward acceleration/deceleration that feel good to master because of the additional movement tech like the bounce, but with that approach Blorbguy's base walking speed should feel good for adjusting him to make the next bounce if that makes sense. I'd suggest making his walking acceleration maybe 1.5 or double the speed? Kinda gotta eyeball it. The more quickly the player can go make sick bounces the better.
-Lastly, show some confidence in your work. Dedicate yourself to using one method of horizontal movement. Let the comments section speak for itself and at best have a reminder at the end of the demo to comment. Figure out the physics yourself lol, trust your own feelings with how the physics balance out and throw away that huge ugly debug menu lmao. Players will self select based on preferences to your decisions, and a good game will make people change their preferences to what the game does. I hope this is helpful and encouraging
Menus look nicer and the tutorial was easier to understand. Kept running into dead ends really quickly though, would be nice to spend a dollar or something to reroll a new hand while keeping the board. Or maybe it's just a skill issue on my part.
I don't usually play these kinds of games but I really liked the aesthetic and level of polish. If I could change one thing about this demo it'd be to have the dialogue sections in the tutorial be advanced with left clicking or pressing the space bar with the game force paused so I don't have to move my hand across the keyboard back and forth so much. I'd also like to be able to rotate and zoom the maps in and out but that's more because I just wanna look at them because they look so nice :)
With a name like Pogo Girlfriend I have to play it. The sprites are epic in a sort of memey way, this is a pretty fun Getting Over It kind of game. I feel like the part where you have to use the bathroom is rather unnecessary, the game should start with the main character seeing the rocket take away his girlfriend as the opening doesn't have anything necessary in it and you have to deal with some janky cutscenes and room transitions. The only thing I wish this game had was the ability to change the strength of hops you can do. It would also be really cool if you can collect currency for a store where you buy upgrades or aesthetic changes for the character as a little extra incentive to do completely counterintuitive things. Where it's at though this is a standout title of GDEX and can only go up from here.
Seems like it's still in it's early stages, I've been using a controller and the tongue doesn't seem to work when I want it to or how I'd want it to. I can't seem to shoot my tongue up-right at all. I'd suggest having some kind of cursor so you can preview where you're going to shoot your tongue/eggs and then pressing a button (like clicking the stick) to shoot. Pressing Up to jump/flutter when I'm usually just trying to aim up also causes inconveniences. It might be better for keyboard users but not for controller users, I dunno. I don't want to sound too harsh on this but the music for me was anxiety inducing for me and took a lot out of it. Levels also felt like you dropped a bunch of fruit and rectangles everywhere and while I can vibe with a more abstract game it would help if there was something to gravitate to, like fruit only growing in background trees. Still, I think you got a great concept going and it seems like you're very early into it and I'd love to see you continue to put effort into the project and polish the gameplay.
Experience an action packed adventure as Bugsy, a cockroach with a hammer who loves exploring. A lizardman kidnaps Bugsy's friend Mayo while mumbling about needing a new sacrifice, and an earthquake triggers, causing Bugsy to tumble into an further into uncharted depths.
Searching for Mayo and the mysterious lizardman, Bugsy discovers a maze-like labyrinth full of crumbling ruins, mysterious relics, and loads and loads of monsters. Will he make it alive, and what mysteries does the underground labyrinth hold?
-Fast-paced, action packed metroidvania-style goodness that does not hold back!
-Battle against hoards of crawling, rolling and flying insects. Perform combo attacks with your hammer and sub-weapons, and even juggle enemies!
-Fight massive bosses with intricate behaviors. Learn their patterns and weaknesses, and become the boss of them!
-Explore a massive map with lots of winding paths, secret areas and shortcuts. Multiple playthroughs and speedrunning are greatly encouraged!
-Every cutscene is skippable with an auto-skip option. If that isn't enough for you, you can activate a turbo mode!
-Loads of abilities to discover. Sub-weapons, movement tech, and equippable augmentations are all at your disposal! Mix and match abilities to how you see fit in your playstyle. No two playthroughs will look the same!
You're welcome man, my game's combat is a sort of lighter take on that action game genre but in 2D, there was a couple things I noticed that I learned when making my game. I'm really looking forward to trying the punishing difficulty when it comes out then.
So I spent the time to take a look through the demo because it was one of the most interesting games shown at GDEX and it was really promising. I was expecting more of a Zelda kind of game but the actual demo makes it seem more like a Devil May Cry kind of game. I think I'm just gonna ramble on some criticisms and suggestions I have on the game's combat, because that's 90% of what the demo focused on:
The combat is pretty solid overall but I feel that having 3 attack buttons is kinda redundant. I never really felt like needing to do more than just spam the light attack button, the heavy attacks seem too slow and not powerful enough to consider using instead of the light attacks, and the slide attack could be accomplished just by having a running start anyway. I think I'd rather just have a single attack button where you have a combo with 3 light attacks and a heavy attack at the end. I like the charged spinning attacks but I think I'd rather just spin the analog stick and press the attack button like in Zelda, and possibly have other moves where you use inputs with the stick/WASD. The special attacks are very clear in their purpose and I can understand you're just simply in the process of continuing to polish the game. I really love that super spin attack. It seemed like you can juggle enemies but it seems really under baked, not sure if you're going to polish that further or it'll just be a special kind of stun for enemies.
The armor pickups and secrets immediately made me think of Doom, which is handled really well but it makes me wonder if the final game is going to be structured with scripted levels or if it's going to be more of an open world experience like a lot of the pathways you can't go down would suggest. I enjoy both types of games, and I'm definitely going to watch this until it's completed.
Best Wario Land game I ever played. Movement tech may be a bit too galaxy brained for me, I kept fat fingering down and up on the D-pad at moments when I had to dash and jump at precise moments. I don't think it's a big deal, if I were to practice the levels it might feel better over time, but I also mention it as it would never hurt to have alternate control schemes. I'm watching a gameplay video on the side of typing this and notice so many neat movement tricks. Even the taunt is useful in a way I didn't expect. As a person who works at a pizza kitchen with a blue uniform I highly approve. Hope you can customize his costume/color in the final product.
I've been hearing a lot of complaints about the Enter key being used to Pause/Unpause. When I first got into gamedev it was the standard that nobody batted an eye so it always struck me as odd. What's a more acceptable Pause/Unpause key used these days?
If you're just beginning in game design, than in terms of menus and controls, you're doing great. Most everything else could use some work, mostly coming from just learning from experience/not being so lazy. The sword is really hard to see, making it hard to judge the distance you can hit enemies from, I legit at first thought it was like 2 pixels long and was a meme game for it. You should get a better description for what the abilities are, I assumed the Super Jump was something where you had to crouch to use first or was another name for a double jump, had no idea what it meant because it was vague. Otherwise, keep working at it, you're doing fine.
---IMPORTANT FOR ALL THOSE WHO PLAY WITH KEYBOARDS--- If you are experiencing problems using the hammer, change the controls in the options menu so that Attack and Dash are bound to different keys.
That's really helpful thanks. Sometimes you just don't notice certain things when you're doing almost everything yourself. I added an additional sign in the tutorial area explaining how to pause and unpause the game as I've had people in the past complain about it as well. What I figured out with the keyboard controls was that in a very old build I had attack and dash bound to the same key and the game was designed around that, but now it's definitely not. I thought I fixed the default controls so that you used X to attack and C to dash but I guess not.
Thanks for the feedback man, I immediately went back and checked the game to see what the problem was for the controls. I used my controller and it felt fine, but when I used the keyboard, I immediately understood what you were talking about with the attack animations working wrong. That'll be a high priority for me to fix. You use Enter to Pause/Unpause btw. It's very much more a controller based game than a keyboard based game, but you're supposed to do everything the same on each.
I can get what you're saying with the graphics being insistent, the collision tiles would be easy as just changing room tiles to better represent a ruleset for the area. As for other stuff, a lot of things in the game got edited in iterations while others were ignored, but what would you suggest I put the highest priority in redrawing?
Really nice game, only thing I'd suggest is to streamline the controls a bit, or at least show the controls on-screen. My friend who was watching said it was very charming.
Really promising looking game, but I ran into a few issues, biggest one being that text wouldn't display on screen during cutscenes. At first I thought the controls weren't working for me for some reason because it only showed the protag's mugshot sprite and the buttons wouldn't do anything for me until I clicked a couple times and then I could move. The second cutscene made me realize what was going on.
Another thing I have to say is that while it might just be my machine, having the main character not being in the center of the screen in a game where you use the mouse to look around is really bothersome, uncomfortable but not in the right way like say a spooky game would be.
The last issue I ran into was getting caught into a corner and not being able to move out, but honestly it was the thing that bothered me least. If you get either of the first issues fixed I'll try it out again, keep working at it. Love the spritework and atmosphere.
