Great feedback and I agree on all accounts. Thank you for playing!
TheSmickler
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There is technically a shot limit, but the numbers need some tweaking, so point blanking is not so noticeable right now. I also probably need to tweak the time before enemies can shoot. As of right now it's pretty much impossible to kill most things before they get a shot off, but ideally I'd like you to be able to if you route well and play aggressively. And yes the spike balls are totally bullshit haha, I definitely want to make a lot of attacks more readable.
There's a lot more I want to do with the hyper meter and timer but I didn't have time to implement them. Hopefully for the next demo day it will feel more complete.
Thanks for playing and for all the feedback!
I only tested with my xbox one controller so there was bound to be some issues. I plugged in my DS4 and there was also some sticking issue that I think I may have fixed, but the button mapping is off from the way xbox binds and only the stick works, not the d-pad, so it's a little funky to play with a DS4 right now.
I don't know if you mean a literal playstation 2 keyboard or if that's some terminology I'm unfamiliar with but I'm not sure what the problem could be other than the controller stuck forcing a direction.
Not sure if the sticking issue I was encountering is the same as the problems you were having but I uploaded a new version if you feel like giving it a shot. If not no worries. Sorry for the hassle either way!
Wow you actually beat it! I wasn't sure about the difficulty. So hard to tell when I already know every section. The bombs that the mid-boss throw out ended up being bullshit as I expected lol. I actually just darkened all the backgrounds because I didn't have time to make anything proper, so hopefully with proper backgrounds the enemies will stand out a little more. And yeah some of the post processing is affecting things it shouldn't so some menu stuff definitely looks weird.
The hyper should definitely have some invincibility on activation, I just forgot to add it! I'll be messing around a lot with the mechanics, I just wanted to get something functional up and running.
Thanks so much for playing and for the feedback! The video is also immensely helpful.
Yeah finding the sweet spot for both shmup and non-shmup players is probably the most difficult thing. When I'm testing it's really hard to tell whether a section is fair or total bullshit. I always play with a controller so I actually have no idea what standard keyboard controls are for shmups, ZXC is probably terrible haha. And yeah I agree on the menus, threw them together last minute and the post processing is affecting them I think.
Thanks so much for playing and for the feedback!
Killed the beast in the forest, got into camp and walked around for a bit before I stopped. Was fun! Really like the atmosphere, feels very nostalgic. The characters and the environment are all very charming. Sound effects and music were solid, nothing sounded too out of place. Footstep sound effects would be nice.
I'll say the dialogue being at the top of the screen with the characters being below it felt a bit off to me. I felt like I couldn't really see what was actually going on while I was reading. It's entirely possible that I'm just retarded though. Also, the opening scene in particular, it wasn't very clear to me during the dialogue that Adol was above me somewhere. I didn't think to look for him after gaining control of the character, but I just assumed he was stuck in the temple with me, so I was confused when I made it out and he was just chillin.
It didn't seem like there was much to the combat. I only really used the dagger but I didn't notice any options to avoid enemy attacks. Right click might have been some sort of parry? But I couldn't tell when enemies were winding up for an attack, so I'm not sure. I mostly just spam clicked.
At some point it got very dark in the overworld and I couldn't see pretty much anything without a torch. Not sure if that's intended or not, but I didn't notice any brightness options.
Didn't encounter a ton of bugs. There were a few points where the music seemed to stop abruptly before starting a different track. When I first walked into the camp there was a guy kind of spazzing out and stuck on a wall, but he fixed himself after I talked to him. I also accidentally stole something and a guard fucked me up, and then I started talking to him while I was down on the ground.
Overall really cool!
Wow you may be the only person who made it through all 5 levels. I honestly wasn't sure anyone would beat 5, and most people seemed to get stuck at 3. Great job!
I agree with you that the levels where you can pick up a lot of speed are the strongest. I want to make more of those. Key rebinding is also on the to do list.
Thanks a lot for playing and for the feedback!
Love this. Super charming top to bottom. Art is great, music is great, puzzles are clever, music and sound effects fit well, tutorial pop-ups are short and sweet. Great game.
Only real problem was that the text did not seem as crisp as the rest of the game when scaled/at fullscreen, slightly hard to read. 3x scale also didn't work for me, just adds big black borders.
I'm terrible at shooters but I had a lot of fun with this. Quick levels, easy restarts, felt good improving my times.
Took me a minute to understand how to even fire. Not sure what the point is of having the safety on, or what "Charge" is. Maybe it's for realism. I don't know anything about guns. Hitting the dummy cut-outs from certain angles was a little difficult because of how flat they are, but maybe that's by design. Would also be nice if your gun reloaded automatically when restarting.
Overall really enjoyed it, nice job!
Beat it once, went back and got both data prisms. Cute game, cute robot. I had fun! The TTS voice did kind of scare me though.
Keyboard controls are definitely fucked, but gamepad felt fine. I like the moveset, although I wish I had more control over the hover. High jump feels good, dive kick feels niche but good when it's needed.
The weighted spike pads could probably be more readable and maybe more forgiving on the timing. When I first encountered them it took me a few tries to figure out what was even killing me since I die before I even see spikes appear.
The bubbles that reset your jump don't reappear until you've died, which was a bummer. I'd find I messed up a jump and float my way back onto land to try again, but the bubbles didn't respawn so I had to kill myself. Maybe have them reappear after touching the ground again, or on a timer.
For the data prism outside, the first long air current on the way to the spike platform basically blocked my whole screen, so I was having to guess on the timing to dive kick onto the platform. Then once you land on the platform you don't really have time to readjust your camera, so I was just blindly jumping into the second air current and hoping I hit it right. Got there eventually but that section was definitely the most frustrating.
Good to know about the dive. Makes more sense, monster hunter dive is great.
Don't think I was pushing the left stick at all. Just tried again without touching it to be sure and got the same result. Could be something with the pad, stick drifting of some kind. Don't have another to test it with though.
Tried first with mouse. Enter on the main menu didn't select anything, but clicking prompted me to start the game even if I had moved down to "options". If I right clicked after that it would take me back to the main menu and I would be able to click to go to options after the fact. Gameplay settings menu was blank.
Couldn't figure out how to equip weapons or items with mouse/keyboard. I tried every button, clicking, dragging, etc in the box menu but no idea what I was supposed to do. Looked at the keybinds in options but still didn't get it, so I ended up just punching things. Enemy weapon animations look nice though, especially the guy with the long spear or whatever it was. Tried dodging around some enemies. Dodge doesn't seem to have invincibility frames, which might be fine. Some of the faster projectiles seem hard to dodge on reaction. Not sure I like the falling down if you dodge while already running, but again I had no weapons so I didn't get a great feel for the combat. I also noticed the player character jitters a lot when moving diagonally.
I tried launching again with my gamepad plugged in (ps4 pad), and got the following error when attempting to hit play in the main menu
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_parent_player:
Variable obj_player_1.left_stick_edge(100595, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_parent_player_Step_0
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_obj_parent_player_Step_0 (line -1)
Seemed like Pokemon straight up. Thought there would be some kind of alternate type-chart for certain units besides just color (ie. a rocket launcher hitting a vehicle). Didn't see much rhyme or reason to the damage. My infantry would take ~15 damage from an opposing infantry only to take ~4 damage from a jeep that's buffed itself up. Ended up just picking all rocket launchers every fight, seemed no reason not to.
The sprites and battle scene do look nice, didn't feel there was much there in the combat.
- First few screens are probably too punishing.
- Having to hit W every time you want to jump was annoying.
- Some screens, if you fail the jump you need to walk back to the start of the screen to climb up some stairs to have the height to try it again. Felt very tedious.
- Hated having to jump up into screens from below.
- Walls were a little too bouncy. I wouldn't mind them so much if I felt I was able to control my momentum a little more.
- Overall fun. I did feel that itch to keep trying even when I fell a bunch, and I felt like I got better and could make previous jumps faster
- Does feel quite derivative of Jump King and the like without much to set it apart