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Proto-Beat [Development Build]

Proto-beat is a game being developed in devlogs on youtube, builds will be periodically added here. · By SlugGlove

General Comments Sticky

A topic by SlugGlove created May 08, 2021 Views: 706 Replies: 23
Viewing posts 1 to 11
Developer

Any general comments or tips for the game that do not need a dedicated topic can be posted here :)

(1 edit) (+1)

0.01A

Really cool so far, it feels amazing and the direction of the whole project is really sick.

3 things but they're all honestly minimal:
I think for the ledge climbing, the auto jump can be a bit uncontrollable. Maybe there's enough time in the animation to check whether the player is trying to jump? So then you can either climb a ledge like normal or do your current ledge jump-up instead (so two animations). I'm unsure if you're kind of doing this already, holding jump while climbing ledges does a bigger jump. Love the ledge jump though, movement gets really fluid. Just sometimes I want precision too.

The vehicle controls tied with the direction of the camera, I feel like you might want a toggle in a menu for that. Some people might like it but it feels a bit unnatural for me. Doing a 180 turn while keeping the camera the same direction has you also 180 with the joystick/wasd. That's pretty wild, lol. But also I could probably get used to it in time. 

The aim lock-on? Don't really get it. I assume it's not fully setup yet cause it only locks on at certain specific points. Also should have a menu toggle, taking aim from player, some might not like it. 
The aim marker and the actual bullet projection are a bit off (maybe?). But that seems tricky to implement with perfect precision, I've never done it. 
Also probably should go in the bug report section but with mouse and keyboard, the mouse isn't fixed to the center of the screen. Unless it's off by default and can be turned on?

Overall though, this is really awesome. Vehicles are great, the level design is already really cool even though its just a test level, and all the weapons are fun. Great variety! Even though I'm pointing stuff out, please know I really like it so far.

Note: I say toggle instead of fully change because it gives players the chance to compare and give better feedback. I could end up reverting everything I said if I can toggle in between and check. 

Developer(+1)

thanks for the feedback! i agree with the ledge climbing being a little hard to get right so i will be changing how it is performed in future updates :)

as for the vehicle controls, i have them setup as look to steer controls in the same way the player does, but i will most likely add an option to toggle different control schemes. 

and there is no lock on system? so i am unsure what you are meaning there :? if you are talking about the aim reticle positioning on enemies when you are close, that is just the  game calculating any collision or objects blocking the regular aiming

(+2)

Sounds awesome!

Ah, the block system makes a lot of sense! Sorry I completely misunderstood it. It actually makes perfect sense now. For weeks while watching the devlogs I thought it was a full on lock-on. I really like that now that I understand it lol.

(+2)

The game's pretty fun. I guess my feedback is more about my observations than anything else, as they're not exactly negatives, just things that I've noted. I've played the browser version using an Xbox One controller.

- Walking under the umbrellas makes the camera skip close to the player. This is a type of object that doesn't really matter whether or not it's occluding the player.

- The movement felt pretty good, but the actual walking felt kinda slow, I found myself sliding and jumping more than actually walking. Which is something I don't mind actually.

- Most of the time I spent on the bike I was sideways on the floor lol, maybe I'm just not really used to the controls yet.

- Are you manually defining ledges? I found a few that I feel I should have been able to climb on, but the character just wouldn't.

- I never quite understood what I had to do to pick up weapons, I was pressing the pickup button but it wasn't working, then I thought I had to aim at the gun before pressing the pickup button, and that worked sometimes, but sometimes it still didn't.

- And a last and even more personal observation, but I feel like the jump should be higher, maybe just high enough for me to reach the umbrellas from ground level.

Overall though, congrats on the game, it's shaping up quite well, and I'm excited to see where you go from here.

Developer

thanks for the feedback! :)

some camera clipping is bugged and will definitely be fixed!

i will be added a more dedicated momentum and speed transfer system to make the player move at a faster rate overall

the bike is made to be easy to tip over :P (i thought this was funny but i may change it to be more stable)

the ledge checks and wall jumps are bugged, i will be overhauling and making a more dedicated and hopefully fun system for these next week :)

weapon pickups are done by looking at a weapon and pressing the input button, this was not clearly explained and also not generous enough, so i will add a UI display for this as well as making it easier to perform 

jump height will be increased slightly :P

thanks again! the feedback helps alot 

(+1)

Hey there! Stoked I finally got to put some time into this, I really like what you've got so far, that being skeleton of the game. There's just a great general energy to it, especially when I managed to enter the Jeep or ride the Moped, they both have such cute and lively animations that give them more personality than you'd expect from a vehicle, especially the Jeep! The weapons so far were also fun to use, nice little variety and the purple one being a sort of poison grenade launcher was certainly a surprise. Also just wanted to put focus on the general art style so far, while the player character and vehicles are the most detailed, I can still get a great feel for what the final game could look like with the use of colours and shading which to me speaks to you having a strong understanding of what you want the art style to be but you're also still prioritising getting the mechanics done first, which is always awesome to see this early on and in games development in general, stuff like that got drilled into me in my Games Art class at University.

Obviously with this being a beta there are some elements that stood out, things that I won't call errors or issues because they might be intended and I don't want to make assumptions but in no particular order here's what stood out;
- The position of the camera or the reticule seems quite important to several aspects so far, I was unable to ride the Moped if I wasn't looking directly at it, despite being stood right next to it or even on top of it, I tested out looking around it, over it and directly up at the time and 8/10 times I couldn't ride until I aimed directly at it with the reticule, the Jeep had a similar situation but I think owing to its larger size it wasn't as difficult. This was also something I experienced with the weapons, some I couldn't seem to pick up at all, even if looking directly at them also.

- Being unable to clamber ledges, I wasn't sure if you wanted wall jumping or swinging on poles to be the preferred method of getting up on to things but if not I would really like to see ledge clambering implemented, just being able to jump towards a ledge or edge and if close enough, being able to grab it and pull myself up. That or perhaps a higher jump but again this is only if the aforementioned methods of traversal aren't the intended progression tool.
The white cubes on the floor trigger the little tutorial pop ups correct? If so they stopped working after 15 minutes of playtime, I'm not sure if it was because of how long I was playing, the amount of times I activated them or I just happened to glitch them but I felt it worth bringing it.
Movement is slow, the running speed could be faster but my real comment is on the initial movement speed, I'm not sure how best to describe it but roughly, the time it takes from me pushing forward on the analog stick to my devil actually running felt a little sluggish.

- Swinging on a pole I had a few thoughts on but I know this was newly implemented before the release of this prototype so I really wanted to stress that I understand it's likely the most problematic aspect. Specifically I noticed you can't flip around which way you're swinging, so if I jump to a pole and begin swinging but I'm facing the wrong way, I can't hit a button or move a stick to flip/twist/twirl/twerk my way to the correct way, meaning I have to let go and try again, just kinda breaks the flow and if you weren't in a position to let go, say because it'd kill or hurt you, I could see it being frustrating. There was also the swinging itself as a whole in that the momentum and the direction in which you swung seemed to rely on the where you were looking with the reticule upon swinging off the poles, something I honestly had some trouble with for awhile, I'd jump expecting to straight forward but instead I'd directly to my right or I'd be trying to aim high to get onto a building but instead I'd just have a small bunny hop of a jump to the floor. Could be that I'm just too accustomed to how its done in most games, with a set arc and distance and you can only jump in the direction you're character is facing (so no reticule or camera dictation involved, sorry if this sounds odd, I rewrote it a few things and I just couldn't get it to sound how I meant)

That's all! I'm really sorry if you (or anyone else for that matter) read all that, I tend to ramble when I enjoy something and wanna talk about it, which is the case for this game, so I just wanted to give honest praise but also honest critique and comments. Stoked to see what's in the next build!
P.S - This is how my devil sat whenever I used the Jeep, dunno if this always happy but I'd like to petition for it to be permanent



Developer

Thanks for feedback! :)

the interact checks are based on camera view, however i will be making these more generous and also adding a ui prompt so you know when you can interact with an object

ledge grabs and wall jumps are i agree too tricky to perform! so i will be updating these 

movement will be having a more dedicated momentum system, while the base run speed will stay the same there will be more ways to build speed past this amount and keep the player moving faster :)

the swinging itself is based on your angle or rotation for when you stop swinging, it is more of a fast quick style of movement and in gameplay i do not see many level designs requiring it (other than a fun addition to a level) however if used more i will definitely add a way to turn or alter your spin!


ha! the truck is unfinished, i just included it like that as a joke :P

(+1)

Awesome! That's everything I mentioned addressed so I'm now even more fired up for the next build

(+1)

A good start for sure! But as promised, there was definitely some jank in there! I think i got a bit wordy with this post, i hope that's alright haha

The first thing would just be the immediate movement- it feels like the character kind of struggles to start moving from a standstill. I was a little more used to it by the time i finished, but I can't shake that first feeling. I know needing a little acceleration is normal, but it seems a bit overdone here.
As well, i'm not sure what purpose the "skid" state serves. In Mario it lets you access your sideflip move, and in Sonic it lets you come to a screeching halt from top speed, but in this game it seems to serve no purpose but to lock me out of shooting and jumping, and I can turn around faster just by swinging the stick around. If it was just there as a flavor animation that'd be fine, but with it's current implementation i'm a bit confused.

I'm not sure if you're looking for feedback on the animations themselves so I'll hold off on that- but the uh, placement? of the walljump seems off. The player seems to snap to an entirely different height/position to the wall once you initiate the wall jump, making the whole thing feel off. I will say though that i otherwise do enjoy the feeling of the walljump, the slight stick before you launch is nice! and i like doing diagonal walljumps forward.

I also found myself doing walljumps when i was trying to grab the ledge fairly often. Most games just require you to hold into the ledge to climb it, and I can definitely get wanting to have it on a button instead. But- i'm not sure having the button and activation case be so close to wall jumping is a good idea.

This ones a little more nitpicky perhaps, but with the umbrellas i think it should be very clear that you can't jump onto them if you dont come from above. It really feels like you can just almost get on them, but you can't. So that is to say, i'd just make them a bit taller, or perhaps more straightly opened? That or just let you jump on from them from the floor, lol. I would also say to just make the collider for the spring just a bit wider, sometimes when coming from above if im just on the edge it still wouldn't register a bounce.


As for the guns, there's a couple of things that seems off. I definitely want to be able to pick up a new one just by standing over it and pressing the button, having to aim at it is very clunky. The guns should probably not have collision with players and impede movement while they're on the ground like that either.

The biggest thing though, is every gun seems to have at least a half second or so of delay between pressing the shoot button and actually firing? Makes sense with a few guns, like the minigun of course, but it even seems to be the case with the basic handgun. Very strange. The bullet arcs also consistently are much lower than i expect them to be. Compared to say, Splatoon, where the inky bullets do at least reach the height of the reticle before falling down.The actual feeling of hitting things is good though!

I'll cap it off there- i do hope i didn't get too negative, there's definitely a lot of promise! Getting all the systems in and working is super cool, just needs some polish! Super important to get the game feel down pat early on with these types of projects, i think.

Developer

thanks for the feedback! the movement will have some tweaks to handle momentum better in the future
the slide right now is mostly just a fun movement option, but i have plans to add a slide to jump feature (also you can slide and fire weapons :? )

the wall jumps i agree are very janky, especially with the aniamtions, i will be fixing that in the next update
same with the ledge grabs! these will have a more dedicated movement system to work with and will hopefully be more fluid to control

right now alot of weapons stats are in the debug stages, but i will definitely make them fire closer to player inputs!

Thanks again! detailed feedback is always useful to get! :)

(+1)

Looking forward to the updates then! Best of luck!!

Also, my comments about the skid thing wasn't in reference towards the slide move, i actually like how that feels just fine! It's quick and responsive, and jumping out of it is fun.

I'm talking about the "turnaround" state, i suppose, when you immediately switch directions while running and it locks you into an animation while you change direction- that's the thing that was throwing me off.

(+1)

Noice :)

(+1)

Awesome stuff so far, I ended up making a quick lil first impressions video thing for feedback, a few things I don't really cover in it and the video's kinda just thrown out there but hopefully you get some use from it

https://youtu.be/bsPOuPmZEvo

Developer(+1)

excellent video! happy to see you enjoyed the game :)

(+1)

0.01B

I liked the old vaulting but this feels even more awesome! Really nice design changes.

For the ledge holding, you have to press space to climb up. Pressing forward has you move along the ledge towards the direction you're facing. This felt a bit weird to me. I think it might be worth trying to have pressing forward (after a delay) have the player climb up. Pressing space can then allow for the player to do the old vault if they're jumping forward, or do the usual wall jump for any other direction, as seen with the wall hold.  But! I can understood if you want to move on from this whole ledge movement thing and come back to it later seeing as how you already revamped it so much.

Secondly, the gun reticle is from what I can tell a bit off. Here's a picture using the default gun you start off with.


I drew a red line of where the line of fire actually goes. It goes to the lower left of the reticle. Is this intended? If you shoot the open air, it never actually reaches the reticle. The guns feel greater otherwise, just the guns need to shoot a little higher to the right or the reticle needs to be not the center of the screen.

That's really it, and these points are minimal compared to the last build. Overall really liking it, I can tell you can make it into a very smoother shooter with the groundwork you have now. Good job!

Developer(+1)

Happy to hear you enjoy the build :)

great tip for the ledge controls! i think having an input of direction pull you up would work well

the reason for the aim being off is that bullets drop, so often that has to be taken into account on the aiming, the only option for this is moving and lowering the aim retical for each gun depending on there range and drop off, which may come in a future update :) depending on where i go with combat and weaponry 

Yeah the drop off makes sense. I'm trying to remember how Splatoon handles this with their paint fall off, don't have the game on me currently so I watched this video, it seems like the reticle is just for the paints trajectory before it begins to dip? Not fully sure. Also notably Splatoon has an outer reticle which shows the spray of the weapon, you're probably already were aware of those though.

Also I forgot something! This is a very jumpy game but the jump is set to the same height no matter how long you hold down the jump button. You can't do a little jump onto the rail, you have to do a big jump and land on it. Jump hold time converting to jump height for the first half second might allow for better movement. Along with that, the control you have in the air while falling is there from what I can tell but it's not really sensitive enough to allow precision. I'm testing this by using those long rails in the back street. Jumping from left rail to right rail, its easy to jump over the rail since the player can't create the jump height. And when you're falling towards the rail, the fall movement isn't fast enough to get you on.
I understand if you don't want to do the fall movement speed raise though as I think it would technically allow players to fall in a zigzag motion which would look weird. But jumping and falling is a big part of the game so maybe worth it? Up to you this one.

Developer

actually there is jump holding! but i think i have made it far too subtle to notice :P i have changed that now so it is more controllable

the gameplay itself is fun AF it nice messing around with the ability , I feel like the player acceleration might take bit to long to start running it kinda give me anxiety XDD  and make it feel like running is useless when you can do the slides or jump, I mean you might wanted to take it this way but just saying.
The side wall run might be a little buggy sometimes. the player  wasn't able to "decide" which direction to go(im impressed tho,  from the way it works as you explained in the video although the complexity sounds pretty high (I learned computer science for few years, its my first few monthes on unity so Im not quit sure) but it sounds good and still it works smooth so I think it shouldnt bother you much).
you said you hate fixing the ledge grab (I also hate it in my game tho XDDD) but it also a bit buggy the player teleported higher few time, and once i messed around really bad with the - slide ,jump , ledge grab and wall slide  and the player had suddenly entered the holding edge state and preformed the climb animation and end up in the idle animation in the air. the input might was laggy or maybe you make the animation transition according to the input and not to the actual player state (you might using crossfade animation when key pressed insted of using a parameter to switch or switching to the animation while the player is already in the climb state).
ohh and last thing the car on the roof was little buggy to I had you exit and enter few time until it was able to move.. didnt check it too much tho..
ok it long enough XD but here is the conclusion XDD:
so the demo was very fun I might added like idk double jump/air dash or little air dive when you press the O butten on ps controller or something that will accelerate while youre in the air I think it will be little more fun!,
when you wall slide and preform a jump, I fell like you need to have more control over it for how far you want to jump from the wall (maybe for the regular jump too)
mmm and I think thats it!
you done great job!!

Developer

thanks! i agree the wall and ledge states currently are still a work in progress so i hope to have them fixed soon :)

animations are controlled with states but do need some updating and work done

(+1)

Hope to see It fix soon,
P.S I take a big inspiration from your tutorials and explanations , it's really help me get better with unity and game dev! so thx I  appreciate your work!!!!

soooooooo funny god gun

(2 edits)

Can you give the guy some pants? They're literally walking around BUTT-NAKED IN THE NUDE.