29 replies to this topic

[waywardwonkers]

Hi I just recently joined the forums and I was wondering if their was anyone who is willing to test my WIP game out and give me an honest opinion what you think about the game play so far.
I'm looking for a thorough play through from start to finish, going through the whole game until the "end of demo room". I haven't really seen any glitches as of now save one that appears when opening a chest and attacking at the same time. Any suggestions would be helpful and appreciated. Don't be afraid to critique it, I don't mind negative comments. The game used Zelda sprites and borrows some similar elements, while playing like a poor man's metroidvania game.

Here's the link to the game if your interested:
http://sandbox.yoyog...platformus-demo

The demo is probably about 3-4 minutes long.

[DanRedux]

Not bad.

I found the control very awkward. This game would perfectly suit a GamePad if you could throw that in as an option. As for controls.. I think W for SECONDARY, A for DOORS/CHESTS, D for MAIN, and S for progressing text/dialogue would be better.

Also, there's pretty game-breaking bugs. For example, I managed to get up to infinite HP just by entering/re-entering the second room (where the Bow is found) and grabbing the Heart to the left. Every 4 times I ran left, right, then in/out of a door got me 5 hp.

[waywardwonkers]

Not bad.

I found the control very awkward. This game would perfectly suit a GamePad if you could throw that in as an option. As for controls.. I think W for SECONDARY, A for DOORS/CHESTS, D for MAIN, and S for progressing text/dialogue would be better.

Also, there's pretty game-breaking bugs. For example, I managed to get up to infinite HP just by entering/re-entering the second room (where the Bow is found) and grabbing the Heart to the left. Every 4 times I ran left, right, then in/out of a door got me 5 hp.

Yeah I found that out to, Every object that isn't supposed to re spawn creates a "obj_item_check' that has a create event: "active=room",
At the room start the object checks if the item_check is at it's start position and if it's active=room, if so it destroy's the object.
I think the problem is that it might come to get other item_check's than the one it created as a check if it should destroy itself.
I might be able to fix it by just making the objects persistent and having them deactivate/activate in the appropriate rooms by having a room create event that activates all objects, it should be possible. I'm actually starting the game over to fix the physics and such, (I'm copy+pasting the inventory, damage checks, similar codes).
I'm scrapping gravity for y-related physics which are much easier to monitor than gravity, (I did the same with hspeed) and hoping to make the game code simplified.

[waywardwonkers]

Fixed the problem in the newer engine, turns out that the item_check object kept moving if the previous room was a different size than the current one.

[DanRedux]

Use persistence, much easier- When destroyed or created, they STAY destroyed or created.

[waywardwonkers]

Use persistence, much easier- When destroyed or created, they STAY destroyed or created.

I'll give it a try and see if it works with the coding.

[waywardwonkers]

Use persistence, much easier- When destroyed or created, they STAY destroyed or created.

It doesn't seem to work unless the room is persistent as well, as the room creates the item again, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

[DanRedux]

Maybe you should go right ahead and implement State-Saving. Give every single chest and item an "id", save all those ID's to a "collected stuff" list as you collect them. Then in every room create event, just read the list, destroying the "collected id's"... Because it's a file, if you have the first lines be inventory/hp/level stuff, then you have a flexible Save Game feature.

[waywardwonkers]

Maybe you should go right ahead and implement State-Saving. Give every single chest and item an "id", save all those ID's to a "collected stuff" list as you collect them. Then in every room create event, just read the list, destroying the "collected id's"... Because it's a file, if you have the first lines be inventory/hp/level stuff, then you have a flexible Save Game feature.

I could see that working but I think I finally got the system working properly now so item's shouldn't re spawn anymore.

[waywardwonkers]

So I mentioned that I was restarting the game, I'm almost back to the point where I was before, the differences now is that the game play is much more smooth than before and lag is all but gone (for now). If you've played the demo (The old version that's still up) you know that I have a inventory system. I was getting thoughts of scrapping it and going for the fps hot key method so the player wouldn't have to pause every two seconds, and I could cut down on a lot of variables (In theory).

[waywardwonkers]

So I mentioned that I was restarting the game, I'm almost back to the point where I was before, the differences now is that the game play is much more smooth than before and lag is all but gone (for now). If you've played the demo (The old version that's still up) you know that I have a inventory system. I was getting thoughts of scrapping it and going for the fps hot key method so the player wouldn't have to pause every two seconds, and I could cut down on a lot of variables (In theory).

Ignore this, The idea backfired horribly. Enemies were wiping the floor with the poor guy. I have revamped the inventory system to be much simpler so item transactions should be much faster than last time.

[waywardwonkers]

I've made a new enemy variant that I've uploaded in the sandbox. These enemy types are based off of the "Moldroms" from the Legend of Zelda series. Their segmented. The head creates the first one with a "rank" and segment(Obj id to determine which object it follows), and labels the segment as being owned by the head. The first rank given determines the amount of bodies created with the rank being lowered by one for each creation. For the small one the segments can be attacked and destroyed, destroying all segments that follow it in succession. The Moldrom's health is controlled by the tail (The object with the rank of 0).

Edited by waywardwonkers, 13 January 2012 - 12:14 PM.

[waywardwonkers]

I've modified the game, removing the ability to equip two weapons to A and S to just A. Now A is for standard attacks and S is for special attacks. These attacks will deal much higher damage and have a wider hit area. The only special move as of now is for the sword, it currently costs no mp, as I have to add it to the newer engine. The standard sword attack now has two animations- The standard slash, and a spinning air attack. I haven't thought up the other specials yet, so if you have any ideas you want to throw around feel free. I will credit to anyone who can contribute.

So the specials needed are for:
Arrows, Bombs, and the Boomerang. (The game is heavily Zelda influenced, it uses the sprites and sounds after all)

[TheUltimate]

It's pretty good! The whole thing runs pretty smoothly, the controls feel right, and I like how you put all these random little details into the game. The animations for cutting through leaves and blowing stuff up is awesome.
One thing I'd do it put the dialogue box a little farther down so it's not covering up what you're doing, and to make it more opaque. It was kind of hard to read. I also sometimes get an "Unknown variable spr_swordattack" when I equip stuff and try to use it. Should be easy to fix, though.
Nice work, especially for your first game!

◊ TheUltimate ◊

[waywardwonkers]

It's pretty good! The whole thing runs pretty smoothly, the controls feel right, and I like how you put all these random little details into the game. The animations for cutting through leaves and blowing stuff up is awesome.
One thing I'd do it put the dialogue box a little farther down so it's not covering up what you're doing, and to make it more opaque. It was kind of hard to read. I also sometimes get an "Unknown variable spr_swordattack" when I equip stuff and try to use it. Should be easy to fix, though.
Nice work, especially for your first game!

◊ TheUltimate ◊

Thanks! I fixed the sprite error. I had changed the name of a variable to be more speciffic, and I forgot that I used the same sprite for the other weapon "action_index" i'm using. I plan to make different animations for every weapon and special. I guess I forgot to check the game before submitting it, I had not used the other weapons after the sword update. I'll try to see if I can improve the text box and make it more readable. I pretty much have it set up as [draw_set_color(c_black) draw_text(x+1,y+1,string(message) draw_set_color(c_white) draw_text(x,y,string(message)] to give the text an outline, it's a shame that they don't have any fonts available to do that already. I don't know if I could move it down anymore because the game is set up to have "camera" object that keeps one view trapped in the other. I'll see if I can find a fix for it though.

Edited by waywardwonkers, 14 January 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[waywardwonkers]

Uploaded a new version of the game, the room set up has been changed once again. I've been experimenting with room sizes to try to find one that would be perfect for game play. The current version is set up in a "Dungeon-y" sort of way. Narrow corridors with monsters. I mentioned that the game is going to be a metroidvania type of game and I'm wondering what would be the best room size for such a game. If any one has any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them. Also this setup is chopped up over several rooms, I don't know if it's better to have a small amount of large rooms, or numerous smaller ones. I've noticed that the game file appears to be larger with the multiple rooms and wondering if this could lead to problems down the line. If anyone has a quick go at the current version please let me know what you think, and don't be afraid to give criticism, I'll take anything that can help improve the game for other players.

[waywardwonkers]

You can once again equip two-weapons, one to [A] and [S]. The mp bar has returned and the sword special now requires 5 mp to use. The special can now be activated by holding down [D] while pressing the appropriate action key. I've also added blood effect to the game, the effect isn't intended to remain in the game but a test to see if I could do it. It works by using a 2x2 red pixel that creates 2 more of the same object that move to the left and right giving it a more "realistic" appearance. If your squeamish you should be fine as it's not DOOM or Mortal Kombat blood volcano, but rather a small little burst similar to old N64 games. I probably will use this to create other effects involving liquids.

[waywardwonkers]

New Update-

I've made some slight changes to the control scheme. The keys have been changed: left-a, right-d, up-w, interact/special-s.
The inventory is now opened and closed with q. Mouse position effects the player:
Allowing the player to strafe and aim arrows. Since I'm avoiding the use of vspeed and hspeed, the arrows direction is calculated depending on the difference between it's y position and the mouses y position. The new game play is rather drastic so any opinions on whether it helps the game or not is appreciated.

[waywardwonkers]

The new aiming system didn't work as well as I had hoped, I have fixed the problems though and aiming should be much more accurate than the current version, I'll update the fix later today after I make some new test rooms.

[waywardwonkers]

Updated the new version, The aiming has been improved and now works with the boomerang. The game has 3 test rooms that can be selected: Sword Test, Archery Test, Bomb Test. The test rooms are to demonstrate various puzzles and uses for the titular weapon(s) of the tests. A new enemy has also been added to the mix at the end of the Sword Test. The tests are fairly short, especially the bomb test. You can't die during the tests.