Maze by sillyman987
Get to the yellow block without dying. Use the arrow keys to move and get the coins while dodging the lava. Please rate and enjoy!
| HTML5 (web) | https://www.scirra.com/arcade/action-games/maze-36750 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/maze |
Ratings
| Overall | 1036th | 2.211⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1039th | 1.895⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1039th | 1.947⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1025th | 1.974⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 575th | 2.763⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 868th | 1.583⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 974th | 2.139⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 1🗨️ |
I take it this is your first time doing something like this, is that correct? If so, please, don't feel bad. I know that time constraints together with inexperience means that the game won't be good. Advice for future game development: first try to find something that you could be doing for a long time (you can choose what that means; for example hours or just 20 minutes) and try to implement this. There is for example game that you just need to rotate yourself and shoot. It can be fun. Walking isn't really fun, because it lack feedback. Shooting is more fun, because you see the effects on your actions on screen, usually in animations and so on.
Hopefully you'll find this feedback constructive and helpful. I wanted to point out all the things that are important so you can learn from it. I hope you won't give up on making games just because of some negative feedback such as mine; everyone makes bad games at the beginning and you, frankly, did a little better, because your game *works* ;) I'm looking forward to see your games in the future.
I read that this is your first LD with us. Don't give up boy - sometimes it happens. Next time, try to check your project before posting it. Find one/two testers on different OS, just to try your game. I will be happy helping you next time - you can use twetter to contact me (@geckoo1337). I wish you best. Bye ++
Also, as Mr. Anonymous said, your hitboxes are messed up. The camera angle is tilted since you can see the character's body, not just his head and shoulders. Because of this, his hitbox should be only on his feet. For example, [our submission](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/altar-1) for Ludum Dare 43 has the same camera angle as yours, but the hitbox is only on the feet since those are the only part of the character's body that is touching the ground.
Another improvement you could make is slowing down the player when they go into the lava and giving some kind of auditory/visual feedback for that happening. Same with picking up the coin.
My final suggestion is replacing **Health: 5** with :heart::heart::heart::heart::heart: or a simple health bar. A simple numeral doesn't give the player much of an idea of how much health they have, which is made worse when you consider the fact that there is no sound effect for taking damage.
However, don't let these things discourage you from making games for Ludum Dare! I understand that this is your first jam, and in Ludum Dare 42 I was in the same position. If you can, try to set aside at least 6 hours a day during the jam. It is really difficult to get a satisfying end product otherwise unless you are an absolute wizard.
Good luck on future projects, can't wait to see your entry for Ludum Dare 44!
If there was any one thing I'd do differently, it's that I would use a different, less obscure game engine next time. Engines such as Game Maker, RPG Maker, Unity, and Unreal are a bit trickier to learn, but they also have a much larger online community of people willing to answer questions and help out. The [r/unity3d](https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/) subreddit is a huge community, so despite larger engines like Unity being trickier to learn, it's also easier to find answers to things when you get stuck.
Additionally, you'll want to make sure you leave extra time for testing and packaging your game. Firefox does not appear to run Maze at all (you just get a white screen), and Internet Explorer runs it, but without music. A few test builds while you're making your game go a long way to making sure your game is playable once it's time to release. When you're finished with the game, you're only 75% of the way done. The other 25% is testing, getting your friends to test it, fixing bugs, etc.
Many of the games people do during LD are similar enough to other games, or have similar game mechanics with some creative deviations. Your game is no exception, and that's not a bad thing. However, for each game mechanic that you borrow from another game, you'll want to find your favorite implementation of that mechanic in an existing game, and try to recreate it. Take, for instance, your character's movement. He seems to have an acceleration and deceleration when you move him. That causes him to slide all over the place and makes it difficult to avoid the lava. There are plenty of GameBoy games where you navigate pits and lava with an overhead 2D character (the 2D Zelda games come to mind). I would have mimicked their controls, which are a lot tighter and leave no room for sliding. In turn, that would have allowed you to make more complex challenges with the lava, since you're no longer forced to place lava so sparsely to account for the character sliding.
Also, pay special attention to your UI. Starting with level 2, the "Level 2" text at the top stays at the top and scrolls off-screen when you move. Additionally, the black text is very tiny and difficult to read with such a busy background. Surrounding the text with a white bubble would have gone a long way towards improving the quality of the UI.
As for the stuff like level design, graphics, and animation, it would be unfair to critique as this is your first game, but again I highly recommend picking an existing game's art style and doing your best to mimic that. Usually before a Ludum Dare me and my team sit down and make a design document detailing the style we're going for and the art assets that are going to be needed to get the bare minimum of level functionality working. The theme doesn't get announced until Ludum Dare starts, but you can still pick a style and general concept of a game ahead of time.
Hope this helps man and welcome to Ludum Dare. Congrats on your first entry!
PS:No offence taken either. :)
These were the major issues that I noticed. If you are looking to further hone your game dev skills, why not try joining more jams, there is at least one every day on itch.io: https://itch.io/jams. Best thing to do when learning is to use every opportunity you get to hone your skills! The music was rather nice however, and the player sprite was well made. Not sure if that was an asset, but at a beginner level, don't be afraid to use assets to improve your game (just credit it of course). Keep developing, and hope this feedback helps. :thumbsup: