Moin Ludumdare folks!

This post will mainly concentrate on the design/art/programming aspects of the game Formorph (my LD35 Entry). I am going to be working on this game even more, because I really like it. Its really small and can be improved really fast (Also I already have your feedback for it xD). This post is also a little side-note to myself, in case I come offtrack :P.

(Just for the understanding)

Firstly things I don’t like:

• The music: It is really repetitive and annoying at points. I tried to add the same music with different instruments into the level. But the synchronization did not work.
  In case someone has a better solution than this:
  soundSource1.timesamples = soundSource2.timesamples;
  please call me up!
• Movement: The Player stutters when moving left/right. This happens because of the PlayerController influences the XVelocity directly while the none slidy ground slows the player down each calculation step. Also the smaller Player should move faster than the bigger one 😛
• Shapeshifting: I hope no one noticed that, but when you shift, your character can clip through the ground and walls , because I just simply increased the size of the player. (In the “airlevel” it is most noticeable, because it kills you at some points )
• Dead bodies: I think I introduced this mechanic pretty well and most people liked it, but sometimes your bodies just blocked your way. Also you don’t particular shapeshift very often, which leads to “no practice in shifting”, and you need to be good at it for the last parts of the level.
• Wind: simply just has to be redone xD…
• Performance: Each Lava/water/air block has its own Soundsource which leads to unneeded lag, also the Level is to big and does not allow any fast fine tuning.

Secondly things you didn’t like:

• Leveldesign: Most of the players did not pass the last parts of the level. Probably because the skill curve suddenly rises in the last parts of the level. Also when jumping up the “airlevel”, it is possible to jump to the beginning of the level which isn’t really fun :P… Also, some players did not pass the “Lavalevel”, which was just simply unfair for someone who plays the game for the first time
• “Controls are a bit too lose (jumping especially)”: Jumping is a bit unfair because you can’t really control the jump height, also moving left and right takes to much time…
• Physics feedback: When you come into a zone with air you don’t know where the wind is coming from and where it is pushing you just by the visuals.
• Art style: I chose a “Minimalistic art style”, so I don’t have to do the art in the compo xD… Also that’s the reason why I asked a friend to do some art for me (and I already have some sketches), I hope they will improve the game visually and improve the “feeling” of the game :P…
• “At first I didn’t get what was going on, but…”: That might be good or bad… Maybe there is an information overload at the beginning of the level with the loud music, ringing of the checkpoints and their clustering of the screen, to the left you can see parts of the more complicated levels and you are jumping down… that might be to much… Let’s see xD…
• “didn’t want to go through the […] again”: I hoped I could make a Level which makes you want to do the level again with your newly learned skills. (just like Braid from Jonathan Blow)…

BEFORE improving or changing anything, it is probably important to concentrate on the key-aspects of the game, which were welcomed really well by you:

• “Corpse stay” mechanic: I hope (even though most probably did not play around with it a lot, because most of it was closed of by harder levels) I can put more shapeshifting into the game, because just staying big is a reliable tactic, which I don’t like, because it is lazy and monotone(?).
• Music and sound effects: For one I had to change the color theme of the game to fit the music, because I am bad at making music and this was the best I could come up with :P. Also the auditory cues seemed to help a little bit “indicating how the level works” (Lava/Water/Wind sounds)
• “Fun completing challenges”: Hopefully I don’t miss anything, but it probably works because of the “fair” placement of the checkpoints… (in case I try to make a level harder just by putting down less checkpoints in the future)
• “Intuitive”: The game only needs a four button control (left/right/jump/shift). Also the “tutorial”-level teaches the player without using any words. The water is also a factor of that, get small to sink and big to float, this makes the player feel “smart” when solving the first water obstacle and it burns better into their memory :P. Also  you don’t have to do much at the same time and have a little reflection time at the end of each challenge, especially at the beginning, which helps the pacing of the game.
• Simple: As the controls the game design is very simple and “solid”, but this simplistic design creates an enormous amount of depth in terms of gameplay and Leveldesign 😛
• “adaptation to the environment”: I wanted the player to get used to the new environment and I think it worked xD

Now to the improvements:

1. Shapeshifting: Make the shifting better and don’t let the player clip through the floor (, before physics fixes it).
2. Killing: I will probably make another lava type which lets the player evaporate on contact, so the dead bodies don’t just obstruct the paths.
3. Movement: Make the floor more slippery :P, also make the jumpheight controllable. Also play around with the movement a bit more
4. Small Player: Make him faster 😛
5. Art: Implement the art and add some cute animations 😛
6. Air/Wind: I will add a particle effect which shows you the direction/speed/intensity of the wind
7. Leveldesign: Add a Levelloader and remove the SoundSources from each block.
8. Music&Sound: More music and for each “type” of level a different one. Also I will try to synchronize the music again. (When jumping/dying/reaching a check point the sound should be played with a different pitch

With that I hope I can keep the “feel” of the game while improving it. Also I hope that I could help someone else with this post, I don’t know how… But I hope that at least the Links help xD…

PS: Formorph is made in Germany 😛