If anyone actually reads this feel free to comment! I’m writing mostly for my own personal train of thought. It’s really cool to have taken part in what is now the BIGGEST LD ever, in terms of number of games submitted.
Feedback
I find it really interesting to get such immediate feedback on a game I produced. At first I felt I’d let my first LD game stand as is and never try too hard for a “post competition” release,” but I think I’m going to be making some changes to it because I like trying to make things more fun. I will try to spend at LEAST as much time playing and rating your games as I do fixing mine up. I really love reading the comments, especially the ones with constructive criticism! I think it’s important to embrace that kind of stuff. Nothing should be taken personally about a game that was thrown together in 48 hours.
Here are some of the things I’ve gotten from LD feedback:
Jumping is not responsive enough – ESPECIALLY wall jumping
I currently have a boolean for canWalljump set to true when you raycast hit a very short distance from the wall. This is very problematic because the player’s visual graphic is not 100% like the actual collision box of the player (which I should probably make a capsule) and even if it was, the window is still too small. I like the precision turning this allows, but I will be implementing a separate longer raycast which allows you to walljump slightly earlier. There are also some physics glitches that occur. I wanted to let the player walljump even a second or two after hitting the wall, but for some reason if they do this the jump is much less powerful.
Color Changing
I am having mixed feedback on the color changing mechanic, and I’m not surprised given the current poor level design. I will try to think of a way to make it more unique/fun. I knew the idea of overlapping objects in different dimensions would be used pretty heavily, and this lack of innovation is showing up as a critique in numerous comments. I think using colors as portals and keeping it more simplistic (simply 2 or 3 color dimensions as opposed to 6) could be better for level design and gameplay, while still allowing for the cool “Whoa the world’s a different color” effect. Combining colors with complex puzzles might be too tedious for effective gameplay, especially in my game where I want the player to be MOVING. With an autorun mechanic, it really makes more sense for my game to be fast and twitchy than it does to have slower paced puzzles. I want color changing to stay, I just don’t like how it’s implemented at all right now.
Autorunning – Mixed reactions
While the comments have been unified in the lack of responsive of jumping, they are divided on the autorun mechanic. Some people praised it’s originality whereas others felt it resulted in unnecessary penalties for failing your jumps. While I do enjoy the semi-original feel to it, I have no interest in PUNISHING people for playing my game. I will be testing out simple A/D and arrow key controls to allow users to switch their direction at will, while leaving the auto-movement mechanic in place. I think this will satisfy both groups and allow for some interesting gameplay/design mechanics to come into play as well.
The level design will definitely need to account for the possibility that the player can just spam both buttons and stay relatively stationary, as I don’t think I’d want to introduce any timer mechanic to limit switching. I’ll have to make sure that really isn’t beneficial. I like the idea of a level where you have to change rapidly and dodge things that can kill you as you move downward between platforms. I think it could be interesting both with and without the ability to change direction midair.
Graphics
The majority of people complimented or were somewhat positive about the graphics, with a few critiques. They can definitely be improved upon, and I dislike how sometimes it is difficult to see the bottoms and sides of platforms. Of course they are nowhere near final (just look at the menu LOL). I think going with 2.5d was the right idea for this type of game.
Music
A lot of people like the music, I personally hate it and will make it better. Also, it won’t reset when you die (someone commented on this, and I agree it shouldn’t happen).
More stuff
– The level design is not ideal. I was fully aware of this, I think all of them were made in the final 4 or so hours of the contest.
– The player shouldn’t be able to break out of levels without automatically respawning. Again, I knew about this but my computer BSOD’d and I ran out of time. Also, if the player does die it shouldn’t be such an abrupt and ugly restart.
– I want to fix the color glitch where you can see the lights at the start. I actually implemented this on purpose due to coding troubles. I won’t bore you with the details. But I’ve already thought of a fix.
Hopefully I can a lot of these implementations done within a week or two so some people play the post-competition version before this LD ends and no one sees my game again.