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Hey guys I'm new to the community and I've been using game maker for a few months. I want to get some feedback on the game I'm developing called "RAM" or Random Adventure Machine. I've been working on it for almost two months. I've done all the art, music, sound fx, and programming. Its a work in progress and naturally there are a few bugs.

-Randomly generated caves and forests
-Destructible environments
-There are 9-10 different enemies so far each with different ai
-2 boss monsters that spawn at random
-Temporary damage and speed power-ups
-Stamina system for fighting
-Each level has a max stamina and max health increase until your health and stamina reach 30
-Sword attack,Running,Ram attack,healing, and guarding/countering skills


When you get in the game press 'F1' for instructions and tactics.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qky6as5xpcg6rsl (http://www.mediafire.com/?qky6as5xpcg6rsl)-Download Link

seasonsart.tumblr.com (http://seasonsart.tumblr.com)-My game dev/music site

I would like some feedback on how I can optimize the gameplay so it feels as natural and fluid as possible. I'm not looking for any creative direction.

Thanks and enjoy!

I like the art and the "fog of war" effect.

There wasn't enough notification for me that I had successfully healed myself. I kept having to look up to see how much health I have after I would try and heal.

Sometimes when I would enter I would have 3 enemies right behind me almost already attacking and other times I'd have some time to get acquainted with my surrounding. I think it would be better to have it so there's some area around the spawn point where enemies won't be waiting. This would make a more consistent experience and make it so the first time you play you don't teleport and die within a couple of seconds.

Also I felt pretty weak. I died pretty quickly and found it difficult to kill even a few enemies without dying. It's hard to get into a game like that for somebody casually playing, maybe decrease the damage you take or give the player more health or give the player some 'warmup' enemies so at least I feel like I accomplished something.

Keep up the good work.

It's a cool concept and the graphical style, the music, and the variation in enemies are nice, but it's all ruined by how horrible the combat is.

Long criticism short: Increase the range of the sword, increase the damage, decrease the attack speed. As it is, it's just button mashing while praying that the enemy doesn't take away more than 5 points of your health in one go. You just can't successfully manouver yourself in such a way that you can hit an enemy while not getting hurt yourself. Guard either requires too much reflex or is too confusing to be useful.

Oh, and use actual collision detection (see if there's a block where you're going and don't go there if there is) rather than bumping into wall.

Thank you Cesque and squerl for your time and feedback. I really appreciate it. You  understand how encouraging it is to get some response for something you've poured alot of time and energy into...

I'll definitely work on what both of you brought up. I got so used to the controls, hitboxes, combat and starting point from testing it myself, that I forgot to put myself in the casual player's shoes. Lesson learned. If you guys ever need feedback for a project, please let me return the favor! Really, send me a pm.  :handthumbsupR:

I'll update after I iron these issues out. Peace and thanks again fellas.

-Todd

I started the game and couldn't seem to attack the enemy. I managed to hit it a few times, but then it went into the wall. I think.

sometimes the dungeon generatd is impossible
i dont get how to attack anyon its not hitting them!!!
the gfx seem nice tho idk about that default gm hi score thing

I like the graphical style, but agree with the others it seems a bit 'fiddly' trying to attack the enemies - the hacking is lacking.  It also seemed to generate a dungeon that it was impossible to get through, unless there is some 'search for secret passage' thing - in which case it should be mentioned somewhere!

The destructible terrain is fun and fighting enemies is ok until you realize you can just run though them all. Combat could also use a bit of tune up as enemies attack a bit too fast to counter, except for archers, or the attacks simply aren't visible enough. After upgrading my stats to 30, there wasn't any more to collect and even less reason to explore. I guess my main issue would be how needless it is to fight enemies when you can run and ram past them.

Definitely fun when you spawn next to a blast cavern and have to make a run for the stairs to avoid death.

- I'm not sure what you mean by not being able to attack the enemy but concerning them going into a wall, the enemy/wall collisions definitely need some work.


-If you are talking about being shut in by cave walls, try using your ram attack 'D' and you use the 'A' button for a sword attack. I need to increase the range of the swords hit box. There is a minimum attack distance also that I'd like to resolve.

-I will try to slow the enemy attack rate. There are no secret passages(that I'd like to reveal  :)). Just use you ram attack and bash through those pesky cave walls like saltines.


-Yeah, I'm searching for some alternative incentive to kill monsters besides leveling up. With this project I was going for more of an arcade experience. I'll take this into account for sure. I think "pacing" may be the technical term? @Blast caverns - Those things still suprise me when I'm testing haha. I wanted to add tension when the player chose to destroy a cave wall, i.e., cave worms and blasts.

To try and sum up what I've gathered from all you guys:

-Incentive to kill monsters
-Slow the combat down(easier to counter)
-Improve collisions(enemy/wall && sword/enemy)
-Extend sword range and effectiveness(more hack)

Thank you all for trying out my game and the compliments/criticisms. Gives me hope for escaping the office someday  ;)

-Todd

seems like every one covered most every thing

but I didn't see anyone address the HUD. often it blended in with the background and I couldn't read it.

I really loved the idea! Are you still continuing it?

Thanks antymattar, but This was my first attempt at making a game so I'm afraid to go back and sort through all the messy code. Maybe I'll make a spiritual sequel in the future. In the meantime, let's play some KAG  ;)

Pros:
+ music
+ pixelart
+ procedurally generated content
+ it's not a platformer/shmup like 90% of all the indie games
+ bumping in the corner of a wall slides you and you can navigate more easily

Cons:
- level generator could use some tweaking
- collision detection is a bit annoying
- I saw a few puddles disappearing
- sword range is too short


For the nicest tile based collision detection search on google for an article on how zelda games solve this problem. It's really interesting to see that the sliding off walls when bumping was in the first Zelda game to ease movement and many many games today lack it.

I liked the graphical style and the overall concept (same as the previous post really).

* Running tires you out, even if you aren't moving (pressing S without pressing an arrow).
* As someone said, the GUI is indistinct, being white on top of light grey fog. Needs to be black or have an outline/shadow to stand out a bit more on top of the fog.
* I'd prefer a stamina bar (or similar) to a number. You could colour or otherwise mark it based on the current action (for example, green if you are healing or blue if you are blocking; I'm old enough to forget my current state continually; the defend/heal icon being more distinct might have made a difference though).
* Stamina bar also didn't seem to go down linearly (it would go 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, etc when I held down S), so I couldn't quite work out how it was working. I think it is because it goes up 2 each time on a different schedule than it goes down which can get out of sync.
* I found the fogging not bad, but I wasn't keen on it for the same reason I didn't like the old lighting in Minecraft (just because you use lo-res textures doesn't mean your lighting has to be per-block rather than even per-pixel). Even just reducing the lighting block size to half or quarter the size of the tiles would help a lot, I think (and this from someone who makes games that are at least as pixelated as yours).
* Dashing didn't always work and I wasn't sure why.

Thanks madflame and Spooner for the great cc. It was funny seeing this bumped. I'm busy finishing up another project but it'll really help when I revisit this concept.  :)

Well, we all leave projects behind. I just gave feedback on this one because it was interesting enough to download and play, so I thought I might as well. Just realised you were the Despot guy (Loved the style of the art, but wasn't too keen on gameplay, though it is always better to invent than copy badly). Doppler looks interesting; hope it goes well!

Align character to an 8x8 (or 16x16) subgrid upon starting a motion. So naturally, upon "make" or pressing the directional button, but allow pixel-precise moving and stopping.