I gave the "Level Progress" build a try. It runs very well. I don't think I had any huge issues.

I did have some small and medium-sized ones, though:

-The camera lags behind a lot. If it were just a bit faster, it'd probably be fine.

-Releasing the jump button early causes upward velocity to get instantly set to zero, which looks really unrealistic/jerky to me. I recommend cutting upward velocity in half instead, so that the character still takes a moment to change direction.

-The way the yellow blocks are handled doesn't seem ideal. I was able to force a pushable block down through them by just pressing "Down" while the block was sitting on them. I would've expected to just move up and down through them without them needing to open up.

-The yellow blocks also seem to react to the "Down" key no matter if I'm above or below them. I would've expected them to only react if I'm standing directly on top of them.

-If you're not going fast enough, the side of a switch can block your movement.

-It looks strange that I push blocks without quite being in contact with them.

-Sometimes, if I try to switch directions, I end up sliding in the original direction until I hit something and only then do I switch direction. This happened multiple times, and in both left and right directions.


Is there a way to end the first level? I got into the blue area, but wasn't sure if I could actually do anything.

Anyway, it's a decent start. It works quite well and, even with the slow camera, feels fairly good.

I don't see what the gameplay has to do with the story or that image you posted. The image actually had me hoping for something fairly unique. Some sort of adventure game set in an alien bar or something. Oh well.

The game itself isn't too bad. I really hate the limited bullets, though. It seemed like even if I aimed perfectly at every ship, there were some that I had to let through because I couldn't fire. That was a really irritating sometimes.

At one point, the planet blew up. I have no idea why. I was fine and the alcohol level was fine, as far as I know, so what causes planets to explode?

My life counter said "V" for a while. What does that mean?

Enemies and asteroids spawn in-view instead of off-screen.

I like the general look of the character art, except that it's so incredibly pixelated and doesn't fit in with the rest of the game. The dialogue might be better if placed closer to the image in some way, because the two things don't seem connected.

I get a LOT of slowdown when I lose my last life and there are tons of particles flying around. The timer keeps going (for some reason), so it didn't seem like purposeful slow-mo.

The store/upgrade button doesn't really stand out as such. I didn't even notice it until at least my fifth playthrough when I was wondering what the money I was collecting was for.

I really like that asteroids can be used to destroy enemies. That's probably my favourite thing about the game. The music is pretty decent too.

It's very strange to have a scrolling shooter that's so slow-paced and involves so much waiting (for more bullets). I don't personally enjoy it and I have to wonder how big the audience is for this sort of thing. The slow pace could be for people who aren't able to do well in other scrolling shooters, except that it's not particularly easy either. Who do you think is your target audience?


Bug? If I died and the menu pops up, I can press Pause to pause the background, and then press it again to make the menu disappear. The menu should probably disappear the first time, or the button should not be available after death.

Bug: If I press escape during gameplay, a window pops up that always says "Victory" (I don't actually unlock the next level, though). I can also press the menu/pause button while that window is there and have both windows overlap.

Well, I tried it. The initial cutscene didn't feel like a cutscene (maybe because it was too slow or started too late) so for a short time I thought the keys weren't working.

Then I started, grabbed a shiny thing and exploded. I respawned, grabbed a shiny thing and exploded. I respawned, moved and exploded. I respawned again, moved and exploded. I respawned, pressed X, made something appear, moved toward it and exploded.

I thought maybe I had an energy bar somewhere that I was "overheating" or something, but I didn't notice that anywhere. After exploding a few more times, I quit. It's an intriguing game that I'd like to play more of, but without any indication of why I'm exploding or how to avoid it, it's not an enjoyable experience. Just a tiny bit of info about that one thing could potentially make a huge difference.

Maybe that's part of the puzzle, but apart from using my "weapon" to find an object in the world, I didn't get any feedback on what I was doing right or wrong let alone how to actually play. It's difficult to enjoy solving a puzzle when you don't know what the puzzle is, or if you're even experiencing part of the puzzle yet.

Ah. I got the feeling it might be a class project. If you do develop a new version of the game, using what you learned from this one, I'll be interested to try it out.


Edit: Actually, if you do make a new game maybe you should consider using the "issue" I mentioned about blocks getting stuck in the ground. You could have them rise out of the ground and use that effect in puzzles where you have to get a block to a location you can't reach with a throw. Just a thought.

It worked fine for me in Windows 7 64-bit.

I out it strange that a gamepad was strongly recommended, but it doesn't use the left stick for movement. I don't really like using a 360 controller's d-pad.

Thoughts and observations:

-A block-pushing animation would be nice. It also doesn't feel like it has any weight (no friction). Pickup and throw animations would be very good as well, since it looks very weird when carrying it. It should also move upward slightly when thrown sideways, otherwise it just slides along the character's head.

-The friction for blocks is also necessary when it comes to the sparkly block. I pushed it off the platform a few times when trying to pick it up. It's far too easy to move those things just by slightly tapping them.

-As I write this, the game keeps responding to my keypresses even though it's minimized. That's a bit irritating.

-I kept pressing the left shoulder button by accident when trying to switch back to the first character. I don't like that key choice at all.

-Using the Start button to select items in a menu is very strange as well. Why not A or X like most games?

-Also, when resetting, the game froze for about three seconds before restarting the level. The delay seems like an issue.

-I feel like the Quit option in the game should go to the main menu, or there should be two options (Preferred).

-Why does the character bounce so much when landing on a block? It seemed to get stuck in the block briefly sometimes too, which suggests that the collision-detection code could use some tweaking.

-The dimension transition looks really nice and smooth at first, then it flickers in an ugly, buggy-looking way before settling on the current dimension.

-I don't like the running animation much, but that's personal preference. It just seems like the character should lift its feet a bit. The jumping position is a bit strange too.

Bug: Upon returning to the game after writing things here, there was no ground anymore.

Bug: If I jump straight up while beside a block, then when I come down I'm slowed by the side of the block for some reason.

Bug: Sometimes the sparkly block has gravity and other times it doesn't.

Bug: A bird that's directly beneath me will flip back and forth endlessly and won't always get killed when jumped on.

Issue: I've taken out a dog by climbing up a ladder, and a bird by getting hit by it.

Issue: In level 3 (according to cheat numbers), I grabbed the sparkly box and jumped down the ladder only to get stuck walking in mid-air with the block unable to fit through the hole. Obviously, I could let go, but that's still a bit of a problem.

Issue: If I jump on a dog that's overlapping another dog, I'll kill one and get hurt by the other that I couldn't even tell was there.

Issue: It's very, very easy to get the first sparkly block stuck in the ground. If you switch back to the first character when the block is on a platform, it will fall into a position where it's in the ground in the other world. The same thing happened at the beginning of level 1 (according to cheat numbers). In some cases, you can't get back to it even as the other character.


I skipped the tutorial level because I couldn't reach the switch. I got the feeling that the block was supposed to hover in the air or something. Maybe I was just missing the obvious. I've also noticed that it's very difficult to take out a dog/wolf once it's hit me. It moves too quickly for me to jump on at that point, and getting hurt feels really "off" when it just snaps me to a point 100px away suddenly. On a related note, the birds in level 2 move exactly the same speed as me when tracking me, so they're impossible to dodge. That's frustrating.

It's a nice idea for a game but it seems to have a lot of issues. I may try it again once some things have been fixed. I like the general style it seems to be going for, as well as the music and the overall concept.

I'd never played Ernesto before today, but it really does seem like an improved version of your game. Both games have you move through a random selection of enemies and pickups, trying to make it to the end without losing all your health. Ernesto makes it surprisingly tense, though, because you can only get hit a few times and might get poisoned or something.

That's not to say that you should try to make it more like Ernesto, though. I actually dislike a few of the things Ernesto does, and I think the ideas you mentioned earlier for Needless Quest will help to separate it from other, similar games and make it more interesting. Your game sounds like it will be more RPG-like, while Ernesto feels almost like a puzzle because every single step needs to be calculated.

As for the later floors, if you put in a level select/skip option for testing purposes, I'll check them out. I'm sick of the tutorial. Actually, is there a way to access the elevator I unlocked before without finishing the tutorial again? It seems like maybe the web player is missing some functionality that would all me to swipe to other "pages" from the title screen.

Common chests - I'm the sort of player that values strategy over randomness, so I'm not a huge fan of these but I imagine a lot of people would be.

Instant spells - These sound great because there's a nice cost-benefit decision to be made, assuming there are no really worthless spells.

Rare chests - These sound good to me.

Traps - Could be good, if they're powerful and visible. Players can determine if they want to risk the mini-game or go with the certainty of a little bit of damage from the monster.

Creature effects - Could be interesting, depending on the effects you come up with and how much players will be willing to deal with them.

Shrines - These sound great for the same reason as instant spells, although I hope they wouldn't be completely random (ie. It'd be nice to know at a glance, "That's a health shrine" and "That's a buff shrine").


One thing I noticed when playing before, that I forgot to mention, was that I kept picking up equipment I already had. Is there any point to that? Maybe it could be automatically sold for gold? It would be nice if it didn't happen so often, though.

Since this game was designed from scratch for mobile, I'm always reluctant on adding any unnecessary complexity. I think maybe that can also make the game seems boring when played on pc, where you already expect it to be more deep. Or maybe it is really just boring as hell.

It's understandable that you'd want to avoid adding too much complexity, but I personally don't think there's enough substance to the game at the moment and any small thing you can add to change that seems worth considering.

As a mobile game, it might be more enjoyable but any mobile game is automatically slightly engaging because people generally play them in otherwise boring situations (bus, washroom, bed, etc.). I think you've got the right idea, starting by making it fun on PC where the audience is likely a little more critical.

I can't try it, but I wanted to comment anyway. The character design is great.

From the little bit of gameplay in the trailer, it looks pretty simple. Each row makes you only able to jump a certain distance and each balloon makes you go up or down a row, correct? If that is, in fact, correct then maybe you should consider just highlighting the two clouds/balloons that the player can reach from their current position. That might be clear enough.

A tutorial would probably just have to make those things even more noticeable. Maybe show a curved arrow pointing to each spot and say "On this row, you can jump here or here". That should be clear enough, I think. You could probably explain the entire thing just with context-sensitive arrows and then take the arrows away after the tutorial.

My only "issue" is with the "out of three balloons" rating that the game seems to have. That bit of gameplay only ever shows one balloon per level, so it seems a bit weird to have the rating in balloons instead of stars or somethings else. It seems like a pretty good concept for a game, though, and I like the graphics a lot.

I actually think the thought-association mechanic could work much better in a mystery game, although you'd have to find a good way to keep people from randomly trying things without thinking. Maybe a "solution" in that sort of game would be to not tell the player if they're right or wrong. They would find out if they're correct by continuing their investigation. I think I've even seen one game that didn't tell the player if they were right at the end, after making an arrest.

Anyway, thanks for the link to Hellas. I never visit that forum. It looks kinda cool, so I'll probably check it out.

But haven't you felt the feeling of exploration by wondering what would be in the next floors? There's a progression of presenting new content on each floor that should be responsible by teasing the player on keeping curious about the next floors.

Apart from sometimes encountering different enemy types, every floor feels about the same. I don't look forward to seeing the next level because I know that it won't be much different and will be equally random.

Also I don't see how path forking would be any different because the player won't know what he is choosing anyway.

I rewrote my idea a bunch of times and the final version apparently didn't include an explanation of what I meant. Oops. I imagine each potential exit in those forking areas being named (or maybe looking different, but names might be clearer). For example, maybe you'd pick between a "cave" floor and a "sewer" floor, each with slightly different enemies. If the enemies are sufficiently different from one another, in terms of how they act/react, then it could be a tricky decision for the player to make.

Thanks for the huge feedback, Quicksand-S. It's being really helpful. Have you beat the game already? There are 15 floors in this demo with a final boss.

I stopped playing after building my first elevator. I just wasn't enjoying the game at all (Sorry).

I was trying to think about why I enjoy something like Desktop Dungeons (which is not the same but has some similar concepts). Maybe it's the feeling of exploring areas. In Desktop Dungeons, not only am I challenged but I'm also exploring the unknown, always striving to uncover more of the current map.

Maybe an option would be to have some rooms that contain forking paths, while most would be the way they are now. Even if it makes no real difference, it might feel like the player is making actual choices. Maybe that's your reward for beating a boss: The chance to choose where you go next.

I think that putting another stair in the board is going to make it even easier because it would have more chances of the starting stairs being placed next to the exit.

Does that mean the level generation is completely random, with no rules at all? For simplicity, I think what I'd do is split the level into nine (or some other number) equal squares and start the level generation by picking sections that are at least one space apart. Then I'd randomly place the staircases somewhere in each of those sections. That way, they're still randomized, but players won't get staircases right next to one another.

That said, there's something nice about levels that start that way. I felt the slight urge to take my chances and go grab gold even though I didn't have to.

Much better (at least, in my opinion). I was able to make most of those jumps without too much trouble. I only have one request/recommendation, which is that you make moving platforms pause for a moment at the ends of their paths.

I noticed something while fooling around with the side-scrolling mode again. The moving platforms don't give the player momentum. If I jump straight up while on one end of a wide platform, I land at the other end. In my opinion, they probably should transfer a bit of momentum (and then the player should likely be slowed by air-resistance), but I realize there are multiple styles of handling moving platforms.

Actually I disagree with what you said about the stairs. Sometimes it's a matter of life or death when you choose what stair to start.

All right. I'll just assume that I didn't play long enough to get to that part. If I remember right, I reached the sixth floor without even trying to get potions, and when I did try I generally started every floor with basically full health.

On a related topic, have you considered letting the player choose from two starting points but not having the other staircase become the exit? You could instead have a separate exit (or more than one), which would require more thought/strategy from the player.

We thought in giving the player the choice to change the equipment right when he picks it up.

That sounds like a good idea. I like that it would, again, force players to think carefully because they can't swap things at will.

The toughness of the enemies is something that we wanted players to learn by experience. We also give a tip by the order that enemies are presented.

That makes sense. There just seemed to be a huge jump in the amount of damage done to me between enemies on the previous floor and the jelly/slime ones. Maybe that was my imagination. I didn't really notice a big difference in damage from other creatures so maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.

Once I figured out the stair choice, it still seemed weird (ie. twisting the laws of physics) but yeah, it seems like it could be useful/strategic. With the way levels are currently generated, it didn't make a big difference most of the time. Either I'd head for a health potion at the start, or I'd get healed near the end. There was no clear benefit either way, because no matter which staircase I chose as the starting point I would still take the same path.

What you could consider is adding another staircase to each level. That would encourage players to figure out which goal is safest to head for. I think that would make it much more interesting.

On the equipment screen, I feel like it would be simpler to understand if you could just scroll through the equipment (with descriptions beside them) and select the item you want. Having to select an item and then click another button to actually equip it seems overly complicated and a bit unusual.

I can pick up items in chests but can't seem to equip the new one until after I die. Is there a way to do it during the game?

It would be nice if there was a good way to know approximately how tough enemies are (maybe color-coding?). I got absolutely destroyed by a slime/blob creature that I never expected to do so much damage.

"people who used to play video games a lot but now do not have time to play it as much" - In that case, I think you really need some challenge in the game. Short levels are good, but I imagine that people who used to play video games will want to feel like they've actually accomplished something. You may also want to modify the title because of that, since it comes across (at least, to me) like the name of a game for casual, "non-gamers".

I think the sliding speed while against a wall could be increased slightly, but it works well.

I feel like the elevator beam thing should reset my double-jump so that special acrobatic feats are possible using the momentum from the beam.

Pushing the box was a bit jittery, but felt all right otherwise.

The first problem I ran into was that I thought the game was broken. I thought, "Hey. Cool. I play a snake in this?" Then I clicked and swiped all over the screen and nothing happened. Finally, one click caused a little human/elf/whatever character to pop up and I found out that was my character. It's a very strange idea to let the player choose which stairwell they start at, and I just never expected that. I realize they're highlighted, but it's still a strange concept so I assumed it was a lighting effect or it was showing me the possible exits.

Anyway, once that stair thing was sorted out the game was fine but not particularly exciting or interesting. Nothing happens. There wasn't any challenge or need for strategy as far as I saw.

In terms of player feedback, being sent back to the title screen after the first few levels made it seem like that was the extent of the current build. Only when I went back to check something did I realize there was more. It might be a good idea to make it clear somewhere that there's more (ex. "Tap to Continue Your Quest" rather than "Tap to go on a Quest")

I wasn't sure why I could pick two items but only use one in the actual gameplay. Is there a way to switch between the two I've picked?

I was hoping for various dungeon layouts (ie. walls), but the few levels I played were just big squares with stuff randomly crammed into them and I found that very uninteresting.

I'm not sure what I'd expect people to pay for in a game like this. I'd say you should maybe ask that question once the gameplay is more finished.

The art style is pretty nice and the game works just fine (apart from that text window bug). I just think it needs a lot more substance and challenge. That said, who would you say is your target audience?


Bug: When I click to start, I notice a window of text for less than a quarter of a second that rushes down off-screen. There's no time to see what it says.

The forward-moving mode/section seems slightly better now, but still not comfortable to play at all. I've played many 3D platformers in my life, and don't generally have trouble with first-person platforming let alone third-person, so something seems off here. I'm not sure what it is, though. Maybe moving the camera slightly closer to the player could help with judging the distance. A very subtle haze/fog could also help by making closer objects look a little bit different from farther ones.

I don't own any Android devices, but I'll comment on the video.

I think that, like jambri said, you could make it more unique. You've got a ninja as your character. Why not use it? How about using that sword for something? Maybe throw some ninja stars at things for extra points as you pass by them? You might want to keep controls simple so maybe that'd be automated if you come at things from the right angle or something. In any case, Doodle Jump is such a simple game that you could easily find ways to change the formula a bit.

The other thing that stands out to me is that the platforms pop into existence rather than coming from offscreen. It seemed like the arrows did that too. That doesn't look right and also affects how much a player can plan ahead.