I love the art style. That bird design is great.

Since the game encourages speed-running, it would be nice if things were set up well at the start of each level. It should be possible, for example, to dash straight onto the moving platform on level 19 without having to wait a few seconds first.

It would also be nice if the title screen allowed a keyboard press rather than requiring the mouse, since the actual gameplay doesn't use the mouse at all.

I stopped after dying in level 19. I just didn't feel like going through all that again, but I think that may just be because this isn't a genre I love. I did try a random hard level out of curiosity and it seemed decent.

I don't think I encountered any performance issues or bugs. I strongly agree with ferretter it needing a slight delay before you respawn. I would also add that it would feel more fair if falling off-screen killed me, rather than touching the bottom of the screen. In one case, I was lined up perfectly for a just-in-time wall-jump and died instead.

Overall, I think the level design is very good. Some of the early levels may be a bit too simple. It's nice to introduce new mechanics, but most gamers will be able to pick them up fast enough that you should be able to require a little bit of skill even in the intro levels. Not being that interested in the genre, I didn't try out more of the hard levels, but what I saw was quite well-made and well thought-out.

This could be completely unrelated. I don't have Firefox installed on my phone at the moment. On my desktop, though, turning on "hardware acceleration" in Firefox causes a lot of text to become bold. Maybe there's a similar setting in the mobile version that's causing issues?

I really like the look of it, especially in the GIFs you posted (The pale blue and grey are a bit dull as a first-impression in the game).

The gameplay is a mixed bag, in my opinion. The sidescrolling parts work great. The movement and gravity are quite comfortable to play with, although his rotation speed when switching directions is a bit slow.

The forward-scrolling area wasn't nearly as comfortable to play. I felt like there were two things that kept me from enjoying it. One was that I couldn't always tell where my character was in 3D space. I know he has a shadow, but I think a slightly higher camera angle would help make it easier to land jumps (I'd say that difficulty caused by the camera is probably not a good type of difficulty).

The second thing that didn't feel good was that the controls stayed the same in that mode even though the style of gameplay was different. I felt like I should be strafing left and right rather than rotating. It threw me off a bit.

Anyway, it's a very good start, in my opinion. Lookin' forward to seeing what you add to it.

Yeah, I'm aware of the resolution/proportion and how it affects the design, that's why I nailed it to fixed 16:10... and hope that it's somehow ok for most.

I could be wrong, but I think 16:9 is more common for desktops, while 16:10 might still be most common for laptops. I'm not sure how up-to-date that assumption is, though. In any case, it's still great, even with black on the sides. The slightly less wide resolution might even have added to the feeling of DOS nostalgia I got from the game.

The shooting open doors would be optional and I see it more inspired by quake3arena movement and paceing.

Interesting. I never would've expected Quake 3 to be an inspiration, but I guess that movement does feel similar. From what I remember of Quake 3, though, I was always moving. ENYO seems to encourage a slower, more considered approach. I never felt like moving quickly through the level would be beneficial (except in the first, obviously). This makes me curious. Was I not playing as you intended?

Ah, 16:10. Ok. I was surprised by the black bars on the sides of the game, but that explains it. I just double-checked the size of the game area and it does match up, so there's nothing wrong with your scaling.

I know that a fixed resolution isn't the best choice but I made it for now. :/

Keep in mind that if you're basing everything on the current resolution, it might throw off some of your level design if you add, for example, a 16:9 mode later that shows a little bit more at the sides of the screen. It might be a good idea to set up your level editor (assuming you have one) in such a way that you can tell exactly how far a player will be able to see with either screen ratio.

Shooting doors open might be seen as copying other games (the 2D Metroid games come to mind), and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. In Metroid, for example, I imagine it was likely so that the next area the player was heading for could start loading as soon as possible. Unless you're doing something similar, I think doors that just open on their own would work well here. That said, maybe a lot of people enjoy being required to press a button for doors. Might be worth checking with others.

I might give this a shot later. One thing that really stands out to me from the screenshots is that many of the buildings are drawn in different "perspectives". Some are straight on, some have sides that go "back" at an angle, and others have sides that go back at a completely different angle. None of them match with the apparent angle of the ground (which looks like it's viewed directly from above).

Of course, graphics aren't everything, but they do make a large impact on a potential player's first-impression. Anyway, it looks like there's a decent amount of variety in the game and the features mentioned sound like you've put thought into your work. I'm looking forward to trying it out.



Update: Giving it a try right now, so I'll write down some of my thoughts. My first impression is really good. The interface is clear. The number of options when setting up a game is great. I like how dragging a selection box prioritizes my king over other units. Great music selection too. It all really reminds me of Age of Empires, which is great.

I keep thinking, "I wonder if it has this option" and finding that it does. Awesome. Even middle-mouse scrolling is in there. The addition of night time is pretty cool too.


Thoughts/suggestions:

-Scrolling with the middle mouse button isn't 1:1. It's really slow and lags behind my mouse. Being able to disable edge-scroll in favor of that style (when it works better) would be nice as well.

-Being able to access options in-game would be nice.

-The mini-map doesn't show resources, which seems a bit strange.

-One huge thing that seems to be missing is unit grouping (ex. assign units to #1, #2, etc. for quick selection). I hope that's planned.

-Another thing that would be very, very nice is the ability to select individual units and add them to an existing group (ex. hold Control and click a bunch of units)

-Do you think you'll have walls in the game at some point? Making walls is one of my favourite things in RTS games, when it exists (nostalgia from my time with the original Command and Conquer)

-If I tell my soldier to attack a building, they'll still run off and attack enemy units. An aggressive/defensive/stand-ground stance setting for units would be nice.


Bugs and Weirdness:

-Moving the cursor over the mini-map causes me to have two cursors. One stops at the edge of the map while the other goes where it should. If you're going to draw a cursor in-game, maybe the real cursor should be hidden.

-There are a few pixels of "edge scroll" when I move the mouse to the menu button, so the view always shifts slightly when I do that.

-At night, the was a very short delay between scrolling and the darkness actually filling in the new area of the world that I'd scrolled to. There was also a strip at the bottom of the screen that was partially darkened at one point.

-The other nations never seemed to build warriors during the time I spent in the game. When I attacked, they just sent workers to kill me.


So far, I'm really impressed. I don't like the graphics much, but pretty much every single other thing in the game is good. Very nice work.

Windows 7 64-bit.

The gravity felt floaty with the jetpack off. With it on, I had no issue with the gravity because I assumed it was thruster-related.

Ah. Thanks for explaining the damage. I think there might be an issue there, though. I did seem to receive fall damage at least once or twice. Maybe I landed on a steep slope and it thought I'd smashed into a wall? Not sure.

The jetpack is useful for moving downward at a controlled speed, but moving sideways with it isn't particularly intuitive or enjoyable, in my opinion. It also just seems a bit strange to even have a jetpack in a game that's mostly about going downward. Maybe the tunnel networks should be altered slightly so that the jetpack is more useful. That said, I did find it slightly useful in order to dodge projectiles while fighting.

Actually that brings up another point I should make. It might be a good idea to either introduce creatures slightly earlier, or tell people that they exist in the alpha/demo. I almost stopped playing early on because I thought I'd experienced all that was in the current version of the game.

Nice little tech demo you've got there. At least, once it started working. At first, the character wouldn't move at all. The crosshair worked fine, but I tried every key on the keyboard and only the inventory screen and dynamite button worked. After I managed to blow up some dynamite, I was suddenly able to move. Maybe I was stuck in the ground and the explosion pushed me out? Dunno.

Anyway, I like the character but the animation is a bit stiff. I think maybe he should auto-rotate back to the correct angle when the jetpack is turned off. I don't really like any of the other graphics in the game that much at this point, although the sprites for the weapons in the HUD are pretty good.

I wish the boulders didn't look like large almonds. If they matched the ground color and were more jagged, I think it'd be better.

Gravity is really floaty, but maybe that's because it's an alien planet?

Fall-damage seems incredibly minimal, even when falling hundreds of metres, and doesn't always occur. I also got launched into the air when I hit a piece of ground while jumping.

I don't feel like this style of jetpack control is very suited to exploring tunnels, but maybe you did that on purpose.

I really like the sounds chosen for weapons 1,2 and 4. The machine-gun sound could use maybe a pitch adjustment or something. I'm not sure. It didn't feel powerful and kind of grated on my ears a bit.

It's a decent start. Even though I didn't like the graphics, the atmosphere was really good. As I got deeper, I really felt like I was exploring the unknown depths of an alien planet.

Well, the first thought I had about your game was, "What is Falcon 5 and why did it just install without even asking me if it was ok?" Looking at the files later, though, it seems Falcon5 is the working title of the game or something? I'm not sure why it said "Installing Falcon 5" rather than something less worrying, like "Unpacking Installer".

-I don't understand why a modern game doesn't default to 16:9, or at least some other widescreen ratio.

-The intro screen was very strange, especially since I didn't know the keys at first and couldn't see any ground. I didn't like it much. I like the idea of a dream-like intro, but I think it could be done differently, with at least a small amount of direction.

-I love the graphics in the actual game. It brought back memories of playing DOS games.

-The movement felt good. Maybe a little bit slippery, but I liked the speed and ability to grab ledges.

-I feel like doors should open as I approach. It was slightly irritating to have to wait for them every time, although it's not a gigantic problem.

-I really like the weapon at the start. It stands out from other games, and it feels pretty good to use.

-I feel like "Continue" might work better than "Resume" on the between-levels stats screen. "Resume", to me, sounds like the game paused itself randomly.

-The blood splatter could use some more variation, or at least it could be mixed up a bit more. Seeing a line of splatters that all look the same isn't particularly appealing.

-I'm not a fan of the jumping sound. I think you've got the right idea, but maybe the pitch could be adjusted or something. It also sounds low-quality for some reason, but that could be my imagination.

-Typo: On the stats screen, "wepon energy" should be "weapon energy"

-I think the slime pouring out of the walls in the sewer could start lower, so that it seems like it's coming from the "river" of slime, rather than the center of the pipe.

-It mentioned fixing my drone, but I didn't know that was a drone. Didn't matter, though, because I fixed it right away. It might make more sense to give the objective earlier, or leave it out entirely.

-I wish there were at least a few checkpoints, although not a lot of them. I got killed by something (No idea what. Couldn't see what was attacking me) and had to start Stage 3 from the beginning. Would be nice if it saved at key points like when I fixed my drone or got a major power-up.

-Bug? The second time through, I didn't get the "Drone Fixed" message, but the drone did get fixed.

-The walls that go up/down when the boat is being lowered look glitchy. I think they'd look much nicer if they were drawn over top of all the "water" rather than over one part and behind another like they are now.

-Typo: For the Power Ball: "Get in Thight"? I'm guessing that should be "Tight"

-I really hate the slow-mo effect, but I can understand it in certain cases (like boss intros). I wish levels didn't start with it, though. I'm not a huge fan of the shader effects, but if they didn't last as long as they do I'd be fine with it. The fade-out when quitting is really long too.

-Bug? Am I supposed to be able to run through enemies without getting hurt?


I stopped at level 5 after falling into some slime. Overall, this is a really impressive game. It looks good, plays well, has interesting levels, great atmosphere and runs perfectly. I'll probably play it more. It feels a bit like a modern take on certain DOS games from when I was young. Really great work. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Yep, it's really, really buggy. I do kinda like the idea, though. It could be pretty interesting to try to find an ideal path through a maze, trying to get all the treasures before opening up a route to the end. I like how there's that lack of complete control. If the minotaur sees the end, he's going for it even if I don't want him to yet.

The only gameplay suggestion I have is that maybe the player shouldn't be able to rotate rings while the minotaur is moving. That would simplify the code, get rid of at least one bug and require the player to think ahead a bit more in order to avoid opening up a path to the exit too early.

I had another play of super meat boy just after having a go of my game. I was actually surprised at how floaty it made super meat boy feel and the wall slide is way slower, everything is really. I don't think I want to go that slow, I kind of like the existing physics I have so I don't want to soften it too much but it definitely made me think about the difficulty of my game.

I actually really disliked the floatiness of Super Meat Boy. I also did so many times from his movement controls being overly sensitive to the point that a slight adjustment to his position would fling him off a cliff. I actually like your game's physics better. I think there could be a small amount of momentum added to the running (so that you don't stop instantly), just to keep it from feeling stiff, but everything is pretty good as it is now.

The wall-jumping is much more bearable in the latest version. If I enjoyed the genre more, I think I'd really like Abomination Tower a lot, even at this early stage.

Interesting. Well, I do like the overall concept. You call it an experiment. Does that mean you're likely to make another game using what you learned from this one? I'd like to see how that would turn out.

What threw me off about the last puzzle was that the first letter in the name was K, rather than the English version using C. Since other parts of the game had used the Greek alphabet, and the font looked Greek-like, I really didn't see it as the Latin alphabet.

I felt like the last puzzle didn't require me to think about anything. It essentially says "this image translates to this" and you copy things over to the other name. I was shocked that I didn't even have to complete the name, since the missing letters were auto-filled once I copied over the ones I had. It just wasn't satisfying to me at all, because figuring out that the letters matched took no time. Maybe adding a bunch of other letters into the mix would've helped. I don't know.

I do really hope that you make another game like this, though. I'd love to see something similar with a bit more challenge and some more helpful "notes" (more clear about gameplay goals while still retaining their note-like style). I think that could be pretty great.

I see that you tweaked the title page as I suggested. Cool.

Fall damage seems much more reasonable now. It's far easier to predict when I'll get hurt and when I won't. I think the damage could be increased slightly, actually, but the distance you can fall safely now is pretty much perfect in my opinion.

Collisions while rotating seem to work perfectly now. Nice work.


Issues:

-It's now possible in 2-1 to survive messing up the electrical field section and slamming into the floor instead of switching gravity.

-In that same section, I still hit the square block just before the first downward turn, even though I don't seem to actually touch it. That takes off a lot of health. Spikes also seem to have a sliiightly large hit-box.

-When crates treat electrical fields like solid objects, it looks a bit weird.

-On level 2-2, I fell onto the top of the line of spikes on the left of the elevator and hovered there in a falling pose until I tried to move and died.

-Also on level 2-2, I pushed the crate left while riding up the elevator and when it hit the spikes it teleported down to the health and timer powerups and 1/3 of the crate sprite was flickering in and out of existence. It stayed like that for a while, even after I pushed it around a bit.

-Having to bring the crate up the elevator is a little problematic, not because of the elevator but because it has trouble crossing zones sometimes. It got stuck on the border, frozen in time, and when I tried to push it I got hurt.

-When you switch gravity while the crate is on the conveyor belt, it speeds up (presumably from the temporary lack of proper gravity)

-At the end of level 2-2, I switched gravity in order to line up with the door and it launched me into the air slightly (to keep me from getting stuck in the wall, I guess?)

-Borders of zones don't seem well-defined. For example, in 2-2 after the elevator you can walk in a dark zone a surprising amount if you go through and then return to the elevator's zone.


I have a few small suggestions about other things:

-"huge power" should probably be something like "incredible power" or just "power"

-Start off levels with the energy meter fully charged and allow gravity switches even while the level name is on-screen. That way, for levels like 1-2, the player can just get started rather than having to wait a few seconds.

-Have platforms pause a moment before changing direction. I mean something like half a second, not a long pause.

-Making the elevator in 2-2 start off going downward would be nice. It's just a lot of pointless waiting right now. I can understand hiding it from the player, but it's a bit too much time, I think.

I was really interested in trying this out.

It didn't turn out like I'd hoped. It didn't feel anything like I was deciphering hieroglyphics. I got to the third task just by dragging things around and hoping something would happen, because the goal and mechanics were unclear. I thought I'd actually be translating things to some degree, but this game doesn't seem to include any of that at all. It's really more about figuring out what can be clicked/dragged and trying to decipher the unclear messages about the point of each "level".

For example, the one with three cartouches just tells me what exists, not what I'm supposed to do to complete the "level". Then I see things like "but which ones?" show up and I'm not sure what it's asking about, so I just drag something onto that text and it disappears. I get no sense of accomplishment because either it was just asking me which thing had backward symbols (too easy) or I completely missed the point of the level and completed it by accident.

On the last level, I finally thought I'd get to decipher something. Then it just gave me all the answers, so that was no fun either. Another thing I found weird was how it seemed to combine the Greek alphabet with the Latin one (P? R?). I'm no expert on Greek, but I don't think I've seen those letters in Greek produce the sounds that the game claims they do.

I love the presentation style, and I really like the idea of deciphering things. I get the feeling that you don't trust players to actually do that, though (The last level strongly suggests that). It's possible that I just went into the game with an incorrect idea of what it was going to be. Ideally, I would love to see this game give clear goals and then let me solve the "puzzles" completely on my own. I realize that may not be what you wanted to make, though.

Rather than just picking for a pool of pieces and leaving it at that, maybe those pieces should come with randomized options. You could set up a bunch of potential spawn points for enemies and then use a certain percentage of them depending on how far in the game the player is (ex. spawn three enemies at the beginning and eight when the player's far in the game). With this method, you can very easily make sure that the spawn points are all in places that make sense, but the areas will still be a little bit more varied.

You could do the same thing with chunks of ground. If I remember right, Spelunky did something similar although the level "pieces" were much smaller.

As for the difficulty level, I started one level where the only ways to progress were impossible for me (saw blades in a vertical shaft, iirc), while every other time I tried, I could at least progress a little bit. If you don't use the semi-random spawn idea, then maybe you should rank level sections based on how difficult they are and only choose low difficulty ones at the start.

If you want a character to "bound" down a slope, you should probably exaggerate it a bit more, otherwise it will be very obvious to some people that you're just trying to hide a problem.

Ideally, though, you should probably fix it even if it means modifying your physics setup slightly. Purposely leaving in a bug doesn't seem like a great idea. Also, depending on how your game is coded, jittery slope traversal could make it so that the player is sometimes unable to jump (ex. if they're in the air during on of their tiny vibrations).

I played the web version with a keyboard (Does that version work with a gamepad?). Seems all right. I'm not a huge fan of this sort of game, but I find it interesting that this is much harder for me to get through than, for example, Super Meat Boy. Maybe the speed at which you slide down walls is higher or something. I couldn't make it through any of those series of wall saws in the vertical shafts, although admittedly I didn't spend a ton of time on it.

The art style looks decent in my eyes. Apart from the wall-sliding trouble, the movement felt pretty good too.

One "bug" I noticed was that I seemed to have the same version of the level come up twice in a row.

Hello again. You know, after all my talk about fall damage in level 1, I was surprised to see that it didn't really matter in any of the other levels. The only health I lost was to weird things like bouncing off a block in 2-1 (I think it was 2-1).

The specific spot where I saw outside the level was, if I remember right, when I was near the bottom of the "elevator" (with a battery and forcefield on my right, I believe). I looked down and the camera was blocked properly so that I couldn't see below the elevator more than I should, but I could see an empty space on the left. My monitor is standard 16:9, so I wouldn't expect that to be an issue.

Resetting areas if you leave a zone could work really well. It might also be a good idea to add more platforms to areas. For example, at the end of the first level, I didn't realize in time that I had to grab the battery while falling so I was stuck right beside the exit and unable to finish the level. Having another way to get it, even if it's incredibly difficult, would be better than having to restart without dying.

On the topic of zones, is there any story reason for them to exist or is it just gameplay? I'm thinking that there should be some sort of sci-fi explanation for why they would reset when you leave them (ex. you're revisiting the same timeline you were in before or something).

A web-based version for testing sounds like a very good idea.

Yes, I think your difficulty curve needs work. The last level may actually be the easiest of them all. I think the first level could be improved fairly easily, just by adding a few little things to teach the player how the game is played (ex. let them know they can walk on walls). If I hadn't seen the trailer, I wouldn't have even known that I could switch gravity while in the air, and because games like VVVVVV didn't allow that I might not have even tried it.

As I said earlier, I think the length of each level is pretty much ideal even without checkpoints. As Salamander put it, even level 1 is "short enough not to require checkpoints". My only issue with level 1 was that replaying the first two rooms multiple times was irritating. You know, maybe the tutorial should be a completely separate item in the menu, and the game itself should just start off fairly difficult. That way, you wouldn't have to redo the difficulty curve for the game and people like me wouldn't have to play the tutorial-like areas multiple times.

It might be a good idea to mention in your post that the game is free (apart from in-app purchases). I saw an iTunes link and almost ignored the game completely because I thought you were trying to sell your game in the Feedback forum.

I didn't play very long. It seems like it could be a pretty enjoyable game. I like the graphical style, the character AI seemed all right and the concept works well enough.

What stopped me from continuing was the controls. It just felt so "off" for me to slide my finger and then have to wait a couple of seconds before my character went to where I wanted him to. This may just be me, but I feel like different control systems are suited to certain types of games. If I'm swiping/sliding, then I feel like it needs to be a game where my actions are instantly translated to the character (or weapon, or whatever).

Have you considered other control options? I'm thinking maybe a "tap where you want to go" method might work better, because then it's expected that the character will take a little while to get there.

The only other slight issue I had was that it was unclear what would get my character damaged, since he has a melee attack. Is it just that you can get hurt right after the swing? It's probably not a huge deal, though, since the shooting seems to be the focus.

All right. I'm not going to turn this into an argument. After all, it's your game and I am only one person with an opinion.

Anyway, I decided to give it another shot. On level 2, I dropped down alongside wall with my power meter full and tried to switch gravity (in order to stand on the wall). It didn't work and I fell to my death. Not sure what happened there.

When I went to "Continue" from level 2 later, the menu item did nothing. Is that feature just not implemented yet? If not, then maybe a level select or something would be helpful if you want other levels tested (not a permanent level select, just a debug thing to make testing simpler).

Update: Level 2 seems better, in terms of how clear it is where I should go. The first battery seems like a time-waster because of its position, but the rest is ok so far. I feel like the barrel should be in a shallow pit, so that it can't be as easily pushed against the door and make the level unbeatable. I really like the route that you take to get there. It feels good to move around on those platforms.


Update 2: Level 1-3 has some strange bugs, apparently. I hit the first arrow power-up and died instantly (happened more than once). I also died in that area from switching gravity while not very close to any spikes. Also, if a barrel is bouncing when I change gravity, it flies up and off the screen (presumeably because for a moment it has no gravity). It seems it would make sense for it to freeze in place briefly like the player does. Other than the bugs, I really liked level 1-3.

So far, I think the lengths of the levels are pretty much ideal. I still feel like there should be a checkpoint in level 1-1 so the first part doesn't need to be repeated. Players are going to die a bunch before they get used to how the game works. Levels 1-2 and 1-3 aren't nearly as annoying to me. Level 2-1 is a bit irritating, but mainly because of glitchy deaths/damage in the force field section. The timer on the bomb could be slightly longer, though (only because I take damage if I go the fast way). I had the same sort of issue in 2-1 as I did in with the barrel earlier. When I went to flip gravity near it, both the bomb and I flew off in random directions at high speed.


Update 3: At the start of level 2-2, if I run to the right, the first bit of dialogue is too quickly replaced by the second bit. That level was all right but a lot simpler (both easier and less complex) than the previous two levels, which felt a bit strange.

I noticed that in some places, like near the beginning of 2-2, you can look down and see "outside" the level (ie. you see where the ground ends).


My overall impression of the game after finishing the beta is that it's pretty good. I think level 1-1 could be really frustrating to new players, but once you learn how the game works it's enjoyable.