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[Rakugaki-Otoko]

Well now. I've been hard at work on Jack since that last update. Fixing old problems and making lots of changes to the game. There are now collectible pickups that act sort of like coins in Mario games. Every enemy has a chance to drop 0~9 of them.
For every 50 you collect, your health refills to max, and for every 400 you collect, you get an extra life.
It gives more incentive to kill enemies, and makes the game a bit easier, I think.

Also, in case I didn't say it before, I've updated every ability icon to something more interesting, rather than a little illustration of what the ability does.

[godsavant]

Do these collectibles drop in all modes? Or just Easy? It seemed with skill, Normal was pretty manageable.

In that case, I'd like to give some feedback before this next version releases. I've beaten Guutara, and cannot for the life of me progress further. Here are some general things I pondered as I pounded my face into a wall.

Feedback

• Having to run back to previous levels for soul powers each time you die gets extremely tedious. In platformers like Mario or Kirby, going in bare wasn't an issue because you had the tools to reasonably kill or avoid all the enemies by default. But Jack's melee swipe is completely inadequate against the myriad of ranged, flying or area-of-effect enemies in the game that require specific combinations of powers to deal with. Maybe add a screen that allows the player to choose amongst the powers he's encountered so far before entering a level? Or even start Jack out with a default power (Boomerang, most likely) when he goes in bare. When I die in a level, of course my first response is going to retry the level, only to remember I've lost all my powers, and no way to back out to collect them.
• I was going to ramble about the lack of extra lives and resetting the game, but the collectibles take care of that. So long as they're repeatable...
• The combo powers really help. The Bullet & Shield AA gun was a must-have for Cleansing Waters, especially when you remember you can shoot diagonally. Really creative, too; the game doesn't really begin until you get the second soul slot.
• Again, probably mitigated by the collectibles, but the save system is needlessly obtuse. I realize you're going for the balls-hard difficulty of NES Mega Man and such, but as those games had no save system, they were meant to be beaten in one go - something you've said you don't want for Jack. Not being able to take the game at my own pace, a level at a time, is my primary obstacle to playing Jack: if I can't devote several hours to memorizing and blowing through four or five levels and a boss battle in a row, why bother?

Bugs

• In Cleansing Waters, running up against this formation of platforms causes Jack's landing sound and animation to play rapidly, like he's falling and landing in between a miniscule gap over and over:
  
• The flower boss in Machine Gun Foliage will still damage you during her dying/falling apart animation - something I learned the hard way.

That's all I can think of for now. Great work so far, whatever this drought of comments may suggest otherwise.

[Rakugaki-Otoko]

The collectibles drop in all modes. and you think? It seems to me that everyone keeps saying the game is too hard on normal mode. I've not even heard of anyone getting past the caves or anything.

I will add before replying to these points that I have been working on the game and a lot of these problems may have been fixed already.

Response

• Hmm, I haven't thought of that before. I'll give it some deep consideration and see what I can come up with to offset this problem.
• repeatable? I'm not sure what you mean, but yes, you can go back and farm lives now. It just takes a while. You can usually get a health refill once per stage, and an extra life once per... hmm, three or four stages. Assuming you kill every enemy and are lucky enough to get a good payout from each.
• Thank you
• I'm not sure what you mean with this one. What are you asking/telling me?

About the Bugs

• Ah, I understand what's happening here. For some reason, when you run up against the side of a jump-through-able platform, it acts as if Jack is rapidly landing on solid ground. I am aware of this problem, but I haven't gotten around to working on it yet.
• Right, someone already brought this to my attention, and I've made it so that it doesn't do that. My bad.

Thank you very much. It's good to hear someone giving feedback again, honestly. These long periods of no-one seeming to pay attention makes it seem like everyone's lost interest, but I'm keeping my morale up and working on it as best as I can.

[Udderdude]

Nice game, I tried the demo but didn't get very far yet.  I'll try it tomorrow with joy2key running and leave some more feedback.

[Rakugaki-Otoko]

Thanks, I appreciate it!

[Udderdude]

It's possible with autofire to hold down the dodge key and use it way more often than it really should.  Consider adding a cooldown to the dodge ability.

Is there a way to drop your current ability?  When I got to the level where you need the speed boost, I couldn't pick it up until I died and went back to the level.  If there isn't, consider making that the function of the V key or something.

The game could really use some introductory text at the beginning of each stage explaining what the player will encounter, for example the giant cat, or the bird that explodes when you attack it forcing you to use dodge.

After finishing a level, it's too easy to accidentally re-select the level because you don't move to the next level on the world map automatically.  Consider changing it so you do, and change it so if you try to enter a level you've already completed, a confirmation dialogue appears.  Also, like in Super Mario World, you should be able to exit a level you've already completed at any time.

That's all for now, more later.

[Rakugaki-Otoko]

the dodge thing, I don't know. Sometimes it's helpful to dodge rapidly.

Yes, the A key drops your current ability. That's why there's an "A" under the slot on your HUD.

You can pause the game with the Q key, and if you've beaten a stage already, you can quit back to the map.

[Udderdude]

Yes, the A key drops your current ability. That's why there's an "A" under the slot on your HUD.

You can pause the game with the Q key, and if you've beaten a stage already, you can quit back to the map.

It's hard to figure that just having "A" under your ability is the key you use to drop it.  It could be the ability slot A for all I know. 

I knew that Q skips cutscenes, because it appears on the screen, but I had no clue it also pauses the game or allows you to quit to the map.

I had no clue about any of this.  You really need to work on giving the player this kind of info.

[Rakugaki-Otoko]

If you view the tutorial, it says "if you need to pause, just press Q". But I will add another line of text saying that A ejects a soul.

[Udderdude]

I think information like that should also be presented as you play the game.  The first few levels are easy enough that presenting tutorial info as you play shouldn't be a big deal.

[Rakugaki-Otoko]

I understand, but that goes against what I believe in. I really do not want to have small tutorials throughout the game like that. I already went out of my comfort zone with the third cutscene that forces you to press the dodge button in order to continue.

[sonicblastoise]

I think the tutorial is fine as is and you shouldn't add prompts into the introductory levels. They are already very simple and serve to allow the player to learn how the platformer feels and let's the player familiarize with the hitbox. The only thing I would add is a short explanation about powerups and how to pick them up/what they do.

The first powerup you encounter is the health one, but it's unclear what it does since you can't immediately collect it without knowing exactly why. Maybe to offset this you could make this the "common" powerup, that replenishes your health AND adds to your count to get an extra life (like Mario 64's coins). This may clear up some confusion as to why you can't pick up the powerup unless you've already taken damage.

Overall, I think it's great. The video you have on the first post is pretty misleading, makes the game look sluggish and slower than it actually is. You should try to make a better one! (or I'll make one for you) I love the art style, the sound effects are cool, and the gameplay is actually well-paced and enjoyable.

The one complaint I have is that the platforming is "sticky", by which I mean there is a slight (VERY slight) delay between when you press the jump key and you actually jump. The delay is long enough to make it easy to miss jumps if you're trying to be precise. This is probably just the demo though...but if not then basically what I'm saying is that I would really love it if you could tighten up the jumping.

Otherwise, it's great and I'm looking forward to the release!

[Udderdude]

I understand, but that goes against what I believe in. I really do not want to have small tutorials throughout the game like that. I already went out of my comfort zone with the third cutscene that forces you to press the dodge button in order to continue.

Well, one suggestion I have for improving the tutorial is a way to skip to the next message or part of the tutorial instead of having to sit through text that you've already read or stuff you've already figured out.

A manual (Or even a readme.txt) would also help a lot.

[godsavant]

The one complaint I have is that the platforming is "sticky", by which I mean there is a slight (VERY slight) delay between when you press the jump key and you actually jump. The delay is long enough to make it easy to miss jumps if you're trying to be precise. This is probably just the demo though...but if not then basically what I'm saying is that I would really love it if you could tighten up the jumping.

This is what I think people meant when they suggested adding 'momentum' to Jack's jumps. It usually doesn't become an issue until the single-tile platforming sections, but could you try out this suggestion?

[Udderdude]

If there's a real delay before jumping, adding momentum will just make things worse.  The real solution is to make jumping instant instead of happening after the jump animation begins.