next »

[dek]

Hey!
Here are some things that I noticed:

• Please dont use Y/Z for any major thing in your game unless you let people reconfigure it (Because of QWERTZ keyboards). I recommend putting jump to the up-arrow key so one hand handles movement and the other handles interaction / fight.
• If you press jump and spam attack, you can basically hover really, really far. I guess you have a piece of code in your attack function that resets vertical movement to zero?
  
• Most platformers have a pretty low capped falling speed (pretty much like a parachute) . Ofcourse that is not natural at all, but it feels better when playing platformers because it makes landing easier.
  
• The nose-hole in the head of the lizard seems to be transparent in some frames?
  
• Playing it for the first time, I thought it was too hard. This might be because I have to stretch my hand over the whole keyboard to jump / attack

Apart from that, visually, it looks very nice and runs very smooth for most flash games.  
I would embed the game into a page with a dark background to support the atmosphere of the game.
Good Job

[Ben_Hurr]

Yeah, I'll take back the timing thing until after you fix the players sprite, it might actually be totally balanced if you take the full length of his sword into account!

[BlueSweatshirt]

Hey dek! Thanks!

Keyboard:
Right! I'll fix it. I also plan to add keyboard configuration in the future, but I'll also change the default.

Hovering:
This is intended, actually. There's going to be very little by the ways of "platforming" in this game, so I'm not worried about people hovering around and potentially skipping platforming obstacles.(because there won't really be any) Freedom of movement in the air is intended from a combat-perspective. As I add new attacks to the game this should make more sense.

Falling Speed:
Yeah I might add a cap, but for now it doesn't feel like too big of an issue to me. I'd prefer to not add one if I didn't need to. And like I said, platforming won't ever be much of a big deal, which is why I think it won't be much of an issue.

Nose-Hole:
It's actually a mouth! I should probably address that either way though.

Difficulty:
Yeah, it's intended to be difficult for first timers. However there were a couple non-gameplay related issues(sword graphic and key layout) getting in your way so, like you and Ben_Hurr said, it could have just been that. We'll see!

Game page:
Yeah, I'll do that! I also want to center it on the page so that the game isn't hovering in the top-left corner of your screen. Heh heh.

[BlueSweatshirt]

MINOR UPDATE:

• Changed control scheme from ZX to XC, configurable controls coming soonish
• Sword graphic now reflects attack range accurately
• Mouth no longer has a weird transparency
• SWF is now hosted on a simple HTML page which makes playing a bit more enjoyable
• Press DOWN+ATTACK to do a downward thrust(midair only)

Play it here

[Franklins Ghost]

Just had a play of the new version and it's playing great, like the little fixes you've done. Lizard guy looks better now.

Also just realised about how you use the pickups to upgrade. Makes alot more sense now. Finished with Strength = 9, Toughness = 34, Agility = 30, Dexterity = 10, Aptitude = 0.

[Alec S.]

I really like the look of this game.

I would suggest some tweaks to the gameplay to give it a better feel.  Currently, I feel like the standard attack is too slow, while the downward thrust attack is a bit too fast.  Also, your attacks lack impact.  Knockback on enemies when you hit them and you when you get hit would go a long way to improving the feel.  Also, making the screen shake at moments such as when you hit an enemy, when you hit the ground with your downward thrust, or when you get hit would help.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Sorry for the late reply!

You're right that the down attack and normal attack have a huge speed gap.... Hmm, I'll put some thought into it!
As for the feel, you're totally right--I'll work on that.

For knockback, what do you mean? There's already knockback. Do you mean you think there needs to be more?

Also, a screenshot of the next version:


[EDIT]
Worked on the background a bit:

[Alec S.]

When an enemy hits you, it goes right through you.  Both you and it should experience knockback.  When I attack an enemy, it might knock it back a bit (I wouldn't notice it if you didn't say it was there) but not enough to keep it from going though me half a second later.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Hmmm very true.
Alright, I'll work on that!

Thanks for the awesome feedback Alec. 

[capn.lee]

that would be my biggest gripe. Especially, it seems, if an enemy is moving towards you quite quickly then he can run on to my sword and die but still cause damage. I don't know if the simplest way to deal with that would be just to make knockback an absolute value instead of a relative one as it doesn't seem to have much force on an enemy that has picked up speed.

I found the best way to deal with enemies was to jump them as they ran in and then stab them as they turned around.

May I recommend some kind of mario style jump bounce attack? A one that does a small amount of damage (not increased with strength) but allows you to bounce a small ways? Maybe even not damaging at all, but the game feels like I should be able to do it

It was fun though and I look forward to playing future builds.

[BlueSweatshirt]

The velocity of enemies(and you) actually resets when they're hit, so yeah. The problem is a couple other factors coming into play which I should have solved in the next build.

I'm thinking about making the down attack do the bouncing you mentioned.

[McMutton]

This is pretty awesome; I found I could pretty easily dispatch the wasps with the strategy that the Capn mentioned.

I find that said wasps get stuck on corners a lot.

[BlueSweatshirt]

MAJOR UPDATE!

• Recoded physics interactions between entities: opposite reactions, more significant knockback.
• New enemy
• Worked on the backdrop graphic
• Made projectiles reflectable
• New background graphics
• New level prefabs
• Hitting an enemy with your down attack now causes you to bounce.
• Hitting an enemy or the ground with your down attack stuns you briefly.

Play it now!

[Xion]

I want to like this, I really do, but fuck the basic attack is so damn slow it's impossible for me to hit anything before getting hit myself. The enemies accelerate and don't move at a constant speed or in a predictable manner so it's very difficult to determine when I need to press the button so that they're where my sword is when it finally strikes. I just end up using the downward attack whenever I can, which just ends up feeling like a more unintuitive version of the typical "jump on enemies" heads' attack from Mario and so many other games.

Sometimes when the level starts there are a bunch of enemies around and I get hit before I can really react.

The projectiles - and the enemies that shoot them - are super hard to see against the background and blend in a lot. A couple times I got hit without even realizing there was an enemy around, and a couple more times I got hit cuz I couldn't see the bullet.

[John Sandoval]

when your character attacks while in the air: gravity stops, and it feels wrong