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[erik]

Life Goes On




May 1: Life Goes On has launched, and is available now on Steam and through the Humble Store.

LifeGoesOnGame.com | Steam | Humble Store

Development started at a 2012 Global Game Jam event, became an evenings and weekends project, and then became a full time effort leading up to a release on Steam.  The feedback and encouragement from the Tigsource community was a big help during development.











Life Goes On is a comically-morbid platformer where you brutally sacrifice knights and use their dead bodies to solve puzzles. With death as your only means to progress, journey through trap-ridden worlds to find the Cup of Life.

[deathtotheweird]

I really liked the graphics and presentation for this. The gameplay isn't really to die for, kinda feels like your typical one room made in flash puzzle platformer. But the graphics and presentation enough to make it stand out.

Music would be nice, though I don't have the slightest clue of what kind you would want. Pixel Prospector may help you: http://www.pixelprospector.com/places-to-find-musicians/

just follow those links, listen to some samples and see if anything clicks.

[erik]

Thanks for the feedback and music link allen.  Any thoughts on what it would take to improve the gameplay in your mind?

[deathtotheweird]

the gameplay isn't bad, it's just not a game I personally enjoy. there's nothing you could do to improve it in the eyes of someone like me, someone who isn't a fan of puzzle platformers.

[Hima]

The gameplay isn't really to die for, kinda feels like your typical one room made in flash puzzle platformer.

I see what you did there 

Love the game. Love the theme. Love the morbid humour. Would love to see this expand with more actions you can do. The name of the knight is a bit hard to read and is shown in the place that I don't really pay attention to.

For composers, you can start looking in this forum at the job section. I've seen many composers looking for project in there.

[Ian Morrison]

The gameplay isn't really to die for, kinda feels like your typical one room made in flash puzzle platformer.

I see what you did there  

I can't believe I missed that pun. I need to work something like that into my elevator pitch somehow...

[jiitype]

Great gamefeel, in many 2.5d platformers the characters movement feels a bit slow for some reason, but here it felt really good.
The knights death screams were hilarious

I'm sure you'll find a composer here, many people would love to work on a project like this.

[deathtotheweird]

gamefeel

please stop using that word

[Udderdude]

Pretty sure I played a Flash game with a similar premise.  Anyway, other than the level of polish there's nothing really interesting going on.  I'd work on your jumping physics, they feel kind of stiff for some reason.

[Hima]

The gameplay isn't really to die for, kinda feels like your typical one room made in flash puzzle platformer.

I see what you did there  

I can't believe I missed that pun. I need to work something like that into my elevator pitch somehow...

'Find your way out of the deadly dungeon, or die trying!'

Pretty sure I played a Flash game with a similar premise.

I think there's a flash game called senpukutties or something. It's about animal committing suicide so that the other animals can survive.

Erik, you might want to play that game and see if you can take something from it and put it in your game. One thing I like about that game is the ending changes depending on how many animals survive. It made me go back to previous levels and try to find the optimized solution.

[Udderdude]

I think there's a flash game called senpukutties or something. It's about animal committing suicide so that the other animals can survive.
solution.

Definitely not the game I was thinking of, and not really the same thing since corpse don't seem to be left behind, they just explode.

[jiitype]

please stop using that word

No

[erik]

Pretty sure I played a Flash game with a similar premise.

Too bad you can't remember the details.  We've heard a few people say this, and it would be interesting to see the game in question.

Anyway, other than the level of polish there's nothing really interesting going on.

Is there any chance that you can expand on this?  What do you think the game lacks?  Variety in puzzles?  Ways to interact with the world?  Are you not interested in the idea of using dying and bodies from previous lives to solve puzzles?  Are you not a fan of puzzle platformers?

I think there's a flash game called senpukutties or something. It's about animal committing suicide so that the other animals can survive.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Minimally]

Hello, a few random ideas / changes I would make.

Since death is part of the mechanic, just remove the press space to continue because it is a bit of a hurdle when playing.
Giving each respawned guy a name is cool, if you are using something like NGUI you would attach the name above the character after it is spawned rather than making a large popup.
The victory screen could show some info on how the player did (how many deaths for example)
I don't know if levels have a target death amount, but they could/should .. then I would feel like I have more of a goal to complete.

The game needs more design I think, you could incorporate heatmaps if you can (the GameAnalytics) to see what players are doing in a particular level and see if you can fix issues that way.

I would say fire is introduced too early, since it changes the mechanic so that you can no longer use the dead bodies. I would create a good set of levels that get the player used to just that first part, then build on it with fire.

I got stuck on level 3 and gave up.

[Hima]

I think there's a flash game called senpukutties or something. It's about animal committing suicide so that the other animals can survive.
solution.

Definitely not the game I was thinking of, and not really the same thing since corpse don't seem to be left behind, they just explode.

Actually, the corpse is left behind. Starting from stage 1-3, you need to die so that the next animal can use your corpse as a platform.

[TestTrek]

good game. Reminds me of Karoshi Suicide Salaryman.

I really like how you could push the corpses around. It gets kind of laggy once about 10 knights are on the screen. Maybe add a button to clear all the knights? I got stuck between a knight clone and platform and couldn't get out.

For music, I think an ambient track would suit this game.

[erik]

It gets kind of laggy once about 10 knights are on the screen.

Thanks for the feedback.  We are trying to get an idea of system requirements.  Can you tell me what sort of CPU you have?  And were you using the web player version, or a download?

[ohaiguy]

Hey! So, I played through your whole game and I like it a lot. As a suggestion, I do think the on/off switches could be a tad brighter; they tend to blend in a bit. As a level suggestion, perhaps some more difficult platforming segments could add a bit of spice to the game? You do have the ledge grabbing mechanic but, out of the times I've played, I've hardly had to use it.

I'd also like to mention that I'm a Video Game Composer and, since I do like your game very much, I'd be willing to make a demo track for you guys to see if you like my style for your game. Just say the word.

[SterlingDee]

I really enjoyed it. Loved the humour, especially the end credits.

I do like this type of game, but the demo missions didn't seem to have that much variety. Will subsequent levels have different game mechanics, using the dead knights in different ways? Could there maybe be different varieties of knights that have different properties or abilities (I don't know, a fat or short knight for example heh)?

[erik]

Thanks for the feedback SterlingDee.  We haven't really talked about having a variety in the knight abilities, but we do have a number of different mechanics in the works to give more variety to the actions the player takes and the types of puzzles that the player is faced with.  Freezing knights into ice cubes, and firing knights from cannons, for example.