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[ThomasMorrison]

-- Play on Newgrounds --

I made How the Wilderness Wonders over the past month, doing everything myself except for the music! It is a auto-running platformer with handmade levels where you interact with the environment as opposed to with the "hero" itself.

The game is quite short and is controlled entirely with the mouse (I encourage using a mouse over a touch pad greatly!)

I'm looking for all feedback, especially about the gameplay/difficulty curve.

Note: I know the sound effects kind of suck, but I ran out of time and the stand-ins had to stay for the most part

[Stib]

So I read nothing before giving feedback. I just think a game should teach me everything I need to know but that's just me. Following is my stream of conscious:

• I like the hand draw art and the depth of field on the title screen. Do more of that dof effect
• What am i? a sheep with dynamite on his back?
• Sometimes I click and nothing happens, I'm expecting the sheep to jump when I click!
• why did I break the glass thing?
• Oh I'm supposed to click on them...You need to tell this to players explicitly.
• Eraser effect is cool
• Great job on the music
• Sound effects are good
• Great polish on this game

Now I hope you don't get upset with me but I think your game has a fundamental problem. It's just not that fun. I'm not trying to be mean it's just that the core mechanic of the game is to click on objects to help the sheep progress. You must choose when and what to click on. Really the game is about clicking an object at the right time, which is pretty boring.

It's obvious you have talent though. This game is well polished with music and effects and there's even a unique look to it. I just think you need to find a better core mechanic and you'll make some great stuff.

Okay now I'm reading your post...

Your sound effects are just fine The game is edging toward the easy side but that might be because you did a great job with the death restart, it's very fluid.

[eyeliner]

Played it.
Artsy: Black and white is great, hand drawn art is great. Can't say nothing for the sounds.

Gamey: Some things are hard to click because of the speed, but I found that if you click rapidly you can even play with your eyes closed because eventually you click trough.

Suggestions: Zoom out the view a little bit, showing more level, giving time to click, that way you can even add paths. Also, why doesn't the whatever the hero is jump when going left?

You could make a great level by making the jumping more dynamic like that.

[ThomasMorrison]

@Stib
- Thanks for the upfront no-bias thoughts!
- Your a sheep-mailman with antlers (yes I know this is not obviouse lol, had to cut almost 100% of the story due to time constraints)
- I have had a lot of feedback that the game play was non-obvious and clicking on objects as opposed to the player should have been explained at least a bit. If I could go back I would have a quick animation showing the glass blocks being broken when clicked.
- Not upset! Honestly just happy that you were upfront about it. I think that the game as a whole lacks depth from the players perspective.

@eyeliner
- Glad people seem to like the art, took quite a bit of time surprisingly!
- The sheep actually only jumps if it overlaps manually placed "jump colliders". In a few places you do jump when going left. In general I couldn't allow this as it would break some of the levels (however, I can see that from the players perspective thinking "Wtf he jumps over all the pits except for that one? What gives?")

Thanks for the replies!

[Noyb]

I like the art and music!

Gameplay was confusing at first. The first few runs, like Stib, I had convinced myself that clicking caused me to jump and didn't know how to pass the first obstacle. It also took a while to learn that the player character only turns around when on the ground, not when hitting a wall in midair.

The art design is generally good at providing enough clues to the game object functions in retrospect -- shimmering on interactive objects, flat edges where platforms can expand, crystalline-looking platforms that can shatter -- except when the player character can jump, like eyeliner says. It's not always obvious whether the player character will jump at the edge of a platform, something that could be made clearer with an explicit visual element.

The mechanics aren't bad, but the level design requires a ton of trial and error. Platforms you need to extend or destroy just as they enter the screen. Paths through levels that aren't immediately obvious. Levels with enough discrete, modular steps that start to wear me down after the nth repetition just to reach the part I don't yet know how to solve. I quit sometime after the third delivery.