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[quigibrough]

Tired of running? Sick of jumping? Grabbles is a physics-based platformer in which you must use your stretchy, sticky limbs to traverse the landscape & outsmart opponents. With lush environments, fiendish obstacles and tonnes of multiplayer action, you’ll be grabbing for the controller again and again.





We're looking to launch on Steam early access soonish here and are hoping to get some good dev feedback to see if we blatantly missed anything.

Reply here or PM me and I'll send you a code. I'll also feedback your game if you say that you'll feedback mine. Win / win, right?








Best with a controller but mouse is all good too. Easy calibration with any controller(XBOX, PlayStation, generic).

No instructions in game for mouse users but right click shoots a hook and left click shoots a hook, move the mouse in a direction to swing a bit in that direction.

If you can get some friends playing with you, multiplayer is where this game really shines. We also have bots if you have no friends.







Some music is missing from a few levels, ignore that.

Is it too hard? Too easy? When did you start losing interest? What did you hate? Suggestions? Thoughts on whether the video we have is an effective trailer? Any feedback at all would be much appreciated. Thanks!

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[FussenKuh]

Good or bad, the first thing that popped into my head when I saw your screen shots was Nintendo's Pikmin. The still shots of those grabbles, especially the first shot where they're grabbing onto those eyeball poofs, reminded me of the Pikmin creatures. Of course, after reading your description, the game is nothing like Pikmin

I don't have a controller, so I didn't attempt to take your game for a test drive. Though, based off the description and watching the video, it does look like one of your biggest hurdles is going to be the controls. If the player doesn't find them intuitive or fun to use, your game is going to be DOA. The way you've described it, it sounds like they might be fun to use, but, they might prove too difficult to master for a casual game.

While multiplayer sounds like it's your main attraction, I really appreciated reading the bit in your single player write up concerning racing ghosts of other players. I think that's a fantastic idea! It'll let the lone player indirectly compete with others without having to worry about finding friends/family/strangers to join.

Also, I attempted to follow your IndieDB link ( https://www.indiedb.com/games/grabbles ). As of this writing, it takes me to a "Webpage not Found" error. Not sure if it's a glitch on IndieDB's side or a typo in the URL you've provided.

Best of luck moving forward!

[Ikizami]

First thing I must say is the art did catch my eye quite a bit!

I don't have a controller to test it out personally; the screenshots and video does make it look pretty interesting! Upon first glance, the characters, how they move around, the small hair-like things around the walls and characters made me thing everything was microbial or cellular. So, although the environment took place outside, around rocks, etc, I could easily see it being within an organism, just on a cellular level. (Just my thought though!)

I did like the video. If I had a controller, I would love to take my shot at playing it (just don't have one lying around to give it a shot, though). Overall seems really interesting!

[quigibrough]

Thanks for the feedback! Getting people who have a controller that can be hooked up to their computer is definitely our biggest problem so far. Going into this game, I thought that a lot of people would have an Xbox or PlayStation controller at their house.

I'm struggling with the idea of having inferior keyboard / mouse controls just for testing so that more people can try it, but then they might have a bad time since it's very strange using a keyboard.

Thanks for telling me about my broken links too.

[dlan]

I played the 4 levels, I couldn't complete the fourth one though, didn't manage to pass through the narrow passage at the top of the first section

The game concept is quite promising, the simple action of moving from one wall to another is fun enough to push the player to see more. The concept is expandable enough that you can add more levels and variety in the game design without too much risk of having something unplayable.

About the controls, while the usage of two appendage make a controller the obvious choice, I think using the mouse to aim / and grab could work, you just need to find a nice way for switching between appendages, that would perhaps be less intuitive, but since the pace of the game is not too fast, that could be a solution.

That said, the thing that really bug we is that you need to keep the joystick in a direction and press the trigger if you want to expand an appendage. It end up being really tiring, especially when you repeatedly use the two appendages at the same time. I think I would prefer a system where the appendages are always visible, and where you use the joystick only to change the direction it point to, while pressing the trigger to grab a surface  would work all the time, using the last direction the appendage point to.

The graphics remind me of world of goo, the grabbles are actually quite cute

For info, I tried to download the windows version available at indiedb, but that didn't work, it keep telling me that It can't find a mirror. I ended up using the web version.

[quigibrough]

You have spoken and we have answered. You can now use mouse and controller to play! Thanks for all the great feedback so far!

New introduction level and tweaks to all levels. New springy nodes that move when you attach to them. Other new things that I forget.





Play in your browser. (chrome_32 is currently broken for all Unity webplayers. Resizing the window might work, reloading a couple times might help, clicking "always allow for this site" might work, also just opening up your settings for chrome appears to make the webplayer visible again, or use a different browser)

Get the latest Windows/Mac/Linux builds here.

Is it too hard? Too easy? When did you start losing interest? What did you hate? Suggestions? Thoughts on whether the video we have is an effective trailer? Any feedback at all would be much appreciated. Thanks!

                                 Website - Facebook - Twitter - IndieDB - GameJolt

[quigibrough]

New updates:

* New multiplayer gametype 'basketball'.
* New art everywhereish. 
* Deathmatch map 'Cross' now has death balls you throw at others. 
* Better mouse support all around. 
* Tweaked introduction levels based on feedback. 
* Flow coins added to one level

We will both be completely available tonight at 9pm EST if anyone that wants to play multiplayer, hopefully we can get a decent sized game going. 

We also both receive a notification when someone starts a game so we will try and put up a multiplayer game real quick and wait for you to join us (Multiplayer -> Join Game). 

Is it too hard? Too easy? When did you start losing interest? What did you hate? Suggestions? Give me at least one bad feedback.

[quigibrough]

 

We have made many minor tweaks throughout the game but most importantly we have an all new tutorial.

We can also now watch you after you play so make sure to change your name to something hilarious.

In case you didn't get the update before, this game now has mouse controls.

[quigibrough]

WEBPLAYER DEMO: http://www.noblewhale.com/grabbles

Boss added - In single player menu you can select the boss fight. If you are new to the game I would recommend playing through all of the previous levels first.

Cooperative mode added - Can be played with two controllers on the same computer. In Multiplayer, host a game and select race and then select the Cooperative map. It requires some intermediate Grabbling.

Same screen multiplayer added - We will spawn a Grabble for every controller hooked up to your computer. Play with those assholes you call roommates.

Feedback on the above changes would be much appreciated. There are tons of other tiny changes but those are the major things.

Oh yeah, right now you have to use the bumpers on a controller instead of the triggers to shoot out your awesome arms. Joysticks to move the arms, have fun!

[quigibrough]

So it's been a long time since I updated this forum post. Many things have happened, we've taken Grabbles up to PAX East and ran a Kickstarter campaign. PAX East gave us many great connections but unfortunately we are terrible at running a Kickstarter campaign.



We'll have a huge post mortem covering both PAX East, Kickstarter, and Steam Greenlight coming very soon.

New Trailer:



We have some very updated builds to share with you!

Windows Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u5mjyb114zoq9qj/Grabbles_windows.zip
Mac Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n4l7w5vlscdj44i/Grabbles_mac.app.zip
Webplayer: http://www.noblewhale.com/grabbles

Any and all feedback is appreciated but I think the biggest feedback would be saying why you stopped playing or why you didn't want to play at all.

[Eendhoorn]

The demo already feels pretty polished, I like the little effects of the little "hairs" where you can grab onto swinging in the wind.
The only feedback I have is that I sometimes did not have a clear idea where I had to go, this mostly happened when I left an indoor area and entered a more open area. You could try offsetting the camera's position into the position the player is traveling, it will help to look ahead. Or you could give the player the option to move the camera with the right analog stick.
Other than everything felt great, I feel like it would make for a good mobile game as well

[BSKgames]

Gameplay is very fluent I like it a lot, music is fine too. It may be a little bit offensive but game visually looks like prototype, you may collaborate with skilled designer and make it looks awesome and you golden. And maybe some PR guys, so for you I think you just need to find a investor and hire designer and PR or just find this guys and share with them your game. But this is just my personal opinion, I may be wrong so think for yourself. As for designers maybe you can go on deviantart find some guys there with solid designs and send them proposal.

Have fun, work hard, dont stop and everything will be awesome! 

[ryanjuckett]

Dropping off some feedback. Hope something helps. I played single player with a 360 controller.

The top post in the thread says the newest build is always at http://noblewhale.com/grabblesalpha/ so I played that for a while. It looks like that might be wrong, though, and the newest build is now at http://noblewhale.com/grabbles. You should fix that

Mechanically, the biggest issue I had was accidentally mixing the sticks and triggers (e.g. aiming with the left stick and pressing right trigger). The feedback for this is just a sound effect. This didn't help communicate what I was doing wrong. A few thoughts on the issue:
* You can't see the hands unless you press a stick direction. This hides the fact that there are two hands, but you really want the affordances of your character to be apparent to new players. I'd suggest making the hands always visible.
* Once you can always see the hands, you can then give visual feedback on the hand that was triggered without a direction. This could just shoot in the previously held direction or it could play some little failure animation to help associate the trigger with the gameplay element.

I couldn't finish the first level. As I progressed, the camera kept pulling farther and farther out showing the entire level rather than following my character. When I got to the end, I jumped into what looked like the goal circle and got stuck on the edge of it. From there I couldn't do anything. Either I encountered some bugs or the actual goal of the game wasn't communicated well enough. You would know better than I as to what I was doing wrong

[quigibrough]

@ryanjuckett Thanks for playing. You actually played a very old version of the game but all the mechanics are basically there. The level progression is completely different(first level is basically the same though). The newest version is always at www.grabblesgame.com/grabblesalpha

The reason the camera was zooming out so much is that the game automagically spawns a new player for each controller plugged in and it was trying to keep all of you on screen. We haven't fixed this problem yet but will in the future. If you unplug all controllers except the one you are using, it should work fine. 

I like the idea of having the hands always visible. We could put them in front of the player and offset them a little bit so they aren't on top of eachother. You aren't really supposed to know you have two arms until the second level(the alpha link shows this) but it is definitely confusing when starting out with the game.

If you want to try playing more than the first level(unless you played more on the alpha link) try using the alpha link and with one controller, it'd be very much appreciated. We took out multiplayer in that build in order to reduce the size but if you have friends and just want to play multiplayer, that'd be awesome too! I'd also be happy to feedback your game again. Screenwrapping sounds great!

[Quicksand-S]

I finally got around to playing this (singleplayer with a 360 gamepad).

Moving around feels great. I really like it. It's so smooth and intuitive. Nice work.

I only have a few issues at the moment. One is that the timer starts before I get control, which isn't really a problem but it's something I'm not a fan of. The other is that the things that are dangerous don't really stand out as being dangerous. Actually, those spiky roots or whatever they were in the pit in the first level didn't really stand out at all. I didn't notice they were solid until I hit them.

The only other thing that kind of frustrated me was the green things near the end of level 1. With earlier ones, I could fling myself right through their bodies, but those ones kept getting me stuck and robbed me of a star.

It's a little difficult to judge the range of my "arms" sometimes as well, in the more open areas.

Some of the collision-detection at the end of level 2 drives me crazy. I kept dying in that last area, even if I wasn't quite touching the branches. It's also a bit strange that the checkpoint near the end gets used even if you die before activating it. What's the point of activating them, then?

I don't really like having Greenlight be the option that's selected by default when I finish a level. That sort of pushiness just turns me off instead of making me want to support it.

The boss battle was very annoying. It felt weird for the camera to follow the boss rather than my character. The physics also did weird things when I got hit by those egg things (one time I just got launched into the ground). It wasn't clear what I was supposed to do, either. Visually, it was a bit strange that the boss had no shading while everything else in the game was more detailed. I liked how the boss fight felt when it was working well.

It might be a good idea to add a brief period of invincibility. I died twice in a row during the boss fight because a rock hit me just after I respawned. (Update: I actually just died FOUR TIMES IN A ROW from rocks hitting me as I spawned.)

Some sort of sound when I get disconnected from a wall would be nice. Sometimes I went to grab things with one arm and my other arm seemed to disconnect automatically. I know it happens if you get hit, but sometimes it seemed like it was just random.

I dislike how the menu only has options for resetting. There's no "Resume" option, so at least once I automatically hit a button thinking my boss fight would resume and instead I started over from scratch. At the very least, I think "Last Checkpoint" would be a safer default option.

The music gets a bit repetitive at times, but I like the instruments and overall sound of it all.

I stopped after the second bonus level. Not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because I had other things to do before bed.   It's pretty good.

[Quicksand-S]

Since you notified me that the version I'd played was old, I'll briefly compare it to the new version:

-I really dislike the new art. It has none of the charm of the old one and I find that speed blur/ghost thing really ugly looking. The dangerous roots stand out more, but that's probably the only thing I like about the new style.

-The other character in level 1 was probably my favorite part of the old version. It served to show players what they had to do and it was fun to try racing them. With that character gone, the level feels lifeless and also less informative to new players.

-As you know, I got through the entire old version and beat two bonus levels. With that in mind, I want to say that I find the spinning things in level 1 of the new version incredibly frustrating. Being flung into deadly walls constantly is irritating and terrible for a first level.

-The control is still great. I played in a browser this time around and it worked just as well as in the old, downloadable version.

-Some of the new level design elements are interesting. I didn't play everything in this one (I didn't find it nearly as enjoyable), but I did jump to the last level and try that out. I like actually having to use both arms. In the previous version, I think that was only required in the boss level and one of the bonus levels, not anywhere else.

-I miss the boss fight. It had its issues, but with some adjustments (like some way to actually avoid the falling rocks, maybe if they only fall on the side that was hit or something) I think it could be great.

[quigibrough]

It is definitely the first time we've heard that someone dislikes the new art more than the old art. The new art isn't entirely fleshed out with random things in the environment so maybe that's it? I can easily see why you hate the color trails though, those were thrown in fairly recently and are not refined at all.  

We'll definitely be adding back NPCs but with us changing the levels so much it was just becoming a pain recording them and putting them back in.  

I'm pretty sure I agree with you about the spinning platforms being a little weird. I like them but I think they at least need to be a bit easier for the first level.  

Don't worry about that boss. We are just redesigning some elements of that boss and putting it more towards the end of the game so that people can better grasp how to move around and use two hooks.  

One of the biggest problems is that we also love using two arms in separate directions but it takes people so long to learn to even let go with one arm that we had to move that further back.  

Thanks again for all of your great feedback!

[Quicksand-S]

I think what I liked best about the old art was that it felt like art from a children's story book. It had that sort of "friendly" quality to it and that style isn't so common in games. Now, even though much of the art is technically better, it's lost that feeling completely. It's darker and more oppressive at the beginning. It also looks more like a Flash game now. This shot in particular, http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/29/28930/grabs_vis_mockup.png, looks like many, many other games I've seen in the past and I've never liked that flat-and-full-of-subtle-gradients look. It just has none of the charm of the original style and it no longer stands out.

The cyclops look (with two eyebrows?) also makes the characters kind of unsettling rather than endearing, at least for me. That's a bit surprising since I usually like one-eyed creatures. Maybe it's the shape of the eye. It looks so serious. It makes my character look less like someone/something I'd want to play with.

This is all just my own personal reaction to it, of course, but I thought it might be useful if I shared my reasoning. I'm not saying that the original style was perfect, but it had a lot of great qualities that I wish had transferred over to the new style.

[marcgfx]

i just tried to play the game. but it crashed on me (using chrome). before it crashed, i selected level 1 and the game started. the pink grabble ran off and the others dropped to the floor. i tried to use my mouse or the keyboard but nothing happened. as i have 2 gamepads plugged in, I gave one a try (turns out it was player 2). then the whole thing went black (i was in fullscreen mode) and i killed chrome using the task-manager.

[quigibrough]

Been awhile since I posted here but looking for some of that sweet dev feedback again.

Tired of running? Sick of jumping? Grabbles is a physics-based platformer in which you must use your stretchy, sticky limbs to traverse the landscape & outsmart opponents. With lush environments, fiendish obstacles and tonnes of multiplayer action, you’ll be grabbing for the controller again and again.





We're looking to launch on Steam early access soonish here and are hoping to get some good dev feedback to see if we blatantly missed anything.

Reply here or PM me and I'll send you a code. I'll also feedback your game if you say that you'll feedback mine. Win / win, right?








Best with a controller but mouse is all good too. Easy calibration with any controller(XBOX, PlayStation, generic).

No instructions in game for mouse users but right click shoots a hook and left click shoots a hook, move the mouse in a direction to swing a bit in that direction.

If you can get some friends playing with you, multiplayer is where this game really shines. We also have bots if you have no friends.







Some music is missing from a few levels, ignore that.

Is it too hard? Too easy? When did you start losing interest? What did you hate? Suggestions? Thoughts on whether the video we have is an effective trailer? Any feedback at all would be much appreciated. Thanks!

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