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[lobstersteve]

Hey there TIG-people

so there was this platformer game, i've started working on like 2 month ago out of cluelessness and boredom and somehow it turned to a thing that didn't let me go...so here it is, close to being finished and in need for some testing.

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/22b307c5d2a3684bb5ccd304a2948ab1

Post-playtesting version: http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/16ef5a626d05c222f0b53b1367e432f2

Done: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/642677

while playing please consider that some stuff is still in work, like:

- title screen
- background art
- music and some effects ( more cheerfull chapter finishing etc.)

stuff i would like to know:

- difficulty / difficulty curve
- PERFORMANCE! (especially on the "hard world")
- length ( if somebody actually finishes it )
- bugs / glitches / weird stuff
- all other things that come to your mind

THX for the help already, curious to hear from you  

[lobstersteve]

...btw: all levels are unlocked for testing purposes 

[ferretter]

I finished it without too much difficulty, and found it pretty fun. Overall, I thought the difficulty curve was pretty nice, and the 'tutorial phase' was the right length. I noticed no performance issues at any point. I thought the game to be a little short; a few more hard levels would make it feel more satisfying. I felt the very last level was a nice difficulty, it involved some precision jumps and a good combination of the player mechanics.

I didn't like the cooldown on the dash ability, it felt too clunky. I'm not 100% sure how it works right now, but I feel some improvements could be made. Dashing while on the ground should have a very short cooldown (also because it wouldn't break any levels). Dashing in the air should recharge upon touching the ground (either landing or wall jumping).

Also, I would like it better if there was a very short (0.5 sec maybe) delay between death and restarting, just so that my previous action while dying doesn't lead me to another death right away. In line with this, the game would feel nicer if there was a little more feedback on player death; just a very small animation of the bird dying or perhaps a few particles or something.

I thought the acceleration due to gravity was a little high, which made some parts feel more difficult than they seemed they should be. This isn't a real problem, it just takes a bit of getting used to; though it could be tweaked a bit.

Some of the collection items (nuts?) blended into the background too much. A good example of this would be the lower-right nut in level 25 which I didn't notice until I had collected the others.

Now some specific criticisms for the levels:

• 5 - Near the start of the level I died when I got close to the top of the screen. I think the screen top should just act as a ceiling.
• 15 - There's no real indication of the moving screen gimmick before it begins, and it's never used again. Also, the leading edge of the screen will also kill you. It would be nice if there was some sort of visual indication of the side of the screen becoming deadly (eg a wall of spikes coming in or something).
• 19 - This is a very long level, and as the game has no checkpoints (which is a fine design decision), this gives a meaningful difficulty spike over the previous levels. I felt some anxiety towards the end with the precision jumping since I didn't want to replay the entire level. Perhaps some of the level should be split off into a previous level; though it did feel like a bit of a 'final test' (once I noticed it was the final level of easy).
• 20 - missing
• 26 - Sometimes it wouldn't let me jump off the vertically moving platform.
• 29 - The moving platform would moved me into side of the spikes if I didn't land perfectly, which was rather frustrating.

[Quicksand-S]

I love the art style. That bird design is great.

Since the game encourages speed-running, it would be nice if things were set up well at the start of each level. It should be possible, for example, to dash straight onto the moving platform on level 19 without having to wait a few seconds first.

It would also be nice if the title screen allowed a keyboard press rather than requiring the mouse, since the actual gameplay doesn't use the mouse at all.

I stopped after dying in level 19. I just didn't feel like going through all that again, but I think that may just be because this isn't a genre I love. I did try a random hard level out of curiosity and it seemed decent.

I don't think I encountered any performance issues or bugs. I strongly agree with ferretter it needing a slight delay before you respawn. I would also add that it would feel more fair if falling off-screen killed me, rather than touching the bottom of the screen. In one case, I was lined up perfectly for a just-in-time wall-jump and died instead.

Overall, I think the level design is very good. Some of the early levels may be a bit too simple. It's nice to introduce new mechanics, but most gamers will be able to pick them up fast enough that you should be able to require a little bit of skill even in the intro levels. Not being that interested in the genre, I didn't try out more of the hard levels, but what I saw was quite well-made and well thought-out.

[lobstersteve]

ok, thx a lot for the feedback! 

basicly i agree with all the stuff and gonna fix it in the near future.

"20 - missing" - hahaha, you're right 

[The Translocator]

I loved it.
The physics are great. I agree with everything ferretter said except the gravity- it does feel difficult, but that's a good thing imo.
If you fixed the minor things and made it into a full length, commercial game, I would buy it, and probably attempt to speedrun it. I'm serious. The dashing mechanic, even though it's not necessarily a new idea, felt great as a main mechanic.
Just to prove I like it, I tried to go through level 30 as quickly as possible.
I got 8.409 seconds- probably not that good, but w/e.
I'm serious. Get together a team of people who want to make a difficult game and make this a full game. I promise I'll preorder.   

[monsterkillu]

A well crafted game. loved the fluid physics.

Reminds me of the Meat Boy (without Blood), and Jumper series. Some levels felt like they were similar to SMB levels ... Nice Dashing mechanics...

Some Brief suggestions:

1. I was trying to double jump, hoping maybe the bird would flap its wings or something . (How to avoid that ??).
2. More Clearer Objective .. I mean what is it that completes a level.
3. Standard Controls - 'C' for jump, i've to read through it, after i tried space, Z, up many times...
4. Most important of all, how to make it a unique and different platformer, so that the players of Super Meat Boy, Jumper, Jumpman etc can still enjoy it...

Good Luck

[The Translocator]

Oh. I just found a glitch...
http://puu.sh/99P6P/91f6eab3d9.jpg
You can get a time of zero by beating the level again after beating the level (you don't lose control when the timer screen pops up)

[lobstersteve]

@Translocator: thx a lot!
especially for the reminder of the glitch, i often think of it, set it aside and forget it, and now it's still there -.- ..i think not losing control is actually a cool thing, but i'll make it impossible to beat the level twice.
I think making it commercial is stretched too far, but i'll look for a sponsor

...a lot of minor things are fixed also by now

[The Translocator]

Maybe you should put it on Kickstarter after touching it up a bit, and pursue it commercially if it gets funded?

The only things that really need changed are the tiles and title.
The problem with the tiles is that it seems you're using tiles that can't overlap, resulting in missing bits of outline.
Additionally, the style of pixelated ground vs vector player object is an interesting choice. I think if you made everything in a similar style to the player object it would look amazing.
For the title, it sounds unprofessional (which is fine if you are just going to keep it on Newgrounds, but if you do want to Kickstart a full version then I would suggest calling it something like "Feather Wing" or something. I don't know.

[Quicksand-S]

I'll just chime in here and say that I actually really like the title. I think it's goofy/cheesy in a good way.

[Retroman]

Excellent game, I really enjoyed it! The controls are smooth and responsive and the protagonist is quite cute.

The difficulty curve is pretty good; finishing the game didn't take too much effort. Some levels required quite a bit of skill to navigate, but it never became frustrating. The only thing I thought was a bit unintuitive was that touching the top of the screen (if there was no ceiling present) resulted in death.

To me, the penultimate level seemed a lot harder than the final level (didn't die once there), so you might want to switch those around.

I liked that there was plenty of variety between levels. I'd rather play a short game with lots of variety than an overlong, padded game with too many similar levels.

The only weak point was the music. I thought it was a bit boring and monotonous, so it would've been nice if there was an option to mute it.

All in all a mighty fine game! Well done!

[PeterPixeleap]

Hi,

I really enjoyed the art style and overall look and feel of the game.

At first I also really liked the controls, but I ended up having a lot of trouble with timing in the level where it tells you "you can also dash again after a wall jump". I am pretty patient and think I tried it 30+ times, but I kept dying in a way that felt like it was the controls fault and not my own.
Ofcourse I can't be sure that is the case and maybe the level is meant to be very difficult, by I did feel there was some control issues when trying to time jump-> wall jump -> dash -> wall jump

Good luck with the game!

Peter

[dez]

Neat game.

I like the feel/tone of the game.
There is a lot of nice polish in there, although the controls feel about 85% done.
I agree with Retroman about the music.  It is nice, but only a few times.
The game does feel a lot like many things i have seen before though (N, SMB, etc).
Because of this I also got tired at "you can also dash again after a wall jump"  after dying a bunch of times I didn't feel like there was anything afterwards that was really worth me 'fighting' to see, so I stopped playing there.


Maybe if there is some more hook in the beginning would make me feel like "I really must get past this round!".   What if there is something I am following?  Think out of the box though.. don't just make it a girl bird.    

Something that might have kept me playing too is if it wouldn't have started me all the way at the beginning of "you can also dash again after a wall jump" even when I died right at the end.  But of course that makes death not matter much in the game, so it is a judgement call.  

Just my 2 cents.

[lobstersteve]

Thx again for the feedback! (didn't thought there still would be more to come, therefore i didn't check the thread for a long time - stupid me)
You are very right about the "you can also dash again after a wall jump" level.
Basicly the code is - if you touch a wall you can dash again, but for some weird reason it takes a while, until the dash is "activated" again and it feels very unresponsive. (The weirdest thing is that it works perfectly while playing offline - which was a sign that it is some timer problem in some of my earlier games).
I'll definetly will have a look at this for some more hours as it seems that it is a major disturbing factor.