hey so i got some comments after playing this thing finally.
okay.
first off: collecting things is satisfying as it should be. everything looks
gorgeous. the music is -beautiful- and fits well. sound design for the most part works really well. it runs very smoothly (i didn't have any frames dropped at all) and it feels solid for the most part.
but there's a
lotttttta problems too (which makes sense; this is an alpha, after all!), and they're mostly regarding the plane switching mechanic.
here's the main issue in short: this game is hard. it's
really fucking hard. and it's very obviously not supposed to be.
i'm not whining that this game can't be hard at
some point but...
okay.
let's break this down here.
you're throwing novice players (for the game) into an open world puzzle platformer that's heavy on atmosphere and mystery, and it has a perspective mechanic. great.
so what's the problem? only this:
the start of this peaceful puzzle game feels like the final level of super meat boy.the difficulty level is fighting the desire to explore 100 percent right now. it's already hard to grasp where each plane is; the parallax is functional but possibly not functional enough. this would be less of a problem on 3DS but right now everything feels like guesswork, and guesswork means you really have to mess around with tweaking the mechanics.
possibly this could be averted by a camera that was always tilting left or right but that might ruin the 2D look. it might throw people off, too. maybe including a camera that could tilt at all; but again, that would ruin the 2D look. probably the best bet is a
maneuverable camera that is
still anamorphic but keeps the parallax in mind, such that you could "look around corners" and such without sacrificing the flat pixel look.
that's a very minor point, though; a camera would be gravy. it wouldn't fix all the constant dying (it might give it a tiny health pad though).
the thing that's both hilarious and cruel is that you can shift planes from a standing position in a way that will let you fall to your death. this can happen nearly
constantly and can be easily sacrificed with nary a tear shed; simply preventing you from shifting from a standing position if it would kill you is a good way to fix that.
also cruel/hilarious; the fact that you can very, very easily manage to respawn in such a way that the game kills you again, instantly respawning you back at the beginning of whatever area you're in.
everyone who's played the demo knows exactly what area this becomes a legitimate pain ini managed to find all 17 (i think there are only 17) red cubes in the demo. but by that point, this happened, because i was trying to explore using the plane shifting mechanic and ended up in an unfinished area, looping my infinite death
so that's great.
note: jumping to a platform only to find out it wasn't on the plane you thought it was and consequently falling and then having to climb back up, or worse,
respawning nowhere near where you were, is
hell. it is abject torture.
note: the sound that plays when you visit the merchant is ungodly and i wouldn't have a problem with that so much if it wasn't louder than everything else (it might be, level-wise, the same loudness as everything, but it's sure as hell kicking that midrange fletcher-munson sweet spot until my fight-or-flight kicks in and i inadvertently throw my laptop out the window
note: the switching mechanic is, largely, satisfying when it works. jumping to another platform that you -know- is on a certain plane, switching to that plane, and landing? feels like magic. but it also feels unfair when you misjudge what plane it is. how do you fix that? how do you tweak that?
a thing to think: fez has a perspective mechanic that, similarly, can be used at all times, while jumping and while standing. it feels immediately intuitive and never feels bad to use.
what is fez doing differently?it's only two things.
one of them:
switching perspective planes stops you and time for the duration of the switch in mid-airand:
you can switch as many times as you want in mid-air until you finally hit the groundthese are crucial. i don't know if you're considering these things for possible upgrades, but they should be considered if not and they should probably be implemented to solve a lot of heartache.
i do understand that switching forward and back is probably an upgrade, given that both walls blocking off the demo's edges are impossible to traverse unless you do that (with the exception of the above area, which is possible to get through by just plane shifting forward and jumping. it registers you as entering the next area).
but if that's the case, you should both get that ability
very early and you should make certain that the earlier jump puzzles involving plane-shifting are much easier. right now it's nigh-untraversable and frustrating because you're throwing too much at the player at once. the difficulty curve needs to be way gentler. i also super recommend you doing the stop-time thing, because there's
absolutely nothing worse than jumping onto a platform that's on a certain plane and then landing right as it shifts. it's
hell. this would make the timing way nicer in a very subtle way without breaking the beautiful momentum.
small note: you hear the falling death sound every time you exit an area.
small note: i like the dialogue and worldbuilding. it's cute.
something i was thinking about while playing: littlebigplanet uses plane-shifting in an identical way to you with two exceptions:
-i don't think you can shift in mid-air nearly as easily if at all
-it moves you to the right plane automatically in certain situations to ease frustration
something maybe to think about for certain situations where shifting and jumping together aren't crucial to the experience, mayhaps, and especially something to think about letting kick in in certain sections if the player dies enough times.
the area to the left of the starting center is far more compelling than the area to the right because of the gentler difficulty curve. and the area to the right is difficult because it doesn't feel intuitive because shifting hasn't become second nature. would you be able to do the final boss of the world ends with you without having the whole game teach you how you're supposed to play it? probably not?
i like the colors. the pink trees are nice.
i might have more specific thoughts on difficulty, etc later. anyway i've spent over two full hours on playtesting + taking notes on this so i think it's a good point to leave it at that.
cheers!
Community
