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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingAction Gamemaster- 2D Metroid Cheetahmen-inspired game
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ActionGamemaster
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« on: July 17, 2014, 12:43:39 AM »

Action Gamemaster is a game that is loosely based on Action 52.
This game features a character in Action 52- Action Gamemaster. He was a useless character, only appeared in the beginning cutscene of Cheetahmen and was never mentioned again.

 And while I was really bored, I thought: "Man, that Action Gamemaster is really obscure. Let's make a fun game about him where he's actually playable."



The game itself plays, control-wise, like a regular old platformer, but it's also not linear, like Metroid. That means, there's upgrades to get for your character, you can use those upgrades to go to places you couldn't access before, you can be patient and explore the item rooms which give you permanent health, weapon upgrades, etcetera.



The game has little areas, but for now, I'm at that stage of development when I need to get as much feedback as I can to fix glitches, inconsistencies, notice broken design I can't notice because I didn't when I made it, or even change the entire game for the better. Then, I can focus on bringing in more upgrades, areas, bosses, enemies, cats, dogs, tea, coffee-

You can download the Windows version here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5kck7ltctn1axme/ActionGamemaster.zip?dl=0

Or a Mac version:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v8thlyteefj9du9/AACSlLykdwsVkaYx1cZLXmR-a?dl=0

Or a Linux version:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/019hojru944g4s0/ActionGamemasterLinux32.zip?dl=0 (32-bit)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xdp3gckh6ri1jt0/ActionGamemasterLinux64.zip?dl=0 (64-bit)

Also, if you get lost, you can get a quick download of the map of the game:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/can45qyb9xwqmug/ActionGamemasterMap.zip?dl=0
« Last Edit: October 17, 2014, 10:57:15 AM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2014, 01:41:18 PM »

Pros:
-Good Music
-Good gameplay(as far as I was able to experience the gameplay up to the point where I was stuck see screen shot below)


Cons:
-The sprite needs to match the game. You have a 2D pixel background and 2D pixel monsters But a 2D non-pixel sprite.
-The sprite is stiff. Instead of just moving realistically with legs moving, He instead is sliding. I don't know if making a realistically moving sprite is hard or not, but if it is, to combat this would be to make a non-humanoid sprite so therefore it would be normal for it to slide for movement. However, I know this will take away from the character you developed. So another option would be to make your sprite 2d pixel and legless and armless so that we can see that it is a human but created in that style. Or he can just be a sliding head.

So there appears to not be a option to upload images from your PC... So I will tell where I got stuck.
In the very beginning of the game after destroying the first monster,, I duck under the wall and come across an orange metroid  looking door with a platform on top and also a Up keyboard symbol in the air. tried to go through the door nothing happened. jumped on the platform couldn't jump to anywhere head kept hitting something. went to the up arrow thing and hit up nothing happened I assumed that was only when I get up there which I was trying to do but couldn't figure out how.





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« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2014, 03:19:50 PM »

Pros:
-Good Music
-Good gameplay(as far as I was able to experience the gameplay up to the point where I was stuck see screen shot below)


Cons:
-The sprite needs to match the game. You have a 2D pixel background and 2D pixel monsters But a 2D non-pixel sprite.
-The sprite is stiff. Instead of just moving realistically with legs moving, He instead is sliding. I don't know if making a realistically moving sprite is hard or not, but if it is, to combat this would be to make a non-humanoid sprite so therefore it would be normal for it to slide for movement. However, I know this will take away from the character you developed. So another option would be to make your sprite 2d pixel and legless and armless so that we can see that it is a human but created in that style. Or he can just be a sliding head.

So there appears to not be a option to upload images from your PC... So I will tell where I got stuck.
In the very beginning of the game after destroying the first monster,, I duck under the wall and come across an orange metroid  looking door with a platform on top and also a Up keyboard symbol in the air. tried to go through the door nothing happened. jumped on the platform couldn't jump to anywhere head kept hitting something. went to the up arrow thing and hit up nothing happened I assumed that was only when I get up there which I was trying to do but couldn't figure out how.







I don't know how to animate legs. The legless, bodiless pine cone for a body abomination you described, though, is a good idea for a bonus skin in the distant future where I do ALL the cocaine and accidentally remember this. thanks

Updated the link for the game with a new version that describes what the hell to do in this game.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2014, 04:11:23 PM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2014, 07:31:14 PM »

Pros:
-Good Music
-Good gameplay(as far as I was able to experience the gameplay up to the point where I was stuck see screen shot below)


Cons:
-The sprite needs to match the game. You have a 2D pixel background and 2D pixel monsters But a 2D non-pixel sprite.
-The sprite is stiff. Instead of just moving realistically with legs moving, He instead is sliding. I don't know if making a realistically moving sprite is hard or not, but if it is, to combat this would be to make a non-humanoid sprite so therefore it would be normal for it to slide for movement. However, I know this will take away from the character you developed. So another option would be to make your sprite 2d pixel and legless and armless so that we can see that it is a human but created in that style. Or he can just be a sliding head.

So there appears to not be a option to upload images from your PC... So I will tell where I got stuck.
In the very beginning of the game after destroying the first monster,, I duck under the wall and come across an orange metroid  looking door with a platform on top and also a Up keyboard symbol in the air. tried to go through the door nothing happened. jumped on the platform couldn't jump to anywhere head kept hitting something. went to the up arrow thing and hit up nothing happened I assumed that was only when I get up there which I was trying to do but couldn't figure out how.







I don't know how to animate legs. The legless, bodiless pine cone for a body abomination you described, though, is a good idea for a bonus skin in the distant future where I do ALL the cocaine and accidentally remember this. thanks

Updated the link for the game with a new version that describes what the hell to do in this game.


Okay I was able to pass the part I was stuck on. Thanks to the instructions you added. I got a little excited when I came across a different monster and it was fast and shooting fast cause this adds difficulty that was great.Until I saw 2 more when I was trying to kill the first one cause it was really fast and I only had 6 hp, so was trying to dodge his fast shooting. So as a result I died a millions times. Even just ran past them and tried to move on without trying to attack them anymore. So I just eventually gave up. Your ganna have to increase the starting HP a notch big time, especially when you have harder monsters. I suggest like 30hp like metroid. I only came across one hp mushroom that only increased my health by 1 before getting into the fast shooting monsters part. lol. should've increased it by 10 maybe I would of survived lol. It was defiantly hard trying to fight those things with 5 hp. Make the health packs and mushrooms to increase by 5 and 10. Also I forgot to mention the cut-scene in the start of the game is to fast! I don't even know who the charterer is and what the story is about because I didn't get a chance to read the cut scene fully because it moved on it's own pace. You should make it where we can click a button to move on to the next page. And lastly there is no menu screen or a way to pause the game.
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« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2014, 01:10:59 AM »

Ok, made them shoot a little slower and made the projectile slower. Next time, try just running from them and go off exploring the levels if you can't beat them.
Link updated
« Last Edit: July 19, 2014, 01:17:47 AM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2014, 04:26:01 PM »

Okay I was able to defeat all three of them for once yay lol.  Hand Clap Went further into the game. started shooting some blocks that was underground to collect a hp box I discovered down there and also got another one from shooting a block. went to get back to the surface and it is literally impossible to get out. You can get in but you can't get out lol. A block is preventing me from getting out I can't jump cause I hit another block above me. This part is where we first see the pink flying disk thing and the bouncy floating fireball thing.
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« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2014, 04:46:14 PM »

Okay I was able to defeat all three of them for once yay lol.  Hand Clap Went further into the game. started shooting some blocks that was underground to collect a hp box I discovered down there and also got another one from shooting a block. went to get back to the surface and it is literally impossible to get out. You can get in but you can't get out lol. A block is preventing me from getting out I can't jump cause I hit another block above me. This part is where we first see the pink flying disk thing and the bouncy floating fireball thing.

Wait, hold on, I understand how you can get stuck there. I made a reset option that resets the level in these cases (R on keyboard). link updated
« Last Edit: July 20, 2014, 01:46:10 PM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2014, 11:12:04 AM »

Anybody knows how to use dropbox with [img]?
« Last Edit: July 30, 2014, 12:03:59 PM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2014, 01:09:06 PM »

I'd probably start by right-clicking on the image and selecting "View Image" or "Copy Image URL" (or something similar, depending on which browser you're on). That will get you the direct URL for the image itself, which you can then use in the [img] tags on here.

If you have issues with that, I found postimage.org to be pretty decent too, and it'll give you the URL to use.
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« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2014, 10:29:46 AM »

Please fix the screenshot links.

Done.
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« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2014, 09:01:32 AM »

Look at the number of views your post has: 698 last time I checked. You don't have an issue with people not viewing it. The issue is that people either aren't playing it, or aren't commenting. I know that when I first saw it, I thought it was just a joke and that you didn't even have a real game.

I would strongly recommend reworking your post so that it's not a joke post about Cheetahmen and actually just talks about the game. Maybe people will actually give it a try then.
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« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2014, 12:09:50 PM »

Look at the number of views your post has: 698 last time I checked. You don't have an issue with people not viewing it. The issue is that people either aren't playing it, or aren't commenting. I know that when I first saw it, I thought it was just a joke and that you didn't even have a real game.

I would strongly recommend reworking your post so that it's not a joke post about Cheetahmen and actually just talks about th e game. Maybe people will actually give it a try then.

I think it was all just me reloading the page the whole time to see if somebody commented. I'll rework it so it sounds like an actual presentation of a game. Thank you.
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« Reply #12 on: August 25, 2014, 08:43:49 AM »

OK, huge disclaimer: I am not bashing your game, I am not trying to be rude I am sincerely trying to be honest here and tell you the exact honest thing you should hear. I won't be rude and I won't step on your toes, but this disclaimer is there just in case you treat your game as your baby (which isn't wrong and you should do to some extent Wink)

I checked your game out and I have to be honest, it wasn't the first time I checked the game Smiley. As Quicksand-S, most people either aren't commenting or aren't playing (I am guessing the former rather than the latter).

The reason I did't comment the first time was a combination between the post and the game itself. Firs the post; at the time (when you first posted) I didn't understand what you are trying to do. In fact what I guessed was that you ripped some game made in some old console and are trying to remake it as a fan game. I didn't mind that, DOTA is a fan game after all Wink

Then I played the game and I was extremely confused. To an extent I had the same feeling when I played it just now as well. Here is the full feedback in no particular order:

1- I liked the idea of having the weapons fully available to you from the start. It was really a good move.
2- I liked that I can receive upgrades to the weapons too.
3- What I found confusing is the weapons themselves. The number 2 (water bursting?) was really weird. I could see it puts off the fire, but beyond that, it felt useless.
4- The other ball bouncy thing looked nice as well and played nice, except its bounce directions are sometimes unpredictable that I ended up just discarding it all together.
5- The explosives one. When I read the description and the "a real weapon" part I though that is it. I am going to see Doom's BFG in there. Then I was met with a simple small thing that is barely noticeable and doesn't do much.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the explosive weapon but it doesn't give it the "omph" I was expecting. It needs to feel like an explosion and not some match being lit.
The idea of upgrading that weapon with distance isn't bad, but power shouldn't be neglected too. That would be really a cool thing to have.

6- There is one major thing this game lacks and that is consistency, everything is all over the place that it takes me a long time to learn something because of the contradictions. For example, the alien like creature that jumps can shoot through walls but everything can't. Everything is shooting projectile as it would look like random speed. Some turrets are literally spamming projectiles while others take their time.
Don't get me wrong, that is how difficulty and diversity is achieved but it feels too odd and too random. I don't mind a turret firing every 0.5 seconds a projectile. But I mind it firing every 0.05 seconds and I have to compete with its projectiles breaking my Z key to get behind it.

7- Some enemies don't really look like enemies. The hand for example, that doesn't look like an enemy.

8- Which brings the walls, the background graphics and the walls some time melt together so I don't know if this is a background or a foreground element. To tell you the truth in one of the levels I kept walking forward and didn't move at all. 30 seconds like this thinking I was stuck, turned out it was a wall.

9- That brings us to another thing with the level transitions. In the level I am not sure what my goal is. Am I to kill all things moving? Or reach the end by destroying that blue barrier? If so then what of the red barrier doors? What is the difference between the two?

10- That brings the level layout. The levels are made randomly, it shows because sometimes you can run through an entire corridor that is empty with nothing in it. Another thing is the dead ends. While they aren't many strict dead ends (where you have to track back from) when you create a loop in a level and at the "corner" of that loop you have nothing there, it feels like a dead end. You just had me waste X amount of time doing practically nothing.

That said, the level layout makes you feel contained within an area (for example imagine a 4-side box) you keep going within the area until you see an opening (imagine that 1 side is now missing so there are 3 sides only) then you suddenly jump off and you are trailing in an empty space. At that point I thought I was outside the level (can you imagine the feeling with the example?) then suddenly I am still in the level in a whole new area. The feeling I get is: am I supposed to be here? Is this part of the level? Is this accounted for? Little is present within the area sometimes that tells me so or makes me feel as such.

11- You mentioned you can't do any legs animation. That is fine, you can check out

(the link is for a tutorial) it is a skeletal animation program. You can cut down the graphics for the player (head alone, 2x legs, 2x arms and torso for example) and animate it using that tool. It is extremely powerful and easy (I am no animator and I could get a good looking result within 30 minutes).

12- The graphics for the player. I know this is place holder art most likely. However, in all honesty the dead sprite looks WAY cooler than the living version. Why the change in quality? I'd say use the same quality as the dead sprite. It looks really good Smiley.

13- The music is nice and isn't intrusive. I'd keep it but perhaps change the loop or slightly edit it a bit when you change a level so the player gets a slight hint as the level changed.

14- Checkpoints. Every time I die I end up at the beginning of the level. I'd say add some checkpoints, it would really help out. Specially with the current state of the game.

15- Icons. At some points I see "HP" or "health" kind of letters written on square and sometimes I pick something up and it increases my health. Why not use 1 consistent item (and not with letters on it. There are a ton of free RPG icons at opengameart.org) Some of the icons even don't indicate what they mean and there is nothing telling me whether I picked that item or it just disappeared as a bug. The obvious example is the double jump boots. Green bots with little wings. I thought that either made me fly or it made me go faster. The LAST thing came to my mind was double jump and discovered it on accident. I didn't know the game had that.

16- The art in general. There are a lot of free art on the internet if you are using place holder art. There are even sites like the one in my signature that you can buy cheap art from (or even commission people to create). Why not use any of that rather than the "hp" letters icon?

17- Enemy HP. That one was a huge confusion for me. Sometimes the number is 0 sometimes it is 1 sometimes it is 670. Sometimes it increases and sometimes it decreases. I am not sure what it indicates. I thought that probably relates to the enemy I am looking at, at the moment. Turns out not the case (or at least in my experience). I wasn't looking any direction of an enemy (cleared the level) and it displayed 789.

18- Level design. There are people that talk about level design flow and how it should lead the player through it. Now I am not talking about placing arrows in the level (although you can do that). But for example... look at Braid. Once you enter the screen you know perfectly well where you start and where you should end the level. There is a flow.
Another less obvious example is Limbo. You don't know where you'll end the level but you know that the level ALWAYS starts on the left and ALWAYS have you walking to the right side (there might be other ways and you might spiral through the level but it ends always at the right side).
Shovel Knight for example. Same as Limbo you start from the left side and you'll always end up in the right end of the level (even if you go up and down and backtrack sometimes). Another that follows this strictly is Castle Crashers.
That flow allows the player to understand the level. Even if it is an exploration type of game. There has to be such flow to give the player that "hint" as to where he should go next.
Either that or you can take out the flow entirely but have the level structured and follow a pattern for example the Plus sign level. In the middle a hub for the player to start from and branch in X amount of directions which when the player finishes/clears a direction he gets back to that middle location again to orient himself.

19- The text in the tutorial/story scrolls too fast I couldn't read most of it.

Now don't get me wrong that doesn't mean that your game is bad or anything. It only means one thing, it needs a little more work and little more polish. That is all. There is a lot of potential in the game but with some cleaning up and edits it will start to blossom.

Here are a few links that I have gathered over the time and I bet they will be useful (at least they were extremely useful to me):


: This is a video by Vlambeer's half JW and he talks about how to get that "omph" in action games. A must watch if you are creating an action game.

Miyamoto's Interview about Super Mario: This extremely valuable Mr. Miyamoto (I think is the name) creator of Super Mario on the SNES talking about how he designed the levels and why everything in the level was for a purpose.

Extra Credits: No particular link to this one because the entire channel is just worthy of watching. While some people criticize that the views in it are rather personal and not based on actual facts/scientific proofs. I'd say most of what is said is important and applies to design. It doesn't have to be proven with citations but it does make sense. If not you can always ignore it. I am a fan so I recommend it all. I learned A LOT from them. Smiley

Level Design Series: This is one of the gems I picked up from TIGsource. It is fun to read and full of really good examples (even little mini games that you play) to get the concept across. All of what is said in there is quite important in my opinion.


After all that is said and done you'll have to note four things:
1- I am not the best person to take advice from. I am no Hideo Kojima or Edmund (Super Meat Boy) or even Kevine Lavine. I am just a regular guy just like you (if you are a gal, just ignore the gender part of the metaphor :D). I am in no position to give advice or tell you what you should or shouldn't do. Only state my opinion and how I see things.

2- Your game has potential just like any other game. In fact more so with your dedication and the only measure of success is how you improve/edit it. After all Super Meat Boy (or Braid or Limbo) is just another platformer game with some (sometimes 1) unique mechanic and 200% dedication Smiley.

3- I am extremely sorry and I do apologize deeply for the long boring post and that I caused you any eye bleeds by now from the wall of text. Thank you for reading Smiley

4- Thank you very much -- you know why I included this, I am guessing Smiley
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« Reply #13 on: August 25, 2014, 08:48:31 AM »

where is the mario cat, i demand the mario cat backl
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« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2014, 12:14:56 PM »

"OK, huge disclaimer: I am not bashing your game, I am not trying to be rude I am sincerely trying to be honest here and tell you the exact honest thing you should hear. I won't be rude and I won't step on your toes, but this disclaimer is there just in case you treat your game as your baby (which isn't wrong and you should do to some extent Wink)"
Please, another disclaimer to, probably, everybody doing feedback for a game: Be as bash, direct as you can. And to everybody receiving the feedback: Read exactly what the play testers say, and don't assume that they absolutely despise the game because they noticed some bugs that annoyed them a lot.


"3- What I found confusing is the weapons themselves. The number 2 (water bursting?) was really weird. I could see it puts off the fire, but beyond that, it felt useless."
The Bomb actually destroys any enemy projectiles. I'll think of a better tutorial.

"4- The other ball bouncy thing looked nice as well and played nice, except its bounce directions are sometimes unpredictable that I ended up just discarding it all together."
The Gumball has a little gravity to it, like, 5-10 pixels a second. I'll think of a better tutorial. (2)


"6- There is one major thing this game lacks and that is consistency, everything is all over the place that it takes me a long time to learn something because of the contradictions. For example, the alien like creature that jumps can shoot through walls but everything can't. Everything is shooting projectile as it would look like random speed. Some turrets are literally spamming projectiles while others take their time.
Don't get me wrong, that is how difficulty and diversity is achieved but it feels too odd and too random. I don't mind a turret firing every 0.5 seconds a projectile. But I mind it firing every 0.05 seconds and I have to compete with its projectiles breaking my Z key to get behind it."
I'll think about it, I think I'm going to do a list of all the enemies through the game and their consistency.


"7- Some enemies don't really look like enemies. The hand for example, that doesn't look like an enemy."
The hand? What hand? Can you present some screenshots?

"8- Which brings the walls, the background graphics and the walls some time melt together so I don't know if this is a background or a foreground element. To tell you the truth in one of the levels I kept walking forward and didn't move at all. 30 seconds like this thinking I was stuck, turned out it was a wall."
To fix this, I think I'll look for some new, simpler, non-Metroid placeholder art.


"10- That brings the level layout. The levels are made randomly, it shows because sometimes you can run through an entire corridor that is empty with nothing in it. Another thing is the dead ends. While they aren't many strict dead ends (where you have to track back from) when you create a loop in a level and at the "corner" of that loop you have nothing there, it feels like a dead end. You just had me waste X amount of time doing practically nothing.

That said, the level layout makes you feel contained within an area (for example imagine a 4-side box) you keep going within the area until you see an opening (imagine that 1 side is now missing so there are 3 sides only) then you suddenly jump off and you are trailing in an empty space. At that point I thought I was outside the level (can you imagine the feeling with the example?) then suddenly I am still in the level in a whole new area. The feeling I get is: am I supposed to be here? Is this part of the level? Is this accounted for? Little is present within the area sometimes that tells me so or makes me feel as such."
I'm not sure what areas you're talking about :S There is a thing with this game, though, that, when you fall of the bottom of the layout, you die, and restart the level. But you mention a whole new area, so..

"11- You mentioned you can't do any legs animation. That is fine, you can check out

(the link is for a tutorial) it is a skeletal animation program. You can cut down the graphics for the player (head alone, 2x legs, 2x arms and torso for example) and animate it using that tool. It is extremely powerful and easy (I am no animator and I could get a good looking result within 30 minutes)."
Ok, I'll check it out.

"12- The graphics for the player. I know this is place holder art most likely. However, in all honesty the dead sprite looks WAY cooler than the living version. Why the change in quality? I'd say use the same quality as the dead sprite. It looks really good Smiley."
Heheheheh. This game is really a huge reference to Cheetahmen, which I assume you barely heard off. Basically, the head of AG( short for Action Gamemaster, both the name of the game and the protagonist) is a rip out of Cheetahmen's cutscene art, while I drew the rest of the body. The "Death" sprite is a full rip of another cutscene sprite in there. So yeah, basically, AG is a Frankenstein.

"14- Checkpoints. Every time I die I end up at the beginning of the level. I'd say add some checkpoints, it would really help out. Specially with the current state of the game."
I really intend the game to drop the whole "respawn" system and make AG die as soon as he runs out of hp, and make save points, like Metroid. But since the game's really small, I decreased the maximum hp and made these level respawns.

"15- Icons. At some points I see "HP" or "health" kind of letters written on square and sometimes I pick something up and it increases my health. Why not use 1 consistent item (and not with letters on it. There are a ton of free RPG icons at opengameart.org) Some of the icons even don't indicate what they mean and there is nothing telling me whether I picked that item or it just disappeared as a bug. The obvious example is the double jump boots. Green bots with little wings. I thought that either made me fly or it made me go faster. The LAST thing came to my mind was double jump and discovered it on accident. I didn't know the game had that."

Actually, that's intended. The pit was designed to be unescapable without DoubleJump, and when the player realizes he got the Huh? upgrade from that room, he just mashes the jump button, double jumps, and literally teaches himself how to use double jump without "MEGAMAN, MEGAMAN, YOU GOT THE WHATEVUR UPGRAED"- yougettheidea.

"17- Enemy HP. That one was a huge confusion for me. Sometimes the number is 0 sometimes it is 1 sometimes it is 670. Sometimes it increases and sometimes it decreases. I am not sure what it indicates. I thought that probably relates to the enemy I am looking at, at the moment. Turns out not the case (or at least in my experience). I wasn't looking any direction of an enemy (cleared the level) and it displayed 789."
That text displays the hp of the enemy that last got hurt by you, aka the one you're probably attacking, or left because it was too hard to beat/holyshit9242hplolwhy.


"18- Level design. There are people that talk about level design flow and how it should lead the player through it. Now I am not talking about placing arrows in the level (although you can do that). But for example... look at Braid. Once you enter the screen you know perfectly well where you start and where you should end the level. There is a flow.
Another less obvious example is Limbo. You don't know where you'll end the level but you know that the level ALWAYS starts on the left and ALWAYS have you walking to the right side (there might be other ways and you might spiral through the level but it ends always at the right side).
Shovel Knight for example. Same as Limbo you start from the left side and you'll always end up in the right end of the level (even if you go up and down and backtrack sometimes). Another that follows this strictly is Castle Crashers.
That flow allows the player to understand the level. Even if it is an exploration type of game. There has to be such flow to give the player that "hint" as to where he should go next.
Either that or you can take out the flow entirely but have the level structured and follow a pattern for example the Plus sign level. In the middle a hub for the player to start from and branch in X amount of directions which when the player finishes/clears a direction he gets back to that middle location again to orient himself."
I'll have better branching in the hub level, as in, more linear if looked at separately.

"19- The text in the tutorial/story scrolls too fast I couldn't read most of it."
I'll have it to be scrolled by pressing the Z button in the next update.

"Extra Credits: No particular link to this one because the entire channel is just worthy of watching. While some people criticize that the views in it are rather personal and not based on actual facts/scientific proofs. I'd say most of what is said is important and applies to design. It doesn't have to be proven with citations but it does make sense. If not you can always ignore it. I am a fan so I recommend it all. I learned A LOT from them. Smiley"
Now now, don't even THINK about SUGGESTING an idea of somehow ignoring Extra Credits to someone, for they are awesome Smiley


"3- I am extremely sorry and I do apologize deeply for the long boring post and that I caused you any eye bleeds by now from the wall of text. Thank you for reading Smiley"
Ha, wall of texts are no adversary to me when the contents are so helpful. Thank you
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« Reply #15 on: August 25, 2014, 12:44:21 PM »

Quote
The hand? What hand? Can you present some screenshots?
My internet connection is currently abysmal. Can't upload a screen capture to Imgur >.< but it is the enemy that is all red, looks like a lambda sign and shoots projectiles in 360 direction.

Quote
I'm not sure what areas you're talking about :S There is a thing with this game, though, that, when you fall of the bottom of the layout, you die, and restart the level. But you mention a whole new area, so..
That is the thing. That is not a particular area, every level feels like this. They are all big levels (at least they felt that way) and they all start in some kind of closed space but you have this opening from a closed space, suddenly to a very open space and back to another closed space. It feels weird.

Quote
Heheheheh. This game is really a huge reference to Cheetahmen, which I assume you barely heard off. Basically, the head of AG( short for Action Gamemaster, both the name of the game and the protagonist) is a rip out of Cheetahmen's cutscene art, while I drew the rest of the body. The "Death" sprite is a full rip of another cutscene sprite in there. So yeah, basically, AG is a Frankenstein.
I see... well you can always use some other art available on the internet that is free? There is a library of art called LPC on opengameart.org perhaps that could be of use.

Quote
Actually, that's intended. The pit was designed to be unescapable without DoubleJump, and when the player realizes he got the Huh? upgrade from that room, he just mashes the jump button, double jumps, and literally teaches himself how to use double jump without "MEGAMAN, MEGAMAN, YOU GOT THE WHATEVUR UPGRAED"- yougettheidea.
Fair enough, perhaps have the icon itself a bit indicative of jumping rather than running.

Quote
That text displays the hp of the enemy that last got hurt by you, aka the one you're probably attacking, or left because it was too hard to beat/holyshit9242hplolwhy.
It is an odd system. Why not have every enemy's HP above/beneath it as normal. Would be easier than having to take my eyes off the fight to see how much HP is left for that particular enemy.

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« Reply #16 on: August 31, 2014, 01:26:24 AM »

Added a lot of stuff, including screenshake. SCREENSHAKE. THIS GAME HAS SCRENSHAE-
Bump, waiting for feedback.
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« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2014, 01:54:58 AM »

Hi,

You mentioned a linux version (at least in the icons of your thread), but I can only download for Windows and Mac.
Unfortunately the Windows version doesn't run in wine. After wine actiongamemaster.exe it does just nothing...
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« Reply #18 on: September 10, 2014, 03:50:06 AM »

Hi,

You mentioned a linux version (at least in the icons of your thread), but I can only download for Windows and Mac.
Unfortunately the Windows version doesn't run in wine. After wine actiongamemaster.exe it does just nothing...

I'm adding the versions for other OS's when someone asks for them. I'm going to add the linux32 and linux64 versions soon. Also, Wine probably can't launch .exe because it is dependent on either some HTML5 packages to be installed on your Windows computer which Wine files don't have, or it is dependent on the files that are in the folder. I use Parallels Desktop for all my Windows stuff, so it's actually a (virtual) machine and I don't get problems like that.

EDIT: Added a 32-bit version, tell me if you need the 64-bit one.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2014, 05:44:02 AM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #19 on: September 10, 2014, 08:39:28 AM »

Thanks for the Linux version, runs fine after adding a symlink from libudev.so.1 to libudev.so.0 O_o

The itself is interesting.
It would be good if you would save the progress of the player. Otherwise it is quite demotivating to start it again after you failed e.g. at an enemy three times in a row.

Speaking about it. It was not possible for me to kill the "carrot firing" enemy in the second level.
Maybe you should also implement some kind of direction signs, where to go. At the end of the first level I didn't know, what to do. In fact I wanted to jump on the platform, which was "blocked" by the enemy.

I would also overthink the font. It doesn't fit quite good to the game. And even if you keep this funny character, maybe it would fit better, if he would be pixelated like in the intro instead of being blurred?

However I think this game can be improved. I like the story (but miss a picture of a space ship. :D).

What did you use for the game?
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