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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingARC - A kinetic climbing game
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Author Topic: ARC - A kinetic climbing game  (Read 628 times)
Preece
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« on: October 29, 2014, 06:19:01 PM »

Hey everyone, a friend and I made a game in 30 hours for a local game jam. We were pretty happy with the result. In the game, you use a Tesla coil backpack to arc electricity onto electromagnets, which pull you towards them. The goal is to get as high as you can. It's written in Javascript, so you can play it right in your browser, here is a link:

http://preece.itch.io/arc

Any feedback is welcome, but keep in mind we are at a stage where we are polishing it, rather than looking to implement foundational features or anything. Thanks for checking it out!
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jscottmiller
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« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2014, 10:22:20 AM »

After a few tries, I was able to get into a good groove, progressing up to level 5. I love the concept and the game feels good when you're making progress.

When you lose momentum it is hard to avoid falling back to the start. Loss of momentum sometimes happens with a missed shot, but more likely it is due to translating vertical momentum (very useful) into horizontal momentum (useless). If that happens, it is very difficult to recover. Even if you find a higher node to latch on to, the time you spend idling to reduce the horizontal movement is going to eat up much of your battery time.

After you start to fall, it's very difficult to recover. Not sure if this is intentional.

A way to refill battery power would be nice (small powerups, whatever). The game feels really good when you're making progress, and I want to continue that feeling as long as possible.

It was not immediately clear that I needed to click on the circles to grapple to them. That could be make more clear.

I hope you release this. It would be a fun score challenge game on a phone.
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Preece
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« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2014, 10:43:50 AM »

Thank you for the excellent feedback!!

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After you start to fall, it's very difficult to recover. Not sure if this is intentional.

It would be nice to have situations where you start to lose it, then recover. I think that could be a great moment. it's definitely very hard to recover when things start going poorly!

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A way to refill battery power would be nice (small powerups, whatever).

That's a great idea. We also considered having the opposite, things that drain your energy when you touch them as a way to add more context to where you move. And power ups would be nice to use after a difficult section, as a little reward and to make the difficulty curve a bit curvier.

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It was not immediately clear that I needed to click on the circles to grapple to them. That could be make more clear.

Ha ha yes! Pretty much every single playtester had this problem. We will definitely get try to make this more clear!

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I hope you release this. It would be a fun score challenge game on a phone.

Thank you. That is very encouraging to hear!
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Quicksand-S
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« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2014, 11:45:26 AM »

Your post could really use a screenshot or two. I almost didn't click the link, and when I did I was expecting a game info page not the actual game.

When I started, I had no idea what to do so I just watched my character slowly slide left for some reason.

Like jscottmiller, I found it pretty enjoyable when I got a nice rhythm going. I hated the battery power, though. It's difficult enough to keep going for a while without taking battery power into account. That just takes all the fun out of it for me, because when I feel like I'm doing well, the game says, "No you're not." and makes me fall back to the start. At the very least, I think it should recharge faster. Even when I moved smoothly up the wall, I would run out pretty quickly. Even cheating (I'll get to that later), I ran out quickly.

Sometimes it felt like the game was failing to respond to my clicks. I know it was probably just that I missed the targets, but I'm thinking maybe when you're moving quickly the clickable areas could expand slightly. That way, it would hopefully never feel like the game just failed to detect a click. This would also probably make amazing recoveries a little more possible, and I think that would feel good to players.

I didn't get too far, but I think the game could use some variation in terms of the background graphics. What's there now looks pretty decent, but I find that it gets boring to look at very quickly because there are no interesting details (cracks in walls, foreground silhouettes, vents, anything like that).

Capturing the cursor would probably be a good idea. It's too easy to accidentally click outside the game window, particularly when you're aiming at the top. This is also what I was talking about when I mentioned cheating. You can pause at any time by clicking outside the window and then you have as much time as you want to line up another grapple.

Falling from really high up causes my character to bounce when they hit the ground. Is that intentional? It looks really strange/glitchy to me.

Anyway, when it's going well, this game is pretty engaging and feels good. I think the trick is to make that feeling last for players, while not making the game much easier.
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Rarykos
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« Reply #4 on: November 03, 2014, 12:19:22 PM »

Yes, definitely expand clickable areas around these hook-points when the player has a lot of speed!

I had the same problem with battery power as people above me , it's challenging enough to get high and swing the right way Shocked
A way to recharge, other than waiting midair, would be great. Like things to click to get more power.

It's interesting, a well-implemented mechanic, the fun I get when I'm making progress easily beats other games and it's faster to get and the feedback is instant so if you could polish it up you would have a great game!
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TheOZone
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« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2014, 02:10:56 PM »

Nice little game,

Maybe add some player movement so you can control how you arc around the magnets. Also I think it would be easier to grab on the magnets if you make the character shoot his electricity in the direction of the mouse instead of you having to click on the magnets. Because if you miss the magnet you lose a lot of momentum and most of the times you fall down. Having a electricity beam in the direction of the mouse allows you to correct your mistake and still grab on to the magnet.
Keep up the good work!
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