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[LucasMaxBros]

VIVID WOLF

Play Testing - This is a Puzzle Platformer, and precision is what I'm looking for. I'd like to see how you think it handles and if anything annoys you as you play. There is a Switch mechanic where you switch colors, tell me if the controls for switching are convenient enough. Also tell me if the default controls are good or if you changed them. I like to know what to set the Default   Controls to.

Game Description - Vivid Wolf is a Puzzle Platformer about switching between 3 Colors. This will allow you to affect certain objects of the same color. Your main goal is to explore a colorless world ad free the color imprisoned in Blocks. As you collect more color the environment and music will start to change. There are other collectibles to find and a few monsters as well. You will also have access to an Ability called Wolf Mode which grants you new traits such as climbing walls. Using both Normal Mode and Wolf Mode will be key as you transverse the Stage.

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This particular download only consists of one stage, which will last no more than 10 minutes if you take your time. If you'd like some info on the Development, here's the Devlog: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=46892.0

Also, here's a recent video displaying the Demo:



>>>>>>> You can get the Download here at IndieDB:http://www.indiedb.com/games/vivid-wolf/downloads/vivid-wolf-20-alpha-demo


If you wish you can report bugs, but if it has to do with collision I may not be able to do much currently. This game was made using Game Maker: Studio, I am currently using the most recent update which has errors with a couple of functions, particularly with where collisions are detected. I'll either have to go to an older version or wait for fixes. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[LucasMaxBros]

Bump. One last time, then the next time I bump this it will probably out on Greenlight for voting. I've already had some people try and they did very well, but just in case, try it out and see if anythings wrong.

[Quicksand-S]

I'm a little surprised nobody's commented yet.

-For an actual release, I'd strongly recommend changing the icon of the executable.

-I like the music.

-I would strongly recommend overhauling the visuals for your menu system. It just looks so bland and misaligned. I'd also recommend setting up a script to convert key numbers to their actual letters/symbols when assigning keys. It doesn't look good to have ASCII values there.

-Mouse input seems fairly important when it comes to menus in PC games, even if the game is keyboard-controlled. It would also be good to put in simple shortcuts, like Escape to go up one menu level.

-The "Gamepad Controls" option did nothing. Also on the subject of gamepads, it felt very weird to use Start to make menu selections. I'd normally expect to use the A button (and B to cancel or go back).

-Some resolution options would be nice.

-Switching colors felt fairly intuitive, despite me not liking the controls.

-I feel like there really needs to be some visual way to tell if I've already gotten the stars from a block or not. It took me a while to get a bunch because I was sure I'd already gotten them from all blocks in the area. I'd also recommend putting a star symbol or something on the blocks with the numbers to make it more obvious that the stars and those blocks are connected.

-It said "Press Y" even though I wasn't using my gamepad. I think I'd recommend checking if the gamepad's been used in any way before showing gamepad controls.

-I didn't like having to wait for my power to increase. At one point, it seemed like all I could do was stand and wait for two minutes because I needed it to proceed. That wasn't fun. Why not just let me use what I have?

-At one point, a fly respawned offscreen and flew through some walls to attack me out of nowhere.

-The wall-jump feels terrible to me. Most games that use momentum like this would let me just press Jump each time I hit a wall. I shouldn't have to manually change my direction every single time I want to jump off a new wall.

-It seemed weird that there was no analog support. Even if you don't want actual analog movement, the thumbstick should probably still work.

-The ending screen annoyed me. You ask players to put in effort to play your level and then essentially say "Ha ha! You did all that and you don't even get to see your score!" Would it really be so much trouble to tell me how I did?


I thought it was decent. I didn't really enjoy the level design (I felt like I was just going through the motions, with no fun or excitement) but the potential for something good is there. It was just really straightforward with only one way to get through most of it and no optional areas that I noticed. I think I would've enjoyed it more if the special power wasn't required at any point and could be used at will to make areas easier or to take secret shortcuts. Secret/optional little alcoves and paths would be nice, even if they don't make a huge difference gameplay-wise.

The basic color mechanics worked well and the various elements that you threw in to change things up were good. Apart from my issues with wall-jumping, I thought the controls handled well. I didn't run into any technical issues or collision problems and I felt like the first part of the level did a decent job teaching about the character's abilities without having to say anything.

You asked what I'd prefer for controls. The gamepad button assignments feel good to me. I think for the keyboard I would prefer Arrows+Z+X, or Arrows+X+C (because some people have non-QWERTY keyboards) with the left letter being Jump and the right one being Attack.

[LucasMaxBros]

1. Haven't gotten to it yet.

2. Thanks

3. Haven't gotten to it yet. I'm trying to focus primarily on game play first before doing anything much visuals wise.

4. Also haven't gotten to it, but would probably only take 5 minutes to do.

5. That's probably because you didn't have a Gamepad plugged in. Not much point changing a Gamepad's controls if you don't have one in use. Same goes for Keyboard if you have a Gamepad plugged in.

6. I guess I can do that. Not sure what the best resolutions to use what be (But Google is my friend so...). Though Game Maker automatically changes to resolution to fit your screen so I don't see the point.

7. That's why I want to know what controls people would commonly like so I can put those as the main default. I worked very hard to make it easy to understand so thanks for saying that.

8. Well my main idea was that they reflected every second if they had color or not, but I was thinking about making the blocks lose some color if you had touched them. Can't hurt to do that!

9. Really? Maybe it was reading something off your computer? It should say the keyboard default... I guess I'll check just in case.

10. Did you try preserving it? Either way, I can make a work around. Perhaps having the player get to a certain point before they have access to it and can fire it off at any point from there.

11. That's probably because I forgot to program it to STOP once it begins moving towards you...so it kept going. I'll fix that.

12. I don't understand this comment here. What you said I should do, is EXACTLY what it is. You literally just jump when you're next to a wall. It's exactly like New Super Mario Bros Walljump. You face a wall to jump from it, and when you do you jump away and face that direction...so I have no idea what to make of that.

13. Haven't done it yet. Was about to until I had some technical issues, but I'll attempt again. I think the main problem I had with the Analog controls was that the sprites wouldn't change properly when using them, but I'll see if I can work around that.

14. That's what I've been working on the past week, since this all goes into a bigger grading system and stuff on a World Map. Sorry.

15. This Demo is pretty much as you said, going through the motions. It's not something I expect some Let's Player to put up or anything fancy. It's just to see if people like the controls and general idea. Many things are being worked on, and thankfully I've gotten quite a bit done the past week (You can see a list of added objects on the Devlog). There will be a 3.0 Demo dedicated to what you said, entertainment. I'm just trying to understand the basic knowledge the player needs and adjustments to make before trying to do anything to crazy level design-wise. I think I'll attempt exploration for it though since I added teleporters. And I'll see what I can tweak about the Powers since some others have mentioned it. Thing about exploration in this game though is that all the color you collect goes towards 100%, so I don't want to leave things too hidden or make paths branch out too much since they'd have to backtrack/do the other path to 100%.
And I will try the controls you've prescribed.

Thank you very much!

[Quicksand-S]

5. That's probably because you didn't have a Gamepad plugged in. Not much point changing a Gamepad's controls if you don't have one in use. Same goes for Keyboard if you have a Gamepad plugged in.

I did have it plugged in (a wired XBox 360 controller). The gamepad could navigate the menus fine but could not select the Gamepad option. Neither could the keyboard.

6. I guess I can do that. Not sure what the best resolutions to use what be (But Google is my friend so...). Though Game Maker automatically changes to resolution to fit your screen so I don't see the point.

It might not seem like a huge deal, but it seems to be something that comes up in reviews whenever a game leaves out resolution options.

Personally, my main issue with not having resolution options of any kind in your game is that when switching to windowed mode I ended up with a window that took up a little bit more than my entire screen (because of window borders) and had to manually resize it. It would be nice if it was taken care of by the game.

9. Really? Maybe it was reading something off your computer? It should say the keyboard default... I guess I'll check just in case.

My guess was that it was because I had my gamepad plugged in, but I wasn't using it so it should've still been the keyboard control that was displayed.

10. Did you try preserving it? Either way, I can make a work around. Perhaps having the player get to a certain point before they have access to it and can fire it off at any point from there.

I preserved about half of it, but it wouldn't let me use it until the meter was full again so it still took a lot of waiting.

12. I don't understand this comment here. What you said I should do, is EXACTLY what it is. You literally just jump when you're next to a wall. It's exactly like New Super Mario Bros Walljump. You face a wall to jump from it, and when you do you jump away and face that direction...so I have no idea what to make of that.

Interesting. Every single time I tried to jump from one wall to another and back again, I had to manually press against the wall I wanted to jump from.

Thing about exploration in this game though is that all the color you collect goes towards 100%, so I don't want to leave things too hidden or make paths branch out too much since they'd have to backtrack/do the other path to 100%.

That's a good point, but at the same time you have to make sure that collecting all that is fun. Just walking up to blocks or extending your sword toward them isn't exactly fun, and doing that same action over and over and over isn't fun either, so something else about the level design has to be. Personally, I think the game would be more enjoyable with fewer color pickups rather than every single colored block having one. Then you could make it fun to reach the special blocks that contain them and it wouldn't be a tedious thing that people have to do a hundred times in each level. That's just how I think of it, though. I know a lot of people do seem to enjoy collecting things just for the sake of collecting them.

[LucasMaxBros]

1. Ah well I'll look into it.

2. That's a good point.

3. Considering that, then yeah it's pretty obvious why now lol.

4. So the Powers are based on how much you collect and on the Arrow on the Energy Bar. 0% color,need 100 to activate your powers. Now if you had 50%, then you'd only need 50, and so on. But I've been sketching down other possible ideas for these "Powers".

What I'm thinking is instead making a sort of "Power Up" system, where after collecting a certain percent, you can get an upgrade that can help you get through the level or get to hard to reach places. Basically it gives the player different choices for what they could have to get around the level and can get more as they collect more, which enforces the idea of collecting further. Like they get 10% color and suddenly they can choose to gain the ability to either (A)Climb Walls,(B)Long Range Attacks,(C)Extra Health, etc... But that's just a concept and needs to be tested.

5. Hmm, maybe you're not close enough? I guess I can make it so you don't have to be as close to perform a walljump. I know everyone else I've seen was capable of doing it.

6. True, not everyone will like the idea of that, but it's just part of a different audience. Some people like collecting stuff, some just like to get through the level. I'll try to consider both though. However, an interesting point (That I completely forgot I can do) is that not all the Blocks NEED to have a collectable.

[Quicksand-S]

What I'm thinking is instead making a sort of "Power Up" system, where after collecting a certain percent, you can get an upgrade that can help you get through the level or get to hard to reach places. Basically it gives the player different choices for what they could have to get around the level and can get more as they collect more, which enforces the idea of collecting further. Like they get 10% color and suddenly they can choose to gain the ability to either (A)Climb Walls,(B)Long Range Attacks,(C)Extra Health, etc... But that's just a concept and needs to be tested.

Sounds all right. Maybe the upgrades should be predetermined, though. Otherwise you'll be taking a game that already has kinda boring pacing and making it come to a halt every time the player has to choose an upgrade.

5. Hmm, maybe you're not close enough? I guess I can make it so you don't have to be as close to perform a walljump. I know everyone else I've seen was capable of doing it.

I went back and checked again. Being pushed away from the wall automatically (as opposed to having to push in that direction) made me assume that the game was taking control entirely like others do. I was pressing the direction of the first wall a split-second too long, thinking it didn't matter because it would be overridden by the wall-jump. I just had to stop doing that and it worked fine.

One issue with not having to push against even the first wall at all is that it's very easy to accidentally jump away when you just want to jump up. I got thrown into enemies at least once because of that, but it wasn't too big a problem in the current level.

[Highsight]

========= The following is a series of thoughts I had while playing the game. =========
Logo doesn't fit rest of asthetic.
- Too realistic or something.

Menu is boring.
- Boring sounds
- Boring presentation
- Feels too "business-like"

Music's nice!
- Changes as you progress! VERY NICE!

All animations seem too fast
- Doesn't feel right for some reason.
- Perhaps I see the idle animation loop happening so much?

How do I jump?
- Better check the controls...
- Why is jump "K" by default?
- Why is jump not spacebar?
- What does Transform do?
- This game has controller support?
- Controller seems WAY better, switching to that.

The attack seems lame.
- Needs to feel jucier.
* Better sounds.
* More particles
* Faster
* Player should react.
- Kinda which each color had a different attack.
- Combat is BOOOOORING

Transform mode is WEIRD.
- Completely breaks the game.
- Nearly all "puzzles" ruined.

Respawning enemies is boring.
- Some enemies are needed for the platforming.
- Perhaps only respawn enemies that are required to move on?

Love the "timing" block.
- Destroy it at the right time to get what you need.
- Perhaps 3 hits is too many?
- Why make the player hit the block to extra times?
- The first two don't increase or decrease the chances of getting what they want, it just makes them wait.

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Overall, the idea of the color swapping is interesting, but I fear it will run thin very quickly.  Your "Transform" mechanic is absolutely ruining this game.  Whenever it's active, pretty much all the puzzles are non-existant, as you can blow past alot of them.  I think there needs to be something else in the mix here, the idea of "activating" a color just isn't working in my opinion.  How long before you are just repeating the same "jump, switch color, jump, switch color" design?  I don't want to say it requires a complete rework, but different color manipulation methods are absolutely necessary.  The combat is also absolutely boring.  There's no juice behind it, no painful reaction to hitting things, or getting hit.  I think a big part of it is how disconnected your weapon is from your character.  You can't FEEL the impact because there is no impact, it is litterally just a sword phasing into existance on top of an enemy and "hurting" them.  I want to see my character whip out a sword and CRASH it into an enemy.  I want to feel a connection to the action of attacking an enemy, I want to FEEL like something's getting hit.

On the plus side, you've got a great platforming engine here, it plays very nicely for the most part.  I enjoyed how tight and responsive the controls were.  You also captured a beautiful mood to the game.  I ESPECIALLY loved how the music changed the more stars you got, I LOVE adaptive music to capture a changing game scene.

Overall, is it a good start?  Yes.  Does it need work?  Absolutely.  This is the time to REALLY examine your game elements and ask yourself questions like "how far can I got with this?" and "Will it get boring?" and most importantly "What can I do to up the ante every level?"

Good luck with your game mate.

[LucasMaxBros]

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I've been taking a break from the game and working on another one so I could get sometime to think things over.

First of all: I should really refocus what my intentions with this game are. At the moment, I'm just messing around with mechanics like the "Wolf Mode" you see, among a few other. The CORE to this game is the color changing. It is more than just Colored Blocks. Instead, imagine every platforming gimmick/mechanic you can (Springs, Teleporters, Wind, etc) but most of these mechanics are dependent on what color you are and switch to. And this is what I think the game should function like overall. The color mechanic is a way of progression as well as one of the conditions to getting 100%.

Art Presentation: This has been a mess for a bit (But I completely forgot about the Logo), you see when I began making this game my idea was to have the Colorless world be minimalist while the colored version would be more complex and look like a painting... well working with two art styles was a terrible idea as it resulted in multiple do-overs. I think this is my 5th time remaking the art, but this feels like the best one so far and will either stick with or at least branch from.

1. MENU ISN'T DONE.

2. Thanks my composer had worked hard on it. Should cheer him up from the flu he's been having.

3. I have yet to add anything extra to the idle. I plan on having her do various animations including sleep if you take too long.

4. And this is why I made this brief demo. So I can know what people like as a defualt for controls. Personally, I use Space for Jump and Shift for Attack.

5. I think this is my 3rd attempt at the attack. It use to be this Magic blast, but I thought a sword would be cooler. I thought it was already cool but apparently by standards of cool are lower than yours. Not that it's suppose to be fancy in the first place, but I'll see if I can make it better.

6.HA. Weird. Should have played the first Demo! She transformed into a WOLF back then. "Breaks Game" it does not. The game is made for it and I have many puzzles planned for it. See her attack in that form? It goes through walls and goes up if you're on a wall. Simply put, once you figure out the mechanics, whole new ways to do puzzles unfold. Like hitting an impossible switch using the throwing swords technique.

7. Enemies need to be worked on in general. Also, it's possible to never need jump off an enemy to elevate yourself this entire Demo. There is only one place where it might be required, but if moving right a few steps and coming back is that annoying? I don't know what I can do for you there. I mean, that spot is literally teaching you can respawn enemies AND jump off them.

8. Timing Block? I read the points beneath it and don't quite understand what you're talking about. I mean I do have a Timing Block....but it isn't in the Demo...

As I mentioned before, the color swapping is simple, but it's more than "Switch to Red to land on Red Block". Eventually you will come across levels where yo'll need to pay attention to what color you are in order to progress or prevent death. Now what you say about Wolf Mode is somewhat true. Many players could just blow through it, but that's their choice like people who blow through a level of Mario instead of collecting the Star Coins or 1-UPs that are hidden in the level. Sure they can go through the level, but they aren't going to get all the collectibles that way(Though this Demo is designed so you can rapidly go through it and collect everything rather swiftly, since it's linear).

The reason this Demo is a "Jump. switch color, Jump, switch color" is because the purpose of it is to test the BARE BASIC MECHANICS as well as the controls. I do promise that I'll make something more elaborate with future Demos since I'm still messing around with what I can do level design wise (Plus the Wolf Mode idea is still being figured out. I posted about that already though).

Now combat is a different story. It's not what I'd label combat, more as obstacles. I do feel some enemies need to be reworked/rethought, but they have purpose such as being jumped on for higher elevation. Ultimately they are something to be avoided unless it's absolutely necessary (Such as they block the way OR they stole color). I do agree with something more punchy with killing enemies, and this gives me a better idea with what enemies I should make down the road.


Thanks for the comment. I do think the game is better off than you think it is, but I guess it's my fault since I made the Demo the way it is (And I also asked in the Main post "What annoys you"), but I can assure you there is a LOT more than what this Demo has. In fact I've been adding many new things since then which may interest you when the next Demo comes around. And I think I've figured out what direction I want to take the game in (I was trying to think about how linear or open I could make the game, and I think I'll have the main levels be very open but make challenge stages that are a lot like Super Meat Boy in design).