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[Montoli]

Hello gents and ladyfolk!

I have a game that I've been working on over in the dev log section, but since I think I'm finally past the "just working to get core gameplay features in" and am finally on to the happy land of "working on polish and responding to feedback" phase of things, it's time to start venturing a little further for said feedback.

So.  Without further ado, I present to you a game I have been working on lately, Negative SpaceCraft:




<<Play it!!>>






I am interested in what you think of this game, and crave your feedback upon the subject!

So about the game.  It's basically...  It's kind of hard to describe, really.  It has its roots in shmups, to be sure.  At this point, I usually describe it as equal parts Ikaruga, Shoot the Bullet, and



I'm hesitant to talk about it TOO much, because part of the feedback I want is "does my tutorial do a decent enough job of teaching people the game, if they've never seen it before?"  I'll say this much though:  At it's core, it is a game about dodging things, with a bunch of levels that I've tried to make fairly unique, and (what I hope at least) is an interesting core gameplay gimmick.  There is definitely a fair amount of SHMUP in its linage.

Oh, and one other thing.  Fair warining:  The game gets hard.  Especially if you choose to play in hard-mode, and/or on some of the later levels.

Anyway, give it a try if you have time, and give me back feedback!  I like feedback!

And if you want some direction, here are some specific things I would love feedback on.  (I'll take any feedback though, just because anything someone feels strongly enough to write down tends to be something that I should pay attention to...)

• Did you feel like the tutorial adequately prepared you for the game?  If not, what was unclear later, and/or what do you wish it had told you about in greater detail?
• How did the game run for you?  I've had some reports that it runs poorly on Mac browsers. (It seemed to have an ok framerate but the controls were laggy...)  Anyone else seeing this, or other performance problems?
• How is the framerate?  Is it staying at a pretty solid 30fps, or is it bouncing around?  [not counting the pause when you die]
• Did the controls feel tight enough?  Were there things about them that you didn't like?  If so, what?
• Was there ever a spot where you didn't feel like you knew what to do to proceed?  (I'm not talking for specific bosses, but rather as a whole, where you couldn't figure out how to advance, or knew what you had to do but couldn't see how to do it?)
• Of the ones you played, what was your least favorite pattern?
• Anything else that comes to mind that you liked, or [more importantly from my point of view] that you hated intensely?

Thanks in advance!

-Montoli

And what the heck, here are a few more screenshots, just because I like screenshots.

[JoeManaco]

Nice style

The game ran fine and smooth (MacBookPro, OSX). The controls are a little bit frustrating here. I have a german keyboard layout. If you compare it to english layout the keys "z" and "y" are swapped - so this could cause the problems I had with the controls.

[flavio]

Did you feel like the tutorial adequately prepared you for the game?  If not, what was unclear later, and/or what do you wish it had told you about in greater detail?

Yes, it's clear, but I think it's better if you pause the game during the explanations. The player should be more calm and he should understand better.

How did the game run for you?  I've had some reports that it runs poorly on Mac browsers. (It seemed to have an ok framerate but the controls were laggy...)  Anyone else seeing this, or other performance problems?
How is the framerate?  Is it staying at a pretty solid 30fps, or is it bouncing around?  [not counting the pause when you die]

The game runs perfectly.

Did the controls feel tight enough?  Were there things about them that you didn't like?  If so, what?
Was there ever a spot where you didn't feel like you knew what to do to proceed?  (I'm not talking for specific bosses, but rather as a whole, where you couldn't figure out how to advance, or knew what you had to do but couldn't see how to do it?)

All right.

Of the ones you played, what was your least favorite pattern?

The spider.

Anything else that comes to mind that you liked, or [more importantly from my point of view] that you hated intensely?

It's not so clear the indication of the transition - when you're changing the color of the ship. Many times I lost because of this, I didn't understand if the ship was changing the color or not.

However, the global experience is very fun, this is a great game, compliments!

[chickenhead]

Fun!

It ran at 16 fps on my old macbook but it what still very playable. I sometimes, when I was stuck in tight spot,  wished the ship could be moved in smaller steps.

The pattern I disliked the most was the cheese.

[Montoli]

The game ran fine and smooth (MacBookPro, OSX). The controls are a little bit frustrating here. I have a german keyboard layout. If you compare it to english layout the keys "z" and "y" are swapped - so this could cause the problems I had with the controls.

Oh man, I forgot about the German keyboard layout.  (or non-qwerty keyboards in general...)  Yes, I can imagine that making the game a bit more difficult...

[Montoli]

Fun!

It ran at 16 fps on my old macbook but it what still very playable. I sometimes, when I was stuck in tight spot,  wished the ship could be moved in smaller steps.

Did you have shift held down?  (It slows you down a lot in addition to charging the shield, and is good for fine adjustments.)  Were you wishing you could move more slowly in "charge mode", or do you mean regular?

One thing I've seen in a couple of playtests is that people often don't realize that the slowdown from the shift key can be used for fine maneuvering.  Is that what happened to you?

I'm starting to suspect that I might need to make that use of the shift key more obvious, if so many people are missing it.

[wilbefast]

Tried to post this over the weekend but my connection at home (student residence wifi) is just terrible. I mean really terrible. Anyway, I saved the message so I could send it from uni this afternoon:

Bullet-hell games aren't really my thing, but I had a good time getting my head around the quirks of this one. I really liked how each level/boss is a kind of puzzle you had to figure out, and most are short so you feel like you're making progress, and can stop and start very easily.
The music/setting/story/art all go together very well: nicely minimalist, very cute I especially loved the way the level select explains all the ideas as you collect them. Apparently I'm not the only one terrified of one day forgetting everything. I generally anything I think of down in a big book 

The tutorial was good, although it was tricky for me to fly around avoiding projectiles and read at the same time. It did the job though. I'm on Ubuntu with Firefox: small laptop and not all the screen fits inside, but I'm used to that with flash games. Sometimes I pressed X and nothing would happen, so I'd die  When you're just been hit once with a full shield, you can't seem to save yourself by changing colour.
Eventually got stuck on the email level - I'm not very good at these kinds of games  Still, I think it's a very cute and stylish little time-waster 

PS - about the keyboard layouts: I'm actually using a French AZERTY keyboard at home and an Italian QWERTY at university. Both work fine for your controls, but as a rule I'd try to avoid alpha-numeric keys for input (Yes, numbers too - the French hold SHIFT to get at them, at sometimes it doesn't work).
I'm fairly used to compatibility issues though, and I can also emulate a US/GB QWERTY when need be. Just keep it in mind that keyboards may vary greatly 

[ham and brie]

I didn't get a clear understanding from the tutorial how the switching worked. Initially I thought it would have a period where you were safe from both colours and then switch. It was only after dying several times that I better understood what was going on.

Also, I was surprised that I couldn't use the switch after losing the shield. I think I would like to have been able to save myself after getting caught by a large area of the dangerous colour by switching.

[chickenhead]

One thing I've seen in a couple of playtests is that people often don't realize that the slowdown from the shift key can be used for fine maneuvering.  Is that what happened to you?

Yep, that's what happened. 

[Montoli]

One thing I've seen in a couple of playtests is that people often don't realize that the slowdown from the shift key can be used for fine maneuvering.  Is that what happened to you?

Yep, that's what happened. 

No need for that face!  I should be the one making it!  If you played the game and didn't realize that I expected you to do that, then that is my failure, for failing to make that clear!  This is exactly the kind of feedback I need!  (Thank you!)

[iffi]

I really liked this! Too bad it doesn't run smoothly on my netbook, though I guess you probably can't do too much about that (I play shmups on my netbook because my wireless keyboard on my desktop is way too laggy). :[

One thing, though - it seems like there's a limit to how often you can invert polarity. It would be nice if there were some sort of indicator to make it more obvious when you can change colors again, as that frustrated me on some of the later levels.

[Montoli]

Hrm.  There *shouldn't* be a limit, but it's very possible that I broke something...  Right now, the way it is supposed to work is:

You have to wait 1/6 of a second between switches.  (1 full second if you are on the hard-mode ship)  It costs you some energy when you do it, but will never prevent you from switching.  (will just drop you to zero if you don't have enough.)

Oh, and you can't switch if you're invincible.  (aka your shields have just saved your life from something.)  This one seems to be counterintuitive to a lot of people though, so I may change it.

That's how it's SUPPOSED to work.  If you were seeing something other than this, then I probably broke something.

[iffi]

You have to wait 1/6 of a second between switches.  (1 full second if you are on the hard-mode ship)

Ah, that's what I meant, you didn't break anything. I didn't notice it at first because I was playing it on normal difficulty. Playing it on hard-mode made it a lot more noticeable, though.

[Montoli]

hmm.  Possible I should make that more explicit in the "hard mode" description then.

[wilbefast]

Did you have shift held down?  (It slows you down a lot in addition to charging the shield, and is good for fine adjustments.)

I never thought of that - maybe this will help me get past the envelope-o-death

[Noyb]

Played up to Side Bet in Fifth Consideration on Normal for now.

Thought bubbles struck me as the most unfair level so far. I really don't like how being stunned after losing your shield makes you unable to switch. It's the cause of most of my deaths on Thought Bubbles, and not something I thought happened until I specifically tested it. It basically means switching a bit too late both takes away your shield and then kills you in cases where the proper background color has completely disappeared. Rather harsh and unintuitive. I also didn't realize at first that the circle outlines wouldn't kill me.

Oh, and pointed letter can leave the screen at times. Unfair!

Neat concept once I wrapped my head around it. I love how you're able to allude to all these concrete thoughts with abstract bullet patterns (fountains, chessboards, etc.) The level descriptions are fun rewards. I really like the contracting gray circle to signal timed enemy attacks. It's also great how most of the levels have a real natural risk/reward in terms of getting more points by attacking the enemy when he's most surrounded by bullets.

[jotapeh]

I've played this through a few times, and I'm really bad at SHMUPs in general. I gave up after being ignominiously defeated by the lemon the first time. The style of this pulled me back to replay a few times though and I liked it quite a bit. The intro really pulled me in, I thought it was quite clever and attractive. The consistent design throughout the game is fantastic, extremely well executed, as well as the pairing with music. Liked it a lot, a lot.  

Anyway, to respond specifically to your questions:

Did you feel like the tutorial adequately prepared you for the game?  If not, what was unclear later, and/or what do you wish it had told you about in greater detail?

Yeah. SHMUPs are generally straightforward, and although I didn't quite understand how closely linked shield charging and 'capturing' was, I got it after a playthrough. I blame myself for reading the tutorial but not really reading it, like I went 'Okay this button does this' instead of 'Okay this button does this and has this consequence and is situationally appropriate when...' (which your tutorial does an excellent job of explaining.)
 

How did the game run for you?  I've had some reports that it runs poorly on Mac browsers. (It seemed to have an ok framerate but the controls were laggy...)  Anyone else seeing this, or other performance problems?
How is the framerate?  Is it staying at a pretty solid 30fps, or is it bouncing around?  [not counting the pause when you die]

Those two questions seem pretty tightly linked, but allow me to assuage your fear, this game runs like silk on both my Macs. Mac users generally should use Safari for Flash, not enough people know this. Performance tends to be much higher though in my experience. Anyway it wasn't an issue, solid high framerate, solid responsiveness.

Did the controls feel tight enough?  Were there things about them that you didn't like?  If so, what?

Absolutely, although I found myself wishing the shield 'expansion' would be faster when I wanted to capture things, that is obviously a key factor tied to the difficulty so changing it would not be fair. Like I said, I'm bad at these games.

Was there ever a spot where you didn't feel like you knew what to do to proceed?  (I'm not talking for specific bosses, but rather as a whole, where you couldn't figure out how to advance, or knew what you had to do but couldn't see how to do it?)

Nope. Very clear. Often there were times where I scratched my head, but these were specific bosses and usually I figured out the pattern after a few tries.

Of the ones you played, what was your least favorite pattern?

I liked them all. Unfortunately I didn't get past the boss that looks like an envelope. Deceptively simple, that one..  

[Montoli]

Played up to Side Bet in Fifth Consideration on Normal for now.

Thought bubbles struck me as the most unfair level so far. I really don't like how being stunned after losing your shield makes you unable to switch. It's the cause of most of my deaths on Thought Bubbles, and not something I thought happened until I specifically tested it. It basically means switching a bit too late both takes away your shield and then kills you in cases where the proper background color has completely disappeared.

Yeah, this one has been showing up in my in-person playtests as well.  I've been trying to decide how best to deal with it.  The reason I hadn't changed it before was because I was worried it trivialized some of the patterns, but I think on the balance, it's probably better to have to adjust a few patterns than to have a core mechanic that people find frustrating/counter intuitive.  I may have a look at that tonight.

Excellent feedback people!  Thank you!  This is really helpful!

[SplinterOfChaos]

I'm coming in late, so maybe this is covered already, but...

Whenever i die or clear a level, before anything else the screen freezes. When it comes back i see that the game world has been updating the entire time, but i'm only just now able to see where it is. Very occasionally this happens in-game. Windows 7; Google Chrome.

I'm not always able to tell why i died because the ship is not transparent, making it difficult to compare the position of that tiny dot in the middle to the black-white background. Having that dot stand out more would help and giving me a way to see under the ship would too.

Also, the flipping from white to black isn't a bad mechanic, but sometimes i'm not sure what it's doing. On the level with the rice bowl, for example, i flip to white to move through a grain of rice, but when i try to flip back, maybe it's too soon--i don't know, but i die without really knowing why.

But all-in-all, it was pretty fun. I didn't get through all the levels, but i will. Not to give feedback but for personal enjoyment. When you said SHMUP, i was looking forward to a more traditional experience. The controls were confusing at first, but got more natural as i played. It felt more strategic than twitch-based, which is rare.