next »

[JaJ]

Blink

Idea
Sometimes when I dream and wake up in the middle of it I wish I could just close my eyes again and continue the dream where I left off, but I'm never able to. This kind of sparked the idea behind this game.

The idea behind this game is that whenever you die, the game saves and you start out at a different location. Initially these locations are closed off from each other, but the locations are connected and part of one bigger world.

The game is meant to be extremely non-lineair, so that most of the time there will be something to find in the location where you start after death.

Screenshots:



Download Demo
http://www.box.net/shared/alsdiuglv4
Requires Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7

Controls:
Left and right arrow keys to walk.
C to jump
Z and X to perform equipped actions
Down arrow to show inventory/ interact/ close screens

Items that can be found in this demo:

Weapons:
Knife
Axe
ball
light
stone
boomerang

Other items:
Bubble
Flower
Green orb
Red orb
Running shoes
Double jump
Map
HP-up X2
Gems X5 (These don't do anything yet)


This is just the first demo, so any kind of feedback is welcome.

[Widget]

I had a brief run about and the concept's really interesting. It feels sorta unforgiving but the respawn's fast enough that it doesn't feel frustrating so I'd call that a success.
Throwing the knife feels a little clumsy atm, when trying to throw it at a particular point in the jump it felt "late". I'm not sure if there's a slight delay or if it's firing on button release but it'd feel more responsive if it fired immediately on the button press.

I'll play some more tomorrow but it's getting really late. On the whole, I like what you've got; the graphics are gorgeous and the world has a really interesting atmosphere to it 

[BrixxieBee]

I think the best thing any game developer can do is to tweak the game to perfection. The concept seems really good. Any good game needs to be fun and solid at virtually every moment. I'm downloading it now.

[BrixxieBee]

I'm going to be critical here. If you don't want me to, don't read on. :D  The concept is really cool, and this could be truly awesome. The only problem is the clunkiness of the controls/collisions. The controls need to be tweaked so they feel really really good. They're more functional at this point than pleasing and if you got them right it could be really really fun. I hope that it's okay that I'm saying this! Just my two cents.

Imagine if Cave Story wasn't perfected/polished. It just wouldn't be a good game!

At this point you have a lot done though, good work so far!

[Maunomau]

As someone said already the control are horrible. Being able to set them myself would be nice(I'd prefer to set wasd + space + shift as controls for myself) but at least you should add jump to up arrow and change inventory from down to something else like c.

I think instead of boring auto-mapping(I was trying to mute the music) that ruins the feeling of surrealness you could do without it but some sort of map in a specific location(s) or as late game item wouldn't be bad.
The way water does damage without bubble is a little awkward it should do damage slower and without pushback.
Statues are kind of neat but I'm not sure how I feel about them just resetting once you leave the room. I suppose it's fine.
The colourful blocks usually look pretty out of place maybe if they were a bit darker they'd look less silly.
Bosses are pretty cool.

Overall the game Could be more dream-like having more of a story could result in some stuff. The guy who gave knife was neat and starting with fireballs being thrown at me until I died was nice but other than that it felt just like a pretty boring metroidvania(mainly due to boring and pointless feeling level design... I think).

You should get rid of or add something to help that pops up with F1.

I got this error when I beat the boss that gives axe. I could safely ignore it.

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event
for object Chesser1O:

Error in code at line 4:
   instance_create(Chesser2O.x,Chesser2O.y,ChesserFade2)
                             ^
at position 28: Unknown variable x

I'm very tired but I hope I made at least some sense...

[JaJ]

I had a brief run about and the concept's really interesting. It feels sorta unforgiving but the respawn's fast enough that it doesn't feel frustrating so I'd call that a success.
Throwing the knife feels a little clumsy atm, when trying to throw it at a particular point in the jump it felt "late". I'm not sure if there's a slight delay or if it's firing on button release but it'd feel more responsive if it fired immediately on the button press.

I'll play some more tomorrow but it's getting really late. On the whole, I like what you've got; the graphics are gorgeous and the world has a really interesting atmosphere to it 

Thanks
Yes, the knife, or any other weapon, is thrown on key release. I'll fix this.

I'm going to be critical here. If you don't want me to, don't read on. :D  The concept is really cool, and this could be truly awesome. The only problem is the clunkiness of the controls/collisions. The controls need to be tweaked so they feel really really good. They're more functional at this point than pleasing and if you got them right it could be really really fun. I hope that it's okay that I'm saying this! Just my two cents.

That's why I'm posting it here, isn't it I'll work on the controls some more. I get the feeling you mean the physics side of the controls when you say this? Or do you mean the mapping of the keys like Endymion does?

As someone said already the control are horrible. Being able to set them myself would be nice(I'd prefer to set wasd + space + shift as controls for myself) but at least you should add jump to up arrow and change inventory from down to something else like c.

I'll look into how I can make it that the player can set the controls himself.

I think instead of boring auto-mapping(I was trying to mute the music) that ruins the feeling of surrealness you could do without it but some sort of map in a specific location(s) or as late game item wouldn't be bad.

Ah, I forgot to remove the map from the M key. I also forgot to mention the Map in the list of items. As it is meant to be an item that you can get about half-way, and it can be found in the demo (pretty useless as I forgot to remove it from the M key)But I'll reconsider having a map at all when I get a bit farther with the game. If it's not needed to make the game playable (or as a very helpful tool), then it won't be in the game when it's done.

Also, if you have comments on the music, I would like to hear it too. Be it a speciffic song or the music style as a whole. Since I'm behind the music as well I could reconsider asking a composer to make the music or choose a different style. (orchestral or synths)
Either way you wanting to mute it is not a good sign :p

The other points you've made are also very helpful, I'll change it.

The only thing where I have trouble figuring out what you mean to say is here:

it felt just like a pretty boring metroidvania(mainly due to boring and pointless feeling level design... I think).

What I get from this is two things, but correct me if I'm wrong.

*You miss a clear goal when playing (so playing feels pointless) in your opinion having more of a storyline could fix this.
*The level design is uninteresting and boring.

The first thing is something I can think about some more. Since dreams are also kind of pointless and without a goal I thought it would fit. But the game being fun is more important.

As for the leveldesign being boring. That worries me a bit more, as i actually tried to keep that varied and fun. And while I have some ideas on how to improve the leveldesign, I would like some more tips on how to improve the level design as I have the feeling I won't be able to make enough progress in this area otherwise.


Thanks everyone for your replies, they were all very helpful!

[wilbefast]

Not having much luck with the file. The zip appear to be "invalid"  anybody else getting this problem?

[JaJ]

I don't know what the problem could be. Did you unzip? Is the file 13.8 MB? Maybe the file wasn't downloaded fully or correctly... 

[wilbefast]

Yeah - 13.8mb, "Box4.zip". I downloaded it twice and tried to open in both on windows and on Linux. I'm trying again now (my internet is pathetic, it'll take 10 minutes of so), but I think 2 tries on 2 OSs is probably enough to diagnose a corrupt zip file

We'll have to see - game sounds interesting at any rate: death is rather a troublesome flow-breaker in games. I was actually thinking of doing something similar, but with multiple story "threads" (each time you die you switch to a different thread until you finish one of them) but I think people would probably kill themselves on purpose to get to the thread they like the most  

edit: cool - it worked that time :D what are the odds of a failed download twice in a row?! Must be pretty high with my internet 
Will switch to windows to play in a mo, get back to you later on today

[BrixxieBee]

I'm going to be critical here. If you don't want me to, don't read on. :D  The concept is really cool, and this could be truly awesome. The only problem is the clunkiness of the controls/collisions. The controls need to be tweaked so they feel really really good. They're more functional at this point than pleasing and if you got them right it could be really really fun. I hope that it's okay that I'm saying this! Just my two cents.

That's why I'm posting it here, isn't it I'll work on the controls some more. I get the feeling you mean the physics side of the controls when you say this? Or do you mean the mapping of the keys like Endymion does?

Yeah, the physics aspect of it wasn't smooth enough. I good sign is that the game is fun just to run around in. I don't stop tweaking controls until I feel that it's smooth/fun to just move around regardless of an objective or goal. I think that's a good start if it doesn't feel like I'm being too abstract. :S

[Maunomau]

I don't know much about music but in most songs I don't like the "base line" of it and tracks that I didn't like too much were unknown, soothing and action. Also soothing sounds very loud compared to others and high points of ice might be a bit too high.

I don't think lack of a clear goal is much of a problem(although having some goals wouldn't be bad). Also by story I don't necessarily mean storyline just something to make locations something more than just obstacle courses. I'll comment more on level design after I've played through the game again.

[wilbefast]

Okay, so I promised I'd write later on today and I'm a man of my word. That said I didn't get very far, so I may change my mind about some things later on. This is to be taken as "preliminary" constructive criticism, and with a pinch of salt 

What is this style of game called? "Metrovania" or something? Excuse me if I was born in the 90s and could never afford gameboy 

What concerns me about this "Metrovania" style of gameplay is that you need to get a series of items more or less in order: you get an ability that lets you get to the next one and so on. This means that you're generally concentrating on a given "path" at a given time.
As such the "blink" mechanics, though really cool at first ("I died? Oh well, who cares: there's some cool stuff over here too!") eventually becomes a hindrance unless you use a save-point and effectively turn it off. You get used to all the spawn locations and know more or less which ones are dead ends, and while the mechanic helps maintain the flow when it's all unfamiliar ground, it can be annoying when it comes between you and the challenge you're trying to overcome (the rule of thumb when making a difficult game is too reduce as much as possible the time it takes the player to retry).
A good example of this would be the ***SPOILER*** "falling-piano-o-death" area. The first time you're here you die and it's hilarious. The second time you get a cool new item so it's great. But every subsequent time you have to hike all the way back to civilisation, carefully avoiding death by "falling-piano-o-death".
Naturally the savepoints iron out these issues, but as I said before they do so by more or less turning off the "blink" mechanic. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good idea and well implemented, it's just that it might work better in a different kind of game (one where you can truly advance on all fronts and make the most of it).

Okay, so more general stuff now. The setting is intriguing (trippy), with a nice selection of environments, enemies and corresponding music to keep things interesting. It also controls fairly well, though as always a plea for us AZERTY users to be taken into consideration  (okay, so I can emulate an QWERTY if need be, but not everyone is so fantastically ingenious -not to mention handsome- as I am). As usual it's natural to compare this games to the likes of Kyntt, though in truth it's got more of a Cave Story vibe (inspiration?). But anyway, the former eschewed combat altogether, and this avoids those wait-jump-shoot-repeat situations that can be a bit monotonous. Some areas seem a little unfair too: there's this fish boss that you have to go past a whole bunch of little fish to reach, and if you die you have to go all the way back past all the fish again 

But, you know, all minor niggles. Overall I had good fun playing the game, and I'll play some more when I have time 

[Maunomau]

While each area is certainly different from others most aren't particularly interesting and locations themselves don't seem very significant. Also I couldn't find double jump so I might have missed some things 

Some problems/suggestions area by area

Sunset: Annoying fishes in brick pools and random collection of enemies below. Making it a beach with a cave at the end and swimming area below would be better.

Village: Best area. The way rain stops after beating the boss is nice(but shouldn't there be some other reward from it) only thing that sucks even slightly is the platform area the statue looks a little out of place and even if you have red orb the path is blocked

Night: First batch of towers is fine, small pool looks interesting, battish creatures might be a little overused, second batch of towers starts to be tiring but still ok, spiky path is fine but pointless, green orb room is nice, aliens suck their rooms feel unnecessary and out of area.

Flowery: Looks nice but is very small and most annoying place to blink to. Seeing shoes above is nice, also looks and music is nice, floating rocks don't look so nice, exit behind the flower sucks, it undermines the importance of flower if it was unreachable from flowers side it wouldn't bother so much and be nice way to force using the first exit.

Cave: Everything except bubble hall and boss is pretty bad. Hall with red monsters sucked, the vertical area sucked little less. Jar path could have lead to something interesting but doesn't. Straight area with jars at the start then bubble hall would be better. Boss can go somewhere else... Boomerang room wasn't bad, I guess I counted it as part of boss.

Purple: Spinners in ground were ok not exactly great but nothing really wrong with them. Puzzles with spiky things were nice and fireball shooters weren't bad. Boss was ok but spent lots of time wandering around away from me. Empty room after it was interesting.

Chess: Pretty good area. Blocks are simple but pretty fun

Red: Green statue puzzles are nice, gem is nice.


Some areas like purple and chess seem fine as simple obstacle courses but some others would be a lot better with some clearer purpose/story. For example: Night area could be about some ancient race with interesting ghosts, writings or structures. Village already tells a pretty interesting story of vampire hunting. Flower area could have something to do with little girls and/or suicide also source of pianos could be present or it could have some monologue about how nice it's there or something. Purple area could have some sort of antagonist or something.

You could make player do all kinds of interesting things by changing what the player is(I know I've dreamed of being a star system, boulder and running away from a dinosaur and suddenly becoming the dinosaur)

What is this style of game called? "Metrovania" or something? Excuse me if I was born in the 90s and could never afford gameboy 

It' metroidvania. The name comes from metroid + castlevania. I've seen some call them castleroids too.

[baconman]

All in all, I've found it pretty enjoyable. The two things that could use the most touch-up would have to be the firing controls (press vs. release) and music. Not that the music was bad per se, it just feels kind of... incomplete.
__________

MUSIC:

I understand you're looping, but using only one chorus per song like that in a loop is an autofail! You could have the best sounding chorus in the world, but it would still get monotonous after about 2 minutes. It needs a verse/chorus alternating kind of thing going on (at least - look up *any* MegaMan/Sonic/etc. song, and you'll see what I'm getting at), perhaps more - especially in the areas where you're gonna be there awhile, like the areas with puzzles in them, or really long stretches of terrain. Simply put, add another different-sounding verse to your loops. It'll change everything.

Another thing that doesn't help? Practically all of the songs besides the boss battle theme are (or seem to be) in the same pitch/tempo, regardless of where you're at or what you're doing; which is what contributes to a lot of the monotony. Experiment with the tempos first - puzzle areas having a slower tempo, action areas having a quicker one; then just adjust the pitch until it gets the vibe right.
__________

GAMEPLAY:

On the inventory screen - it might help to display a tiny Z in the lower-left corner of whatever item it's equipped to, and a tiny X in the lower-right one; and possibly allow for both buttons to be equipped to the same item (especially helpful in battles, and not a game-breaker since you have on-screen firing maximums anyways).

Maybe it's just me, but I think Axes should = 2 damage; if nothing else, for the finesse involved in handling them. The maps also have a fair amount of secret passage potential to them already, which I hope will not go unutilized.

Gold statues, so far, are a gamebreaker - they totally ruin the flow/concept of what you're doing here, and are totally pointless when 80% of the screens you begin on have blue ones anyways. If anything, I'd just make them additional spawn-to points that simply require them to be activated first - so you can't "begin" there, but you can end up continuing from one, once you've already gotten to it.

And I realize that the flying eye's post-boss room will serve some purpose later on, but for now, a blue statue right there may be a good touch. It may be a good one, anyways.
__________

POSITIVE:

On the plus side, you should immediately dismiss people's difficulty/balance comments. You have that DOWN. This game is plenty challenging and demanding, without being overwhelming or unforgiving. And it has enough variety in pacing and gameplay to remain engaging for quite some time! The bosses and puzzles so far are masterful - I especially love the bouncing spike puzzles and "Two-Face," though you'd almost expect the two to be tied in together somehow. The variety of items/weapons and their play on ranges is a masterpiece as well, and I love how the map seems to piece itself together almost endlessly.

IMHO, you've already got yourself a diamond in the rough that just needs a little fine-tuning and polish. If you want some plot or something like that to it, you could just stick NPCs where the item pickups are (kinda like the knife one); but keep it short and sweet... and it's all aces!


This is one game I'm gonna love playing, and seeing a post-mortem on.

[JaJ]

Thanks again everyone!

What concerns me about this "Metrovania" style of gameplay is that you need to get a series of items more or less in order: you get an ability that lets you get to the next one and so on. This means that you're generally concentrating on a given "path" at a given time.

Yes, but at any point in the game there are at least 4 items to be found with the items you already have. The path isn't lineair.

You get used to all the spawn locations and know more or less which ones are dead ends, and while the mechanic helps maintain the flow when it's all unfamiliar ground, it can be annoying when it comes between you and the challenge you're trying to overcome (the rule of thumb when making a difficult game is too reduce as much as possible the time it takes the player to retry).

I was thinking of it more like a megaman kind of flow: If a certain area feels too difficult at the moment, you can go to a different area and return to the previous one when you have better weapons/ more health.

A good example of this would be the ***SPOILER*** "falling-piano-o-death"  area. The first time you're here you die and it's hilarious. The second time you get a cool new item so it's great. But every subsequent time you have to hike all the way back to civilisation, carefully avoiding death by "falling-piano-o-death".

yeah the green area is a bit badly designed. There should always be a blue statue near a spawnpoint.

Cave Story vibe (inspiration?)

Always. Though (oddly enough)Symphony of the Night was my main inspiration this time.


@ Endymion: Thank you, I'll take those things into consideration. I see that some of your comments have to do with the (non)thematic nature of the enemies and areas. This is definately something I still want to work on.

As for music, I still have to decide what I'm going to do with that. I'm going to try out some different styles now first. 

Gold statues, so far, are a gamebreaker - they totally ruin the flow/concept of what you're doing here, and are totally pointless when 80% of the screens you begin on have blue ones anyways. If anything, I'd just make them additional spawn-to points that simply require them to be activated first - so you can't "begin" there, but you can end up continuing from one, once you've already gotten to it.

I agree, I placed those statues with pain in my heart, and I'm glad you think they arn't necesary. I also love the idea of adding additional spawn points instead.

But I am kind of worried about the bosses, especially the one hanging from the ceiling. I think dying at that boss and being teleported to a random place will be VERY frustrating. It's not an easy boss and the road before it is not really easy either.

Maybe I can make an exception for boss battles where you get to choose to try again or blink when you are killed by a boss? Or do you think that's not necesary?

On the plus side, you should immediately dismiss people's difficulty/balance comments. You have that DOWN. This game is plenty challenging and demanding, without being overwhelming or unforgiving. And it has enough variety in pacing and gameplay to remain engaging for quite some time! The bosses and puzzles so far are masterful - I especially love the bouncing spike puzzles and "Two-Face," though you'd almost expect the two to be tied in together somehow. The variety of items/weapons and their play on ranges is a masterpiece as well, and I love how the map seems to piece itself together almost endlessly.

IMHO, you've already got yourself a diamond in the rough that just needs a little fine-tuning and polish. If you want some plot or something like that to it, you could just stick NPCs where the item pickups are (kinda like the knife one); but keep it short and sweet... and it's all aces!


This is one game I'm gonna love playing, and seeing a post-mortem on.

Thank you!! While I really appreciate all the contructive criticism I've gotten so far, but there is nothing quite as motivating as a comment like this

[wilbefast]

Yes, but at any point in the game there are at least 4 items to be found with the items you already have. The path isn't lineair. (...) I was thinking of it more like a megaman kind of flow: If a certain area feels too difficult at the moment, you can go to a different area and return to the previous one when you have better weapons/ more health.

Yeah, this is a good way of doing things I think. Give people other options if they get stuck. Doesn't help if you get stuck everywhere but then perhaps I just suck

I placed those [gold] statues with pain in my heart, and I'm glad you think they arn't necesary. I also love the idea of adding additional spawn points instead.

Yeah, I think it would be better if you unlocked new spawn-points instead of "locking" your spawn location with the golden statues. In most games you get up to a boss, "lock" your spawn location right outside and then either keep trying until you beat it, or give up and leave, losing your nearby spawn location (that is, if you can leave at all). I think it would be cool, and work well with your "blink" mechanic, if new locations were "opened" as you went along. Maybe you could find deactivated blue statues or something.

I am kind of worried about the bosses, especially the one hanging from the ceiling. I think dying at that boss and being teleported to a random place will be VERY frustrating. It's not an easy boss and the road before it is not really easy either.

Maybe I can make an exception for boss battles where you get to choose to try again or blink when you are killed by a boss? Or do you think that's not necesary?

It's an interesting thought. Do you remember old platformers like "Crash Bandicoot", which would give you a helping hand if you died too many times in a row? The game could perhaps remember the last few player deaths and change it's respawn pattern accordingly. A pretty vague, general idea, not a technical solution, but do think about it.

Had another go - perhaps I was a bit harsh before. I'm making progress an enjoying myself very much. So yeah: don't go back to the drawing board on this one, just get what needs fixing and polish what needs polishing  

edit: ESC ending the game is a bit annoying at times: sometimes I just want to leave the inventory and accidentally quit
Maybe add some sort of "are you sure" box....