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[aschearer]

Hey everyone I've been working on a game recently that I'd like to share with you. The game's name is Fluster and it's something I and a friend, JZ, have cooked up. It's a 2d puzzle-platformer in flash. You can read more about it here: Introducting Fluster.

Right now we've got an alpha available. We'd really like some feedback on where to tighten the gameplay, bugs, etc. So without further ado here it is (game is over after you've fallen several stories down and reached a big door):

*Click to Play*


Please let us know what you think here or via the feedback/bug forms on the game's page. Looking forward to your criticism!

 

[Hempuli‽]

This kind of flash games are always quite slow on my computer.

The game seemed to be wellmade, I couldn't see any bigger bugs. There's one thing that flaws the design a bit IMO: The walls should be thickier, currently there's only a few pixels separating rooms from another. Not a big problem, but doesn't look that good.

Also, it took me a lot of time to realize I could jump on the big clock.

[aschearer]

Hey thanks for the feedback! Very useful, we're still trying to figure out how to communicate which objects can be jumped on and which can't. If you played Scary Girl recently it's clearly a hard problem! Also as for the perf, can you tell me what the specs on your machine are? I am running on a macbook and am able to manage 30fps but I'm very interested in hearing about slowdown so I can go in and optimize some things.

[Greg Game Man]

i agree with hempuli

also i think controlls like: ASD would be better, where S is jump, then A is suck, D is blow

[sereneworx]

I too think that the control scheme could be improved, it feels very unnatural at the moment.

I like how the player sprite shows your health, it's nifty.

The art, however, seems.... inconsistent. Almost to the point where it sort of looks like clip-art was put together to make environments. I'm not saying that the art is ugly or unappealing in anyway, in fact, each individual part is fantastic. But when they are all put together, it just looks... wrong. In my humble opinion, I feel that you could choose one of the various styles that are present, and apply it to the entirety of the game. I am personally fond of the backgrounds, they're nice and crisp and stylistically interesting.

[aschearer]

Hey guys thanks for the all the feedback. Couple questions:

  1. What was hard about the controls? Space for jump?
  2. You don't think having the three function keys be side by side (a-s-d let's say) would be error prone?
  3. What else is "unnatural" about the control scheme?
  4. For the art, is the problem the characters don't mesh w/ the backgrounds or is it more than that?

Thanks, keep it coming!

[Craig Stern]

Pretty cool!

One bug: I was able to walk off the left edge of the world from the top shelf of the flower rack in the greenhouse room.

[valkrin]

Nice game, I like your level design. I would agree with others, the controls could use some work. How about dedicating a button to shoot instead of a key combination? Good luck!

[JLJac]

I can't get up on that first platform, he doesn't jump high enough... Or am I an idiot?

[aschearer]

You jump from the shelf to the clock to the upper platform. As someone else has said it's not clear enough that you can jump on the clock.

[aeiowu]

You jump from the shelf to the clock to the upper platform. As someone else has said it's not clear enough that you can jump on the clock.

Yea i think this is a symptom of a larger problem already touched on by jeanes.

Essentially, the entire look of the game lacks any differentiation between foreground and background. This is a huge deal in a platformer as its hard for the player to tell where they can jump to and where they can't. Especially the spot where you're jumping on the bookshelf, among many others. I like the fact that enemies, characters and active objects look much different than the background, but collidable platforms need to be more defined against the background. Maybe desaturate the colors as well as bring down their level of detail. Also, I think in general, the gripe about the clip-art has more to do with their outlines as well the whole game not having too restrictive of a color palette. Focus on a few hues/feelings. Warm vs. cold. Complimentary, tertiary setups etc. and so on.

I agree about the controls as well. Right now, you can't suck/blow while moving which gives the game a really methodical type of feel which I'm not sure is all that conducive to a platformer. It can work, but I don't think it's working for you in its current implementation. I also think you move too sluggishly. What I mean by that is that there should be some form of friction acting on the sprite after I let up on the move key. It's a choppy in general.

Nonetheless, I think your time would be better spent prototyping more stuff with the vacuum. I only played up to the free-fall part but I didn't see the vacuum doing much. It's essentially just a way for you to communicate the inventory and use your arms to push/pull stuff. I think the vacuum idea is interesting but I don't see it being taken advantage of. What about sucking up a door, adhering it to your nozzle and using it as a shield to move forward against a repeating fireball? Then again that could be done with arms technically. What about pressurizing rooms? Hook up a nozzle and depressurize a room so the gravity is lower to solve a certain set of puzzles and so on. Maybe it could work... Certainly the easy way out of this is to extend the reach of the vacuum tenfold, that way it isn't just another set of arms.

[aschearer]

Hey thanks for the thoughtful comments. The issue w/ the background/foreground is one I and the artist are aware of and hopefully we'll find a better solution. I agree with everyone's comments that it's currently too difficult to tell what you can jump on.

As for running and using the vacuum, you can currently do that but the art isn't in place. I've experimented with running vacuuming and not and I agree with you that it's better to be able to run and use the vacuum, so I'll just have to make sure the art gets done!

Finally, thanks for all the good ideas concerning the vacuum mechanic. As I've worked on this game I've also felt that the vacuum is just operating as a set of arms. I really like some of your ideas and have some of my own, hopefully I'll get a chance to implement them in the future!

[aschearer]

Hey everyone, thanks so much for all of your feedback. It's been a little over a week and JZ and I have tried to listen and incorporate your suggestions, time permitting. I've updated the link above and you can also click the link here to play the second alpha!

*Click to Play*


What's new in this build? Here are some of the stand outs:

    * Added music and sound effects
    * Simplified controls, removing ability to toggle between items and charge
    * Added more things to the environment to interact with
    * Adjusted artwork to try to ease the problem of foreground-background
    * Improved the design of the level in several places
    * Updated and added the menus
    * Fixed the performance issues

Please check it out and let me know if you run into and problems and more generally what you think. Most importantly, did I address your concerns, if not why not? And what would you like to see added to the game to make it even better?

Thanks again for all of you help, I truly believe your feedback has made Fluster several times better in a very short period of time!

[tafty]

In the below screenshot I had just pushed the column, trapping the little orange guy and was jumping onto the top of it when the main character stopped in midair.  Everything else seemed to be moving correctly still and pressing left/right flipped the direction he was facing but no other key presses did anything, the jump had clearly stopped and I had to restart.



Up to that point I'd found that, similar to other comments posted, the controls felt kind of odd.  I often found myself looking at the keyboard trying to decide whether I wanted to suck or blow, which key was which and then just pressing both to be sure.  I think this has something to do with sucking/blowing intuitively being relative to the way the main character is facing but the keys themselves are fixed.

I don't think you've gone far enough in resolving the difference between foreground and background objects.  It was often a matter of trial and error to find what I could jump on, what was suck/blowable and what was collectable.  Even in the screenshot of the start you have posted the chair to me looks as though it can be jumped on whilst it's not still obvious that you can jump on the grandfather clock.

The good news is that despite the above it was still quite good fun and I would've carried on exploringing had the character not frozen in midair.

[aschearer]

Everyone thanks so much for all of your feedback, it's really been spot on and made the game much better. Today we completed the beta and submitted to a few contests. If you enjoyed Fluster we'd really appreciate if you came out and voted for us in the 2Bee Game contest in a couple weeks or shared the game with a friend.

Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing what you're working on!