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[CyanPrime]

Hello boys and girls. I'm hear with the prealpha0.5.4.4 build of my  awesome new indie game Fall.
It's a extremely fast action game where you control a hero in a power-suit (Think Bubblegum Crisis, or Ironman).
Fall currently has  5 difficulties,and 2 levels,  but a third should be made and released within the week,  so keep your eyes pealed.
here are some screens:





Here is the download
Linux (PreAlpha 0.5.2)

Looking for all ways I could make this game better, and any bugs/errors you might find.

[laserghost]

I like the general concept, but I couldn't get too far in it. I think the difficulty ramps up too fast; I actually died right off the bat more then once because of that first obstacle. I also expected the hover move to have more of an effect - it's so subtle I didn't even think it was working at first. It might also be nice to let the player hit a few obstacles before dying, instead of one-hit kills. The character seems cool, does he have a back-story?

[CyanPrime]

I like the general concept, but I couldn't get too far in it. I think the difficulty ramps up too fast; I actually died right off the bat more then once because of that first obstacle. I also expected the hover move to have more of an effect - it's so subtle I didn't even think it was working at first. It might also be nice to let the player hit a few obstacles before dying, instead of one-hit kills. The character seems cool, does he have a back-story?

I dunno, I wanted the game to be like a hard test of reflexes. that, and IWBTG is hard, and hailed as one of the best indie games ever, right? So is a hard game really a bad game?

Also, no. No back-story yet, though I might give him one later on.

[Hangedman]

So is a hard game really a bad game?

Not necessarily, but making the player feel like they could have avoided the death by skill rather than luck or sudden reaction time will make them come back for more, just to see if they can do it. Sudden instant deaths have a habit of alienating new players.
Besides, a lot of people don't play IWBTG beyond the first screen or two. 

I don't think health is a necessity for this style of game, but maybe more of a difficulty curve rather than a spike would do to improve the playability.
My other immediate thought was that the various objects are a bit incongruous just floating in a pleasant sky, maybe inside an industrial complex or something would make a bit more sense.
Nevertheless, good progress so far.

[CyanPrime]

Alright, new build up that lets you select 5 difficulties (game speeds).

[CyanPrime]

Tell me if this controls better or worse

[falsion]

In the last version, I thought it was pretty awkward to have to hold the direction you're facing, then press the boost key. This new version an improvement over the last version. But it's still somewhat unintuitive.

I think what you should do is make it so when you press Z, you boost in the direction your character is facing. (If you're facing left, and you press z, you boost left. If you face right, and press z, you boost right)

Another problem I'm still having is that I sometimes get more than one boost when I didn't intend to.

I think there needs to be more feedback, both visual and control-wise when you use a boost. Maybe a more of delay between button presses, combined with a much more obvious visual indication (maybe motion blur or have trails behind the character or something).

In fact, the game in general can benefit from more visual feedback. Especially when you die, you just see a sudden game over screen. Maybe instead you could show a death animation, wait for it to finish, then tell the player that it's over.

Other than that, I agree with what everyone else is saying. You should change the level design so it has more of a curve in difficulty rather than a sudden spike. You don't have to make it easier, just make it so the player can actually get into the game and learn the controls before you make it hard and start killing them off.

[Skofo]

The controls were fine the way they were before. They are not the problem your game has.

IWBTG is hard, and hailed as one of the best indie games ever, right?

IWBTG is famous not because it is hard, but because it is hilariously hard. When you die in IWBTG, you feel rewarded on some level, since pretty much every way to die is creative and whimsical. Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 take advantage of this, too.



Without that, you're left with a needlessly frustrating game that people just don't feel compelled to complete. However, this is salvageable; what you need to do is focus on making the game less frustrating and more challenging. Start the game off a bit easier so the players can get a feel for the controls without needing to restart over and over and to entice them to continue the game ("I already made it this far..."). Many people wouldn't spend more than a few minutes on the Jumper games if they started them off right above spikes.

You should also work on the collision detection. Bad collision detection is one of the most frustrating things a game can have. I can't tell you what to do exactly since the game is pretty fast, but I can tell you that it just doesn't "feel" right. You should take inspiration from how most bullet hell games do their collision detection--the player's bounding box is only one pixel.

The player character in your game is quite a bit bigger so just one pixel wouldn't work, but you get the idea.

Better graphics and sound would also help. An easy thing you can do is not make the music stop and restart every time you die, since that kinda breaks the flow. Trackmania games would be quite a bit less fun if their awesome music restarted constantly.

[falsion]

I agree with Skofo. That's a really good idea. I didn't notice it before, but now that I think of it, the hit detection is kinda off.

I think it's because you're using the entire character as a hitbox. In a fast moving game, that's usually not a good idea.

Check out the hitbox for DoDonPachi (a bullet hell game that involves lots and lots of bullets flying at you really fast), notice how the hitbox (highligted in yellow) is actually smaller than the player:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=574774#p574774

In fact, a lot of hitboxes in arcade games (not just bullet hell ones) are generally pretty small to make it more manageable for the player to maneuver around objects. If you used something similar, it would greatly improve the overall feel of your game.

[Gainsworthy]

So, I kind of feel entitled to giving feedback now. Sorry about this. I mean to be honest, not nasty.

Skofo, Falsion, WS, Hanged-Man, nice points, I agree, probably will re-iterate your points.

Personally, not a big fan of IWBTG, but yeah, it's a bit of a joke-game. Not so much in that it's trivial (beating it requires superhuman reflexes and a graet deal of dedication), but in that it's thematically absurd. Cruel difficulty without a wink & a smile will alienate players.

So, naturally, really dug the "Moon Gravity" option. I downloaded the 0.5 version a little earlier in the day and stopped playing after about 15 deaths.


Secondly, I know it's the alpha, but all the sound needs to be revamped. That music mustn't be interrupted by death. Considering my average lifespan is about 10 seconds, hearing a micro loop will make me turn off. Shame, as the tune's quite nice.

The sound effects are kind of... harsh, I suppose the word is. I don't like hearing that SCHWEEE sound every time I boost. Make it more subtle, quieter, and a little shorter. The coin-collect has a nasty high pitch. Consider sound effects in classic arcade games. They're short and satisfying. Even delicious.


Finally, whilst simple, I think falling-and-dodging as a game mechanic can be very satisfying. If I may make a somewhat strange sounding recommendation (and disregard it if it sounds wrong to you - this isn't addressing a problem), the game needs to have a sensation of enormous speed no matter the actual speed. The shmup "Cloudphobia" is probably my favourite example - the enemies hit you at a perfectly reasonable pace, but man, I feel like I'm blistering through those clouds. I'm not sure how to do it, though. Make the background tear along, add some simple blur effects, something.

[CyanPrime]

Okay, I added a new build. 0.5.4. here are the changes.
*reverted controls back to just z for boosting.
*fixed double-boost bug
*made bgm not repeat when you die
*made hitbox smaller
*made hitbox visitable for this version
...OH!
I also added in 3 new levels. They're easy ones for 1,2 and 3.
I moved the hard levels to 4 and 5.


Thank you for all your guys' feedback, and keep it coming ^_^

*download link has replaced the download link on the first post.

[Gainsworthy]

...the right stuff, that is.
 



Already so much better. I'm still lousy at it - Sun level 4 kills me, but hey! I actually wanted to try it at Sun difficulty. So, that's a definite plus. Little things, big differences. Keep it up.


OH YEAH, A BUG: Once fuel gets to 0%, it stays there. Though, I suppose that could be intentional.

AND ALSO: Fall's not a bad name. It's a pretty accurate description! As it develops it may earn a new one, but for now, Fall is good.

[CyanPrime]

OH YEAH, A BUG: Once fuel gets to 0%, it stays there. Though, I suppose that could be intentional.

Your boosters blow out if you reach 0 boost, but I forgot to say anything about that or give in game feedback. 

[CyanPrime]

Okay, I fixed the hover button (was still c, now is x). My graphics artist made me a new title screen, so that's in there now. I added a new BGM, and turned off the hitbox display. I also made the boost meter say "boosters blowen" when you've blowen your boosters.

Link is in the first page.

[falsion]

The game is much better now. It looks like the problems I had before were more hitbox related than control related. Before the game gave you such a low margin of error-- press the wrong button and you die. It was hard to tell what you did wrong. That was especially a bad thing when you've just jumped into the game and haven't "felt out" the controls yet. Now when I die, it actually feels like my fault rather than the game's fault.

So far, the game is looking good. It may need a bit more graphical polish, but it seems like you're already working on that. If I find any other bugs, I'll let you know.

[Skofo]

The game is more satisfying to play now. Good work!


A few more random pointers to make it even better:

- Since this is a quick arcadey sort of game, it might be best to have the song loop through the whole game without ever stopping at all, starting at the title screen.

- The title screen is a great start--it's shiny, exciting and unique. It's begging to have some movement, though. You could make the logo subtly pulsate, the bars above it flicker, the circle in the corner rotate, things like that. Subtle touches like that would give the game a more polished, complete feel.

- It'd be nice if the clouds in the sky moved slowly upwards to give a stronger impression of falling.


Good luck and have fun

[falsion]

I just noticed a typo.

When you use up your booster, it says "Boosters Blowen" rather than "Blown." You might want to fix that.

[CyanPrime]

Released a Linux Build of 0.5.2. Download link is under the windows one on the first post build of Fall 0.5.2. The download link is under the Windows one.

[CyanPrime]

Fixed typo.
Added new BGM custom made by myself (It's really cool).
Added new sound effects made by JuniusRave (my fiance).
Oh, and turned levels 1, and 3 into one big level 1.
Download Link is in the first post.

Edit: also added new win level BGM.

[CyanPrime]

Each level now has it's own BGM. All BGMs were made by me, so I hope you like them ^_^