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[Cocytus79]

Good day, gentle folk

  I'd like to offer up a game I am working on for your opinion.

  Currently, it is called "This game is art!" because I've been thinking a lot about the "Ebert criticism" that has been popular of late that games can never be art because they are interactive and the artist no longer has sole control of his vision (my understanding of his opinion, anyway). Without going into opinions on this subject I want it known that I'm not MARRIED to the idea of naming the game this and if it detracts from the experience I can and will use my back-up name "Quacky Caverns".

What I'm offering up is the about a 95% complete build. Unless I dump the "art" angle and go with the "Fun-time happy platformer that is simple fun" angle,  in which case I'd need to make new menus and change the ending text.

I'd like opinions on whether you would go with the kooky "This game is art !" idea, or the "just kinda a silly lil' mechanically sound platformer" idea.

Also, I'd love opinions on whether the gameplay is, in fact, acceptable or perhaps even enjoyable. I'm still very new to making games so I'll be happy as long as it doesn't suck eggs like my first game which I sadly subjected you poor bastards to, "Skampers the cat".

Skampers was a mess of sticky levels and invisible walls, a sort of hideous golem made of fail and inexperience and brought to life by my apparent hatred for my fellow gamers.

This game, I feel, actually works the way a platformer SHOULD. You don't magically hit walls that aren't there every third step, and you can actually KILL enemies instead of just avoiding them because I don't know how to let you kill them 

So yeah, I always go off on dumb tangents.
1) Do you prefer the semi-ironic, deep "art" theme, or the "A fun game for children or perhaps a half-drunk dandy" theme ?

2) Is the gameplay acceptable/agreeable ?

3) Is the difficulty ramping between the 3 levels too steep ?

4) Graphics interesting/neat/make you want to claw your eyes out (I wanted to go for a VERY simple, easy on the eyes look) ?

I appreciate anyone who takes the time to try out the game, and heck, even just reading this post is appreciated 

System Requirements: Keyboard, monitor, mouse. This isn't exactly Crysis.

Screenies:




Download size: 14.14 Mb

Download Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NKEB4O72 *Do be  careful, I've noticed that this site has some sorta-NSFW ads on it. Mostly women in their underwear*

Thank you again for your time 

[laserghost]

Character movements felt good, and the short-range projectile attack was neat. I wasn't sure what the save point was until I died and came back to it. At some point the music just stopped, so it's probably not set to loop.

I think calling it 'This Game is Art!' brings up a lot of ideas that the game itself doesn't feel like it's addressing. I'm not saying your game isn't art, since I believe all games are, but that it's not bad enough to invoke irony and not brilliant enough to make Ebert do backflips and make out with Will Wright. I think it needs a push in one or the other direction, even if you don't keep that title.

[Enshoku]

I'd like to nominate a name change from 'This game is art!' to 'This game is programmer art!'

[Christian Knudsen]

I'd personally be very happy if we didn't get any more ironic art games. It's been done to death.

[Cocytus79]

Hmmm.... I appreciate the input.

Part of the reason I came up with the art bit, besides my feelings on Ebert's thoughts, was that frankly I couldn't come up with a name for a game about a duck searching for bread that wasn't COMPLETELY generic.

As long as it is sound in the gameplay department I'm happy and will bring firmly into "Quacky Caverns" territory (though I'm going to run it past the game name review thread).

As far as the music stopping, that seems to be a fairly rare bug as it has happened to me on occasion. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, sadly.

I even changed the entire soundtrack in the hope that it was the .wav files that were somehow corrupted. The thing is, I KNOW the music is looping but I have no idea what ELSE might be causing this. I know the music DOES come back on eventually unless you beat the level before it has a chance.

It happens substantially less often since I changed the soundtrack, which makes me wonder if maybe this is some known issue with Game Maker 8. I'm going to have to look it up.

If I absolutely CAN'T fix the music bug, I'm not sure what else to do other than hope it rare enough not to ruin the experience for people.

Regardless, thanks so much for your constructive criticism, and I plan on heeding your sage advice. Despite how I feel about the art issue, this is not a battle I'm suitably equipped to enter 

[Wizard]

Sound handling in Game Maker is awful. There's a bug where it will reload music files at the end so they can loop, which generates this nice huge wodge of lag. I'd recommend using the built-in sound stuff for SFX only, and use an external library for music.

[Cocytus79]

That is an excellent idea. I'm having a bit of a time finding information about the process though.

I see in the "sound" tabs that I have the option to use an external media player, but is it as simple as packing the .exe and sound files in a folder, zipping it up, and calling it a day ?