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[onionman77]

Hey,

I started a 3D Platformer/FPS game last year as a hobby, one that's heavily inspired by the NES game Blaster Master.



There's a demo available here
www.helenathe3rd.com
and a Youtube gameplay video here




I'd love to hear what you guys think about it. Mostly I'm curious to know if you think the game is fun in general, and if you like switching between the two game modes. Although, I'll welcome any feedback.

The game is a Windows game, though there is also a version that works on Ubuntu 64.

Anyway,
Thanks!

[capn.lee]

this looks incredibly fun, i'll give this a try when i'm next able.

[Fyren]

I didn't play very long (not long enough to get out of the vehicle) but I felt like the control scheme was pretty limiting.  The wide open areas combined with the constrained 90 degree turns made me just want mouselook.  I think maybe a different style of level design based around corridors would suit it better.

The platforming feel was good, though.  One small nit being that it's a little hard to tell if you're over the platform you mean to jump onto.  Maybe some tweaking of the player's shadow to make it larger or of the camera angle would help.

[onionman77]

This is very good feedback, thanks man!

[kidchameleon]

Very nice, keep up the good work. It would be great if you could set custom controls. I found myself pressing the jump button when I wanted to fire and vise versa...

[onionman77]

Hey....

So I tried to take some of the advice here. I added mouse look to the game, and modified the camera angle like Fyren suggested. Haven't allowed for custom controls yet, though you can switch between two layouts now. Anyway, let me know what you guys think! And if you try it out, I'm also curious how you guys feel about the jumping height? I was thinking it might be a bit too high, but wouldn't mind some outside opinions.
https://sites.google.com/site/helenathe3rd/

Thanks!,
Onion

[FrankForce]

You have all the basics to make a game but the core controls are killing the fun...
- Make it so we can aim in 2D with the mouse rather then 1D!  It feels wrong to not allow player to angle his shots up like we could in the original master blaster.  Also, not being able to actually see where my mouse cursor really sucks and I accidentally click off the window.
- Same thing when it goes into 3d mode, the camera needs to pitch up if player is moving the mouse aiming up, and he should shoot at the reticle, this is absolutely essential.
- Player can't control jump height, this is a key platforming mechanic.  You need to make it so if you tap jump it only jumps a small amount but the longer you hold the higher he goes.
- Don't have an installer especially if you don't provide a proper uninstaller!  Now I have to go to the trouble of manually hunting down these files to delete the game.  A simple zip file would have been preferred.
- You mention something about custom controls.  My advice is just forget about that for now.  It is not the best use of your time that could be spent polishing the gameplay itself.  Stick with a simple and standard control set and theres no real need to customize.
- You might be interested in this game I made recently where you play as a Sophia type vehicle.  http://motherlover.3d2k.com

[onionman77]

This is really great feedback. Thanks Frank.

The turret looking up is definitely something I've wanted to. I've just needed to do the animations for that first. I love the variable jump idea, I can't believe I forgot about putting that one in. Thank you for that!

Your game looks great. Obviously, I love it when I see a new Blaster Master fan game come out. I know some people who'd be interested in that as well. Thanks for sharing!

-Onion

[sinoth]

I wrote down some of the things I noticed while playing:

• No proper icon on installed shortcut.  This is a minor issue, but will take you 5 minutes to fix and gives a better first impression.
• Mouse isn't confined to the window.  This is annoying because you can click outside the window accidentally.  Mouse should be confined until the player presses ESC to enter the menu or something.
• The first time I played, I somehow jumped out of my vehicle and had no idea how to get back in.  Had to restart.  May not be a huge deal, but you may disable leaving the vehicle until players are taught how to get back in.
• Music is awesome
• The "3D" mode is really cool, when you suddenly go from 2D platforming to a more open space arena.  However, lack of mouse look gave me a headache.  It sucks not being able to look up to see where you need to go.  I couldn't get past this part since I couldn't look up and down.
• Would be nice if the menu was mouse navigable.

Can't wait to see some updates for this   Very solid start!  I'll admit, I've never played the first Blaster Master, so I can't draw a direct comparison.  Looks like I'll need to remedy this XD

[Fyren]

I gave this another try and I agree with everything sinoth said.  I did enjoy it more than the first version, though.

About the mouse not being confined, it's only not confined in the 2D areas.  In the 3D areas it is.

I didn't play a lot of the first version, but I noted problems with landing on platforms and I still have them.  I would like total mouselook even if the gun won't aim up or down.

For the areas where you have to go on foot, if you drive the vehicle into the portal it just pops you out on foot on the other side.  When you come back, your vehicle is shooting your guy's gun (purple bullets).  I'm also really unclear on how ammo/the number on the gun icons work.  Sometimes ammo wouldn't recharge, sometimes it would.  There are two numbers on the gun and picking up the green things the robots drop makes one go up?

When you get the hover ability and go backwards to the area with the sort of pagoda thing with the 1-up on it, there are two flying enemies right where you start.  Pretty often they hit me immediately and knocked me back into the portal, which was really annoying.

The flying enemies seem way more dangerous than the other two (well, that I've seen).  The robots that shoot are barely a threat and the other guys are just fodder to heal off of.

[hughperkins]

I played this briefly.  I should point out that I'm not a huge fan of platformers in general, unless there is something to draw me in.  I enjoyed Jet  Pac and Jet Set Willy, but I found Rayman 3 got a bit tedious, since I hate having to judge jumps exactly in order to progress.  I like having something more tactical/strategic to do, like in Portal.

So, my impressions were:
- the game looks great
- the jumping was quite fun
- I wanted something more to do; I assume this will come later, but for example:
   - maybe at the start you can't fire, but you can pick up an item to let you fire
   - maybe at the start you can't jump
   - maybe at the start you don't even have a car
   - and then maybe some of the items are visible at the start, but you can't actually get to them until you've worked your way around the level, or picked up other items - eg ability to jump - and this might be the 'hook' that pulls me in, makes me keep playing

[onionman77]

Hey guys, just wanted to say thanks for the feedback. Fyren, I'm glad you gave it a second go and it sounds like you got pretty far.
I am planning on implementing most of the suggestions Frank and sinoth gave.

Anyway Fyren, I've let the level designer know about your suggestion, and you're right backtracking in some of the portals right now is a little brutal.
Hugh, I liked your idea of having items that are visible, but out of reach until you get more abilities. I like the idea of showing the player something, but not letting them get to it, at least at first.

[onionman77]

Well it took a lot of work, but I was finally able to get this tank looking and shooting up, based on this feedback. I worked on a variable jump height, kind of got it in, but I think it still needs some tweaking. I was waiting to post here until I could make the menu mouse navigate-able, but it looks like that's going to take awhile, and I'd like to get some feedback before then.



If you guys don't mind, could you let me know what you think of the redesigned controls? How do they feel to you guys?

Just a reminder, the demo can be downloaded from www.helenathe3rd.com
or here's just a link to the windows demo http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1538904/HelenaDemoWin.zip

[Fyren]

I like the variable height jumping.  It made the platforming feel a lot better to me.  I didn't really get annoyed by not being able to look down.  As for the mouse aiming, I dunno.  The enemies are a little simple so it's hard to comment.  What I said before about the flying enemies being the only danger still stands.  I don't really have any suggestions on that front, but the enemies could probably be more interesting.

Level design is a little weird at times where the's nooks or corners that are just barren.  I kind of want to go look around all the corners (I like exploration games) but when there's nothing there it's kind of a drag.

I see the flying guys in the pagoda room don't spawn right next to you, but there are still a few instances where you come through a door into a 3D area and there are the fodder guys pretty near.  It's not really dangerous, but it can be a little annoying to deal with the camera since your back is right against the wall after a transition.  It can be confusing to get your bearings (figure out where you are, what the terrain is, where the enemy is) with the camera kind of fighting you.

When I played this time, I got the hover, backtracked to the tall room, and climbed up.  There was a gun at the top (I guess) but when I touched it the game crashed.  I just got the generic "Windows has encountered a problem" message box.  I can mail you the crash dump if you want (truncated, found it in the DrWatson directory).

[onionman77]

Ah thanks dude. Actually yes you can email me at [email protected]

That would be great! Demo wise, you actually made it to the end, so you didn't miss anything else. Thanks so much for sticking with the game! Your feedback has really helped turn it into something good.

I wouldn't mind seeing a few more powerups or such to make exploration more rewarding, I'll see what can be done.

About your other points, I don't really have any quick answers, but I'll consider what you wrote and see if I can think of anything creative.

[onionman77]

We've been updating our indiedb page with some of the new content
http://www.indiedb.com/games/helena-the-3rd
in case anyone is interested in seeing some of the new levels or such.

[onionman77]

You guys here on TIGSource have been more than helpful in providing feedback for my game, I really appreciate it. A lot of the improvements we've made have come directly from this feedback thread.
Anyway, we recently released a new demo, and would love to get even more feedback if you guys have any. We've redone lighting in the game to hopefully improve the overall look of the world, and have tried to tone the difficulty down a few notches. Let us know what you think!



Linux and Windows demos can be found on indiedb at
http://www.indiedb.com/games/helena-the-3rd/downloads

Thank you!

[onionman77]

We've got a new demo up on Desura, if anyone wants to try it out!

http://www.desura.com/games/helena-the-3rd