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[aeiowu]

Howdy!

Weasello and I just put the finishing touches on the Protonaut Beta, our user-driven innerspace puzzle-platformer that we've been working on for the past few months. Recently we picked up rogerlevy to do some tunes for it. Work still continues with the music, but we're all happy enough with these to launch open beta.

Anyway... we're looking for any and all feedback on the game. We currently have at least a few hundred user-generated levels to play and encourage level creation and community involvement. It's one of those kind of games that keeps on giving! Also, we support replays to share with everyone to compare scores, walkthroughs and tricks.

Play the public beta here!

If you're interested in getting involved with the community check out the forum or our IRC channel.

• Protonaut Forums
• Server: irc.coldfront.net channel: #protonaut

Here's some WIP links that show a bit of how Protonaut came to be:

• http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6651.0
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeiowu/tags/protonaut/

Thanks for playing, and please leave us some feedback we want to read all of it!

[astrospoon]

the art style and music are fantastic. The blur and zoom effects work nicely to give a cool sense of scale to things. The game play is serviceable, everything controls fine, but isn't anything too exciting either. It feels like a pretty standard puzzle-platformer. I think I went like 10 levels in before calling it quits. I would request that you ramp up the challenge and interesting things a bit quicker than you do now... I'm pretty sure the advanced levels would be more fun, but the early levels are so easy they are boring to play through. I think you can trust the player to figure things out more than you do currently. The before level text pretty much takes any sort of playful discovery out of finding new objects.

[YagerX]

Was there another demo a few months back? If there was, it's come a long way, well done!

[deathtotheweird]

Indeed, I really remember this game-or perhaps would very very similar. I love this though. great job

[weasello]

Heyo, I'm the guy that did the boring stuff you can't see (not much, just the code).

I think there was something posted a while back, but we ended up getting so many alpha testers (from here and elsewhere) I think we just let the thread languish.

I totally agree with you, Astrospoon: I'm the type of player that likes very basic tutorials and allow for self discovery. However, after some playtesting sessions - many people got confused and it became quickly apparant that a more hand-holding tutorial was needed, albeit optionally. I'll be doing a talk on this at GDC in Austin, 1pm Tuesday if you'll be there.

[tim_the_tam]

this game is really well made. theres some great physics and gameplay mechanics invloves and many nice touches like the floating cells background and foreground. so great job.

however.. while it has potential to be a great physics based puzzler its really slow for my liking and the levels were boring. it may be because i was playing some bad levels but they mostly consisted randomly placed items with platforms that didnt really make use of the physics. and the one that did have some physics based puzzles were really basic or the screen was too small to see the result.

also the user interface. i hated it. because it cant be fully controlled by the keyboard. after each level i had to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse to click next or whatever and thats the only use for the mouse. so yeah fix this for the lazy people like me. =]

[deathtotheweird]

also the user interface. i hated it. because it cant be fully controlled by the keyboard. after each level i had to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse to click next or whatever and thats the only use for the mouse. so yeah fix this for the lazy people like me. =]

Ah, one of my pet-peeves as well. A lot of flash games do this, and I still can not get used to it. I wish everyone would allow keyboard control over menus and other GUI related things.

[aeiowu]

also the user interface. i hated it. because it cant be fully controlled by the keyboard. after each level i had to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse to click next or whatever and thats the only use for the mouse. so yeah fix this for the lazy people like me. =]

Ah, one of my pet-peeves as well. A lot of flash games do this, and I still can not get used to it. I wish everyone would allow keyboard control over menus and other GUI related things.

that's a really good point. especially since the game isn't controlled with the mouse at all.

thanks for the feedback, please keep it up!

[weasello]

however.. while it has potential to be a great physics based puzzler its really slow for my liking and the levels were boring.

Thanks for the input, appreciated! Quick question: Was that comment directed more towards our tutorials (totally understandable) or our 15 Trials that come after?

[tim_the_tam]

however.. while it has potential to be a great physics based puzzler its really slow for my liking and the levels were boring.

Thanks for the input, appreciated! Quick question: Was that comment directed more towards our tutorials (totally understandable) or our 15 Trials that come after?

the tutorials repeated a lot of the same thing for example in one level theres 10 of the same linking ion bond things that you have to collect. but i didnt really mind that because its the tutorial it suppose to be a slow introduction to the game. my comment was more directed to the trail and the user generated levels. but like i said before it might be just my level selection because i didnt play through the whole game.

edit. i just figured out why i didnt like the levels. its because you dont take full advantage of the physics mechanics. if you could integrate some interesting physics puzzles with the physics engine im sure you'll have a collecting platformer that sets itself apart from the rest of the pack.

[kinnas]

Holy fuck the art direction of the game is amazing! The very designy gradients and noise and blur are superslick and I want an mp3 of that song. In fact it's a shame that the music resets at every level which means (in the beginning at least) you never hear much of it and you always hear the same early part over and over.

The main character is a bit hard to read though. Is he like a.. mini-doctor? And the circle.. is that like a syringe? But with only one finger loop?

Also seconding the idea that menus should be navigatable by keyboard.
Or actually.. why can't you aim with the mouse? I'd appreciate the extra accuracy of smooth mouse aiming to tapping up and down to hopelessly try and line up my shot.

[ChevyRay]

What is the main character? I can't tell *squints*

Is the land still WIP? The purple blocks is not nearly as awesome as the character animation and GUI presentation seems to be, as well as the great animation when you collect one of those... thingies.

The background song is nicotine, man. Very catchy, excellent. I felt the physics to be a bit on the loose side, though, like when I hit things sometimes there's an uncomfortable delay before I'm pushed up against it, and when I nail corners it feels a bit awkward and not tight like it should (or at least in my mind).

The game is great for the presentation and song alone, though. Nicely done so far

[Renton]

What is the main character? I can't tell *squints*

Right click/ Zoom in.

It's a bunch of shapes, so I'm guessing it's a robot?

[rogerlevy]

The background song is nicotine, man. Very catchy, excellent.
The game is great for the presentation and song alone, though. Nicely done so far

I wrote it. So thanks.     Glad everyone's enjoying the music so far; there'll be more soon.

[aeiowu]

Thanks for the postiive comments everyone! We've been working on this a while, mostly with a small but dedicated group of alpha testers so it's nice to finally see the light of day smiles a bit on this one.

@kinnas  Thanks! That means a lot coming for you. It's loosely inspired from El Lissitzky's abstract works (and also some of his book design for the menus). I started a devlog for this awhile ago, but admittedly didn't keep up with it enough for it to be a reliable source for updates. Though, my 2nd post on there shows a bit of the progression the art-direction went through over the months: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6651.0

That means the character is kind of on the verge of abstract/robotic like Renton mentioned. Though perhaps that's trouble... Initially I didn't have the protonaut blurred in the title screen, so it gave you a really close up view to associate with the smaller sprite in game.

@ChevyRay about the blocks, it's really a performance issue right now. Since most of the levels are, and will continue to be, user generated if we have a ton of blurring/texture what-not then it starts to look really weird when they overlap and also chugs that much slower when someone uses 100 blocks in a level. This level has much more, but it's awesome looking even with the bare-bones blocks: http://www.protonaut.net/?level=761

Initially I wanted to give the blocks a unified glow/shadow if they were touching, but again that's a performance drain and since this game can be so physics heavy, it starts chugging for older computers pretty quickly... Maybe we can find a better solution though, I agree the "land" has always been that niggling thing in the back of my mind that isn't quite up to par with the rest. Also, you'll notice I had the HUD blurred there, this was a blue-sky mockup and ended up being unrealistic.


Here's something that kind of turned the corner for me and the game. It's pretty common to post replays and challenge eachother with speedruns. Maybe because I get down like that. So here's my speedrun for Stepping Stones...

Direct link to the level here: http://www.protonaut.net/?level=873
And here's my replay: http://www.protonaut.net/?replay=375

NOTE: you need to be logged in to save a replay, though you can do that after you've finished the level in case you forget. Nonetheless you need an account to save replays.

[Noyb]

Pressing "next" when completing the tutorial just brings up tutorial level 1 again for me.

Some of the levels took 5-10 seconds to load. You might want to consider embedding the tutorial and other "core" levels in the swf if this doesn't increase the initial load time too much. The slow start of the tutorials combined with the relatively slow loading times might be enough 

It's easy to accidentally go to a new tutorial when you want to retry. Nthing the comments about allowing "r" to retry in the menu after failure. The wallclimb tutorial seems pretty superfluous, since that's a behavior taught in the walljump level. Also consider having the tutorial's "next" for the "trials" levels.

Tried the invaders level, killed all the reds, collected the greens that came down. Level didn't end. A counter of how many necessary collectibles or enemies are left in the level would be nice.

Some very interesting level ideas. The swing level is a nice concept, as is "choose your steps" and the Indiana Jones one.

Are all anonymous users sharing a single "worth playing" vote on each level? Or does it take a while to disable voting for anonymous users? A few of the early ones said I had already voted, some said it after a short delay, and I could vote on a few of them.

The chemistry theme seems rather superficial, since neither the gameplay nor the abstract graphics (except hydrogen) reflect it. Especially since you yourself abandon it pretty quickly in the included levels. The former chemistry student in me cringes at things like exploding elemental Nitrogen and "bonds" remaining even when they're broken. The gameplay and art style stand on their own, imho.

Btw, the game seems to completely hog keyboard focus once you start. I was unable to type anything here when in or between levels.

Overall a fairly well-implemented puzzle platformer. I can see some fun levels coming out of the editor.

[weasello]

its really slow for my liking and the levels were boring. it may be because i was playing some bad levels

One of the things I'm doing with the soft launch is trying to find out what level types really resonate with the players - more event-driven ones like Raiders, long collect-a-thons like Mine Shaft, or complex puzzles to be done in the correct order like Labyrinth.

Whichever gets the most attention and feedback will become focus of the level list. I hope it gets more exciting for you as things develop.

also the user interface. i hated it. because it cant be fully controlled by the keyboard.

Fixed in the next build, going up later tonight. Thanks for the input!

why can't you aim with the mouse? I'd appreciate the extra accuracy of smooth mouse aiming to tapping up and down to hopelessly try and line up my shot.

It's been requested enough now that I've decided to include it, probably in about a week (you can thank GDC for the delay!). I'll try to get it out tonight before I go, but no promises.

Some of the levels took 5-10 seconds to load.

Hm. On all my testing rigs, communicating with a server on the other side of the continent, makes for less-than-one-second loads. Perhaps I need to rethink my networking strategy and do as you suggest (including the first 25 levels in the download). I'll do this after the level list is finalized.

allowing "r" to retry in the menu after failure

It should recommend this in the intro-text tutorial #3 or 4 (as those are the first ones you can get stuck in)... And it also mentions it on the help screen. I'm adding in a highlighted shortcut letter on the gameover/victory menu as well, to let people know it's available. Hopefully it'll be more clear - I'm just trying to avoid cluttering the screen with permanent command references. :/

The wallclimb tutorial seems pretty superfluous

I totally agree with you, I hated having to include it - but then again, my original tutorial was a single epic-length level that took you through your paces one at a time. User testing proves that what I want (as a gamer) is not what John Q. Public wants. I had to draw the line at including a "show me the solution" button though. :/ I figure those that dislike tutorials will just skip them though. I hate tutorials.

Tried the invaders level

Invaders broke several times during development and I see it's breaking again. I think I'm going to pull the plug on it as an official level, and replace it with something more sturdy. It'll live on in the User Content portion of the game.

Are all anonymous users sharing a single "worth playing" vote on each level?

Thanks for catching this one - I hadn't played enough as an anonymous user to see it. You're supposed to be seeing a "Login to Vote!" message. Any votes you would have cast would have been discarded by the server. That'll be fixed in tonight's update.

The former chemistry student in me cringes at things like exploding elemental Nitrogen

Yeahhhh we struggled for a long time on whether to keep the chemistry theme or not. I was really concerned about pissing off Chemists with my obvious disregard for real-world mechanics. Once upon a time the game was more realistic, and the explosive power of EACH element was actually calculated from the actual potential energy figures. I guess the game evolved away from proper "Earth" chemistry to "the xornzpbl universe," where chemical bonds DO remain after the other half is destroyed. 

I was hoping the "?" after the word chemistry on the main title would help mute the impact there...

Thanks for all the input. keep it coming!

[ChevyRay]

@ChevyRay about the blocks, it's really a performance issue right now. Since most of the levels are, and will continue to be, user generated if we have a ton of blurring/texture what-not then it starts to look really weird when they overlap and also chugs that much slower when someone uses 100 blocks in a level. This level has much more, but it's awesome looking even with the bare-bones blocks: http://www.protonaut.net/?level=761

Initially I wanted to give the blocks a unified glow/shadow if they were touching, but again that's a performance drain and since this game can be so physics heavy, it starts chugging for older computers pretty quickly... Maybe we can find a better solution though, I agree the "land" has always been that niggling thing in the back of my mind that isn't quite up to par with the rest. Also, you'll notice I had the HUD blurred there, this was a blue-sky mockup and ended up being unrealistic.

Hmm, yeah some of the later levels were definitely nicer, as they got a little crazier with the design. I feel that even a texture could have improved it, though, rather than just the hard-cornered solid purple blocks. Mostly in the first levels, it feels like filler art. But I agree it looks much better with the designs as you progress.

I never thought about the physics too much, so it makes sense that you had to keep the game from chugging along too much, too you did an awesome job with your restrictions already!

[rogerlevy]

Holy fuck the art direction of the game is amazing! The very designy gradients and noise and blur are superslick and I want an mp3 of that song.

You can, good sire - go here: http://8bitcollective.com/music/casiopt1/Mikro+Planeti/

[tim_the_tam]

its really slow for my liking and the levels were boring. it may be because i was playing some bad levels

One of the things I'm doing with the soft launch is trying to find out what level types really resonate with the players - more event-driven ones like Raiders, long collect-a-thons like Mine Shaft, or complex puzzles to be done in the correct order like Labyrinth.

Whichever gets the most attention and feedback will become focus of the level list. I hope it gets more exciting for you as things develop.

in my opinion what you really need to do is to fully utilize your physics and shooting mechanic. your game has potential so all you need to do is design the levels to take full advantage of it. that way your game sets itself apart from the pack and is unique.