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[Noisefever]

Hello! I recently finished my first game (so I a bloody beginner, at least with games for the public ). I guess my start could be worse, but I know I'm far away from being well. So I would appreciate any feedback on what I could have made better. Especially on the gameplay. I fear one of the first things I will hear is that the levels are too big. So PLEASE tell me what you think.

About the game:

It is a classic jump'n'run game with a orange cat starring as main character (yes, I am a big fan of Garfield ). Jumping, throwing peanuts and collecting stuff are the main things to do. Your goal is to rescue the princess (yeah, boring, I know ). And for this you should find and collect the hidden medals, one per level. The game has 2 endings, that depends on finding all medals or not. And not to forget the huge 15 levels. The estimated playing time is about 6 - 10 hours (what's the second thing I fear: nobody plays it through).

System Requirements:

OS: Windows, Linux, Mac (tested only on Intel, OS X 10.5 or higher)
Java Runtime!
Hardware: 1.6ghz or above, 640x480 screen resolution (fullscreen).

Screenshots:

to view them bigger and/or download the game just visit http://www.fidget-game.de.

Thank you!

Regards, Daniel

[ortoslon]

i love the music, reminds me of music from An Untitled Story (give me funky bass guitar over chiptunes anytime)

i think large levels aren't a problem per se but there're not enough checkpoints

[Noisefever]

thanks!

i think large levels aren't a problem per se but there're not enough checkpoints

so you mean the game is too hard?

[ortoslon]

no, i mean that i'm forced to go through a long chunk of level twice if i take a wrong turn or die accidentally

[Noisefever]

okay, I understand. noted

[3dpursuit]

This looks very nice, but the cat turns me off. I'll check this out in a bit. Rock on.

[Michael Buckley]

I've only played it for a few minutes so far, but it's very impressive for a first attempt. So far, I have three suggestions.

First, jumping should be more parabolic. I could be wrong, but it appears that gravity is just a constant that pulls objects down at a constant number of pixels per frame. This results in very triangular jumps, which make platforming harder. In reality, as in most jump n' run games, objects fall faster the longer they've been in the air, giving jumps a more "floaty" parabolic shape. It's easiest to implement this if you have a working physics simulation, but there are other ways to handle this if you don't

Second, the diamond collection sound has a kind of echo effect that seems somewhat off when collecting diamonds in the open.

Finally, early in the game there's a bridge with a small gap that you can fall through right before a spider. I jumped over the spider and let it fall down the gap in the bridge. I then proceeded to the right, up, left, and down, and wound up under the bridge with the gap, and the spider from before fell on me. I'm not sure of the exact reason why, but it seemed to me like I shouldn't have seen that spider again in that area.

[Matt Thorson]

I played this for a bit and I really liked it! From what I saw, the level design was very focused and coherent. I never felt lost. This is especially a compliment for a platformer with such sprawling levels.

Here's some negatives:

-A typo on a sign: "It's said that there is a princess captured in a castle who can only freed with 14 medals." You missed a "be" before "freed". Also I don't think "captured" is the right word for this context but I can't think of what word it should be.

-A typo on level complete: "Collected Lifes:" should be "Collected Lives:"

-The music sounds good but seems to be disconnected from the gameplay/setting? It just doesn't fit to me.

-Although the graphics look good and are consistent, the world feels very stiff and lifeless. Two things stand out to me that could help this a lot: give collectibles some kind of animation so they aren't just sitting there (even if they just bob up and down and side to side slightly) and make the player's run animation more pronounced so he isn't walking stiffly.

-It's really annoying that enemies are behind scenery (grass, shrubs) and still hurt the player. This leads to getting hurt a lot without knowing why.

[supershigi]

So far I like this game a lot!  It's especially impressive given that it's your first game.  The graphics are clean and fairly consistent; I tend to agree with the previous poster that giving some animation to the collectibles would help make the world seem less stiff, and smoothing out the player's running animation would help as well.  I think having more checkpoints would also be beneficial.  Beyond that, great job!

[Fate]

Hmm, the huge levels, yes, they really are what make this game.
I mean, on one side it's great that they could keep you busy for a good while. Dude, you must have spend some time on designing those levels 

But on the other side, i'm sorry to tell you this, they're just to big and wide to really keep up the players interest in going on. Even with all the great little details. I played until stage 3. Maybe i will continue later.
I instantly found myself reminded of knytt, which i love. But the main difference is that in knytt one has the freedom to climb the walls, also the characters speed is higher, i think. It feels and looks just great to control this little guy. An important and very complex element in platformers. But enough of comparisons

I also agree with the guys suggesting more checkpoints!

Ok, at last i want to let you know, being a bloody beginner myself, i think this is a really cool first game, that's by far outpacing my first two attempts!

[Noisefever]

Wow that was much feedback. Thank you all!
I hope it's okay to answer in 1 replay to all?

First, jumping should be more parabolic.

Yes, one of my beta testers said that to me too. I tried that, but I soon realised that I have to heavy overwork all the levels because that changes the jump hight and width. It wasn't possible to fine tune that to the same width OR hight. And I run into other problems too. So this is a point for new levels.

I'm not sure of the exact reason why, but it seemed to me like I shouldn't have seen that spider again in that area.

That's because several enemies are not handled outside the screen to save cpu. I agree that this appears strange to the player. So another point for new levels (or 1 for another handling of the spiders).

A typo on a sign...

uh... thanks... I really have to improve my English

It's really annoying that enemies are behind scenery (grass, shrubs) and still hurt the player

I thought this might be cool because it should only concern the spiders in the grass. It seems I am wrong

To sum it up:
More checkpoints, smaller levels, more animation and details, less annoying stuff like the hidden or "freezing when not seeing" spiders. Music and sound effects could be more themed. Find more typos. I hope I noted all

At this moment I really asking myself (because altering the level design seems to be the main thing): should I correct these things for THIS game (which bugged me so much time) or should I just take your advises to the sequel and make THAT better...?

This is a really hard decision 

[hyperduck]

Sequels are fun, I'd vote for sequel!

[Hansel]

Yeah, don't try to make this game slightly better, just make the next one awesome

It seems like most of what bugged me have been mentioned before, so I'll just say this: I've made it to the third level, but the lack of visual variety finally turned me off. Some new tileste's every few levels would help to keep the player interested!

[Matt Thorson]

Yeah I'd say take all this feedback to heart, and use it to move forward with whatever you're inspired to make next. You'll get a lot more exposure doing it that way rather than getting stuck updating one game forever.

[Eraser]

The jump height to movement speed (left/right) seemed very unproportional as well..

The only thing IMO that makes this game "hard" is that it's so easy to lose lives (oops fell of the edge, oops a spider in a tunnel keeps bumping into me or I have to wait 5 minutes for it to come out), vs. ease of gaining lives. I think at the least you should have the number of crystals required to get another life . But, IMO things like making levels smaller and other massive level design tweaks.. don't bother with this game. It's still good IMO, and to be honest I was quite surprised how smooth this played considering it's massive level size.

[Noisefever]

okay, then I'll concentrate on a new game (that's what I prefer too). and this game will be... THE BEST GAME EVER RELEASED! just kidding...

thanks for your help!

[Matt Thorson]

Make sure to post your next one at some point, I'm excited to see how your design style develops (and how our feedback influences you)

[Razz]

good luck on the new game man-- I'm pretty impressed that this is your first game. you show lots of potential.

also, the music is fantastic. so catchy!