My immediate question is: what build are you playing? I released a new one today, which cleans up a lot of dialogue based on what I saw at the convention and you can also skip and read dialogues at your own pace now so starting over isn't nearly as daunting.
I downloaded it from
http://tacopizzacats.com/index.php/play-the-demo/ yesterday. I downloaded it from itch.io today and seems to be the same.
you can also skip and read dialogues at your own pace now so starting over isn't nearly as daunting.
How do you skip the dialogue? Space speeds up the display of each line but can you skip the entire dialogue with a single button? I didn't see it mentioned.
I wish you had a screenshot of what you encountered, I've never heard of that happening or seen it happen.
Here are a few screenshots (you can open it in a new tab to see it full size)
I think I have some idea about what happened. I'm using a laptop with an external monitor for gamedev. If I run the game on the laptop, then I can select from 16:9 ratios. But, and this is the strange part, if I run the game on the external monitor then I only see 4:3 ratios. Weird because the monitor is 16:9. :shrug:
It seems like that Unity's way of dealing with different resolutions seems to be that the game is always displayed full height and the sides end up being cut off. Not sure how many 4:3 screens are out there but if you can, it'd be good to keep the action near within that that ratio.
I've been wondering about this and it might be that if the aspect ratio differs from 16:9 and you still want to keep it at 16:9, then your code would have to fit the game.
Seems like the main character's stats are also visible (compared to 16:9 screenshots), so I'm guessing you are aligning that to the actual screen. But the animation events still seem to be off screen if the screen is narrower than what you intended.
In terms of moving on the levels, I don't think it affected it - at least so far.
Either way, it's good to keep in mind.
The bottom screenshot shows the "invisible forcefied" at the door. If it's meant to stop the player from approaching the door before completing all tasks, then it's bad game design. Why? Because visually nothing is blocking the player's path. It's much worse then those fences that you visually can obviously jump over but you're stopped because at least you can guess that the gamedevs set up the game so you aren't meant to go that way.
Solution: since there doors in the game, display the same message when the player tries to use the door.
NOTE: I wonder if it might have something to do with the different screen resolution and maybe something got shifted?
As for getting stuck you should be able to press "T" to pull out your phone which tells you what your next task is! The apartment tasks are relatively simple, but yeah, you gotta read the dialogue at least until you find out how to pull up the pointers
This is exactly what I thought when I added an instruction into the dialogue of one of my StickMan Sam games. Guess what happened? A few people asking about how to open the parachute. :S
Actually, I do remember reading something about a cell phone. But my main objective was not gameplay but providing a "first impression", I was mainly skimming text.
Lesson: If it's important, make sure that the player "can't miss it" - even accidentally. One common way is to display the instruction and "force" the player to follow it and only remove it when the player has successfully completed it. You know, press A/D to move left/right. In your case, Mochi could ask the player to "Press [T] to check your TO DO list now." and only continue after the player has actually done it.
Regarding the wordiness, I felt that the intro fight tutorial might have had more text and that significantly paused the momentum of the chase. Also, since time is "frozen" from a focus point of view, it would've been better to freeze the character animations and animate the red arrow as it was pointing to what was being talked about.
You'll be glad to know the tutorial text is one of the things that got a major nerf. As I was telling "Stricle" above, I was embedded with the idea that tutorials need to be written for the dumb and assume anyone reading it is, but I have slightly more faith in my player's abilities and being able to retry immediately, I see no need not to reduce the hand holding a bit. I agree the arrows could be animated, it's not killing me for now, and for the love of god I really hope lack of animated tutorial arrows doesn't actually hurt someone's opinion of the game >.>
Even now, your tutorial seemed wordy before I could get to the actual gameplay. But, as mentioned, I was in a "skimming" mode and as you mentioned, you have to keep in mind your target audience.
On the other hand, it isn't just how wordy a tutorial is, but how much does a person have to consume before implementing it. In the old days there were manuals that you could study carefully but now tutorials are integrated into a game. In general, it's better to give "bite-sized-chunks".
-Show keys for basic movement. Player moves and reaches a block that they need to jump over.
-Show key for jump. Player jumps over.
-etc
But this might be more relevant for casual/mobile games. Since there's plenty of reading in game, your target audience might be more fine with an "elaborate" tutorial.
Another reason to pause animations during tutorial is ... currently it seemed like you didn't disable the gameplay and I could attack the purse snatcher as the dialoge was displayed although couldn't actually defeat him ... so I'd consider it as a form of bug.
Another thing came to mind. At the very beginning of the game, when the purse snatcher cutscene just finished, I wasn't sure if the cutscene will continue or it's my time to play. After a while I checked if I could move. It'd be nice to know when it is my turn to play. You've probably seen the [GO >] label and/or even better, display the movement controls.
Regarding the trailer:
0:33 There could be some kind *SMASH* and/or *SHOCKED* sfx for the the actual event and since the music stops, that parts feels very empty.
0:42 The dialogue choices should come up after the dialogue line is actually displayed.
For the trailer bits the trailer actually had something to fill that blank space but there is a lot going on in the trailer and it got to the point where adding extra elements took away from it hence the saying "less is more". It's probably not perfect, but I feel like it gets the idea across. I have a longer one, but the general consensus was to make your trailer about a minute to keep people's attention and leave something to be desired, I will probably use it in my campaign on the 1st~!
What I meant by
empty was more in terms of adding sfx and not other visual content. It's similar to watching a car chase and then suddenly ... a crash occurs without crash sound. That would be strange. Similarly, having a *SMASH* sfx could emphasize when the pizza bully smashes the pizza out of Tris's hand.
As for the dialogue, there are a lot of things in my game that don't follow the general conventions of RPGs but in good ways, yeah, just about every RPG would probably finish a choice dialogue before presenting the choices, but is that to say someone couldn't do it differently? Certainly not- I kind of think because the nature of there often being an absurd response to a rational response it's kind of fun to see the fun contrast of choices before knowing what it's actually going to be in reference to.
While my preference is different, it might still fit in the game as a "convention breaker". However, this is a trailer where you want to convince people to get the game and not to confuse them. When you displayed the choices, I started reading those from top to bottom. First line, then the one below. So what happened by the time I got to the dialogue line? It disappeared and the trailer started displaying the next one. That left me confused a bit because I didn't know if I missed something important/relevant or not. As the trailer went on with the next dialogue line, I had a feeling that it was supposed to be a joke ... but didn't get it. I went back because I wanted to check, but if there was no way to go back then it would've left me with a confused/bitter feeling. Especially, also since you are spending about one third or the trailer on that.
In the end while my game certainly does fit into genres believe it or not a lot of the main characters motivations are inspired by my own life and experiences. I started making this game during a rough patch of my life. I made a few games that tried to pander towards fan-service and they didn't pay off and that was hard for me because I essentially financially ruined myself in the process, so I started making this game without regard for how popular it could become. The most important thing was that it was my own, so mostly likely for strictly aesthetical things I will probably just follow through with my gut, I hope you can bear the clashing fonts in the game and the potentially oversized pixels in the future :D
At the end of the day, for better or worse, it's better to follow your own vision
and only consider other's opinions - if relevant. I've taken plenty of leaps of faith due to my "inner calling" and so far eventually things have turned out as they were "meant to be".
In terms of the clashing font style and upscaled pixels issues, I've played many other games with similar minor issues but if I was interested then those didn't prevent from enjoying the rest. After having played many games, your's still has something visually different/uniue that I'll be interested in exploring.
I'd love to keep in touch when I release the next build if you are interested in sharing more of your thoughts or keeping tabs on the progress of the game!
Time allowing, I do check TIGsource and I will see when you post updates.
For feedback purposes, I'm wondering if would be possible to add a few options:
-Level Select: to jump to a specific part of the game. This could be very useful for skipping parts that you've already played. It probably wouldn't need to be available for those that just want to play the game. The menu could be hidden and only shown for those that want to see it e.g. when clicking something or certain keys are pressed.
-Having a way for the main character to be a "superfast runner" when running could useful to speed up when walking is required.
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