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[mook]

Hi all,

First posting. Someone recommended this forum to me as a good place to get feedback. Accordingly, I hope to give feedback to others too.

Here is my just-finished game:

www.flashbynight.com/chobo

The concept is that Chobo is trapped in a Tetris-like game with no option but to level up. Arrow keys and spacebar to move/jump.

I'd love any general impressions of the game, any bugs found and especially whether it's too hard at the beginning. I have a simple balancing algorithm that increases the difficulty as you level up, but perhaps it should start easier...?

[starsrift]

Cute.
Could've used a little splash help screen when I started - I died a LOT of times and wondered wtf you were doing with this until I found out that I could keep hitting jump.
Game froze upon reaching level two. (using Firefox, Vista)

[flavio]

Generally it seems nice. I dislike the following facts (all controls related).

• I need to use the mouse to start the game, I'd prefer to use the keyboard in a keyboard-based game.
• I can't move Chobo while he's jumping.
• I've to press down to kill enemies, and I lose if I only jump over them.

[mook]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

To sum up:

1 Could've used a little splash help screen when I started

I'll add this in

2 Game froze upon reaching level two.

Yikes! I'll check this as a priority

3 I need to use the mouse to start the game, I'd prefer to use the keyboard in a keyboard-based game.

Can do. You're right.

4 I can't move Chobo while he's jumping.

You mean like jump-move-jump? I'll look into this.

5 I've to press down to kill enemies, and I lose if I only jump over them.

I thought it would be fun to have a 'hot-key' to kill enemies rather than just landing on them (which is much easier to program, lol). I wonder if anyone could give me a second opinion on this? I'm reluctant to change it, tbh.


So thanks Yajo and Starsrift. I'll make the basic changes today or tomorrow and try to get back on here to give feedback on some other people's games. Just looking through a few of them, the quality seems pretty good, so I'm excited to have found this forum.

[flavio]

You mean like jump-move-jump?

Yes, maybe it's not very realistic, but I think it's funnier.

I wonder if anyone could give me a second opinion on this? I'm reluctant to change it, tbh.

Oh sure, it was only my opinion, you shouldn't change smothing you're not convinced because of one's opinion. Whatever you do implies positive and negative opinions, you've to wait for a more robust pool of opinions before understanding if that was only an "inevitable negative comment" or if it was representative. Anyway, the good news is that it isn't a central point, so the quality of the game won't be damaged so much if you make a little evaluation error.

Have fun with development today.

[mcc]

It's a really neat concept. The "falling block game" is set up well for these purposes and as soon as I started playing and saw how things worked I was like "oh, I'm looking forward to this".

It turns out to not be very playable though. The jump feels really unnatural and the bigger problem, the game just doesn't seem fair. If the game decides to drop 2-height blocks on either side of where you are, there's literally nothing you can do to escape that or prepare for it, that is just instant game over. Part of this has to do with the character's very severe limitations (jump is only one block high AND it's impossible to jump "across" gaps). What if the little character could climb?

It seems surprising that the game board clears when you lose a life.

EDIT: Wait--

until I found out that I could keep hitting jump

Did I miss something? I want to go back and see if there's a multijump mechanic I missed but the server won't respond all of a sudden.

[mcc]

Okay my entire last post was basically just gibberish because I didn't understand the quadruple jump!

Knowing about the multijump the game makes a lot more sense, the way the character moves around is still pretty weird but it works with the game context.

If you're looking for things to change, the game seems a little slow at the moment, it takes a very long time to get to level 2 and if you understand the jumps there are sometimes periods when you're just sitting not moving. Also I had the problem where you get to level two and blocks stop falling.

[mook]

OK, version 2.2 is done and:

1) Fixed the freezing on leveling up issue. It was one of those 'sometimes happens' bugs that is difficult to spot.

2) Provided an intro to the game. If the user clicks ENTER to skip the intro, it doesn't reappear. Otherwise, if the user lets it play to the end, it appears at the beginning of the next play

Looking at MCC's feedback:

"The game seems a little slow at the moment, it takes a very long time to get to level 2 and if you understand the jumps there are sometimes periods when you're just sitting not moving."

I think I want to tackle this next. I put in a 'fairness' algorithm, so that if there is a peak of more than four blocks (and the character is in danger of getting stuck), the game switches to dropping single blocks and filling in the gaps. This slows down the game, especially if you sit on the peaks.

My solution: Like in Tetris, press the down arrow to bring the blocks down faster. Also, to mess around with the algorithm to have more than single blocks. That will be version 1.3

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm off to review a couple of the other games on here.