Okay then, yeah I agree on all your points. As long as a menu is needed, put it in there. Be creative with it if you want to, but I mean only if you really have that kind of time and only if you think it's going to really help make the game better overall.

But I agree that having menus just to have them is lame. Just as lame as avoiding menus at all cost just to not have them. I don't need menus inside of menus so that I can get to more menus. I think if you need to have them, just keep them to a minimum and you'll be fine.

You've gotta be kidding with that Spyro screenshot... That looks more like some hideously designed low level enemy or something. Looks nothing like Spyro. It's one thing to update a character to high res or next gen or whatever... It's another to totally butcher it and change everything about it. I think aside from the fact that they are both purple dragons, there is nothing similar about them in the least bit.

Should be called "Spyro the Horned Toad with wings"

I create design documents using Google Docs. I just open op a new document whenever I get a new game idea, and I start writing stuff down as I think it. If I read over what I wrote and I really like the idea, I'll start cleaning it up and fleshing it out more.

It's at that point that I might try to prototype something. If the prototype turns out to be enjoyable, then I'll proceed to keep fleshing out the design doc, adding on to it, taking away from it, until eventually it holds everything about the game there is to know.

I also use the design doc as a dump for any links of sites I visit while researching for the game, or links to inspiration or articles or whatever...

Along with all of that, I also write my to-do list in the design doc, I can check off things as I complete them, I can set deadlines, I can do some redesigns and then change my to-do list around...

This all works really well for me. But I work solo and I'm doing it in my spare time right now, so I'm not sure if it would work well in a team or a full-time project. Though I think Google Docs would still be rather handy for that, as you can share the document so that others can read/modify it. So that way your team could modify/read it right there on the fly, remotely. If you mark off something on the to-do list, everyone sees it get marked off right away. While they are reading it.

So yeah, that's how I work right now.

Do you really want to see Mario fishing turds out of a backed up toilet?


...


Actually, I kind of do...

I'm really baffled why they never game him a wrench... I mean come on, when you think of plumber tools, you think of a wrench. When you think of weapons to bash things with, a wrench is probably high up on the list.

It's odd because he used wrenches a lot in the animated series/live action versions. Yet I don't recall ever seeing Mario with a wrench in any videogame.

menus are a plague

I don't get why people only see extremes like this.

What if the game has save slots? Should it just jump into the gameplay without letting the player choose what save slot to load? How is it supposed to know otherwise? There are some things that just require a menu.

I see nothing wrong with using them when they actually serve a purpose. Avoiding them like "the plague" just seems like the designer is making up rules they have to follow as more of a challenge of limitation rather than because it makes sense.

You might as well say "graphics are a plague" or "controls are a plague". Yeah the only good games are the ones with no controls. All these controllable games aren't unique enough, and are just copying games of the past.

What do you guys think of this progress bar I made?

Well, I'm sold. I bought a copy.

Congrats!

It's fifty levels, I think I've played somewhere between 10-11 hours and I'm only on level 35 (though probably an hour+ of that was spent trying to defeat a bonus boss you unlock early in the game )

Also, the game is a lot more than a match 3 game, the combat gets progressively more in-depth and frenetic as you go along. I'd really recommend the game for anyone who's thinking about it.

Yeah, but you're still using the match 3 mechanic to do everything, aren't you? I mean I know you get to cast spells and buffs and whatnot, but the overall game is just the match 3 stuff, right?

Unless it becomes something else later on and I just ran out of demo time to see it...

Making it so you can only attack certain monsters with certain elements or elemental combos doesn't really mean depth to me. It's still match 3 with some strategy involved later.

Though I'm still considering buying it... maybe if mankoon comes back here to acknowledge our existence. :p

the level where you first get the dash ability is mad hard compared to previous levels

yeah Dash is a trick item I for the life of me can't figure out how to avoid getting hit by those two jumping globs place next to each other. I take it I have to do some I wanna be the guy pixel perfect jump with a timed dodge but given how Continues don't work this leads to having to restart the whole game.

Heheh, it's nice to see I'm not the only one who had those problems. Yeah, the dash ability seems totally useless and out of place for the level you obtain it in. It really just makes the level 5x as hard to beat.

As for the two jumping slimes next to eachother, I mentioned it in my earlier post... and once you realize the game doesn't have pixel perfect collisions, you will notice that you can stand between those two slimes without getting hurt. So that solves that... But I think maybe he should space them one character width apart... because it seems we're having trouble noticing that there's enough space between them to stand. Maybe later on he can have them closer together... or better yet, have 3 of them close together. That way there's no alternative other than to wait between them, so people might try to do it more.

Right now it feels like you can "almost" make it in one straight rush past them, but you can't. So that gets quite frustrating. Especially because as Xion mentioned, there's no health anywhere to be found.

I would say that level is definitely the weak link right now. Lack of health drops, dash powerup that is totally worthless and makes the level harder, and the placement of those slimes that makes you think you have to run past them both instead of stand between them.

I enjoyed it. Short but sweet.

The level design was nice. Normally I hate games where you're backtracking through caves... but you did a good job at making each area unique enough to remember. Like when I found myself heading back to the door, I was able to notice the surroundings instantly and find my way back to it.

Similar games like this only frustrated me because the levels were so repetitive and similar that it was hard to tell where exactly you were at any given time.

This game did a good job of not getting too overly complicated or repetitive.

There was a man named Captain and a woman named Obvious, and they thought that nobody would ever figure out to combine their names to get the clever joke ahead of time.

Really nicely done game. I played through the hour long demo and I only have two complaints:

1. I wish it was more than just a match 3 game. The artwork and story and design and music and everything are top notch... It's just sad to see this kind of quality being put toward something as basic as a match 3 game. This game would have been 10x amazing as something that required a bit more action and not so much.... gem swapping. Also because the game is focused on match 3, you end up missing a lot of what's going around outside of the match 3 area of the screen... It's kind of hard to focus on seeing the battle and what's going on up above when you're busy matching stuff down below.

2. The game just closed on me completely when my hour was up. I wasn't aware my time was up and just thought the game crashed. I think some sort of window popping up telling me the demo time has run out would be a lot better than just quitting the game out completely. It wasn't until I ran the game again and noticed that it said I had 0 time left.

I'm going to be a bastard and say... I'll buy the game if you fix problem number 2. If you put a demo time expired notice up instead (and kick the player back to the main menu) I will buy a copy. I know it has nothing to do with the full game, but I'm just being a hardass. I think with the level of polish the game has, you're doing it an injustice by just closing out of the game after demo time expires. You need to be giving the player a button to click to upgrade... not close the game completely.

But overall, great looking game. I'd play through it even though I'm not a big fan of the match 3 mechanics. Just to look at all the artwork and story and such. So that's saying something, I guess.

Add something that doesn't close the demo when you run out of time and I'll buy.  

In the "Let's Run!" level, once you make it to the flying thing that shoots at you, you can walk through the walls (or what look like walls) and end up falling to your death.

Also it wouldn't let me continue... I hit every button on the keyboard and it didn't continue... it let me start a new game though. Except for some reason it was showing like two GUIs and it was behaving strangely.

Lucida Sans Typewriter
Bold
14 pt
Crisp AA
Scaled 80% vertical 80% horizontal
Same colors as your font

(in photoshop)

Works well since it seems to be monospaced so it should look nice inside boxes Though I do believe you have to give proper credit to use it?

Whenever I see people working on graphics that aren't super detailed, just taking a simple 'I want to code' approach, I don't understand why they don't go with a 16x16 player and tiles and all that 

Because they want to make a game that doesn't have a 16x16 player and tiles?

I think the font in the new screenshots may be too big and thin to fit with the speech bubble's graphical style. Probably should have some empty space between the font and the speech bubble border to pad the font a little. Maybe either a thicker font or more compact font would be nice... or maybe just scale down what is already there.

I'd prefer something like this, but maybe it's just me:


oh and also... I WANT TO PLAY THE DEMOOOOOO

Kay I made it all the way to Guutara (sp?) this time. Game is a lot of fun once you know what powerups work best in which situation... But I think you might want to work on it so that it's not so much trial and error for the player. I think after the first few levels, it would be incredibly hard to beat a level without any powerups... Especially the bosses. Considering you're usually going to lose the first time you fight a boss, you're going to be at a severe disadvantage since you lose your powerup when you die. I can see that being really frustrating for people.

But overall I feel like I'm getting hooked on this game. If I could continue where I ran out of lives, I'd still be playing it right now.

Yeah, what Andrew said. Right now the game difficult ramps to crazy levels depending on what powerup you're using... and considering you can't just swap powerups whenever you feel they would be most beneficial, this is a problem.

Right now it seems like the boomerang is good in 80% of the situations you're in... the speed powerup... not really sure what it's good for yet... and the shield powerup, well I haven't used it yet, but I'm assuming it would make that boss fight a whole lot easier.

Any chance this game ever sees a non i-platform?

Well I got past the slimes... I just kept the boomerang the entire time I played and it makes things a lot easier. The turbo run powerup doesn't seem to be anywhere near as useful... But I figured it would be best because usually powerups are introduced when they would be beneficial to the player... But introducing them in the slime level is not beneficial at all... Because it requires good precision to dodge stuff and you just lose that precision with the speed boost.

As for the two slimes next to eachother, yeah I finally realized you could stand between them without getting hurt. A bit odd though, because I was under the assumption that you couldn't touch the slime at all, yet you've allowed a bit of overlap, so collisions aren't pixel perfect... which is kind of weird to me.

But I still can't get past the level. I make it to the first boss (who you say is too easy) and I get smoked every time. The dodge technique doesn't really seem to help me avoid getting shot, and the projectiles get just low enough to graze my head when I think they are going to miss.

I really feel like this is a case of the developer having playtested their own game so much that they aren't aware of how difficult some stuff might be to newcomers. Which I guess that's what a beta is all about.