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[stolide]

Hey everyone, this is my first game. Initially I was just going to add a room a day onto it for a week or so, but, due to the way I was doing things, it became unbearably slow. I went back and deleted something on the order of 100 objects (and replaced them with fewer, larger objects, maybe 5) and now it loads a bit better. I'm certainly going to move onto a second game very shortly. (probably tomorrow)

Any criticism you have would be nice. It would be even nicer if you suggested ways to fix said problems. I recognize the animation sucks. I know how to animate decently, but I wanted to spend the time learning game maker, rather than doing a fair bit of art. Not that I don't enjoy art, I do, but I wanted to focus things more on getting the thing to work) As such the graphics are merely a bunch of loose sketches.


The first level


The last level

Arrows to move and jump, z to shoot, and x to level skip. This is just a basic side scrolling shmup. I was going to continue adding things to make it less so, but I'll just get to that in my next game.

It's a Grey World: http://www.mediafire.com/?jlmj3qm1ljz

Thanks in advance.

[Alex Vostrov]

You didn't say what you were trying to accomplish with this game, design wise (presumably, you were just learning game maker).  Without knowing what you were trying to accomplish, it's hard to critique effectively.  I'm just going to mention a couple of things that stood out for me.

• I wasn't sure what the deal was with the birds in the start.  I tried shooting them, but that just caused more and more of them to appear.  They also seemed to disappear at random moments.
• In platformers, how your character handles is pretty important.  I thought that the jumping was a bit too floaty for my liking.
• Connected to the above, world physics only has a rough correspondence to the graphics.  For example, you can't see the floor at all, just the painted backgrounds.  This caused frustrating moments like being killed by one of the spike things when I was barely touching it.
• Without a health indicator, I wan't sure what things presented a lethal danger and which ones just hurt me a bit.  It seemed that I could take acouple of shots from the bat creatures, but then other things seemed to instakill me.
• I guess the biggest issue is that the game seems to lack a coherent design behind it.  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do or why.

[TheDustin]

What Alex said, but I will say your art style is pretty cool.

[Alex Vostrov]

Yes, I didn't mention that, since you said not to focus on the art.  I feel that if it's brushed up a bit it could be an interesting art style.

[stolide]

My main goal was to learn game maker.

"I wasn't sure what the deal was with the birds in the start.  I tried shooting them, but that just caused more and more of them to appear.  They also seemed to disappear at random moments."

Quite right, probably not good game design... XD That isn't precisely intuitive.

"In platformers, how your character handles is pretty important.  I thought that the jumping was a bit too floaty for my liking."

Could you recommend a game that you feel as the right balance of physics, so that I may get an idea of what you like?

"Connected to the above, world physics only has a rough correspondence to the graphics.  For example, you can't see the floor at all, just the painted backgrounds.  This caused frustrating moments like being killed by one of the spike things when I was barely touching it."

Good point. A better connection between the graphics and what is happening is something that I need to work on then.

"Without a health indicator, I wan't sure what things presented a lethal danger and which ones just hurt me a bit.  It seemed that I could take acouple of shots from the bat creatures, but then other things seemed to instakill me."

I knew I was forgetting something. The chainsawers instakill. The dragon/bird things do minimal damage and the spikes do high, but not nessecarily lethal damage.

"I guess the biggest issue is that the game seems to lack a coherent design behind it.  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do or why."

That was pretty inherent to how I was going about things, the purpose was to get a decent grasp on things in game maker, which I feel I did. Your critque was honestly helpful. Thank you.

"What Alex said, but I will say your art style is pretty cool."

Thanks. I just did some quite sketchy stuff in grey scale so that I didn't spend too much time on that.

"Yes, I didn't mention that, since you said not to focus on the art.  I feel that if it's brushed up a bit it could be an interesting art style."

Thanks, when I get around to doing a full fledged game (which will be soon), I will spend more time on the graphics than I did here. Whatever I do will certainly have, at least, a tincture of expressionism found in it.

[Alex Vostrov]

Could you recommend a game that you feel as the right balance of physics, so that I may get an idea of what you like?

I don't play a lot of platformers, so I'm a bad person to ask for specific examples.  I felt that Braid handled pretty well.  I think that it's the amount of time that the character spends in the air and how far he jumps that makes it feel floaty.

Maybe someone who's developed a platformer can comment in a more informed fashion.  I've never tried to tune gravity and friction in one.

[Desert Dog]

Hi stolide,

I just want to say that your games screenshots look really neat! Really like the look you got going there.

I did download the game, and I did try to load it, but the loading bar stuck. I'm presuming you have some rather large images in their, or some large music files... my computer is pretty terrible, and struggles with loading GM games which load stuff like that internally.

But, yeah, good luck with the game!
~DD

[stolide]

Hi stolide,

I just want to say that your games screenshots look really neat! Really like the look you got going there.

I did download the game, and I did try to load it, but the loading bar stuck. I'm presuming you have some rather large images in their, or some large music files... my computer is pretty terrible, and struggles with loading GM games which load stuff like that internally.

But, yeah, good luck with the game!
~DD

The image files are pretty large. One of them is 4000 by 2000 at 300 dpi...

And thanks.

[Silhouette]

Hmmm.  From the screenshots, I can say that I love the art style.  To me, it looks absolutely fantastic.  If refined a bit, I think it could be quite amazing.  =P

I have yet to try it, but I'll download it now. When I get around to playing it, I'll let you know what I think.

Good luck with your next game.

[TheDustin]

As far as platformer physics go, it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Give me your goal and I'll point you in the direction of a similiar game. 

[supershigi]

I'm going to echo what some of the previous posters said, I really do like the art style.  The palette is easy on the eyes, and I like the little bird dragons. 

[stolide]

Hmmm.  From the screenshots, I can say that I love the art style.  To me, it looks absolutely fantastic.  If refined a bit, I think it could be quite amazing.  =P

I have yet to try it, but I'll download it now. When I get around to playing it, I'll let you know what I think.

Good luck with your next game.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing what you have to say. As to my next game, it'll be awhile. School will start back up again before I finish it, and I've already changed my mind a few times on what I want to do, after I start. Right now I started animating a weird stick figure brawler where the main character has a large pick, and a hand gun...

As far as platformer physics go, it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Give me your goal and I'll point you in the direction of a similiar game. 

I don't know what I want to accomplish other than a game I find, at least, mildly interesting.

I'm going to echo what some of the previous posters said, I really do like the art style.  The palette is easy on the eyes, and I like the little bird dragons. 

Thank you.

[TheDustin]

Alright then, Super Mario World is the definitive platformer and would be a good place to start. Alternatively, I'd check out the physics of Knytt and the Japanese title Buster. Study how each character moves, and see what appeals to you. 

[stolide]

Alright then, Super Mario World is the definitive platformer and would be a good place to start. Alternatively, I'd check out the physics of Knytt and the Japanese title Buster. Study how each character moves, and see what appeals to you. 

Will do, though honestly, I've never been to fond of the mario games. They just never appealed to me. I grew up playing Morrowind and old dungeon crawlers. I think I still have Dungeon Hack on a floppy somewhere...