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[Blackcorn]

Two friends of mine have recently put a game they made two years ago at the end of their game design school. The concept behind their game was prety nice. Some of you will probably think about the recent VVVVVV or maybe Shift (in my opinion, Shift is really a different one). I think it is too bad that they have waited so long to release it online, but that's life!

Because I'm working with them on different aspect of their next projects, I would like to have your opinion, if you have 10 minutes to spend on it. What is missing in term of gameplay, control, interface and, of course, sounds (and maybe music or graphic suggestions if you have some). Do you think this game still makes sense in front of VVVVVV recent release?

And a final note: the aim is not to commercialize it.

You can play this game on Newsgrounds: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/530717


Here are three screenshots of the game:

[del]

So some thoughts:

*It'd be nice to know what the new game is about to give more feedback. I'm going with it's a sequel/update.

*Art: The style is pretty unique. Given some polish it'll stand out quite well from others.

*Sound: I only noticed one SFX, the switching so it's hard to judge.

*Interface: A level selector would be nice. Continue was good. A way back to the main menu would be also nice.

*Controls: Most of the platforming seemed fine.

*Gameplay: I got stuck a couple levels in: Three big blocks in the middle (plus some other terrain) first spot where you really have to time switching. I like the mechanic of the pills, it's the uniqueness of the game, but right now it's really hard to manage. Seems like it needs some more testing, a bit more forgiveness towards the player, and maybe a bit more feed back on danger zones for the player.

Suggestions:

*Obviously polish art/sound/music/motif/etc. as best you can.

*Add more pills and focus on the pill aspect and switching (improving feedback/info). Me personally I would deemphasize the skill nature of the game and try and focus on a bit more on the puzzle nature, but that's really a "what you want the game to be" kind of thing.

As for whether the game should exist with V. I wasn't a fan of V at all. But I kind of liked Wonder Pills. Part of it is aesthetics, I didn't care for the look/feel/story of V. Part is game play, I think your game had more of a catch (but I didn't get very far in V). I doubt you'll get the commercial or critical success of V, if that matters. But such is the nature of the industry.

-Good Luck 

[BinaryMind]

A VVVVV clone already! The game's hasn't been out two months. Not that I'm complaining and the pills definitely put a different twist on it.

The only big problem I had was that it was hard to gauge what meant a death drop. A meter filling up as you drop/rise could fix this (when it hits the top that means death) ... if you what I'm saying makes any sense!

[deathtotheweird]

Yeah this game was fun. It does enough to distance itself from VVVVVV so it feels pretty fresh, instead of tired. Have only played a little bit so far but it's real fun. I like the pills and the flip zones and the death falls aspect. Keeps it challenging.

[increpare]

Haven't played all the way through yet.

I like the idea.

Would be nice to have controls on screen, as well as number of pill you have.  I think anyway.  Not too pushed, though, I guess.

You can fluke some levels I think, when you can drop large distances to pick up pills floating near the ground, and change direction just as you get them.

Falldeaths seem frustrating.  One suggestion would be to have a difference between hard and soft surfaces, so you could use them where it matters.  Are falldeaths linked to velocity, or distance travelled?  I assume the former.  Maybe you could change the player sprite to look worried when they reach this velocity?

I would have suicide restart immediately.

[astrospoon]

Yeah- the fall deaths are pretty terrible. I think the game would be better without them. Also, on many levels i ended up with extra pills when i reached the exit. (sometimes even like 3 extra pills!) It makes it feel like the level designers were not aware of the best way to get through the levels. If the extra pills are intentional, it would be cool to award a bonus for unused pills so it doesn't look like a mistake.

As mentioned above, you should just respawn after dying automagically. There is no good reason to make players click through the you are dead menu over and over and over.

[___]

Falldeaths seem frustrating.  One suggestion would be to have a difference between hard and soft surfaces, so you could use them where it matters.  Are falldeaths linked to velocity, or distance travelled?  I assume the former.  Maybe you could change the player sprite to look worried when they reach this velocity?

I would have suicide restart immediately.

I would like to see this!

[Blackcorn]

Hi guys,

I was very busy these last days, sorry my late reply.

First of all, I would like to thank you all for your critics and comments about it. I will discuss with the team this weekend about bad points and things to change according to your suggestions. I will also take more time tonight or tomorrow to reply to your comments.

That's good to have some of your feedbacks on it. I believe there is an interesting potential in it.

[noah!]

Yay, I just beat it!

The one thing I found weird is that, if you fall to falldeath velocity, and then use a pill right before you hit the ground, you survive, even though now the full weight of the impact is now being transferred to your head. Is this intentional? If so, then it feels like a great disparity in the game mechanics (the protagonist brought her hard hat yet forgot her heel springs? I know from experience that you don't go nowhere without yer heel springs, don't you know!).

Another thing I noticed is that the sides in a couple of the levels are unbounded, meaning you can die from falling outside the screen...from the sides. There's a couple levels where this is a pain, this being the first one I noticed (I circled the place where you can fall out). Also, the out-of-bounds areas seemed too strict, which makes it hard to time those jumps where you have to gravity-propel yourself upward without jumping too high and dying. Maybe you could set a flag or something so you only die when falling _down_ into the pit.

But overall, I enjoyed it though. I especially liked the fact that there are multiple ways to solve the same level, because there's usually a cheap way to solve it too. ;-)

[Valter]

I think this game is clever! The different concepts involved mesh together well.

-The puzzle-ish levels are more fun than the skill-ish levels. I would recommend making more of the former.
-As mentioned earlier, no sprite change for falling too far means that it's difficult to tell where you can and can not go.
-The later levels get a bit too long. Checkpoints throughout would improve them.
-The game is fairly unpolished (empty background, few extra mechanics such as spikes, monsters, etc., no music or sound).

[chardish]

This has potential, but I see two big rooms for (necessary) improvement:

1) Falldeaths need to go. The idea of "you can jump way higher than a normal human could, but a fall from a certain height kills you" has never really grokked with me. Plus, it creates a scenario where there's a 1-pixel height difference between being okay and death, and that just feels off.

2) You need more ways to differentiate it from VVVVVV. It sucks if you had this idea first, and gravity-flipping certainly isn't new in games, but when flipping is your only mechanic and a very popular flipping game was just released, you need some way of standing out from the crowd. Experiment with different gameplay ideas that aren't too gimmicky ("no jump zones" would be an example of a gimmick.)

Good luck to you!

[Valter]

I just want to mention that I like the fall-deaths. I would prefer open levels where you have to tread carefully to small, cramped levels filled with walls to prevent you from jumping too far.

And this game is plenty different from VVVVVV already with the two-sides mechanic. Maybe add more arrangements for the black/white sides? (Examples including horizontal line instead of vertical, diagonal cross, checkerboard,  etc.)

[Blackcorn]

Well, thank for all the new comments. All your suggestions and critics have been quite constructive! Time to reply now ! 

About VVVVVV similiraties :

A VVVVV clone already! The game's hasn't been out two months.

As I mentioned in my first post, the game has been finished two years ago but, unfortunately has never been released only. The team was not working on a clone of VVVVVV at all, it has never been an attempt to do so, really.


About mechanics improvements and your suggestions:

[...]when flipping is your only mechanic and a very popular flipping game was just released, you need some way of standing out from the crowd.". We fully agree with his suggestion.

Currently, the team is thinking a lot about new gimmicks such as "hard and soft surfaces" suggested by Increpare (many thanks to you !). This idea is a very interesting one and I think many things can be carried with different kind of surfaces, e.g.: plates of glass that break after a jump, soft surfaces that will not kill you when you fall on it, rubber grounds that makes you jump faster or longer, etc.

The other kind of gimmicks is about the two different sides (black/white) of the screens. The team has been thinking about different arrangements of this "changing zone". The main idea would have been to have different kind of area in a level (horizontal division instead of vertical, but also different black/white areas in the same level like a checkerboard as Valter put forward :

Maybe add more arrangements for the black/white sides? (Examples including horizontal line instead of vertical, diagonal cross, checkerboard,  etc.)

About extra pills :

on many levels i ended up with extra pills [...] It makes it feel like the level designers were not aware of the best way to get through the levels. If the extra pills are intentional, it would be cool to award a bonus for unused pills so it doesn't look like a mistake.

Gold tips for sure. As far as I know, level designer was aware of the multi-path possibility and he just wanted to keep it that way. However to include something like a bonus for unused pills is probably the best way to award players who will find the best path to end a level. This suggestion comes along with an improvement of the visual interface such as a display for how many pills are remaining and maybe a score or a timer.


About music/sounds/graphics improvements :

A "background" music will be soon added to the game, but for the moment, the team miss an artist to improve the global graphics of the game. It is not a priority for the moment, but it will be strongly considered when the team will be working on a new version of the game.


One more time, I would like to thank you all for your time and your great advices on the game. I'm sure it will help a lot, not only for this game, but also for the next works of the team! Thank you very much guys!

[Noyb]

Made it through with 110 deaths. Don't really have much to add that hasn't already been said. Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

[Gameman]

Just finished it and I really enjoyed that game!

Just one thing I missed here was a level counter and the number of levels there are. Sometimes you just got the feeling "that game is endless! Help!". And it also would make it easier to talk about the levels like "ooh yea...level 13...I know that one very well! It was a really tricky one!".

I suggest making stages - each one which the same number of levels.

And yea...dying was frustrating some times by hitting the ground.

I also liked the introduction - it let me learn the basics really fast.

Overall I really liked it - it was easy to understand but challenging!

Thank you!