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[speeder]

That is exactly the whole point, I've got REALLY few feedback since I released prototype 1.

I reached prototype 3 fixing most stuff that I found on my own... The game probably has severe issues, because people watch the trailer, play a bit, praise and never come back, but I don't know what are those issues, because noone tell me what they are.

Seriously, I've been updating it, I made a devlog (that noone commented), blog, videos, irc channel, and lots of views on IndieDB, I actually managed to hit Top10 popularity there twice, but there are NO feedback at all.

I decided to write this rant, because I know the game is not in release state, yet I don't know how to improve it, because I don't know if it is unbalanced or not, or what levels suck, or what levels are liked...

[tesselode]

You should probably find more forums to post your game.

[speeder]

Heh, I spent about 60% of my time doing exactly that... It is all the same. The only place I don't posted yet is the iDevgames, because the mac build does not work.

[AuthenticKaizen]

the game itself has potential...
however i stopped playing because i didnt liked that the whole game was so dark.
dont get me wrong i like simple art styles and neon graphics... but somehow the whole game appears way too dark.
but well i think that you could improve that easily.
in my opinion it would help the game if you would make it brighter, a bit more shiny and glowy and if you would change the appearance of the tiles. (i mean the ever repeating white colored block at the outside looks a bit too busy)
note that this is not professional color theory advice... its just what i noticed.


for neon colored inspiration check out these games...
every game comes with a gameplay video.

http://www.pixelprospector.com/2010/03/a7x/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/2010/03/gravitron/
http://xout.blackened-interactive.com/Gravitron2/Gravitron2.html
http://www.pixelprospector.com/2010/07/neonplat-2/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/2010/05/cobex/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/2009/11/echoes/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/2009/07/neon-runner/


moreover
http://www.pixelprospector.com/tag/neon/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/tag/neon/
http://radiangames.com/


i also mentioned some resources about color theory here
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11180.msg347278#msg347278

good luck

[speeder]

I noticed the darkness myself when working on a effect (that by mistake made the screen easier to see... )

I fixed it about 2 days after the last post that I made.

Also I am putting more particles and effects, and making the interface more tidy, only the exterior blocks I don't changed yet (and I probably won't change them for now, they are "sufficient")

And... thanks for the links :D I ask people in the forum and noone point me... \o/

Also I changed the color scheme of the game (the bricks are still red and blue... it is the power-ups and UI that I changed the colours, to make more consistant and easier to understand)

[AuthenticKaizen]

another tip might be to go for a simpler approach.

when one looks at the 3 screenshots at the first post of this thread...
well it doesnt look very appealing.
they look rather busy.

also consider to overthink the power bars on the left... they take about 1/3 of the whole screen... they are also more colorful than the whole game which is only red and blue.


check also out the games from binaryzoo
http://www.pixelprospector.com/?s=binaryzoo

furthermore this game called "gravity crash" might also give you some hints how to use neon colors nicely.



http://www.jawltd.com/?page_id=141



about the white blocks:
maybe have a different tile which seperates the playfield...
maybe a glowing line or something like that.


not color related but gameplay wise
also breakout games
http://www.pixelprospector.com/tag/breakout/

[speeder]

Like I said, I already changed the interface.

http://blog.agfgames.com/2010/09/12/the-new-gui-layout-is-complete/

[AuthenticKaizen]

Like I said, I already changed the interface.

http://blog.agfgames.com/2010/09/12/the-new-gui-layout-is-complete/

thats better now

[bvanevery]

I downloaded "Prototype 3 Windows exe".  My system is Windows Vista.  Unpacked it, clicked on game.exe.

Unfortunately you have a showstopper bug.  "game.exe - Unable To Locate Component.  This application has failed to start because pthreadGC2.dll was not found.  Re-installing the application may fix this problem."  The .dll in the folder is actually named pthreadGCE2.dll.  Note the "E".  I renamed it to pthreadGC2.dll, which got past this error.

Second showstopper: same type of error, "mingwm10.dll was not found."  It is not in the game folder.

I downloaded "Prototype 3 Windows 7z".  This archive is complete and the game runs fine, no errors.  You need to delete the self-extracting .exe from your site.

Actual review of game sometime later.  It's late here now.

[bvanevery]

Well I got a second wind.

Initial UI is reasonably clean, reasonably well done.  Points for keeping it simple.  Music is ok, not memorable, might get annoying, we'll see.  Game comes up in a window, thought that looked cluttered on my widescreen desktop.  Thought I'd see if the Options allowed for fullscreen.  They do, but I didn't quite notice the "Fullscreen" button because the text is dimmed out pretty hard.  I did notice the bit right hand side arrow button.  I pressed it, without changing any options.  A black "loading..." screen flashed, and it took a fair amount of time to load.  I clicked on other windows, like my browser, to get rid of clutter.  The screen went white as I was doing this, and the top bar said (Not Responding).  Clearly it's not doing any refresh while this long loading is happening.  This slow loading isn't a dealbreaker, but it's painful enough that you should clean it up.

I went fullscreen.  It worked; had the slow loading getting out of the options screen of course.  I hit the ESC button to see if I could get back to my web browser and type something.  The game went bye-bye, no confirmation dialog.  Haven't worried about the game controls yet, hope that someone's hand doesn't slip and hit the ESC button while actually playing.

Ok on to the actual game.

[bvanevery]

Well that didn't take long.

The positive feedback: the graphical treatment of the game is good.  Keep the art style and build upon it for whatever you do next.

Sometimes the music is ok, sometimes it starts to capture my interest briefly.  More often it's bland.  Work on that; I think the musician is capable of working on that and improving.

Now for the game.  I get to the 1st level and I'm like, oh no.  You aren't seriously going to give me a tutorial for a breakout game, are you?  Make me sit through that pain?  I'm old enough to have played original Breakout in the arcades.  I'm mentally rationalizing that ok, maybe there's someone out there who's just doing breakout for the first time, some 4 year old who needs a helping hand.  Some 4 year old that isn't platforming like crazy in Mario 3D already.

Your rebound time for the 1st level is way too slow.  I'm sitting around bored out of my mind, waiting for the ball to finish hitting the damn bricks.  And only because I'm determined to judge this game, to finish the level, to give it a fair shake.  If I were a player with any video game skill at all, I would have quit.  People who play video games generally have more hand eye coordination than this.  You could play with a faster ball, and/or a progressive speed increase.  My memory is that original Breakout generally started slow and then got faster and faster the fewer bricks you had, same as Space Invaders.  Which I'm old enough to have also played in the original in the arcades, thank you very much.

Level 2 starts.  Some of the tutorial text on Level 1 led me to believe that there might be some features or pizzaz coming.  Not really.  Seems like if I click on another button, I get some shooting things.  Which don't seem to destroy any bricks.  No explanation.  This is boring.  I've played enough breakout and Arkanoid clones over the years.  I quit.  You've lost me.  Nothing to write home about.

In the past I've judged 6 IGFs.  This wouldn't score any points for game design.

If you write a breakout game, you're already fighting an uphill battle for getting people's attention.  You're gonna really have to do something interesting, immediately, if you expect people not to yawn.  If you can even get people to play the game in the 1st place.  You say "breakout" and tons of people aren't even going to click on it.  Now I don't know, maybe on the portals there's a successful breakout-style game making money right now.  Maybe there's always 1 out there or something.  I wouldn't know.  I never look for these kinds of games, and someone would really have to say, "No no no, you gotta see this one!" for me to bother.  And if it was anything less than "seriously intriguing," I'd think that person was an easily pleased rube and never take their gaming advice seriously again.

Screenplays nowadays are typically written in Three Act Structure.  Act I is typically the first 10..20 minutes of the film.  Modern films typically use the "Shark Bite" model, i.e. GRAB the audience in the 1st Act.  Show 'em why they paid to see this film.  It's particularly easy in the action film genre, there's almost always a harrowing action sequence that rivets you to your chair.  I don't know how you're going to put excitement into a breakout game, but you'd jolly well better think of something.  Or just chalk this one up to experience and move on to something deeper and more compelling.

At least you do have good graphics.  Keep those, the style is viable.

[bvanevery]

Ok I went back to your website to read your ad copy.  Which of course I didn't read before.  Who cares, I'm just going to play your game.  It seems on the "Features" section of your webpage you tried to tell me there was something "great" about your breakout game.

Paddle Wars: Hit The Wall is a game about breaking bricks in two sides of the screen at the same time, using really cool powers, like explosive plasma, electricity, bullets, gravity manipulation and even time manipulation! Also you can just use balls normally, juggling them in the two sides at the same time, and making more balls if you wish to score faster.

That 1st clause "two sides of the screen," doesn't exactly get me jazzed up.  "Badminton, the game you play with 2 hands."  "Dos Equis, the beer that is drunk out 2 sides of your mouth."  "Ears, the holes on either side of your head."  I could clown this all night; suffice it to say, I'm thinking of Lionel Ritchie dancing on the ceiling.  Is this really what your game is all about?  Is this what you'd try to pitch to someone to get funding, or a sale?  No no no no no.  This ad copy sucks, get rid of it.  Find some other core principle for your game to be about.  If you don't have anything else good, you'd better learn how to lie.

"using really cool powers, like explosive plasma, electricity, bullets,...."  Ok you're warming up.  Why didn't I see any of this when starting the game?  Where's your attract mode?  Why didn't I get to fry the shit out of something on the first level?  Do you think I want to save the good for last?  No I don't.  I've played these things for multiple decades, I'm not gonna wait 20 levels to get to the good stuff.  I want a reward for trying your game, RIGHT NOW.  Give it to me.

"gravity manipulation and even time manipulation!"  Well, you know, like, SHOW, don't TELL.  Better yet, PLAY, don't SHOW.  If this is why your game is good, why am I waiting around for it?  Get rid of the boring crap.  Give me what the game is good about, now.

You did a gradual progression because you don't really have enough content?  Fine, make more content.  But in the meantime, start with the good stuff.  I'm not interested in filler.  I want the best you have to offer, front and center.

"Also you can just use balls normally,...."  That's boring.  Don't prevaricate.  Stick to your core message, what makes your game BETTER or DIFFERENT than all the other games out there.

[bvanevery]

FWIW your game is better than Minecraft Classic.   

[speeder]

Thank you for taking a look

The menu I am redesining, after I lowered the resolution, it ended looking too dense, also after I redesigned the UI (see screenshot in last post), the menu ended looking significantly different...

And that big arrow button, is BIG, it does not even fit the screen (actually I was redesining only the arrow button, but I ended redesining the entire menu...)


Regarding the "ESC" issues and the arrow button behavior: The "ESC" is the engine default, I disabled it, but people complained, thus I enabled it again... More people complained about the ESC not existing than complained of its crap behavior, but I intend to change that (ESC in-game will pause it, instead of quitting gameplay, and ask if you really want to return to main menu, ESC in main menu will high-light the quit button or something like that...)

The engine was actually created for RPGs (I think I mentioned on the topic, the author of the engine is the author of Dink Smallwood and Legend of Red Dragon), so it has a annoying "persistance" of maps (ie: after you quit a map, when you return to it, the map is in the same state as when you left), instead of figuring how to reset the map, I went in the lazy route and reseted the entire engine instead. When I did this, it worked fine, because the loading was in a instant... But now the game loads everything when firing-up (on purpose), but it also re-loads this everything when I press the arrow button... So I am going to change the arrow button behavior too.

Now regarding gameplay itself:

It took a while to someone point me the issues with the level structure, when someone play the entire game, they understand the pacing, and get that what I wanted to do have some sense...

But it has some serious flaws, as you noticed yourself, the first level is boring if you don't know how to use the powers (I never noticed because I KNOW the powers, so I tend to use them all the time while testing...), also the second level is... boring too, the third level is the first summed with the second (literally...), so it is double boring. The fourth level introduces something, but the design also sucked.

The fifth level is AWESOME (really).

Unfortunately, this pattern ended repeating, some boring levels and then a a really cool levle, then more boring levels...

Currently the game has 20 levels, I will reduce them to 12, without reducing content, what I will do is mostly merge levels (example, the level 3 is already the 1 and 2 summed, I will cut level 1 and 2. Level 4 introduce stuff, but the level itself is boring, so I will make a level that is fun in itself AND teaches stuff... Etc...) I already did this once, the first prototype has 25 levels, 5 of those were REALLY bad (I tried to make some puzzle levels...), I plainly got some of their features and placed in other levels where it would fit better.

The pitch I seriously need to think, the focus of the game changed (it started as double-breakout but ended being a shmup-breakout), and I never wrote down that pitch (if you visit all sites where I mention the game, the pitch is always different), but your insight on it really helped (I had no idea of the reaction of people to the mention of the use of boring balls...).


And... thanks for that last post :D It make me happy as when someone compared the game to VVVV (I think this was in IndieDB forums...)

[AuthenticKaizen]

played it again.
reached the speed and time manipulation levels...interesting!
looking forward to the next release.
breakout shooter with time manipulation & gravity bending.
as i've already said: this game has potential. 

[bvanevery]

And... thanks for that last post :D It make me happy as when someone compared the game to VVVV (I think this was in IndieDB forums...)

Yeah, humble beginnings are ok if you stick with it and keep building on them.

[speeder]

Ooops, I forgot that you (bvanevery) commented the music...

So, what musician you think need to improve? The game has more than one...

It has Speeder (me... doh... the victory tune, that will be replaced...), Madbrain (menu music, probably will be replaced too), coda (level 10 music), Syniphas (first 5 levels music), xaimus (level 6 to 9).

None of the music, except mine, was composed specifically for the game (but all music were donated legally by the authors, that are very nice people :D)

But Syniphas in particular may make music for the game and edit old ones (he really liked the game, and bug me every day to allow him to make exclusive music... I told him to wait me make new levels first )

[bvanevery]

The musical title tracks, with opinions:

• sir sphincter - good
• fucking bells - a bit grating.  Could see it getting on my nerves.
• Heja blavitt - dunno
• fuckerdrive - overpowered dance music is really annoying
• intermission - guess it's ok if used sparingly.  Please don't loop it.
• whaw whaw maw whaw- again, not a fan of overpowered dance music, and it sounds like lotsa other stuff
• Motherburgers - stop the dance music.  Please.
• hypodermic couch - decent
• Pro am select screen - dancy again.  Sounds like a lot of stuff.

[speeder]

I see that you toyed with the files in the game folder...

What player you used to hear the files? (since you cited the internal name of them, not the one in the game or in the credits, thus you played them with a stand-alone player I guess).

Also, why you don't commented any of the xaimus tracks?

Pro AM is from Madbrain, this is the one that I plan to replace.
Sir sphincter that you liked, I don't know what track is (can you tell me the filename? this track probably was renamed or something like that, I am really not finding it, even in the folder of culled music)
Heja blavitt once you hear it in game you will get it :D
I dislike fuckerdrive too (I plan to remove it later)
intermission is WIP (it does not play in the game... it was intended to play during the "cut-scene" thing)
Motherburgers some people liked... (I may still remove it if better stuff show up)
hypodermic couch, agreed.

Why no comment on my favourite of the syniphas tracks? ("space strategies" and "don't track if sleepy")

[bvanevery]

What player you used to hear the files?

XMPlay 3.5.1, the 1st Google hit I had for the mysterious .xm file format.

Also, why you don't commented any of the xaimus tracks?

I had to hunt and peck a bit to find the tracks I did find.  Ah, I see the problem.  I clicked on "worlds\music.rar" and it doesn't contain the xaimus tracks.  I did not look in the "worlds\music" folder.

Sir sphincter that you liked, I don't know what track is (can you tell me the filename? this track probably was renamed or something like that, I am really not finding it, even in the folder of culled music)

Try music.rar