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[tok]

download: http://www.box.net/shared/pcac7a3z5z

This was done as a programming assignment for a game design course - the requirement was to tell a story through play - without text.

It's a difficult platformer with procedurally generated levels.

Occasionally it generates impassible obstacles - this is a bug.

keys are enter to begin and z to jump.

[deathtotheweird]

jumping is very awkward, jump speed is too high and acceleration is too high-he just shoots up there. enemies just seemed to spawn wherever (in the ground, in walls), gravity had no affect on them and neither did walls.

unfortunately the difficulty doesn't come from the level design or enemies, but the poor camera system and the small width of the screen. returning that yellow whatever thing, it was really hard to see in front of me so I had to be very cautious. after I failed to make it back safely three times I just quit. way too unfair. not enjoyable creeping at the side of the screen, hoping I don't get surprised by an enemy.

first rule about game design (not really), is make the core mechanics as enjoyable as possible. if the player is going to be jumping a lot, make it so comfortable that I don't have to worry about my jump, that I can just do it. if the main aspect of the game is avoiding enemies, make that as enjoyable as well and fix unnecessary frustrations like a camera that only scrolls if you're near the edge of the screen.

[tok]

deathtotheweird, i want to say that your reply on this thread was very rude, perhaps excessively so

[C-Dawg]

For what it's worth, I didn't think his reply was all that rude.  He did focus on what he did NOT like about it, rather than what he DID like, but it sounds like a perfectly reasonable series of things to complain about.  As someone who has had my own problems with jumping physics, I can certainly see where he might be coming from.

[Quicksand-S]

deathtotheweird's comments don't seem rude at all to me. Negative, sure, but there are a lot of very good suggestions in there so I'd say it just seems like constructive criticism. I agree with all the points made, so I won't repeat them here.

Some bugs/weirdness to watch out for as well:

-If I jump off the top of the screen, the camera goes crazy
-If I exit a room up high, I show up in the next room on the ground. I'd recommend saving both movement speed and the player's Y coordinate upon leaving a room so the transition from room to room is smoother. (Strangely, this did actually happen once, but only once, and that time I fell through the ground on my way down.)

Anyway, I'm not sure what story this is supposed to be telling, unless it's just the story of a world in ruins. A few more details (ie. background objects or something) might help flesh things out a bit. I did like the transition from grassy "ruins" into a more built-up, less natural setting. That was starting to get interesting, but maybe the game ends a little too early because I'm not sure what that thing I got was, or if I was stealing treasure or taking something that would be used to rebuild the world, or what. There's a lot of room for you to imply interesting things.

I didn't get stuck anywhere, and I thought the room generation was decent in that the shapes were varied but not so random that I couldn't get through.

[tok]

deathtotheweirds comment is so rude it made me not come bck to tigsource for several years. its important to not that i spent a lot more time working on the tech for this game that deathtotheweird spend on his coment

its important also to note that it was the only comment for the several years that followed it, indicating that the tigsource community silently agreed with deathtothewweird and his bullshit

its important to note also that most game developers are mentally ill and this is why they make games in the first place and they will nto respond well to overwhelmingly ngative feedback

it doesnt say it explicitly in the game (bc the thing with the project is you werent allowed to use words) but the goal is to return to the start with the object once you steal it and walk off the left side of the screen, to victory

its harder to walk backwards with the object because it is heavy, you are supposed to feel the burden of your sins, having taken this holy object from the old spirits where they dwell

-If I jump off the top of the screen, the camera goes crazy
(this and the other thing is a good bug report)

in this game the jump mechanics are slaves of the procedural generation system, it is important to be able to jump to this height specifically, but the thing with the camera was a pervasive bug and i was havng trouble with it at the time

[Terrytheplatypus]

its important to note also that most game developers are mentally ill and this is why they make games in the first place

Why do you think that? That just doesn't seem true at all, based on what I've seen. Also, a good way to make people get irritated at you is by saying "Most of you are mentally ill".

[ThemsAllTook]

deathtotheweirds comment is so rude it made me not come bck to tigsource for several years.

A lot of other people here had a problem with him too. He's gone now.

[tok]

its important to note also that most game developers are mentally ill and this is why they make games in the first place

Why do you think that? That just doesn't seem true at all, based on what I've seen. Also, a good way to make people get irritated at you is by saying "Most of you are mentally ill".

many of you are mentally ill. i know this is hard to hear. listen, im crazy, but so are you nerds/

"A lot of other people here had a problem with him too. He's gone now."

yes. but i did not necromance this thread to argue with ghosts! i have returned! where is the painted throne and crown of thorns for me

listen the way we criticise people n here is grim and gross and lets do 5% better at this from now on

[Quicksand-S]

Wow. 2010...yeah, I dunno why someone posted a reply after so many years. Strange.

Anyway, it seems pretty rare (at least, these days) that people here post criticism without also giving helpful suggestions. That said, if you're going to put your work in a forum for input, you have to be prepared to get negative comments and just try to extract the useful elements from them. Sometimes I work on things that I don't quite feel comfortable having torn apart, so I just don't post about those projects.

Since you're here, "yok, the gamburglar", I'm curious, have you made anything since this game? Did you find that game design course that you took rewarding?

[tok]

um, ive done some things. i've been in the d&d game mostly. i have a dnd blog there >> http://evilbaboons.blogspot.com.au/

being at the university wass stressful and i recommend it only for strong heroes.

basically the uni i went to (Griffith in Brisbane) changes a lot so I dont know if the games course is the same now.

at uni they wont have a tigsource culture at all and you'll have trouble finding people who understand the games youre talking about if you want to talk about knytt or whatever. this is very sad. however everybody plays pokemon. going to uni is good, you talk about video games a lot, no matter what you study --

games is good though, if you have to study something you might as well study games - its just a games degree isnt really anything, especially here (not much games industry left here, it got cheaper to make games in the US, everythings changing but its slow)

programming... at uni they taught us processing, as3 and unity, which was kind of a bold move, like it ws sort of an indie-focus course, at least the bits that were designed for us - but i can not say what they teach now, in the 2015, or what it'll be next year. im a big fan of processing. anyway i had some c/c++/java knowledge already and this helped a lot; i was one of maybe the most programmey people in the year, but this is not a great thing - there were no superclass of excellent best programmers to learn things from, and i had to play that role for people that werent code people at all.

animation... they have a good life drawing program at that uni. life drawing it matters a lot who your teacher is and lots of them are rude; but life drawing is absolutely worth doing even if you dont do it at uni

i did a traditional animation class, a animation class using maya, a more advanced maya class on scripting, all the weird film stuff that was a holdover for them not havins games-specific classes that teach photoshop, but we also did a intro film class w cameras, history of animation, all this good stuff - enough to make 3d assets but not enough to rig them

as far as actual game design goes they dont really treat it as its own thing much at all. you can submit a rpg book for your thesis (me and a friend did) but its not really what they expect. they expect like, a little group thing in unity - we tried this but - the thing is theres not enough talent. everybodys a designer-artist, focus on the design, its hard to locate a programmer, nobody knows music, so you gotta get in guys from outside or just make do. I was the programmer on my unity game and the tech was just too complicated to develop as quickly as needed for a grade. i get real stressed out. we ended up dong something else... i was pretty burned out towards the end.

um, univesity isnt the way i learn best. but im going back there.

but yeah - i also met most of the people ive ever played d&d with at uni, and i strongly recommend going to uni just to find people to play d&d with.