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[CosmicMaher]

Hi guys I made a game: http://www.kongregate.com/games/CosmicMaher/after-years-in-dark-tunnels

I think all the bugs are gone, tell me if you find any.

It's my first game, feedback appreciated.

my website is: www.cosmicmaher.com.

thank you

[Brother Android]

I enjoyed that. I didn't win. In fact, I'm not really sure how winning was supposed to be accomplished. It was unsettling though, especially the part where I died. Also, some of the art of whatever civilization lives in the place you're exploring is out there and a little bit creepy. That's pretty cool.

In general I found it really confusing though. When you lose hope, you have the option of killing yourself but don't have to? What happens if you don't? I didn't really understand. Forgive me if it's something obvious. I'm pretty tired.

[CosmicMaher]

There are 5 endings, so five ways to "win". It is rather cryptic, probably the biggest problem with it.

[Brother Android]

I really like that 3D swamp area you have pictures of on your website, by the way.

[CosmicMaher]

Hahaha, thank you sir/madam.

[deathtotheweird]

The platforming was very irritating and imprecise. There was a section in the game I just gave up on because it was so stupidly frustrating to jump up those blocks (in a vertical checkered pattern after that creepy inscription after the dead guy..cosmo i think).

The game had interesting atmosphere, first time I played I got the E ending. Second time I played I just got lost until I got bored on that jumping bit. I was wandering for a long while and found a few people and some items and a cat and stuff, but I had no idea where to go or what I was doing. Probably the point of the game, but it was very frustrating being lost and half blind with a quite unhelpful flashlight. A map would have been very helpful and given me the motivation to actually play through it again. Strategically placed lights around the caves would have been much welcome too. It was just way too dark..very difficult to see (could have changed my monitor's gamma but I have it set to where I like it and thats kind of a pain to change it).

And this is your first game? Pretty impressive for your first game I'd say. I absolutely loved the atmosphere, but the lack of a map directly hinders my enjoyment of the game. Maybe I'll give it another go when I'm not so frustrated and tired/grumpy, cuz I really enjoyed the atmosphere and want to see what else happens.

[CosmicMaher]

That's OK. Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked what you did of it. I think that is one of the biggest problems with the game, of a few:

1. very cryptic, some players didnt know you could do XYZ thing
2. map is confusing. this was partially intentional, but i need to add something to it to make it confusing but still navigable.
3. some of the platforming is very unforgiving or excessively hard.

I'll probably not fix this game, I spent enough time on it and there's other games I want to make.

To answer your first question though: yes, it is my first.

EDIT: Just because I'm probably not going to edit it, doesn't mean that feedback isn't valuable, thank you again guys.

[flavio]

Maybe this isn't useful now because you aren't going to edit it, but I hope that this could be useful four your future games (and it seems that you can build great games ). I dislike the "inertia" of the camera: when you stop moving the player, the camera slowly goes to a "base" position, but this happens in "big steps", and these are very slow. The graphical effect isn't very nice. If you make this more fast or more fluid, I think you can get a better graphical experience. Anyway, great job!

[Alex May]

I think this was very worthwhile. Thanks for making it. Got ending B (Chloe) and decided I couldn't be bothered with any of the other endings. The Chloe story is a little trite, but I suppose I did choose to do it so you get what you pay for.

Praying takes too long, and it's seemingly random whether or not it's actually restoring hope - sometimes it takes ages and sometimes it's quite fast - probably a mechanic there but it's not clear, which is all right but a bit frustrating when you just want to get on. Sometimes hope would dwindle for no apparent reason, again all right given the context but quite annoying when it takes a minute's prayer just to restore hope that was lost apparently through no fault of my own, feels like I am being punished for no reason.

I couldn't work out how to redeem a lot of the crew members - it just seemed a bit random when I would go near them and they turned into ghosts - for some of them it seemed to be prayer, others when I returned perhaps carrying a certain item... not a big problem as it is an exploration game so this is part and parcel of it, but since as pointed out the platforming can be annoying, and there being no map, experimentation with visiting places on the map can be a bit tiresome. I wondered briefly if I had cocked it up by not praying after finding the first couple of crew members. No way of knowing.

For pure exploration I would have preferred ease of movement, perhaps a jet pack.

Falling into water made me lose hope - again, reasonable on paper but in practice quite annoying as the platforming is hard (mainly due to lack of friction on the platform surface and lack of air friction/drag). I actually played while suicidal for quite some time as it made the platforming so much easier.

Would have liked something more than just a line of text for my efforts at the ending.

Couple of bugs maybe, one is that the prayer text seems to be off-screen more often than not (some of the other text can be too but you have screen space/resolution issues to contend with there). The other is that after the Chloe ending I started again only to find that I had an X under me; pressing X gave me the Chloe ending again.


Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed this and felt it was very atmospheric. Despite being an atheist I didn't mind being forced to pray to succeed. I didn't think it was too dark, and restoring hope always made it easier to see. I liked the graphics and character art even though it's lo-fi it has a lot of character I think. Thanks again.

[CosmicMaher]

Hey thanks very much, glad you enjoyed it. I think as a game it was over-ambitious for my first game, but I'm glad it is what it is, very much so. Prayer is random but cumulatively increases in frequency based on hope, less hope more likely to get words. It's not necessarily a religion thing, either, I am also an atheist.

Edit: Also thanks for mentioning the bug, I saw someone else get it too.

[i_will_choke_you]

.

[Movius]

Enjoyed this game a fair bit. Rather confusing at first when I was still figuring out how it all works, but I think that adds to the effect.

It did drag on a fair bit though. A map may have helped, but what was really necessary was a way of telling who was who after the first time you encounter someone. The ghost/corpses did not resemble the inventory screen depictions that much.

*SPOILER*
Another point of annoyance. I went to repair Chloe's suit, but baulked when I found out it would use up the ship parts. So then I went to place the distress signal which was not allowed apparently due to unaccounted for crew members (apparently it is ok to doom hypothetical crew members for one ending but not another) . So I went back and 'saved' Chloe. The "Congratulation! NOW TRY HARD MODE!" ending was very irritating after all that running around.

[CosmicMaher]

that said, i'm not sure i understand your motivation behind this game. you keep mentioning that its biggest problem with it is how cryptic it is, but in my mind, the game's main point of allure is its mystery. as a piece of work meant to invoke aesthetically, i feel that it was fairly successful.

Thanks. I agree, but it's a balancing act. The player has to have at least some notion of what things mean, and in an enjoyably-quick manner. I thought I executed that aspect OK, but it could have been a little more clear.

- the menu screen. it would have been extremely helpful to have descriptions of the crew/item next to their icons (once you found them, of course) and a description of what the green and blue checkmarks indicated because their meaning is not at all evident to the starting player.

I didn't think of that, the descriptors would be nice to have, since it is easy to forget which object was what. I wasn't sure through the design how to handle showing that someone had visited a ghost or crew member, and how to differentiate.

Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed the bulk of it. My next game will be less wonky and frustrating. I think all of what you said actually covers what is wrong with it quite nicely.

[CosmicMaher]

Enjoyed this game a fair bit. Rather confusing at first when I was still figuring out how it all works, but I think that adds to the effect.

It did drag on a fair bit though. A map may have helped, but what was really necessary was a way of telling who was who after the first time you encounter someone. The ghost/corpses did not resemble the inventory screen depictions that much.

*SPOILER*
Another point of annoyance. I went to repair Chloe's suit, but baulked when I found out it would use up the ship parts. So then I went to place the distress signal which was not allowed apparently due to unaccounted for crew members (apparently it is ok to doom hypothetical crew members for one ending but not another) . So I went back and 'saved' Chloe. The "Congratulation! NOW TRY HARD MODE!" ending was very irritating after all that running around.

Hey thanks for the feedback, and nice job on knowing the game's title's reference. Yeah, the menu screen could definitely have used some work. I didn't notice that inconsistency between the endings, either. Thanks.

[PowRTocH]

Wow, this is really good. I just don't know what to say other than general asspatting, but I got a lot out of this, so thanks.

[CosmicMaher]

Thanks! I dig the avatar, looks horrifying.

[Netsu]

Wow, this was a really nice game. The feel of loneliness and abandonment... I got to the ending B, where I save Chloe and we die together. I didn't actually mean to get this ending, I just double tapped X.

[edit] On the second run-through I aimed for E

[necromian]

[CosmicMaher]

Awesome shot. I think it needed more of the scary eyes, though having them be a bit rare was nice too.

[necromian]

Awesome shot. I think it needed more of the scary eyes, though having them be a bit rare was nice too.

Were they supposed to be the alien race? Or some sort of sub-conscious message (since they only appeared to me when i was suicidal)?