Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411273 Posts in 69323 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 28, 2024, 01:03:17 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsJack the Reaper
Pages: 1 ... 24 25 [26] 27 28 ... 76
Print
Author Topic: Jack the Reaper  (Read 331892 times)
Conker534
Guest
« Reply #500 on: April 24, 2013, 09:34:09 PM »

I cannot wait for this game to be released completely, I'm holding out on playing it until then. I want to play it all for the first time when I can beat it.
Logged
ashpd
Level 1
*

Umm... Hello!


View Profile
« Reply #501 on: April 25, 2013, 01:49:21 PM »

New demo is great! Looks like the second shop is the last point, but... It's a demo Shrug.
By the way, there are few strange things. "Saving the game" costs 300$ and it's pretty... well, a lot. I think it would be better to make this price lower (100-150$, for example). The other way for saving is green location on the map, but after revisiting them the game will be saved again. Is that some special trick?
And there are no description about abilities in the shop. At first I thought they were free and spent all my money (blue dragon is really hard Wizard).
P.S. And one more thing. Atlas (the evil copy of Jack, I guess) in older demo is incredibly hard Crazy. I spend two hours trying to kill him, but... Well, I need more patience Ninja.
Logged
Schoq
Level 10
*****


♡∞


View Profile WWW
« Reply #502 on: April 25, 2013, 01:59:53 PM »

I'm just here to say that your game looks great and you're rebuilding my faith in freeware games with each post.

two thumbs up Hand Thumbs Up Left Hand Thumbs Up Right (the maximal amount)
Logged

♡ ♥ make games, not money ♥ ♡
Raku
Level 10
*****


Dream's Bell


View Profile WWW
« Reply #503 on: April 26, 2013, 01:19:12 AM »

@Jad, Thank you very much, I appreciate that my efforts are acknowledged.

@ashpd, Saving the game is going to stay at at least 300, because you're not supposed to be able to save very often. If you were able to save as often as you want, it would be too easy. If you really want, you can just play on easy mode -check the options on the title screen- and it will save after every single stage, and there will be more health pickups throughout stages. Ah, the shop ability descriptions havent been put in yet, I've been putting that off to work on other parts, and it slipped my mind. It will be put in by the next demo, dont worry. Atlas is just an ordinary skeleton, and not a copy of Jack. Atlas actually has bones and most of a body. and yes, he is very difficult, and takes timed dodging, evasion, and patience to defeat him. The best advice I can give is to observe his attack pattern and learn from it.

@Schoq, Thank you, for the compliment. That was one of the reasons I started making this game in the first place, believe it or not.

Thank you, everyone, for the feedback and comments, they're helpful and appreciated
Logged

Rumrusher
Level 6
*


View Profile
« Reply #504 on: April 27, 2013, 06:39:43 AM »

Saving the game with the $300 is easier if you just grind up on a easier levels since money stays with you when you exit the level via normally or by exiting out. Though personally the only real use of saving is either to make sure when you game over you can go back fresh, or 'save state'.
edit: just reached the demo end and have to say you improved the water graphic mechanics last time I played. though having play through normally I found that normal mode isn't that hard as many say it is. While the level design and invulnerable enemies placements are treacherous the demo's bosses are a cake walk I went back and saw if it's possible to beat them with just the default weapon and sure are. so pretty much all problems that made the game hard early on was solved... kinda still wish for a way for jack to pan the screen up or down.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2013, 08:52:45 AM by Rumrusher » Logged
Raku
Level 10
*****


Dream's Bell


View Profile WWW
« Reply #505 on: April 27, 2013, 07:53:44 PM »

New screenshot showing the stage/cutscene I'm working on now.



That's not outer space in the distance, rather the opposite.

Also to note. I don't know if anyone really noticed, but Eclipsus's sprites looked very underdeveloped and incomplete. I'm not sure why in the world I would think that they looked ok like that, so I spent yesterday tweaking every one of her sprites to match my concept art of her. She almost looked lifeless before the edit.


Also here is some (presumably) never before seen concept art for her.
Logged

Conker534
Guest
« Reply #506 on: April 27, 2013, 08:13:12 PM »

I already gave you feedback on that screenshot, but I gotta let you know I love this as well. I really like the rework you did. Smiley
Logged
godsavant
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #507 on: April 28, 2013, 05:40:13 PM »

Just got to Sharpened Sticks, which is apparently the end of the demo. I had some good times, and some very, very bad times, owing to the points below:

PERSISTENT GLITCHES:
Most of these are carryovers from earlier demos, but I don't know which are oversights or to-dos.

-Upon starting the game, Jack can appear with only one soul slot on his HUD; gathering further souls will stack their combo effects up to three souls. Pressing A or S will eject one of the souls at random, and often two at a time, stacked inseparably upon one another. Transitioning to a new screen fixes the glitch, but ejects two of the souls automatically.


-As in previous builds, running into the sides of certain blocks can cause you to become trapped, rapidly performing the landing & falling animation w/dust cloud. This can be fixed by backing up and normally isn't a problem, except when it occurs in auto-scolling levels like Power Surge.

-Pressing Continue upon starting up the game can still drop you directly into your last level, rather than the map screen. This is not fixed by restarting the game.

-Sometimes, the "Q to skip scene" prompt does not appear during cutscenes. This sometimes makes them unskippable, other times not.

-Even after changing the difficulty to Easy, the game defaults back to Normal each time I restart the game. Considering that quitting the game is the only way to return to the main menu, this seems like an oversight.

-Easy difficulty is EXTREMELY unreliable. Levels such as Wide Open Spaces, Stampede!, Dog Paddle and Slightly Bumpy do not save after completion on Easy difficulty.

-The purple cyclops' tackle ability is terrifying and a great game mechanic, but its ability to knock loose your powers can cause some strange behavior, such as Jack retaining visual aspects of powers or becoming frozen in the red-X'ed 'HIT!' pose for several seconds.


-Like before, exiting a previously-beaten stage or dying in an unbeaten stage back to the map can cause the game to save.

-Selecting Continue upon starting the game, the game spawns Jack into a new screen deep into a level (akin to a modern-gaming checkpoint), rather than the map or beginning of a level.  

FEEDBACK
-The dandelion bombers and their payload are often obscured by foreground tree brush in the levels which they appear. Consider making them appear in front of any foreground obstacles, and prevent such damage out of nowhere.

-Just a thought: for the Japanese translation, it might be good to localize the text within the cutscenes, like the "CRASH!" in Eclipsus' flashback.

-The fact that enemies can still damage you by walking over you while burrowed with the Shovel Ability makes its combo powers, such as the Bullet+Shovel or Shovel+Boomerang, utterly useless. Not sure if this is a glitch.

-What determines which abilities are available in shops? Abilities like Shovel and Bomb do not appear, despite my having used them in a half dozen levels already.

-In Riverbank Stomp, some of the crustaceans can come at you from angles too high to jump over and too low to duck under, while trying either causes the current to push you against a cliff too high to go back onto. You have no choice but to take damage.

-Like previous posters, I'd appreciate the ability to pan the screen up and down while standing. In situations like the one pictured below, there are enemies over the cliff I'm on, but I have no idea what or where they are, so all I can do is take a blind leap and pray I don't take damage. Similar games like Jazz Jackrabbit scrolled the screen up or down by holding the duck/look up button for a few seconds.


-This Bellum Crista in Ancient's Playground spawns stuck between the ledge and the ground carving, causing him to rapidly jiggle back and forth. Consider just having him stand still.


-Finally, my chief complaint stems from many of the obelisk levels (and the whole game, to a degree) relies on platforming like this to cover vertical distance:


I spent the better part of ten minutes just getting up this makeshift stairway. There were no enemies or auto-scrolling, so I wasn't in danger, but sections like this just highlight how stiff and flat-out not fun the platforming in this game really is. There's no finesse in it, like games with floatier jumps might allow; I just have to tap the direction key until Jack's on the very edge of the platform, then jump and hope not to smash my forehead on the block above.



Look at that. I'm stuck. I dropped down a single tile's height from the block on my right, and now I have to leap down amidst two invincible Drill demons I can't see, then hike all the way back to this section.

Jack the Reaper's most enjoyable moments come similar to Mega Man's, where you find a power combination perfectly suited to tackling a tough enemy, or swapping/ejecting powers on the fly to adjust your attack to an enemy's range or attack pattern. It does not ever come from meticulously pecking at the X key to stumble across platforms narrower than Jack's own body. It might be 'hard', sure, but it drags the level's flow to a complete halt, and becomes Jack's defining hallmark in player's minds.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2013, 06:23:37 PM by godsavant » Logged

Raku
Level 10
*****


Dream's Bell


View Profile WWW
« Reply #508 on: April 28, 2013, 07:05:56 PM »

Thank you for the extensive and indepth feedback, I really appreciate the effort put into finding and telling me about these concerns. Now for my responses:

-Upon starting the game, Jack can appear with only one soul slot on his HUD; gathering further souls will stack their combo effects up to three souls. Pressing A or S will eject one of the souls at random, and often two at a time, stacked inseparably upon one another. Transitioning to a new screen fixes the glitch, but ejects two of the souls automatically.
I have had this glitch brought up to me once before, and I think I've gotten it fixed, it all had to do with a big glitch dealing with saving in the shop, from what I know, and I'll continue testing to see if I can recreate it or if it's been solved.

-As in previous builds, running into the sides of certain blocks can cause you to become trapped, rapidly performing the landing & falling animation w/dust cloud. This can be fixed by backing up and normally isn't a problem, except when it occurs in auto-scolling levels like Power Surge.
Ah, this has been a persistent problem for myself, programming-wise, since I have no idea why it's caused. It obviously shouldn't happen, yet it does. I'll have to keep looking for a way to fix this. Any specific places that this occurs where it does cause a big problem? I can do a cheap fix for those, at least.

-Pressing Continue upon starting up the game can still drop you directly into your last level, rather than the map screen. This is not fixed by restarting the game.
See my answer for that first glitch, the problem causing them is supposedly related.

-Sometimes, the "Q to skip scene" prompt does not appear during cutscenes. This sometimes makes them unskippable, other times not.
Ah, that would be my fault for being forgetful and not putting that prompt in a cutscene, I'll look through each of them and see which ones I've forgotten to place in. my bad.

-Even after changing the difficulty to Easy, the game defaults back to Normal each time I restart the game. Considering that quitting the game is the only way to return to the main menu, this seems like an oversight.
Hmm. That would be a big problem. What do you mean here, that it defaults? If you start a game on easy, then save and quit, and then continue, it should still be on easy when you continue, regardless of what you see on the options, once you start a game, it shouldn't ever change again. When you continue, do the map stages actually change back to their normal colors, or are they still all yellow?

-Easy difficulty is EXTREMELY unreliable. Levels such as Wide Open Spaces, Stampede!, Dog Paddle and Slightly Bumpy do not save after completion on Easy difficulty.
That sounds like another oversight on my part. I believe I know what the problem is here, and I'll fix it immediately, shouldnt be too much of a big deal to correct.

-The purple cyclops' tackle ability is terrifying and a great game mechanic, but its ability to knock loose your powers can cause some strange behavior, such as Jack retaining visual aspects of powers or becoming frozen in the red-X'ed 'HIT!' pose for several seconds.
Ah, I know what could be causing the retaining of the visuals, could you tell me which abilities that's occurred with, to help save me the time of having to search through all possibilities? Also I somewhat understand why Jack sometime's freezes, but I've been stumped on how to fix it, I'll try out some things to see if I can get that under control.

-Like before, exiting a previously-beaten stage or dying in an unbeaten stage back to the map can cause the game to save.
Same as the first one, I believe.

-Selecting Continue upon starting the game, the game spawns Jack into a new screen deep into a level (akin to a modern-gaming checkpoint), rather than the map or beginning of a level. 
and once again, related to the first problem.

FEEDBACK
-The dandelion bombers and their payload are often obscured by foreground tree brush in the levels which they appear. Consider making them appear in front of any foreground obstacles, and prevent such damage out of nowhere.
Ah, that's a good idea, I've just changed that so that they're always in the foreground now, never obscured.

-Just a thought: for the Japanese translation, it might be good to localize the text within the cutscenes, like the "CRASH!" in Eclipsus' flashback.
This is a possibility, just for humor's sake.

-The fact that enemies can still damage you by walking over you while burrowed with the Shovel Ability makes its combo powers, such as the Bullet+Shovel or Shovel+Boomerang, utterly useless. Not sure if this is a glitch.
Hm, I'm not sure why I allowed enemies to hurt you while burrowed, that seems like a dumb idea in hindsight. It's probably so that you can't burrow/drill under entire stages to skip past everything, but if you do that, it'd be on you. I'll be fixing that right now.

-What determines which abilities are available in shops? Abilities like Shovel and Bomb do not appear, despite my having used them in a half dozen levels already.
It depends on which big bosses you've defeated. Once you beat a big boss, several shop abilities are unlocked. Obviously, after beating the 5th boss, the entire shop is available. But in this demo, you can only beat big bosses 1 and 2, so not much is available.

-In Riverbank Stomp, some of the crustaceans can come at you from angles too high to jump over and too low to duck under, while trying either causes the current to push you against a cliff too high to go back onto. You have no choice but to take damage.
Hmm. Maybe I can make it so that you can attack them to push them out of the way, or knock them around. They'll still be impervious, but it would take some of the stress out of dodging them, especially in the small underwater tunnels I assume you're talking about.

-Like previous posters, I'd appreciate the ability to pan the screen up and down while standing. In situations like the one pictured below, there are enemies over the cliff I'm on, but I have no idea what or where they are, so all I can do is take a blind leap and pray I don't take damage. Similar games like Jazz Jackrabbit scrolled the screen up or down by holding the duck/look up button for a few seconds.
Don't worry, I've taken this criticism to heart, and I'll be finding a way to implement that in the next demo. It's a good idea, and I'm sure it would be appreciated by everyone.

-This Bellum Crista in Ancient's Playground spawns stuck between the ledge and the ground carving, causing him to rapidly jiggle back and forth. Consider just having him stand still.
For some unknown reason, some Bellum Crusta get stuck on platform edges, I'm not really sure why this happens, but I think I know a way to get that fixed as well.

-Finally, my chief complaint stems from many of the obelisk levels (and the whole game, to a degree) relies on platforming like this to cover vertical distance:
[rest of complaint]
I understand your frustration, and I apologize for it. I agree that that isn't good, and I already know of a fix that would work without me having to restructure any stages in a big way. What if those platforms were all able to be passed through from the bottom, so that you never had to worry about hitting your head above? I think I'll replace every single instance of that situation with pass-through-able platforms to avoid this frustration in the future.

Thank you once again for the detailed and non-sugarcoated criticism and feedback, it helps me to see things that I probably had not noticed before and fix them so that you, the players, have a better experience playing my game with as little frustration caused my my mistakes, rather than the player's.
Logged

godsavant
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #509 on: April 29, 2013, 06:45:25 AM »

-As in previous builds, running into the sides of certain blocks can cause you to become trapped, rapidly performing the landing & falling animation w/dust cloud. This can be fixed by backing up and normally isn't a problem, except when it occurs in auto-scolling levels like Power Surge.
Ah, this has been a persistent problem for myself, programming-wise, since I have no idea why it's caused. It obviously shouldn't happen, yet it does. I'll have to keep looking for a way to fix this. Any specific places that this occurs where it does cause a big problem? I can do a cheap fix for those, at least.

Heh, I mentioned Power Surge because that's where it happened for me. It was during a rather steep jump up and to the left of one of the longer, purple platforms.

-Sometimes, the "Q to skip scene" prompt does not appear during cutscenes. This sometimes makes them unskippable, other times not.
Ah, that would be my fault for being forgetful and not putting that prompt in a cutscene, I'll look through each of them and see which ones I've forgotten to place in. my bad.

Actually, what I meant is that sometimes, a cutscene that previously had the prompt doesn't upon later playthroughs. This happened specifically in the starting cutscene of Wide Open Spaces (I ended up revisiting it a lot for the Laser power), where the prompt appeared and worked properly the first time, but the next time I played it, it didn't appear, nor did Q skip the scene. The third time, the prompt remained absent but Q did work, and every time after that, everything worked properly.

-Even after changing the difficulty to Easy, the game defaults back to Normal each time I restart the game. Considering that quitting the game is the only way to return to the main menu, this seems like an oversight.
Hmm. That would be a big problem. What do you mean here, that it defaults? If you start a game on easy, then save and quit, and then continue, it should still be on easy when you continue, regardless of what you see on the options, once you start a game, it shouldn't ever change again. When you continue, do the map stages actually change back to their normal colors, or are they still all yellow?

Ah, my fault then. I changed my Normal game to Easy a few levels in, once I got tired of grinding that freaking cactus for pennies at a time. As long as I changed it back to Easy, it seemed to work properly, at least until I got past Wide Open Spaces (as I mentioned), whereupon level saving became inconsistent.

-The purple cyclops' tackle ability is terrifying and a great game mechanic, but its ability to knock loose your powers can cause some strange behavior, such as Jack retaining visual aspects of powers or becoming frozen in the red-X'ed 'HIT!' pose for several seconds.
Ah, I know what could be causing the retaining of the visuals, could you tell me which abilities that's occurred with, to help save me the time of having to search through all possibilities? Also I somewhat understand why Jack sometime's freezes, but I've been stumped on how to fix it, I'll try out some things to see if I can get that under control.

As pictured, getting tackled resulted in me retaining the Shield power, with Jack still holding it out upon ducking (never tested if it worked). This was all probably under the influence of the three-power glitch at the time.

As for the freezing, I recall that I was backed up against a wall when the cyclops hit me that time, so that might have caused an issue with collision.

-Finally, my chief complaint stems from many of the obelisk levels (and the whole game, to a degree) relies on platforming like this to cover vertical distance:
[rest of complaint]
I understand your frustration, and I apologize for it. I agree that that isn't good, and I already know of a fix that would work without me having to restructure any stages in a big way. What if those platforms were all able to be passed through from the bottom, so that you never had to worry about hitting your head above? I think I'll replace every single instance of that situation with pass-through-able platforms to avoid this frustration in the future.

That would fix the biggest problem with those sections. Perhaps designate one kind of block as "jump-through-able", just as a visual signal?
Logged

Rumrusher
Level 6
*


View Profile
« Reply #510 on: May 01, 2013, 10:49:19 AM »

hmm Godsavant seem to give me a case of dajavu but yeah Shield holding more souls is a glitch that spark from shield though I need to test that on pre shop demos of the game to see if it's the shop fault.
I like to report that jack when attacking while swapping souls leads to his attack altering itself to suit the soul being switch.
similar to combining 3 souls together.
example : throwing cutter blade out and on the return arch of cutter blade picking up gas soul makes the cutter blade change into the gas cutter blade which then itself farther.
I assume this means jack can pull neat tricks that extend moves by swapping around souls at a split second.
though doing so only would make a practical sense if there a puzzle that unlocks a bonus that needs you to do this other than that a neat trick.
I have a question did you fix the level design in the penultimate level where you don't have to do a leap of faith every jump at the start?
Logged
godsavant
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #511 on: May 01, 2013, 12:20:00 PM »

Rumrusher, I don't mean to offend, but is English your native language? Your grammar is such that I can barely understand what you're saying.
Logged

Raku
Level 10
*****


Dream's Bell


View Profile WWW
« Reply #512 on: May 01, 2013, 06:51:56 PM »

Already working on the complaints listed.
Now, Jack can look up and down.

Logged

ubiquitousgamer
Level 0
**


View Profile
« Reply #513 on: May 01, 2013, 07:38:18 PM »

captivating audio/visuals and challenging demo so far. i had a few questions/comments.

after starting the game, the (epic, btw) cut-scene has spoken dialogue. how or are you limiting the amount of spoken sound files to stay true to 16-bit games?

boss: will you in the final version think of allowing players to fight the boss again after dying instead of starting all the way over? i kinda get that you'd want to get a spirit to make the fight easier. but the first boss takes a long time to get back to.

the first couple of stages feel way too short. the rectangular platforms also look very out of place with the beach background. the forest backgrounds and the trees-as-platforms work better together.
Logged
Rumrusher
Level 6
*


View Profile
« Reply #514 on: May 01, 2013, 09:14:04 PM »

boss: will you in the final version think of allowing players to fight the boss again after dying instead of starting all the way over? i kinda get that you'd want to get a spirit to make the fight easier. but the first boss takes a long time to get back to.

So did you skip the shop or are you stuck on the plant boss? because the first one there's a save option in the shop for $300 normal,  $100 easy. Second one there's a save function for easy mode though if your stuck on that boss is a mini boss and the demo chock full of them that pop up in stages.
Logged
Raku
Level 10
*****


Dream's Bell


View Profile WWW
« Reply #515 on: May 02, 2013, 01:28:55 AM »

Thank you for the comments and questions.
I don't plan on limiting the dialogue quality to match true-to-16bit. Unless you mean not having dialogue everywhere, in which case yes, I would. The only other voice clips planned to be in the game are clips said by the bosses, main characters making vocalizations during cutscenes to imply speech, and maybe some enemies or other things having little quotes. Something similar to the Goemon Games on SNES, or Megaman Zero 1~4.

I would think you're referring to a miniboss which appears mid-stage in many stages. There are only a handful of actual bosses and they have a stage dedicated to fighting them, one room.

I've been thinking of extending the first bunch of stages, actually, since they are ridiculously short. Also, you're right! I should change those boxes to be something more natural, they really do stand out. They were made to be stand-in tiles that I was going to replace later, but at some point, I forgot about that. I'll have those changed asap.
Logged

ubiquitousgamer
Level 0
**


View Profile
« Reply #516 on: May 02, 2013, 05:48:12 AM »

i meant the plant miniboss with the girl face on the flower(?). i fight it after two longer platforming zones.

When I chose 日本語 I was just expecting to see a text-change. That was neat to hear the spoken language.

Logged
Rumrusher
Level 6
*


View Profile
« Reply #517 on: May 02, 2013, 08:47:54 AM »

i meant the plant miniboss with the girl face on the flower(?). i fight it after two longer platforming zones.

When I chose 日本語 I was just expecting to see a text-change. That was neat to hear the spoken language.


The one mini boss that stopped half the testers from seeing the rest of the game during it's early pre-demo days? I should have asked for a level select or a debug mode back then. Shrug Oh another way to beat her is to have shield soul then hold down to duck(which places the shield in front of you) and attack. That way her gas and seed projectile attacks will be blocked by your shield and you can attack with no problem.
Logged
godsavant
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #518 on: May 04, 2013, 08:37:25 AM »

Rakugaki-otoko, I don't know if you've seen this, but GamingFTL posted an

of the earlier demo back in January (then again, I assume you're Googling, Youtubing and Twitter mentioning your game on a daily basis). He not very goooood at the game, but he seems to thoroughly enjoy the game, and hypes for it.
Logged

Raku
Level 10
*****


Dream's Bell


View Profile WWW
« Reply #519 on: May 04, 2013, 06:01:04 PM »

Wow! Thank you for notifying me of that, I really haven't been searching my game or anything of mine on google, so I had no idea this was here. I'm very glad that he seemed to have such fun with it!

In other news, Im already hard at work extending the first group of stages to be longer, and adding some enemies unique to the beach stages. Also some more natural looking beach objects, the boxes were really out of place, as ubiquitousgamer  said.

Logged

Pages: 1 ... 24 25 [26] 27 28 ... 76
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic