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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytesting[TechDemo Feedback] CrossCode - Throwing Balls!
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R.D.
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« on: December 20, 2012, 09:43:50 AM »




Hello there!

Today we want to present the first technical demo of our JavaScript/HMTL5 game.

CrossCode combines retro-style 2D-Graphics with the unique theme of... well... throwing balls at everything.

Here some picture with ball throwing action:



More precisely, it's an Action-RPG with lots of puzzles.
With a planned length of at least 10 hours it's quite an ambitious project for HTML5, we think.

And you know what? Starting the game is super easy.  No flash, no nothing. Choose the mode which you want to play and click the play button. The game will start immediately. Here check it out:




The tech demo won't show much of the RPG aspects, but you can see how puzzles and battles work. Our next goal is a more plot-driven demo (some time next year... we hope!) with some RPG aspects.

We started using the impact.js engine but modified several parts of it to fit our needs. It’s probably the first HTML5 game which has (simplified) 3D collision combined with canvas 2D graphics. (If not, tell us!). The engine basically allows us to create puzzles like in Alundra for PlayStation - only combined with ball-throwing.

Anyway, we hope you like the result. Any feedback is appreciated!

And if you’re curious about this project:
We will soon start a DevLog (probably here until we have a nice blog for you) where we will keep you up to date with any progress.

Have fun and may the ball fun be with you!

Follow us on Twitter: @RadicalFishGame
or Facebook: FacebookFanpage
Our DevBlog: RadicalFishGames
DevBlog here on TigSource: TigSource DevBlog
« Last Edit: January 10, 2013, 06:08:01 AM by R.D. » Logged

SolarLune
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« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2012, 05:23:24 PM »

I played it - great graphics and animation. Interesting gameplay idea, too. Playing on Opera (against the suggestion, hah) wasn't too bad. It only slowed down when I was fighting multiple enemies (the rats that spawn particles). Moving was smooth and solid, and I like the automatic jumping. Great work so far, really.
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Justsometoast
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« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2012, 05:36:52 PM »

Awesome game! I really like this concept, as simple as it may be. Throwing these balls everywhere is really satisfying. There's only a few things I can think of that i didn't like.

-The camera pans way to fast when you aim. I always end up aiming behind where I want to because of it. Especially when I'm throwing the little shots rapidly.

-Throwing the big ones Isn't all that much more satisfying than throwing the little ones. They don't really feel very powerful.

-That section with the blue ring guys is REALLY difficult. That's really not a problem I guess but this is a tech demo not a finished game. I was ready to quit after dying a few times (ended up not quitting though thankfully)

-The evade spin thing.(right click) I didn't really want to use it because it brings you to a screeching halt afterwards and your flow is completely broken. It would be great if you could make it not screw with your momentum so much.

Also as a side note. PLEASE keep puzzles to a minimum. It really doesn't seem like the game was designed around them, and they're easily the least fun part of the game.

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Dr. Cooldude
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« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2012, 08:29:01 PM »

May I ask who did the graphics in this game? It's beautiful Addicted
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R.D.
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« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2012, 09:37:16 AM »

Sorry for the late response, Christmas time :D

@SolarLune
Thanks a lot! The reason we marked Opera as not supprted was also the fact that we had issues with the mouse input. We need to investigate this. The poor canvas performance is also an issue. I can imagine that the game gets really choppy on large maps.

@Justsometoast
Thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts. Concerning your feedback:

  • We got a lot of feedback mentioning this. So we tested some ideas and might have an solution for this. Now the camera has an area around the player where it does not move while aiming. This makes it easier to to aim and the camera is not that confusing anymore. We will push this with the sound implementation we are currently working on (more on this on our DevLog when we open it.).
    Also which Browser do you use? It sounds strange that there is a camera pan while spamming balls. The camera usually waits a bit before it returns to the player.
  • Charged balls have two uses:
    • Using them in puzzles to let them bounce of the walls
    • Using them to stun enemies and cancel attacks (see next point)
  • We got a lot of feedback one this one too. I think the problem is that we wanted to let the player find out how to stun and cancel attacks (also that the dodge does always work). So the secret to defeat the 3 bots is to be more defensive and throw a charged ball when one of them start blinking red. If you do this the enemy gets stunned and you can do heavy damage on him (yellow damage numbers.).
    So we probably need to make this a bit clearer to the player! We already have some ideas :D
  • As mentioned evading always works and should be used to get away whenever you need it, so you can spam a ball and directly evade. But I know what you mean and I think a major issue here is that your aim gets lost when evading. We most likely will change this!
  • I guess you won't like this but we do plan puzzles to be a part of the game. The demo only has some simple "hit the switch" puzzles but there will be more! I usually think puzzles are fun, especially when we have such a nice concept to work with.

@Dr. Cooldude
At first Lachsen (You could call him the director of this game), who started the game, did a lot of the graphics. But when the game took a larger scale we hired 2 artists. One of them is T-Free. You can find him on PixelJoint. The other once is Martina Brodehl (Sorry but I have no link for her Concerned).

As time goes you will see more and more from those two, while Lachsen and me concentrate on the programming part.

Thanks for the great feedback! Helps us a lot Smiley
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Justsometoast
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« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2012, 01:20:19 PM »

Regarding the charged balls. What I meant was that they need to FEEL more powerful rather than be more powerful. I'm aware of the strategic advantages of charging them, but they need to be more distinguished from the smaller balls.

Changing the sprite to look more powerful and maybe adding a particle trail would do wonders in my opinion. The sound effect plays a big part too I suppose, but you haven't added any sound yet so i cant say anything about that.
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R.D.
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« Reply #6 on: December 23, 2012, 07:43:43 AM »

Ah alright! I will add it to the feedback list. Btw it is planned that the current charged ball is not the "best charged ball". You will have different types of balls and they will look different and have different effects. Also currently there are only 2 Stages: small and charged balls, planned are 3, with the last dealing heavy splash damage of some sort.

And you're right. Sound really is missing and as said we are working on this and before the next real demo, a version with some small tweaks here and there (based on the great feedback) and sound support (maybe even music!) will be made public!

Edit:
Some infos I can share about puzzles: We do plan to design some enemies (bosses, special) to be like puzzles. Something like action puzzles :D
And we also want to make puzzle faster and more fun (compared to just hitting switches.).
« Last Edit: December 23, 2012, 08:58:12 AM by R.D. » Logged

Joh
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« Reply #7 on: December 24, 2012, 10:35:57 AM »

Thats really good!
I looks very good, It plays very nice
Very polished tons of potential there! (+ you want to add Rpg aspects? Damn!)

Also can't beleive how fast it ran for the stuff I was doing, spamming ball everywhere, no slowdowns.

Unfortunately, I also found the enemies (spinning) really hard, but I gave up (well I also had to leave).
oh, the dodge is a bit small.
Then of course no loading so yeah... maybe its just not done yet.
(10 hours without save/load is crazy; I also wouldn't trust browser game saves, but maybe you know how to make a safe one)

So yeah, you got yourself a pretty nice game!
good luck.
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« Reply #8 on: December 24, 2012, 03:52:42 PM »

Is there any plans on sharing the improvements made to impact.js with the community? It looks and sounds like you have been able to utilize it and push it beyond its intended purpose. Was there any other game engines that were considered?
I have to say this game is awesome, and inspiring in fact. I'll definitely keep a lookout for more updates. I can't wait to see this project in all its finished glory. Thank you for sharing.
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R.D.
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« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2013, 03:32:22 PM »

Happy New Year! Time for some answer Smiley

@Joh
Thank you!

We took a lot of time to make it run fast even when there is a lot of stuff going around on the screen. And we still have room for more.

We got a lot of feedback concerning the enemies and we talked about how we could teach the player better. Also we tweaked the dodge and aiming a bit so for the next release (one with sound :D) you might find it easier (We also did not explain that you can spam a charged ball at an enemy which blinks red to cancel his attacks and that you can dodge at any time to cancel your previous move,).

For the Tech-Demo we did not plan any saves (there are saves when you die, you will spawn at the beginning of the map died on.). But rest assure that we already planned a save feature Wink
As you said it would be mad to expect the player to play the game in a stroke for 10 hours.

@IceGladiator
Yes there is! We are currently working on a DevBlog (it does take a while since we need to do this in our free time...). In the Blog we will explain some of the techniques we used in CrossCode and what changes to impact.js where made.

I can't answer if lachsen started with another engine. Afair he found impact.js and started using it.

Thanks for the comment!
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R.D.
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« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2013, 12:30:11 PM »

Hey there! Over new year we made the blog! Follow the link to get to our website:

RadicalFishGames

Over the next weeks we will post some technical information about CrossCode and the progress on the game Smiley
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rioneye
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« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2013, 01:31:50 PM »

The game seems really nice and polished. The movement and animations were real fluid and the ball shooting mechanic was fun. I feel that instead of clicking the mouse over and over for the rapid fire, it might be nice to press and hold Ctrl+mouse1 as an alternative. The beginning sequence was helpful but I thought the screen shook a bit too much when going near the edge. It might be nice to add more to the balls like ball shields, multi ball shots, etc  but that might come later or be a  design decision. Other than that keep up the great work!
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R.D.
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« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2013, 06:20:53 AM »

@rioneye
Thank you for your feedback! The idea holding CTRL is a nice one but we actually wanted to make sure we don't use do much buttons since we still have the idea of porting it to smartphones. We still keep this in mind for desktop solutions (Did you find clicking the mouse button to exausting?).
We already changed the camera panning and now it will only move if you move out of a certain radius from the player. This makes it a lot easier to aim while running around.
And you're right we indeed plan to give balls more properties via equipment/skills Smiley

@Topic
We decided to open a DevBlog on TigSource too! Check it out here: CrossCode DevBlog

Stay tuned for updates!
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« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2013, 11:24:38 AM »

I thought it was a great experience. I only can think of one problem. Since it will take about 10 hours to beat, is there going to be a save system? Usually HTML5 games don't have one and I imagine that would be a problem.
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R.D.
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« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2013, 12:01:08 PM »

Actually this is not a problem for us. We some ideas on this but we are both sure we are going to make saving possible via our servers (Only those you paid and are logged in can save and so on.).
Also there will be a cache save which will be used if it is available.
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« Reply #15 on: January 12, 2013, 02:48:53 PM »

This great, good job. I had some minor slowdown but it was perfectly playable, and I had a whole bunch of tabs open.
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« Reply #16 on: January 16, 2013, 03:15:23 AM »

Did only play a little but liked it so far! I'd play more but the fact that the hovering animation is moving the screen-rect accordingly is really nauseating to me...  Screamy
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R.D.
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« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2013, 04:55:59 AM »

@omgnoseat
Thanks! Did you played the game in Chrome? Chrome should handle a lot of tabs fairly well Smiley

lithander
Make sure you check out the TechDemo++ we are a currently working on. We changed the camera to not move so much wit the cross hair or little player movements. Makes aiming easier too!
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Udderdude
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« Reply #18 on: January 16, 2013, 06:10:13 AM »

Just tried out the demo.  I have a few issues with it.

One is the way you're doing jumps is really awkward and feels like it takes control away from the player.  You have to hold down a direction key in front of what you're trying to get on top of for a very specific amount of time, or you just fall back down again, but if you hold for too long, you end up running right off the other side.  Just give the player a jump button.

Another is the final battle with the enemies, they take way too many hits before they die.  And at some points I hit them with a charged shot while they were dashing at me, and they kept coming after me anyway.

Also, I'm not sure why the game needs loading screens.  Is it really loading anything?  I can go back and forth between the screens after they've loaded with no problem.

Also also, I had no sound or music playing.  Not sure if this is because you haven't added it yet, or because HTML 5 is being crappy as usual.
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R.D.
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« Reply #19 on: January 16, 2013, 10:52:14 AM »

@Udderdude
Thanks for the feedback!

It is intended that you don't have the control over jumping via a button. It's more like Zelda where you also have similar game mechanics. The boxes are small but the controls should be tight enough to control it (The game is also fast-paced so the boxes serve mostly to get on higher grounds.).
Also (this might sound strange) but we want to keep the buttons you need to play the game at minimum.

This is where we got a lot of feedback and we already started changing a lot. You did not mentioned it but you can escape attacks via dashing! Use the right mouse button to perform a dash (currently this will break your aim hard and you have a long cool down after a lot of dashes in quick series. This was already changed and now dashing is more effective). The dash will even work when you aim or throwing balls.
If one of the bots blinks in dark red you have the chance to stun them and inflict great damage (yellow numbers.).
The thing we did wrong is to throw the player in something so hard without really "teaching" how to defend themselves against more enemies.
A good approach for the bots is a defensive one. Stay out and try to throw small buttons at the enemy, if one blinks throw a charged one and be ready do dash because the other bots will try to hit you.
We want to at close combat where you can hit multiple enemies at once too (of course some skills will allow you to throw more balls too.).

Well we good just show a black screen but I think a nice little indicator that there something to load is nice to have since it gives the player good feedback. And yeah, we really load data from the server!.
This is our idea of getting the player into the game fast. We could load all assets at the start but the greater the game the longer it takes to load them all. So we load the assets when we need them (the same goes for the maps and some assets will be loaded on start-up too since we need the them more often, eg gui elements.). When you load the page again and move from map to map and don't get a loading screen it just means the data is still in the cache. This is super nice because it minimizes the things we need to download.
If you have Chrome you can open the DevTools and watch the data loading on the network tab while moving from a map to another (assuming it's not cached.).

Yes we did not make in time for sounds and music but the TechDemo++ will have sounds. Tests showed that sounds work okay. But we hope it will get better (Just look what happened to browsers in 2012, so much new stuff Smiley).
There is also a Web Audio API we have an eye on. If it gets supported on more browsers we sure will give it a try!
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