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[Terrorbuns]

Parasol is a game in which you play as Lani, a young girl with a parasol [or umbrella depending on you] as you set out to defeat the Witch and her Boyfriend and save the floating islands!

Currently I only have the base mechanics and a single enemy [with kinda terrible collision so far, haven't fine tuned it yet or anything] and a testing stage to get a feel for the tiles and game play.

>Download Here!<

Test Level Demo Post


Windows Only! [Made in Game Maker Studio. Don't have a Mac to export to or anything sorry :c]

Controls:
Arrow Keys
X - Jump [Can "double jump"!]
C - Parasol [Use with up and down!]

Screenshots:








[This last one is SLIGHTLY outdated, I switched out the vertical moving platforms for horizontal ones at the last minute. The vertical ones are still a tad buggy!]


I'm mainly looking for feedback on the overall feel of the game, and any advice for really streamlining it! Also any suggestions for general level-design and stuff is greatly welcomed. I'm aiming for a Kirby/Yoshi's Island sort of feel in both level design and visual feel.
(Yes the enemies aren't exactly functional but they're work in progress right now, I just didn't want to give out a demo without a little enemy to fill it out a bit...)

[TestTrek]

I like the unique gameplay. I think the she should fall slower when gliding though.

Using the parasol on the fans was my favorite part.

[deathtotheweird]

need to show little wisps of air spinning above the fans, I wasn't sure what they were at first.

tiling is a bit obvious and ugly on the dirt.

I like the colors.

grass needs a bit more variety. more flowers or different kinds of plants perhaps.

blinking animation occurs after the knockback animation, should start them both at the same time.

the range of the parasol is disgustingly short. also there appears to be a delay between actually hitting them and their blinking animation. should remove that delay.

swing animation while jumping looks weird.

background looks like it was made in 2 seconds in ms paint.

I would rather swing the parasol to latch onto those poles rather than holding up.

those weird solid blue lines at the top of the sky need to go. give it a gradient, would probably look much better.

seems cool so far, but hard to comment on the platforming game-play since it appears to be non-existent. there's no danger and thus no challenge. if you're going for a knytt-like exploration platformer that's not a big deal, but it appears you want the game to be a more retro type platformer, yeah?

some things I would do to make it not such a walk in the park:
make the fans turn on/off so the player has a limited window to get across safely.

the player has to hold down before landing on the water, or she won't pull out the parasol in time and will just sink.

instead of automatic moving platforms have those disappearing kind from megaman. or like the ones in mario that slowly sink the longer you stay on them.

[Terrorbuns]

Thank you for the comments! I'm working on them as I type this.

I'll defintely work on the dirt tiles. I'm not entirely happy with them, but I kinda rushed a few things to get a demo done by the end of Saturday. Hence the rather bad collisions with the enemies. I'm going to be reworking it to not suck either today or later this week.

background looks like it was made in 2 seconds in ms paint.

this is actually almost true, but the same concept applies. Backgrounds are not my strong point haha. I do like the general look of it though, but those lines at the top really do need to be reworked or removed. I think I'll put in some parallax scrolling and slow-moving clouds too.

This was more of a test demo to get a feel for the engine so far, so I hadn't actually programmed dying yet so no challenge yet. But you're right, I do need to get that done so I have a better idea of how to design levels and stuff!

Also right about the retro-platformer thing. While a Knytt-style game is cool and stuff, this is going to be more of a retro-platformer. My main inspirations for this game are Kirby and Yoshi's Island. I don't want it to be hard, but I don't want it to be too easy! I want it to be fun!

make the fans turn on/off so the player has a limited window to get across safely.

the player has to hold down before landing on the water, or she won't pull out the parasol in time and will just sink.

instead of automatic moving platforms have those disappearing kind from megaman. or like the ones in mario that slowly sink the longer you stay on them

These are really good ideas. I was having trouble coming up with some challenging things, I'm not sure why the platform thing didn't even occur to me!

I would rather swing the parasol to latch onto those poles rather than holding up.

This is actually really helpful, because people have been saying that the hanging should be changed but I couldn't figure out how to do it, and this seems like the best option. It also gives me a good reason to change some things, namely attacking and aerial functions, namely down+attack and swinging in the air. What I'll likely end up doing is taking the ground swing and also using that for in the air, and add a divebomb sort of thing for down+attack which will also cause you to float should you land in the water.

Thank you for taking the time to play allen and TestTrek! I appreciate the comments. I'm going to aim to have an updated demo by the end of this week!

(if anyone has a solid idea on how to get vertical platforms working without looking dum/buggy please send help <:I )

[bluecollarart]

Very pretty, I love the soft colors.

I'll defintely work on the dirt tiles. I'm not entirely happy with them, but I kinda rushed a few things to get a demo done by the end of Saturday.

This is what I wanted to post about, I'm glad you're still working on them. I don't think they look bad, but they do get repetitive. Have you considered making a few variants and mixing them up either by hand, randomly, or a mixture of both? That's a great place to add some flavor by adding unexpected features, like animals or fossilized spaceships or whatever.

[Terrorbuns]

Very pretty, I love the soft colors.

I'll defintely work on the dirt tiles. I'm not entirely happy with them, but I kinda rushed a few things to get a demo done by the end of Saturday.

This is what I wanted to post about, I'm glad you're still working on them. I don't think they look bad, but they do get repetitive. Have you considered making a few variants and mixing them up either by hand, randomly, or a mixture of both? That's a great place to add some flavor by adding unexpected features, like animals or fossilized spaceships or whatever.

Yeah, I think I'm going to throw up some variants and toss them in there. Can't go wrong with the little animals or whatever in the ground! Though that's definitely going to be a "do later" thing, gotta focus on other things right now! [Thanks for the idea though! Hadn't thought of small animals or things.]

Speaking of things, not much to report but I have gone about fixing the collisions and changing the way hanging and attacking in the air works [attacking in the air is the same action as on the ground but you'll grab onto poles!] and made down+attack while in the air a divebomb, which later on will be used to break blocks or flatten some enemies I imagine.

[Connor]

the main character looks amazing! graphically from what i can see on my mac, its an incredible looking game, ever considered adding bosses to the game? like jumping on their head several times to kill them?

[Terrorbuns]

TEST LEVEL DEMO COMPLETE.
DOWNLOAD HERE: >DOWNLOAD<

After about a week of hard work, I have completed the test level! Featuring FOUR WHOLE ROOMS of INTENSE PARASOL ACTION, you play as LANI the PARASOL GIRL. Your current goal is to simply reach the end of the fourth room.

CONTROLS:
X, C, ARROW KEYS, SPACEBAR. You’ll have to figure out what they do on your own though. Try using the arrow keys in combination with C!

WINDOWS ONLY.

Note: Enemies on the ground don’t die. Flying enemies will respawn [hopefully, I’m pretty sure I got it to work, not a terribly big deal if they don’t though.]

Still trying to nail down a consistent level design but I think I'm getting there! Let me know what you think of everything! (I'm still working on the sky and clouds and stuff. Backgrounds are hard :C)

SCREENSHOTS
 

[deathtotheweird]

Hmm. Having to swing to latch on to a pole does add some challenge, but I'm not sure if it's a good kind of challenge. It actually feels clumsier than I thought it would. Not sure if it's the implementation or what, but it does seem to have too small of a window for it to latch.

The new dirt tiles look much better. And the swing animation feels better and connects on enemies when it looks like it should.

I think some of the obstacles are a bit too close together, they could do with a bit of spacing in between them. And it seems a bit weird that you don't re-spawn in the same room you die in.

Oh and when flying up on the wind turbines and if you bump an enemy, it will send you shooting upward to the ceiling where you'll get stuck until you jump.

[Terrorbuns]

I think I addressed most of the issues with the demo, I've updated the link with a new version of it which should hopefully fix some of the issues people were having with it. Notably is a slight physics change and hanging should be more reliable, and the vertical section should be easier!

Check the post for the link, it's the same link~

[LimitingFactor]

I like this game, the parasol is a fun game mechanic. I think it would look better if the graphics were less repetitive. Even if the backgrounds and tiles were somewhat crudely drawn, if they were whimsical, colorful, and unique it would look very cool. Another idea, maybe the parasol could be used to shield your character from things from above (spider venom, acid rain, scorching spotlight).

[JustinGameDesign]

Good start! Keep at it, I like the general feel.

If you're looking for notes:

Doesn't make sense to hook those horizontal yellow bars with the *top* of the parasol when there's a more logical hook on the bottom. Have the character hold the parasol the other way to hang on them.

Maybe switch to a 32x32 image for the repeating rock tiles? It might make the pattern less obvious than it is now.

I'll had some issues jumping from platform to platform in a cave with a low ceiling, so gave up there, but I'll gladly try future releases.

[eviltaco]

what did you make it with?

[Terrorbuns]

@eviltaco: Game Maker Studio!

@Alterchera: Yeah it doesn't seem to make much sense at first, but her parasol's top is actually a clip. It's just not obvious I apologize v_v;
I did, however, take your suggestion of 32x32 tiles and made some variety tiles!

SPEAKING OF, I HAVE FINISHED THE FIRST THREE LEVELS and they are ready for testing!

>DOWNLOAD HERE<

Controls are the same as before, except you can use CTRL to "unlock" levels!

I'll ask that you not try to enter anything past level 3 though. It'll simply make the game unplayable/require you to start over! [Didn't bother to edit this out because it's just a demo and solely for testing purposes at the moment.] But you can check out the entire world 1 map, designed by myself but drawn by KittenEater!

I'm looking for a bit more nit-picking in regards to level design and flow there of. I'll be putting some sort of non-coin collectible in later, and future stages will have secrets!

Let me know what you think!

[backgrounds are all WIP at the moment. I'm still working on them v_v; ]

[JustinGameDesign]

First thoughts on trying new demo:

Notes:
A faster character or dash would be great.
So would a long range slash--even just a few more pixels.
Gotta say your level design relies an awful lot on bottomless pits.
Not a fan of reviving enemies either. Would be better if they could be killed for items, etc.
Having to swing your umbrella at precisely the right time in order to hook yellow bars is a bit too involved. Either make it auto-hook or let the player just hold a button--perhaps up.
Sometimes you can see enemies moving on top of the black screen wipes that starts levels. Maybe they should be underneath.
The debris from the crumbling blocks is a nice touch, but the red platforms seem to fall faster than their debris making it look like they're firing it upwards.
Fell to my death a few to many times in level three and lost the will to keep playing.

My advice would be to take a clue from Super Mario Brothers 2. That game also used bottomless pits, but a bit more sparingly in the beginning--none in stage one.  As it stands it's much to easy to fall to your death, which may be what you're going for, but will discourage players who are forced to repeat very early portions again and again.

Hope you'll keep building on what you have and release future demos. It seems like a fairly solid concept.

[Gazillion]

I love that you used red to indicate that there was a danger on your platforms, the crumbling was a really nice touch too.

There's a bug with your green platforms. On the level where you have to jump from red platform to red platform there was a green platform that moves up once you land on it. I landed on it but then fell off because I tried to avoid an on coming wasp. I landed on the regenerated red platform below it and made my way back up but then the vertical move wouldn't trigger on the landing so I had to stop playing (or die but at the point I lost interest).

I agree that having to swing to hook on platforms is clumsy, especially since it'll hook on and warp the sprite in the hooked position. I think what Alterchera suggested is a good idea. If you held on to C and have it automatically hook on would be a nice touch and feel a bit more intuitive.

I think that you should consider having the parasol open up for a glide if the player keeps hold of the jump button instead of having to tap it a second time. I didn't mind so much tapping it a second time when I would initiate the attack but I found it kind of unintuitive when I'd bounce off a monster and then just fall down a pit because I *felt like* I would still have the use of my parasol... Maybe have the parasol open automatically if the jump button is pressed down once it's first been opened (like if you bounce off a monster while in parasol mode it should stay open once you reach the apex of the jump)?

I felt the placement of the monsters was kind of clumsy. They didn't really add a challenge, they were just there and most of the time they didn't require me to do anything to avoid them. That's the impression I got from the first two levels, maybe it gets more challenging after that.

(I'm being nitpicky here) Do coins give lives after the 100 mark? I don't know what they're for. I'm not saying that you should TELL ME but after playing 2.5 levels I didn't reach the 100 milestone so maybe there aren't enough coins to collect? I also had no idea what the red bottle thing was.

I don't usually give this kind of feedback, and I rarely download games from the forum (I'm usually just here to see what people are working on for inspiration) but I thought this concept was awesome and the art was really cool. I really hope you keep going with this.