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[Bernie]

I just finished a new smaller project called Sky Crashers. It's a platformer that's mainly about finding hidden goodies. It has a pick up/throwing mechanism, a bunch of bosses and some hidden levels. The backgrounds are all drawn images, only the interactive blocks are tile-like.

The game has music by Sean Cameron, a really awesome composer.

My main goals for this game were:

-Implement a usable parenting system in gamemaker (for example rotating objects and attaching stuff to them with certain properties)
-Do drawn graphics instead of tiles
-Implement mini-puzzles involving the throwing mechanism & powerups
-Make an old-school platformer with a steep difficulty curve

These are mostly what I'd love to hear feedback about, too. So here are my thoughts & worries.

-The parenting system works, but their interaction with movable sprites is a bit off. Does it detract from gameplay too much?
-Drawn grahpics, lots of anti-aliasing. Too blurry, possibly not easy on the eyes? Do the sprites integrate into the background well enough?
-Puzzle difficulty. Stuff gets kind of hard later on, and since I'm playing my own game I can't really judge the difficulty well enough. What's a good metric here?
-Do the XBOX controllers work? (I guess I really should buy one... they're sort of a standard now.)

Screenshots:



Windows Download: HERE
HTML5 Test: HERE

Thanks!

[NewProject]

Hi,

Good world, nice graphics. Great job!
I feel little lose at start, too many npc and text before I know "what's this game". The 1st level (2nd map) not is a tutorial, you start with puzzles too fast. I suggest make all more progressive, example:
Make a 1st map (town) more big and convert it into tutorial. 1 house/room - 1 npc - 1 concept to learn (open a chest, kill a mob, whats the star box, ...)


Others:
-Reconfigure keyboard: I suggest "up" to jump and "enter" to talk/read. And hit (open chest) I need 2 maps to found "S"... perhaps can try to use "enter" too?
-Firefox 27: problems with music and sound, like big lag in each jump, start and stop music after 2 seconds. You preload it?


Like I said, the game game work, it's only reduce the curve at start.

[Bernie]

Thanks for giving the game a go! Start slower is a good idea, I always assume I'm dealing with gamers who grew up in the 80s/90s on stuff like Mario and Megaman. That just isn't the case anymore.

UP for jumping is a bit problematic considering the climbing feature. I know many games do this, I just personally don't like it all that much. An alternative interact key on the other hand is easy to add.

I changed the audio code in the HTML5 version. The way it was before it only worked in Chrome. It's a GameMaker Studio thing.

Thanks for the feedback!