next »

[Akhel]

Andy, you still haven't said what you don't like about it.

[FishyBoy]

I really love this game.

Past the charming art and excellent music, it's really good because it's got the right balance of linear and non-linear. You do have a sense of direction, and you can't really accidentally backtrack, but you have quite a bit of freedom choosing what to do as you go down.

Personally, I love being a terrible person and using the damsel to set off traps and kill enemies. It's also really satisfying when you pull off a succesful heist, and are just loaded with all sorts of expensive crap.

I would really like to be able to see the tutorial again, and maybe an easy mode or something, where you get more health, but can't go as far into the cave. Maybe get a small supply of money, so you can buy something extra before you go in?

[Renton]

I believe Andy has his reasons and probably isn't trying to flame.

HOWEVER!
It's not constructive criticism unless you actually specifically criticize certain aspects of the game. "Some things need to be changed/tweaked/fixed" does not count as constructive criticism.

[Powergloved Andy]

Andy, you still haven't said what you don't like about it.

I have mentioned in earlier posts, and Hao made reference to what I do not like. But here, this is what I feel is wrong.

* The down key while walking = running. Sometimes when I go to hang off a ledge, I end up running off the ledge. Like Hao said, shift should be the only key for that.

* When I have the girl in my arms, there is no way to just put her down, I throw her instead hurting her and making or killing her. It'd be nice to be able to put her directly down without throwing her.

* Sometimes there are difficulties with grabbing the rope while falling.

* I died during the tutorial cave, because I thought a blinking bomb was a blinking ruby when I opened the chest. Then when I went back into the game it started me off in the first cave. I missed a bunch of commands and how to do things because of this. It took me about 5 minutes to realize that you had to push the block to reset to get back to the tutorial cave.


The ghost is fine. The flare is fine. The game looks great. It's fun. But some of the controls and things need tweaked.

It's my own personal criticism. Do not freaking attack me for giving my opinion. THE NAME OF THIS FORUM IS FEEDBACK, and I was giving it. I am sick of everybody jumping on me when I say one freaking thing. I did not say this game lacked depth, I did not just report with "This game sucks" or anything like that. I gave proper feedback and said personally I gave the game a grade of C+. SO GET OFF MY BACK. Sorry for trying to help point out some things that might help Derek with some of my personal. suggestions. Why aren't you attacking other people who's said the same thing as me? Fuck.

[Mr. Yes]

Lets all sit down and take a few deep breathes.

...

Okay? Everything fine? We good?

Anyway, I agree with Andy in that you guys seem to be taking this too seriously.

[Renton]

* When I have the girl in my arms, there is no way to just put her down, I throw her instead hurting her and making or killing her. It'd be nice to be able to put her directly down without throwing her.

Down+X

Angry rant

Calm down, lad. Nobody is attacking you. We didn't "attack" the other people who said the same thing as you, because nobody said the same thing as you. There was at least one point they stressed, whereas you said just "needs tweaking".

[Melly]

Suggestion: give the player more time before the ghost shows up in the first levels, making it show up progressively faster as you get farther.

[Akhel]

* The down key while walking = running. Sometimes when I go to hang off a ledge, I end up running off the ledge. Like Hao said, shift should be the only key for that.

There's a checkbox on the options screen that says "DOWN TO RUN". Uncheck it.

* When I have the girl in my arms, there is no way to just put her down, I throw her instead hurting her and making or killing her. It'd be nice to be able to put her directly down without throwing her.

If you drop her with down+X, she won't get hurt.

* Sometimes there are difficulties with grabbing the rope while falling.

No idea.

It's my own personal criticism. Do not freaking attack me for giving my opinion. THE NAME OF THIS FORUM IS FEEDBACK, and I was giving it. I am sick of everybody jumping on me when I say one freaking thing. I did not say this game lacked depth, I did not just report with "This game sucks" or anything like that. I gave proper feedback and said personally I gave the game a grade of C+. SO GET OFF MY BACK. Sorry for trying to help point out some things that might help Derek with some of my personal. suggestions. Why aren't you attacking other people who's said the same thing as me? Fuck.

Calm down. Nobody is attacking you. I just want to know what you dislike about this game, because I like it so much and can't see enough flaws in it that would make it anywhere near a C+ in my book.

As Renton said, criticism is useless if you don't detail it enough for the author to be able to fix (or at least consider fixing) the flaws you have found.

[Bennett]

Yeah, I didn't mean to say that Andy's rating was invalid or anything; obviously there will be people for whom this is not a good game. I just think they're all crazy!  

I showed it to a friend of mine, and he got halfway through the tutorial and told me that the rewards didn't merit the time investment', and he uninstalled it. That's much worse than a C+!

But I think this is a game which is aimed at people who know a bit about videogames, especially roguelikes and games from before 1990. If you don't understand or like the context, it's not going to make much sense to you.

Andy: the people who beta-tested are very passionate about this game, to a level which goes way beyond A+. Don't take it personally!

[Nitro Crate]

Grah I am terrible at this game.

However I have perfected stealing items from the shop.
Requirements:
1 rope
1 bomb

Make a rope going to the highest point of the shop.
Drop the bomb.
Woop Woop

One thing that I didn't like is that I have to choose between items to pick up. :[
Although I guess then that would make the game too easy. (Combined with the shoplifting thing)

[Bennett]

Nitro Crate: that's my method too, but it only works about 50% of the time. Some shops have low ceilings, and sometimes shopkeepers jump really high.. also this method just never kills the shopkeeper, which is a missed opportunity.   

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

This is fantastic! Congratulations Derek, this came together wonderfully.  How did you construct the levels, out of interest?

I must confess, the controls really get my fingers in a tangle. I found it very difficult to control, and I think that more buttons rather than less would make it easier. For example, a button for bomb, rope and flare would be simpler for me. I wasted a lot of ropes too by fumbling the controls, or setting it off on the wrong tile, or downwards instead of upwards.

[Cheater‽]

For example, a button for bomb, rope and flare would be simpler for me.

B, R, F. 

[Powergloved Andy]

* When I have the girl in my arms, there is no way to just put her down, I throw her instead hurting her and making or killing her. It'd be nice to be able to put her directly down without throwing her.

If you drop her with down+X, she won't get hurt.

Still throws her. =X Or at least hurts her. She passes out and then runs around screaming.

[Inane]

She's only getting hurt if she bleeds, though.

[Cheater‽]

She's only getting hurt if she bleeds, though.

It hurts her emotions.

[Melly]

I use her as battering ram against enemies and to lure arrow traps.

[Derek]

Yes, no more arguing over who's opinion is right!  Andy, your feedback is great and is welcomed - I think if you had just left off the "C+" grade no one would have said anything.  Personally, if I had ever brought home a C+ in school, I would have had my nuts fed to me for dinner.  But maybe that's just because I'm Chinese - grades are really important and nuts are a delicacy (I kid).

Anyway, C+ to me means barely passing, and it's fine if you feel that way about it.  But reading your feedback, I'll take it as a B-.

In any case, what I'm hearing is that if I improve the controls and let you replay the tutorial (which I'll admit was a fairly last-minute addition to the game), then I could probably get another 10% or so people to give it a try without damaging the complexity and difficulty of the game which I (and players like Benzido, Kao, et al) find compelling!

Benzido, your friend's and tantan's friend's reactions are really interesting to me from a designer's perspective, and seems especially topical since I just posted that Achievement Unlocked game on the front page.  There was a time when games were really hard, gave you very little direction, and had extremely complex controls.  These games are almost universally regarded as having "bad game design," but yet they endure.  I don't think it's just nostalgia - there is something special about being rewarded by the challenging gameplay itself, rather than with a cutscene, a new power-up, an achievement, or what have you.

There is plenty of bad game design to be found in those games, to be sure, but I don't believe that a good game is necessarily one that is kind to the player every step of the way.  We should be allowed to try things WITH the fear of death... we should be okay with not knowing where to go... we should even be frustrated, maybe?  I'm actually very emboldened by the fact that people who are playing the game for the first time are having it tough with the controls, and that the people who have played it longer are finding some use for the way I set it up.

However, I will not use any of what I just said as an excuse for being lazy about improving the controls or making the game more enjoyable.  There are definitely some important flaws with the game's design that have been revealed in this thread, and I'll take them really seriously.  (There's like Megaman 2 hard and there's Dragon's Lair for the NES hard.  One is hard for entirely the wrong reasons and I see that Spelunky has those kinds of problems.)  But I think it's an important discussion to have, and maybe the game makes more sense with my perspective in mind.

Games like I Want to Be the Guy, Kaizo Mario, etc., are made as direct parodies of the challenge of old games.  How "unfair" they are.  But I feel like the games is also a dig at the new-school mentality that if the player is ever frustrated or lost, the designer has failed somehow.

I'm playing Super Mario Galaxy right now, and I'll tell you - it's a better game than Spelunky by many many factors, for many different reasons.  But it's also a game where the rewards are everywhere, and you are told exactly what you have to fucking do every step of the way, even when it's plainly obvious.  "If you catch me three times, I'll give you a Power Star!"  As much as I love the game and think it's absolutely brilliant, I kind of resent that aspect of it.

(Long post!  But maybe that's a good thing.  How many people were able to read through it all without being rewarded along the way? )

[Alex May]

The thing I feel is that you're comparing your rather complicated game (which shares many qualities with games with dozens of controls) with old (and new) console games games that have relatively few actions (necessitated by the controller) which the character can perform. Your game is a lot more complicated and has many more outcomes in a shorter space of time. It doesn't necessarily need a simple control system - or if it must have one, the control system should make sense in the world (i.e. make things simple to interact with).

[Cheater‽]

(Long post!  But maybe that's a good thing.  How many people were able to read through it all without being rewarded along the way? )

I did it before the edit