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[Mig (@wtfmig)]

Volleying looks pretty fun. I think I'd make it so that successive volleys power up the ball, making it so that you have to volley to break through tougher blocks, rather than just playing it safe and throwing it at your leisure. But if you want either method to be valid ways to play, then go ahead; that's also a good approach.

That bug looks pretty close to a feature, haha.

This is actually something I think plays into the whole idea of hackey sack. The goal is for the sack to never hit the ground.

[Zack Bell]

Yeah, I like the idea of powering up the kick with each additional volley. Again, for now I'm just going to pump out what I have, but I'll certainly return to that if people seem interested.

I also had some cool "boss" ideas.

But anyway, I have one core world left. The mechanic is basically just portals. From there, the final world is just a mash-up of all of the mechanics featured up until that point and possibly a stand-alone boss.

Thanks for the suggestions and support

[RujiK]

Really like the graphics on the first ocean level. Snow level looks good too. The cyber level or whatever looks too gray/flat/boring in my opinion. The outdoors just seems so much more friendly and appealing.

This would be a really fun coop game with two players but only one ball. That may require separate levels though. Not sure how much that would make/break gameplay.

[James Edward Smith]

An entire game that distills the feeling of up-kicking a shell in Super Mario world.

Genius.

[Zack Bell]

Really like the graphics on the first ocean level. Snow level looks good too. The cyber level or whatever looks too gray/flat/boring in my opinion. The outdoors just seems so much more friendly and appealing.

This would be a really fun coop game with two players but only one ball. That may require separate levels though. Not sure how much that would make/break gameplay.

Thanks! And yeah, I agree about the World 2 visuals. This is my first time doing pixel art, so indoor areas were more challenging for me. It's easier to find samples for the outdoorsy, Fez look a likes.

As for co-op, that sounds fun. Would be cool to chain kicks together. A hectic leap frog meets battle block theater, haha.

[Zorg]

You could add more tubes in World 2. In World 1 you have a fore-, mid- and background (animated). In World 2 you have fore- and midground walls and midground tubes, but no (solid) foreground tubes:



I'm sure you could pixel some better tubes.

[Zack Bell]

I really like those, thanks. Do you mind if I use them? 

[Zorg]

Use them, modify them as you like, no problem.

[Zack Bell]

Hi all, I apologize for my absence. HackyZack MAY be fleshed out into a bigger thing. Everyone who has play tested it have loved it so far! Which is great!

Anyway, I may have someone put a new coat of paint to it and I'll add an additional world :D

Here is a pack of levels from the first three worlds for you all to try! Don't be discouraged by the difficulty, things have changed a bit in the current build.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29279751/HackyZackOpenAlpha.exe
Xbox360 Controller
A    -> Jump
X    -> Kick
RB/LB-> Swap levels

ALT + ENTER -> Fullscreen mode

**Player always kicks in the direction of the left joystick (8 directions)**
Please leave feedback though!

 

[mattrified]

Hi.

So I just came across your post today and the game looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a try. 

I took a video as well: 

(It's unlisted; if you'd like me to make it public, I can)

The platforming felt really responsive, but I SUCKED at the hackysack part .  It's probably one of those games that if I kept playing and was able to get over the frustration hump I'd really enjoy.  I think what was missing for me was feedback indicating when the ball is in range to kick as there were times where I thought I was in range but obviously I wasn't and that lack of feedback was frustrating and felt broken at times.  Also, an indication of the angle I'm pointing would be nice.  I know it's mapped to the angle of the left joystick but sometimes that's hard to mentally picture and know exactly though I can see that messing with the aesthetic.  Also the difficulty ramp-up is extremely steep, but it's an alpha so not a huge deal.

Anyway, good luck with future updates!

[Zack Bell]

Thanks for the feedback :D I kinda know what to expect from the feedback for this build, haha. I had a bunch of people play through all of it at DigiPen today. It went really well. The difficulty curve will be far less steep in the actual release. The build you played was only worked on for about a week or two. I made like thirty levels and I wanted it to last a few hours. So...I made it hard as hell.

Anyway, thanks for playing! And I'll post more soon!

[lobstersteve]

played the alpha, it's really hard 

It's also really fun, nevertheless i quit on one of the tech-themed-levels because of the fast rising difficulty curve (but that's already work in progress, so yeah..). I liked how the game became really hard starting from level 3 and it seemed liked the game is aimed towards people who already played wall-jumping games, but it felt too unrewarding, i guess people need more time to get used to the hacky zack mechanic. (But you are already doing it, so yeah..)
An indication of the angle you are pointing to, like the guy above mentioned, seems like a good idea also. I've kicked the ball diagonally instead of upwards more then a few times. Also a white outline when you are touching the ball maybe?

[jovanmilic97]

Its interesting that even though you say this is a small project,this looks better than 50 percent of indie games,nice idea and hoping you ll make to get your game published on Desura/Steam.

[Fayer]

This looks so fun!! Is there a way to try it on mac?

[phyerboss]

Pretty tight idea!

I liked the multiple sack skins you had. And thought at 1st they were "powerups". Till seeing the poke...sack>.>

But yeah. Maybe a few power ups that charges your sack up with different abilities depending on the puzzle/level? IE:
1-Rubber- Can cause the sack to bound even further and higher when kicked against anything
2-Fire- Can burn through wood & ice blocks. But power is lost once the sack hits a body of water
3-Heavy- If lobbed into the air. It can come down hard. Shaking the screen and damaging any blocks on the way down
4-Shock- Electrifies the sack. Could be used with mechanism that may need powering up to open doors or activate switches

But those were just a few ideas that jumped out at me! Still very nice! And I hope to see it completed!

BTW: Any plans for a very light roster of enemies? Or even bosses?

[pixelpicosean]

Nice idea +1

I don't think powerups which changes physics properties are good for this game since it'll make your experienced playing skill useless and that seems really hard to build.

[slhomme]

Very cool concept! Looks so smooth. +1 for a mac version!! I wanna try it!!

[tanis]

+1 for the Mac version (or a browser-based one). Do you still need music for the game?

[Zorg]

Hey, i read somewhere in the Business forums that you are releasing INK on steam, what happened to HackyZack? And Super III? Any concrete future plans?