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[greyp]

Hey guys,

I've been working on a game called Eyez for a few years. It was my MFA thesis project at the Interactive Media Division of the University of Southern California. I released this game on App Store in late January this year. But since it is not finished yet (the version number is still 0.9.x), I want to get some feedback from fellow indie devs like you.

Eyez is a puzzle platformer that plays with the idea of "screen space". In Eyez the protagonist Mint has two abilities: the Blue Eye that lets you wrap the screen space, and the Red Eye that separates the screen space from the off-screen space. With these two unique mechanics there come a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities. You can get an idea of the game from the gameplay video below:




Eyez can be downloaded via the link below, for free:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id931379232

If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know!  

[michaelplzno]

Hi Hua,

This game doesn't belong on iOS. Its a puzzle platformer straight up and should be on something that has an actual joystick. I remember one of your profs at USC telling me about giving the "secret handshake" in order to make that happen for a specific company. If you are still in touch with the faculty there I recommend trying to convince them to do that for you.

-Michael

[greyp]

Hey Michael,

Glad to meet you here! Haven't heard from you for a long time. Hope all is well!

I admit that touch-screen controls are not ideal for a puzzle platformer like Eyez, but I've done my best to make the control schemes in the game as comfortable as possible. Besides, there are quite some mobile puzzle platformer games on App Store, so apparently there is a market for this niche genre, right?

[michaelplzno]

All is not well but thanks for the hopes.

If you think you've done a good enough job with mobile platformer controls you are mistaken. Mega Man's iOS port was easier to work with I had much more fun with it than yours on a smaller phone. This is just aside from your gimmicks with the eyes.

You posted in feedback so I'm telling you your game has a serious problem. You can argue with me all you want about it but your game's control scheme is weak at best, hopefully this is something you can add in before version 1.0. If you can't do better than what you have or don't want to your game won't get very far. Your best bet remains to go on a platform that has a joystick.

Edit: also you are supposed to introduce yourself to people here who don't know you in the town hall. However this thread is doing that job for you it seems.

[greyp]

Interesting. I'll take a look at Mega Man iOS.  Meanwhile if you can provide more details about what you don't like about the controls it will be very much appreciated! BTW recently I got some feedback from a player and tweaked the jump button control a bit. This update (ver0.9.8 ) will hopefully pass review within the next few days.

Honestly I am not sure how far this game will go on the iOS platform. Eyez was originally released on the Windows Phone platform in June 2013 (ver. 0.7.0.0). Since then, it has been featured by Microsoft many many times (including a one week long Red Stripe Deals promotion) and has been well received by WP users from all around the world. But App Store is a much more crowded place than WP Store, and the year is not 2013, so... Well, we'll see how it goes...

[zilluss]

I just tested the game and the controls were perfectly fine. Very interesting mechanic. Since the screensize is important for the gameplay, I would decorate the black borders somehow. Also the UI graphics are not nearly as polished as the ingame graphics which makes the game look cheaper than it is. I really think your game deserves some success

[greyp]

I just tested the game and the controls were perfectly fine. Very interesting mechanic. Since the screensize is important for the gameplay, I would decorate the black borders somehow. Also the UI graphics are not nearly as polished as the ingame graphics which makes the game look cheaper than it is. I really think your game deserves some success

Thanks for your feedback zilluss!
1. Regarding the screen size and aspect ratio: this game was originally developed for Windows Phone 7 which has a WVGA resolution.As you might have noticed, it is impossible to change the screen aspect ratio without affecting the level design, so there are some empty areas left on the screen. By "decorate the black borders", do you mean something like the PSP version of Princess Crown? (http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/224627-princess-crown-psp-screenshot-level-maps.jpg) I'm just not sure if the decorated borders would be too distracting...

2. Regarding the UI part: yeah I totally agree with you on that one... I'd really like to make this game look better than what it is, but basically it is only me that has been working on this game... I'll see what I can do about the UI...

Also I'm really glad that you like this game! =)

[zilluss]

1. Yeah something like that, but with a generic pattern. It was just a minor detail I noticed but I think you're right and it's safer to keep them black.

2. It's mainly the typography, as the letters look kind of blurry on a high density screen.

[greyp]

2. It's mainly the typography, as the letters look kind of blurry on a high density screen.

I see. I'll tweak the font a bit and see if I can add some decoration around the letters...