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[karmington]

Hello there. Here is a ballistic physics puzzle shooter, for Windows and Osx.

We are in Steam Greenlight! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=459186017]




It can be tried out on a webplayer http://karmington.itch.io/kumoon-web ( via ShiVa plugin, tiny download )

or downloaded http://karmington.itch.io/kumoon.

The demo has a tutorial + 5 easy, 5 medium and 5 hard levels.
The full game has 10+ levels per mode, and takes a couple of hours to play through the first time.

The game is originally made 10 years ago and then won the Assembly 2005 Gamedev Competition.
We wanted to reboot it for Oculus Rift, and here it is. It is made on a shoestring budget over the last year, with a core team of 2 dudes ( code and graphics ) plus 2 student trainees who worked on the level design and 3d modeling for 4 months over the winter.

We have Oculus Rift support. We are using generic stereo distortion which is ok, and the rift sdk distortion is work in progress, as we are not using Unity ( gasp ).



The basic game is about making piles of boxes fall over.



But there's a lot more to it...




People interested in acquiring a key to test the full version, feel free to PM me with your email.

Feedback request:

Primary - bugs
Secondary - wishlist of features that would bring more value to the game

Known issues, on the fixlist already :
Camera shows you a peek behind walls in certain situations
After shooting 50 bullets ( the size of the current bulletpool ) in one level the trails fail to appear

[GekidoRising]

So, I gave this game a quick whirl! I got stuck on one of the later levels so I ate supper and came back to it later. Was able to beat the demo afterwards! The mechanic was pretty cute and I like how pretty much all of the game's menus were world elements rather then screen elements! Anyway, here's what I've got for your two categories:

This is on the Windows build! I, unfortunately, do not own a oculus rift, so I played with the keyboard and mouse.

Bugs:

• Any sort of fast mouse movement causes the camera to lock up and freeze. Basically the whole time I was playing, I had to turn around slowly otherwise the camera would stutter heavily. I recorded a gif of this:
  
  
  
  Here I'm making really big sweeping movements with the camera. The game isn't freezing, it's actually running at a full 60 fps.
• This isn't really a bad bug since you can still interact with the menu, but I think instances like in the following situation might be confusing for players who aren't really familiar with the menu.
  
  
  This bug wouldn't be as bad if you could just reopen the menu somewhere else, but it seems like the only way to close the menu is to hit the resume button. I thought that just hitting escape would close the pause menu, but instead, it quits the level which feels odd to me. Edit: I just figured out that you can just click away from it. Still, some of your user base is probably going to try escape before they try clicking.
• Last bug, I think you guys might have some issues with draw order:
  
  
  
  Above is an example I found on the maze level in the medium difficulty pack. The maze was pretty hard to navigate actually since a lot of the walls behind other walls were disappearing and appearing somewhat randomly.

Not-sure-if-bugs:

• Mashing the shoot button causes no balls to come out because the character just interrupts the animation.
• Shooting a ball does reset the score multiplier but it seems like every ball that is going fast enough still generates multiplier, thus, a viable strategy is to just shoot balls in every odd direction as fast as you can. Since so many balls are moving all over the place, you instantly build a x9 multiplier and one of the balls is probably going to hit the boxes. I can understand if this isn't a bug, it just seems rather void of strategy.
• Another strategy I found, easily doable in levels with two walls facing each other and boxes nearby on the ground: Throw the ball so that it bounces back and forth between the two walls and then just nudge the ball with your body so that it rolls into the boxes. Much harder then the last bug to do but it felt very... "unintended" if that's a proper way to put it?

Features:

• In levels that do actually require a skillful ricochet, I found it really really hard to line up the proper shot. I also found it really hard to read my previous attempts to see how things went wrong. For this, I really wished I could see the trajectory  of the balls I shot as well as the ones I'm about to shoot. In other words, it would be cool if your shots left a longer trail that didn't fade away so that you could examine where your shot went and how close it missed your target. For balls you're about to shoot, it would be cool to see a guide that basically draws a line which shows where the ball will go. I realize this feature might get super flashy and hard to see if your throwing balls everywhere, so one idea might be to make it something you activate, similar to the half speed feature that you can turn on and off.
• Speaking of the half speed feature, I did indeed find it somewhat useful on one occasion. Once I had beaten the level, I was wondering why I was moving so incredibly slow. It was because I had left the slow-mo on and I had completely forgot. It might be nice if there was some visual indication other then the slow-mo itself to show that your in slow-mo!
• Sometimes when I messed up a level and needed to start over, I found myself pressing R to reset the level only to find out that R just toggles rift vision. I have no idea if I missed it on the tutorial level (which, by the way, that picture had a LOT of stuff on it. I dig the simplistic aesthetic but it might be nice to just have a written list of the controls somewhere) but it would be cool if there was some sort of keybind that just resets the level for you instead of needing to navigate to the menu!
• I was hoping that this game would have some sort of windowed mode available in the options, but alas, it does not. Some resolution options might be ideal for those who wish to change it.

All in all, the game is a pretty cute concept, and I feel with a little more time invested into level design, the game could have some very interesting, thought provoking puzzles! I also like the main character and the actual platforming feels oddly soothing with the character being able to just gently float down onto platforms!

I wish you guys good luck with Desura :D

[Quicksand-S]

I didn't play a ton, since GekidoRising already covered a lot of what I might've said. I do have some things to mention, though.

I noticed the same problem with the mouse. The gamepad camera-control works great, though (even if it's slower than I'd like).

A few times, I had a projectile bounce straight up when I threw it at the ground at a shallow angle.

The tutorial was pretty nice. I liked how it let me figure out what was needed rather than forcing me to read in-your-face messages.

The lack of analog control is what made me quit. In level 2, I just couldn't get lined up with one of those lines of boxes no matter what I did. I always overshot it and it drove me crazy because it's such a simple thing that I shouldn't need to spend time on.

A deadzone setting for the controller would be helpful (If there is one, I missed it). I sometimes got almost lined up with the row of boxes only to let my thumbstick re-center and have my character move left because the deadzone was too small.

I was also not a fan of the in-game menu. When I use a menu, it's generally for things I want to get done quickly so I can get to playing. This one just isn't as convenient as a normal menu.

The music was great, although multiple tracks would be nice.

I was happy to see that it let me use mouse+keyboard or gamepad without forcing me to use the gamepad because I keep it connected.


I like the concept of the game, but the controls just seemed to get in the way of the gameplay for me. If the controls get some adjustments, I might try playing more because it seems like it could be good.

[karmington]

Great to get such detailed feedback! I will list the issues and responses.

@GekidoRising

------------------------
Bugs:
Fast mouse move glitch : fixing
Menu design : it is a bit of an experimental menu system which does have it's problems, but I am a but in love with it and don't want to let it go : p
Menu escape behavior : fixing
Draw order : investigating
------------------------
nsif Bugs:
Mash shoot button : investigating
Random shooting technique : we shall test only letting the last ball be active for multipliers.
Bullet nudge trick : clever, but we will leave that in. Too difficult to be a serious exploit problem, and if the multiplier reset each time you bump a bullet it would be annoying
------------------------
Features:
Longer Trail : for last shot bullet : definitely worth thinking about
Aim Guide : many have suggested it, perhaps it is time to test it a bit. We worry that it will look terrible because of the way the character is centered on the screen.
Half Speed Indicator : good catch, will fit it in somewhere
Restart Keybind : added to todo list
Key/Control listing : added to todo list
Windowed/Fullscreen toggle : Alt+Enter works, will add the info somewhere
------------------------

Excellent feedback!


@Quicksand-S

Gamepad aiming speed : Will improve aiming ( and movement ) system to give a better range from tiny adjustments to large sweeps.
Bounce up : Haven't really noticed that, but will keep an eye out for it. Perhaps it is colliding with the player dynamics or something.
Tutorial : good to hear, I've been wondering whether it is too spare since there are some untutored mechanics like multiplier resetting, which are only told in main menu tips
Lack of analog control : movement and aiming are analog on gamepad, but I understand the problem is that small nudges make too large moves/aims.
Deadzone setting : fixing
Menu : considering value versus usability ( oculus rift experience weighs heavily on this one, static menus centered on your vision are nasty )
Music : EDIT found a bug causing the music to get stuck on a song.

Great gamepad experience breakdown.


All in all I'm pretty stoked we have no real showstoppers, and am keen to make the critical improvements.
Big Thanks again for your time, I will get back to this when the next update is live.

[karmington]

I have implemented most of the fixes. Thank you again for the feedback. Builds updated + we are now on Steam Greenlight:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=459186017!



Further feedback is of course appreciated.

[GeniusInteractive]

Fan of the menu gfx and light room graphics.

Not a fan of the dark room gfx or repeated caution wall textures. Even worse is the one below it with that awful vertical off-color trim.

[karmington]

Ouch. Gotta roll with the punches though, and we will try to better! All feedback is welcome.

[GeniusInteractive]

The screenshot of my post is already, even though it has repeated caution walls, because it is segmented. The one where the entire wall is all caution wall textures, awful.

[karmington]

You know, I do agree with you there. We will improve the system to allow more variety in the wall textures to fix that soon! We do have plans to add more deco and functional elements to the rooms in any case.
Thanks again.