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[ozzmotor]

Max Stern is a story driven platformer with a brief but intricate plot, referring to a sequence of events, which happened in alternative history in the mid-19th century.

One day, as Max, a former officer of Her Vaporous Majesty, transported contraband cargo of ammunition, his airship was knocked out over a mysterious tropical island. The force of impact threw Max out of the airship, while it kept moving on automatic pilot and finally fell to the ground at the other end of the island.

When Max came to himself in the jungle, he decided to move through the thicket to find his airship or at least its debris. At that moment he didn’t even imagine the hell, he would go through…

Features:

•   An island full of dangers, traps and ruthless enemies  
•   You’ll have various guns to grind your vicious foes into dust
•   If at any point your guns seem insufficient, use mines with no doubt
•   Although not very smart, the skeletons are not an easy mark at all. As they are equipped and armed differently, some of them will make you struggle for your life real hard
•   Sometimes shooting is not enough, and you’ll have to solve puzzles to come up with it
•   Try your luck and find hidden places and secret levels

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi58nK024aw&feature=youtu.be

HTML5 Demo:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75897879/ms_de_02/index.html

Greenlight

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=747311213

Please, vote, if you'd like to. Thanks.

Screenshots:

[ozzmotor]

Some more promo stuff:

[Quicksand-S]

I gave the demo a try.

-I didn't have any interest in reading a bunch of text at the beginning. Maybe some more expressive graphics or smaller chunks of text would make it more appealing. I don't know.

-Might be an HTML5 thing, but the main character looks blurry compared to the other graphics.

-I like the music although it's a little subdued for my tastes.

-The gun feels really unsatisfying to use. The sound is "wimpy" and there's very little kick to it visually. Not much muzzle flash, little movement...it just doesn't feel fun at all. The screen shake also seems unwarranted considering how weak the gun feels.

-Ambient and footstep sounds are great. I wish the footstep sounds changed depending on groundcover, though.

-"Upstairs" and "Downstairs" seem strange to use for a ladder.

-Obstacle walls don't stand out enough from backgrounds walls, so at one point I thought I was stuck in a pit (right after the first ladder) when in fact I could just walk right.

-It's personal preference, but I hate using W for jumping, and with my hand on WASD, I naturally kept pressing Spacebar like in an FPS.

-I'd recommend a little bit of randomization for the blades of grass that go flying as the character runs. It's weird to have them all move the same way.

-What was the message about being better in a biology classroom? I saw it pop up briefly but couldn't make it reappear or figure out why it showed up.

-Climbing is really slow. I kept wanting to jump up to get to the top faster, or to jump from the ground onto the ladder halfway up. Also, the sounds for climbing don't match up with the animation at all. I also found that a lot of the time I couldn't "attach" to a ladder from the bottom even though I looked close enough.

-If I climb a ladder and hold left/right at the top, it'd be great if I could just start walking instead of having to let go and re-press the key.

-At the beginning of the second level, the text disappeared before I read the whole thing (I didn't start right away). Maybe make it have a longer timer or disappear after the player moves out of a certain range of the starting point?

-Some of the jumps feel a bit off. In level two, the second platform you have to get on top of looks very much like I should be able to jump on it. My character's feet are at the right height, but I can't get on top of it without the crate.

-There are some typos and strange phrasing choices in the text. I'd recommend getting some proofreading done before you release/sell the full game.

-The key sphere at the end of each levels made it seem to me like the exit was locked. Maybe consider another icon?

-The skeletons were a nice surprise. They looked pretty cool and I liked seeing a skeleton with a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher.

-In most games with mouse aiming, players can walk backward while shooting forward. That would help a lot in combat. I also found it frustrating that I couldn't really aim upward with the grenade launcher. The limited bullet distance was frustrating as well, because it meant I had to put myself in harm's way for no reason other than that the game said so. I feel like enemies have a little too much health too. If I can't move while fighting, I feel I should be able to take out enemies by attacking while they're facing away from me. Instead, they have a ton of time to get in free hits while I slowly take down their health.

-It might be worth considering things like invincibility frames for the player and possibly the ability to stun enemies briefly.

-If I aim left and then aim right, it looks really strange to have the character's feet jump to a completely different position. Normally, the central axis of the character would be between his feet.

-It seems very easy to get into an unwinnable situation. I spawn at the start of a level, attack a skeleton, die because I have very little health and ammo, and then respawn to the same predicament. I can't run by the enemy without being killed (Why do they hurt you on contact anyway?) and I can't defeat him before he kills me because I don't have particularly useful ammo. It doesn't help that certain enemies can hit me from outside my own weapon range. Am I meant to just go near enemies, drop mines and then run away to wait for the enemies to die?

-This is a strange bug that probably won't come up too much, but if you hold both A and D and then release the one you pressed last, you'll be heading left/right while holding the opposite key.


I like the look of the game for the most part, and some of the sound effects remind me of games I enjoyed in the past. It's obvious that you've put a lot of work into this. The level design seems decent from what I saw, but I have too many issues with movement and combat to really get into this game, personally. Anyway, hopefully you'll find some of my feedback useful.

[michaelplzno]

Mostly agreeing with Quicksand, change BG columns vs ones that actually stop you b/c it is almost impossible to tell the difference as it stands. Also combat with the skeletons was clunky and there wasn't really any strategy I could use to dodge their attacks. Also space for mines isn't a great choice b/c I'm used to space as jump and I blew myself up once b/c of it.

[ozzmotor]

Quicksand-S and msilver - Thank You very much for your feedback.

Quicksand-S - could You, please, give any examples of strange phrasing choices in the text?

[Quicksand-S]

I mostly ignored the text because it disappeared so quickly anyway, and I don't have much interest in going through the levels again. That said, I'll look for a few examples in the level I'm on:

-"This is more than three-hundred year old story" - It's not proper grammar, and even if you add "a" before "more" it would still sound a bit odd. Maybe consider "This story is more than three-hundred years old."

-"...a vast fleet and more than two thousand of" - It gets cut off and you can't scroll down for more.

-"Be sure it's better to not be...then to be...walking around" - It should say "than" and it's just a confusing sort of sentence. I'd go with something simpler like, "Better like this than up and about," or "Not moving. Better than the alternative."  I don't know. I didn't put too much thought into it, but there are a lot of different ways you could make the same statement.

[ozzmotor]

Thanks.

[ozzmotor]

HTML5 Demo Update:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75897879/ms_demo/index.html

[ozzmotor]

The guide has been added:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75897879/guide_001.pdf

[Fincks]

You can pass "through" boxes which makes it look like it's not an interactable object. Even if you put a note, it's still a bit srange. Although, there are a lot of them and they most of the time don't seem to have any use, it's a bit confusing.

I would have expected a skeleten at the end of the first level, making me use my ammo or the mine I got.

The sound design is pleasant to the ears.

As said in the previous comments, it's not always recognizable when you can't pass through a wall. There is even a flower in the first level that blocks you.

Overall, it has potential, working on the sensation when you shoot could be interesting. Same with the mine, I don't remember it having a strong sense of explosion, it would be a good reward to the player, as you need to be patient to use one.
i.e. climbing a ladder, putting the mine, jumping off, waiting for the skeleton to touch it. It's not very dynamic, you need to be patient, having a good visual reward would be nice.

[ozzmotor]

Thank You for your feedback.

I tried to create a game which is generally focused on some sort of a story, adventure and interesting environment and not so much on action with quick moving and constant shooting. Though there is enough of shooting in the game.

The work is still in process. I'll try to take into account your comments.

[Valo]

Beautiful graphics and sounds!

The controls are horrible for HTML5 though. Sometimes the SPACE key just ends up scrolling my page down and when I try to scroll up back into the game screen, some bullets or something are rotating in the upper left GUI instead. With the current mapping it's too tedious to play.

PS. How in the world do people hold shift while using WASD controls? Can someone explain that to a recent PC Masterrace convert? It hurts my hand to reach for shift with the pinky finger.

[ozzmotor]

Thank You.

The game is designed for Desktop. HTML version is for demo purposes only.
But i don't have any problems with the game in Chrome.

What browser did you use to launch the game?

[Valo]

I used Chrome as well. Might be an issue with Mac though.

[ozzmotor]

I have updated the demo.
Is there still a bug with "space" button?

[Valo]

I have updated the demo.
Is there still a bug with "space" button?

Yeah, works now!

[ozzmotor]

Ok. Thanks.

[Fincks]

Hi,

I took the time to play again.

As you said you focused on the story, I tried to read the info we get from time to time, unfortunately, it always disappears when I've only read half of it.

Here are more detailed feedback than last time without taking into account that it is a wip :

++
The weapons from the skeletons and the mines have a pretty good feeling.
Same with the shake when a skeletons dies.
Sound design. It feels exotic and adventurous.
The art direction works also pretty well.

The spanish flag (?) and the dead "captain" skeleton was an interesting change from the same dead skeleton we see everytime in the environment.

--
No shake/animation when a skeleton is hurt.

If your focus is adventure and interesting environments, I would say that at this point, your environments aren't rich enough and too repetitive.
Maybe adding some minor colour from time to time could be interesting (butterfly are a good example of that if I'm not mistaking, but they are too small). Right now, your palette is Ochre(yellow)/Green, with touches of red for ammos, I would say that it's not rich enough.
Trine gave me a feeling of adventure. There environments were rich and alive. It could be a good reference (or not)

If you don't mind, what are your references for the art direction ?

[ozzmotor]

The Hero finds out the history of the island, exploring the objects around him and reading scrolls (their content is shown on the text panel).

1. You can place the cursor on an item when Max reaches it to find some information about the item or a hint how to use it. Just hold the cursor over the object.

2. The text panel opens, when Max finds a new piece of information, and closes after some time not to interfere. You can always open or close it, using "T" key. If you keep holding the cursor over the text panel, it won't close.

Earlier I posted a link to the guide, all the details are there.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75897879/guide_001.pdf
 

I did my best to insert an interesting object for each level.
The first levels are very simple. The further you go, the more elements you find.

[ozzmotor]

HTML5 Demo update:

1. The target hit effects are added.
2. The explosion effect is changed.
3. The speed of running and climbing ladders is increased.
4. Other small additions/corrections.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75897879/ms_de_02/index.html