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[Praterade]

Been working on this arcade game for a while. I think the core idea is decently fun but it needs to be a bit more exciting and flashy maybe. Any ideas would be very helpful.

https://mattprater.itch.io/grapple

Also there is music but it won't load when I upload to itch.io for some odd reason. All the other sound works.

[Tusky]

Looks like you've made a good start on some decent gameplay.

Graphics? Much as I love colourful shapes....

Maybe put a shrek in it?

[andhedrew]

Maybe some small indication when an enemy is going to move? Giving the player a split-second to react would be nice.
The grappling gun is fun! It could be made more interesting - right now it's not mechanically much different from shooting a regular gun, except your character is the bullet. It would be cool if you had some limited control over your character after firing the grappling hook - so you could swing from side to side and take out a chain of enemies. That would also make it "feel" more like a grappling hook.
Good start! Great feedback when smashing into enemies. 

[Praterade]

Looks like you've made a good start on some decent gameplay.

Graphics? Much as I love colourful shapes....

Maybe put a shrek in it?

Haha good point, I'll look into some sprites!

Maybe some small indication when an enemy is going to move? Giving the player a split-second to react would be nice.
The grappling gun is fun! It could be made more interesting - right now it's not mechanically much different from shooting a regular gun, except your character is the bullet. It would be cool if you had some limited control over your character after firing the grappling hook - so you could swing from side to side and take out a chain of enemies. That would also make it "feel" more like a grappling hook.
Good start! Great feedback when smashing into enemies. 

Thanks!
That's a slick observation, I hadn't thought of that. By indication do you mean a sound or something visual? I think it would help a lot but I can't think of what I would add. I like the idea of being mobile in the air, I will tinker with that for sure.

[Bober RS]

First thing that got me uncomfortable is not being able to see the entire arena. I can't really see the point of moving camera along with the player - would fixed view be bad? After defeating each enemy I have to rush to the center to increase the chances of spotting next one before he moves. Because if he does before I shoot my hook - I'm probably dead, especially in later stages.

The design is overall pleasant - I like the graphics and sounds, the idea of gameplay itself is good as well. But just for now - it's not enough to keep the player involved for longer. I think you need one of these things:

• Levels (or you can call them checkpoints): it would give some sense of progress - the game becomes harder, but challenging: Can you beat this one? Deal with that! You won't get any further for sure... This would involve some specific design of each level - more enemies, more tough enemies, more powerups, some new obstacles. And the player would still be interested: what comes next?
• Basic RPG mechanism: doing the same actions over and over again gives you points, which remain after death. And the more points you have, the more powerful you get, so that beating game on earlier stages becomes much easier. And so - you feel the progress.
• If you really want your game to be just one level replayed over and over again - it should evolve much faster. The only difference I spotted between following rounds (I got to 7th round) is enemies becoming quicker. I expect there to be more kinds of enemies, more quantity of enemies, more powerups available at once and so on.

[Praterade]

First thing that got me uncomfortable is not being able to see the entire arena. I can't really see the point of moving camera along with the player - would fixed view be bad? After defeating each enemy I have to rush to the center to increase the chances of spotting next one before he moves. Because if he does before I shoot my hook - I'm probably dead, especially in later stages.

The design is overall pleasant - I like the graphics and sounds, the idea of gameplay itself is good as well. But just for now - it's not enough to keep the player involved for longer. I think you need one of these things:

• Levels (or you can call them checkpoints): it would give some sense of progress - the game becomes harder, but challenging: Can you beat this one? Deal with that! You won't get any further for sure... This would involve some specific design of each level - more enemies, more tough enemies, more powerups, some new obstacles. And the player would still be interested: what comes next?
• Basic RPG mechanism: doing the same actions over and over again gives you points, which remain after death. And the more points you have, the more powerful you get, so that beating game on earlier stages becomes much easier. And so - you feel the progress.
• If you really want your game to be just one level replayed over and over again - it should evolve much faster. The only difference I spotted between following rounds (I got to 7th round) is enemies becoming quicker. I expect there to be more kinds of enemies, more quantity of enemies, more powerups available at once and so on.

I really appreciate your ideas. It's really nice to hear from someone who got that far in, so thanks for spending that much time with it.
You raise a good point about the camera. I'm going to experiment with it and see how it feels. Probably the only reason it would need to follow the player is if I decided to make different shaped levels.

As for your different ideas for giving the game more depth, I've been most gravitating towards the RPG elements. Many people have brought up the idea of getting points that remain after death and having a store to buy different things. I think adding more enemies is a given no matter what though, and I'm trying to put some ideas together for that. Also going off your last point, I think the rounds should probably progress faster so I will test that too.
Thanks again Bober!! Really helpful insights.

[krazune]

I really enjoyed the mechanics of the game, and I think you can turn the game into a very enjoyable experience. The game has some performance issues, specially when hitting the enemies, and the players' particles don't look very smooth when using the fast power up.

Like mentioned above, you could add a persistent store where you can buy new items that improve your character, like armor would give you extra lives, and spikes would take more health points from other creatures (if you implemented stats in the game).

You could add additional monsters like bosses that have different mechanics, or at least, harder mechanics. You could also add checkpoints after those bosses so that the player doesn't have to beat every boss, repeatedly, but that depends on what's the end goal of the game, and how arcade-y you want it to be.

Good luck!

[avawhat231]

I died once then when I pressed restart my character disappeared and I couldn't do anything. I can't seem to replicate it so I'm not sure what I did.

[Silvervale]

I agree with what has been said above with the shop and some sort of feedback regarding enemy attacks. But the core gameplay loop is off to a good start! Keep working on the graphics and I think you can have a decent game. Maybe some interesting environments for different stages?

[tomgcoleman]

I like the game, I had fun figuring out the timing.  Exciting how the sound suggesting an enemy has appeared, but not knowing where.

At first it was a bit confusing, wasn't sure what to do. 
When introducing the game, the first enemy just sit there as a target.

I feel like the game starts at level 5
if it were to start at a very easy level 0, the player can try moving around
if the player immediately knocks out the first enemy, then jump to level 4 or 5
give the player a chance to explore, learn the controls, discover the objective.

level 0 : large enemy sits off to one side, provoking the hero, waiting to be knocked out
this gives the player a chance to move around, cannot lose on level 0
when enemy is not visible, have them taunt using some sound
level 1 : same as level 0, give the player another chance to knock out enemy.
level 2 : normal size enemy gives bit warning they are about to move, however they hop just a little bit towards our hero
level 3 : enemy moves a bit more frequently, in hops towards the hero
level 4 : enemy moves at the standard frequency, max one third the screen
level 5 : current starting point

[tomgcoleman]

fun game, I like playing, good challenge, good sounds, and animation
however... I play on a laptop with touch pad, and sometimes the touch pad tap is ignored.

if I click and hold while moving ( drag ) then I always get a hero move
this gives me the impression you are listening for the mouse move event, and if the button is down it will move the hero.

I would enjoy the game much more if you were to listen for mouse click, and fire the grapple from that trigger.

[M.Knight]

I played it a bit and the concept is pretty fun. I couldn't get very far though because WASD on an AZERTY keyboard is too tricky to use and there doesn't seem to be any input rebinding for now. My max score was 9.

The main suggestions I would have are to let us see the whole area at once instead of having to guess where the enmies are if they don't spawn near our location, and to introduce more enemy types more quickly.

I disagree with the implementation of RPG elements to keep the player hooked as the game wants to be arcade-like. Mix the situations and the enemies fought depending on your score to give a sense of gradual progression through the game. Someone else mentionned bosses, that can be a good thing to implement, as long as they don't detract too much from the fast pacing. An advanced scoring system that gives more points under certain conditions could also be a way to push players to play even better.