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[ralphyua]

Badminton Warrior

So after two years of hard work, I finally released Badminton Warrior as an early access title. Currently, I'm trying to find people interested in playing the game and giving their input on how it should be improved. There is a free demo for those who want to try it out. Even if you only play the demo, you can probably contribute something in the community groups. I'm all ears and have already implemented some of the suggestions.

Steam Page

Links

Steam Page

Website

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[HitStop]

Hello ralphyua, I played a bit of the demo. I recorded a playthrough, though it has no audio.




Congratulations on the Steam release after all the hard work. That must have been quite an experience. What have you been doing for playtesting? I find there to be very few shortcuts when it comes to playtesting. Do you find this to be the case or is it just me?

As for the game, I think the concept of deflecting projectiles is cool. Overall, I think the game could be really compelling with a few rounds of playtesting and iteration. More than anything else I can tell you in one post, a fast iteration cycle will improve any game by miles. If you find a low-budget, sustainable way for indies to do this, do share.

Now for some game impressions. I will be clear about my opinions, but I am only one person, so keep that in mind.

Personally, I prefer flashier, more over-the-top character designs like Dante and Cloud Strife. I am a sucker for Tetsuya Nomura's character design. A good character design is like irresistible clickbait to me. Slap a cool protagonist on an app icon and I will at least check out the screenshots.

Accessing the tutorial from a separate main menu item is something I very strongly disagree with. This is why players skip the tutorial. Force players into the tutorial, but allow them to skip it. Also, running back to Lao Pi to continue the tutorial is pretty tedious.

Interrupting play in the first level for tips is quite disruptive. Please allow player control while the text is visible.

The difficulty seemed to spike rather suddenly in places. I finished Devil May Cry 1 and 3 on their hardest difficulties, beat Megaman X4 and beat Super Meat Boy, to give you an idea of difficulty levels I am familiar with. The problem may not be the difficulty, it may be the lack of easier challenges to get used to the controls before the spike, to smooth out the difficulty curve.

I have a specific suggestion about the racquet hitboxes. In a single player game, I think it should be ok to give it instant startup and generous active frames aka a lingering hitbox. The difficulty can come from enemy difficulty patterns. I also expected the hitbox to have more coverage above the player's head. Hitting the shuttlecock from directly above your head is pretty common in badminton, after all.

I cannot stress enough about playtesting and iteration. Good luck!