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[Chris Whitman]

I will make sure to follow your commands with unwavering obedience, O he who's mighty rule stretches to the far corners of the earth. Also, this is not a Nikujin clone .

But how could you deny a request from Manbaby? He's so creepily adorable!

I only had a brief chance to have a go at this one. The game is quite pretty and controls really well. I particularly like the amount of 'oomph' behind the animations, with the exaggerated acceleration and deceleration. My only two beefs were the lack of variety in the enemies (I assume, however, you'll be introducing more enemy types for the final game) and another, more subjective issue, which is that I kind of like ninja games to have the protagonist cutting through ranks enemies like they were made of soft margarine, and I felt the need to hit every enemy a whole bunch of times with your sword slowed the game down and made it feel less ninja-like.

As I mentioned, though, that's really more of a personal preference thing.

[ultim8p00]

Wait a minute, now that I checked, Ragathon joined Tig forums on the 08 of Feb 08. His latest and last post was also on the 8th of feb 08.. So did this guy go through the trouble of creating a tig source account just to come "critique" my game? AWESOME GET!

[Boder]

There are a lot of "Manbabies" on this post.

Wherever you see the manbaby avatar and rank, that means they just signed up to post in this thread! 

[ragathon]

i posted because i see great potential in your game and i don't think that should go to waste by making a shitty repetative hack and slash

[Alec]

i posted because i see great potential in your game and i don't think that should go to waste by making a shitty repetative hack and slash

This gentleman certainly has tact. I'll give him that much.

[BroodKiller]

Hey, I wanted to say that me too I run into the stuck-in-wall bug - after entering the underground but BEFORE the 2 ninja fight I made the "death from the skies" move (jump+down+attack2) and got stuck in the wall on the left. Even more surprising was that after walking and jumping for a moment, I emerged...from the ground on the preceding screen! I am not sure because I never worked with GM, but my guess is that maybe during some of the special moves the collission detection is turned off for some strange reason?

As for the game itself, I really like it, although I still have to get the grasp of a proper combat tactics, since I fail to get very far in the game. I don't want to go for some one-move tactics though, so I may try again later I too noticed the slowdown in particle-rich sequences, most notably at the death of the main hero. For a 2D game it is quite surprising, even though I do not have some crazy hardware specs (2x1.76 Ghz,GF7600,1Gb RAM, WinXP), but I guess it is a GM thing.

Suggestion1: Pressing the ESC key during the game should return to the main menu instead of quiting.
Suggestion2: Maybe actually display the currently set config keys? Just for convenience.
Suggestion3: I second the idea of a dojo/tutorial. Just one screen with a few platforms and maybe a dummy target with infinite health?


Keep up the good work, I am really looking forwards to playing the full game!

[ZeppMan217]

damn...always when i get those "clones" i am falling through the ground! In any location.

[.TakaM]

I found a glitch :3
Easier to just upload a video of it:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ejyhmk

Really nice game btw, I can only agree to what most have already said
you need to make the shuriken button customizable btw

[v-rus]

I found another version of this, 'stuck in a wall bug'. If you perform the super death jump (run, jump off the wall, press x) and you're in a corner, Mr. Ninja will rise up a bit, and get trapped in the ceiling.

And I thought you would like to know, it's much easier to just run through each level than fight. It's also much easier to just keep pressing ctrl than to actually fight. I feel the super magic death attack is a little over-powered. It might be more balanced if you limit it, like have a powerbar you need to fill up (will the blood of your enemies!) or have it set on a timer.
That's just what I think, though.

[MekanikDestructiwKommando]

(also: Magma reference, awesome )

Hehe thanks. It's gonna be the name of my uh, is it studio? Whatever you call the name by which you publish your Indie games ^_^.

Ultim8Poo: Thanks for reading and responding to our feedback! Something else to think about.. should you be allowed to run past everyone? There's no real incentive to fight (you can only lose health), and no doors block you except in the Thunderdome area.

[ultim8p00]

Hey guys just here to post another test version. I have exams for the entirety of this week so I won't be able to make any progress on development. School's kind of a big deal I guess.

So here's a test version of the game that is less buggy. I really want to work out all of the bugs NOW before I proceed with development so I don't have too much stuff to deal with. 

You will notice that the filsize has gone down a little bit. It has gone from 7MB to 5.8MB. I haven't taken out any content; I actually added a little bit more. I did a little bit of optimization. I still have quite a few things to trim here and there, but I've been able to shave off 300MB of memory usage. The game required 500MB of memory before. Now it uses only around 200MB. If you want a comparison, Firefox uses 77MB of memory (press ctrl-alt-delete and check).

I'll need someone to confirm if the cloning bug is gone. That's what I tried to get rid of and so far, it hasn't popped up for me.

http://64digits.com/users/ultim8p00/NinjaOPT.zip

[MekanikDestructiwKommando]

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: Room Start
for object startmusic:

Failed to fade volume - QP song not loaded.

On entering the room right after the.. I think it's second room that White Ninjas are supposed to show up.



Ohhhh k. So I tried using ONE MOVE exclusively. I have never survived more then 20 seconds in the arena-style room before. This time I used EXCLUSIVELY the forward+attack 2 move in midair -- the one where you dash really fast and do tons of damage. I easily beat the demo with this, including the boss on my first try. It only took me one try to beat the game using a single move.. so I think it's overpowered . It's so fast, enemies usually don't react to it, and it covers such a distance as well. And it can kill a regular brown ninja in 2 attacks (4 hit combo of death). unbalanced! Hope you fix everything up

[Boder]

I got one dialog, but it let me continue.
___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 6
of Keyboard Event for C-key Key
for object Ninja:

Error in expression:nface.onit>0
 position 7: Unknown variable onit
___________________________________________


And I thought CTRL was the super secret move, the guy above is right that jump+AT2 is lethal and allowed me to beat the demo (rewarded by a black screen of hung).

[ultim8p00]

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: Room Start
for object startmusic:

Failed to fade volume - QP song not loaded.

On entering the room right after the.. I think it's second room that White Ninjas are supposed to show up.



Ohhhh k. So I tried using ONE MOVE exclusively. I have never survived more then 20 seconds in the arena-style room before. This time I used EXCLUSIVELY the forward+attack 2 move in midair -- the one where you dash really fast and do tons of damage. I easily beat the demo with this, including the boss on my first try. It only took me one try to beat the game using a single move.. so I think it's overpowered . It's so fast, enemies usually don't react to it, and it covers such a distance as well. And it can kill a regular brown ninja in 2 attacks (4 hit combo of death). unbalanced! Hope you fix everything up

Thanks. Didn't even think of that. Will work on it. By the way, when you got that error, was the music playing or not? And also, did you run into the cloning bug?

[MekanikDestructiwKommando]

Music wasn't playing
Didn't run into the cloning bug, but I only tried to use that one move. I'll give it another runthrough with button mashing and see if it turns up

Just thinking.. the game would probably be better if an attacks damage was proportional to its risk. So a move that came out very fast at medium range would do just a little bit of damage. A move that had the same range and attack speed but had a longer recovery, or less combo options afterwards, should do more damage.
It shouldn't be "perfectly" balanced, where each and every attack has a linear curve of risk/reward, but your different attack (and combo) options, should be much closer then they are.
Perhaps a distinction between attacks that can hurt a single or multiple enemies would help with combo choices as well (A low damage, multiple target move that stuns enemies? Use this when 3 enemies are in the air around you. Only one enemy? Use the powerful move that only hits once, can't be comboed out of, but stuns the enemy). That type of decision making will make the combo system be interesting instead of button-mashes or move-abuse.   

What program did you use for recording the demo level? I want to record myself beating my Nikujin protect the old man highscore (it's 175! who's done better?)

[Stij]

Yeah, this version runs WAY smoother.

Thoughts/ideas I had while playing:

• No ninja game is complete without stealth elements. It would be cool to sneak up behind an enemy and snap his neck.
• It's too easy to just run by enemies most of the time. Maybe if you spare an enemy's life, he'll appear later in the level as a renforcement? Might motivate people to not just dash through the level...
• On a related note, enemies need to be smarter when persuing you. Right now you can avoid them just by standing on a higher level.
• As mentioned before, more enemy variety. Guys with ranged attacks, like shurikens or bows, would be interesting.
• Another staple of ninja games: crazy platforming. Dodging traps, running up copious amounts of walls, etc.
• It would be nice to have a "stamina" bar that goes down when you attack. Powerful moves would use more stamina. This would help prevent spamming the same move over and over again.
• A list of all the different combos you can do would be nice.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry if I sound nitpicky, this is really an awesome game.

[ultim8p00]

Yeah, this version runs WAY smoother.

Thoughts/ideas I had while playing:

• No ninja game is complete without stealth elements. It would be cool to sneak up behind an enemy and snap his neck.
• It's too easy to just run by enemies most of the time. Maybe if you spare an enemy's life, he'll appear later in the level as a renforcement? Might motivate people to not just dash through the level...
• On a related note, enemies need to be smarter when persuing you. Right now you can avoid them just by standing on a higher level.
• As mentioned before, more enemy variety. Guys with ranged attacks, like shurikens or bows, would be interesting.
• Another staple of ninja games: crazy platforming. Dodging traps, running up copious amounts of walls, etc.
• It would be nice to have a "stamina" bar that goes down when you attack. Powerful moves would use more stamina. This would help prevent spamming the same move over and over again.
• A list of all the different combos you can do would be nice.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry if I sound nitpicky, this is really an awesome game.

Those are all some very interesting ideas. I especially like the one where if you skip an enemy, they come back to kick your ass. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make it so that when you skip an enemy, the enemy comes back during those "cluster f**k" momments as someone called them.

As for spamming attacks, like the FS technique, I have reduced their effectiveness by adding a nasty recovery frame that you can't cancel out of. New enemies will also punish it and the older enemies will try to block it or at least roll away. It is now most effective only in a combo. The Stamina bar sounds interesting.

Cool ideas. You are all welcomed to post some more if you got any.

[Boder]

What program did you use for recording the demo level? I want to record myself beating my Nikujin protect the old man highscore (it's 175! who's done better?)

I've been wondering too, what people use.

[ninebr34ker]

This game is pretty damn decent I've gotta say. Since people are adding ideas I figure I might add my 2 bits 2.
______
Ideas/

1. Cooperative and Versus multiplayer (This might be 1 of the only 2d indy games I've ever played that could stand on its on with some multiplayer)
2. Ninpo Meter (The ninpo is tweaked just right) but I'm thinking it'd be nice to limit it  a little so player don't just use ninpo every room.
3. I second the idea of making atleast the ninja stars key and ninpo key conifgurable
4. I'm not sure what your game engine limitations are but if your able to include gamepad support that'd be great. Even including joy2keyx and a batch file should do it.
5. thinking ahead when the game nears completion it might be nice to have other weapons availible. Seeing the first boss made me think that.

__________
Questions/
What game engine did you use to make this.

[MekanikDestructiwKommando]

Yeah, this version runs WAY smoother.

Thoughts/ideas I had while playing:

• No ninja game is complete without stealth elements. It would be cool to sneak up behind an enemy and snap his neck.
• It's too easy to just run by enemies most of the time. Maybe if you spare an enemy's life, he'll appear later in the level as a renforcement? Might motivate people to not just dash through the level...
• On a related note, enemies need to be smarter when persuing you. Right now you can avoid them just by standing on a higher level.
• As mentioned before, more enemy variety. Guys with ranged attacks, like shurikens or bows, would be interesting.
• Another staple of ninja games: crazy platforming. Dodging traps, running up copious amounts of walls, etc.
• It would be nice to have a "stamina" bar that goes down when you attack. Powerful moves would use more stamina. This would help prevent spamming the same move over and over again.
• A list of all the different combos you can do would be nice.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry if I sound nitpicky, this is really an awesome game.

Those are all some very interesting ideas. I especially like the one where if you skip an enemy, they come back to kick your ass. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make it so that when you skip an enemy, the enemy comes back during those "cluster f**k" momments as someone called them.

As for spamming attacks, like the FS technique, I have reduced their effectiveness by adding a nasty recovery frame that you can't cancel out of. New enemies will also punish it and the older enemies will try to block it or at least roll away. It is now most effective only in a combo. The Stamina bar sounds interesting.

Cool ideas. You are all welcomed to post some more if you got any.

Sweet, glad you're liking the input!
Stamina bar sounds perfect for the "spammable" moves. Maybe you can use moves with a stamina cost, but can only use them or/and cancel if yuo have stamina. Like 10 Staminia to use, 20 stamina to cancel out of. Something like that.
Ninpo needs tweaking. Every time I've played I can spam that tornado way too much!
What is FS technique.. forward+slash?

(ps i used hypercam to record my nikujin runs, but i never got it to record sound. anyone help?)