Aw shit, here it goes; the demo.

So uh, I don't really have anything to say here about stupid ideas or conway's game of life or anything. I will say that I have been enjoying all the stuff that hit the front page since the turn of the year, at least in the game category. Except the point and click games, I haven't been able to play those. For some reason I've always had an aversion to them, although I like the stuff Lilg does. I especially liked Score, I love those old style text games.

But that's beside the point. I haven't gotten much done, but if you want to play a really early version of my new game, you can play it here.

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/8f 68368d8a236d04ad9aa87266c3a6e3

I'm trying to put some effort into the small things, sound, ambiance. The game sounds a lot better when I don't compress the audio to shit, so later in production I'm going to mess around with that.

I don't need any complaints about what the characters say or the art or anything basically. I probably know all about it. I was thinking about doing another devblog with this game but that was stupid.

So yeah. You can blame those amazing backgrounds on JonBro.

Comments

Log in to Comment

Slint 2010-03-23 14:16:03

Plyed until the end. Pretty good, waiting for it.

BoMToons 2010-03-23 15:14:13

Too much talking up on top of the mountain, waiting for the dialogue to type itself out got annoying, make any keypress auto-fill in the rest or something. There, I criticized the talking even though you said not to.

Skeik 2010-03-23 15:14:13

Yeah, you didn't criticize the dialogue as much as the mechanic, which is fine. I'll add that in next time I get a chance to work on it. I have a friend who's a much better writer then me who's going to write out a majority of the dialogue, so hopefully we can make it so they aren't annoyingly long.

FrozenFire 2010-03-23 16:59:29

That was awesome, but I felt a little bored gameplay wise. I'm sure it picks up soon.

Also less practice targets plz

Skeik 2010-03-23 16:59:29

k, I dunno what to say. The puzzles will pick up tremendously once you get the fire arrows, I have a lot of plans of puzzles and such. I'm confused as to what I can do to make those first 10 screens more engrossing; gameplay wise. Other then having enemies, that's why I made the wolf.

And practice targets will be reduced, now that you said something :D

JonBro 2010-03-23 17:24:21

Ooh, I thought of an idea. The dialogue could be sped up by holding the mouse or a certain key on the keyboard.

Also I discovered a glitch. You can still go over the mountain without visiting the tunnel.

kungfumonkey8 2010-03-23 23:16:49

can't wait for this one.
i like archery platformers.
very impressed with the backgrounds and level design.
keep at it!

Kajenx 2010-03-23 23:34:55

I didn't think the talking on the top of the mountain was too long or at all confusing, but I didn't like the pauses as it typed itself out. Just have it type constantly for each window, and have a click fill it instantly. That's the formula all snes games used, and it works damn it! In a flash game, I think people are happier when they can just get into the game, then read later. You did that here, so don't worry about that.

As far as the gameplay goes, it feels a bit empty, but still enjoyable on the first play just to explore. I liked battling the dogs, but I wanted them to die with less kills (maybe 2?). Also, for landscape design, it's really important in a platformer for it to feel free flowing. People will often call this good controls, but it relies a lot more on level design. You want the player to be able to stay in constant motion if they time the jumps/falls right.

Some of your screens are quite repetitive in the actions a person has to do to pass them, and that's not so good. The perfect level design is a balance between repetition and variation. If you group actions it threes it makes for some really fun movement. Like three evenly spaced platforms and then a long jump, or three platforms up a chute you have to jump left/right/left to pass.

Lastly, never make a player wait for the mechanics. You want every gap and stair spaced so the player can aim for the perfect point to bounce off into the next jump. If a stair is too low to just hit at the top of the arc, and too high to skip over completely, the player has to wait for the character to fall before they can jump again and it feels like stuff is just in the way. You can give the player more control over the power of the jump to help this. It seems like your game does a bit, so that's good.

The main thing to go by is if anything feel like it's in the way, rather than the way itself.

...Hey, that's kinda zen... :3

Skeik 2010-03-23 23:34:55

That's also pretty interesting. I'll keep this in mind with the next screens I design, I'll also lower the health of the dogs to a point where their not too hard to put down.

But really, thanks for the feedback