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Andy Gainey

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game	Andy Gainey's comment
Dec 9 16:50:00		Castle of no escape	I was rather disoriented by not knowing what my HP was at any given time, nor how to interpret the "N at M" message when encountering enemies, nor exactly what events were happening as I moved into/out of rooms containing enemies. <br/> <br/>The way the UI for current floor was arranged top-to-bottom was also confusing, since up-stairs moved me down in the UI, rather than up, and down-stairs vice versa. The fact that a down stair on floor 1 went to floor 8 was surprising also (I should have paid attention to the game's title). Between that, the random teleports to arbitrary floors, and the frequency of difficult monsters even on the early floors, I had a hard time staying alive. Most of my deaths felt random, not due to my own mistakes. <br/> <br/>Edit: Ah, now I see that STR is essentially HP, and INT is like MP. Rather curious how one gets weaker as one gets damaged, and gets dumber as one uses magic. Finally managed to clean out the entire castle; was pretty easy, but only after getting lucky enough to find better equipment as a warrior.
Dec 9 16:59:00	9m 00s	S.E.A.L. SHARK	The physics of jumping was too frustrating. Couldn't reliably jump high, making the cat chase annoying.
Dec 9 17:13:00	14m 00s	American Football USA!	Really emphasizes what I've always said about football, that it's a turn-based strategy game (with real-time combat, though not part of this version). I like the concept. <br/> <br/>Would have appreciated seeing a little more indication of potential effects on screen when choosing between the three different play styles. With the timer always counting down, I didn't want to take time to refer back to the instructions. <br/> <br/>Kidney stones as an injury was hilarious, by the way.
Dec 9 17:25:00	12m 00s	ICE MAN	Too painfully difficult for me. But it was fascinatingly interesting how the arrangement forced the the eyes/brain to try to focus on two separate locations on the screen in a very counter-intuitive way. My neurons didn't want to cooperate, but I imagine they'd adapt given enough time. I'm curious if that could be adapted in any way to a practical improvement in hand/eye coordination or flexible reflexive thinking. <br/> <br/>Maybe I just need to first drown myself in caffeine before playing a game like this. The arrow indicators were immensely helpful UI element, but I apparently needed even more help than they provided. <br/> <br/>Perhaps starting off with a slower vertical avatar speed, and/or slower moving, more regular, or less dense obstacles, and then gradually making one or more of those variables harder over time, could help generate and maintain a state of flow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29
Dec 9 21:22:00	3h 57m	The Broken Seeing Glass	The woosh skill was an obnoxiously weak defensive maneuver, and jumping even with the jumping boots felt limited. The broken glass vision was an interesting concept to try out, and was implemented well technically, but it didn't really produce an engaging experience for me personally. Along with the limited defensive and avoidance capabilities, it made the experience just frustrating. Though it did effectively produce a mood of danger and near helplessness. I guess that's just not the mood I felt like experiencing right now.
Dec 9 21:39:00	17m 00s	Block Party EGOS	I needed three hands to play this game. One to rotate the piece, one to move the piece, and one to move the camera. It would have been nicer if piece rotation were tied to a mouse button. As it was, I just picked a spot on the screen and stayed there, not using the mouse at all. If a piece was on the far side of the play field (or worse, the left or right side), I just gave up trying, if I couldn't move the piece to the front of the my view quickly. Which was another difficulty: holding down an arrow key only moved the piece once, not repeatedly at the maximum rate. Made it annoying to try to move a piece to a region of the playfield that I wanted. <br/> <br/>But I only played this single player; it would likely have produced a more interesting experience in a multiplayer context. I imagine it could get pretty hectic with four people, which would have been a good opportunity for extra elements that would fit a high intensity and fast paced mood. <br/> <br/>One small note: I find it better to round the displayed time up rather than down, so that when there is only a fraction of a second remaining, the timer says "0:01", and the exact moment the timer actually reaches zero is also the exact moment that the display says "0:00".
Dec 9 21:54:00	15m 00s	Dr Blake and the Singular Screen	Physics were a little wonky, and the mechanics of the torch and harpoon didn't really lead to particularly interesting gameplay, but they didn't get in the way much either. <br/> <br/>The level design had some interesting elements in it. Collecting the bonus for example could only be done by backtracking, though one didn't have to use the slow harpoon to get back to the first zombie platform, which was a small nicety. Also the fact that zombies wouldn't always spawn above the same platform where they end up wandering caught me off guard a few times before I learned how to navigate the level safely. <br/> <br/>Not sure what the point of collecting loot is, other than to just do it, but I suppose the collection mechanic was at least implemented and tested well. Also not sure if there are a finite number of identical levels, or if it just goes on forever, increasing the level number. <br/> <br/>The voice acting was fun, and fit the music well. Could have benefited from some ambient zombie noises.
Dec 9 22:18:00	24m 00s	Whac-A-Fly	The hotspot on the swatter felt a little off. Like I had to aim with the the part where the handle connects to the swatter surface, rather than in the middle of the swatter square. <br/> <br/>An additional graphical touch you might try out would be to slightly alter the shade of green randomly for each bug splat, so that when they start to pile up, it really starts to look exceptionally disgusting. :-)
Dec 9 22:24:00	6m 00s	Witch v Hell	Hit boxes on zombies, graves, and energy balls seemed like they might be a little too large? <br/> <br/>The lantern on the house in the background also made it trickier for my brain to recognize the red energy balls as an actual gameplay element. They sort of just blended in with the background. Not sure what they came from either, but my movement was painfully slow when trying to avoid them.
Dec 9 22:34:00	10m 00s	Arena	The enemies were really cool and spooky looking. Might've been nice if the different types were visually distinguished from each other a bit more, though.
Dec 9 22:49:00	15m 00s	Warehouse Willy	The game seemed to end when I still had a second or two of time left. <br/> <br/>The forklift was a fun little addition, but there wasn't much for me to do other than to simply wait for it to pass. Maybe if I could have set the box I was hold doing at the top of the first ladder and grab another box while the forklift goes by, I could have felt like I was strategically optimizing my efficiency. <br/> <br/>When I tried to place a box into an invalid/overlapping spot in the truck, I would have preferred to just receive a small invalid style sound effect, leaving the box still under my position control. The message box made me think the game crashed for a moment. <br/> <br/>The physics of ladder climbing slowed me down quite a bit. Especially in the areas where the ladder passes through the floor, I would actually get stuck between the upper and lower edges of the floor too easily.
Dec 10 01:59:00	3h 10m	180° Past Pluto	Clever, simple mechanic. One of the frustrating aspects, however, was remembering if I needed to press up or down to reverse direction. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to remember, especially given the color of the player controlled point, but for some reason it was. I was frequently speeding up right at the moment I intended to reverse, because I was hitting the wrong direction. Maybe use another key to control reverse? Or a double down tap to invert direction, but maintain current speed?
Dec 10 02:11:00	12m 00s	MoonStar	Wasn't sure at first when I was actually doing damage to enemies, or which objects were actually capable of being damaged. Maybe a sound effect or some visual representation could have helped, such as a small flicker on the enemy when it gets damaged.
Dec 10 02:18:00	7m 00s	Flycursor	A game that insists on running in fullscreen, at a non-native resolution, and exits every time you die, even during the initial tutorial segment, is rather frustrating. <br/> <br/>Aside from that, I could have benefited by having some sort of visual indication of how close a block was to being considered "at the screen". Maybe if the blue walls had lines on them that were parallel to the edges of the screen, and the blocks cast shadows onto the walls, it would have been easier to know precisely when I needed the view to be at a certain location to catch a blue block.
Dec 10 02:38:00	20m 00s	Puissant	Was a little confused by the mechanics. I seemed to get more ants by attacking beetles, rather than by digging to pheromones. <br/> <br/>The game also became unbearably slow after around 125 ants. Around 1 to 2 FPS. It would occasionally and briefly speed up again, only to quickly drop back down to super slow frame rate. Judging by the events that happened when it would briefly speed up, such as worker ants digging to a designated pheromone spot, my hunch would be that it is pathfinding related.
Dec 10 02:45:00	7m 00s	Dots	Is there any strategy to this? It seems completely random as far as I can tell, with no reason for me to pick any one circle over any others.
Dec 10 02:57:00	12m 00s	Of Penguicode and Unimen	I see what you mean by ZettyMath. :-) I couldn't figure out how to reliably aim, so I just constantly tossed out entire walls of fish skeletons while moving up and down the screen until I got unlucky and a snowman spawned right on top of me.
Dec 10 03:07:00	10m 00s	Pieces	Controls were very difficult. Ground was very slippery, and acceleration was way too powerful for me to control, in the air or on the ground. Slopes made the slipperiness particularly hard to manage. <br/> <br/>The limited vision really was the least of my concerns, and didn't contribute a whole lot to my experience.
Dec 11 21:34:00	42h 27m	Unity Ascension	Not being able to see my health/ammo made it a little difficult to figure out what was going on, and a little frustrating when I ran out of ammo and then inevitably insta-died when I got hit trying to scramble for some of the flashy blocks that I thought might be ammo or health, but was unsure about. Had there been a life bar, counter, or something, I would have been able to immediately get relevant feedback every time I fired my gun, got hit, or picked up a flashy block, and could have quickly figured out the life:ammo relationship. <br/> <br/>I also wasn't quite sure what the numbers meant at the bottom of the screen, or on the respawn screen. But that might've been more clear if there were other players playing at the same time as me. <br/> <br/>The platform physics felt pretty good; glad to have the ability to drop down through a platform. I did sometimes have a bit of difficulty jumping sideways onto a higher platform; the horizontal distance was sometimes too much for the player's run speed. <br/> <br/>The player's hitbox felt a little off. There were a few times I got hit when I was expecting the bullet to miss me. I think this mostly occurred with vertically moving bullets that were passing to the left or right of the avatar's rectangular body. Is the hitbox still a square? Or a circle? But I was pleased to notice a short period of invincibility after getting hit. Adding a visual indication such as blinking/flashing a bit could be a nice touch for that state, too. <br/> <br/>I missed it at first, probably because I just took it for granted, but the hit particles were a really good touch!
Dec 11 21:43:00	9m 00s	Nowhere	It's like a two-button Guitar Hero of futility, set in the eXistenZ universe. Or at least I presume it's futile. Didn't have the patience to test it beyond twenty or thirty screens. I'm assuming the only way to win the game is to not play it. ;)
Dec 11 23:33:00	1h 50m	Tiny Adventure	Couldn't figure out how to drop stuff into my stash, so I was stuck with 8 items in my inventory and couldn't pick up what I presume were important or useful items. Also couldn't figure out what use certain items had, such as the skull or dagger-looking thing. <br/> <br/>The combat was tricky since I couldn't attack while moving, and all movement happened strictly on the grid. Might have been a bit less frustrating if my sword had an arc, so I could hit guys diagonally. <br/> <br/>The limited indoor vision was claustrophobic. Part of that might have simply been the small tile size, but even if it were of more ordinary size, I think the range of sight would have felt constraining. An explored fog of war might have removed most of the pain, though, since I was most frustrated by not remembering the layout of the map. <br/> <br/>There were a bunch of walls on the left side that weren't colliding with the player properly. I just walked into the room in the western forest without even having a key. <br/> <br/>The idea and execution had a lot going for it, and I spent some time trying to get used to the combat controls and explore the areas, but eventually got annoyed. I think the room in the forest with all the loot was the the point where I gave up, because I couldn't pick any of it up due to my full inventory.
Dec 12 19:23:00	19h 50m	fantastic thatha	I liked the moonwalking Santa; it made me smile. <br/> <br/>The fact that the gifts spawned from the <0,0> point of the Santa sprite made the far right chimney less appealing than the other two. Spawning the gifts from the horizontal center of the the Santa sprite would have been more balanced, especially given that Santa can face both directions.
Dec 12 19:32:00	9m 00s	Battle Planes	Controls were somewhat limiting and at times confusing. Making horizontal and vertical movement independent from each other would have been nice, and also allowed diagonal movement. As it was, holding down right, then also holding down up and subsequently releasing up while right is still held did not result in intuitive behavior. I first traveled right, then up (since the up key overrode the right key), and then continued going up even after letting up on the up key, but still holding right. <br/> <br/>Given the instant loss penalty for missing a plane, and missiles that go down/right, my strategy was to always head straight for the top left of the screen, firing guns and missiles simultaneously as fast as possible. Given the speed of my plane, the location of the enemy planes, and the timing of enemy bullets, I would often either get hit by a bullet on the way up, or not get up there in time to stop the highest enemy plane. Basically, there were plenty of opening game states that I felt I simply could not ever survive, making it feel unfair.
Dec 12 19:47:00	15m 00s	Hungry Farm	Hilarious. <br/> <br/>Got a little slow when there were lots of corpses on the screen, but that made the game easier, not more frustrating, so I didn't mind too much. <br/> <br/>I was hoping for and expecting a fourth upgrade, but I guess it didn't matter much since the fifth phase was the last. <br/> <br/>As for upgrades, I went with turret first, farmer speed second, and field size third, and that worked out pretty well; wasn't too hard. <br/> <br/>The variety of animals was fun. Especially since chickens had different behavior than the others. Animations and sound effects would very easily be capable of extending the humor further.
Dec 12 20:05:00	18m 00s	Faction War	Was there any player control at all? It's a really interesting AI/ALife simulation, but that seems to be about all it is at the current stage. I wanna know how I'd stack up against the AI. :-) I find myself also wanting a way to speed up the simulation.
Dec 12 21:38:00	1h 33m	Where's the F'in LEWT!?	The violence of the camera shake did a good job setting the mood. Now if only there were gameplay elements that made the player have to balance which enemy to attack and how to get the timing right. As it was, I just held the mouse button down and went crazy on every skull that appeared. And then got bored and went crazy on the walls. (It was a nice touch that beating the walls caused similarly violent camera shake.)
Dec 12 21:46:00	8m 00s	Drones & Dragons	After left clicking at the title screen, and after that screen faded, I was left with just a black screen, other than the three stats at the bottom. I would occasionally get a sound effect, but nothing visible. Eventually I got the game over screen. :-( Clicking didn't seem to accomplish anything judging from the sound effects. <br/> <br/>I was using the Windows version, on Windows 7. Only error message I saw was "libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile", but I'm guessing that's not the problem.
Dec 12 21:52:00	6m 00s	Gladarena	Pretty decent. The controls were satisfying, and the feedback when attacking was good. <br/> <br/>Would have liked to have seen a health indicator of some form, as well as perhaps a count-up timer and/or kill count in order to measure success from one game to the next.
Dec 12 22:26:00	34m 00s	Colony: Asteroid	Pretty cool little simulator. I wasn't sure at first if you had implemented any form of income, but I was happy when I saw the credits begin to accumulate. <br/> <br/>I couldn't figure out what the brown X icon was on houses. I presume the green was no food, and yellow no electricity, though I was also unclear how they eventually got food and electricity. I built solar panels and greenhouses, and eventually the icons went away, but the causal connection and timing was murky. <br/> <br/>The guys wandering the roads gave the colony a good lived in feeling, but were they actually doing anything? I couldn't tell. Also, did there different colors mean anything? <br/> <br/>Super-minor interface observation: Deselecting the active tool when left clicking on an invalid spot was unintuitive to me. If I made a trivial mistake clicking in the wrong spot, I had to then reselect the tool again to build in the intended spot.
Dec 12 22:32:00	6m 00s	Space Mechanic	Without a goal, without any meaningful decisions, without compelling feedback when completing (or failing to complete) the various tasks, and with the motion blur making it subtly annoying running around everywhere, I lost interest pretty quickly. The visuals (other than the motion blur) were good though.
Dec 12 22:41:00	9m 00s	Planet Defender	Wished my guns couldn't get downgraded after getting upgraded. Having triple lasers, and then accidentally flying over a single laser pickup was disappointing, but maybe that was intentional? If so, having them float around like asteroids might have made it seem more inline with the gameplay. Or maybe even better, getting hit while possessing three lasers would destroy one of the lasers.
Dec 25 16:06:00	305h 25m	Dodgeing	The controls were quite sluggish, and I couldn't figure out precisely what was causing the sudden changes of velocity. It didn't seem to be the orange balls, because sometimes I could be right next to them without being affected, and other times I'd fly away suddenly without any orange ball being near. The same with the rotating arrows. <br/> <br/>But overall, the use of all edges of the screen as the only loss condition and the use of physics to push you toward the edge might hold some gameplay potential. <br/> <br/>Any reason the platforms were practically the same color as the background? I didn't even realize there were platforms for the first few seconds of gameplay.
Dec 25 16:16:00	10m 00s	Viewport	The viewport was enough to get me thinking about possibilities, so that's might be a good sign. I know plenty of games have used the limited sight mechanic in dark areas, but it is usually either a circle around the player, or a cone starting at the player's location. It could be an interesting deviation to have the visible area be a region around the look-at target (probably controlled by the mouse position), and the actual area around the player could be blacked out, as in your prototype. That might make it more intense, as enemies could quite easily sneak up behind you while you're distracted with some action elsewhere. <br/> <br/>Actual flashlight physics could be used to light up the ground with an ellipse where the player is looking, and also light up the front of any enemies or other objects between the player and the look-at location, so that enemies couldn't approach from the front, while still keeping plenty of suspense due to risk of attack from behind.
Dec 25 16:59:00	43m 00s	The Condor	It wasn't bad, but the one thing that's stuck on my mind was how frustrating the visibility was when going from one room to another. I was getting shot at, but couldn't see into the next room and thus couldn't safely shoot back and risk killing a hostage. I couldn't even see the bullets coming at me in order to dodge them until I was actual in the next room. <br/> <br/>I tried with the pistol and the shotgun; I liked the notable difference in how they handled. I would have tried again with the machine gun, but I realized that given the visibility issue above, it is far safer to free as many hostages as possible through negotiation and go in with the pistol which is effective enough, than to go in with the ability to generate a whole ton of bullets quickly in a building filled with a bunch of hostages.