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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | ShaunJS's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 8 12:33:00 | BEARPG | Hey dude! First off, congratz on finishing a game! <br/> <br/>I think there are a lot of ideas here that didn't get fully realized. For example, you play with two attack buttons but the attacks themselves don't appear to be different (other than the kick seems slightly longer ranged?) I had no reason to use a button other than the kick! I get the feeling the main reason for these two attacks instead of one was to allow for button combinations for your special attacks? <br/> <br/>Your increasing strength over time works reasonably well, but the difficulty doesn't scale to match. <br/> <br/>The controls for me felt very unresponsive, perhaps it was my machine's fault but sometimes attacks and movement simply weren't registered by my key presses, which is pretty essential in this sort of game. If you were to do more to this game I would work on this first and foremost and after that, I think there are some cool ideas that you could run with here but it would be good to pick perhaps just one of them, cut away on the others and make the game feel more focused and polished on one area. Perhaps the combat, perhaps the special attacks, perhaps the RPG element. <br/> <br/>But either way, good stuff! | |
| Dec 8 14:44:00 | 2h 11m | TMO | Haha! I really liked this one. <br/> <br/>I think you did a good job of communicating your main idea well. This core idea of the "MMO simulator" comes across well and nothing in the game feels wasted or extraneous. <br/> <br/>I actually thought I was doing quite well until I suddenly game overed, it took me re-reading the instructions to realize my rating must have hit zero! I found it difficult to notice much was 'going wrong' except ofcourse but these are just minor feedback concerns. <br/> <br/>Honestly most things I'd be critical of come down to the UI. Without being able to delete or sell rooms, not knowing how large or what shape a room is going to be until you place it for the first time can cause issues. Something like a highlight of the grid to show where a building would appear is a good idea, especially for when the player hasn't gotten used to the whole "builds from the cell, up and to the right" idea yet. I misplaced a few buildings even when I knew! <br/> <br/>I know this was a 'one screen game' but I'd be interested to see what this game would be like if it scaled infinitely. If you could scroll and literally keep placing buildings forever in increasing monster levels and building costs. Right now with the goal as it is, the game quickly hits a "well that's it" point. I almost feel this sort of game is better suited to 'getting as far as you possibly can' (and I think by including the option to continue after finishing, you probably feel this way too!) <br/> <br/>I think this concept could go a long way pretty easily, congratulations on making it! |
| Dec 8 15:21:00 | 37m 00s | Key Point | Classic platforming is always cool. There's some clever misdirection going on here with how the keys are in different rooms requiring a slightly non-linear approach to the 'levels'. <br/> <br/>The collisions are a little imperfect and the controls feel slightly rough and I think when you make a game in this style these are things you really need to have nailed above all else. Pixel perfect collisions and a smoother jump arc would definitely improve things! <br/> <br/>This aside there are some slightly awkward areas in the level design. Many seemingly unplanned low ceilings in areas that make jumps particularly unforgiving, but perhaps this was desired. The game also requires a significant amount of backtracking at times and re completing areas you have already passed. <br/> <br/>Be careful of instant respawn on death. The benefit of a death animation or brief pause is not just aesthetic, it gives the player a chance to see exactly what mistake they made, whereas if a player just snaps to a respawn point the transition can seem very jarring and confusing, as it takes the player a moment to realize that they died, and how they died. <br/> <br/>Overall I think it's a solid use of the theme and all round strong attempt! Gratz on making it! |
| Dec 8 16:39:00 | 1h 18m | Hidden Village | Hey man, congratulations on entering! <br/> <br/>I can't lie, it took a lot of time for me to work out what to do. Despite quite lengthy instructions they still didn't sufficiently answer the myriad of questions I had about how the game worked. <br/> <br/>I think 'Skills' was an odd choice of word for what appeared to be something akin to 'Elements'? It wasn't until I saw your skill matrix on this page did I get the idea of what these things were about. <br/> <br/>I think there's quite a large number of these skills! It's very hard to remember in your head what-beats-what where the only relationships you have to go on are colours and very similar symbols. Elements often work because of intuitive relationships (Fire beats water, and so on) other than color "opposites" it's very hard to keep an idea of the skill relationships in your head with so many to track. <br/> <br/>I unfortunately gave up on trying to understand the "Attacks" I tried very hard to understand what the formulas represented and while I could see the multipliers from relationships taking effect, I had no idea how to decide what would fight against what, whether there was any random chance involved or just what was happening in general. It seems like a shame because it appears a lot of time and thought was put into this system but it is very unclear to a new player. <br/> <br/>That all said I like the concept of procedurally making continuous interesting "yes or no" choices based on resources, risk/reward, pros/cons etc. It's a similar flow to games like FTL and some elements of Civ. I definitely think the idea has a lot of potential, the main issue is just that the game can be a bit of an informational brick wall! The ideas underneath seem like they have a lot of merit it's just very difficult to approach. <br/> <br/>Hope that was useful / not too harsh sounding! <br/>-S |
| Dec 8 21:54:00 | 5h 15m | Pixel Peon | I escaped! One of my stream viewers worked out how to get the 'ending', I presume otherwise the game goes on forever? <br/> <br/>This whole quietly embedded 'ending' (trying not to spoil anything for others) is my favourite part of the game. I think you were quite brave to be so implicit about it and never really explicitly expose it. It's risky because I think without it the game isn't nearly as interesting, and many players may miss it, but I think you handled it the right way. <br/> <br/>The game itself is a neat little idea, I like the concept, the narrative, etc. It's simple, but it's everything it needs to be. There's a neat thought excercise in efficiency when deciding where and when to move but it felt generally quite easy to not be too inefficient which made solving stuff not feel as satisfying as it perhaps could have been. The difficulty reaches a point where I feel like the game is just deciding it's time for you to lose rather than it feeling like I'm performing badly. It's hard to explain. <br/> <br/>I think the controls and player movement have some room for refinement, I can see how the slow acceleration would play into the theme of planning your movement but I feel it generally worsens the feel of play. <br/> <br/>Overall though I think it's very cool, thank you for making it! |
| Dec 9 03:08:00 | 5h 14m | Robo Pusher | Sorry if I sounded harsh on stream! <br/> <br/>Keep making games man, this was a great effort! The graphics especially are strong! |
| Dec 10 17:44:00 | 38h 36m | One Killer - One Window | This caught my eye! I liked the look of the screenshots and concept so I wanted to check it out. <br/> <br/>Cool use of the theme! It took me a while to really try and work out 'how to play' and what was going on and what string of logic I needed to use to work out who the killer was. I spent a lot of the game early on paying attention to the text that seemed mostly unhelpful compared to where each person was at any point. I think some of the not-great english hurts the game a little as some lines are difficult to read or understand. <br/> <br/>I noticed time could suddenly pass an hour even if I didn't click on a window which was very surprising given the timer moves in smaller increments by itself. The sudden loss of an hour while I was trying to work out "who was where" was a bit jarring. <br/> <br/>Overall though I think the idea is pretty cool and could go a long way with some general polish and cleaner presentation. <br/> <br/>Good job on making it! |