Little Scout

rokasv 2017-05-03 23:53

Starts sort of full-screen but not quite, making it partially hidden due to some offset. Music is very loud. Dropped down the bridge, got the intro message, thought "oh it's just like that cool flash game I played years ago" and then fell through the floor. Second time the same thing happened after the jumping prompt, but now the player also slid off the screen. Third time playing I made sure to use the sizing mechanics only when needed and absolutely necessary and managed to complete the whole thing.

Physics engines are a beast to control, but you either tame it ir not mess with it at all. Would play again.

yyam 2017-05-04 16:58

Nice game :) I liked the mechanic and theme. Also congrats for using your own engine. The gameplay felt a little clunky and hard to control though. With a bit more work, this could be a really great puzzle game!

unit684 2017-05-04 21:23

Good job, I like the mechanic and the art work. The spring was a nice idea, I wouldn't have thought of that one. I'd like to see some more levels to really show off what you can do with the size mechanic.

It did bug out a couple of times and I had to restart, a restart button would have been helpful! The first time I pressed W while in the first small tunnel and fell through the floor. The second time I was small and went under the spring, then couldn't jump afterwards, even when I'd turned big again.

Overall a nice game and I'm amazed you built your own engine! Well done :)

tex-killer 2017-05-04 21:31

Thank you all for playing! :D

@rokasv @unit684 I didn't have time to program restrictions on growing, so if you grow big while you're in a small passage bad things will happen. :P

If I develop a post-jam version I'll make sure to prevent the player from turning big where that shouldn't be possible.

icxon 2017-05-04 21:50

It was so short... But it's a good demo. I just wanted to play some more. Also had this bug with falling through walls, but I love the camera zoom in/out when the hero is changing, it just feels right.

What does your engine use for collisions/physics?

tex-killer 2017-05-04 22:41

Thank you for playing and for the feedback, @icxon !

For the physics simulation I use the Bullet Physics Library, as the icon at the ending screen suggests.

Can you tell me how to reproduce the "falling through walls" bug? Thank you very much!

izunah 2017-05-05 02:39

I was so sad when the game ended after jumping up on the spring. This was a really neat mechanic and I would have loved to have seen more of it. I really enjoyed the music and thought the art was relatively cohesive. Thanks for the game; if you ever expand the game I would love to play more.

smiling-cat-entertainment 2017-05-05 11:18

They always say leave them wanting more... I really enjoyed this despite its short duration. I wish there was more to play!

gurbx 2017-05-05 11:27

Cool idea, just which there was more to it. The game is holding your hand through everything there is and you don't get any opportunities to experiment and solve the puzzles your self. The concept has potential and I would love to see it get made to a proper game.

porcus-pie 2017-05-06 02:09

Pity that it stopped so early, I had just started to get a hang of the controls. The game feels kinda clunky at parts, but still manages to control decently. I think that might just be due to a wonky physics engine, especially with the spring. I did really like the graphics though, and the game was very cute and pleasing to look at. One problem that I did have was that when I first loaded it, it didn't actually come up, and I couldn't access it even if I clicked on it. I worked around this by using tablet mode on my laptop, but still kinda hard. However, besides all that. Great concept and I look forward to seeing if this develops any further

tex-killer 2017-05-06 02:14

Thank you all very much for playing and for the feedback! :D

@porcus-pie, could you tell me what OS are you on?

porcus-pie 2017-05-06 06:07

@tex-killer Windows 10, not sure what version but my guess is the latest

tex-killer 2017-05-06 06:16

@porcus-pie Thank you very much! I'll do some testing on Windows 10 to try and identify the problem and possible solutions. I'm on Windows 7 right now. :)

icxon 2017-05-06 15:46

@tex-killer, just take a look:

VG-LD38-79.gif

tex-killer 2017-05-06 15:53

Thanks @icxon, but I was already aware of this (falling through the floor). As I said before, I didn't have enough time to restrict the places where the player can grow (that should be enough to prevent this bug). I thought you had found a way to go through walls, not the floor. :P

Thank you very much anyway! :)

willowblade 2017-05-07 11:56

This game had a really good feel to it and a lot of potential! When the tutorial was over i wanted more! But alas.

I especially liked the animation and artsyle, the music fit the theme too.

You should continue this project, it's really fun. =)

mathiouza 2017-05-08 19:10

Neat game ! :)

Graphics are simple but really nice ! Too bad that there is juste the tutorial x) I really like the music. The idea you had is really good, but we do not see the link (for now) with the theme.

I hope you will continue to work on it, there is a really big potential in this game ! Do not give up !

samurai-spark 2017-05-09 10:41

Hey @Tex-Killer!

Really cool entry. I love art style even it's simple or maybe that's why. The gameplay feels nice and the shrinking element is something you don't see every day. Really liked that! Sadly the game is a bit short but as the others mentioned: There is a lot of potential, keep working on it! :grin:

Summary a nicely done game, good job :smile:

tex-killer 2017-05-09 12:57

Thank you all very much for playing and for the feedback! :)

diegoctorguet 2017-05-15 23:01

As I saw those Kenney assets I rushed into this game. Nice tutorial and good job. It has some good overall finnish and has the main parts of a game covered.

wildmusketeer 2017-05-16 06:18

Really great concept and take on the theme. The music and art fit pretty well together too! Just a shame that you ran out of time and couldn't get more than the tutorial. Would love to see more after the jam, if you decided to pursue the project! One nitpick is that the animation sometimes doesn't play when you walk, so the character would look like he's gliding across the floor.

bog13 2017-05-16 20:05

Nice principles but poor realisation : the gameplay is very nice and the graphical part is awesome but the game is too buggy. I would really like to play more than the tutorial ;-)

zyxer 2017-05-16 20:06

Really good game mechanic, I liked it a lot! Too bad the game ended so early. You should definitly build on this idea and make a whole game out of it! I also like that you not only thought of the mechanic, but also of what you could use it for (changing size while jumping, different weights on springs).

I got a few graphical glitches. From time to time vertical and horizontal lines would appear (texture edges?). I also got stuck once in the wall (or the game crashed) in the bottom left while trying to jump and change size while jumping.

But overall, well done! Looking forward to seeing more of the game! :)

tex-killer 2017-05-16 20:45

Thank you all for playing and for the feedback! :)

@wildmusketeer, I had already found that bug out, and I'll see if I can solve it. It appears to only happen when you start to jump but grow/shrink before the character leaves the ground from the jump.

@zyxer, do the lines appear while you're changing or are they always there? Do they appear on both sizes? Thank you very much for the feedback!

zyxer 2017-05-18 19:34

Thank you for playing my game! :)

So I played your game again to find the bug: I first just played the game in the normal window size and got one very short flash of a line (while changing size). Then I maximized the window and got the lines nearly all the time, this is how it looks like: http://zyxer.net/little_scout_line_bug.jpg

I found another bug (could be the same as when I thought I got stuck in the wall the last time I played): I sometimes get stuck in the jumping animation. Even if I'm standing on the ground. The sprite stays with the open mouth and I can only move very slowly. (Perhaps a floating-point error?)

Haha and just found yet another bug while writing this comment: if you get bigger in the bottom of the map to the left of the tunnel, you fall through the world:

little_scout_oooo.jpg *Nooooooooooooh....* :D

(edit: I just saw that icxon found the same bug)

tex-killer 2017-05-18 19:49

@zyxer, I think everyone found that last bug... hahaha

I believe the "stuck in jump" bug is the same as the one @wildmusketeer reported, and can be reproduced by jumping and growing/shrinking before the character leaves the ground from the jump. I'll fix it when I have some time. :)

I messed with the window resolution a lot here (including maximizing the window), but I could not reproduce the "line bug". I guess it is tied to both the window resolution and the hardware/drivers somehow, because my screen's resolution is the same as yours, and I could not make it happen here.

Again, thank you very much for playing and for the valuable feedback! :)

furiouswitch 2017-05-19 04:23

Great game and the mechanics are pretty neat. There is a bug that appeared on my machine only I think which is that the character is simply a white rectangle. I actually thought at first that the file is corrupted but then I tried to move and it moved. I played the whole level with the rectangle and it was fun though. I found there was an actual character when I came here to comment :D Good work :)

tex-killer 2017-05-19 04:29

Thank you very much for playing and for your feedback, @furiouswitch ! :D

Can you tell me what is the model of the graphics card you are using? I'm pretty sure the white box character happened because of the graphics card's limitations, since the character sprite sheet is the biggest image in the game (6696x387), although I really haven't seen that happen yet.

**Edit:** I talked to @furiouswitch at her game's page, and it seems to be an integrated graphics card. Using another graphics card she was able to see the character, and she also said the sound had improved, so I might do some testing with low-end graphics cards in the future to avoid these issues.

juju-adams 2017-05-19 20:30

Game is pretty cute, it's a little short though! The idea is very fun, but controls are a bit wonky, would be nice to see a longer version of this one, keep up the good work ♥

tex-killer 2017-05-21 03:43

Last but not least, thank you too, @juju-adams, for playing and for leaving feedback! :)