baknik 2017-12-04 04:17
I couldn't figure out how to run it?
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → RedCell
By kkneville
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 659 | 2.50 | 40 | |
| Fun | 646 | 2.39 | 40 | |
| Innovation | 672 | 1.88 | 40 | |
| Theme | 669 | 2.10 | 40 | |
| Graphics | 539 | 2.74 | 41 | |
| Audio | 505 | 1.39 | 26 | |
| Humor | 517 | 1.95 | 32 | |
| Mood | 610 | 2.19 | 35 |
I couldn't figure out how to run it?
A link to where it's hosted is up now, sorry!
I like the game. It was a little klunky moving the character but once I got the hang of it it was ok. I couldn't complete the game though as I kept on dying in the middle of a jump.
The game is alright, but it needs more explanation. I know I'm supposed to pop the bubbles and avoid the green stuff, but what about the blue stuff? Should I avoid it? Should I try to go through it? Also, the green stuff killed me when I jumped underneath it, but wasn't even very close to it (certainly not touching).
Overall, I like the concept. It's simple, sure, but that doesn't stop it from being fun. If the goals and aims were more clear, and if there was some audio, and maybe some enemies or other obstacles - I could see this being a really fun game.
Physics are strange, but interesting. It's really hard but in a fun way.
That character is adorable! The controls are kind of clunky and some of the hitbox seems off (going under the green water kills you, even if you don't touch it). Also I'm not quite sure what does the blue water do. It's a great attempt for your first game though! :)
I love the death animation!
Update: bug fix is in for dying without touching the green stuff!
Thank you all for your comments!
Jumping is very floaty, it would probably feel better if there was a bit more speed to the decline. Not entirely sure how the game fits the theme. The main character is very charming though and has a nice bounce when they land.
Simple sounds would have helped, but the game is very nice.
Unfortunately sometimes I still died without touching the green stuff :(
PS: the main character is lovely
Cute character, I love it!
Jumping was weird, when I'm holding the jump button, but it's no longer doing anything, it seems to block the horizontal movement, which was really annoying. I guess just tapping the jump button and then moving horizontally worked okay, but whenever I held jump, it felt really awkward.
Good job for your first entry!
Thanks for the feedback - and duly noted on the controls. I definitely think more carefully calibrated controls and physics would help.
I look forward to figuring out music for next time!
And I'm so pleased that people like my little character, I'm quite fond of her after spending all weekend hanging out with her.
Thanks for playing!
I couldn't understand how picking up the bubbles was making things more difficult for me.
I agree with what people are saying the jumping wasn't feeling quite alright
Last but not least, I really like the character. Poor little redeye having to do all work by herself.
thanks for the feed back!
Good job on your first game! The red blood cell is absolutely adorable. As others have said, a tiny dash of sound would really elevate the game. You might want to check out [sfxr](http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html) to make sound effects in virtually no time at all next time. :)
Great first effort! I like the character!
The character is really cute, including the animations you done for them! Jumping was a bit odd at first, but I quickly got the hang of it and managed to finish the level, so it wasn't a big problem at all. :) The overall concept is fun, too!
I think everything which could be approved a little has already been meantioned by others, so I can't really add anything new there. Sounds would be neat, and maybe try making the connection to the theme a bit clearer to the player.
Especially when keeping in mind you just started learning JS a few months ago, you did a really good job!
The game looks awesome but I find the controls a little stiff Congrats on the entry!
I want to encourage you, even though you said you learned recently, what you built is really smooth. The character as well. Cool start, keep it up
Thank you so much for the feedback and encouragement!
Really love the graphics and the jump, but controls don't seem to allow jumping and moving making it hard to get over the pits
Super cute character.
Some sound could have improved the feel. Overall nice
Really cool concept and character design! Needs some sound and fixing on the physics, but its really curious. What I think it's that some mechanic that makes the player urge the necessity to go up and accomplish the game's objective would be needed in these cases. But, over all, it's a really nice start!
Really nice job on the character and bubble graphics! The collision was a bit buggy for me - I fell through the solid platforms from time to time, especially when moving quickly. Also, adding some sound/music would really improve help. Keep up the JS learning; I look forward to seeing the next iteration in LD41!
Congratulations on your first game! I have two small suggestions to help improve it if you desire to pursue working on games. First off there is some odd collision detection on the lymphatic elements, causing you to die sometimes when on a gray platform. An easy way to detect that is to drow to the right from the first platform and walk towards the left edge of the platform, you'll die before reaching the green. I'm guessing the collision bounds of the player sink slightly lower than the platform due to gravity and then you push it back up when you detect collision with the background. If that is the case, testing for background collision and moving the player up before detecting if they hit the trap should fix this.
Second, jumping is very stiff. You need to jump straight up then fall in the direction to want to go to get from platform to platform. Allowing a jump arc would be much more natural. You can probably find a document on how jumps are implemented in super mario brothers to get the exact algorithms used as that would be a good starting place for "fun" jumping mechanics.
I'm pretty bad at platformers so I found the jumping particularly difficult. I also didn't quite understand the purpose of the lymphatic blocks since they behaved like open space. Maybe making them subtly different would be interesting? E.g. What if it's possible to walk across the lymph blocks, but not land on them from a jump?
The concept is fine. Probably the controls and collisions could be better, to make the movement and jumps feel better. Good job, anyway.
This is a very good first try for a game. Good job for finishing it as well! So here are some issues. 1. You can't jump diagonally, it makes the controls feel like stuck if you get what I mean.
2. The blue platforms are generally kinda useless if you think about it, if they cant be stepped on and don't serve any other purpose, there should be no reason to put it in imo.
3. The bounce effect when you hit the ground is nice but it prevents you from jumping immediately, it kinda makes the game feel clunky so I don't think it should affect the movement.
4. Sometimes when you hit the ground next to a green tile, you die anyway. It is pretty misleading.
5. Sounds would be a great addition to this game
The art is pretty adorable so again good job and hope you keep making more games :D
Thank you all so much for the feedback and support. The big takeaway for me on this has been the need for more careful level design, play-testing, and calibration of physics and controls, which makes sense considering I spent 75% of the weekend figuring out how to make key features work, and only built the actual full tilemap nearer to the end. Also, next time I'll do better with sticking to the theme, haha! Without a lot of experience playing, much less building, platformers, I really needed all this constructive feedback. Many thanks to everyone who played RedCell, left ratings, or took the time to leave me thoughtful comments. You're the best!
The other commentators have mentioned a 'stiff' jump. I think that may be because it doesn't register more than one key at a time?
(Also you mentioned fixing a bug that should prevent players from dying when touching green, but there's still a spot that I die sometimes when I'm not in it.)
A fine effort for a first time. Keep up the good work! :slight_smile:
Not bad for a first attempt! I like the charming graphics and the character animation.
Some thoughts:
As others have mentioned: The movement is a bit off. Normally you would expect your horizontal motion to remain in place when you jump. Depending on your programming language, you can fix this by querying all keys that are pressed down in the current frame. If the right key is down, move your character x pixels to the right, no matter whether a different key has been pressed. That way you can register a jump (jump key pressed + character standing on the floor) and keep moving at the same time.
When you land, there is this cute step animation. However this breaks the game flow a bit because the player has to wait until the animation ends. An improved version of this would be to keep the step animation, but allow the player to jump as soon as the character lands (even if the animation is still playing). You may need to stop playing the animation upon jumping if it looks weird.
Visually, I think the difference between the harmless water and the acid wasn't clear enough. It became obvious once I tried it, but these things should be communicated visually (I have trouble with this as well).
I thought the collision with the acid was a bit too harsh, as I died numerous times when I thought there was still enough space. Professional game designers use all kinds of tricks to make the game more fun even if it goes in favor of the player and against the game rules (see this awesome article: https://kotaku.com/game-developers-explain-some-of-their-favorite-ways-to-1798749279). Things like Coyote Time are a brilliant way to make a game more fun, even if the player doesn't actively notice it's there.
About audio, I would encourage you to look into bfxr to create some simple sound effects. That's basically what everyone is using. Sound effects give your game a lot of depth and are very easy to generate. If you want to get into writing music but have little experience I would recommend Bosca Ceoil. It's fairly simple to use and a good place to start.
Despite all the criticism, I think you are on a good path. Don't be discouraged when the ratings come in. Usually the comments are more positive than the numbers and many first-timers are surprised and frustrated when the two don't match.
Keep up the good work!