Feedback Friday #113 - May 15-18, 2020

It's Feedback Friday time again!

Want free design feedback for your work in progress project?

Then you've found the right thread! Feedback Friday runs from Friday to Monday every week.

What To Show

• Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play > everything else
• How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)
• Post a link to a playable game, preferably WebGL. If you don't have a playable game, post something substantial, not just text.

How To Ask For Feedback

• Be concise.
• Specify what you want feedback on and what you don't.
• Resist the urge to write an immediate defense. Take the time to understand their points. Remember that your friends here are taking time out of their busy schedules to help you for free.

How To Give Feedback

• Be positive. There's something of value in every game.
• Focus on the design, not the designer.

Feedback Friday #112 is here.

 

This week I worked on white boxing the first level of my game. Care to give me feedback on the game and level design?
Press ESC to change mouse sensitivity (some reason webGL mouse sensitivity is way higher than what is found in the editor)
https://jacobedie.itch.io/swinging-man

Some things I want to know are:

• Is the game/level fun?
• How far did you get till you lost interest?
  
• was the difficulty and pacing good?
• Did you have any criticisms of the game?

I am a complete beginner when it comes to level design so general tips are appreciated.

 

@jak6jak ,

I couldn't get past the first area after dropping down the big hole. I think I need to overswing to get over the obstacle but I can't figure out how. Was easy until that point, so maybe you need to gradually introduce us to some concepts we are missing before giving a death wall.

Is it fun? It could be but I don't think the format is quite right - it's a game about joy of movement but we are moving from one tough puzzle to another like an obstacle course. Rather than focusing on precision, I think it should focus on fast decision making. Less of a puzzler and more like a racing game. That's just my opinion though.

I think I could handle a solid 10-30 minutes of consequence free training zone before being introduced to any "learn through repeated failure" areas.


Additionally, I think it would play better as third person and make use of wider FOV. Also, don't require click and hold for the gun, toggle would be better (or at least have that be an option)

One thing I forogt - there is a restriction to upwards rotation which adds annoyance.

 

I think it can work as a puzzle game if you really embrace the puzzle aspect of navigating the level. I got stuck at the same place, BTW. After swinging up onto the yellow wall, it wasn't apparent how to get past the higher purple wall.

First person works for me. And this is the ideal kind of game to white box well into development, so it's great that you avoided the temptation to add art too early.

 

I wanted it to be a platformer. I guess I really need to work on a tutorial because I guess it is a puzzle if you don't know your full move set. You are able to get past the wall if you build your momentum enough and launch yourself. Thank you for taking the time to play my game!

 

It has a bit of a Spiderman vibe, although I suppose it could have something of a modern Pitfall Harry thing if you went that way.

 

The concept is fun. Clear gameplay focus and a unique locomotion mechanic is great. Keep at it!

The mouselook implementation needs a lot of work. It is too smoothed, too inconsistent in speed and when I move the mouse very slowly there is zero movement ingame. I recommend not using any smoothing (or at least making it optional and less intense), putting the mouselook code in update, and scaling the mouseDelta movement by the sensitivity AND the timeDelta. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

First person perspective works fine for me.

I got to the long drop and then got stuck. Took me a while to figure out I need to build momentum to get over the next obstacle. I was able to do that by exploiting a bug in your movement mechanics: when you hang on the first obstacle you can strafe sideways and "circlestrafe" to build a lot of momentum without actually "swinging". That's very unrealistic but it was the only way for me to get enough momentum to make it past the first obstacle wall. I roped to the second blue thing, didn't have enough momentum to go past the next obstacle, and on the swing back I hit the side of the first obstacle and was reset back to the checkpoint. This was where I gave up. I think this ramp up in difficulty was waaaay too steep. Imho you need to first create an obstacle where you learn how to catapult yourself with momentum over something that is easy to do, then one that is slightly harder, and then you can start with one that is slightly easier again but requires you to perform another action right away after the first challenge of the puzzle. Think in terms of "skill atoms", and build your level design around recombining and gradually adding new "skill atoms" to the players repertoire one at a time. It helps both with maintaining interest and keeping the difficulty curve reasonable.

E.g. you could try introducing the momentum mechanic by placing a big blue anchor after a downward drop that forces downward momentum on the player, put the red obstacle as the floor and make the safe ground to land on slightly higher than the red one, so that you can easily redirect your momentum from the fall via the rope and anchor to propell you foward and upward over the obstacle.

Teaching this may have been your intention with the first obstacles, but you can actually get over everything before the drop by just swinging around and letting go over safe ground. I roped straight to the second anchor at the very beginning.

The implementation of how you can steer during free fall feels to me like it would need to be less momentum based to be able to reliably hit small plattforms.

It bothered me a lot that you can't jump with space.

 

I really like it, i got to the purple block but could not get past that.

The first block is bit strange because you have to go backward and swing sideways to complete.

I think for the first blocks is best to keep it simple and intuitive then increase difficulty.

 

https://unit-dev123.itch.io/cars

Hello dear friends would like feedback on gameplay.

xbox controller:
joystick is left and right, 'a' is accelerate, 'b' is break


Keyboard controls.

'a' is left
'd' is right

LMC = accelerate [left mouse click]
RMC = break [right mouse click]

This will eventually be for my game here

https://forum.unity.com/threads/wip-racing-game.872326/

Many thanks

 

Thank you for the insightful feedback! I will try and implement "skill atoms" into my core design when I rework this level. When first creating the level I thought the first section was too easy and wanted to quickly get to the difficult challenges. I now see the challenge of getting over that wall was more frustrating than I anticipated. Hopefully next time more people will enjoy the game enough to make it past the first quarter of the level!

 

I played with keyboard and mouse and found it enjoyable. As for controlling the car it seemed quite natural, until around 70mph where I would lose control and then crash. I do not play many driving games so this might be because I am bad. The only real complaint I have is that the smoke lingers for too long and can make it a bit hard to see.

 

@unit_dev123 - Can you make a WebGL build?

 

Hey guys saw this thread in the corner of my eye amidst the hubbub about the Unreal tech demo in the general forum.

Feedback would be great on my project, web build here:
https://illtemperedtuna.itch.io/the-seacrit-fish-game
(Gamepad or Mouse)

About my game: It's an underwater roguelight, just got the shop system in specifically for this thread, it was a good motivator to try to get a new system in and get feedback on it. Let me know if the shop mechanics and ability unlocks make sense guys. Also any and all feedback about the fish game is welcome.

Feedback:
@jak6jak
The game could really use a jump. I felt like the game relied too much on gaining extra speed after latching your rope, if the player could just jump, latch and reach the next area it would feel a bit better. I also feel the targets could have a larger target than their visible collision to do a check to see if your rope latches as it felt a bit like an FPS having to actually hit the target with a raycast.

@unit_dev123
Solid game, everything seems to be going towards being a solid racing game, sounds kind of abruptly pop in. W and S working as accelerate and break would have been nice. My main question would be, "What is unique about your game?" What's going to set it apart?

Thanks for everyone's time.

 

@IllTemperedTunas - The game looks really great. I played with gamepad, and it controls well, too. Movement is fun. I enjoyed even simple little things like arcing up above the surface of the water and back in. The gameplay and presentation lend themselves very well to the cute art and characters.

The shop mechanics and upgrades were fine, just what I expected. The big open space at the back of the shop is intriguing; I wonder what you plan to put there in the future.

The text, while cute, could use some spell checking and proofing. However, I'd save that until later. There's just a lot of text. Far too much for me to get through. Can you pare it down to perhaps 1/10th as much text or less? You might need to spread things out more and add more interactive bits to teach the player by doing instead of by reading.

That said, the way you present the text in-world really works for me. It feels natural. I can swim by each instruction and take however long I want to read it.

 

@IllTemperedTunas ,

plenty of good things to say about this game. I'll only type my critical thoughts though for brevity:

it's hard to tell what is happening in the midst of combat, am I recieving damage or dealing damage?

hard to differentiate between friendly fish and foe (they are all cute and friendly looking)

 

Right on, TonyLi thanks for the feedback. I'm very glad the controls and shop elements make sense for you any most everything seems to "fit".

I will definitely take the time to scale the text down and do a spelling pass. Noted.

 

Ah good points. I will try to think of ways to make friendly fish more obvious, I hadn't thought about that. If you guys have any thoughts on how to better show when you are dealing or receiving damage, pls let me know.

 

@IllTemperedTunas I gave the game a try for about half an hour. Initial impressions:

The game is pretty. The various elements work well together. I also had fun playing the demo, even if I wasn't always sure what was going on. I ended up playing longer than I'd intended, so clearly there is fun in the game.

The fighting was enjoyable. I suck at the special attacks, but that's fairly normal for me when it comes to such games. I would need a lot more practice, which I would expect as this is not the typical type of fighting game I play.

It was mostly obvious to me who I was hurting and how much damage I did. The health bars were usually enough for me to know who to target to finish them off, but sometimes felt like they faded from view too fast.

I had no clue if I was taking damage other than by seeing the enemies make attacks at me. I don't know if the damage number were maybe just not obvious enough or if I was missing them in the chaos of all the fighting. I mostly just kept glancing down at my health bar.

One of the projectile firing enemies managed to knock me out of the water, which really amused me.

Mouse controls are a bit wonky. I did not feel like I had proper control of my character a lot of times.

As part of this, I accidentally entered the shop twice trying to swim past it. On the first entry, I wasn't sure what was going on and managed to buy something (I'm not entirely sure what) while still holding down the mouse button from swimming outside. It took me a while to realize I did not have to hold down the mouse button to swim. Might be more obvious to other people.

NPC dialog was mostly wasted on me because it kept leaving the screen before I finished reading it. I may have been accidentally cycling through it as I was initially holding the mouse button down to swim.

At the same time, the NPC dialog covered entirely too much of the screen. I was still moving around, yet I could not see where my character was going or seem to be able to stop to read. I ran into some later NPCs, one of whom babbled some movie pun, and I was in the middle of battle when suddenly the screen was mostly covered by dialog.

When fighting, I kept having this flash of text on the side. Some kind of list of kills I've made perhaps? It vanished too fast for me to read it or put it to use.

I completely missed the tutorial area to the left my first time through. I went back to the start area hoping one of the NPCs explained the controls. I think the tutorial opportunity should be more obvious.

Overall, the game is looking solid. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

 

@Socrates Thanks, this is helpful. These are the things i'm going to try to get in the next build:
Explain how the text on the left works and what it is. (and maybe figure out a better way of fading it in and out, currently it happens when you are still and not engaging with anything)
Increase the time to fade on NPC health bars
Full screen flash of red when you are damage to make it more obvious
Tone down wonky backwards movement when charging attacks on the initial shark fish
Scale down NPC dialogue size, maybe frame it in a more standard text box
Make a very clear "TUTORIAL" sign at the start to entice the player.

Adding all this to my To DO list, thanks again Socrates and everyone else for all this feedback!

 

Don't make the font any smaller. It won't be readable. I recommend just finding ways to cut 90% of the text and/or space it out better so the player isn't ever hit with a wall of text. Maybe try to limit each text presentation to 140 characters.

 

Plan updated
https://media.giphy.com/media/dykJfX4dbM0Vy/200.gif

 

No time for a detailed look right now, but I just wanted to say these chubby fishes are absolutely adorable!
Visually I think the game needs better separation between functional game elements and purely decorative elements. The backgrounds are very saturated and about the same contrast range as the foreground elements. I would recommend to make everything decorative in the background a bit more blueish and use more saturated colors for gameplay elements.

 

They are some cute little buggers, if a tad foul mouthed. The background elements being confused with foreground has definitely been an issue that i keep forgetting to address, I've added it to the list, thanks for this feedback. I'll try to up the fog and make it more clear what's actionable and what's not.

 

Good discussions! This Feedback Friday is coming to an end. Join us next Friday if you'd like feedback on your projects!

 

Please make a setting to turn this off or at least move it to just the edges. There are those of us who can't play video games with lots of flashes, especially full screen flashes. (Same with screen shake, head bob, and some other things along those lines.) There will be a portion of your potential audience who will appreciate you thinking of them.

 

Tried as best I could to incorporate all the feedback:
https://illtemperedtuna.itch.io/the-seacrit-fish-game
@Socrates Let me know if the red flash is too intense, if so i'll either tone it down or make it toggleable based on your feedback. It is only on the edges but it is a little intense.


Changelog

==============================================

Full screen flash of red when you are damage to make it more obvious what’s going on in combat

I’ve rewritten most all fish dialogue be more to the point.

Revamp of dialogue system (classic RPG text bubble)

Added hidden collision around npc fish so you can’t be knocked around while talking as well as more cover to NPC fish to make it more obvious they are not enemies

Changed font, hopefully easier to read (I also get lower case now)

I have made it so upgrade text only shows when you block and added a section to the tutorial area that explains what this text is. Now only shows when you are blocking.

Increased the time to fade on NPC health bars

Tone down wonky backwards movement when charging attacks on the initial shark fish so movement hopefully isn’t so confusing when you are starting out

I have revamped the tutorial entrance to make it very obvious there is a tutorial section to the left.

I have upped the fog settings in various materials and shaders to make the playable area more obvious.

 

@IllTemperedTunas , I tried to give the game a quick try before starting my day, but I cannot seem to get past the opening screen. The fish to the left of the title responds to LMB and RMB by charging and using the two special attacks and block, but that's it. None of the buttons on the screen respond to the mouse. I've tried every key on the keyboard I could think of to get it to start.

This was both Firefox and Chrome browsers.

I used the link you had in your first post, "https://illtemperedtuna.itch.io/the-seacrit-fish-game".

 

@Socrates Hmm, all i can think of is that perhaps you pressed shift + Space and disabled movement. You can press that again to enable it.

Or, if you have a joystick plugged in, it is overriding your mouse inputs and that's why you can't control the fish.

The fish itself has to swim over buttons in order to press them.

This has alerted me that I need to add a toggle button that shows what input the user is currently using joystick/mouse will add this in the near future.

 

thank you to everyone who played my game. it was really good advice.

@IllTemperedTunas really cool game. I really enjoyed playing, and got to the end where the fish is inside a music place playing music. I downloaded the windows install, so all controls were smooth.

My only observation is that the GUI and text choices seems too busy to match with game. Some level titles looked low res - bit mapped. Controls is smooth, joystick works well. it looks like a lot of effort went into it.

 

Thanks for playing, unit_dev123. It's been great to get feedback and kind words from all of you. Much easier to prioritize what needs changing from actual users.

I've been meaning to migrate the level transition splash screen to Text Mesh Pro for a while, i'll move it up on the Todo list. I've also been meaning to revamp some text assets to TMP from regular text in the UI as well to make it a bit nicer on the eyes. Kinda reminds me how long i've been working on this project...

I'll make it my goal to have a new windows build with all of these changes by next weekend's feedback thread as this has been super helpful and motivating posting here.

I'm uploading a build as I type this that should fix the input issue Socrates is experiencing I hope. It detects if a button press came from Joystick or mouse, then overrides the input controls of the other device so no need for a toggle button, just auto recognition.

 

just remember browser testing is very flaky so do not take it as cast iron proof.

 

In the previous version, the fish on the menu was rotating to follow the mouse, but was not moving. It would charge the abilities.

I started up the most recent version and was able to move around fine.

When hitting shift-space with that most recent version to test, the fish was not rotating toward the mouse like I remember it doing before, so I don't know if that is what happened before. (My memory of rotation could be faulty.)

In case it matters: I do not have joystick or controller.


Flashing: I just tested really briefly to look at the combat red flash. I think it is at a perfectly reasonable level for most games. However, as someone who suffers from migraines, I would need to toggle it off in order to play for any length of time.

 

I will add a new button in future builds for ScreenFlashing: On/Minimal/off
Thanks for following up, good to hear it's working now