Feedback Friday #155 - March 5-8, 2021

It's Feedback Friday time!

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.

The 7 Day Roguelike Challenge (7DRL) starts today! If you're participating, post your work in progress here for design feedback. 7DRL is a week-long challenge, so you might not have a playable this weekend. That's OK! Feel free to post sketches, mockups, and paper prototypes for feedback. When you only have a week, it's faster to hash out ideas on paper before implementing them.

Edit: This thread isn't just for the 7DRL. If you're working on a project of any sort and want design feedback, you're welcome to join us here!

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 #154 is here.

 

Alright, here's the latest version of my game: https://eternalambiguity.itch.io/ca-shooter

The game itself is unchanged (so the changes I mentioned last FF should apply), but I made a couple performance improvements. I actually found that "graphics jobs" were disabled before, which I suspect may have been causing most of the slowdown.

I get a smooth as butter 60 FPS...let me know if that isn't the case for you guys.

Planning to go to a computer store this weekend to get components to set up a machine with a weaker CPU so I can test this sort of thing better in the future.

 

First time I join in a thread like this, I hope I'm not misinterpreting things. This is for any game right, not just for the Roguelike challenge?

Anyway, I've been working on Hijack Overdrive for a long time now, and I can always use more feedback.

Hijack Overdrive is a unique sidescroller where you have to steal the enemies vehicles mid-combat to fight back!
It's a combination of Platformer, Shootemup, and a bit of TowerDefense!

You can try the demo here: http://gamingstef.itch.io/hijack
(windows only atm)

I'm looking for feedback on the level design, pacing and general experience and understanding of the game.
I've been working on this for a long time now though, so I have no intention of drastically changing the game, but if there are things that are hard to understand or seem weird, do let me know.

More so than feedback on the demo, I could really use feedback on unfinished levels that aren't in the demo, let me know if anyone is interested in playing more of the game and I'll send a build to you.

If at all possible, I really appreciate if anyone can capture their playthrough. I know that may be a lot to ask, so if anyone wants feedback on their own game, I'm happy to do the same for your game.

 

Hi,

It's definitely not just for the 7 Day Roguelike. All works in progress seeking design feedback are welcome.

 

just watching the trailer...

The shooting and the movement both seem a little slow. Not egregious, just a little bit. My perspective might be skewed due to my game, and it kind of makes sense that things would have to be slower if you're jumping between different ships.

"Take enemy ships back to your base." Maybe it's just me, but I'd love a sentence or two of context before this, not just for the base but for the scenario itself. "When the Gerzon attacked, no one could stand against their overwhelming horde. Now we're fighting back...and we're using their numbers against them."

Just from the colors my immediate impression is that the blue ships originated from the "good" faction and the red ships originated from the "bad" faction. However, their designs seem pretty similar. In that case are the colors unimportant?

When I saw the enemies falling from the ships you hijack, for a few moments I was confused and thought that was the player.

The guitar at the end cuts off very abruptly. I'd let that last note hang out for a second or two.


playing your demo...

I was confused for a moment or two because the mouse doesn't work on the main menu.

Tutorial - don't fall behind, not "stay" behind

Controlling the turret - this would really feel better with mouse control

played the tutorial and the first mission. First mission seemed to end in a weird place--just stopped at some point within the enemy base? What happens after that? It'd be nice if you progressed through the whole base (maybe in sequential missions, I don't know) and fought a boss at the end.

Died on the second mission. it's a good challenge.

This would go away somewhat with time, but I found myself getting confused between which buttons to press in high-pressure moments - forgetting that space would shoot from the ship I was within, forgetting that LShift would pull me out. The right hand is sitting there doing nothing - it'd be nice if that was more balanced somehow (either jump/shoot or get in/out on the mouse - shooting would probably feel most intuitive).

Overall pretty fun.

 

You raise a lot of good points.

The slowness is something that has been said a lot, I've tried to make things faster in numerous ways, but it always makes the game worse for it, so I can't do anything about it without completely turning it into a different game. It's also more of a presentation problem than an actual gameplay problem, as it doesn't feel too slow when you play it (right?)

Yeah the trailer needs work. I find it really difficult to make a good trailer.
In the actual game there will be an intro cutscene that explains more. I'm working on it, when it's finished I will incorporate part of it in the trailer.

No the colors don't indicate which side they are on, I'm honestly a bit surprised most people think that. Each vehicle type just has it's own color. Your vehicles are just appropriated enemy vehicles, so it wouldn't make any sense to change the color.

A lot of people had the same thought, that's why I made a new cutscene where you see the player character throwing the pilot out of the ship. I gotta make a new trailer where I incorporate this.

Yeah you're right, the guitar does end abruptly, didn't really notice before.

Oh no, you don't use the mouse at all for this game. I actually envision it more for a controller, but I just haven't implemented controller support. I always play it on keyboard, with my right hand on the arrow keys, and my left hand for the other keys. That's a pretty standard setup I think? (I mean, I have played a ton of games like that)

Yeah, "fall" might be better.

I'm not gonna add mouse controls (it's not that kind of game), but I have thought about adding controller-joystick support, so you can aim by pointing the joystick in the desired direction.

I agree, it does end weird. I dunno exactly what I wanna do there, I'm thinking of adding a small simple cutscene at the end where you find some important item in the base and your commander tells you to return with it. Or maybe I'll just change it so you do get out of the base at the end. (in the actual game, you get a short briefing before each mission, in this level's case your job is to clear the base of (most) military assets)

What difficulty did you choose? Do you generally play 2d platformers or anything similar? I'm trying to figure out if the difficulty is right and wether or not people get how to play the game.

I thought the controls are pretty standard? (except for shift, and the R-key). I don't get why you want to use the mouse for this kind of game? I've never seen that being done.
But I intend to add customisable controls, so then you can set it up however you want.

Thanks for the extensive feedback, much appreciated!

 

I'll play it tomorrow!

 

The bullets do feel a little bit slow during the gameplay, but I definitely see how it would make things worse to speed things up. There's a lot going on already.

It doesn't need to be anything super detailed, just like a sentence or two of context would help. Though you should definitely consider other opinions on that.

Red and blue work very well as opposing colors (I recall a Machinima that used those colors...) and the visual design of your game (two opposing groups facing off) also lends itself to implicit identification of differences between the player and the enemy. You might consider different colors for those two initial ship types, such as blue and green perhaps (basically red is gonna stand out).

...I didn't even realize the arrow keys were an option, I just used WASD. Literally everything on one hand . Just started the game up and tried it and yeah, the arrow keys work well for separating the actions.

I chose the middle, "normal" difficulty. I don't typically play 2D platformers. Most action-y games I play are third-person 3D, so like most AAA games.

 

@EternalAmbiguity - Sorry, still having stutter issues and shooting issues:

 

@Steven-1 - I like the hook of your game! The speed fits the moving tower defense vibe.

Joystick support would be great.

Because the gameplay is straightforward, the tutorial is a good length to get situated without being tedious.

Maybe I missed it, but in the first mission it would be great if there were a minimap or some other indicator of how far the player is to the end. So if you're behind on hijacking vehicles, you can focus on hijacking. But if you've already reached the goal, you could have some fun just blowing stuff up.

Talking about blowing stuff up, there's room for more juice such as screen shake.

Great job! I had fun playing it.

 

Urg. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for the info. I'll see what else I can do. Your video is way worse than I'd realized - I hadn't realized the bullets literally weren't working at all. That implies something fundamental is going on...

...but I just downloaded it myself and ran the downloaded version on mine, and it was perfectly smooth and I was able to kill enemies. I really have no idea.

Would you mind going to "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\LocalLow\Eternally Ambiguous Experiences\CA Shooter" and uploading the Player.log file? Feel free to remove any identifying stuff with the username in the file near the top.

 

Sure:

Spoiler: Player.log

Code (plaintext):

1. Mono path[0] = [snip]
2. Mono config path = [snip]
3. Initialize engine version: 2020.2.5f1 (e2c53f129de5)
4. [Subsystems] Discovering subsystems at path [snip]
5. GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=1
6. Direct3D:
7.     Version:  Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.1]
8.     Renderer: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (ID=0x67b1)
9.     Vendor:  
10.     VRAM:     4072 MB
11.     Driver:   27.20.14535.3005
12. Begin MonoManager ReloadAssembly
13. - Completed reload, in  0.078 seconds
14. D3D11 device created for Microsoft Media Foundation video decoding.
15. <RI> Initializing input.
16.  
17. <RI> Input initialized.
18.  
19. <RI> Initialized touch support.
20.  
21. UnloadTime: 1.019500 ms
22. Ignoring invalid [UpdateBefore] attribute on WeaponSystem targeting Unity.Physics.Systems.EndFramePhysicsSystem.
23. This attribute can only order systems that are members of the same ComponentSystemGroup instance.
24. Make sure that both systems are in the same system group with [UpdateInGroup(typeof(Unity.Entities.SimulationSystemGroup)],
25. or by manually adding both systems to the same group's update list.
26.  
27. Ignoring invalid [UpdateAfter] attribute on WeaponSystem targeting Unity.Physics.Systems.StepPhysicsWorld.
28. This attribute can only order systems that are members of the same ComponentSystemGroup instance.
29. Make sure that both systems are in the same system group with [UpdateInGroup(typeof(Unity.Entities.SimulationSystemGroup)],
30. or by manually adding both systems to the same group's update list.
31.  
32. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
33.   at Unity.Scenes.ResourceCatalogData.GetGUIDFromPath (System.String path) [0x00096] in <07dd76a1204747f7af8d512664e551d6>:0
34.   at Unity.Scenes.SceneSystem.GetSceneGUID (System.String scenePath) [0x0000b] in <07dd76a1204747f7af8d512664e551d6>:0
35.   at Unity.Scenes.GameObjectSceneUtility.AddGameObjectSceneReferences () [0x00034] in <07dd76a1204747f7af8d512664e551d6>:0
36.   at Unity.Entities.AutomaticWorldBootstrap.Initialize () [0x0000c] in <752fb576d6cd4e6a96b8bf8024511e80>:0
37.  
38. starting main
39.  
40. Unloading 6 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 0)
41. UnloadTime: 5.821800 ms
42. Gui awake
43.  
44. init
45.  
46. 400 - 200
47.  
48. null grid?
49.  
50. Loading level Level1
51.  
52. _1
53.  
54. loaded: 206.7885
55.  
56.  
57. Unloading 14 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 3735.
58. Total: 13.137000 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.133500 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.062300 ms MarkObjects: 12.886000 ms  DeleteObjects: 0.054800 ms)
59.  
60. Internal: JobTempAlloc has allocations that are more than 4 frames old - this is not allowed and likely a leak
61.  
62. Internal: JobTempAlloc has allocations that are more than 4 frames old - this is not allowed and likely a leak
63.  
64. Internal: JobTempAlloc has allocations that are more than 4 frames old - this is not allowed and likely a leak
65.  
66. Internal: deleting an allocation that is older than its permitted lifetime of 4 frames (age = 13)
67.  
68. Setting up 2 worker threads for Enlighten.
69.   Thread -> id: 32cc -> priority: 1
70.   Thread -> id: 3cc8 -> priority: 1
71. _9
72.  
73. Internal: deleting an allocation that is older than its permitted lifetime of 4 frames (age = 5)
74.  
75. Internal: deleting an allocation that is older than its permitted lifetime of 4 frames (age = 13)
76.  
77. Internal: There are remaining Allocations on the JobTempAlloc. This is a leak, and will impact performance

 

Thanks a ton. I appreciate the help. Hopefully I can get this figured out.

 

Good discussion this weekend! Tune in next week for more Feedback Friday!