[Feedback Friday #31] - July 17, 2015 (The One Month Edition!)

Okay thats really hard. Slow fire rate, powerups die when you hit them. Cant cross the middle because theres a ship that goes there. Your running low on energy and have to get the energy.

 

Thanks for testing. Yeah, I will re look at the fire rate & also try to find why it doesn't seem to register when you hit the space bar sometimes.

There is a pattern/timer to the ships but I did put those ones up the middle to make players move, they're also the only ships that shoot back at you.
Destroying the power ups was done to add risk to just spamming fire (as well as using energy to fire) & to timing the move to get them as I didn't want the average game lasting more than 2-3 minutes (design decision as a 20minute game would be to long to show for marking in class). I may revisit it though when I get the movement/firing balanced & working properly, it will probably depend on a) what power ups I might add for shooting etc (refer previous review) & b)whether I can actually code some variation to the enemy movement or create a simple AI for them.

Thanks for taking the time to look at it.

 

Take down a rogue-AI in this top down shooter.

Theres 24 levels and 4 bosses, but just try the first six for now.
http://aiursrage2k.itch.io/apocalypse-machine

 

I thought since we seem to have a theme going on with shmups I'd at least give an update on mine.

Truthfully, due to being distracted with another project the last week or so, I haven't worked on it much since the last demo and I have no updated demo to play at this time. But hey I have added two new enemies and started on the mini boss!

I bought a new video recording software today so captured a vid of me playing the game. I was doing good until I was pulled out of my "game zone" by someone asking me a question.

You can see the 2 new standard enemies, the asteroid/meteor zone (in case you never made it to it) and also the mini boss make its entrance at the end of the video.

 

Video recording stuff? Now that's awesome. What's next, the Gar YouTube channel?

I don't know what's weirder, fruits and vegetables or the fact that it looks like a really sound shooter game. Honestly, if that game was finished, I could see it being pretty popular (for an online indie retro shooter). What's next man? Stage 2?

 

Next he teams up with fruit ninja & they get sold with the ninja blender on tv

 

Looking for feedback or just a plug?

 

I think maybe it was for me to look at how he did his shmup. Happy to give feedback if I'm wrong tho

 

Well I like making videos and digital photography too. Sometimes I just take a random road trip and photograph whatever. Video an intense storm. I have most of videos and photos on my FB page. I only have family and close friends on there. Think 75 people total or something like that. lol I've thought about making a game or game dev channel for a long time. It'd just be one more thing to do though, you know? Maybe in about 7 years when I go into semi-retirement (my plan is either work Tue through Thur so I get a 4-day weekend every week or work 3 weeks take 1 week off) and finally have time... precious time... to do more of what I like.

That's a good point! I was actually thinking about making the first stage twice as long as it is now and the mini-boss comes out halfway through. I think you're right I could just wrap this stage up making the mini boss be the actual end of stage boss and start on stage two. That'd be about a 9 to 10 minute playtime for stage one. That's pretty good.

 

People crave that level change I think. New scenery. Even if it is coded almost the same, as long as it looks new. I think it has something to do with the way media is presented and the average person's attention span.

 

Yeah I think it will work out with shorter stages and more of them. I want to have secret areas or at least alternate paths. Get some of the "old school" fun back.

 

Yep. I think that's easier to manage. You can beat most retro shmups in under a half hour, those are the big ones. It goes by real fast. Reason is, I think, that people see the same pattern more than three times and they feel like that's all there is. For old school shmups like Gradius, there was little repetition. I think shooters that pack more replay value into a shorter game are better. Branching paths are good, bonus rounds are good. Long levels are bad. That's how I'm approaching the next game.

 

I'm surprised you are releasing Meteor Crush for free on Kongregate. It seems like around here even people's very first game... ever... is put out on Mobile with ads/IAP or sold on Steam, Humble Bundle, itch.io etc. I mean I get it in the sense it is the same thing I do. Just spend all of the effort and time then release for free. The majority of people around here don't seem to do that though.

 

I think of it differently.

Their goal is to make a game, sell it... and then whatever after that who knows. It depends on the person.

I want the feedback, because my goal is to make something mind blowing. Not this time, maybe not for a while. But there's no going from point A to point Z without going through the whole shebang.

I just decided that one day I'm going to ask for a lot of money for the games I make, and I'm going to want it from a lot of people, and so in order to do that I need to go through this process first. I need to establish a real existence as a developer, a designer. And I need to learn the skills and lessons that make that possible.

My games will be free until I get the sense that I have found an audience that wants more, and then if I'm so fortunate to find such an audience, I'll say... imagining... hey, can't do this for free. And if people are ready and willing to pay me to do what I want to do, then that's what will happen.

I know that without an audience, a community, it's not going to be the kind of thing I hope to one day find.

So no, at this point I'd rather reach into more people's hearts than their pocketbooks. I don't think MC will do that, so I'll try again.

Btw the latest version with new features is live on Kongregate. Ammo, rebalanced mechanics, etc.

 

That is very much the way I view this too. Even though I have a lot of experience in software dev and game dev in general I need to get my head back into game design more. Also I have spent all of my time in Unity so far just getting into using Unity establishing workflows and systems that work for me.

One day I will tackle game dev again as a way to make money and to do that I need to create a lot of infrastructure. Basically I need to connect with people who like the kind of things I will be making. I know where they are for the most part but most of them don't know about me. After I release a few games for free more of them will know about me and I'll be in a better position to connect with them. Basically Just following the slow long road based on "old school" philosophies. Besides all of that I have always done this stuff just for the fun of it. It is a great hobby.

EDIT: Actually thinking about it more I think I will probably throw the shmup out there for a few dollars. Just because I really dislike the race to the bottom with completely free being the ultimate destination. I think that is reasonable. The people in my target market will gladly pay $3 for the game. Because if I was looking for a "different" shmup and found this I'd gladly pay $3 for it. If I actually spend time or money on the graphics overhaul I'll probably bump it up to $4. I might put out a free demo of like 3 minutes of the first stage.

On the other hand when I do the upgrade of Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop at the end of the year that will remain on Kongregate and/or my website for free. Basically every year I hope to release either a new holiday game or an upgrade to a previous game for free just as my way of giving something to the gamers.

 

No I was looking for feedback.

 

Welcome to FF! As your first game, this is incredibly strong! I've read the extensive feedback about ease of play, as well as your thoughts about speeding up the meteors, where it becomes just luck. And, I think I have some thoughts that might help.

Strengths

• The graphics, music, and style work together cohesively. It's a retro-8-bit game that plays well.
• Good controls, tight movement - it feels good.
• Pacing of levels leading to bosses feels good - not too fast, not too slow.
• Varying style between waves is fun. Well done.
• Simplicity of the game is spot-on. Press play, and start shooting stuff!
• The timers on the power ups are fine - except the fire kills the bosses in like 4 seconds, which is MUCH too easy.

Balancing Difficulty

• A balanced difficulty is the 4th ingredient of flow. It's also the hardest to get right. And, as it's going to be your primary struggle in every game for the rest of your career, it's worth improving.
• You have two difficulty components: 1) your ship can't get hit, and 2) meteors can't touch the ground. The first is good. The second is where the trouble lies.
• Remove the 'meteor hits ground' death counter, ENTIRELY. Instead of missile-command, go for a galaga style game - where as long as YOU survive, things will be okay.
• With ground no longer a concern, you can add LOTS more meteors, and make them LOTS faster.
• A way to keep some of hte danger of missing a meteor, is for them to leave a pool of fire, for 3 seconds. If you miss one, you won't be able to move that way for 3 seconds. This in turn creates a mini-game that adds tension ... OMG! Fire.
• With the ground no longer a primary concern, you can up the difficulty of the bosses. They can drop way more bombs, have shields, etc...
• Also, bosses MUST have a health-gauge or some other form of feedback.

Upgrades

• Once you get difficulty balanced, you'll want to consider what else players can do. This game is fun enough that you could add lots of upgrades.
• Again, with a better difficulty, waves can be longer, and a longer boss battle.
• Along the way, drop coins that hte player has to MOVE OVER to get - this creates another mini-game, that increases tension.
• Have a simple shop that appears after each boss.
  
• After a boss battle, present a simple shop.
• There's all kind of possible upgrades such as additional lives, extending timer on power ups, movement speed boosts, base weapon damage, fire rate, and access to weapon types (ex fire spewer can be locked at first).
• RPG mode - if difficulty was significantly increased, you could make it a progressive stage game, where you might have to play each stage several times to get enough coins to upgrade your ship, to be strong enough to beat the next wave/boss. In this mode, the shop would also be available before/after a game.

Fantastic work! Welcome aboard.
Gigi

 

It's the "Mystery Box". We are driven by curiousity, and as you say, it matters less what is INSIDE the box, then there is a box for us to wonder about. When you change graphics after each wave, it creates an anticipation, wondering what the next wave will be like.

Gigi

 

Beat it? I got the high score . Well done @anselmo.fresquez. Thanks for the shout out in the credits .
Gigi

 

You are something else!

 

I will use these tips to make Super Meteor Crush. Thank you. Glad to be in "the club". Haha.

 

Well I know what I am doing right after my workout after work today!

 

Well, I won the game. That last round was something else. Got the feeling you wanted to make sure it was challenging. lol!

And the end of game final boss battle with Meteor Master was very cool.

Interestingly, @Gigiwoo scored over 7 million and yet when I won the game I scored 6,324,494 so that tells me there must be some scoring tricks that can be put into play. I may check it out again after the workout. I decided to use my lunch break to play it now. lol It is a heck of a great game. You took it far from our humble beginnings when we played around with a first-time collaboration and made a prototype. In fact, it is not the same game at all. It looks and feels like you have completely redone much of it, added a ton of new stuff and in general made it at least 10 times better than the original prototype in every way. Well done man!

 

Yep.

The original challenge for me when we started this was to make an old game, but try to make it fun, to see if it would hold up by today's standards. I didn't want to completely copy another game though. You got the prototype functional and then moved on to work on another game. Then I spent every night trying to figure out how to make it cooler. It turned into where I spent more time on it than I care to admit and I didn't like the end result, it wasn't (artistically) the best. So I figured, if I spent weeks on something, I want it to be something I can be pretty proud of. So I started redoing little things, then I got more ideas and eventually just spent 3 weeks steamrollering across the entire codebase so that I could tweak and change things quickly, which proved invaluable when I was trying to balance the game. In the end, it looked like a completely different game. At its core, it's still that same little pea shooter game with falling rocks... just jazzed up a bit.

I never want to try that experiment again...

So, you get bonus points for:

Getting powerups (1000)
Killing UFO's (5000?)
Completing stages with "perfect"
Collecting a power-up that you already have (5000)
100,000 for each extra life you have at game completion
and everybody gets the same points for beating the bosses.

...I don't know how Gigi got the amount of points he did, though. I'm not saying you hacked the game.

 

Why not?! Think of what you accomplished from this exercise. lol

Inspired by this:

You created an awesome game in Meteor Crush!


Truthfully, that is part of the appeal of older games to me. They were kind of like games in their purest form because they had no resources to waste on foolishness. I often look back and think of what games would be like today had things went differently and the whole "let's build them like movies" philosophy hadn't been adopted. By going back in time to these old gems and using them as inspiration for something more we can try to answer that question. lol

So... no sense in stopping now! Imagine if you had something like this to work with as your base 1-pixel worth's starting point:

Who knows what you would end up with! But I bet it would be very cool.

 

Maybe... but the problem I experienced is that games have simply evolved far too much from those days. These days, people want upgrade systems. Seriously, it's an entire meta category on Kongregate... people want to play games specifically that have extensive upgrade systems. You could do it, but the whole game would have to be built from the beginning with the intention of making you be able to upgrade all aspects of your submarine.

If you did do that, made it upgrade focused and put treasure and stuff, and used the oxygen meter as a way of allowing the sub to go further and further depending on the upgrade level, and thus get better treasure... well, there's your game.

Lol, I proved myself wrong.

Upgrade submarine game is a great idea.

What's crazy is that Gigi specifically mentioned that upgrades and cash would have made MC more playable and yet, I didn't even think of it. It wasn't part of the original design. And what's funny is as I was looking at all of the games that get way better reviews and way more plays than mine... they all have some kind of RPG/upgrade element. Games without that element don't get NEARLY the number of plays.

I don't think people have stopped caring about old school classic game mechanics, I just think they expect something that evolves as they play to give them a better experience throughout their playtime. It's like a product life-cycle for that specific game. Static games don't really stick, anymore.

Infinite runners seem to be big as well, for the same reason... you upgrade, you get further, you upgrade, you get further... and that's just the way it is.

My next game will be focused entirely on the upgrade aspect of gameplay.

 

Ha ha! Yeah that is the beauty of going with a very old game. Not thinking of it as a boundary but as a basic concept and challenge. Staying reasonably true to the original while bringing it up to something gamers in 2015 will appreciate.

The thing is many of those games were/are fun. The very basic play mechanics are solid they are just very limited. They're repetitive. Mainly out of necessity for the time period. However, they focused on being games and only games. So to evolve them and expand on the core of gameplay is where the fun is at.

These days if a developer (particularly a AAA studio although I doubt they'd ever touch such a thing) were to look at those old games and say hey let's do something inspired by this you'd almost certainly end up with something very different. Like your M.C. would likely have a 3 minute opening video. Plenty of voice acting. More videos between each area. They might have added all of the gameplay stuff you did but it is just as likely they would not have. Maybe they'd add a powerup or two. Everything would likely be in 3D probably with photo realistic graphics. They'd also have to make sure that everything was kind of realistic which means the motion of things would likely change, probably ending up at least a little slower. Player movement would probably have noticeable acceleration & deceleration because they'd want that gun vehicle to feel heavy. Just a bunch of stupid stuff really. The way you evolved it seems to be completely focused on fun. Making a great game.

 

True, but their game would also have online networking and lots more content... the game would evolve to an almost epic experience as you progressed. I see that being a major thing that today's games do that old games did not... although when you look at (for example) The Legend of Zelda... that's exactly what they did. You upgraded your swordsman. Holy cow I've been blind!

 

I've always liked upgrade systems too. Any kind works for me. Temporary power-ups or "permanent" ability acquisitions. It's because we are used to that I think. Our whole lives we are used to growing and becoming better. For games there is the added benefit of altering the gameplay to quite a degree as Miyamoto did with SMB3. Sure he may not think much of it now ("embarrassing" I believe is how he sees it now lol) but what that game did very well was show how to use powerups/skills/abilities to provide a pretty diverse gameplay experience.

 

& having slightly different power in the power ups so players spend just as much time avoiding power ups they don't want as they do trying to get the ones they do want. They also want to get more powerful about 1/2-2/3 of the way through the level, struggle then beat the boss, then having that new strength start at the next level at a lower power base I.e. The enemies just get tougher/smarter so the player has the higher power from the previous level but need to think before fighting again so the power peaks part way through each level but the skill needed is almost the opposite bell curve

 

I did fix the powerups, at least, where you can choose the one you want.

As far as metering the difficulty, with the ground being a valid target, the difficult comes from the speed of meteors vs your fire rate, dps and area of effect. Thus, the game can be made impossible by changing a 0.75f to a 0.45f... that's the actual numbers.

In general, you're right.

I like the way you simplify it.

 

Friends! Not a whole lot to show at this point but I feel really good about where I have have my character controller and would love to hear your thoughts on it.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39578945/Rangabang_Preview/index.html

A/D to move left and right
W to jump
Mouse to aim and fire

Looking for feedback on:

Character Speed
Aiming behind you while you run in the opposing direction
Just overall feels
​

Many thanks in advance!

 

Positive:
Cute, nice drawing style. Like the cowboy thing.
Movement and jumping is tight and no getting stuck issues.

Could be improved:
Something about his movement is slow.
Take out going slow when walking backwards, it's not intuitive.
Make him always face that mouse cursor so he doesn't do the instant turn around and shoot thing, it breaks the feel of the character's animation.
I like to make the character's dance when there's mouse aiming, like do the whole "staying alive, staying alive" like John Travolta, and generally just play with moving their arms in a circle for no reason while jumping and stuff.

???
I would make his head bobble along with the animation because it's so heavy looking, just make it bounce up and down along with the rhythm of his steps. Things like that take your animations from so-so to something you'll routinely get compliments on. Do the same thing with his gun.

Overall...
Fix the issues you seem to kind of already suspect are weird and...
give me something to shoot!

 

Ok, I had a lot of trouble with this but I'm fairly certain it is just me.

Likes:
the look of the UI & the sounds all fitted with the scenario

Issues I had
I really had trouble seeing the ship as it was very dark on either my screens (I have my screen at 100% brightness as it's a bit old, the other I tried it on is a new LCD so is quite bright) & the ship blended with the background making it hard for me to know where I was or which way I was facing.
I couldn't get the ship to face backwards when I overshot an enemy, it only seemed to turn so far then stop. Could be because the mouse left the game screen but having to pick up & move the mouse while dodging & shooting is beyond me to even think of at the time.
The shots seemed to curve sometimes. Not sure if this happened or was an artifact of moving/rotating just after I fired.
The warning sound came up a lot. I wasn't sure initially if it was because I was nearly dead (I had trouble finding where my health was on screen) or because I was out in space & not over the base.

Overall, it was a good game but just not my kind. I have way to much trouble with keyboard & mouse games to progress far enough & if it is to dark for me to easily find information, enemies etc I struggle to do anything in time after I find/check what key I'm hitting. But I'm sure there is a market for this.

 

What if an endless runner and a word game had a baby...? This is not my first game, but it's my first game with Unity. I'm glad at this point nobody but me gets to look under the hood. O



Play here (require Unity plugin): http://masteringunity2d.com/wordjumper/index.html

• Make words from the letter tiles to create platforms for the guy to jump to.
• Get to the spinning ring on the other side to go to the next level.
• If you get stuck, hit the Swap Tiles button at the top to get new tiles + two new extra platforms.
• In between levels you can hit the "Watch an Ad" button to refill swap tokens (ad doesn't actually show).

That's about it. It's designed for mobile devices and is easier to play tapping the letters than mouse-clicking them. I intend to allow keyboard input as soon as I figure out how to handle that.

Thanks for any feedback.

Jay

 

This is different to the previous version. I tried all the buttons (the home one didn't work) & I'm not sure if I broke the swap token once as they all appeared available even after I used them (it did stop letting me use them after I had done 3). I played a few more times & couldn't reproduce it so not sure if you need worry about it. The coloured letters are good, the red saved me once & made me panic & die once, but I got complacent thinking the green meant I had done enough platforms to finish the level & had to quickly find another word when I realised he'd come up short. I also managed to jump off the very last platform & hit the ring for the win .

As previously mentioned (& you acknowledged) the swap tokens would help if they reacted in some way when you hadn't started a word in a certain time or even if the last platform has appeared on screen. I also think maybe just one swap token per ad, & even reduce the number/frequency of ad watching as I finished up at level 10 & still had 3 swap tokens. That's a minor issue tho & may drive more ad watching if you are using it for revenue.

There appears to be a disconnect between the value on letters & the score. I was on 6 pts, spelt HIM for another 8pts & my score went to 12. I tried to watch & it looks like the score goes up when the first letter is selected & then no score change until the word is submitted.

As previously mentioned, the graphics & sound all work, the boom would add to tension if it got faster as platforms ran out (like in space invaders as the aliens got faster). Looking good

 

When they turn green you should be able to sit back and watch -- there should be enough platforms for him to finish. (My wife wants a "Finish Now" button so she doesn't have to wait for him to get to the ring.) I haven't seen an instance when they turned green but he didn't make it, but I'll watch out for that.

Yeah, I'll have to play around with the right number. This evening I got up to Level 53 because every other level or so I'd refill the swap tokens and I thought that made it too easy -- then I remembered that's how I'm monetizing the game, so... Still, I probably need to experiment with different numbers of swap tokens made available. A person *can* not watch ads and still play the game -- in fact, I'm going to have a Leaderboard specifically for people who play that way.

The values on the tiles have no bearing on the score -- which means I need to remove them because if you thought they did, I'm sure others will, also. Here's how scoring currently works:

• Make a 3-letter word = 1 point
• Make a 4-letter word = 2 points
• Make a 5-letter word = 4 points
• Make a 6-letter word = 8 points
• Make a 7-letter word = 16 point
• When runner jumps on a platform you get however many points that platform is worth
• Finish the level and get 100 point bonus

That means you can get a higher score by playing longer words first -- because those platforms are worth more points when you make them and when the runner jumps on them. Make a bunch of 3-letter words and finish up with a 7-letter word and you'll get points for making that long word, but no extra points for the guy jumping on them because you'll have reached the other side by the time they slide into view.

Thank you for the feedback!

Jay

 

The finish now is a good idea. If I get time I will try again & see if he fails to make it when it is green.

If that's how you monetise it then you probably need 1 token per ad rather than 3 tokens per ad. Other word games we play give you one hint (reveal 1 word) for watching an ad.

I didn't even realise you get the points from the platform

 

Posting after a while. Reworked on several aspect of the game from scratch. The soldiers and inventory is now managed in a more simpler way. In this version there are four levels, in different setups.

Please play and let me know how the progression is looking like.

Game Webplayer
LINK

Screenshots

 

First level letters:

V J N N M N U

... first impression, the heck is this?

I'll try it again, but I had to read about the "swap tiles" button in your post.

You look like you're about to release it. What feedback do you want in particular?

 

I had a quick try of this in class while waiting for stuff to update so there's no depth to this review.

The game looks lush. I like the tabletop game look, the lighting, effects etc. I didn't understand that it was a tower defence game so didn't know what I was doing for the first level. When I hovered over the icons as the tutorial suggested I hovered over the larger icons on the bottom row & couldn't read the pop ups as they were under the icons above them. I also had a problem dragging troops onto spots that were behind the icons along the bottom of the screen, when I was in a hurry to get troops in it was awkward having to rotate the board to find spots first. Once I dragged soldiers onto the board I expected them to be there & didn't notice the little yes sir come up from the side hut so thought it wasn't working. Eventually I got them in but as I said I didn't realise it was tower defence so then I was trying to give them additional orders to move to different places. There was an issue of clicking & dragging health/smg onto troops, the click kept missing & rotated the screen instead. I played it on a machine running windows 7 using IE (because stupid chrome no longer works), the game area wasn't full screen or anything.

I reckon you have something here. Tower defence is always popular & yours is looking very polished.

 

This has been posted before, I remember it well. The graphics have improved greatly. It's very polished in appearance. However... there are still some of the same gameplay issues as before!!

Here is a thorough rundown of all the big things that I noticed. A lot of this is UI/UX related, so grab a coffee cause here goes...

• The "Drag and Drop" text when selecting a soldier appears behind the other UI icons, and it's so dark that I didn't even notice it at first. It definitely help a little bit, but it doesn't say where to drag and drop to. However, this is actually a lie because you don't have to drag and drop. You can click the icons and then tap a location on the map to place them. I don't know why there are two completely different methods of doing the same thing in the same game with no thorough explanation of either.
• There's no feedback when selecting soldiers and assigning them to the locations on the map.
  • When I click a player icon, nothing happens, but when I click on the map it shows parenthesis and a little soldier's head, it's not clear what this means. I know you mean "place a player here" but without a visual cue on the actual menu bar, there's no way of knowing that these two elements are in any way related to one another... it can only be learned though experimentation. That's just bad UX design.
  • When I begin to click-and-drag, there's no audio feedback, so how can I really tell if this action is correct? A simple WoW "tick" is all that is needed here.
  • When I hover over a location with a player selected, there's no visual OR audio feedback. All you need is to make the spot glow slightly and fire off a simple sound... like a wooden block being hit, just to show it's sort of like an "incomplete action" but not a "wrong action".
    • As a result, I can't tell where I am/am not allowed to drop the soldiers without... yep... experimenting.
    • Also, it is confusing when I decide not to drop a solider... where do I put it to "cancel". The question isn't answered in the game. I don't want to waste a player, since I only have 5, yet I feel so inept at controlling where they are placed.
• I tried right-clicking the game to see what actions would result from it, and it opened the Unity Player menu, when I left-clicked back on the game it froze. I was able to reproduce this at least a dozen times.
• I click on the grenades and machine guns, and they just say "Not enough rank points." What does that even mean? Why put it there if I can't use it? If I can't use it, gray it out or something. Make it clear I shouldn't bother clicking on it. Don't put it right in front of my face with no explanation of what it does, only to say "You can't click this" when I take the bait.
• Camera control... there is no such thing. Half the time, it works. Half the time, it doesn't work.
• There is no indicator that the red button starts the battle. It's just a red button that insists that I press it... just sits there telling me "PRESS THIS!!!" and then I press it, and I'm not prepared for the battle yet. Fool me once, shame on me...
• The pathfinding... there's no other way to say this. The pathfinding needs serious improvement. It just doesn't work. I see enemies running in circles, characters getting lost on their ways to their post... everything. They look dazed and confused.
• I used a medpack, because I guess I had enough rank points, but it must have also triggered a soldier to go into "cover mode" unexpectedly. Dirty, because he wasn't shooting the enemies for a while and I lost.

I'm going to try again, now that I've solved the mysteries of how this game works and assess it as if these issues had been resolved..

Nope. Most of my team was killed by mortar shells, leaving two guys, one couldn't even hit the bad guys because he was 3 feet too far, I guess, to shoot them with a gun...

Promising, yet flawed in the execution.

Beautiful visuals, though. Nice sound. Love the explosions and the WWII feel.

 

That feedback is perfect -- it reminds me I need to put in some tutorial/pointers the first time you play. I also bumped up the number of starting swap tokens and will probably look at grabbing the first set of letters from a "known set" so the player gets started without a rack of letters like you got.

The door for changes is creaking shut, but I have a list going for a v2 product shortly after this one ships.

Thanks!

Jay

 

Cool! Let me win a little at first. That's a huge mistake I made with my own game.

Also, early testing. Someone around here said that once, you can never test too early, if you wait it's usually too late to change anything, anyway.

 

Thanks for playing. I'll work in the interaction with the health and other inventories. And in next version will post a PC version too with full screen.

 

Awesome man!

Thanks a ton for this list. Simply invaluable. Would you please like to clarify some points a bit more.

I didn't realise that the click and tap is also working. I think I'll have to disable that.

Again, that click thingy is adding confusion. Did the mouse over tooltips worked for you?

Absolutely, will add that.

Definitely needs audio feedback here too.

Did the places glow when you mouse over a soldier icon (tooltip)? I did that to depict the placements.

I'm not getting this in chrome. Which browser are you using to play?

Nice idea. Will do this.

It freezes or something? Did you tried locking the rotation using the camera icon?

I can see the tooltip hasn't worked again. Would you suggest a text label instead of hoverable tooltip?

Yes, pathfinding is getting stuck at times. Need more work on this.

I think I made a gross mistake is allowing the ship to fire over the soldiers at the beginning. This single thing is letting a lot of people down. Will change this for sure.

 

And, another Feedback Friday draws to a close. With the new 1-month format, the next FF will begin again on August 14th! See you then.

Gigi.