[Feedback Friday #36] - Dec 4, 2015 (Christmas!)

You're right. Games need a goal, victory and failure conditions, mechanics to let the player try for that goal, and impediments to achieving said goal. This is basic stuff, I don't know how I managed to forget that.

One of the first things I got working was defeat/victory, and I tested it. The controls are rough, but they're in and can be replaced if they're still not up to snuff. The bit where you can lose is what's missing. Also, I haven't really over-developed; at this point all the other screens are pretty much placeholders for when I've got the actual game down.

Thanks for the kind words - you all are real brothers and sisters. You're right, I have almost a MVP, with probably some of my best technology I've ever written, and a dedicated pipeline for getting assets in the game in a ready-to-play state easily. I'd be dumb to write this off as a failure/bad idea, when I'm just missing part.

Going with the baseball metaphor from @anselmo.fresquez? It's just turned second inning. I may not post for a while, because I'm writing AI, but before this three week-long FF is over, I'll have a build with AI that actively tries to defeat you in this game and ready to go.

I think I know a topic for @Gigiwoo's podcasts - "Overcoming a development freak-out moment." The answer is simple - you just need good people who can set you straight. I'm very lucky in that regard - thank you all again!

 

Good luck, make the next version your New Years present to us all.

 

Can Blender wait? Your choice to use primitives helps you focus on what's fundamentally wrong with your concept. In this case, I think pretty pictures would only obscure the real issue.

Left-click, select, and then right-click on a unit-by-unit basis is cumbersome, micro-ish, and hard to teach. Here's some alternatives.

* Perhaps clicking on a gold coin, when it spawns - a unit could leave the fight to go get it (AUTOMAGICALLY).
* Or you could have harvest resources that sit around the castle, and run out to grab stuff that spawns, when you click. Maybe they take time, so you have to balacne how much you spend on resource gatherers, or not. Be careful with the idea that they can die - it seems like fun strategy, except it creates a massively downward gameplay spiral that makes it impossible to recover after a tiny mistake.
* Perhaps you can click a target to have all units attempt to get to it - then, if there are warriors are in the way, they will block the opponents. It would have to be easy to select, or it would be annoying. Maybe there are strategic reasons to attack units vs the building, or vice versus.
* You could have paths - like LoL. Or Lanes, like many games. Where it's not just the timing, it's also the choice of lanes.
* All units might be capable of gathering resources, and the whole army moves toward resources, if you so click. When they arrive, maybe the armies are fighting over the resources. Might be some interesting strategy and gameplay in there.

Food for thought,
Gigi

 

Maybe ask the big question - "what is my player doing? the one core mechanic that they are doing most of the time" Ask it, review the answer, try it out, then repeat. You've tried this iteration. Consider repeating the process. Finding out a design doesn't work by prototyping hurts less if you'd sunk another 6 months.

Gigi

 

First, you are wrong. You have great ideas, lots of experience, and years of practice. You definitely have a clue. And like all of us, there's lots more to learn. The angst you are feeling is important - it's the fire of the crucible that forges a stronger blade.

Second, the reason the RMB isn't clear is that the units start to move on their own. This created the expectation that it's a side-scrolling, spawning, time-management game, like Palladogs (a fun niche which I happen to like!). I had NO idea this was an RTS.

If you want me to move the units, then don't move them for me. The downside is that this instantly takes you down a path that requires a LOT more features. You need drag boxes, and click to give orders, and all kinds of things. RTS' get very complicated, very quickly. It's hard to argue that 2 castles, directly across from each other warrant the feature set required of a RTS. Also, these sort of mechanics do not translate well to mobile. The original knights vs zombies was more like Palladogs - a simple resource spawn-timing, strategy game, likely with an upgrade path, and a series of escalating missions. I liked the idea, and was looking forward to seeing an updated version, based on all you've learned. .

Gigi

 

While I appreciate the words, I have years of experience making middling-quality games - that's something I'm trying to fix!

...But you're right - this is something that, while I seriously considered ragequitting, isn't something I should step away from. The first Zombies vs. Knights, was thrown together in a month by me as a night-clueless recent-grad. With Saleria: Zombies vs. Knights, I can draw upon five years of commercial software experience in addition to games I've written. I feel my UI is far superior to the first game, already, and that's with minimal effort invested in it.

Yesterday I merely felt better about the game; today, I've got a plan on how to get the AI in the game. I'm not going to layer on any new mechanics until I get the basic game in front of people.

As for the identity of the game? I don't care what genre it fits into anymore; indeed, it's immaterial if it's not even a game, which is the case at present. It draws inspiration from RTSes, and might qualify as one given the underlying mechanic of purchasing units at the right times to destroy the enemy base. On the other hand, the scope of this game is small, on purpose. It shouldn't fit the RTS mold. On the other hand, I didn't enjoy Paladogs - while it's a good game, I found it too simple to hold my interest - in other words, a typical phone game. Saleria: Zombies vs. Knights lives in the penumbra between Paladogs and WarCraft III.

As for everything else, there was a suggestion to 'just tell the players what to do.' Specifically:

That also gave me an idea, based on what Hearthstone does when you first start that game up. Maybe - if I do that - right-clicks as a control option won't seem out of left field. In all fairness to everyone who's played it - especially you - I never actually told anyone to use the RMB to issue orders, and that's my fault. It's easy, and requires no extra screens or features. TL;DR - I fail at basic communication.

I guess another critical lesson is that people won't use controls if you don't tell them to - no matter how familiar you design them to be.

Lastly, @anselmo.fresquez is right on one more point - I haven't been allowing myself to make mediocre games. I've pushed myself too hard and made game development 'un-fun' for myself, thus the nerd-rage over the weekend. That's me missing the point of...well, everything up to and including the meaning of life, the universe, and everything in it. This is supposed to be fun. It might be that my next game after this, I ditch all the pretense, dig out one of my most ridiculous, idiotic ideas that by no means should garner critical acclaim, but be stupid fun...and make that. The Unicorn with a monocle is sounding better by the day...

 

How about now? I'd love to see you set this game aside, set your pretenses aside, and just build something stupid. Do it in 1 month - like your first creation, 5 years ago. Have fun, finish it, and move on.

Gigi

 

I accept. See Ep 15, the finale of Season one. Happy holidays!
Gigi

 

First - @Gigiwoo, you are a friend. Never, ever doubt that. A friend does what you just did - sees the 'oh crap' moment, and says, 'ok, you fell. Dust off the knees, apply some band-aids, and get back to it. I'm still here for you.' This is probably the most touching moment I've had of my game development career. I'd extend that to everyone else who helped out - we all struggle together. If you all have a freak-out moment of your own, I promise to do the same thing and exalt you back to greatness (and, a released game!) You have my word.

Next...@Gigiwoo, for once I think you're wrong on one point. You're right that I need to make a dumb silly fun easy-to-build game, absolutely. I need to do it soon, too, that's also important.

Equally, I need to conquer this; I can't let Saleria: Zombies vs. Knights "beat" me. I've written this game once before, and honestly it's close save one critical missing bit to the basic form I designed for it. One could argue, "Banker's Fallacy!" but no. I've seen this project fail in one sense, but because of that, I think I see the things I need to succeed despite that. I've learned that I became too dependent on the maths and sciences of games (I like a paraphrasal of something from @anselmo.fresquez, I'm gonna adopt a Mr.T voice and say, "That Extra Creditz Crap!") , and forgot about the art. I was inspired, but forgot what the inspiration meant. In forgetting the inspiration and art, I rendered the science and logic moot.

So, I'm going to stew on some 'dumb silly game' concepts. But Saleria: Zombies vs. Knights will release - soon, as in within a month or two - and it will be better than the first game. If it's a so-so game, it doesn't matter; I've already won - I already understand more than I did two months ago. In fact, I got a basic form of AI up and running last night, and spinning out units, and the game feels more fun for it. Having my game beat me showed me a thing or two. In other words, I don't know that SZvK is a bad idea until I release it...like the Steam version of your Marriage app.

The worst that anyone can say is, "Man Andrew that's a crappy game!" I can honestly say, I've released worse. It's all uphill from here.

 

Release a silly game prototype to help people recover between Xmas & New Years when no one has the time or clear head to play a serious game & start saleria in the new year with a playable prototype for Valentine's Day (since we already know you live the game it seems an appropriate time).

If the patch to fix the 2d collision & trigger issue is fixed this week I will try to get one released as well, tho I may not make it as school holidays start next week & the kids will want to play games on the PC. That bug has lost me a fortnight so far

 

As an extra thought, we have had @Gigiwoo 's 12 week challenge but what do people think of a 1 week silly game challenge? It can be run in January when people are on holidays or just relaxing & the whole aim is to make a silly game prototype? It doesn't need to be fancy, can use placeholder art & sound, & the average game lasts no more than 5minutes?

Something like:

• 5 minute game limit
• No more than 2 main game mechanics
• No more than 2 supporting mechanics
• 1 week from start to finish
• Bonus points for being silly in mechanic or theme.

The idea being to start the year in a lighter game making frame of mind.

 

Sure gamejolt even has a system set up so its easy to add a gamejam
http://jams.gamejolt.com/

 

Sounds good, tho I'll have to make sure I use proper free art (I normally rip google images for my placeholder art)

 

I'm at work, or I'd start the jam up myself. In fact, I've already got a pretty silly idea in mind...

 

I have a few, I just need to work out what I can do since I'm really really slow at getting things to work. At least a quick game should in theory not have many complex things for me to work out.

 

Can we make it simpler? It's a fun idea, and I think it can get even simpler, with a theme tied to the new year.

Rules: Build a prototype game. Post it to the Feedback Friday thread, between Jan 9 - Jan 23.
Theme: Something Old, Something New.

Gigi

 

Sounds good but I will need to rethink my idea. Maybe a middle aged guy that has to run through a maze collecting new (young) wives & avoiding the old ones? He can collect money on the way around & can pay to dump any old ones he has collected but it costs more each time. A twist on pacman & the ghosts.

Or a new twist on an old game?

 

Unity New Years 2015 Jam is alive!

Anyone who wants to help administer the Jam should let me know their GameJolt username so I can add you

Also, spinning off a new topic.

 

Just finished my ludum dare entry on tuesday morning and since then I'm working on improving my game bit by bit and noticed I could use some feedback (game was originally made within 72 hours)

so here it is, my first fully selfmade game *throws it to the wolves *

web version: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4576449/HatchlingGamev1_2web.html
windows download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4576449/HatchlingGamev1_2.zip

 

@Farelle - Interesting game...here's what I got from it.

What Worked:
The hand drawn visuals are extremely effective. Your entire game makes sense with barely any text whatsoever.

The audio is also very well-controlled by default. The music is present, but not intrusive. The sound effects are a little stronger, but also not intrusive to the experience.

Also, the controls themselves make perfect sense - left to breathe ice breath at the egg, and right to heat it up with some fire!

What Didn't Work:
I couldn't raise my pet from the second 'stage' of its growth. I would breathe fire at it, because the egg ices over pretty quickly, but it seems like fire just breaks the egg. Short bursts of fire don't seem to counter the rate at which the egg freezes over, so the egg is either taking damage faster than I can warm it up, or freezing over faster than I can heat it up, while still taking damage. I don't see how this game is winnable.

Also, what's the point of the game? I'm assuming the point is to get my egg to hatch into a baby dragon, by controlling the temperature without shattering the egg. That being said, I'm not entirely sure of what the right temperature is. I tried to keep the egg fully visible at any given time, and that seems like the wrong strategy. To me that reveals another problem - while your visuals give good feedback about what's going on, your feedback on whether or not the player is succeeding is suffering. How do I know I'm doing the right thing and to keep doing it?

The audio is perfect, but a minor suggestion is to have some way of controlling the volumes of background music and sound effects; while I found the defaults good on them, I can imagine some people may like more of the BGM and less of the sound effects...alternatively, they may want to turn off the BGM altogether and have the audio cues from the sound effects. It's not a major point, just a quality of life upgrade you should consider.

Finally, the most minor point - the fonts/UI. You could stand to skin them, because you've got a game that works. A little visual flair on that wouldn't go amiss.

The TL;DR
Your first game is a good one that largely makes sense, but needs to do a better job of reinforcing to the player whether or not they are winning or losing the heat war for their baby. It's a solid start with a neat concept, that needs ever so slightly better execution to really shine.

 

thanks for your feedback and those are many good points. I already played with the thought if I should add something like heart particles over the egg or make it shine, some visual cue that you are in the "golden spot".
(and yes, currently the "clear" state means no damage, but the damage counter won't be resetted when leaving fire ice areas)

regarding the difficulty issue: I was adding a strength increase when holding the key down, which has no upper limit, so when spying out too long at a time it can pretty much make you instantly change between too hot and too cold, based on your feedback I should make a limit to that and maybe tweak the "no damage zone" to be a bit bigger.
(I can assure you that you can win it right now btw. but I know it's hard)

and yes, goal of the game is hatching it, maybe I could add some kind of tutorial images that also show the goal of the game above the start button *writes idea down*

music and sound controls - check
UI elements - check

so thats all on my list now

edit: forgot to mention that I was thinking about adding a difficulty choice also

 

A visual clue as the egg gets close to hatching as well, maybe the egg could start to wobble a bit & get a big faster with some cracks appearing over time?

 

the cracks wouldn't fit with the current hatch animation, but yeah that could be a good idea to add

 

Because my current Christmas game project is not made in Unity I won't post it here. My original ambition was to have a game with varied stages and game play including top down dodge and collect, side view platformer etc all connected by a central hub. However due to various delays (the holiday season can be quite busy) I've thrown that stuff out until next year. Now my focus is on building various platformer stages getting variety based on level design and encounters. Which works well and actually matches my original dev process for it: get as much done now as I can and then revisit and build it out more next year.

If anyone has an interest in playtesting a sort of Sega Genesis style graphics Christmas platformer game pm me. If I "know" you I'll send a link. And don't worry about fire & brimstone. I am asking for the axe to come down now.

 

Well you know I already left a comment on your game in the other thread. I think @Asvarduil covered the same improvement points I would. I found your concept creative & refreshing.

 

War-o-Matic my LD #34 entry.



http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=680

So what do you think and how could I improve it?

 

Why would the game *have* to be made with Unity? That's a weird thought.

 

Really?! I just figured since this is a Unity forum and not a general GameDev forum (although that is how I see them) it would be frowned upon to throw games made with non-Unity tools in here. Like imagine if all of the people using Gamemaker, Construct and the dozens of other game dev tools started posting their games here or even in the Work In Progress forums. So that is why I made the post. Don't want to tick off the people who feel very strongly about Unity.

 

...illogical, because (a) a game can be made in unity without a splash screen, (b) what is a "unity" game vs. a "normal" game? (c) There's been no rules posted heretofore about this and (d) who really cares?

Also, this forum is really the only one of all where the topic of discussion regularly, and intentionally, extends beyond Unity

 

So long as we don't download it and go through the folder structures, who's gonna know?

 

God, The Shadow and Ethan Hunt.

But literally nobody else.

 

Well that's a great view. Heck I'll go with it. It used to be fairly common that whenever someone posted a game on a forum of one api/language/etc that was made in another api/language/etc there were always people complaining "This is for X users! Only for games made in X!" I'm glad if the Internet has chilled out about that. lol

I'll throw out a link to an html5 version this weekend or maybe Friday night. I hope to have the version 0.9 done by this weekend. Then can work based on Feedback and throw out 1.0 in time for Christmas.

 

I've actually run across a ton of stuff that doesn't say a thing about Unity, but they all have the telltale data folder.

 

The unity police will crack your game to make sure its made with unity and ban you if you posted a non-unity project.

 

In other recent news: The Unity Police have recently opened a fraternity at a College/University near you, "P-Sideways-Omega-Delta." These new greek letters have Fraternologists completely puzzled, and likely will for years to come. Some suspect the choice was prompted by too much Dos Equis and a school of Sharks celebrating Dos Equis Man week, but unfortunately neither the frat boys nor the sharks were available for comment.

 

This is what happens when you have indie police

 

Ha ha! Well I honestly had no idea people had chilled out so much. There was a time it really was different. People were fanatics about everything. This forum is for THIS thing. And THIS thing is better than that thing anyway! And it wasn't just programming languages and game engines/apis that had these fanatics it was actually the operating systems themselves. Windows sucks. Linux Rules. Hey you can all go to hell Macs are best and get off this forum. lol Kind of like a virtual Crusades campaign.

 

Just don't expect technical support.

 

Seeing the Ludum Dare attendees are reposting their games, from that thread, might as well do the same here. This time, we tried learning UNET framework solo in just 72-hours. Did I succeed? Find out for yourself with our game, hack.source.net:



http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=20557

Is your friend over-powering you in any FPS game? No worries! hack.source.net is a 2-player FPS that let's you disable up to two button inputs from your opposing player! Keep your friend from moving forward, take away their ability to jump, and shoot your way to victory!

Controls:
* WASD to move
* Space to Jump
* Hold the Left Shift to run
* Move the mouse to look around
* Left-Ctrl or Left-click to shoot
* Left-Alt or Right-click to put up a reflective shield
* Esc to bring up the hack menu

 

Okay it seems weird that the wheel is actually taking up 90% of the screen and the actual action is taking up 10%. Id flip it like cartoon wars.

I didnt even know you needed to build a gather to collect resources. It seems like you need a better tutorial.

The gameplay is too slow, you should speed up the movement speed and the spawn time.

The enemy only seemed to build one type of unit, didnt even attack me but instead patrolled back and forth (and therefore collected a group of units I wasnt able to counter -- because my units would just run at them 1 after another into the enemies), after I figured out I needed to build the gatherer I was never low on resources but the game was too slow.

 

I thought this was an excellent MVP. Very nice example of what can come out of a weekend Ludum Dare challenge.

I actually liked the Unit Command GUI taking up the bulk of the playfield and the battle area taking up a small slice. For me this made it seem like the focus was on building the right units at the right time. And made it feel more like a game of strategy. The results could have been a simple text display but seeing it displayed graphically was a very nice touch.

To improve it for me:

1. When I am out of resources and cannot do anything throw up a YOU LOSE screen
2. Increase the damage or fire rate of the heavy units and also their defense. I couldn't tell much if any difference between these units and the normal Trooper
3. The enemy seems way overpowered. They seem to be able to obliterate my troops with a few shots while my own troops can land hit after hit and seems to barely do any damage to the enemies
4. If you want to have a sound effect for unit creation use a different sound from the one used for the units firing their weapons. Currently it seems like the weapon fire sound is used for other things such as "unit created" as well

Overall it is a very interesting game. Shows how something relatively simple (not meant in any way to take anything away from your work) can have a good amount of depth or at least seem like it does. Well done!

 

I tried to play the fps game but you needed a second player so I couldnt do anything.

 

First game created in Unity 5.2.3 using dictionary logic and hashset lookups to increase speed. Implemented Facebook SDK to allow facebook oauth login to store usernames to GameSparks leaderboard service. Total development time: 1 1/2 months, Tears shed level: low-moderate.

Thanks for the platform to show my game for feedback!

Marketing:
Transform your stress and boredom into zen like mastery of spelling and word finding, with Bonsai Word. Grow vocabulary, enhance spelling abilities, and have fun with this full dictionary word finding game. Bonsai Word is a challenge when you login with Facebook and upload your high scores to a Leaderboard so you can one up your friends!

Download Bonsai Word -- Zen Word Find, on Google play store

 

I think the interface is wonky. The cloning station is so big and the actual battle area is so small. All I could figure out how to do is press "A" and "B" and I sort of felt like it didn't have any meaning. I don't know the advantages of the different units and so the concept is just lost. My guess is that I am supposed to kill the little robot things on the right by producing soldiers on the left. I don't know why there is a delay on producing the soldiers, but it is really long and seemingly pointless.

Graphics ain't bad at all, though I would like to see animations obviously.

Sound effects are abrasive and sudden.

If I could understand the game's goal and mechanics better I could play a few rounds and give you more feedback. As it is, I don't know what I am doing other than producing soldiers.

 

Downloaded it, and swiping on the letters barely works. I spent at least 3 minutes figuring out the exact light touch and the pause needed in order to score a couple of times. Even knowing the trick, it is still not playable. For one thing, your finger covers the play area, so it is impossible to know if you are actually selecting the right letters or not. Idea is good, presentation is actually clean and decent but the interface is just not cutting it. A tiny gripe, the recently scored words on the left should scroll so you can see the most recent word and the value.

 

He probably didn't mention there was a tie on the theme for this Ludum Dare. People could choose to do one or the other or even both in the same game. One of the themes (constraints) was "two button controls" so indeed it is only pressing the A and B buttons.

 

Anselmo thanks for feedback. I agree the touch is difficult because I'm using the unity onmousedown event that converts via unity to touch friendly. I noticed to get a word started, you must double click the first letter. I'd like to repair this on an update, but am still trying to figure out how to convert this or fix the issue of onmousedown conversion needing double click on touch.

I wonder how one could make it easier to see what is being selected if you need to touch the piece in order to select.

 

This time I am going to try something different. I'm going to throw my game out here and get the developers feedback and also throw it out on a web game portal and get the players feedback.

Anyway, this is very rough. I've been working on it a bit over 5 weeks now.

The goal was to create a Christmas game between the NES and Sega Genesis system constraints. This means basically a retroish style presentation and constraints on the overall amount of graphics and animation that can be present at any one time. I tried to stick as close to that as possible. Most of the time there are only about 30 colors on the screen. Maximum colors at any one time are about 36 currently. All colors are chosen from a fixed-palette of 128 colors. So it is more than NES 8-bit games and less than the Genesis 16-bit games.

The full scope of the game is to combine the elements of an action adventure type of game with other game types. Basically the main hub (North Pole Village) is where events take place to push the story forward. It is where you find out what is going on (given missions/quests in a sense).



And then you leave the main hub area entering the other gameplay areas to handle those quests.


My full plan calls for various styles of games to be in those other areas from platformer stages to overhead skiing levels and others including flying stages. However, at this point I have only had time to knock out a couple rough platformer stages. It is a long-term project in that I knew I would not complete it until at least next Christmas.


This is so early on it really is version 0.1 the first real release for feedback. I was reluctant to throw it out here and almost waited until I had another round of development next year. Because I have a habit of throwing things out so early they really don't show where I am going with it. I think this one does a better job of it though so I am taking the plunge.

I know much of it is rough (and incomplete such as reusing gifts in place of parts).
This is why it is version 0.1

I am asking for feedback on these things:

1. Difficulty: Is it too easy, too hard or just right?
   
2. Does it feel like a Christmas game?
3. Does it feel retro?

Thanks!

Oh and finally... this is the WebGL version of my Christmas Game

 

Very cool GarBenjamin. The pixel art looks great and Santa def. gives the game a Christmas vibe, as well as all the white on the ground. I was unable to avoid the falling snowballs in the cave which made it a bit frustrating but the bats are great and well timed and positioned. Overall, Santa is Santa so he wouldn't be too agile, which comes off in the game, but I'd love to see the ability to have Santa sling the sack of toys at the snowballs to destroy them and maybe that damages his "Sack Health" -- pun intended -- and if all the toys get destroyed then you have to restart or something.

overall, it's fun and does remind me of a retro game.

 

I played the Christmas platformer -- its already pretty good -- and kept dying over and over again, I was finally able to reach the top.I thought the starting village added alot to the game rather then dumping him in the level.

• I'd change the boulder sound effect, if you had headphones on it would be a nightmare.
• Maybe you could add an indicator that theres a boulder ahead but I thought was gave it some of its appeal.
• Rather then starting back in the village (every time you die) you should make him start back at the bottom of the platformer section.