[Feedback Friday #58] - September 8, 2017

FF #58 is CLOSED until Friday October 6th.

Summer's over, school's back in session, and productivity is up. Game on!

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Want design feedback for your new game? Then you've found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until we lock the thread to start the two week break.

How To Ask For Feedback

• Show - Pics, videos, or best of all, a playable game!
• Be Concise - Who's got time for Wall 'O Text? Less is more

How To Give Feedback

• Be Positive - Finding redeeming qualities in the worst of games, is in itself a game
• Focus On The Design - Not the designer
• Be Specific - "Your game sucks!" is for nubs

What To Show

• Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play >>> everything else
• How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)

Gigi

[PS - Feedback Friday #57 is here]

 

Hi there, after almost 3 years work (and a year after I posted in FF first time), now I've finally finished my first game ever, Fallen Times! It's a FPS game that feature the mixture of old school mechanic, action game style boss fights, semi-open level design, and visual novel, anime style storytelling, it also allows players to play this game whether they want, either peeking out the corner to pick up all enemies, or just gun and run! I'm planning to release it on steam in this October, hope to see some feedbacks!
Screenshots:



Video demonstrating one of the boss fight - (NOT) Muhammad (Going to make more videos later, CAN'T MAKE THEM RIGHT NOW BECAUSE NVIDA SHADOWPLAY IS OFFLINE NOW AND I CAN'T USE IT!):

 

Hi, just discovered this thread and want to check I'd be posting the right thing.
This is for feedback on our game design, right? If so I'll put together a little video!

As into, I'm trying to fix something in my long running but not yet released game. If I describe the problem in a video along with my current idea (which I've partially implemented), you guys might be able to give me feedback and/or ideas, right?

Thanks!

 

Right! In the past, this thread has mostly seen playable games or prototypes. To discuss an idea that isn't playable yet, you might want to start a new thread. That way it'll have a descriptive thread title in case other readers in the future search for ideas on the same design challenge that you're working on.

 

Oh ok, thanks. So we're supposed to post a playable demo rather than a video?

Oh hmm... Maybe I wasn't clear, my game is more than merely a design! I just don't feel confident enough to post a build quite yet. Here's a video of yesterday's version showing part of the thing I intended to ask about -- obviously without the voice-over question, etc... I guess any feedback on this so far would also be great

 

Can you phrase what feedback you're looking for in one or more questions?

 

Oops, seems that I forgot to ask the specific question as well, can really blame myself, since I'm just too excited to get my first game done .
So here is the question : What do you think about the idea of using "Visual novel section" as cutscenes? As someone who has no budget, this seems to be the way to go, but it also seems that no one did that before :/

 

Oops, I had directed that question to @Arkade but I wanted to ask the same of you, so thanks for answering!

I think it's a great idea. It seems similar to the way combat and dialogue are interspersed in Mass Effect. If Mass Effect only had combat, it would have just been an unmemorable third person shooter. If it only had non-stop social dialogue, it would have grown tedious. But when the player comes out of tense, immersive combat, their adrenaline is up, and they're primed for social connection, be it lust or brotherhood or whatever.

 

Hey guys. I'm working on a mobile infinite runner called Slippy Seal. Here's a video, let me know what you think and if you have any ideas

Edit: (Some general questions)
-Does it look fun?
-Is there enough to it?
-Any ideas for powerups?
-How do you like the art?
-Do you think it needs music?

Here's a link to my WIP page if you're interested in following progress:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/slippy-seal-mobile-line-drawing-infinite-runner.485367/

 

@Arkade can you give us some background on your game? It looks very peaceful and relaxing definitely quite interesting too. What's the objective? Is it a sandbox?

 

We are madly in crunch as we try to get to our beta release this week. As is always the case the build we did at the end of the week broke stuff (facebook integration seems to be especially flakey/sensitive) but here's a rough edit of a video ad we are starting to put together for the word game we are working on.

The video is old & contains no sound & some placeholder art. What we'd like feedback on is whether you can follow what the game is about & some tips on what isn't clear, is to long etc so we can tighten it up. Once we have that general feel we will get new footage with the final art & sounds & redo it. Also, ignore the spelling errors, we were in a rush (embarrassing for a word game but ...).

Thanks (I'm happy to explain the game but didn't want to risk bias on the feedback in case knowing what the game is made it easier to follow what the video shows)

Sean

 

This looks good, however, for what I've seen, there are too many seagulls (fatal enemies) in comparison of red birds (non-fatal ones), I think you can decrease the number of seagulls and increase red birds.
For the audio side, I wouldn't mind a simple mobile game like this has no music, still, having music in it would be good.

 

>-Is there enough to it?
I realize it's an infinite runner, what about making it feel like you're sliding toward a purpose? In Temple Run, I feel like my purpose is to avoid traps while searching ancient ruins for treasure. In Canabalt, I feel like I'm a cyberpunk hero trying to escape The Man.

Also, can the seal go in the water? This seems like a natural place to go. It's kind of weird that it's just flying through the air.

>-Any ideas for powerups?
Maybe I missed it, but what about eating fish?

> -How do you like the art?
I think it's right in the style you're aiming for, but what if you added a little more animation to the moving units (player and obstacles) and the background? The blue bars that the seal slides on could use a more varied texture, such as looking like an ice slide.

I really like the stars when the seal gets bonked.

>-Do you think it needs music?
Yes. Runners especially seem like they would benefit from dynamic music that gets more intense as the action increases. I think there are some assets on the Asset Store that will manage dynamic music for you.

I like it! It's kind of like Bejeweled for Scrabble fans. When you get to the point of adding juice, I think it'll add a lot to the presentation. It's going to require a really good dictionary to satisfy fans of obscure vocabulary.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes I agree, especially at the start. They increase over time but perhaps it starts with too many and increases too fast.

Any idea how I could achieve that? What if every couple hundred meters theres a factory that you blow up. The aim of the game is to beat global warming.

Edit: Freeze the factories instead of blowing them up?

Yes you can, but its dangerous in there with orcas and a shark that chases you if you're under for too long. Also you float to the top... but I could look at incorporating this into the gameplay a bit more.

Any suggestions for how to animate the player? I could add simple things like blinking but he's just sliding so I can't think of anything else haha. I definitely agree the ice beam needs some work

Cool I'll look into some dynamic music!

 

From the gameplay, I didn't understand that the aim is to beat global warming. (I did wonder why there were factories/oil rigs in the background.) Although a laudable theme, is it extraneous to the gameplay?

Exaggerate the animations you have. Sliding seems a lot like jumping in other games. To make a memorable jump, you want to emphasize the load/launch, the hang, and the landing. Can you do the same for the seal's slide?

 

I'll try to make the objective more clear (there isn't really one atm). I'm thinking that whenever you pass a factory, you freeze the factory and it's smoke stops. maybe a little message appears "Level 1 Factory Frozen!" - the factories get bigger as you go to make you feel like you're progressing. The idea is that the ice you create is cooling the ocean and freezing the factories to combat global warming.

I might also add a little animation at the start of the game to explain what's going on.

Currently there are no animations on the seal, he's just a ragdoll. The powerups add animated sprites on top of him. I'll experiment with some different effects when he's on the ice and mid air.

Thanks again for all the feedback, very helpful

 

@tedthebug I was a little confused and had to watch the video a few times before i realised what was happening.
Do you need to convert the entire board to pass the level? Are there always word combinations available?
In the video you ended up with everything blue and T and N left orange - what do you do from there?
An animation for the squares changing colours would give some useful feedback to the player.

 

Thanks everyone, nice feedback.

@TonyLi We have a dictionary of ~390k words, no complaints so far (unlike he first one we had that had 190k words). There is some juice, like floaty points & turns when playing turn mode, & sounds when actions are taken, but the feedback from the players has been that they have to concentrate so hard that they want subtle stuff so they just notice but it doesn't distract them . The current list caters to US & UK spelling so there's an advantage if you know words can have an S or Z or you can add a U after an O etc.

@Serinx Yep, you get the board to be all one colour & you get bonus points & a new board to continue. I've realised that we need to show that you can reuse letters to keep swapping them between colours so that you can clear the board, the board isn't immediately solvable as it requires the player to see what letters they need, make a word to swap the letters to that colour & then make more words to get rid of whatever is left. The letters swapping isn't animated for the normal turn but will be when we introduce the power-up that lets them change the colour of one tile in a game.

I guess one thing I should mention is that the programmer decided to make the entire game in UI utilising one scene.

 

For a game like this, that seems like a reasonable choice. Why do you mention it? Are you concerned about something?

 

it has given us a number of issues, & I wasn't sure if it was a good decision or if we would've been better using UI for more traditional stuff & doing the rest as 2d in the 'normal' unity gamespace. But, if it seems like a good choice then we will keep puddling along. Thanks

 

I suppose you might be able to get a little better performance by doing it outside of the UI system by avoid the UI canvas recalculations, but then again you get a lot of handy layout features by using the UI system. If you had to implement those layout features yourself, you'd have more custom code to debug and maintain. If it ain't broke...

 

For anyone interested, we ripped out the mobile aspects (hence the weird button layouts) for an early beta we had & placed the downloadable on itch. It's a mix of final art/feedback & placeholder art/no feedback. Sounds are final but haven't been transitioned properly so they overlap & end weirdly in this version. The tutorial is also blank so the link has another link to the draft tutorial.

Tutorial will hopefully be finished & in next week along with more player feedback, a fix to the word list (first word is off screen when you first go to it), & more art.

https://savageyetigames.itch.io/patchword

 

Such discussion.
Very Feedback.
Wow!

A wonderfully doge Feedback Friday. I love the support everyone gave. Grats to the submitters who put their work out there for all to see! Until next time - try, improve, and repeat.

Curtiss.