Hello, found you on reddit. I'm really enjoying the appeal and mechanics of this so far. Hope you don't mind some reports. I've been at it for a couple hours already so I will be posting more later. if you have discord you can message me there with any questions. I can make record short clips of the things I find and send them if my descriptions don't make sense. laroqsoqs#5716 ~ id like to help down the line if this makes it easier to communicate
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World 2 Easter; I can use number keys to switch stages without beating them
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Upon Spawning; You can start a Dash before moving at all; Charge Gauge and Direction Indicators Appear but they're off-set When you release the Charge, nothing happens. No dash.
Bunny Sprite is also Upright and Still during this.
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Carrot Powered Bunny has no sounds/animations when in water; I'm assuming that's not a bug but just not implemented yet.
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While On the Surrounding Edges of Walkable Tiles on any Platform, If you Charge A Dash and Direct It AWAY From The Edge/Wall/Object/Pitfall, And Release the Charge anywhere from about 30% or less;
You will be pushed back and automatically fall into a pit~ Ignores collision.
This occurs whether the charge gauge is rising or falling.
DoesNot Occur::: - Against Clean Pitfalls that you can OR cannot walk into. - Against Edges that fall to another walkable platform
Will Occur ::: - Against Pitfalls with an object (rock, tree, scenery) over the tile you would fall into (not on the wall you would fall off, but over the tile ahead of it)
- Against Stairs; but Instead of dropping you, it will put you on the above stair. - Against Walls, Fences, Rocks, Non-Interactable Puzzle Objects
Tutorial Stage for ez-repro, attempt this 30% dash; - Against the North Edge (fence) of the opening platform. - Against the Rock in the middle of the second, lowest platform (right of ladder) - Against the Stairs and watch it pop you up one stair. (Interesting behavior) - Against the Torch seen after the stairs.
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Environmental Debris will dislodge any moving obstacles it contacts.
Use Tutorial Room; Try to hit a rotating saw with the grass debris and watch it fly.
I've been following the development for this game for about a year now since I saw it on /agdg/ and honestly I still wasn't ready for what I was about to play.
I finished the game 2 times now not counting re-playing the levels to find potential bugs and honestly it feels really good, it kind of reminds me of meatboy and could easily be on the same level if all the bugs were fixed and with a few more levels.
Also the game has a really nice but unexpected difficulty curve and the later levels are for the most part really challenging and fun to play.
And as I said earlier the game would be GOTY with a few more levels, a way to keep the best level timers (for speedrunning) and maybe a coop mode with coop levels (May be impossible but would be really good).
Overall I wasn't expecting this level of quality coming from a /agdg/ thread and I'll probably buy the game day one, it's really good, 10/10.
Post scriptum: I'll reply to this post with a .txt file this week-end with the bugs I found because I don't want to clog this page with a huge slab of text.
Because of this feedback I'm going to add one additional level in each world that is a lava rising challenge. Each world will get a lava rising level with that worlds traps and enemies used on that level etc. The final game should have new game+ as well for more content (gonna try and have a secret ending with this new game+ so its a reward for beating it).
I will try to get online leaderboards but I was told that is really hard for a first time dev if I fail at it il go with local best time scores.
I actually did a lot of tests with local co-op and sadly I can't get that going correctly this first time around its way too much content I'd have to work on the game for another year and I rather move onto a new game. (il save this for bokube 2 though)
You're not obligated to have an online leaderboard, just have best personnal time like in Mario Kart would be enough and speedrun.com would do the rest
Yeah I mentioned in the games page to mute the game before you play it since I haven't really worked on the games sound for a year or so but I think thats not on this submission page to DD40. Been busy with content creation, but this alpha playtest is to wrap the content up and fix issues/bugs before I get to beta stage of development where I'm actually going to add in all the real audio dev work and music.
This feels like FEZ and Super Meat Boy at the same time. HOW DO I PURCHASE
This install is kinda' huge for what it is. Is that a Unity thing?
Quit To Desktop button does not work for me in 1-1
The dead body of purple cubes in 1-3 can be used to push sawblades around
Cannon controls in 1-3 might be reversed.
At the beginning of 1-4 you can tilt the dash UI while the camera is spinning.
Particles emitted by pigs in 1-4 seem to be huge red squares.
In world 2, it is unclear which enemies are supposed to be killable and which ones aren't. I thought purple meant killable and red meant unkillable but I can kill lots of red enemies, especially in Easter.
Leading slow pig to puzzle cube does not kill it. (Easter 3)
I encountered a few deaths (mainly from the homing spotlight pig) where pressing R to retry did not save my progress in the level and started it over completely.
Certain parts of the map trigger sad/danger emotes even if the enemy that would cause the danger is dead already.
It is unclear what the pumpkin does. Pig no-detect?
Sometimes you can roll through your friends without completing the level. (Easter 1)
HOW DO I SAVE HIM
1-2 occasionally lets you fall forever.
Waterfall noises are a bit much. Maybe lower vol.
Might just be my keyboard. Sometimes tapping shift to roll to defend myself feels too slow or like the inputs for other directions are messing with it.
While tabbing in and out I managed to completely break/freeze the input handler and had to forceclose the game. (Easter 2)
Enemies defeated by puzzle cubes respawn when the player respawns.
Pressing 1/2/3 etc to go to the different levels is still turned on.
Learning to use the dash to cross gaps takes some time to sink in. I'd def recommend fleshing out that section of the tutorial to make sure the player understands that they'll be using it that way.
Music is on point, mostly: the boss fights are too short. The track always kicks in right as the boss dies.
Anyway I'd love to keep going but I have other stuff to do. This looks awesome so far, good luck finishing and shipping it!
I'm not used to puzzle games so I can't really give much detailed critique but this is very appealing. The second world with the flashlight pigs didn't have a killbox when I launched off of cliffs so I fell forever until I hit R.
Was not expecting this level of difficulty from this game. It's very misleading from the art style!
I'm going to have to agree with one of the other commenters who said that there is almost too much variety level to level. Every level introduces a brand new concept and sometimes it's not immediately intuitive how these concepts are to be used, or what the new "rules" of the level are.
For example, in Easter 1, there's a fruit you can jump to get that makes you go faster and... damage enemies and make you invulnerable? But only when you're either dashing or spinning, not when standing still? And yet you don't use that fruit anywhere else in the level, and you actually don't even need to use that fruit at all to get by. It's a bit misleading. A more gradual ramp up in difficulty would be nice.
That said, you seem very open to feedback so that's super promising for your game. The energy, the vibrance, the art style, sound, and character design are all excellent. I really want to love this game -- just maybe consider a less steep difficulty curve?
How to dash to a precise location: 1. come up to gap 2. tap dash key 3. find the blue orb that uses the same color pallet as the world and easily blends in 4. make a decision to either cancel the dash or continue the dash 5. look over to the dash meter to see if the green bar is underneath the blue 6. oh too bad you spent 0.2 seconds looking for the blue marker orb, you missed the blue dash Hitting a precise blue-dash is on the first try consistently is impossible. The easiest fix to this might be to have the dash-orbs always visible.
Rapidly tapping A-W only moves in one direction
Levels are laid out in a way that force you to use your right hand to move the camera. If the levels were unwrapped so all platforms faced the same direction, camera controls wouldn't be necessary. Putting the responsibility of being able to see the level on the player feels lazy in a almost 2.5d platformer
Introduction of puzzle cubes is 4 different cubes with faces, and one of them has a spike on it. How am I supposed to know which one is a puzzle cube?
Just an observation: Puzzle cubes being locked to their goals misses out on the possibility for more complicated puzzles
Just finished World 1. Your mechanics are fun and interesting, though I have an issue with how you chose to roll out content. I like how there's so much variety level-to-level, but with the first world being, well, the first world, I expected any level gimmicks and hazards to further establish the rules of Bokube. One of the first enemies, being the pigs who chase you, break the rules of the grid, which would be perfectly fine later in the game, but for it being around the second to third level, feels really out of place. The cannons are a nice level gimmick, but I think they should be introduced later on, or have one appear as a way to end a level or something before being introduced proper. I could go on, but I don't want to bombard with negative criticism, since this is a solid game. I'm particularly fond of the boss, which would be an absolutely perfect first boss if your level design in the first world led up to it mechanically. Keep up the good work Boku.
Comments
Hello, found you on reddit. I'm really enjoying the appeal and mechanics of this so far. Hope you don't mind some reports. I've been at it for a couple hours already so I will be posting more later. if you have discord you can message me there with any questions. I can make record short clips of the things I find and send them if my descriptions don't make sense. laroqsoqs#5716 ~ id like to help down the line if this makes it easier to communicate
--------
World 2 Easter; I can use number keys to switch stages without beating them
--------
Upon Spawning;
You can start a Dash before moving at all;
Charge Gauge and Direction Indicators Appear but they're off-set
When you release the Charge, nothing happens. No dash.
Bunny Sprite is also Upright and Still during this.
---------
Carrot Powered Bunny has no sounds/animations when in water;
I'm assuming that's not a bug but just not implemented yet.
---------
********
While On the Surrounding Edges of Walkable Tiles on any Platform,
If you Charge A Dash and Direct It AWAY From The Edge/Wall/Object/Pitfall,
And Release the Charge anywhere from about 30% or less;
You will be pushed back and automatically fall into a pit~ Ignores collision.
This occurs whether the charge gauge is rising or falling.
Does Not Occur:::
- Against Clean Pitfalls that you can OR cannot walk into.
- Against Edges that fall to another walkable platform
Will Occur :::
- Against Pitfalls with an object (rock, tree, scenery) over the tile you would fall into
(not on the wall you would fall off, but over the tile ahead of it)
- Against Stairs; but Instead of dropping you, it will put you on the above stair.
- Against Walls, Fences, Rocks, Non-Interactable Puzzle Objects
Tutorial Stage for ez-repro, attempt this 30% dash;
- Against the North Edge (fence) of the opening platform.
- Against the Rock in the middle of the second, lowest platform (right of ladder)
- Against the Stairs and watch it pop you up one stair. (Interesting behavior)
- Against the Torch seen after the stairs.
---------
Environmental Debris will dislodge any moving obstacles it contacts.
Use Tutorial Room; Try to hit a rotating saw with the grass debris and watch it fly.
I've been following the development for this game for about a year now since I saw it on /agdg/ and honestly I still wasn't ready for what I was about to play.
I finished the game 2 times now not counting re-playing the levels to find potential bugs and honestly it feels really good, it kind of reminds me of meatboy and could easily be on the same level if all the bugs were fixed and with a few more levels.
Also the game has a really nice but unexpected difficulty curve and the later levels are for the most part really challenging and fun to play.
And as I said earlier the game would be GOTY with a few more levels, a way to keep the best level timers (for speedrunning) and maybe a coop mode with coop levels (May be impossible but would be really good).
Overall I wasn't expecting this level of quality coming from a /agdg/ thread and I'll probably buy the game day one, it's really good, 10/10.
Post scriptum: I'll reply to this post with a .txt file this week-end with the bugs I found because I don't want to clog this page with a huge slab of text.
Because of this feedback I'm going to add one additional level in each world that is a lava rising challenge. Each world will get a lava rising level with that worlds traps and enemies used on that level etc. The final game should have new game+ as well for more content (gonna try and have a secret ending with this new game+ so its a reward for beating it).
I will try to get online leaderboards but I was told that is really hard for a first time dev if I fail at it il go with local best time scores.
I actually did a lot of tests with local co-op and sadly I can't get that going correctly this first time around its way too much content I'd have to work on the game for another year and I rather move onto a new game. (il save this for bokube 2 though)
You're not obligated to have an online leaderboard, just have best personnal time like in Mario Kart would be enough and speedrun.com would do the rest
Also here is the .txt that I was speaking about https://pastebin.com/xcgwn0Z3
Also, forest 2's music is jacked up.
Yeah I mentioned in the games page to mute the game before you play it since I haven't really worked on the games sound for a year or so but I think thats not on this submission page to DD40. Been busy with content creation, but this alpha playtest is to wrap the content up and fix issues/bugs before I get to beta stage of development where I'm actually going to add in all the real audio dev work and music.
Still a super sick project. My favorite world so far is the Desert but I haven't gone past that yet.
This feels like FEZ and Super Meat Boy at the same time. HOW DO I PURCHASE
This install is kinda' huge for what it is. Is that a Unity thing?
Quit To Desktop button does not work for me in 1-1
The dead body of purple cubes in 1-3 can be used to push sawblades around
Cannon controls in 1-3 might be reversed.
At the beginning of 1-4 you can tilt the dash UI while the camera is spinning.
Particles emitted by pigs in 1-4 seem to be huge red squares.
In world 2, it is unclear which enemies are supposed to be killable and which ones aren't. I thought purple meant killable and red meant unkillable but I can kill lots of red enemies, especially in Easter.
Leading slow pig to puzzle cube does not kill it. (Easter 3)
I encountered a few deaths (mainly from the homing spotlight pig) where pressing R to retry did not save my progress in the level and started it over completely.
Certain parts of the map trigger sad/danger emotes even if the enemy that would cause the danger is dead already.
It is unclear what the pumpkin does. Pig no-detect?
Sometimes you can roll through your friends without completing the level. (Easter 1)
HOW DO I SAVE HIM
1-2 occasionally lets you fall forever.
Waterfall noises are a bit much. Maybe lower vol.
Might just be my keyboard. Sometimes tapping shift to roll to defend myself feels too slow or like the inputs for other directions are messing with it.
While tabbing in and out I managed to completely break/freeze the input handler and had to forceclose the game. (Easter 2)
Enemies defeated by puzzle cubes respawn when the player respawns.
Pressing 1/2/3 etc to go to the different levels is still turned on.
Learning to use the dash to cross gaps takes some time to sink in. I'd def recommend fleshing out that section of the tutorial to make sure the player understands that they'll be using it that way.
Music is on point, mostly: the boss fights are too short. The track always kicks in right as the boss dies.
Anyway I'd love to keep going but I have other stuff to do. This looks awesome so far, good luck finishing and shipping it!
I got my ass kicked by a game that looks like Sesame Street. I'm going to need some time to emotionally recover from this.
Looks good, sounds good, plays good. Props for the creativity and polish. Keep at it!
I'm not used to puzzle games so I can't really give much detailed critique but this is very appealing. The second world with the flashlight pigs didn't have a killbox when I launched off of cliffs so I fell forever until I hit R.
Was not expecting this level of difficulty from this game. It's very misleading from the art style!
I'm going to have to agree with one of the other commenters who said that there is almost too much variety level to level. Every level introduces a brand new concept and sometimes it's not immediately intuitive how these concepts are to be used, or what the new "rules" of the level are.
For example, in Easter 1, there's a fruit you can jump to get that makes you go faster and... damage enemies and make you invulnerable? But only when you're either dashing or spinning, not when standing still? And yet you don't use that fruit anywhere else in the level, and you actually don't even need to use that fruit at all to get by. It's a bit misleading. A more gradual ramp up in difficulty would be nice.
That said, you seem very open to feedback so that's super promising for your game. The energy, the vibrance, the art style, sound, and character design are all excellent. I really want to love this game -- just maybe consider a less steep difficulty curve?
How to dash to a precise location:
1. come up to gap
2. tap dash key
3. find the blue orb that uses the same color pallet as the world and easily blends in
4. make a decision to either cancel the dash or continue the dash
5. look over to the dash meter to see if the green bar is underneath the blue
6. oh too bad you spent 0.2 seconds looking for the blue marker orb, you missed the blue dash
Hitting a precise blue-dash is on the first try consistently is impossible. The easiest fix to this might be to have the dash-orbs always visible.
Rapidly tapping A-W only moves in one direction
Levels are laid out in a way that force you to use your right hand to move the camera. If the levels were unwrapped so all platforms faced the same direction, camera controls wouldn't be necessary. Putting the responsibility of being able to see the level on the player feels lazy in a almost 2.5d platformer
Introduction of puzzle cubes is 4 different cubes with faces, and one of them has a spike on it. How am I supposed to know which one is a puzzle cube?
Just an observation: Puzzle cubes being locked to their goals misses out on the possibility for more complicated puzzles
Just finished World 1. Your mechanics are fun and interesting, though I have an issue with how you chose to roll out content. I like how there's so much variety level-to-level, but with the first world being, well, the first world, I expected any level gimmicks and hazards to further establish the rules of Bokube. One of the first enemies, being the pigs who chase you, break the rules of the grid, which would be perfectly fine later in the game, but for it being around the second to third level, feels really out of place. The cannons are a nice level gimmick, but I think they should be introduced later on, or have one appear as a way to end a level or something before being introduced proper. I could go on, but I don't want to bombard with negative criticism, since this is a solid game. I'm particularly fond of the boss, which would be an absolutely perfect first boss if your level design in the first world led up to it mechanically. Keep up the good work Boku.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1435175210630717440
Thanks for playing! I redesigned the tutorial with 90% of the games mechanics (with text explaining them) on it before you get into any real levels.
Pure gmi energy
I discovered this bug where you keep spinning after you die