This game's vibes are PRISTINE. The aesthetic, mood, & theme are perfect. I love how you present the plot without words--The bridge joke is great! I think you're aware that you need to add all the boilerplate that one expects from a game so I won't bother you with that stuff. I really didn't see the point of the Move ability--I'm guessing since enemies only attack in a straight line I could use it to dodge attacks--but I had no trouble just bashing my way through each encounter so that's all I did. But overall, I really found your game quite endearing! Here's a video of my playthrough (might need some time to process still), I hope it helps!
Interesting graphics, I like it. Neat intro. A bit weird with the black ground maybe but it would probably look too busy with it textured. Some sidebars/vignette would be nice for the 4:3 image. I played it downloaded. Some of the enemies are a bit too unclear I think, especially the spider. First time I fought the spider I died, unless I'm missing something all you can do at that point is bash it so if you die its just due to bad luck. Really don't think it should be possible to die to the first enemy at all if its just luck.
No save after starting the game? Had to watch the intro again with no way to skip it, this time the game locked up on the spider fight after I clicked to bash it. Had to alt+F4 to exit the game. Had to watch the intro again, if you alt tab out of the window the current sound stops playing. Also time stops in the game when alt tabbed so I had to sit and wait for the intro again.
This time I played up til the two bears fight next to the bird. Clicked bash til I died. No saves so I stopped playing after that. Is there a way to save and I just missed it? Fights seem unfair if its just up to luck if you die or not, but again I don't know if I'm supposed to do something different. I got the Move ability but never tried it because it doesn't sound very good and if you're so close to death all the time I didn't feel like I could risk trying it out.
There's a pearl that you can save at, but you wouldn't have seen it at the point you were in.
No save after starting the game?
Good point, that intro cutscene is long. I'll change it so that it saves after you get out of the hole. I also had a continue system that restarts you in the same room if you die, I just never finished implementing it, but I'll get to it.
Fights seem unfair if its just up to luck if you die or not
Yeah they're really RNG dependent right now. I tried balancing the level so that you just barely survive, but if enemies crit or you miss too often that goes out the window. I'm working on changing the first level right now. Giving you a heal ability at the start, starting you off with some more moves, stuff like that to make it easier and less linear.
The game has an opening sequence and everything now, including an introduction to possible plot developments in a non verbal way. Neat.
I like the idea of using puzzles to break up the combat. They aren't really puzzles at the time since I stacked a bunch of items at some point and the game always chose the one I needed upon interacting with the area in which that particular item had to be used. As a result, it's a bit mindless, but I'm sure you can develop the mechanic further and watching a small frog carry large items is amusing.
played it through to the end. the visuals, atmosphere, humor , plot and design are all very unique
what i thought was lacking was the combat, how linear the game was, and the dragging-concrete-sound on repeat.
what i mean by the combat and linearity is that i'm almost certain everyone experienced the game in the same way as i had, since the plot is 100% linear and combat doesn't offer enough to warrant not using the normal attack. a simple start to remedy this would be to include moves or combat statuses that encourage the usage of different skills or tactics. what about a battle where you face a spider and a frog, for example. maybe the enemies have a strong combination move, something like web -> punch, where web slows you and punches are deadlier that way, which would encourage the player to use dodges or something like that.
either way, these complains pale to how charming the game is overall. it is fine for a game to have a weaker combat if the aesthetics are as strong as yours.
i look forward to seeing more of this. keep up the good work
Thanks for the feedback. You're right the game starts out way too limiting and way too easy. I'll need to rethink how I want my first level to feel and what skills i want the player to start out with. Not having a way to heal off the bat is really limiting too, so that's probably the first thing i'll change.
Very fun game to walk around it. The movement felt nice with that scraping sound. Great atmosphere and good sound design. One of the better /agdg/ - frog games.
The UI doesn't clearly show what you're selecting (it's only slightly darker). No music for the opening and most of the game feels weird, but I guess that it's part of the atmosphere. Some z-layer issue with the first interactable object, the frog moved under the purple indicator. Jittery sound and movement when walking into walls. Some jittering when moving around, unclear whether framerate or just Unity issues. No menu? What does strength do, where can I see the current strength? What does bash do? What skills will I have in combat? How can I save? You probably should add a prompt or tutorial when picking up the first block, since most players refuse to read. Early combat (or all combat in the non-DD level) is very bland - just slowly bashing - and might turn players off early (during the refund period if you'll publish on Steam) so be careful with that.
"No music for the opening and most of the game feels weird, but I guess that it's part of the atmosphere."
that was just me not being able to learn piano on time, but hopefully next DD I'll have music.
"Some z-layer issue with the first interactable object, the frog moved under the purple indicator."
Thanks for informing me. I forgot to try walking on top of the ramp after making the holdable object mask.
"Jittery sound and movement when walking into walls."
That was me being lazy and having unmodified rigidbody collisions, but I'll fix it and make the player not try to walk against the walls.
"No menu? What does strength do, where can I see the current strength? What does bash do? What skills will I have in combat?"
Menu being worked on right now, that answers all of those questions.
"How can I save?"
The shiny rock that was under the bucket that the crow picked up.
"You probably should add a prompt or tutorial when picking up the first block, since most players refuse to read."
I want to try to not have any prompts other than menus and the upgrade prompts. I have an idea of how to guide the players into figuring out that you can pick things up, I'll try that out and if people are still confused next DD I'll give up and add a prompt.
"Early combat (or all combat in the non-DD level) is very bland - just slowly bashing - and might turn players off early (during the refund period if you'll publish on Steam) so be careful with that."
Yeah, I'm thinking of restructuring the entire first level to make it less bland, this is the most common piece of advice that I've been getting.
Great Intro. I just don't know why the Crow is so tiny or flying under the Grass. I like that I have to break myself free, I dislike the HUD and HUD-Font, the Rest of the Game has a weird kind of charm to its Artstyle, but the Font just seems poorly handdrawn in Paint.
You jitter when you walk against a Wall.
The Enemies being Purple/Black on Black background makes them very hard to see. Its nice that the Movement in Combat is now limited to an Arean and can't break anymore, but it might be a bit too 'harsh' on the Looks with the red Stripes, maybe something else could work a little bit better.
Interaction works, and its nice that you move in Place to place it correctly when you're roughly there, but I wouldn't have known what I was supposed to do without reading the Instructions. And I also knew from the Thread already. But with only the Instructions, I'd probably figure it out, seeing as the Symbol and Color is the same as for the Enemies. Would've probably tried LMB for a bit tho, why not context sensitive Actions but different Buttons? Nevermind, LMB works aswell, nice. Not so nice that I can't drop Stuff intermediately, or that it just Lerps in place tho. You have some nice simple Movement in the Intro, why not throw/place the Stuff into place properly, but just lazily lerp it?
What a cute Crow, wish it'd become my Partymember.
Stacking multiple giant Planks etc. feels weird. What if I stack them in the wrong Order?
I did not expect the Pearl to be a Safepoint, I was thinking it'd be some necessary Powerup. Also has no Feedback upon drinking or saving.
Great Intro. I just don't know why the Crow is so tiny or flying under the Grass.
Thanks. Crow is tiny because I wanted him to fit the screen view that you usually see. Even though logically he'd be bigger it would be harder to show what he's doing in a comprehensible way while taking up 2/3rds of the screen. I also don't want to rerender him. The grass I hope I'll change eventually to leaves and branches if i remember to. He was supposed to be going through a bush or under a tree, but it really does look like he's just going under grass like you mentioned.
the Font just seems poorly handdrawn in Paint.
Close. It was poorly drawn with a mouse in Aseprite. When the lines looked too clean I messed them up on purpose.
The Enemies being Purple/Black on Black background makes them very hard to see.
I keep getting this complaint. I didn't want to change it but i guess I'll have to now.
Interaction works, and its nice that you move in Place to place it correctly when you're roughly there, but I wouldn't have known what I was supposed to do without reading the Instructions. And I also knew from the Thread already. But with only the Instructions, I'd probably figure it out, seeing as the Symbol and Color is the same as for the Enemies.
I have some plan for teaching the player that you can pick things up, right now it really is too vague. Frog hands painted over objects do not make people think about grabbing like I thought it would.
I can't drop Stuff intermediately, or that it just Lerps in place tho. You have some nice simple Movement in the Intro, why not throw/place the Stuff into place properly, but just lazily lerp it?
It was just easier to. I can make it so the objects look more thrown than the current weird placement. For throwing everywhere I probably won't. I'll make it fizzle out and go back to it's original place at most, but if i place it anywhere then I have to worry about players throwing it out of bounds, or them placing it somewhere that logically you would be able to climb up to, but have them realize they can't because the ramps are just collisions, triggers, and sort values changing to give the illusion of verticality. If the game was actually 3D I would just do it how you want though cause that's what I originally wanted to do as well.
Stacking multiple giant Planks etc. feels weird. What if I stack them in the wrong Order?
Wouldn't matter. The objects you can pick up always go to the exact same y position above you no matter what order you pick them up in. I chose the Y value based on what would look natural no matter if you have it stacked or solo. It also doesn't matter in the placing, because the objects are placed by what is supposed to be where, not the order you picked them up in. It looks and gets placed down the exact same way no matter what order you decide to do things in. I agree that it might feel weird at times though, but I thought it was better to let you pick up multiple things at once than making players go back and forth a bunch of times.
I did not expect the Pearl to be a Safepoint, I was thinking it'd be some necessary Powerup. Also has no Feedback upon drinking or saving.
I'm planning on changing the pearl saves too. I see no reason to have a menu at all for it, so I'm thinking of making it so that when you interact with it the screen will flash white, it'll play some chimes, and you'll see text above you that mentioned the game was saved and health was restored.
You have some nice Animal Sounds.
Thanks, I took them from freesounds, there's about 2 hours of birds chirping.
The game was decent fun, for what it is. The bird building the bridge/ladder thing was funny I liked it. The sounds were pretty good, though the ceramic sliding sound was just a bit grating. Despite not having normal combat, the game felt more compelling this time around since it had more cutscenes and sound I think. Visuals look good, I like the style.
Comments
This game's vibes are PRISTINE. The aesthetic, mood, & theme are perfect. I love how you present the plot without words--The bridge joke is great! I think you're aware that you need to add all the boilerplate that one expects from a game so I won't bother you with that stuff. I really didn't see the point of the Move ability--I'm guessing since enemies only attack in a straight line I could use it to dodge attacks--but I had no trouble just bashing my way through each encounter so that's all I did. But overall, I really found your game quite endearing! Here's a video of my playthrough (might need some time to process still), I hope it helps!
Interesting graphics, I like it. Neat intro. A bit weird with the black ground maybe but it would probably look too busy with it textured. Some sidebars/vignette would be nice for the 4:3 image. I played it downloaded. Some of the enemies are a bit too unclear I think, especially the spider. First time I fought the spider I died, unless I'm missing something all you can do at that point is bash it so if you die its just due to bad luck. Really don't think it should be possible to die to the first enemy at all if its just luck.
No save after starting the game? Had to watch the intro again with no way to skip it, this time the game locked up on the spider fight after I clicked to bash it. Had to alt+F4 to exit the game. Had to watch the intro again, if you alt tab out of the window the current sound stops playing. Also time stops in the game when alt tabbed so I had to sit and wait for the intro again.
This time I played up til the two bears fight next to the bird. Clicked bash til I died. No saves so I stopped playing after that. Is there a way to save and I just missed it? Fights seem unfair if its just up to luck if you die or not, but again I don't know if I'm supposed to do something different. I got the Move ability but never tried it because it doesn't sound very good and if you're so close to death all the time I didn't feel like I could risk trying it out.
Good job, first time trying the game out.
There's a pearl that you can save at, but you wouldn't have seen it at the point you were in.
Good point, that intro cutscene is long. I'll change it so that it saves after you get out of the hole. I also had a continue system that restarts you in the same room if you die, I just never finished implementing it, but I'll get to it.
Yeah they're really RNG dependent right now. I tried balancing the level so that you just barely survive, but if enemies crit or you miss too often that goes out the window. I'm working on changing the first level right now. Giving you a heal ability at the start, starting you off with some more moves, stuff like that to make it easier and less linear.
The game has an opening sequence and everything now, including an introduction to possible plot developments in a non verbal way. Neat.
I like the idea of using puzzles to break up the combat. They aren't really puzzles at the time since I stacked a bunch of items at some point and the game always chose the one I needed upon interacting with the area in which that particular item had to be used. As a result, it's a bit mindless, but I'm sure you can develop the mechanic further and watching a small frog carry large items is amusing.
unironic 10/10
Can't do anything after the weird ramp that isn't a ramp thing. None of the walls allows for travel upwards to the next area.
You were supposed to pick up the ramp and move it to a ledge, I should've made it more clear in game, sorry.
played it through to the end. the visuals, atmosphere, humor , plot and design are all very unique
what i thought was lacking was the combat, how linear the game was, and the dragging-concrete-sound on repeat.
what i mean by the combat and linearity is that i'm almost certain everyone experienced the game in the same way as i had, since the plot is 100% linear and combat doesn't offer enough to warrant not using the normal attack. a simple start to remedy this would be to include moves or combat statuses that encourage the usage of different skills or tactics. what about a battle where you face a spider and a frog, for example. maybe the enemies have a strong combination move, something like web -> punch, where web slows you and punches are deadlier that way, which would encourage the player to use dodges or something like that.
either way, these complains pale to how charming the game is overall. it is fine for a game to have a weaker combat if the aesthetics are as strong as yours.
i look forward to seeing more of this. keep up the good work
Thanks for the feedback. You're right the game starts out way too limiting and way too easy. I'll need to rethink how I want my first level to feel and what skills i want the player to start out with. Not having a way to heal off the bat is really limiting too, so that's probably the first thing i'll change.
Very fun game to walk around it. The movement felt nice with that scraping sound. Great atmosphere and good sound design. One of the better /agdg/ - frog games.
The UI doesn't clearly show what you're selecting (it's only slightly darker).
No music for the opening and most of the game feels weird, but I guess that it's part of the atmosphere.
Some z-layer issue with the first interactable object, the frog moved under the purple indicator.
Jittery sound and movement when walking into walls. Some jittering when moving around, unclear whether framerate or just Unity issues.
No menu? What does strength do, where can I see the current strength? What does bash do? What skills will I have in combat? How can I save?
You probably should add a prompt or tutorial when picking up the first block, since most players refuse to read.
Early combat (or all combat in the non-DD level) is very bland - just slowly bashing - and might turn players off early (during the refund period if you'll publish on Steam) so be careful with that.
that was just me not being able to learn piano on time, but hopefully next DD I'll have music.
Thanks for informing me. I forgot to try walking on top of the ramp after making the holdable object mask.
That was me being lazy and having unmodified rigidbody collisions, but I'll fix it and make the player not try to walk against the walls.
Menu being worked on right now, that answers all of those questions.
The shiny rock that was under the bucket that the crow picked up.
I want to try to not have any prompts other than menus and the upgrade prompts. I have an idea of how to guide the players into figuring out that you can pick things up, I'll try that out and if people are still confused next DD I'll give up and add a prompt.
Yeah, I'm thinking of restructuring the entire first level to make it less bland, this is the most common piece of advice that I've been getting.
Great Intro. I just don't know why the Crow is so tiny or flying under the Grass. I like that I have to break myself free, I dislike the HUD and HUD-Font, the Rest of the Game has a weird kind of charm to its Artstyle, but the Font just seems poorly handdrawn in Paint.
You jitter when you walk against a Wall.
The Enemies being Purple/Black on Black background makes them very hard to see. Its nice that the Movement in Combat is now limited to an Arean and can't break anymore, but it might be a bit too 'harsh' on the Looks with the red Stripes, maybe something else could work a little bit better.
Interaction works, and its nice that you move in Place to place it correctly when you're roughly there, but I wouldn't have known what I was supposed to do without reading the Instructions. And I also knew from the Thread already. But with only the Instructions, I'd probably figure it out, seeing as the Symbol and Color is the same as for the Enemies. Would've probably tried LMB for a bit tho, why not context sensitive Actions but different Buttons? Nevermind, LMB works aswell, nice. Not so nice that I can't drop Stuff intermediately, or that it just Lerps in place tho. You have some nice simple Movement in the Intro, why not throw/place the Stuff into place properly, but just lazily lerp it?
What a cute Crow, wish it'd become my Partymember.
Stacking multiple giant Planks etc. feels weird. What if I stack them in the wrong Order?
I did not expect the Pearl to be a Safepoint, I was thinking it'd be some necessary Powerup. Also has no Feedback upon drinking or saving.
You have some nice Animal Sounds.
Thanks. Crow is tiny because I wanted him to fit the screen view that you usually see. Even though logically he'd be bigger it would be harder to show what he's doing in a comprehensible way while taking up 2/3rds of the screen. I also don't want to rerender him. The grass I hope I'll change eventually to leaves and branches if i remember to. He was supposed to be going through a bush or under a tree, but it really does look like he's just going under grass like you mentioned.
Close. It was poorly drawn with a mouse in Aseprite. When the lines looked too clean I messed them up on purpose.
I keep getting this complaint. I didn't want to change it but i guess I'll have to now.
I have some plan for teaching the player that you can pick things up, right now it really is too vague. Frog hands painted over objects do not make people think about grabbing like I thought it would.
It was just easier to. I can make it so the objects look more thrown than the current weird placement. For throwing everywhere I probably won't. I'll make it fizzle out and go back to it's original place at most, but if i place it anywhere then I have to worry about players throwing it out of bounds, or them placing it somewhere that logically you would be able to climb up to, but have them realize they can't because the ramps are just collisions, triggers, and sort values changing to give the illusion of verticality. If the game was actually 3D I would just do it how you want though cause that's what I originally wanted to do as well.
Wouldn't matter. The objects you can pick up always go to the exact same y position above you no matter what order you pick them up in. I chose the Y value based on what would look natural no matter if you have it stacked or solo. It also doesn't matter in the placing, because the objects are placed by what is supposed to be where, not the order you picked them up in. It looks and gets placed down the exact same way no matter what order you decide to do things in. I agree that it might feel weird at times though, but I thought it was better to let you pick up multiple things at once than making players go back and forth a bunch of times.
I'm planning on changing the pearl saves too. I see no reason to have a menu at all for it, so I'm thinking of making it so that when you interact with it the screen will flash white, it'll play some chimes, and you'll see text above you that mentioned the game was saved and health was restored.
Thanks, I took them from freesounds, there's about 2 hours of birds chirping.
The game was decent fun, for what it is. The bird building the bridge/ladder thing was funny I liked it. The sounds were pretty good, though the ceramic sliding sound was just a bit grating. Despite not having normal combat, the game felt more compelling this time around since it had more cutscenes and sound I think. Visuals look good, I like the style.
Thanks, and yeah I hate that sound too, I need to find a replacement