At a couple points I got distracted because my mouse cursor started moving on its own and opening the start menu? Not sure what kind of code you have running that would manipulate the mouse that way but I think you should probably remove it.
Hi, thank you for playing, that is a really bizarre bug, thank you for reporting it. These are the kind of bugs you never dream of encountering when you’re programming lol, not sure if GameMaker is supposed to even allow for the mouse to be moved by the program. Again, thanks!
After resizing the window, the background image stayed the same size and was stuck in the upper left hand side of the screen. The window then automatically resized once the instructions dialog was over. (Playing on 720p using windows)
Movement feels a bit off and the difficulty made it harder to explore more of the setting which was the part of the game I was most interested in.
The fixed movement takes some getting used to. Not sure how the input buffering works, but it felt like some movement inputs made mid-step were sometimes cancelled and sometimes not. Sound or visual effects might make this feel better even without actual mechanical changes though.
Nice little game, all the character portraits look great, I dig the vibes, but the gameplay has some problems:
-I find the aesthetic pleasing, my only complaint on that is that the water needs some work, it looks noisy as of now.
-Movement feels weird, my brain keeps assuming it's grid based, but it doesn't work that way. It always feels like the character moves either too much of too little.
-Are the bicycles ramdonly generated? their position and movement feels inconsistent, so it's hard to properly plan how to avoid them. It's very luck based.
Thank you for the feedback. Yeah the water tiles are the oldest art assets untouched in the game, pushed of revising them since it’s a pain to get water to look right but iterating through some options now. Hope to clarify bicycle movement with environmental cues and make movement more forgiving as well. Thanks again!
It reminds me of those stories of netherland bikers, really nicely done. The timer is actually a great mechanic in that context and synergizes with the theme and gameplay. The problem with it though is that if you screw over early you can as well just restart.
I got to the level after the cat encounter. Jumping around on smaller tiles is too much for me. Still, being able to finish a level after time runs out is an 11/10 decision, as it allows player to take his time to practice the level that's problematic for the next playthrough. Was this intentional?
At first I didn't catch the shift mechanic until I tried my second playthrough. It would need a more forceful tutorial. Now I see that it's a lifesaver around vertically driving bikes and requirement for later levels.
The shift walk mechanic is useful but I'm not sure if I like it. It screws with player offset while estimating step distance. Normally if it was a grid based game it wouldn't be a problem, but now you have to adjust your position on the fly in combination with quick decision making around bikes and on the ships. The perspective doesn't help here, as it's hard to quickly tell how much I need to move the player.
The game looks really nice, but the shadows absolutely suck for this kind of game. Bike shadows will screw with my eyes and it's hard to tell where and how many bikes there are with peripheral vision.
I don't like bikes turning unpredictably. There should be at least some tell before that happens, otherwise every bike seems like something you shouldn't even stand close to in a wide radius. At least spawning is telegraphed.
It's hard to get used to the randomness because many levels are puzzle-like, but I like it that way. It's a beautiful chaos.
The car survival can be cheesed by positioning yourself around the edge just where you will need to go through. I would get filtered there otherwise.
I like it overall, good design all around. It probably needs some other failure state (while trying to leave the timer in) that wouldn't have me replay all those levels.
You should really add sounds, with doppler effect if possible. I can imagine the cacophony being kino.
Thank you for playing. With the shadows, did you find that it was the bike shadows specifically that caused the eye strain? With the shift mechanic, I implemented that instead of sticking to a grid mostly because even if the player is on a grid when on the ground, once they jump on a boat with continuous movement they’re no longer moving on a grid. I’m trying to alleviate some of the perspective issues with the bike by adding more and more leniency, such as the ability to coyote jump backwards if you miss-time your jump at the ledge and are over the water, but I agree it would be much better if I could find a solution to the core issue of judging distance rather than adding all these bandaid solutions. I’m glad you enjoyed the chaos of the bikes, I actually already added a buffer where bikes pause when they’re about to turn and after they’ve turned and I’m experimenting with what timings work best. Lastly, when you say other failure states, what do you have in mind? Meaning failure states where you don’t restart a level when you die? I appreciate the feedback.
Eye strain might not be a good way to put it, it's more like something that screws with judgment when there are lots of bikes or I'm moving quickly on a boat. Shortening them away from 1:1 ratio or making them more transparent could work (bikes are thin so soft shadow is an intuitive justification to do that).
once they jump on a boat with continuous movement they’re no longer moving on a grid
Yeah, I noticed that boats screw with the offset before I noticed the shift mechanic. Grid movement in a puzzle game is usually a nightmare to do, but it's worth a try. Maybe you could manage fully unlocked movement too if falling into the water wasn't a thing.
As for failure states: The way I see it it's a game that I can take at short burst due to the difficulty and chaos, and picking the game up again is hard when there are all the same levels to replay while the randomness prevents me from being consistent. I mean that you could have some save points as in less levels but shorter day time (I'm not sure if there are currently any checkpoints further into the game). The pressure goes constantly up with the timer, difficulty and quickly learning new stages so a feel of relief could be refreshing. That's only a basic example though, and you could think of something more interesting.
Save points are something I’ve considered, I’ve also thought of having taxi boats that spawn in at certain times of the day that let you skip sections and might take you to secret areas. I like the lowered shadow thickness for bikes too that’s definitely modifiable, thanks again for the advice!
I have to say I didn't like the game. Way to difficult and unforgiving. I ended at the level below:
You have several difficult challenges following eachother, some of which are trial and error because of the boat pathing.
Then you have the randomly spawning bikes, and the bikes randomly changing directions. Some earlier levels I just coasted through since by chance no bikes spawned.
The movement is also bad, fixed step movement with enemies that have fluid movement and hitboxes just feels bad. It would be better if you could just hold buttons to move.
Falling in water is also annoying, since it's hard to estimate your step distance. I know you can press shift, but you need to take big steps (and repeatedly push your arrow keys due to the movement) to avoid the obstacles so it doesn't always work. It's also strange that you can fall in water while pressing shift.
In general the game should choose whether it wants to use a time limit and punish failing like that, or work with a reset system. Not both.
Art is good and all that, but it's hard to appreciate it when you're pressed for time in an extremely difficult game.
Thank you for the feedback. I think somethings are difficult to address, the movement system being clunky is kind of core to the game, but I can definitely work on the difficulty by changing the pieces around the game. With the last comment, would a system where you lose time but are placed back to where you were when you made your last jump work better you think? I appreciate the advice.
Yes. I think a game like this can either choose to reset the player's progress upon death to the start of the level or work with a timelimit and deduct time whenever you are hit as you propose. Currently it feels frustrating when you die at the end of a level, since not only do you need to redo the level, but you also won't be able to get very far into the game since you lost so much time.
In general I dislike timelimits in games, especially in this one. It runs counter to the story elements you have in your game. The feeling that I'll have to play optimally to see all the content really makes me not want to put effort into it. But that's a personal gripe of course. I guess what I'd like the most is for the timelimit to be optional, something like a high score type of thing. But your suggestion would alleviate a lot of the frustrations.
I think that’s a really good suggestion, I think at least taking out the time limit hit for a start isn’t difficult and I’ll see from there if it feels good enough after that. I’m terms of the time limit, as of this build what story there is tends to be behind time limits but the plan is to have lots of content you only see if you’re taking longer than usual, eventually the second part of the game after you clear it will be to just explore the levels, head back to earlier levels in the late game to see what’s going on later in the day. Currently designing more story focused levels for world one with much less challenging levels as well. Again, thank you!
Comments
At a couple points I got distracted because my mouse cursor started moving on its own and opening the start menu? Not sure what kind of code you have running that would manipulate the mouse that way but I think you should probably remove it.
Hi, thank you for playing, that is a really bizarre bug, thank you for reporting it. These are the kind of bugs you never dream of encountering when you’re programming lol, not sure if GameMaker is supposed to even allow for the mouse to be moved by the program. Again, thanks!
Really liked the art and setting of the game.
After resizing the window, the background image stayed the same size and was stuck in the upper left hand side of the screen. The window then automatically resized once the instructions dialog was over. (Playing on 720p using windows)
Movement feels a bit off and the difficulty made it harder to explore more of the setting which was the part of the game I was most interested in.
The fixed movement takes some getting used to. Not sure how the input buffering works, but it felt like some movement inputs made mid-step were sometimes cancelled and sometimes not. Sound or visual effects might make this feel better even without actual mechanical changes though.
Looking forwards to more story-focused updates!
Nice little game, all the character portraits look great, I dig the vibes, but the gameplay has some problems:
-I find the aesthetic pleasing, my only complaint on that is that the water needs some work, it looks noisy as of now.
-Movement feels weird, my brain keeps assuming it's grid based, but it doesn't work that way. It always feels like the character moves either too much of too little.
-Are the bicycles ramdonly generated? their position and movement feels inconsistent, so it's hard to properly plan how to avoid them. It's very luck based.
Thank you for the feedback. Yeah the water tiles are the oldest art assets untouched in the game, pushed of revising them since it’s a pain to get water to look right but iterating through some options now. Hope to clarify bicycle movement with environmental cues and make movement more forgiving as well. Thanks again!
It reminds me of those stories of netherland bikers, really nicely done. The timer is actually a great mechanic in that context and synergizes with the theme and gameplay. The problem with it though is that if you screw over early you can as well just restart.
I got to the level after the cat encounter. Jumping around on smaller tiles is too much for me. Still, being able to finish a level after time runs out is an 11/10 decision, as it allows player to take his time to practice the level that's problematic for the next playthrough. Was this intentional?
At first I didn't catch the shift mechanic until I tried my second playthrough. It would need a more forceful tutorial. Now I see that it's a lifesaver around vertically driving bikes and requirement for later levels.
The shift walk mechanic is useful but I'm not sure if I like it. It screws with player offset while estimating step distance. Normally if it was a grid based game it wouldn't be a problem, but now you have to adjust your position on the fly in combination with quick decision making around bikes and on the ships. The perspective doesn't help here, as it's hard to quickly tell how much I need to move the player.
The game looks really nice, but the shadows absolutely suck for this kind of game. Bike shadows will screw with my eyes and it's hard to tell where and how many bikes there are with peripheral vision.
I don't like bikes turning unpredictably. There should be at least some tell before that happens, otherwise every bike seems like something you shouldn't even stand close to in a wide radius. At least spawning is telegraphed.
It's hard to get used to the randomness because many levels are puzzle-like, but I like it that way. It's a beautiful chaos.
The car survival can be cheesed by positioning yourself around the edge just where you will need to go through. I would get filtered there otherwise.
I like it overall, good design all around. It probably needs some other failure state (while trying to leave the timer in) that wouldn't have me replay all those levels.
You should really add sounds, with doppler effect if possible. I can imagine the cacophony being kino.
Thank you for playing. With the shadows, did you find that it was the bike shadows specifically that caused the eye strain? With the shift mechanic, I implemented that instead of sticking to a grid mostly because even if the player is on a grid when on the ground, once they jump on a boat with continuous movement they’re no longer moving on a grid. I’m trying to alleviate some of the perspective issues with the bike by adding more and more leniency, such as the ability to coyote jump backwards if you miss-time your jump at the ledge and are over the water, but I agree it would be much better if I could find a solution to the core issue of judging distance rather than adding all these bandaid solutions. I’m glad you enjoyed the chaos of the bikes, I actually already added a buffer where bikes pause when they’re about to turn and after they’ve turned and I’m experimenting with what timings work best. Lastly, when you say other failure states, what do you have in mind? Meaning failure states where you don’t restart a level when you die? I appreciate the feedback.
Eye strain might not be a good way to put it, it's more like something that screws with judgment when there are lots of bikes or I'm moving quickly on a boat. Shortening them away from 1:1 ratio or making them more transparent could work (bikes are thin so soft shadow is an intuitive justification to do that).
Yeah, I noticed that boats screw with the offset before I noticed the shift mechanic. Grid movement in a puzzle game is usually a nightmare to do, but it's worth a try. Maybe you could manage fully unlocked movement too if falling into the water wasn't a thing.
As for failure states: The way I see it it's a game that I can take at short burst due to the difficulty and chaos, and picking the game up again is hard when there are all the same levels to replay while the randomness prevents me from being consistent. I mean that you could have some save points as in less levels but shorter day time (I'm not sure if there are currently any checkpoints further into the game). The pressure goes constantly up with the timer, difficulty and quickly learning new stages so a feel of relief could be refreshing. That's only a basic example though, and you could think of something more interesting.
...What if time of the day affected the levels?
Save points are something I’ve considered, I’ve also thought of having taxi boats that spawn in at certain times of the day that let you skip sections and might take you to secret areas. I like the lowered shadow thickness for bikes too that’s definitely modifiable, thanks again for the advice!
I have to say I didn't like the game. Way to difficult and unforgiving. I ended at the level below:
Art is good and all that, but it's hard to appreciate it when you're pressed for time in an extremely difficult game.
Thank you for the feedback. I think somethings are difficult to address, the movement system being clunky is kind of core to the game, but I can definitely work on the difficulty by changing the pieces around the game. With the last comment, would a system where you lose time but are placed back to where you were when you made your last jump work better you think? I appreciate the advice.
Yes. I think a game like this can either choose to reset the player's progress upon death to the start of the level or work with a timelimit and deduct time whenever you are hit as you propose. Currently it feels frustrating when you die at the end of a level, since not only do you need to redo the level, but you also won't be able to get very far into the game since you lost so much time.
In general I dislike timelimits in games, especially in this one. It runs counter to the story elements you have in your game. The feeling that I'll have to play optimally to see all the content really makes me not want to put effort into it. But that's a personal gripe of course. I guess what I'd like the most is for the timelimit to be optional, something like a high score type of thing. But your suggestion would alleviate a lot of the frustrations.
I think that’s a really good suggestion, I think at least taking out the time limit hit for a start isn’t difficult and I’ll see from there if it feels good enough after that. I’m terms of the time limit, as of this build what story there is tends to be behind time limits but the plan is to have lots of content you only see if you’re taking longer than usual, eventually the second part of the game after you clear it will be to just explore the levels, head back to earlier levels in the late game to see what’s going on later in the day. Currently designing more story focused levels for world one with much less challenging levels as well. Again, thank you!
Artwork is great, story seems insane, it is extremely hard. I feel like the movement of the guy is almost too fast, makes it harder to play.