I went into the options menu from the continue screen, and I could not press return. So I pressed save and the window became very small. Deleting AppData/LocalLow/Fxy did not fix the window size, so I had to look through the registry for your save data (which had resolution width and height set to 1). Please don't use the registry.
With that out of the way, here is my feedback:
I like how flashy the combat is
The font is a little bit ugly
I could not figure out a proper way to defeat the first boss aside from just standing inside of him and spamming attack. There seems to be some deflect thing, but I could not figure out how it works. Also, it was hard to tell how he was going to attack.
Second boss was more fun.
Some of the level assets keep losing their top pixel. In the picture, the ground seems to have been shifted by one row of pixels.
I was going to ask if it was only meant to be one level, but after checking here there are apparently more I didn't see. I like the transition effects and sprite work.
I'm not sure if this is intended, but I could deflect projectiles back at the first boss, but it only works half the time and it always detonated right after, making the deflection pointless. The typeface (Or font if that makes more sense to you) is a bit difficult to read at times as some letters look similar to each other. There's also more to the controls than what the tutorials explain.
I appreciated your playtest, it made me instantly separate the menus so a save overwrite like that wouldn't happen again. Also sorry for the bullshit boss, those bomb deflections were signaling that you were invul but it's not really clear when they still explode so I'll have to fix that.
I'll expand the tutorial and replace the font as well.
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I feel that the game still needs a lot of polish. Still fun to play, but it needs polish.
The "Mad Bomber" boss doesn't have a hurtbox, so I can just walk into their sprite and hit them over and over, because of the positioning most attacks miss me as well, making the boss much easier than it should be. Makes sense if this is an easy early boss. The slime girl boss in a later level doesn't suffer from those same issues. The miniboss that appears with the text "Disable the Generator" also suffers from this problem.
(In sword fighting form) Down attack inputs in general are too finicky. I have to hold down while pressing the attack button at the same time.
(In sword fighting form) Inconsistency of the effect of attacks during a combo. For example, while running left or right, the first attack allows me to continue forward while the next attack stops me in my tracks. Another example is attacking while falling. The first attack does nothing but the second halts my momentum in the air.
Moving sometimes causes sprite pixels to snap into place, making things feel disjointed. This is especially bad in the sewer area looking for the Slime girl. Are you using Unity's Pixel Perfect Camera 2D component? It has a tendency to snap pixels into where they shouldn't be when a camera is in motion.
Dash momentum is preserved when jumping mid-dash, which is fine, but it's preserved while wall climbing and if you jump from a wall climb, that momentum is still preserved, regardless of whichever direction you jump in.
Enabling the option to show enemy HP bars in the options menu crashes the game, and essentially makes the game unplayable.
Jumping pad bug (check image below)
Camera tracking jittery in boss room when wall climbing (check image below)
For a final comment, I think the sword fighting form should be more snappier. I'm not sure if it's the amount of frames or something but compared to a similar moveset like Zero from MMX games it feels more stiff.
Why can't I use the D-pad in menus? Who uses the stick to navigate menus?
Why is there a button to quit the game from the level select screen?
Why does B confirm in menus and X go back?
The back button on the file select screen is redundant and definitely shouldn't be selected by default.
Pressing A before a line of dialogue is fully displayed should skip the animation instead of going to the next line.
Needs D-pad movement.
Is holding X at the end of a combo supposed to make the character attack again afterwards?
Make jump height dependent on how long you hold the button.
If you mash A, you can "double jump," but your jump height is reduced.
The buffer window for jumping is way too big and the character shouldn't jump unless you're still holding the button when you land.
Why does attacking in midair sometimes do a normal kick and kill your momentum?
What's with the jittering background? It looks like there's Z-fighting.
Hints are drawn above the pause menu. The pause menu should hide the HUD and other UI elements.
I don't get why the first boss's bombs sometimes bounce off of you.
The boss's spread shot attack feels unfair, because it's not telegraphed at all, and if you're not at the correct distance and/or in the middle of an attack when he does it, you're guaranteed to take damage.
Why is the options menu on the level select screen, and why do you have to navigate through the quit button to get to it? I thought there was no options menu yet at first.
Checkboxes should always be square to distinguish them from radio buttons.
I see comments talking about the other levels, but I just get kicked back to the main menu after beating the first level and the rest remain locked.
The Continue button should be the first item on the main menu.
Thank you for all the notes, I noticed the cause of a bunch of xbox controller related issues and have already fixed a few (i.e. menus, d-pad movement, weird input overlap) so hopefully thats working on your end now. Confused about the holding attack thing because I haven't experienced that, a 4th hit should only happen if you pressed it again in the buffer.
Also tweaked the variable jump height for xbox to work now as well as tap jump working more consistently. I'll take a look at the jump buffer.
Bombs/bullets bounce off when characters are invulnerable, maybe that's not obvious enough or its the wrong effect for that?
I've also changed the civ forms attacks to move in mid-air, before they would assume you were still grounded and force you to stand in place.
Thank you for the feedback on the Bomber, I'm still thinking of ways to make him easier, may need to just reduce the number of bombs he throws along with more animation.
Now that I've separated the options menu code I can work on implementing it into the pause menu as well.
I don't know why the game didn't award you with the rest of the levels, if you go into the save file in appdata/locallow/fxy/masqz/0 you can notepad edit levels unlocked to 4 in the meant time until I figure that out.
>Confused about the holding attack thing because I haven't experienced that, a 4th hit should only happen if you pressed it again in the buffer.
You shouldn't be able to queue up more than three attacks, at least until the third attack is almost done. If you press the attack button 4 times quickly, it can take a full second between your last input and the character starting a new combo.
>Bombs/bullets bounce off when characters are invulnerable, maybe that's not obvious enough or its the wrong effect for that?
Not obvious at all, and like that other guy said, half the time they'd just bounce into the ground and hit you anyway with the explosion.
>Thank you for the feedback on the Bomber, I'm still thinking of ways to make him easier, may need to just reduce the number of bombs he throws along with more animation.
The other attacks were easy to avoid. It's just that one where he shoots three bombs in a spread that's finicky to dodge.
Now that I can actually play the whole thing:
You shouldn't be able to wall jump off the edge of the screen.
Wall jumping is a good example of why you need to change the input buffering; try mashing the jump button against a wall.
The parallax effect on the buildings in the background of level 2 is too strong.
It took me a while to figure out that you couldn't just hold up to do the launcher attack, partially because of the overly generous input buffering. I don't think that's a good decision, either, because it means you have to let go of the stick and stop moving before being able to do it.
The dash feels janky with how it doesn't get cancelled by changing direction and gives you the jump speed boost for a second or so after the dash has already ended.
It's hard to tell what's in the foreground and what's in the background in level 2.
The second boss's attacks aren't hard to avoid, but she doesn't have any discernible pattern or good window to counterattack, and some of her attacks come out pretty fast. Coupled with the low damage of her attacks, it makes the fight devolve into mostly button mashing.
The upwards boost on the second attack of the aerial combo can make you miss enemies that are too low. The hitbox needs to extend further down.
Consider making enemies block your movement or lightly push you away with no damage, maybe with a reduced collision size. It's really easy to just run past them as it is, and the lack of collision makes the combat brainless and the enemies feel like they lack presence in the game world.
There needs to be some kind of limit to transforming, or it needs to take longer. It's practically impossible to die to the third boss because of all the opportunities he gives you to transform.
The camera behaves strangely during the third boss; if you wall jump, it'll follow you for a bit before snapping back to a fixed position.
The hitboxes for the third boss's ground spear attack last a bit too long. It also feels a bit awkward to avoid with the instant acceleration of the character.
The other attacks are too easy to avoid. Once you've seen how they work, they're trivial to avoid. There's also no dynamism; you dodge every attack the same way every time, and the boss gives you plenty of time until its next attack. Make them flow together more so that the way you avoid one attack affects how you'll deal with the next.
Boss attack patterns need to be less random. At least make it so that the more they use an attack, the less likely they are to immediately use it again, or have the probabilities change with the boss's health.
The warnings for the lasers in level 4 should be more distinct from the actual damaging lasers, like by having reduced opacity.
No idea how you're supposed to avoid the level 4 miniboss's attack. I just abused the lack of collision by staying on top of him and making him shoot in the opposite direction.
It's not clear that those blue and orange enemies have a shield or that it's blocking your attacks until you stop and take a close look at the sprite.
The poor foreground/background distinction issue continues. Those caution markings below the lasers really look like platforms.
The character should count as being transformed and be able to take the extra hit as soon as the sprite changes.
These little wheel enemies can fuck off. They're so fast and have so much health it's almost impossible to avoid getting hit by them.
Dying to spikes plays the damage effect repeatedly until you respawn.
Spikes shouldn't hurt you from the sides; this should not hurt you:
The beetle should disappear again after you run out of beetle meter.
It's obviously more unfinished than the rest, but the fourth boss was a complete pushover. Barely does anything, and even if you let it hit you, it only does 1 damage.
Wow, this is amazing. This is the closest I've ever felt to playing MMX, even when considering the MMX "clones", like 20XX/30XX. And this is no clone! MMX was probably the game I played the most of as a child, and inspired my first game (Frauki's Adventure!). But this game is significantly better than that, so well done. There are a couple things I think could be improved, and a couple random ideas.
The font in the dialog boxes is really bad. It looks ugly and is hard to read. You can get 10x better fonts for pennies, or for free.
The camera could be improved. The game is at 240x190 or whatever base resolution, but that doesn't mean the camera should be moving in that space. The camera should be moving in the full unscaled resolution. That will reduce the jitteriness of the game a lot. Also, the camera could stand to be tweened to the player, instead of perfectly locked on. It just makes the game a lot easier for your eyes to track things, and makes it look more professional. Of course, you first need to get the camera moving in unscaled space, or the movement will look blocky and strange.
The difficulty of the first boss is too high, in my opinion. I was loving the difficulty up until that point, at which time it seemed to jump. I loved the challenge of MMX games, and will always remember the first time I beat Chill Penguin. But the difficulty jumps too much too quickly at the first boss, in my opinion.
In my game, I made it so that if you attacked while jumping, you would attack somewhat above yourself, instead of just in front. I think that could be really beneficial here, because you have aspects that cause you to float while attacking. Jumping up into an enemy and missing an attack off to the side doesn't feel great.
I think this game has massive potential. It's really cool and with some work it could do well. At minimum, you should get a Steam page ready to go. I'd also look for publishers, if you want to go that route. Contact me if you want me to put you in touch with some people.
Thank you for playing, I'll definitely need to make a more readable font.
I wanted the camera to be pixel perfect which is great for most effects but if it's causing issues I may need to look at it again or make it optional. I dunno about tweening though, will have to play with it but the times I did try it looked off trying to catch up.
Will also be continuously nerfing that first boss until morale improves.
Once I get more environment art assets done I'd like to start a Steam page and a trailer.
The game itself can be pixel perfect, even if the camera is moving at a higher resolution. Because when you translate the game to the screen, each pixel is actually 2-6 pixels wide/high. Everything within the game, effects, sprites, tiles, etc... can all line up perfectly at the lower resolution (though they dont need to, it can look really good if they dont).
Played up to the generator boss in level 4. The style is tremendous, just messing with the moveset was great and made playing the levels awesome. Using the special punch by hitting R is so stylish and I love the jumping start you have to do to pull it out. Was also surprised how well the platforming sections worked even though the camera was so zoomed in to the action, very impressive stuff. A couple of issues with the camera stood out, sometimes it nearly jumps a full screen space in front of you that's really jarring. The rest of the presentation is so polished that I think these camera moments really stand out. The graphical issues like screen tearing are also noticeable. In terms of difficulty, the stages were pretty easy, but I enjoyed them still because they were good scenarios to practice my techniques. The boss fights on the other hand were much steeper in difficulty, they were the only times I died in the game. The first boss in particular I eventually got into a dps race to beat because I gave up on trying to avoid his projectiles since their hitboxes were humongous. The second boss is great, still difficult but feltlike I could properly compete with them, although sometimes the transition between their attacks was too quick. Really an awesome project, made me want to get back into watching Kamen Rider for the first time in like a decade, it truly rules.
Thank you for the feedback, especially on the bosses. I can definitely stand to tune down the tutorial boss I was really pushing what I could get away with when he should be much easier. If there are any mechanics you think I should explain better in the tutorial let me know.
Also glad that I inspired you to watch more Kamen Rider, Geats was pretty good!
This is ready to be kickstarted, or you should contact a dev and publisher like Yacht Club games and do what Cyber Shadow did. This shit is good, everything is good. I get that its not finished, thinking about the cutscenes in particular, but you should be on your way to make some money so get to it!
Comments
I went into the options menu from the continue screen, and I could not press return. So I pressed save and the window became very small. Deleting AppData/LocalLow/Fxy did not fix the window size, so I had to look through the registry for your save data (which had resolution width and height set to 1). Please don't use the registry.
With that out of the way, here is my feedback:
I was going to ask if it was only meant to be one level, but after checking here there are apparently more I didn't see. I like the transition effects and sprite work.
I'm not sure if this is intended, but I could deflect projectiles back at the first boss, but it only works half the time and it always detonated right after, making the deflection pointless. The typeface (Or font if that makes more sense to you) is a bit difficult to read at times as some letters look similar to each other. There's also more to the controls than what the tutorials explain.
I appreciated your playtest, it made me instantly separate the menus so a save overwrite like that wouldn't happen again. Also sorry for the bullshit boss, those bomb deflections were signaling that you were invul but it's not really clear when they still explode so I'll have to fix that.
I'll expand the tutorial and replace the font as well.
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I feel that the game still needs a lot of polish. Still fun to play, but it needs polish.
For a final comment, I think the sword fighting form should be more snappier. I'm not sure if it's the amount of frames or something but compared to a similar moveset like Zero from MMX games it feels more stiff.
Thank you for all the notes, I noticed the cause of a bunch of xbox controller related issues and have already fixed a few (i.e. menus, d-pad movement, weird input overlap) so hopefully thats working on your end now. Confused about the holding attack thing because I haven't experienced that, a 4th hit should only happen if you pressed it again in the buffer.
Also tweaked the variable jump height for xbox to work now as well as tap jump working more consistently. I'll take a look at the jump buffer.
Bombs/bullets bounce off when characters are invulnerable, maybe that's not obvious enough or its the wrong effect for that?
I've also changed the civ forms attacks to move in mid-air, before they would assume you were still grounded and force you to stand in place.
Thank you for the feedback on the Bomber, I'm still thinking of ways to make him easier, may need to just reduce the number of bombs he throws along with more animation.
Now that I've separated the options menu code I can work on implementing it into the pause menu as well.
I don't know why the game didn't award you with the rest of the levels, if you go into the save file in appdata/locallow/fxy/masqz/0 you can notepad edit levels unlocked to 4 in the meant time until I figure that out.
>Confused about the holding attack thing because I haven't experienced that, a 4th hit should only happen if you pressed it again in the buffer.
You shouldn't be able to queue up more than three attacks, at least until the third attack is almost done. If you press the attack button 4 times quickly, it can take a full second between your last input and the character starting a new combo.
>Bombs/bullets bounce off when characters are invulnerable, maybe that's not obvious enough or its the wrong effect for that?
Not obvious at all, and like that other guy said, half the time they'd just bounce into the ground and hit you anyway with the explosion.
>Thank you for the feedback on the Bomber, I'm still thinking of ways to make him easier, may need to just reduce the number of bombs he throws along with more animation.
The other attacks were easy to avoid. It's just that one where he shoots three bombs in a spread that's finicky to dodge.
Now that I can actually play the whole thing:
Wow, this is amazing. This is the closest I've ever felt to playing MMX, even when considering the MMX "clones", like 20XX/30XX. And this is no clone! MMX was probably the game I played the most of as a child, and inspired my first game (Frauki's Adventure!). But this game is significantly better than that, so well done. There are a couple things I think could be improved, and a couple random ideas.
I think this game has massive potential. It's really cool and with some work it could do well. At minimum, you should get a Steam page ready to go. I'd also look for publishers, if you want to go that route. Contact me if you want me to put you in touch with some people.
Thank you for playing, I'll definitely need to make a more readable font.
I wanted the camera to be pixel perfect which is great for most effects but if it's causing issues I may need to look at it again or make it optional. I dunno about tweening though, will have to play with it but the times I did try it looked off trying to catch up.
Will also be continuously nerfing that first boss until morale improves.
Once I get more environment art assets done I'd like to start a Steam page and a trailer.
The game itself can be pixel perfect, even if the camera is moving at a higher resolution. Because when you translate the game to the screen, each pixel is actually 2-6 pixels wide/high. Everything within the game, effects, sprites, tiles, etc... can all line up perfectly at the lower resolution (though they dont need to, it can look really good if they dont).
Played up to the generator boss in level 4. The style is tremendous, just messing with the moveset was great and made playing the levels awesome. Using the special punch by hitting R is so stylish and I love the jumping start you have to do to pull it out. Was also surprised how well the platforming sections worked even though the camera was so zoomed in to the action, very impressive stuff. A couple of issues with the camera stood out, sometimes it nearly jumps a full screen space in front of you that's really jarring. The rest of the presentation is so polished that I think these camera moments really stand out. The graphical issues like screen tearing are also noticeable. In terms of difficulty, the stages were pretty easy, but I enjoyed them still because they were good scenarios to practice my techniques. The boss fights on the other hand were much steeper in difficulty, they were the only times I died in the game. The first boss in particular I eventually got into a dps race to beat because I gave up on trying to avoid his projectiles since their hitboxes were humongous. The second boss is great, still difficult but feltlike I could properly compete with them, although sometimes the transition between their attacks was too quick. Really an awesome project, made me want to get back into watching Kamen Rider for the first time in like a decade, it truly rules.
Thank you for the feedback, especially on the bosses. I can definitely stand to tune down the tutorial boss I was really pushing what I could get away with when he should be much easier. If there are any mechanics you think I should explain better in the tutorial let me know.
Also glad that I inspired you to watch more Kamen Rider, Geats was pretty good!
* Even though it was made with controllers in mind, I kinda figured out some PC controls and even saw them in the moveset menu.
* Managed to defeat the first and third levels' bosses, one at low health and the other where both I and the boss died at the same time.
Looks and plays really great.
Appreciate the keyboard feedback. If you think there's any awkward keys that should be re-mapped let me know.
This is ready to be kickstarted, or you should contact a dev and publisher like Yacht Club games and do what Cyber Shadow did. This shit is good, everything is good. I get that its not finished, thinking about the cutscenes in particular, but you should be on your way to make some money so get to it!
Thank you so much for your kind words.