Pure Sovl, but ladders are the bane of my existence.
I like concept of the gameplay, but the controls could probably be simplified. Having to press "S" to read, them "R" to close the books feels odd, why can't I press "S" a second time to close it?
Not on this upcoming chapter or the next one, but the one after those 2 at least.
And maybe the end of the game, probably.
In the next update, the Companion will no longer be knocked off ladders but I'm also considering a Lost Viking method of being able to play as them, as the ultimate way to make the game more accessible.
The tutorial works just fine as a showcase of mechanics for levels that are yet to be designed, but as a tutorial for an actual game, it's almost silly how eager it is to introduce complexity only to do nothing with it. Mechanics like the soccer ball and enemies in general appear multiple times without ever serving any use. A lot of the tutorial prompts and even the controls themselves could be simplified in too many ways to list; you should really rework those levels if you want the average player to see the rest of the game.
Chase/run being tied to fixed right/left buttons rather than relative to which character is to the left is confusing.
Besides the matter of ladders for some reason resetting command states and having special commands associated with them, I'm not yet sure what you're going for with this command control scheme that wouldn't be achieved by controlling the characters separately.
I got stuck by falling here without the kid. Passwords take you to the beginning of the level that awards them rather than the next one so I'm not going back.
Overall, I don't see what you're going for with this game just yet. It's a bit of an amalgamation of props without any core idea to explore. If you want it to be about a narrative there didn't seem to be enough of that and I couldn't really tell what the props and environments were meant to convey in terms of a story.
There may be a lot of mechanics introduced in the first 3 levels but as the game progresses, I want to make sure they occasionally show up at times while certain "new" things would be one time gimmicks or less common.
I am considering a Lost Viking inspired thing so players can play as the younger sibling in case the command system is still difficult (I'm already making it so Players can no longer push them off ladders).
The Q combo system is because someone once said the game had too many buttons.
The idea of the passwords is that they always represent the current level you've finished, which I assumed was how most level passwords in games worked to begin with.
I just added a moving vertical platform in the area you said you got stuck in.
This game exists because I came up with a bunch of characters and felt like making use of them, which is also why later levels show completely different characters and themes.
Yes, from what I have played so far, I would prefer to control the characters individually. That could change depending on what ideas you have to do with the commands later, though.
The idea to use a key combination itself works well, but I intuitively try to use the directional key that would move the kid closer or away from the adult at that given moment rather than memorizing that left or right do fixed things.
What I mean is that the password I get by beating stage x and moving onto x+1 puts me at the start of stage x rather than x+1.
Part of the "right is follow, left is run" system is because it wouldn't apply to swimming which technically has "four-ish" directions as opposed to walking and climbing being both 2 direction based.
Doing a full playthrough from the beginning. I have really grown to love this experience, I liked it the first time I played this but the controls scared me off from finishing it initially, I have since then learned, mastering even the dreaded ladders.
Once you get it, its really not that hard, it's definitely a unique setup, but it can be mastered. First couple of levels I can go through really quickly now to get to the new content.
It's unfortunate that most people never get to the meat and potatoes, some real quirky puzzling/platforming in a curious world that changes all the time. Assets may be simple but for me that does not matter, just the sheer amount of different things to look at and think about is staggering.
Here is a tip for ladderscrubs. Attach the kid, go up yourself, use follow command, use the momentum to get the kid to jump when dropping off and position the adult so that the kid flies in the right direction.
For general moment synchronizing the kid and the adult is most often effective, pressing z and up at the same time for them to jump together. Its actually pretty damn satisfying when you get good at it.
Playing through the Hirdrih part again I do have one though: there is a lot of enemies to kill which got me to think about it, there is not any feedback when you hit something. I would add some kind of flash perhaps on the sprites and just have them shake a bit.
I do not entirely get the night/day function. I am guessing different things are available during the states, some secrets, put I must have missed them.
Pushing things is still wonky as fuck, you should perhaps look into it a bit more.
Concerning the story it would seem that the machine Hirdrih man mentions might be the big bad, its interesting to see these older relatives trying to get in touch with the gang too.
Reached the parts which are new for me now. Said this before but your art is getting cleaner, I think your writing is getting a bit clearer too.
Was very much last place in the competition sequence.
Krimb-stone is definitely my favorite part of the game, lots of storytelling, cool reference, muscle woman is now my new waifu. Reptile is cool too, have I influenced you a little perhaps :P?
Could not figure out the trashbox secret, jumped into a building but did not know what to do next so I progressed to the next section.
Adding a second companion is a wild choice with Stella since people have been complaining about the controls. It made me laugh, but this is going to be interesting.
Killing the enemies with the traps is a neat concept. The ladder section at the end of Krimb Stone is pure evil, you are going to filter a lot of players : P
I had fun. I more and more feel you need to add some music though.
Glad you like it more now, though I plan to make it so the kid isn't knocked off from ladders anymore (At the cost of them climbing slower due to otherwise shaking really weird if chasing the Player on ladder), adding 1/2/3 as basic Inputs and at the very least, a blog post about whether or not I'd try a "press thing to change playable character method" as a "worst case scenario" at least.
I should probably rework how enemies die, at least. The day/night thing is just a gimmick where switches affect the sky going from dark blue to light pink: Some levels in the game have interactive gimmicks that exist for the sake of "world building" and plans include a photo booth for Massag-Coav (Already got a video of this in my channel) and a sci-fi gun with an id check system that harms the Player due to some Judge Dredd influence.
Kinda like how a Build Engine game like Duke 3D lets you use toilets or tip girls even if it's not main gameplay related. I think the biggest issue with pushing might be when both characters try it, but at least I fixed it when the pushable gets on top of you/the kid by simply having an instakill thing.
(Unless you mean the jittery effect that I've seen in some videos/streams). The "threat" on Hirdrih responsible for the viruses is definitely part of my overly planned list of things that I'll keep as a mystery in this game for now.
(When I give Hirdrih its own game, I may reveal it) If the art is getting better, maybe I'm just getting better at tracing some stuff, but I still use art tutorials and references even with the mouse.
I still wanna retouch art at some point (Mostly cutscene).
The race has no "win/lose" feature as of now: I'm thinking of adding one where the reward is just extra coins.
To be fair, your only influence might've been Sarah's cameo.
* Reptile is just me filling a "femme fatale" niche and the snake/chameleon theme is because her name is a reference to a Nine Inch Nails song.
* Matysha is just me doing one more muscle girl (Because before, I add a few more who I plan to add to this game) and making her a bit butch but still make her feminine.
* And Ricotto is like the last boy character, with influences ranging from Dr Doom (The mask) to I guess Allister from Pokemon.
* Booker was the first of the setting I thought of, with influences ranging from Frank Castle to Marv/Hartigan to even Dredd a bit.
The "trashbox" secret is just having to push the orange thing for long enough until you reach a window in a building above: Technically another "world building" gimmick and the guy tied up feeling threatned enough to give info was inspired by that Punisher game because of the interrogation system.
Besides Stella, I have one more character planned to be a "third companion" but this time, they get combat and only weakness is being too big that the Player tries to clear the path or something (Hint: It's a female orc warrior).
Music is another last part and I came to a new reason: Because of the code behind adjusting cutscene speed, I want to make cutscene music into its own file/node so the code could perhaps make it easy to adjust? Gotta wait to be sure.
Also, I've yet to play the new DOJD update but I wanna see if I can finish my game's update soon enough and then try DOJD.
I like that the cutscene is like reading a comic book.
But... I did find the text to be small and hard to read and like the area for it was mostly not used, Can it maybe rescale to be bigger text, if the length of the message is small it can use big text maybe?
I wonder if right justified text would be easier to read when the chara saying it was on a pic that slid in on the right? Not sure.
can it use WASD as well as Up/Down/Left/Right? I see that "S" is read, but that can be rebound?
interesting game. I think the density of notes at the start is a bit much because it felt difficult to remember and learn so much so quickly. I had some trouble with the companion commands.
The scene transition also reflects the Nortubel country flag.
The comic style cutscene was inspired by Gravity Rush and I've got ideas to make some cutscene animations more interesting.
The reason for HUGE text boxes with little text has to do with me not knowing how to properly resize a box I guess.
I once thought of adding dialogie icons for characters talking, but it could lead to more code stuff and trying to make art less bad, and also whether or not the icon would get in the way of visuals due to the dialogue boxes already being "automatic".
I have no plans for customizable Inputs due to limited skills and current structure. I do try to make the game a bit more accessable.
The ladder mechanics and companion mechanics need to be worked on. Ladders just feel so hard. The core mechanics are well thought out and exposed to the player at a good rate.
I watched your stream and felt like mentioning stuff:
* Cutscenes have no audio and gameplay has few sounds. I might get more during development.
* I overshared partially because of panicky stuff like "in case I die" and being an OC ideas guy.
* Ezcudos are a reference to Escudo/shield coins that Portugal had before the Euro. Nortubel as a setting is Portugal inspired.
* Q + commands are based on someone once saying the game already had too many buttons.
* Astrolobe is indeed placed weirdly but it's based on my idea on the kid being off-screen.
* I wanted to make characters have different sprites even if the gameplay is the same. Oscar runs like Naruto and Pete jumps like Mario. You also have some girls holding their skirt. Originally, sprites were more detailed and they all had the same poses.
* Before they had actual names, Carrie and Oscar were called "Carrot and Orange" as placeholder names.
* You forgot to read a yellow book stating that Players could push off Companions off ladders. But on this current update, I removed that mechanic and made the Companion climb slower (Because otherwise, they'd shake weirdly and the game already has some weird jittery stuff even though there's something I don't notice on my videos or experience somehow).
* If the kid isn't running away when you press Q+Left, it might be because they're in the exact same spot. If you slightly move left/right, they do run.
I don't blame people for not liking how the game plays and feels, but I do try to make things a bit more accessible with my limited skillset and frankensteined structure (And it's also on Github for anyone to explore, even if their negativity increases).
At the same time, some videos on my channel (Also called EyeBallTank) at least show stuff like other levels, different world themes and even interactive stuff for the sake of "world building".
Because I want to make a "fake crossover" feeling game and the 2 first non-Nortubel worlds are a tech/computer world with cute robots and a Sin-City inspired setting.
Some of the positive comments I received were "at least character designs are interesting" and the clown girl Bonka showed up in a collage art for DD52 (I think) and was referenced in DOJD (In turn, I referenced DOJD in the Sin City inspired world I mentioned).
I appreciate you checking out the stream! I really liked your creative liberties and it really felt like a labor of love. As I'm sure you saw the mechanics can be a little infuriating to the overall experience but despite that the game was still fun in the limited time I played it. I think if you can find a solid middle ground on the companion navigation your game experience would be much more welcoming. The animations were cool. It felt like each character had their own personality. My favorites were the soccer kick and the skirt holding while jumping
Your stream did led to 2 changes: Relocating the books with water related info so you don't have to go underwater to read and fixing some grammar like the "three house" bit (Of course it's tree house) and stating that the rod only works with the Player.
I've been thinking on how I could make it so pressing a button would change playable characters: It'd be the one way most people would get into the game and I feel like writing a blog post to explain stuff before trying it.
I still wanna do this update a release before trying that method.
Follow your heart! I'm glad some of my feedback was useful! If you implemented the toggle concept maybe it would open up the level design to focus more on moving obstacles for each sibling and the player has to figure out the sequence of events in order to pass through the level .
I tried being explicit in the books about the kids' climbing controls, but in the update I'm working on, I'll remove being able to knock them off from ladders to make the thing less annoying at least.
osc4r0 is the pass for the 7th or so level and passwords of their levels are revealed at the end: I'm assuming you replayed that leve because you wrote that password.
Didn't really use TLG or Ico as references, my mind was at least thinking more on RE4 and Oddworld at least.
As for Bonka's smell: That is something I never really thought of (And I do mean that).
Let's say that Bonka is part of a clown race/species that while still being close to humans in lots of ways, still has its own traits like the skin colors and nose.
The puzzles in this game are interesting, controlling several characters at the same time makes me think of Lost Vikings (totally should play that one if you haven't). Visuals could use some work but it does the job for a proof of concept. Dunno if sound is not working or if doesn't have sound yet (I think the only thing that plays a sound is the trampoline?).
Minor annoying detail: it took me three tries to read the slippery floor sign (which by then I already understood what the help was about) but I would make it so it actives upon touching the floor.
On the ladder yes I kinda struggle to make the partner go right towards me, kinda took like 5 tries of the younger sibling falling to the water. About the jittering I didn't really notice any from what I played.
you clearly have a specific vision you are following, but i'm personally not sure wether it's gonna work.
the controls are very unintuitive, even after learning them i still struggled with them quite a bit
also, if i gotta be honest escort missions are usually considered the most annoying parts of any game that has them, and your game is basically an endless escort mission...
there seems to be a lot of jitter with how the camera tracks the player. In unity this would be a problem like not having the camera update in lateupdate, but I don't know the godot equivalent. Make sure the camera is updated after everything is moved. Right now there is a huge info dump when you first get into the game, it would be nice if you could spread that out a bit more. On to the second level and still the same problem, 3 switch types all introduced immediately together through text.
I think for the companion commands it could be nice to have them bound to 3 different keys with a UI display for this showing the hotkey and which state it is in. Or you could think of simplifying to stop/follow bound to 1 key and not have move away. I haven't played through everything yet to see how some of it is used
The camera is a node under the Player and even has "smoothing" turned on, but there might be stuff I should've looked into I guess.
I know the tutorial levels have a lot of stuff, but I also plan on making this a game with more levels where some mechanics can still show up and some "new" stuff is more likely to be one level/world gimmicks.
It's a game that mainly exists so I could show some characters and settings.
The Companion has Q combos because of someone saying the game had too many controls (Once was S, F, R).
"Move away" is still a relevant state because in the 5th level, there's a part where the Companion must go to the left to use a switch to activate a moving platform while the Player lands on a treadmill floor.
I can echo that the ladder controls could be streamlined a bit. I wound up drowning a kid before I figured it out. If the player is on a flat ground next to a ladder, and gives a command to a companion on a ladder to follow, they climb up to the player's Y axis, but if told to detach from the ladder they'll hit the wall instead of landing on the ground. A simple solution might be to make a companion on a ladder try to climb slightly above the player, instead of on level with them. Very cue minimalism overall
I've been thinking and I might remove the Companion being knocked off from ladders by the Player (And changing the yellow book with this info about something else, like how the Player can use ladders horizontaly but not Companions).
When they quit the ladder, they get into "equivalent" states (Example: If they were following you on the ladder, they return to "FOLLOWME" on ground and viceversa with running away or idle).
But it's entering the ladder where they go to "CLIMBIDLE" by default because I thought it was safer.
It would be nice if the web build had a fullscreen button.
Extremely minor but these are the sorts of things I notice: "Quit" should always be the very last option on a main menu.
This game is too soulful to exist.
Why are all these teenagers hanging out with their younger siblings? I never hung out with my little brother. But I was kind of a shitty older brother.
The vase pushing animation was glitchy.
The tip about the portal and companion didn't make sense to me.
Companion and ladder system is very weird.
Ugh I give up. The ladder system is too weird I can't figure out how to make them do the ladder out of the water.
You've got a lot of soul here but I think the companion system should involve less micro-management.
Did you check the options menu? Pretty sure I added fullscreen.
This game in general exists because I was an OC ideas guy for years and wanted to make use of characters with the story being them ending up in a weird world and finding different worlds with clashing characters.
Do you have footage of the vase animation being glitchy? I admit it gets weird when both characters are pushing it.
I've seen seeing tips on how to improve Companion controls and it also depends on either my dev skills or the frankenstein structure of the game.
Visuals: Art brute tier, I can barely stand to look at this. I do like the concept, though, with the semi-abstract backgrounds and such; and the 'lore' and how it’s presented. With better execution this all could be sick.
Gameplay: Surprisingly interesting. With some things I am not sure I did them the 'correct' way - character behaviour feels a bit glitchy. I rather enjoy that. I haven’t played far - but I got a bit tired of all the elements introduced. I think this kind of game works better if for some tricks/controls introduced, there is then 6-12 puzzles to be solved with that, before learning the next trick. Nortubel has only 1-2 puzzles before the next trick is introduced, it’s a bit stressful. About the puzzle aspect in general, I was surprised when the knife and Hit Points got introduced. As far as I played, it feels like it could be just a puzzle game (with one-hit K.O.) idk if a heavier fighting aspect is coming up later, but I am not excited to play that. I’ve had enough of a challenge getting my companion through the platforms and ladders.
Controls: Partly I did not understand them, partly they keybindings seem weird to me. Instead of the Q-combos, I would prefer pressing the buttons 1-2-3, for example. Instead of Z, I would like another key I can reach with index or middle finger, maybe G or T.
Looking at the footage, you were still touching the Companion on the ladder (Part of what one yellow book brings up as getting too close) as opposed to going all the way up or pressing Q+down, then go to the right side (You were in his left in that instance), Q+right and then Z to make him leave the ladder under FOLLOWME mode.
I could however state that the Player can moves sideways on ladders but not the Companion.
Maybe I should learn how to add videos in Godot, so I could have some demo stuff is that's possible.
Visuals: I sort of rushed some stuff and also had to deal with some weird resolution issue in Godot. I did tried to make it so solid level tiles and interactive stuff used literal black while other stuff didn't and even come up with color "systems" like pushable stuff using shades of orange. And characters in general used posed models in Blender just to rush stuff, but I plan to tweak some art.
Gameplay: There might be too many features but as the game progresses, I want to make sure certain mechanics are occasionally used and there's at least a few new gimmicks that don't show up again. It's a game that exists because I wanted to show off different characters and stuff. I got too ambitious but there's things that somehow made it in, hence my optimism is not entirely gone.
Controls: I went with the Q combos because someone once said the game already had too many buttons.
Also why is there reverb in your footage and lot of shaky stuff? Is it to do with how my game runs on Linux?
You didn't complain about that (At least from the soundless stream).
Also why is there reverb in your footage and lot of shaky stuff?
Idk what you mean by shaky stuff, the animations for some characters were flickery, this was definitely what I saw on screen. The reverb is probably due to my sound setup, I had botched something there and actually did not hear any sound myself. I tested again now and there seems to be no reverb. But the character movement definitely has jitter to it - I thought it was artistic intent. It’s like the image moves 2px forward, then 1px back, and so on, instead of just going 1px forward. Happens both in maximized and default window size. My screen is 1440p@100 Hz, with Adaptive Sync (AMD).
I admit there's already weird stuff like the camera struggling with pixel resolution, maybe some animations just being bad and even when the Player is on water or singing and the Companion is only shaking because they're trying to catch up with a character on a different speed that just isn't addressed in the code.
But your stream and ArtieAllNight's show the Player vibrating really weirdly and when I try the latest exe build myself, I don't see it.
When you mention px, you mean like the actual movement or the sprites?
Interesting concept controlling both characters! To be honest, the controls need to be more intuitive. I think slowly adding mechanics instead of dumping dozens of notes in one level would help ease players into this
I got as far as the first teleporter. Jumping, interacting with the books, and all the companion commands seemed to work fine.
Ah, yeah I turned on music in the background when the cutscene was quiet so I didn't notice. Yeah the landing sound works so the other ones probably do too.
The swimming animation seems a bit unnatural, and the control scheme is new to me, and took some time to get used to. I died in the first level and got a game over from drowning. The character designs are interesting.
Comments
Pure Sovl, but ladders are the bane of my existence.
I like concept of the gameplay, but the controls could probably be simplified. Having to press "S" to read, them "R" to close the books feels odd, why can't I press "S" a second time to close it?
In the next update, the kids can no longer be pushed off ladders.
But I'm also considering the option to play as them just in case the controls are that hard.
Some inputs in general can be weird and it's pretty much because devving for this game is kind of a ride.
I liked the clown girl (I don't care if she says otherwise), hated the ladders so much
I plan to make her show up again at some point.
Not on this upcoming chapter or the next one, but the one after those 2 at least.
And maybe the end of the game, probably.
In the next update, the Companion will no longer be knocked off ladders but I'm also considering a Lost Viking method of being able to play as them, as the ultimate way to make the game more accessible.
The tutorial works just fine as a showcase of mechanics for levels that are yet to be designed, but as a tutorial for an actual game, it's almost silly how eager it is to introduce complexity only to do nothing with it. Mechanics like the soccer ball and enemies in general appear multiple times without ever serving any use. A lot of the tutorial prompts and even the controls themselves could be simplified in too many ways to list; you should really rework those levels if you want the average player to see the rest of the game.
Chase/run being tied to fixed right/left buttons rather than relative to which character is to the left is confusing.
Besides the matter of ladders for some reason resetting command states and having special commands associated with them, I'm not yet sure what you're going for with this command control scheme that wouldn't be achieved by controlling the characters separately.
I got stuck by falling here without the kid. Passwords take you to the beginning of the level that awards them rather than the next one so I'm not going back.
Overall, I don't see what you're going for with this game just yet. It's a bit of an amalgamation of props without any core idea to explore. If you want it to be about a narrative there didn't seem to be enough of that and I couldn't really tell what the props and environments were meant to convey in terms of a story.
There may be a lot of mechanics introduced in the first 3 levels but as the game progresses, I want to make sure they occasionally show up at times while certain "new" things would be one time gimmicks or less common.
I am considering a Lost Viking inspired thing so players can play as the younger sibling in case the command system is still difficult (I'm already making it so Players can no longer push them off ladders).
The Q combo system is because someone once said the game had too many buttons.
The idea of the passwords is that they always represent the current level you've finished, which I assumed was how most level passwords in games worked to begin with.
I just added a moving vertical platform in the area you said you got stuck in.
This game exists because I came up with a bunch of characters and felt like making use of them, which is also why later levels show completely different characters and themes.
Yes, from what I have played so far, I would prefer to control the characters individually. That could change depending on what ideas you have to do with the commands later, though.
The idea to use a key combination itself works well, but I intuitively try to use the directional key that would move the kid closer or away from the adult at that given moment rather than memorizing that left or right do fixed things.
What I mean is that the password I get by beating stage x and moving onto x+1 puts me at the start of stage x rather than x+1.
Part of the "right is follow, left is run" system is because it wouldn't apply to swimming which technically has "four-ish" directions as opposed to walking and climbing being both 2 direction based.
Doing a full playthrough from the beginning. I have really grown to love this experience, I liked it the first time I played this but the controls scared me off from finishing it initially, I have since then learned, mastering even the dreaded ladders.
Once you get it, its really not that hard, it's definitely a unique setup, but it can be mastered. First couple of levels I can go through really quickly now to get to the new content.
It's unfortunate that most people never get to the meat and potatoes, some real quirky puzzling/platforming in a curious world that changes all the time. Assets may be simple but for me that does not matter, just the sheer amount of different things to look at and think about is staggering.
Here is a tip for ladderscrubs. Attach the kid, go up yourself, use follow command, use the momentum to get the kid to jump when dropping off and position the adult so that the kid flies in the right direction.
For general moment synchronizing the kid and the adult is most often effective, pressing z and up at the same time for them to jump together. Its actually pretty damn satisfying when you get good at it.
Playing through the Hirdrih part again I do have one though: there is a lot of enemies to kill which got me to think about it, there is not any feedback when you hit something. I would add some kind of flash perhaps on the sprites and just have them shake a bit.
I do not entirely get the night/day function. I am guessing different things are available during the states, some secrets, put I must have missed them.
Pushing things is still wonky as fuck, you should perhaps look into it a bit more.
Concerning the story it would seem that the machine Hirdrih man mentions might be the big bad, its interesting to see these older relatives trying to get in touch with the gang too.
Reached the parts which are new for me now. Said this before but your art is getting cleaner, I think your writing is getting a bit clearer too.
Was very much last place in the competition sequence.
Krimb-stone is definitely my favorite part of the game, lots of storytelling, cool reference, muscle woman is now my new waifu. Reptile is cool too, have I influenced you a little perhaps :P?
Could not figure out the trashbox secret, jumped into a building but did not know what to do next so I progressed to the next section.
Adding a second companion is a wild choice with Stella since people have been complaining about the controls. It made me laugh, but this is going to be interesting.
Killing the enemies with the traps is a neat concept. The ladder section at the end of Krimb Stone is pure evil, you are going to filter a lot of players : P
I had fun. I more and more feel you need to add some music though.
Glad you like it more now, though I plan to make it so the kid isn't knocked off from ladders anymore (At the cost of them climbing slower due to otherwise shaking really weird if chasing the Player on ladder), adding 1/2/3 as basic Inputs and at the very least, a blog post about whether or not I'd try a "press thing to change playable character method" as a "worst case scenario" at least.
I should probably rework how enemies die, at least.
The day/night thing is just a gimmick where switches affect the sky going from dark blue to light pink: Some levels in the game have interactive gimmicks that exist for the sake of "world building" and plans include a photo booth for Massag-Coav (Already got a video of this in my channel) and a sci-fi gun with an id check system that harms the Player due to some Judge Dredd influence.
Kinda like how a Build Engine game like Duke 3D lets you use toilets or tip girls even if it's not main gameplay related.
I think the biggest issue with pushing might be when both characters try it, but at least I fixed it when the pushable gets on top of you/the kid by simply having an instakill thing.
(Unless you mean the jittery effect that I've seen in some videos/streams).
The "threat" on Hirdrih responsible for the viruses is definitely part of my overly planned list of things that I'll keep as a mystery in this game for now.
(When I give Hirdrih its own game, I may reveal it)
If the art is getting better, maybe I'm just getting better at tracing some stuff, but I still use art tutorials and references even with the mouse.
I still wanna retouch art at some point (Mostly cutscene).
The race has no "win/lose" feature as of now: I'm thinking of adding one where the reward is just extra coins.
To be fair, your only influence might've been Sarah's cameo.
* Reptile is just me filling a "femme fatale" niche and the snake/chameleon theme is because her name is a reference to a Nine Inch Nails song.
* Matysha is just me doing one more muscle girl (Because before, I add a few more who I plan to add to this game) and making her a bit butch but still make her feminine.
* And Ricotto is like the last boy character, with influences ranging from Dr Doom (The mask) to I guess Allister from Pokemon.
* Booker was the first of the setting I thought of, with influences ranging from Frank Castle to Marv/Hartigan to even Dredd a bit.
The "trashbox" secret is just having to push the orange thing for long enough until you reach a window in a building above: Technically another "world building" gimmick and the guy tied up feeling threatned enough to give info was inspired by that Punisher game because of the interrogation system.
Besides Stella, I have one more character planned to be a "third companion" but this time, they get combat and only weakness is being too big that the Player tries to clear the path or something (Hint: It's a female orc warrior).
Music is another last part and I came to a new reason: Because of the code behind adjusting cutscene speed, I want to make cutscene music into its own file/node so the code could perhaps make it easy to adjust? Gotta wait to be sure.
Also, I've yet to play the new DOJD update but I wanna see if I can finish my game's update soon enough and then try DOJD.
No hurry, love your work and will keep on playing it.
wow, cool screen transitions!
I like that the cutscene is like reading a comic book.
But... I did find the text to be small and hard to read and like the area for it was mostly not used, Can it maybe rescale to be bigger text, if the length of the message is small it can use big text maybe?
I wonder if right justified text would be easier to read when the chara saying it was on a pic that slid in on the right? Not sure.
can it use WASD as well as Up/Down/Left/Right? I see that "S" is read, but that can be rebound?
interesting game. I think the density of notes at the start is a bit much because it felt difficult to remember and learn so much so quickly. I had some trouble with the companion commands.
But anyway, it certainly has interesting areas.
The scene transition also reflects the Nortubel country flag.
The comic style cutscene was inspired by Gravity Rush and I've got ideas to make some cutscene animations more interesting.
The reason for HUGE text boxes with little text has to do with me not knowing how to properly resize a box I guess.
I once thought of adding dialogie icons for characters talking, but it could lead to more code stuff and trying to make art less bad, and also whether or not the icon would get in the way of visuals due to the dialogue boxes already being "automatic".
I have no plans for customizable Inputs due to limited skills and current structure. I do try to make the game a bit more accessable.
The ladder mechanics and companion mechanics need to be worked on. Ladders just feel so hard. The core mechanics are well thought out and exposed to the player at a good rate.
I watched your stream and felt like mentioning stuff:
* Cutscenes have no audio and gameplay has few sounds. I might get more during development.
* I overshared partially because of panicky stuff like "in case I die" and being an OC ideas guy.
* Ezcudos are a reference to Escudo/shield coins that Portugal had before the Euro. Nortubel as a setting is Portugal inspired.
* Q + commands are based on someone once saying the game already had too many buttons.
* Astrolobe is indeed placed weirdly but it's based on my idea on the kid being off-screen.
* I wanted to make characters have different sprites even if the gameplay is the same. Oscar runs like Naruto and Pete jumps like Mario. You also have some girls holding their skirt. Originally, sprites were more detailed and they all had the same poses.
* Before they had actual names, Carrie and Oscar were called "Carrot and Orange" as placeholder names.
* You forgot to read a yellow book stating that Players could push off Companions off ladders. But on this current update, I removed that mechanic and made the Companion climb slower (Because otherwise, they'd shake weirdly and the game already has some weird jittery stuff even though there's something I don't notice on my videos or experience somehow).
* If the kid isn't running away when you press Q+Left, it might be because they're in the exact same spot. If you slightly move left/right, they do run.
I don't blame people for not liking how the game plays and feels, but I do try to make things a bit more accessible with my limited skillset and frankensteined structure (And it's also on Github for anyone to explore, even if their negativity increases).
At the same time, some videos on my channel (Also called EyeBallTank) at least show stuff like other levels, different world themes and even interactive stuff for the sake of "world building".
Because I want to make a "fake crossover" feeling game and the 2 first non-Nortubel worlds are a tech/computer world with cute robots and a Sin-City inspired setting.
Some of the positive comments I received were "at least character designs are interesting" and the clown girl Bonka showed up in a collage art for DD52 (I think) and was referenced in DOJD (In turn, I referenced DOJD in the Sin City inspired world I mentioned).
I appreciate you checking out the stream! I really liked your creative liberties and it really felt like a labor of love. As I'm sure you saw the mechanics can be a little infuriating to the overall experience but despite that the game was still fun in the limited time I played it. I think if you can find a solid middle ground on the companion navigation your game experience would be much more welcoming. The animations were cool. It felt like each character had their own personality. My favorites were the soccer kick and the skirt holding while jumping
Your stream did led to 2 changes: Relocating the books with water related info so you don't have to go underwater to read and fixing some grammar like the "three house" bit (Of course it's tree house) and stating that the rod only works with the Player.
I've been thinking on how I could make it so pressing a button would change playable characters: It'd be the one way most people would get into the game and I feel like writing a blog post to explain stuff before trying it.
I still wanna do this update a release before trying that method.
Follow your heart! I'm glad some of my feedback was useful! If you implemented the toggle concept maybe it would open up the level design to focus more on moving obstacles for each sibling and the player has to figure out the sequence of events in order to pass through the level .
i kept trying to read the books with R but then i was like "oh yeah it's" S but then S wouldn't work because i had already pressed R
this cunt is really bad at climbing ladders
i got the password osc4r0 after beating a level but using the password put me at the level i already beat, dunno if intentional
is this supposed to be like the last gaurdian or ico
what does bonka smell like
I tried being explicit in the books about the kids' climbing controls, but in the update I'm working on, I'll remove being able to knock them off from ladders to make the thing less annoying at least.
osc4r0 is the pass for the 7th or so level and passwords of their levels are revealed at the end: I'm assuming you replayed that leve because you wrote that password.
Didn't really use TLG or Ico as references, my mind was at least thinking more on RE4 and Oddworld at least.
As for Bonka's smell: That is something I never really thought of (And I do mean that).
Let's say that Bonka is part of a clown race/species that while still being close to humans in lots of ways, still has its own traits like the skin colors and nose.
The puzzles in this game are interesting, controlling several characters at the same time makes me think of Lost Vikings (totally should play that one if you haven't). Visuals could use some work but it does the job for a proof of concept. Dunno if sound is not working or if doesn't have sound yet (I think the only thing that plays a sound is the trampoline?).
Minor annoying detail: it took me three tries to read the slippery floor sign (which by then I already understood what the help was about) but I would make it so it actives upon touching the floor.
The Player and Comp have landing sounds.
But the game in general has no music or even sounds for cutscenes yet.
Also 2 things:
Did you struggle with Comp Ladder stuff?
And did you notice any weird jitter/shakeyness on the Player or Companion? Something probably camera related? Or sound reverb?
On the ladder yes I kinda struggle to make the partner go right towards me, kinda took like 5 tries of the younger sibling falling to the water. About the jittering I didn't really notice any from what I played.
you clearly have a specific vision you are following, but i'm personally not sure wether it's gonna work.
the controls are very unintuitive, even after learning them i still struggled with them quite a bit
also, if i gotta be honest escort missions are usually considered the most annoying parts of any game that has them, and your game is basically an endless escort mission...
there seems to be a lot of jitter with how the camera tracks the player. In unity this would be a problem like not having the camera update in lateupdate, but I don't know the godot equivalent. Make sure the camera is updated after everything is moved. Right now there is a huge info dump when you first get into the game, it would be nice if you could spread that out a bit more. On to the second level and still the same problem, 3 switch types all introduced immediately together through text.
I think for the companion commands it could be nice to have them bound to 3 different keys with a UI display for this showing the hotkey and which state it is in. Or you could think of simplifying to stop/follow bound to 1 key and not have move away. I haven't played through everything yet to see how some of it is used
The camera is a node under the Player and even has "smoothing" turned on, but there might be stuff I should've looked into I guess.
I know the tutorial levels have a lot of stuff, but I also plan on making this a game with more levels where some mechanics can still show up and some "new" stuff is more likely to be one level/world gimmicks.
It's a game that mainly exists so I could show some characters and settings.
The Companion has Q combos because of someone saying the game had too many controls (Once was S, F, R).
"Move away" is still a relevant state because in the 5th level, there's a part where the Companion must go to the left to use a switch to activate a moving platform while the Player lands on a treadmill floor.
I can echo that the ladder controls could be streamlined a bit. I wound up drowning a kid before I figured it out. If the player is on a flat ground next to a ladder, and gives a command to a companion on a ladder to follow, they climb up to the player's Y axis, but if told to detach from the ladder they'll hit the wall instead of landing on the ground. A simple solution might be to make a companion on a ladder try to climb slightly above the player, instead of on level with them. Very cue minimalism overall
I've been thinking and I might remove the Companion being knocked off from ladders by the Player (And changing the yellow book with this info about something else, like how the Player can use ladders horizontaly but not Companions).
When they quit the ladder, they get into "equivalent" states (Example: If they were following you on the ladder, they return to "FOLLOWME" on ground and viceversa with running away or idle).
But it's entering the ladder where they go to "CLIMBIDLE" by default because I thought it was safer.
It would be nice if the web build had a fullscreen button.
Extremely minor but these are the sorts of things I notice: "Quit" should always be the very last option on a main menu.
This game is too soulful to exist.
Why are all these teenagers hanging out with their younger siblings? I never hung out with my little brother. But I was kind of a shitty older brother.
The vase pushing animation was glitchy.
The tip about the portal and companion didn't make sense to me.
Companion and ladder system is very weird.
Ugh I give up. The ladder system is too weird I can't figure out how to make them do the ladder out of the water.
You've got a lot of soul here but I think the companion system should involve less micro-management.
Did you check the options menu? Pretty sure I added fullscreen.
This game in general exists because I was an OC ideas guy for years and wanted to make use of characters with the story being them ending up in a weird world and finding different worlds with clashing characters.
Do you have footage of the vase animation being glitchy? I admit it gets weird when both characters are pushing it.
I've seen seeing tips on how to improve Companion controls and it also depends on either my dev skills or the frankenstein structure of the game.
Visuals: Art brute tier, I can barely stand to look at this. I do like the concept, though, with the semi-abstract backgrounds and such; and the 'lore' and how it’s presented. With better execution this all could be sick.
Gameplay: Surprisingly interesting. With some things I am not sure I did them the 'correct' way - character behaviour feels a bit glitchy. I rather enjoy that. I haven’t played far - but I got a bit tired of all the elements introduced. I think this kind of game works better if for some tricks/controls introduced, there is then 6-12 puzzles to be solved with that, before learning the next trick. Nortubel has only 1-2 puzzles before the next trick is introduced, it’s a bit stressful. About the puzzle aspect in general, I was surprised when the knife and Hit Points got introduced. As far as I played, it feels like it could be just a puzzle game (with one-hit K.O.) idk if a heavier fighting aspect is coming up later, but I am not excited to play that. I’ve had enough of a challenge getting my companion through the platforms and ladders.
Controls: Partly I did not understand them, partly they keybindings seem weird to me. Instead of the Q-combos, I would prefer pressing the buttons 1-2-3, for example. Instead of Z, I would like another key I can reach with index or middle finger, maybe G or T.
Footage: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2023530828?t=0h5m15s
Looking at the footage, you were still touching the Companion on the ladder (Part of what one yellow book brings up as getting too close) as opposed to going all the way up or pressing Q+down, then go to the right side (You were in his left in that instance), Q+right and then Z to make him leave the ladder under FOLLOWME mode.
I could however state that the Player can moves sideways on ladders but not the Companion.
Maybe I should learn how to add videos in Godot, so I could have some demo stuff is that's possible.
Visuals: I sort of rushed some stuff and also had to deal with some weird resolution issue in Godot. I did tried to make it so solid level tiles and interactive stuff used literal black while other stuff didn't and even come up with color "systems" like pushable stuff using shades of orange. And characters in general used posed models in Blender just to rush stuff, but I plan to tweak some art.
Gameplay: There might be too many features but as the game progresses, I want to make sure certain mechanics are occasionally used and there's at least a few new gimmicks that don't show up again. It's a game that exists because I wanted to show off different characters and stuff. I got too ambitious but there's things that somehow made it in, hence my optimism is not entirely gone.
Controls: I went with the Q combos because someone once said the game already had too many buttons.
Also why is there reverb in your footage and lot of shaky stuff? Is it to do with how my game runs on Linux?
You didn't complain about that (At least from the soundless stream).
Idk what you mean by shaky stuff, the animations for some characters were flickery, this was definitely what I saw on screen. The reverb is probably due to my sound setup, I had botched something there and actually did not hear any sound myself. I tested again now and there seems to be no reverb. But the character movement definitely has jitter to it - I thought it was artistic intent. It’s like the image moves 2px forward, then 1px back, and so on, instead of just going 1px forward. Happens both in maximized and default window size. My screen is 1440p@100 Hz, with Adaptive Sync (AMD).
I admit there's already weird stuff like the camera struggling with pixel resolution, maybe some animations just being bad and even when the Player is on water or singing and the Companion is only shaking because they're trying to catch up with a character on a different speed that just isn't addressed in the code.
But your stream and ArtieAllNight's show the Player vibrating really weirdly and when I try the latest exe build myself, I don't see it.
When you mention px, you mean like the actual movement or the sprites?
px="pixel" - I mean exactly what you say with "the Player vibrating really weirdly"
Something I recently did wit the game (Github/dev version) is an option to turn on/off smooth camera just in case it's camera related.
May not be an ideal solution, but who knows.
Checked all the yellow books, but still climbing ladders is always hard.
Interesting concept controlling both characters! To be honest, the controls need to be more intuitive. I think slowly adding mechanics instead of dumping dozens of notes in one level would help ease players into this
Didn't play much, but your Linux export definitely works. There was no sound but I don't know if the game has any to begin with.
How far did you get into it?
Did you try to jump at least?
The cutscene and main menu has none but some stuff does have sound (Player/Comp landing on floor, water, pushable, jump pad, soccer ball).
I got as far as the first teleporter. Jumping, interacting with the books, and all the companion commands seemed to work fine.
Ah, yeah I turned on music in the background when the cutscene was quiet so I didn't notice. Yeah the landing sound works so the other ones probably do too.
The swimming animation seems a bit unnatural, and the control scheme is new to me, and took some time to get used to. I died in the first level and got a game over from drowning. The character designs are interesting.
Just wondering, did you read the yellow books?
I tried to be as explicit in terms of info as possible even with my ESL English.
Yes, I read a lot of them but I decided to feel it out (which I think was a mistake) before returning to read more.