This game looks really sick and it seems well made, but it’s way too hard for me. The only enemy I enjoyed was the slime, the rest all feel unfair because there’s no telling when they might attack.
I will fully admit that I didn't grow up with an NES, that I'm a casual who reads VNs and plays match-3 for fun, etc. But I did complete a couple of NES games on, uhh, alternative hardware, and Zelda 1 was one of them, and I did beat it. So I am familiar with the game itself, and I don't have anything against the art, audio and other visual aspects of Yancy - in fact, I think they are the best features of the game. The game looks REALLY good, and the way sprites move and the map transitions animate feels faithful, I didn't have any trouble with it. Maybe they are just a tiny bit smooth, to be AUTHENTIC, but who cares. They work fine and they get the job done.
However I did have trouble playing the game. There are 3 main issues I have.
1) No invulnerability frames. This one is pretty simple to explain - you get hit - you don't have any time to recover or regroup. Very noticeable for the "Fist and head" boss in the research dungeon where the head spews a chain of fireballs side by side. If you get caught up in it - it's over. And this would've been fine, I can understand the lack of i-frames if the answer would be "git gud", but...
2) Not all enemies telegraph their attacks. Specifically the octorock-likes to the right of the first screen, same with blobs shooting arc balls. They attack the moment they stop. And if their placement is extra dickish (like the right screen from the spawn) - it just kills the fun when you can't consistently pass through a second screen of the game. Yet other enemies - like the skeletons, or the rock floating heads in the research dungeon - have no problems telegraphing their attack, and thus being WAY easier to deal with. Longer sword doesn't help - in fact, in my experience it was way easier to get screwed over by the octorock-likes because it takes more time to attack.
The placement seems very intentional, and unless I'm supposed to learn the time of cooldown of the octorock-like attack - I don't see a way to reliably kill them without taking damage - attacking one from behind the rock leaves you exposed to the attacks of the other one. I cannot fathom a way to reliably kill them in a reasonable time. (reasonable = short, since I consider these octorock-likes trash mobs due to them being so early in the game)
3) And lastly - the only way of not getting hurt by the projectile is running away. It's tough, since you get locked in once you attack. Zelda avoided this problem by giving you a shield that blocks projectiles if you're facing the projectile and not attacking. Without it the second screen to the right becomes, in my opinion, too hard to reliably pass through without taking damage.
I get the feeling that you want to make "harder" zelda, which is fine. But it's just too hard for me, especially if it's like that from the get-go. There seems to be close to zero foreplay. Again, it's fine for mobs that do telegraph their attacks, but when they don't - it feels like the only way to figure out the way to progress is to bash your head against the wall until one or the other cracks open. Potion is an invaluable addition due to the lack of i-frames, but at the same time - I would like to save it for bosses, not for trash mobs next to the first screen of the game.
Sorry, but getting killed over and over again is not fun for me, especially to trash mobs. The difficulty spike is just too big.
Two other notes:
1) Skeleton projectile passed through the rocks. Dunno if it's a bug, but it feels inconsistent with other projectiles. I expect to be able to hide behind a rock from a projectile, especially since I don't have any other means of blocking them.
2) Your game seems to try and resize itself to size 0,0. I had a daemon running that unblocks resizing for games, and your game immediately shrank itself until I found out the issue and killed a resize unblock daemon.
First of all, thank you for playing my game. I appreciate anybody taking the time to play, and I think your stream set up for playing all the different games is super cool.
And I really appreciate that you enjoy the game's art style! I tried to make the game how people remembered the NES, without the things we've grown out of.
I did take the time to watch your video, and I saw that you were beating yourself up a lot about not performing very well, but I think you were playing very adequately. I'd say you were in about the 40th or 50th percentile of skill, you were progressing through the first dungeon at a good pace, learning how enemies and traps behaved and applying what you learned.
Part of YANCY is that death is your teacher. You die rapidly, and you also have the potential to kill enemies rapidly. But enemies behave in largely predictable patterns, and through observation these patterns can be exploited. In your video, I saw you acquire the tongue sword, and then discover that by getting on the Rock Eater's y axis you could stunlock them for an easy kill. This is the kind of thought and execution I want to incentivize and reward in the game. While the enemy doesn't have a wind up animation for their attack, it happens predictably, they always shoot the moment that they are on the same x axis as you. Them walking up and down is a de facto wind up animation, and they behave entire predictably.
I think that you're better at the game than you give yourself credit, but I can understand if the game's design doesn't land for you. Thank you for playing and giving your feedback :)
Had a blast, very well done Zeldalike, a little too hard for average joe - enemies hit too hard, go down with one hits too many and attacks are too fast - but you know about that. I'm guessing the message about the game being too difficult shows after 10 deaths? I won't believe it's random :P
Liked the structure - optional bosses, semi-open world, picking up loot and money that can be repurposed. Enjoyed the puzzles too. I wasn't sure if that small hint from the stone guardian meant anything but it did! Crafting new weapons gives extra layer of fun. I'm not really a big fan of crafting games and yet here it actually gives additional purpose for slaying monsters and experimenting with new ingredients was always rewarding. I managed to create 14 swords out of 16, I managed to put the familiar sword without hints, I did chaos sword and wand sword with secrets from the books (reading the page for chaos recipe stopped the background animation). I kept trying to fit the pearl on the hilt but couldn't get anyting... Additional effects on swords are awesome, thorn, ghost, bone, wolf, chaos, it's not boring +1 to attack but with special powers, I loved that. Overall system for forging is simple and enjoyable, new weapons are a blast to find and use.
Those bosses though, I'd say they're overpowered but I used overpowered stone slab for two of them. The game definitely demands a player to learn some patterns. I'd say the initial area should be bigger, with weaker enemies, your sword should have a little bigger reach, enemies should have extra couple frames before attacking and we should have more invulnerability time (one mistake and half of your life is gone).
It's a great demo though, no gamebreaking bugs, no glitches, complete experience. I'm just afraid that keeping with NES zelda aesthethic might limit potential interest and moving it up to 16-bit counterpart would make it more appealing.
Hi! Believe it or not the death message is in fact random. I have considered adding context based death tips, but if I do I think it'll be a later addition.
I'm glad that you enjoyed the game overall! My general attitude is that something is only too hard if people can't beat it. You don't have to lampshade that you beat bosses using stronger swords, that's an element of the game! Some people will take the challenge of fighting bosses with less power, and some people will come back later with more health and better swords. I want people to be able to use twitch skill or observation and patience to beat the game,
It's also very intentional that Yancy is woefully under equipped off the bat. I think the Oak Sword's pitiful range makes the player really appreciate upgrades like metal swords or the Sharp Tongue; they're life changing upgrades that really matter to the player.
As for the art style, I understand! My art is fairly unambitious to put it lightly. This project is all me and this the best art I can produce ;_; I can only hope that the charm and creativity makes up for the unimpressive visuals.
the way that the game implicitly directs you what to do in the early game is cool
i think the menu would be better if it could be accessed with enter or spacebar
i only realised i could drink my potion after spending a lot of time looking for somewhere to heal and then dying for the first time to poison
i had figured that the only way to heal was using the checkpoints
checkpoints are the only way i currently know how to restore potions and that has caused me to not take them to save for a refill in a way that the game feels it isn’t designed around
the title taking so long to appear that you can skip through it is a strange choice
i feel like the name "Yancy" doesn't do a zelda-like about crafting swords justice
my interest petered out and i quit after i got the wood for the bridge then got through the mine to the wand hut, everywhere else i went i felt underpowered and it seemed like i was being asked to just charge in and die until i won instead of being able to retreat and heal when i needed it. maybe that’s Zelda 1-esque and i’m just a scrub, i dunno
I'm noticing a lot of players aren't taking notice of the potion; I anticipated that listing the button for it the controls would be enough, but it's a common point of friction for people. I'm considering adding a button prompt to the HUD or something similar to help with this issue.
I've also decided to implement a few "One time use" healing fountains at some objectives to make it feel less hopeless venturing out immediately after barely surviving a gauntlet of enemies.
As for the game's title, I spent a long time deliberating on a title that was more relevant to the mechanics, but everybody called the game Yancy Game because it was the main character's name, and the name stuck. The game's narrative does eventually focus more on him as a character, so I hope it becomes more appropriate in the full release.
Thank you so much for your feedback, I look forward to trying your game as well :)
Played the game until I ran out of things to do. Video:
Very fun! Super polished. I liked the mechanic of gathering items and crafting swords. I found the tongue sword to be the most effective since the range+speed was too powerful to pass up. My favorite weapon to use was the very heavy stone sword, it felt satisfying to land hits with it.
Some weapons felt redundant, but I can imagine this kind of game is more about getting a full collection rather than using that collection. Somewhere mentioned that there is a right sword for each situation, but I believe people will try to brute force every stage with their prefered weapon.
It would be nice to be able to heal while being petrified. You can heal in hitstun, so why stop the player from healing when they can't move?
Reading the comments, it seems I missed some content, so I will play a bit more later to try to find it.
The tongue sword is definitely popular among a certain type of player, lol. It was designed to be an early upgrade that really helps out beginners so I don’t mind that at all. There are more long range options later in the game, and I saw you got a lot of mileage out of the Slabsword.
I agree that several weapons feel redundant, and this is intentional. The game’s non linearity is best expressed by the different weapons players find and use as they progress. Mokudev built the Tin Sword early, and used it for most of the early game. Some players underestimate the bone sword, but others use it to clear out the forest. I saw one player who built the Wolfkin in their first five minutes, and used it for the majority of their playthrough. While combat variety is something I do pursue, I’m most interested in letting players make decisions unique to their playthroughs and stick with play styles they personally find fun or effective :)
Lastly, unless there’s a bug I’m unaware of, you can’t heal while in hitstun. Petrification is meant to be a do or die status effect, so I don’t mind this.
Thank you enormously for the video. I liked watching you kill the Rock Lord in 4 hits with the Slabsword >:)
This is going to make me sound like a jackass, but I think fast respawn times and transitions can rob the game of its emotional depth. It starts to feel more arcadey if Yancy respawns too rapidly. Arcadey isn't a bad thing, it's just not really what I'm going for.
As for the coins lost on death, you always lose 10% of your money. Which seems not too bad, it creates a sort of "Money Equilibrium" where dying in a dungeon over and over will eventually equalize your money as the fraction gets larger. Things that cost 50-100 coins are always easily affordable, but things that cost 300 - 999 later in the game require explicit focus to save up for.
-Game starts windowed, at least for the itch version since I chose that one. Most games start fullscreened, and most players expect it.
-Annoying that left stick doesn't also move the character. I know it's usually less precise than d-pad, but it's annoying that I don't have the option. Also, making the player choose the control prompts is not ideal, if possible you should make an automatic switch when they use a given device.
-If you open the status screen with start, you can quickly reverse and close it mid animation by pressing start again. However, it doesn't work the other way, where if you close the menu you can't press start to reverse back to open. This is mildly annoying since it's a relatively long animation, bidirectional functionality would be nice.
-I go to options in the in-game menu and for some reason fullscreen is off despite setting to fullscreen from main menu. I assume it's a sync error.
-Scorpion things in the forest drop green puddles, but don't seem to do anything? Later on, the squids also drop a blue puddle which does nothing.
-Getting petrified by the eye then getting sat on by the rock enemy is a little annoying, does a bunch of on touch damage.
-Sleep idle animation starting only after 4 seconds is kind of fast, for my tastes.
-Speaking of, the status screen says I'm asleep(Zs by head) even though I'm not. Doesn't seem to reset if I die, nor when restarting the game. [Later] Deleting my save seemed to 'fix' it, but now he never sleeps? Maybe I need to hit a certain point first before the sleeping. If it helps at all, in the file it said sleeping was '2'.
-Found the bakery, which I don't think I saw before, cool stuff.
-Since you can't get a refill from an already used checkpoint, it would be nice if felling a boss would refill the potion.
-Occasionally I just want to warp back to the checkpoint, it would be nice to have an option in the menu instead of having to die myself.
-Having the epilepsy warning be unskipable for 4 seconds and not in the window mode you selected(small window instead of fullscreen for me) feels annoying, and a waste of time.
-For some reason you can't press cancel to exit the main menu's option screen. Just feels a little odd given you press that to exit the input mapping screen(which is only in game for some reason).
-I can't find a way to delete my save, which is a bit odd. Making people look in the file system isn't best practice.
-I beat the demo as far as I could(didn't find an end screen like that other guy though, took ~2-3 hours? I wasn't keeping track), I would say the game felt a little more polished, but there wasn't much new, maybe I just don't remember the old demo that well. The skull boss was new, I think, and fun. The placing was a surprise, but nice to have at the start of the area for quick retries. The pattern was engaging to dodge and to take advantage of after figuring it out. Think it was my favorite boss out of the lot. For weapon choice, I progressed from Wood -> Stone -> Slime -> BoneDog/Wand -> Mirror. I also went on to beat the Ape cave boss, which I didn't do last time. Mostly due to the Mirror sword, it's quite the boost since it means I don't have to worry about missing a swing when maneuvering around, not to mention the good damage.
-For fun I started messing with the save file and gave myself everything, only a couple crashes if I scrolled onto unimplemented swords, but not for unimplemented materials for some reason. The bottle explains the liquid drops, you can pick them up to be used for crafting. Assuming it's outside of demo content though. Didn't do much with the new swords, but the Rapier is pretty cool, I like the idea of direction based attack boosts, makes it almost like a dance.
-Just FYI, if you set the checkpoint to 39 in the file you can fight a tentacle boss and eventually walk onto the title screen... which is quite the sight:
You’ve revealed my greatest fears and edited the save file!
If I release a new version with all the non demo content deleted we will know who to blame!!
(It sounds like you must have enjoyed yourself a lot to have explored the games content so thoroughly. Thank you so much for all of your input, UI related feedback is invaluable.)
As for Yancy getting sleepy, everything’s working as intended.
I will continue game dev at pace. In the future, you can delete your save by hitting CTRL + SHIFT + F4 or on controller hitting… I think it was Triangle / Y, Start / Options, and Select / Share. I set it up as a debug feature for live demos, but underestimated people’s interest in deleting their saves.
working right now but excited to watch this. Videos with commentary are invaluable. Thank you! *** Have now finished work and watched in entirety. I'm really glad you had pretty much the experience I set out to create; you struggled at first, wandered around, made some cool swords, and then found your footing and by the end you were excitedly pursuing objectives you set for yourself. Very pleased with this. Thank you so much for playing and thank you very much for your feedback :)
Just rewatching again, and noticed you said the Swap Sword button wasn't working. What controller were you using? Was it a Dualshock 4 perchance?
Played the demo on steam, it's very nice. The sword crafting system is a creative addition to the zelda 1 styled gameplay, it works well with the sense of exploration and discovery, allowing you to explore the game's mechanics alongside its world.
The only criticism I have is that touching checkpoints (even if they are already activated) should refill the potion and hp. I had to kill myself on purpose sometimes.
I’m fairly adamant on my decision not to let players rest at checkpoints like a Dark Souls bonfire. I found in play testing that lower skill players would frequently wander out, get hit once or twice, and then return to heal themselves, over and over again. I decided not to let them heal, to sort of “push them down the water slide” and force them to have fun.
I am considering adding one time use healing fountains / reservoirs in certain spots, to help players feel less doomed after achieving an objective. I hope something like that remedies the issue. Your feedback is appreciated ^^
Comments
This game looks really sick and it seems well made, but it’s way too hard for me. The only enemy I enjoyed was the slime, the rest all feel unfair because there’s no telling when they might attack.
I will fully admit that I didn't grow up with an NES, that I'm a casual who reads VNs and plays match-3 for fun, etc. But I did complete a couple of NES games on, uhh, alternative hardware, and Zelda 1 was one of them, and I did beat it. So I am familiar with the game itself, and I don't have anything against the art, audio and other visual aspects of Yancy - in fact, I think they are the best features of the game. The game looks REALLY good, and the way sprites move and the map transitions animate feels faithful, I didn't have any trouble with it. Maybe they are just a tiny bit smooth, to be AUTHENTIC, but who cares. They work fine and they get the job done.
However I did have trouble playing the game. There are 3 main issues I have.
1) No invulnerability frames. This one is pretty simple to explain - you get hit - you don't have any time to recover or regroup. Very noticeable for the "Fist and head" boss in the research dungeon where the head spews a chain of fireballs side by side. If you get caught up in it - it's over. And this would've been fine, I can understand the lack of i-frames if the answer would be "git gud", but...
2) Not all enemies telegraph their attacks. Specifically the octorock-likes to the right of the first screen, same with blobs shooting arc balls. They attack the moment they stop. And if their placement is extra dickish (like the right screen from the spawn) - it just kills the fun when you can't consistently pass through a second screen of the game. Yet other enemies - like the skeletons, or the rock floating heads in the research dungeon - have no problems telegraphing their attack, and thus being WAY easier to deal with. Longer sword doesn't help - in fact, in my experience it was way easier to get screwed over by the octorock-likes because it takes more time to attack.
The placement seems very intentional, and unless I'm supposed to learn the time of cooldown of the octorock-like attack - I don't see a way to reliably kill them without taking damage - attacking one from behind the rock leaves you exposed to the attacks of the other one. I cannot fathom a way to reliably kill them in a reasonable time. (reasonable = short, since I consider these octorock-likes trash mobs due to them being so early in the game)
3) And lastly - the only way of not getting hurt by the projectile is running away. It's tough, since you get locked in once you attack. Zelda avoided this problem by giving you a shield that blocks projectiles if you're facing the projectile and not attacking. Without it the second screen to the right becomes, in my opinion, too hard to reliably pass through without taking damage.
I get the feeling that you want to make "harder" zelda, which is fine. But it's just too hard for me, especially if it's like that from the get-go. There seems to be close to zero foreplay. Again, it's fine for mobs that do telegraph their attacks, but when they don't - it feels like the only way to figure out the way to progress is to bash your head against the wall until one or the other cracks open. Potion is an invaluable addition due to the lack of i-frames, but at the same time - I would like to save it for bosses, not for trash mobs next to the first screen of the game.
Sorry, but getting killed over and over again is not fun for me, especially to trash mobs. The difficulty spike is just too big.
Two other notes:
1) Skeleton projectile passed through the rocks. Dunno if it's a bug, but it feels inconsistent with other projectiles. I expect to be able to hide behind a rock from a projectile, especially since I don't have any other means of blocking them.
2) Your game seems to try and resize itself to size 0,0. I had a daemon running that unblocks resizing for games, and your game immediately shrank itself until I found out the issue and killed a resize unblock daemon.
Hello!
First of all, thank you for playing my game. I appreciate anybody taking the time to play, and I think your stream set up for playing all the different games is super cool.
And I really appreciate that you enjoy the game's art style! I tried to make the game how people remembered the NES, without the things we've grown out of.
I did take the time to watch your video, and I saw that you were beating yourself up a lot about not performing very well, but I think you were playing very adequately. I'd say you were in about the 40th or 50th percentile of skill, you were progressing through the first dungeon at a good pace, learning how enemies and traps behaved and applying what you learned.
Part of YANCY is that death is your teacher. You die rapidly, and you also have the potential to kill enemies rapidly. But enemies behave in largely predictable patterns, and through observation these patterns can be exploited. In your video, I saw you acquire the tongue sword, and then discover that by getting on the Rock Eater's y axis you could stunlock them for an easy kill. This is the kind of thought and execution I want to incentivize and reward in the game. While the enemy doesn't have a wind up animation for their attack, it happens predictably, they always shoot the moment that they are on the same x axis as you. Them walking up and down is a de facto wind up animation, and they behave entire predictably.
I think that you're better at the game than you give yourself credit, but I can understand if the game's design doesn't land for you. Thank you for playing and giving your feedback :)
Had a blast, very well done Zeldalike, a little too hard for average joe - enemies hit too hard, go down with one hits too many and attacks are too fast - but you know about that. I'm guessing the message about the game being too difficult shows after 10 deaths? I won't believe it's random :P
Liked the structure - optional bosses, semi-open world, picking up loot and money that can be repurposed. Enjoyed the puzzles too. I wasn't sure if that small hint from the stone guardian meant anything but it did! Crafting new weapons gives extra layer of fun. I'm not really a big fan of crafting games and yet here it actually gives additional purpose for slaying monsters and experimenting with new ingredients was always rewarding. I managed to create 14 swords out of 16, I managed to put the familiar sword without hints, I did chaos sword and wand sword with secrets from the books (reading the page for chaos recipe stopped the background animation). I kept trying to fit the pearl on the hilt but couldn't get anyting... Additional effects on swords are awesome, thorn, ghost, bone, wolf, chaos, it's not boring +1 to attack but with special powers, I loved that. Overall system for forging is simple and enjoyable, new weapons are a blast to find and use.
Those bosses though, I'd say they're overpowered but I used overpowered stone slab for two of them. The game definitely demands a player to learn some patterns. I'd say the initial area should be bigger, with weaker enemies, your sword should have a little bigger reach, enemies should have extra couple frames before attacking and we should have more invulnerability time (one mistake and half of your life is gone).
It's a great demo though, no gamebreaking bugs, no glitches, complete experience. I'm just afraid that keeping with NES zelda aesthethic might limit potential interest and moving it up to 16-bit counterpart would make it more appealing.
Still, awesome job so far!
Hi! Believe it or not the death message is in fact random. I have considered adding context based death tips, but if I do I think it'll be a later addition.
I'm glad that you enjoyed the game overall! My general attitude is that something is only too hard if people can't beat it. You don't have to lampshade that you beat bosses using stronger swords, that's an element of the game! Some people will take the challenge of fighting bosses with less power, and some people will come back later with more health and better swords. I want people to be able to use twitch skill or observation and patience to beat the game,
It's also very intentional that Yancy is woefully under equipped off the bat. I think the Oak Sword's pitiful range makes the player really appreciate upgrades like metal swords or the Sharp Tongue; they're life changing upgrades that really matter to the player.
As for the art style, I understand! My art is fairly unambitious to put it lightly. This project is all me and this the best art I can produce ;_; I can only hope that the charm and creativity makes up for the unimpressive visuals.
Thank you so much for playing!!
my interest petered out and i quit after i got the wood for the bridge then got through the mine to the wand hut, everywhere else i went i felt underpowered and it seemed like i was being asked to just charge in and die until i won instead of being able to retreat and heal when i needed it. maybe that’s Zelda 1-esque and i’m just a scrub, i dunno
Hi! Thank you for playing!
I'm noticing a lot of players aren't taking notice of the potion; I anticipated that listing the button for it the controls would be enough, but it's a common point of friction for people. I'm considering adding a button prompt to the HUD or something similar to help with this issue.
I've also decided to implement a few "One time use" healing fountains at some objectives to make it feel less hopeless venturing out immediately after barely surviving a gauntlet of enemies.
As for the game's title, I spent a long time deliberating on a title that was more relevant to the mechanics, but everybody called the game Yancy Game because it was the main character's name, and the name stuck. The game's narrative does eventually focus more on him as a character, so I hope it becomes more appropriate in the full release.
Thank you so much for your feedback, I look forward to trying your game as well :)
Played the game until I ran out of things to do. Video:
Very fun! Super polished. I liked the mechanic of gathering items and crafting swords. I found the tongue sword to be the most effective since the range+speed was too powerful to pass up. My favorite weapon to use was the very heavy stone sword, it felt satisfying to land hits with it.
Some weapons felt redundant, but I can imagine this kind of game is more about getting a full collection rather than using that collection. Somewhere mentioned that there is a right sword for each situation, but I believe people will try to brute force every stage with their prefered weapon.
It would be nice to be able to heal while being petrified. You can heal in hitstun, so why stop the player from healing when they can't move?
Reading the comments, it seems I missed some content, so I will play a bit more later to try to find it.
Thank you for playing!
The tongue sword is definitely popular among a certain type of player, lol. It was designed to be an early upgrade that really helps out beginners so I don’t mind that at all. There are more long range options later in the game, and I saw you got a lot of mileage out of the Slabsword.
I agree that several weapons feel redundant, and this is intentional. The game’s non linearity is best expressed by the different weapons players find and use as they progress. Mokudev built the Tin Sword early, and used it for most of the early game. Some players underestimate the bone sword, but others use it to clear out the forest. I saw one player who built the Wolfkin in their first five minutes, and used it for the majority of their playthrough. While combat variety is something I do pursue, I’m most interested in letting players make decisions unique to their playthroughs and stick with play styles they personally find fun or effective :)
Lastly, unless there’s a bug I’m unaware of, you can’t heal while in hitstun. Petrification is meant to be a do or die status effect, so I don’t mind this.
Thank you enormously for the video. I liked watching you kill the Rock Lord in 4 hits with the Slabsword >:)
lovely little games
some small complaints:
i know that it's period accurate, but there's no reason for door transitions to be SO slow.
also, on dying you should be able to skip the tip screen to respawn faster
at one point i died but i only lost 3 coins out of 34, which maybe isn't punishing enough?
i appreciate the inspiration, but i wouldn't go as far as copying the flaws of the old classics when imitating them.
Thank you so much for playing!
This is going to make me sound like a jackass, but I think fast respawn times and transitions can rob the game of its emotional depth. It starts to feel more arcadey if Yancy respawns too rapidly. Arcadey isn't a bad thing, it's just not really what I'm going for.
As for the coins lost on death, you always lose 10% of your money. Which seems not too bad, it creates a sort of "Money Equilibrium" where dying in a dungeon over and over will eventually equalize your money as the fraction gets larger. Things that cost 50-100 coins are always easily affordable, but things that cost 300 - 999 later in the game require explicit focus to save up for.
Thank you for your feedback :)
Played this before, just to let you know.
-Game starts windowed, at least for the itch version since I chose that one. Most games start fullscreened, and most players expect it.
-Annoying that left stick doesn't also move the character. I know it's usually less precise than d-pad, but it's annoying that I don't have the option. Also, making the player choose the control prompts is not ideal, if possible you should make an automatic switch when they use a given device.
-If you open the status screen with start, you can quickly reverse and close it mid animation by pressing start again. However, it doesn't work the other way, where if you close the menu you can't press start to reverse back to open. This is mildly annoying since it's a relatively long animation, bidirectional functionality would be nice.
-I go to options in the in-game menu and for some reason fullscreen is off despite setting to fullscreen from main menu. I assume it's a sync error.
-Scorpion things in the forest drop green puddles, but don't seem to do anything? Later on, the squids also drop a blue puddle which does nothing.
-Getting petrified by the eye then getting sat on by the rock enemy is a little annoying, does a bunch of on touch damage.
-Sleep idle animation starting only after 4 seconds is kind of fast, for my tastes.
-Speaking of, the status screen says I'm asleep(Zs by head) even though I'm not. Doesn't seem to reset if I die, nor when restarting the game. [Later] Deleting my save seemed to 'fix' it, but now he never sleeps? Maybe I need to hit a certain point first before the sleeping. If it helps at all, in the file it said sleeping was '2'.
-Found the bakery, which I don't think I saw before, cool stuff.
-Since you can't get a refill from an already used checkpoint, it would be nice if felling a boss would refill the potion.
-Occasionally I just want to warp back to the checkpoint, it would be nice to have an option in the menu instead of having to die myself.
-Having the epilepsy warning be unskipable for 4 seconds and not in the window mode you selected(small window instead of fullscreen for me) feels annoying, and a waste of time.
-For some reason you can't press cancel to exit the main menu's option screen. Just feels a little odd given you press that to exit the input mapping screen(which is only in game for some reason).
-I can't find a way to delete my save, which is a bit odd. Making people look in the file system isn't best practice.
-I beat the demo as far as I could(didn't find an end screen like that other guy though, took ~2-3 hours? I wasn't keeping track), I would say the game felt a little more polished, but there wasn't much new, maybe I just don't remember the old demo that well. The skull boss was new, I think, and fun. The placing was a surprise, but nice to have at the start of the area for quick retries. The pattern was engaging to dodge and to take advantage of after figuring it out. Think it was my favorite boss out of the lot. For weapon choice, I progressed from Wood -> Stone -> Slime -> BoneDog/Wand -> Mirror. I also went on to beat the Ape cave boss, which I didn't do last time. Mostly due to the Mirror sword, it's quite the boost since it means I don't have to worry about missing a swing when maneuvering around, not to mention the good damage.
-For fun I started messing with the save file and gave myself everything, only a couple crashes if I scrolled onto unimplemented swords, but not for unimplemented materials for some reason. The bottle explains the liquid drops, you can pick them up to be used for crafting. Assuming it's outside of demo content though. Didn't do much with the new swords, but the Rapier is pretty cool, I like the idea of direction based attack boosts, makes it almost like a dance.
-Just FYI, if you set the checkpoint to 39 in the file you can fight a tentacle boss and eventually walk onto the title screen... which is quite the sight:
https://files.catbox.moe/04z1q7.mp4
Really good game you have here, I had a lot of fun even if most of my commentary was complaining about small details. Keep up the good work.
You’ve revealed my greatest fears and edited the save file!
If I release a new version with all the non demo content deleted we will know who to blame!!
(It sounds like you must have enjoyed yourself a lot to have explored the games content so thoroughly. Thank you so much for all of your input, UI related feedback is invaluable.)
As for Yancy getting sleepy, everything’s working as intended.
I will continue game dev at pace. In the future, you can delete your save by hitting CTRL + SHIFT + F4 or on controller hitting… I think it was Triangle / Y, Start / Options, and Select / Share. I set it up as a debug feature for live demos, but underestimated people’s interest in deleting their saves.
Thank you again!
I did not beat Yancy but I did play it.
working right now but excited to watch this. Videos with commentary are invaluable. Thank you!
***
Have now finished work and watched in entirety. I'm really glad you had pretty much the experience I set out to create; you struggled at first, wandered around, made some cool swords, and then found your footing and by the end you were excitedly pursuing objectives you set for yourself. Very pleased with this. Thank you so much for playing and thank you very much for your feedback :)
Just rewatching again, and noticed you said the Swap Sword button wasn't working. What controller were you using? Was it a Dualshock 4 perchance?
Yes, it was a Dualshock 4. Glad you enjoyed the video.
Played the demo on steam, it's very nice. The sword crafting system is a creative addition to the zelda 1 styled gameplay, it works well with the sense of exploration and discovery, allowing you to explore the game's mechanics alongside its world.
The only criticism I have is that touching checkpoints (even if they are already activated) should refill the potion and hp. I had to kill myself on purpose sometimes.
Thank you so much for playing!
I’m fairly adamant on my decision not to let players rest at checkpoints like a Dark Souls bonfire. I found in play testing that lower skill players would frequently wander out, get hit once or twice, and then return to heal themselves, over and over again. I decided not to let them heal, to sort of “push them down the water slide” and force them to have fun.
I am considering adding one time use healing fountains / reservoirs in certain spots, to help players feel less doomed after achieving an objective. I hope something like that remedies the issue. Your feedback is appreciated ^^