Sometimes the game ends without even a game over screen.
The wheel health system turned out better than I imagined. The only problem with it is that it allows you to intentionally tank hits.
Once when I started the game the car was constantly emitting massive amounts of dust, up to the first collision only so I didn't start recording in time.
The game plays so much better without special effects. The only things left are the flashing freeze frames (remove it right now, this is pure cancer for this game), and burning cars that sometimes make the entire screen competely unreadable (I got used to the fact that on average I can't see half of the screen). The drift combo dust eventually covers the entire left part of the screen, which is cancerous too. You can always integrate those effects as key visuals kind of thing which get toned down when there's action going on since player will be paying attention to something else.
Sometimes the game freezes for a fraction of a second (might be me though, after rerunning the game it didn't happen once) which in this game is enough to put you in a hard situation. It could use a timestep limit as a quick solution.
I finally managed to beat the vertical slice, holy shit. It required me to finally get into the zone at the end - judging by this stage this is not a casual game as it requires serious focus. I'm not sure if it plays right as it is though, it feels like I'm tanking hits and collecting whatever generously placed health pickups I can find to compensate. Even when it feels like I'm doing well, have full integrity bar for the most of the stage and I'm in the zone as well I eventually fall quickly to the visual clutter.
My first try in kansei thefto was 6:30, this is the kind of stage that should have insane difficulty ramp up (instead of the other stages) to make it quicker.
Game doesn't handle chaotic situations well. There's delay to all actions and trajectory is more or less set, so at times you need to plan your movement ahead around the police, which is hard to do when there are more obstacles. Because most often you can't do much about being in a tough spot instead of adrenaline it's just acceptance of the upcoming damage and focus on grabbing the wheels.
Rapid panic clicking could make the lateral momentum stabilize for a short while as a crutch and for squeezing between cars.
Could be cool to have a drift change sound to vibe to the music through the drift rhythm.
What if driving into other cars from the side was more generous and you could push them aside to actually be able to intentionally affect elements in the level with explosions or road blocking?
For now I'm just happy that the health system actually allows to finish a level. Without it's even more of a mess.
And nice that you tried it without the effects. That was my first goal of the entire project, to see how effects can affect gameplay and how much is too much. You mean all of the flashing freeze frames or specific ones on your own car or on other objects?
I'm not sure yet about the burnout effect. At first I just wanted to see if I could. I'm thinking about turning it into an ability (haven't worked on that part yet) that would deal damage or cause confusion or something, but only available to drift-style cars. The bike and porsche don't have the effect if I'm right. But yes, right now it's just of a punishment for hectic steering.
The lag issue has been on my mind. Definitely a big problem.
Kansei Thefto was a port from a previous game that a friend asked me to implement because he likes to driver over pedestrians, lol. I haven't yet implement more police/heat variations that would appear.
I appreciate the commitment to beating it! The vertical slice right now is more or less a "throw everything in there" type of deal. Your experience matches my expectations. It's far too messy and too much "meh, can't do anything about it". I'm not sure yet in which direction to go, I might just split it into multiple different games.
Rapid panic clicking could make the lateral momentum stabilize for a short while as a crutch and for squeezing between cars.
Interesting. I've been experimenting with a slowmotion effect already for a way to deal with this.
Could be cool to have a drift change sound to vibe to the music through the drift rhythm.
I'm not sure what you mean with drift change sound? But having the music somehow interact with the game in multiple ways was on my mind as well, similar to Eternal Climax. No idea how to work with music though.
What if driving into other cars from the side was more generous and you could push them aside to actually be able to intentionally affect elements in the level with explosions or road blocking?
Yes, that's something on my mind as well. For now I have a small mass system integrated, which determines (extra) damage based on speed, and speed loss. For instance, the truck has enough mass that you won't loss speed when hitting pedestrians.
You mean all of the flashing freeze frames or specific ones on your own car or on other objects?
I think all of them are jarring, especially because the game requires precise timing and not being able to see the current situation even for a moment will be lethal.
It's far too messy and too much "meh, can't do anything about it".
Yeah, designing levels for this game sounds hard, but there might be some other ways. Other cars could slightly move away from the player to add some error margin or shift the level design to be doable with player's current momentum and position (which would make it a more realistic interaction too).
I'm not sure what you mean with drift change sound?
As in the car making sound while player inputs direction change. It might be annoying though if done wrong. Right now the game has a a few clang-thing sound somewhere at the start of the stages and that's what made me think of it.
>shift the level design to be doable with player's current momentum and position
That was originally the case, while the speed was constant, lol. I'm working to get there again. Thought of a L4D style director too, that would make the game more or less intense periodically based on how you play.
>As in the car making sound while player inputs direction change
I played for about 10 minutes before this but forgot to record, I got through most of the levels including the vertical slice which was a bit harder, once I understood all the mechanics better. It sounded like you were aware already from your page's description but it really did feel like in some sections I was blinded by the effects for a really long time and had to just simulate the car's movement a lot in my head. Toning it down a bit would definitely help. A lot of them look good though. The UI right now could probably use a good amount of restructuring or simplification if possible too, theres a lot going on at the moment
It's just meant to mean 出口 Exit, but the extra bars were meant to make the 口 look like a garage door.
Looking at your video, the cones at the beginning shouldn't be like that, lol. Neither should the traffic be so tight. Somehow the time is sped up by factor 2 or 3... Thanks for the video, that's veeeery important feedback lmao. Oh my...
Yes, it's completely exaggerated on purpose to see how much is too much.
And the UI... blergh, yes. I just put everything on there I could think of. Half the stuff doesn't even have a purpose yet.
Played a couple of the levels, its decently fun, works perfectly and has some cool flair to it. I think this would work very well as a free phone game with adds. I know that sounds derisive, I do not mean it to be, I think you could probably rake it in with the younger demographic.
Turning it into a phone game is more or less the idea, in theory. And no need to sugar coat your critique. I'm certain a younger demographic would be the best target group. Just have to think about the level of brutality and difficulty.
Its a nice game, I like it when games do a lot with few inputs. I can't help trying to run down all the pedestrians though... Seems like a perfect fit for mobile. The biggest detriment I think is that it can be hard to tell what's going on through all the effects , especially the screenshake. And the ending music starts to sound mostly like static at a point. It feels like a pretty complete game other than that.
Spoiler: I am stupid.
Unless I'm really stupid and doing something wrong I can't get past the tutorial(?). See video:
Yeah, I thought as much... only realized after submitting that there is no actual prompt to hit the Start sign, while also having a "Drive!" that will you take back into the game... but not start one.
Comments
Decent progress from last time.
Sometimes the game ends without even a game over screen.
The wheel health system turned out better than I imagined. The only problem with it is that it allows you to intentionally tank hits.
Once when I started the game the car was constantly emitting massive amounts of dust, up to the first collision only so I didn't start recording in time.
The game plays so much better without special effects. The only things left are the flashing freeze frames (remove it right now, this is pure cancer for this game), and burning cars that sometimes make the entire screen competely unreadable (I got used to the fact that on average I can't see half of the screen). The drift combo dust eventually covers the entire left part of the screen, which is cancerous too. You can always integrate those effects as key visuals kind of thing which get toned down when there's action going on since player will be paying attention to something else.
Sometimes the game freezes for a fraction of a second (might be me though, after rerunning the game it didn't happen once) which in this game is enough to put you in a hard situation. It could use a timestep limit as a quick solution.
I finally managed to beat the vertical slice, holy shit. It required me to finally get into the zone at the end - judging by this stage this is not a casual game as it requires serious focus. I'm not sure if it plays right as it is though, it feels like I'm tanking hits and collecting whatever generously placed health pickups I can find to compensate. Even when it feels like I'm doing well, have full integrity bar for the most of the stage and I'm in the zone as well I eventually fall quickly to the visual clutter.
My first try in kansei thefto was 6:30, this is the kind of stage that should have insane difficulty ramp up (instead of the other stages) to make it quicker.
Game doesn't handle chaotic situations well. There's delay to all actions and trajectory is more or less set, so at times you need to plan your movement ahead around the police, which is hard to do when there are more obstacles. Because most often you can't do much about being in a tough spot instead of adrenaline it's just acceptance of the upcoming damage and focus on grabbing the wheels.
Rapid panic clicking could make the lateral momentum stabilize for a short while as a crutch and for squeezing between cars.
Could be cool to have a drift change sound to vibe to the music through the drift rhythm.
What if driving into other cars from the side was more generous and you could push them aside to actually be able to intentionally affect elements in the level with explosions or road blocking?
Appreciate the indepth commentary!
For now I'm just happy that the health system actually allows to finish a level. Without it's even more of a mess.
And nice that you tried it without the effects. That was my first goal of the entire project, to see how effects can affect gameplay and how much is too much. You mean all of the flashing freeze frames or specific ones on your own car or on other objects?
I'm not sure yet about the burnout effect. At first I just wanted to see if I could. I'm thinking about turning it into an ability (haven't worked on that part yet) that would deal damage or cause confusion or something, but only available to drift-style cars. The bike and porsche don't have the effect if I'm right. But yes, right now it's just of a punishment for hectic steering.
The lag issue has been on my mind. Definitely a big problem.
Kansei Thefto was a port from a previous game that a friend asked me to implement because he likes to driver over pedestrians, lol. I haven't yet implement more police/heat variations that would appear.
I appreciate the commitment to beating it! The vertical slice right now is more or less a "throw everything in there" type of deal. Your experience matches my expectations. It's far too messy and too much "meh, can't do anything about it". I'm not sure yet in which direction to go, I might just split it into multiple different games.
Rapid panic clicking could make the lateral momentum stabilize for a short while as a crutch and for squeezing between cars.
Interesting. I've been experimenting with a slowmotion effect already for a way to deal with this.
Could be cool to have a drift change sound to vibe to the music through the drift rhythm.
I'm not sure what you mean with drift change sound? But having the music somehow interact with the game in multiple ways was on my mind as well, similar to Eternal Climax. No idea how to work with music though.
What if driving into other cars from the side was more generous and you could push them aside to actually be able to intentionally affect elements in the level with explosions or road blocking?
Yes, that's something on my mind as well. For now I have a small mass system integrated, which determines (extra) damage based on speed, and speed loss. For instance, the truck has enough mass that you won't loss speed when hitting pedestrians.
Thank you very much for the feedback and ideas!
I think all of them are jarring, especially because the game requires precise timing and not being able to see the current situation even for a moment will be lethal.
Yeah, designing levels for this game sounds hard, but there might be some other ways. Other cars could slightly move away from the player to add some error margin or shift the level design to be doable with player's current momentum and position (which would make it a more realistic interaction too).
As in the car making sound while player inputs direction change. It might be annoying though if done wrong. Right now the game has a a few clang-thing sound somewhere at the start of the stages and that's what made me think of it.
>all of them
Noted!
>shift the level design to be doable with player's current momentum and position
That was originally the case, while the speed was constant, lol. I'm working to get there again. Thought of a L4D style director too, that would make the game more or less intense periodically based on how you play.
>As in the car making sound while player inputs direction change
I think I get what you mean.
I played for about 10 minutes before this but forgot to record, I got through most of the levels including the vertical slice which was a bit harder, once I understood all the mechanics better. It sounded like you were aware already from your page's description but it really did feel like in some sections I was blinded by the effects for a really long time and had to just simulate the car's movement a lot in my head. Toning it down a bit would definitely help. A lot of them look good though. The UI right now could probably use a good amount of restructuring or simplification if possible too, theres a lot going on at the moment
Sweet! Thanks for the feedback and the video!
It's just meant to mean 出口 Exit, but the extra bars were meant to make the 口 look like a garage door.
Looking at your video, the cones at the beginning shouldn't be like that, lol. Neither should the traffic be so tight. Somehow the time is sped up by factor 2 or 3... Thanks for the video, that's veeeery important feedback lmao. Oh my...
Yes, it's completely exaggerated on purpose to see how much is too much.
And the UI... blergh, yes. I just put everything on there I could think of. Half the stuff doesn't even have a purpose yet.
Played a couple of the levels, its decently fun, works perfectly and has some cool flair to it. I think this would work very well as a free phone game with adds. I know that sounds derisive, I do not mean it to be, I think you could probably rake it in with the younger demographic.
Thanks a bunch!
Turning it into a phone game is more or less the idea, in theory. And no need to sugar coat your critique. I'm certain a younger demographic would be the best target group. Just have to think about the level of brutality and difficulty.
Its a nice game, I like it when games do a lot with few inputs. I can't help trying to run down all the pedestrians though... Seems like a perfect fit for mobile. The biggest detriment I think is that it can be hard to tell what's going on through all the effects , especially the screenshake. And the ending music starts to sound mostly like static at a point. It feels like a pretty complete game other than that.
Spoiler: I am stupid.
Unless I'm really stupid and doing something wrong I can't get past the tutorial(?). See video:
https://files.catbox.moe/5cs6yc.webm
Arrows for settings but you can also press to change it one way is odd.
No back to main menu button only exit.
And I hate the startup honk sound haha.
Not the dev but if you press start instead of drive you will get to a level-select. I almost missed this as well.
Wow great to know that I'm just dumb then hahaha. I have no idea how I completely missed the button.
It looks like a command rather than a button, I was confused too.
Yeah, I thought as much... only realized after submitting that there is no actual prompt to hit the Start sign, while also having a "Drive!" that will you take back into the game... but not start one.
Appreciate the feedback. And no, you're not stupid, that's an UX fuck up on my part. And the menu is a hacky mess.
The effects are exaggerated for now to figure out how much is too much. But nice, your critique is exactly what I thought of as well.
honk honk :(
Oh, and yeah. Running over pedestrians... it shouldn't be the core of the game, but I really want it to be.