Hey, I just played the altest version and its really cool! It almost feels like a sandbox with a lot of little parkour elements that you can play around with for no other porpuse than having fun. Did I ate a whole houses worth of waffles? lol.
I also liked the car jump, the zip lines and the destroyable wall of waffles haha. Also, Ive saide this before, but the "Nooooo" when you fall out of the map gets me every time xD
Hey. I recorded a video about the Beginners Circle jam and included your game in it. If you want to cut your game out of the video, let me know. However, if you like the video, I make similar videos every day. I will be happy if you subscribe. Anyway, I enjoyed playing your game.
Nice game, very original! I loved the sound effects, especially the "nooooo!" when you fall. I had to reset it a few times cause the car stoped working, but I managed to finish it.
Of course! I was doing a sharp turn and the car flipped over. When I put it back on its feet it stopped moving. Maybe it clipped the floor? If you want I can try to replicate it tomorrow
No need for scenario for flipping, I know couple of them. Some just need car/surface adjustments. I still think that some flipping will be ok if the player is doing dangerous things, but yeah, now it sometimes flips for stupid reasons.
As for not moving after respawn, I really don't know how to reproduce that, although I think I saw it once. I suspect it's a glitch in the automatic-handbrake feature I've implemented to prevent it rolling while the player isn't controlling it, but it makes no sense from the code point of view, it literally turns it off each frame while the player is inside, and only turns it on when player exits the car. So might be something else entirely.
Nono, I like the flipping! The car is super fun to drive actually. I really dont know how 3d games work, but I think the car isnt detecting the ground and thats why it doesnt accelerate. Maybe Im not making any sense and Im just dumb though
It totally shouldn't accelerate if the wheels aren't touching the ground. And judging on how the wheels are hanging in your screenshot as if suspension is totally extended, it can be as well that it thinks that it's not touching the ground. But this exact code is built in the game engine, so I it would be tricky to investigate. Maybe I'll just respawn it higher and let it fall and it would fix the issue. But I still can't really reproduce it now, so even after doing the change I wouldn't know if it's ok
I mean, if its that hard to replicate it isnt such a big deal right? Respawning a little higher should work if you really want to fix it, but if it was me I would leave it as is. Anyway, if you make some change I will gladly test it again as many times needed.
https://no-login-found.itch.io/test The car is heavier as several players requested, with lower center of mass, so it should be harder to flip. It's also respawned 1m above the 'valid place', so probably would solve the issue with 'in-the-ground-not-moving'.
I tried it ans man it is hard to flip now! The only way I could do it was using the ramp, and even then it was hard. Also every time I flipped over the car and pressed enter to respawn it accelerated just fine so maybe that fixed the issue?
I just replicated the issue. I have to say, it was hard! But yes, it appears the car clipped through the ground. The wheels didnt move at all from this position, my guess would be that the car thought it wasnt grounded because it was clipped and thats why it stoped moving, but Ive never made a game like this before so idk. Here goes the capture:
Finished the game. I liked the atmosphere. The car was a bit hard to control though. Especially making it up that hill, I basically had to just tap up so it wouldn't go to fast and flip over. Great job with the game!
Thanks for playing. Indeed, the car is tricky, both in the code and in the game. The current challenge of driving it wasn't fully intentional, although some players find this challenge entertaining. Do you think that there should be a way to reduce the challenge if a player feels the need? Like, for example, grinding some extra materials to make a better version of the car?
Grinding extra materials could be interesting. However, I think I would do a couple things:
Make the car feel heavier. It felt like once I starting going at a certain speed, any little bump was going to flip me over.
Once you start driving, orient the camera to the front of the car. Unless the player is moving the mouse, in which case it should move relative to the front.
Take these suggestions with a grain of salt. I've never programmed driving a car, so I don't know the difficulties that lie in that process. However, you did a great job on the game.
You are right about the car being light. I made it lighter in attempt to compensate the rotation inertia which was too big to my taste and made the steering inaccurate. However the flipping over can be related to the car's hitbox: if the suspension travels too much, I think the car bottom can touch the ground, causing issues. However making the hitbox small makes the car fall through the ground if you jump on it, and allowing suspension to travel less also makes it difficult to travel on rough terrain and doesn't allow to compensate the car's attempt to do wheelie when you accelerate or other unhorizontalness. So... it's really not that straightforward and needs many adjustments.
As for the camera rotation, it's already oriented in the direction of the car when you enter the car, so I'm not really sure what's wrong with it now from your point of view.
I get to the point where it says "I can triple jump" on the last platform before the big one. When I attempt to jump, I am unable to make it. I am triple jumping by holding space.
Yeah, in addition to holding 'shift' to run (in case you aren't doing it), you shouldn't just be holding space. Jump timeout is less than jump duration to give the player more control, so the idea is to press it, and then press it again after flying some time, optimizing your trajectory. Try doing it 1)in the upper point of your jump trajectory 2)in the part of the trajectory where you reach the elevation level from which you started to jump. Both these options should work fine, I left a good margin for that distance to not really require any hardcore skills. If you just hold it, it spends jump attempts on prolonging the initial jump when it's somewhere in it's middle, which is not optimal. Btw in fact quadruple jump is also supported, since sometimes you just want a little bit extra (and the player can loose one jump if ground detection isn't working at the moment of first jump, like if you start jumping too late after already starting to fall in the abyss or if the ground isn't level enough). Do you think that I should add some kind of hint to the game to make it more clear?
Thanks for playing. What was your fps in the browser? Was it in a freshly opened separate browser window with 1 tab? (Sometimes you have to do that, or even restart the browser, especially after checking several browser games) How's the performance compared to other games in browser? I'm slightly worried about it(however it was still solid 120fps in windows executable for me).
I enjoyed the atmosphere, the jumps and the driving. I was worried of falling all the time. Good job! This is in my top 7.
Some feedback: I didn't get accustomed to the inverted horizontal controls and also had the same problem with the car assembly. I was standing right in front of the panel and nope... then I read the conversation below and when I looked into the panel it worked. I almost quit because of that. There are a couple of typos you might want to check (Poral i.e.).
I don't really understand this. Is it about steering the car while going backwards? I don't know what else can have the inverted feel. Oh wait, did you by chance fall down, respawned the car with enter (it resets rotation to 0 because restoring it correctly was tricky ), and started to drive it with S, essentially going backwards? Oh well... Maybe I need to make car's back lights more red... and add some models for headlights... to make the direction more obvious. And restore the right direction, of course. Or maybe even add auto-respawn so the player won't fall in the abyss forever. Or maybe I should just make 'enter' hint flashing/highlighted to not force things?
> problem with the car assembly
Hm, so my adjustments to interaction distance, quest description and hover feedback didn't eliminate the issue as I hoped, that's sad. You played the latest version of the game, right? Now I'm really don't know why the panel with a button is so confusing, I thought it's a pretty common game mechanic. Should I make it detect when you look in it's general direction instead of exact way? Or should I just make it work when you near it, ignoring the direction completely? Or is it a problem with understanding that other parts of the assembler aren't interactive? I really have doubts about overly increasing the area where you can activate it since maybe I'll add more buttons, so choosing one of many somehow must be possible. Or maybe I need to add a tutorial console with a button on one of the first islands to expand a bridge, for example? Or maybe adding a crosshair in the middle of the screen to make it more obvious which thing you are looking at exactly? There are so many possibilities, maybe I just need to add all of them together. Didn't actually think it would be a nearly game-breaking issue.
>typos
Yeah, these ones are the easiest to fix, but the hardest to notice. Especially when you played your game hundreds of times and just don't read anything anymore. Especially the last message since I usually don't see it for more than a second, going on the car directly into the portal at high speed.
>worried of falling all the time
Hm, if the fear of falling was enjoyable, maybe I need to work more on the abyss. I thought about adding clouds there, supposedly made out of sugar, because that's what the story tells... however now I think I need to make it more abysmal, hellish, with stars shining coldly and unspeakable creatures anticipating the devouring of your very soul. And sugar clouds, of course. Maybe mixed with little bit of blood.
And make the platform edges sloping and slippery. And maybe add some physiology feedback when on the edge, like in horror games. Some heartbeat, some FOV distortion...
Oh wait, that would take another month of work, if not more.
Hi, by inverted controls I mean that when you press left arrow key, the camera rotates to the right, and viceversa.
About the panel- the instructions are ok- the problem is having to look directly into the panel screen. I expected to be reasonably near it and press E for it to work.
And yeah, driving uphill was terrifying. The car already felt slippery enough. That's why I didn't accelerate all the time while driving. Definitely the most enjoyable part of the game for me.
I totally forgot that I even handle the arrows, even thought for a minute that it's some standard engine functionality kicking in. What a surprise for me.
I like how the player can gather inventory and that there is a tutorial. However, I couldn't get the car to build after gathering everything. It was probably some glitch on my end or I am just an idiot. I see the vision though and it seems fun. Wish I could have played!
The car is built by going near the 'assemble the car' panel and interacting with it with 'E'. If you are close enough and looking at it, it will show the green light indicating that it's ready for interaction. If you try to build without resources, it will show you the red light, otherwise the car is deployed. Probably you weren't close enough to it, was it the issue? In such case I guess I need to clarify the quest objective...
I've recently uploaded a new version addressing the issues you mentioned, so it increases the interaction distance 3 times, and adds couple of cosmetic things which should also help to understand that it's actually a button. If the car had lights, than you played this improved version.
Comments
Hey, I just played the altest version and its really cool! It almost feels like a sandbox with a lot of little parkour elements that you can play around with for no other porpuse than having fun. Did I ate a whole houses worth of waffles? lol.
I also liked the car jump, the zip lines and the destroyable wall of waffles haha. Also, Ive saide this before, but the "Nooooo" when you fall out of the map gets me every time xD
Thanks for checking the update, seeing it noticed is twice as good as just making it.
Hey. I recorded a video about the Beginners Circle jam and included your game in it. If you want to cut your game out of the video, let me know. However, if you like the video, I make similar videos every day. I will be happy if you subscribe. Anyway, I enjoyed playing your game.
Thanks
I enjoyed it. :)
Nice game, very original! I loved the sound effects, especially the "nooooo!" when you fall. I had to reset it a few times cause the car stoped working, but I managed to finish it.
Thank you for playing. Would you mind describing the conditions under which the car stopped working? I want to fix it so much.
Of course! I was doing a sharp turn and the car flipped over. When I put it back on its feet it stopped moving. Maybe it clipped the floor? If you want I can try to replicate it tomorrow
No need for scenario for flipping, I know couple of them. Some just need car/surface adjustments. I still think that some flipping will be ok if the player is doing dangerous things, but yeah, now it sometimes flips for stupid reasons.
As for not moving after respawn, I really don't know how to reproduce that, although I think I saw it once. I suspect it's a glitch in the automatic-handbrake feature I've implemented to prevent it rolling while the player isn't controlling it, but it makes no sense from the code point of view, it literally turns it off each frame while the player is inside, and only turns it on when player exits the car. So might be something else entirely.
Nono, I like the flipping! The car is super fun to drive actually. I really dont know how 3d games work, but I think the car isnt detecting the ground and thats why it doesnt accelerate. Maybe Im not making any sense and Im just dumb though
It totally shouldn't accelerate if the wheels aren't touching the ground. And judging on how the wheels are hanging in your screenshot as if suspension is totally extended, it can be as well that it thinks that it's not touching the ground. But this exact code is built in the game engine, so I it would be tricky to investigate. Maybe I'll just respawn it higher and let it fall and it would fix the issue. But I still can't really reproduce it now, so even after doing the change I wouldn't know if it's ok
I mean, if its that hard to replicate it isnt such a big deal right? Respawning a little higher should work if you really want to fix it, but if it was me I would leave it as is. Anyway, if you make some change I will gladly test it again as many times needed.
Here's the test page, password protected:123
https://no-login-found.itch.io/test
The car is heavier as several players requested, with lower center of mass, so it should be harder to flip. It's also respawned 1m above the 'valid place', so probably would solve the issue with 'in-the-ground-not-moving'.
Thanks very much for your help
I tried it ans man it is hard to flip now! The only way I could do it was using the ramp, and even then it was hard. Also every time I flipped over the car and pressed enter to respawn it accelerated just fine so maybe that fixed the issue?
Ok, thanks. I'll hope the issue with inability to move is resolved.
Flipping is still easily possible if you try to drive the ramp from the portal back to initial location, but that's a different flipping entirely.
I just replicated the issue. I have to say, it was hard! But yes, it appears the car clipped through the ground. The wheels didnt move at all from this position, my guess would be that the car thought it wasnt grounded because it was clipped and thats why it stoped moving, but Ive never made a game like this before so idk. Here goes the capture:
I hope that helps you.
Thanks, I'll investigate this scenario more.
However it can't be just that simple, I've just stomped my car into the ground and it still hilariously moved half-submerged.
Are you playing on web btw? Low framerate can do totally weird things to physics simulations.
Finished the game. I liked the atmosphere. The car was a bit hard to control though. Especially making it up that hill, I basically had to just tap up so it wouldn't go to fast and flip over. Great job with the game!
Thanks for playing. Indeed, the car is tricky, both in the code and in the game. The current challenge of driving it wasn't fully intentional, although some players find this challenge entertaining. Do you think that there should be a way to reduce the challenge if a player feels the need? Like, for example, grinding some extra materials to make a better version of the car?
Grinding extra materials could be interesting. However, I think I would do a couple things:
Take these suggestions with a grain of salt. I've never programmed driving a car, so I don't know the difficulties that lie in that process. However, you did a great job on the game.
You are right about the car being light. I made it lighter in attempt to compensate the rotation inertia which was too big to my taste and made the steering inaccurate. However the flipping over can be related to the car's hitbox: if the suspension travels too much, I think the car bottom can touch the ground, causing issues. However making the hitbox small makes the car fall through the ground if you jump on it, and allowing suspension to travel less also makes it difficult to travel on rough terrain and doesn't allow to compensate the car's attempt to do wheelie when you accelerate or other unhorizontalness. So... it's really not that straightforward and needs many adjustments.
As for the camera rotation, it's already oriented in the direction of the car when you enter the car, so I'm not really sure what's wrong with it now from your point of view.
I get to the point where it says "I can triple jump" on the last platform before the big one. When I attempt to jump, I am unable to make it. I am triple jumping by holding space.
Try running with Shift key
Yeah, in addition to holding 'shift' to run (in case you aren't doing it), you shouldn't just be holding space. Jump timeout is less than jump duration to give the player more control, so the idea is to press it, and then press it again after flying some time, optimizing your trajectory. Try doing it 1)in the upper point of your jump trajectory 2)in the part of the trajectory where you reach the elevation level from which you started to jump. Both these options should work fine, I left a good margin for that distance to not really require any hardcore skills. If you just hold it, it spends jump attempts on prolonging the initial jump when it's somewhere in it's middle, which is not optimal. Btw in fact quadruple jump is also supported, since sometimes you just want a little bit extra (and the player can loose one jump if ground detection isn't working at the moment of first jump, like if you start jumping too late after already starting to fall in the abyss or if the ground isn't level enough). Do you think that I should add some kind of hint to the game to make it more clear?
This is weird and bizarre and I love it. Great job. It was challenging to play in browser but I will be downloading to give it another go.
Thanks for playing. What was your fps in the browser? Was it in a freshly opened separate browser window with 1 tab? (Sometimes you have to do that, or even restart the browser, especially after checking several browser games) How's the performance compared to other games in browser? I'm slightly worried about it(however it was still solid 120fps in windows executable for me).
I enjoyed the atmosphere, the jumps and the driving. I was worried of falling all the time. Good job! This is in my top 7.
Some feedback: I didn't get accustomed to the inverted horizontal controls and also had the same problem with the car assembly. I was standing right in front of the panel and nope... then I read the conversation below and when I looked into the panel it worked. I almost quit because of that. There are a couple of typos you might want to check (Poral i.e.).
Thanks for the review and high mark.
> inverted horizontal controls
I don't really understand this. Is it about steering the car while going backwards? I don't know what else can have the inverted feel. Oh wait, did you by chance fall down, respawned the car with enter (it resets rotation to 0 because restoring it correctly was tricky ), and started to drive it with S, essentially going backwards? Oh well... Maybe I need to make car's back lights more red... and add some models for headlights... to make the direction more obvious. And restore the right direction, of course. Or maybe even add auto-respawn so the player won't fall in the abyss forever. Or maybe I should just make 'enter' hint flashing/highlighted to not force things?
> problem with the car assembly
Hm, so my adjustments to interaction distance, quest description and hover feedback didn't eliminate the issue as I hoped, that's sad. You played the latest version of the game, right? Now I'm really don't know why the panel with a button is so confusing, I thought it's a pretty common game mechanic. Should I make it detect when you look in it's general direction instead of exact way? Or should I just make it work when you near it, ignoring the direction completely? Or is it a problem with understanding that other parts of the assembler aren't interactive? I really have doubts about overly increasing the area where you can activate it since maybe I'll add more buttons, so choosing one of many somehow must be possible. Or maybe I need to add a tutorial console with a button on one of the first islands to expand a bridge, for example? Or maybe adding a crosshair in the middle of the screen to make it more obvious which thing you are looking at exactly? There are so many possibilities, maybe I just need to add all of them together. Didn't actually think it would be a nearly game-breaking issue.
>typos
Yeah, these ones are the easiest to fix, but the hardest to notice. Especially when you played your game hundreds of times and just don't read anything anymore. Especially the last message since I usually don't see it for more than a second, going on the car directly into the portal at high speed.
>worried of falling all the time
Hm, if the fear of falling was enjoyable, maybe I need to work more on the abyss. I thought about adding clouds there, supposedly made out of sugar, because that's what the story tells... however now I think I need to make it more abysmal, hellish, with stars shining coldly and unspeakable creatures anticipating the devouring of your very soul. And sugar clouds, of course. Maybe mixed with little bit of blood.
And make the platform edges sloping and slippery. And maybe add some physiology feedback when on the edge, like in horror games. Some heartbeat, some FOV distortion...
Oh wait, that would take another month of work, if not more.
Hi, by inverted controls I mean that when you press left arrow key, the camera rotates to the right, and viceversa.
About the panel- the instructions are ok- the problem is having to look directly into the panel screen. I expected to be reasonably near it and press E for it to work.
And yeah, driving uphill was terrifying. The car already felt slippery enough. That's why I didn't accelerate all the time while driving. Definitely the most enjoyable part of the game for me.
Hm, the arrow keys... indeed, they are inverted.
I totally forgot that I even handle the arrows, even thought for a minute that it's some standard engine functionality kicking in. What a surprise for me.
I like how the player can gather inventory and that there is a tutorial. However, I couldn't get the car to build after gathering everything. It was probably some glitch on my end or I am just an idiot. I see the vision though and it seems fun. Wish I could have played!
The car is built by going near the 'assemble the car' panel and interacting with it with 'E'. If you are close enough and looking at it, it will show the green light indicating that it's ready for interaction. If you try to build without resources, it will show you the red light, otherwise the car is deployed. Probably you weren't close enough to it, was it the issue? In such case I guess I need to clarify the quest objective...
Thanks. That worked. I don't know why it wasn't working before.
I've recently uploaded a new version addressing the issues you mentioned, so it increases the interaction distance 3 times, and adds couple of cosmetic things which should also help to understand that it's actually a button. If the car had lights, than you played this improved version.
That makes sense. Thanks.