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Vesuvius-Dev10 days ago(+1)

Sorry for the great delay,

I like it a lot but imma be harsh (as always)

This game it's harder than nintando hard, mega man 1 and castlevania seems babby mario in comparison. Imo, this is a big mistake. Since this is not a level based precision platformer (let's imagine super meatboy or 1001 spikes), this challenge it's simply absurd. You cant "explore" when every mistake is a death.  And since at every death you can lose a lot of progress, the patience of a player is immediatly lost.

i'm gonna be super harsh and say that some of the "traps" are not only super hard, but badly designed. 

The intial screen could be something like firelink from ds1: on one side you have a super unfair challenge (catacombs), on the other an easier way (aqueduct to undead burg). This is not the case for your game. It's all death spikes guarded by monsters in the air, and monsters on the platform you wanna land; and since most things kills you in one hit, (and yet you don't know what you can kill with one hit) you need to experiment; you need to time jump to avoid or atk a mob in the air then avoid/atk the mob on landing. Let's also add a gatcha little green thing that jumps out from the acid lake. So not only it's very hard to explore, but i also need to memorize the 'bad spots'. Spelunky, 1001 spikes are fair because they (for the grand part) don't do gatcha, if you play carefully and see your surrounding, you pass almost anything without getting hit.

In one phrase, it's all too unfair, too soon. You lose the player right away and he won't be back. Of course, if your objective is to dev a iwbtg/rage game for streamers, forget everything. Great job.

The graphics. I like it, but yet again, the common player dosen't like someting that mixes nes and spectrum. All back blackground are seen as "lazy" and not as an art choice. Add to that, some spritework is confusing: for example at glance i can't even see the door to the primitive man that wants a fruit. Now where your intent to hide something ends, and bad spritework begin?

Even in the case that you want to dev a rage game, this gfx is not appealing enough for a consoooomer kid that watches streamers.

In the end, if you wanna dev for the fun of it, i have nothing to say: i like the gfx, the music and everything. Maybe i'll put some more checkpoints like VVVVVV or pogo 3d.

If you wanna dev for commercial, your players for this game are maybe 1000 in total.  i can be super wrong, Harry Potter and the phil stone was refused by every pubblishing house. Of course don't give up on this, i'm one of those 1000 players

GL

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Sr.Lavor10 days ago(+1)

Thank you for playing and for the detailed comment.

I agree with your criticism.  The level design really needs more work. Most rooms have horizontal layouts where the only thing to do is go from one point to another, and summed up with the platforming challenges, the exploration ends up being exhaustive and bland. It's something that I've been concerned about for a while, trying to find ways of fixing it without remaking everything, but you've got a very objective view of the problems and it makes clear that patching up the map would not be enough. I'm not afraid of taking changes to make the game better, but it will surely drag down the development, staying longer in the first area. 

I understand that the art style may not be appealing to everyone, but the game itself is meant to be niche. It's going to be a difficult game (not the same way it is now) with weird design choices and humor.  The game is going to be commercial, but I don't like viewing it solely as a product. Certainly it will not sell well, but that doesn't discourage me from doing something that I have fun making and would have fun playing. It being commercial gives me a background to take the development more seriously and actually improve the game. Of course I can't be way too perfectionist, otherwise the game would never be finished, but while the development still is in the early stages, it's the best time to make changes.

Working with graphical limitations is challenging, the sprites are small so is the color palette, thus lot ends up being put to the player's interpretation, the backgrounds are the biggest example of this, and I think it is part of the fun. This particular sprite you mentioned is the one I've noticed that people were having trouble understanding, so I already planned to change it, but I can't tell what is wrong, maybe it's the color choice or the shape of the entrance, I don't have much idea.

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Vesuvius-Dev10 days ago(+1)

I' glad my word have reached you

It's something that I've been concerned about for a while, trying to find ways of fixing it without remaking everything, but you've got a very objective view of the problems and it makes clear that patching up the map would not be enough.

It takes a while to understand what's good design in your own game (since we are not copying a game mechanic per mechanic). Me personally had to remake the tutorial from ground up 3 times, and the first levels. Also consider the Romero tip: "the first level should be the last one to be made". In our case we can't really do that, we need to explain to testers how the game works, but redesigning a level from zero imo it's not a shame, because we need to craft a smooth experience for the player.


 the game itself is meant to be niche. It's going to be a difficult game (not the same way it is now) with weird design choices and humor.

There is no problem with this, imo the only unexcusable thing is an unfair challenge, aka gathca moments. Take a look at Floe playing "i wanna be the guy", then see some games you like that are known to be hard but fair (super meatboy, 1001 spikes etc). Extrapolate lessons on what to do, and what to avoid; also test gameplay lenght checkpoint to checkpoint. Consider that you are devvin a metroidvania, so the road from A to B will be different from B back to A. In some sense i could also suggest you to try to dev pieces of the map as a stand alone levels that connects and fork at junctures; or go classic zelda 1, with an overworld and dungeons. you can do anything.


I can't tell what is wrong, maybe it's the color choice or the shape of the entrance, I don't have much idea.

In my case it was the shape of the entrance. Also gfx design it's a continue work in progress, so gl with that

Btw, swinging your sword from low to high feels very strange

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Sr.Lavor1 day ago (1 edit) (+1)

Sorry for taking so long to reply.

Is there a particular reason why swinging the sword from below to up feels strange? It's an important game mechanic used in the progression. Each weapon has a unique reach, so some enemies that can be hit with the katana may not be reachable with other weapons, and vice versa. For instance, the katana can't hit enemies from above,  this is also valid for breakable walls.

I've been thinking for a while about making the world dungeon-based, it would be a great nod to the game's main inspirations and also give more room for visual and music variety, but the problem is the lack of connection between dungeons, it would certainly limit the level design. 

Currently, the idea is that every area is a mini world, with different "biomes" and thematic. The Cursed World is the first area of the game, it is supposed to be a "twisted forest" with labyrinthic design, nonsense geometry and risky room layouts, it's a very weird design choice, but it was meant to be a place to be explored later in the game, having at least one easy path that would lead to the second area, the Grasslands,  which will be far more welcoming than the first.

This is already present in the game, the problem is that almost nobody managed to do that, the Cursed World is difficult but not in a fun way, it's not as labyrinthic as I wanted it to be and the excess of platforming challenges makes it tedious to explore. I wanted to know how the player experience would be, I understood that these weird choices would hinder most people from making progress, but the game also failed to hold their interest and they soon gave up.  I don't intend to change what I wanted for the first area, but to work on it in a way that isn't as frustrating as it is now, and balance it so that at least the easiest path is achievable and the rest will intrigue people to return later or to keep trying if they have more patience/skill.

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Vesuvius-Dev13 hours ago (1 edit)
Is there a particular reason why swinging the sword from below to up feels strange? 

the reason is pretty simple, you don't use a sword that way. a swing like that it's something very uncommon to do. I can agree with the design decision to have X weapon not hit above etc, but the classic sword swing, it's an up /down move. A stab/point/Dmc stinger it's a back/forward move. So in the end it's just a problem of skin for said weapon.


Cursed World is the first area of the game, it is supposed to be a "twisted forest" with labyrinthic design, nonsense geometry and risky room layouts

It's your game, you can do what you want. Imo, this is pure nonsense. The first area of the game, be ragebait/kaizo or not, is to be the easiest zone of the game. A place where you get introduced to its mechanics with a certain degree of safety. You can't say to me that your first area is very hard, labyrinthian and full nonsense; but the second area is chill an more normal. Everyone will quit the game before getting there, because the rational thinking will be "if this is the beginning, i can't imagine wtf will come next". 

There can be exceptions of course, but they are mostly story related. You start a prologue from the end of the story; you start with a powerful pg from the past/future etc etc

It's your game, you can do what you want.

ED: lemme add that, empirically you can do whatever you want; the problem is to make a player care, and stick around till the end

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