Post by CharCharChar in Crush Course comments

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I was surprised that the pet is out to murder people, but I appreciate that the representation of bodies being crushed is cutesy in line with the tone I expected from the art and music and the smile on the pet's face. I liked that the core mechanic of the cube being unable to stop itself once set in a certain direction matched the theme of a spiky out of control pet. I liked the addition of whistling/teamwork (and that the owner is not at all concerned about the murder). I was curious if the dirt/grass, blue, and yellow walls would react differently, but it seems to just be an artistic choice. Some of the humans seem to be naked which was a fun quirk to notice.

Great twist about how to get the right whistling angle in the last few levels.

I struggled a bit with how you have to already to holding down A or D and then press W to jump up and over. I died several times because I'm so used to AW or DW at the same time or W then A/D working.

I was tempted to quit on the second or third whistling level where you have to immediately get out of the way. Up until that point the game had just been about planning ahead, and I think I expected the game to stay at that level of low stress. Consider introducing the need for timing earlier.

andretchen4 years ago (1 edit)

Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

> I was curious if the dirt/grass, blue, and yellow walls would react differently, but it seems to just be an artistic choice

I agree. If there's a single thing I want to smooth out, it's that. I lost my way with the yellow. (I'd never made a tileset before and decided that 1 A.M. this morning was a good time to do so.) I already had the levels designed and knew that there were a few spots where I wanted to lead the player to a particular platform. I kind of abused it when applying the tiles, though. Maybe it shouldn't be yellow. If only there were more time!

> I struggled a bit with how you have to already to holding down A or D and then press W to jump up and over. I died several times because I'm so used to AW or DW at the same time or W then A/D working.

It's a conflict for me and I struggle when designing those interactions. I tried to keep them to a minimum. If my live-in play tester – who only plays casual games on a tablet – can't get through it, I typically redesign it. This time around, it was smooth sailing. I'm not sure what the alternative could be. Maybe the player avatar could jump automatically, like Zelda: Ocarina of Time?

> I was tempted to quit on the second or third whistling level where you have to immediately get out of the way.

andretchen4 years ago

Sorry, maybe I'm slow understanding. Are you suggesting that I remap the jump key? I'd be open to that. Would it be simpler to play if I mapped "S" to whistle and "SPACE" to jump?

CharCharChar4 years ago(+1)

I wasn't suggesting remapping it. ---- Okay I just replayed it and I've realized my issue is I didn't realize holding down the jump key longer gives me a higher jump. I'm used to a single tap giving a consistent height jump and a longer tap not changing the outcome.

Suggestions I forgot to give but remembered on a second play through:

The game shakes on impact of the pet hitting the walls in the Pet POV early levels, but doesn't in the pet+owner levels.

Could you teach the player that the pet will charge unprompted in a new direction if it sees food in the Pet POV chapters? On the second play through the level (which you correctly guessed with the screen shot) where I almost quit it happened to be much easier because the humans happened to be standing out of sight at the right time so the pet didn't take the corners so fast. (or just put the level in question later because you'll realize the auto-agro in the first few pet+owner levels - and maybe you were going to make this change anyway because you called it intermediate in a previous comment)

andretchen4 years ago

> Jumping

Ah, got it. Thanks. Maybe there needs to be an easy "high" jump in the beginning to make it clear.

> Game shakes

Good catch. I've got two "pet" update loops - one for when it's player-controlled and the other when it's cpu-controlled. I hadn't realized I'd forgotten to add the camera shakes to the cpu version.

> Could you teach the player that the pet will charge unprompted in a new direction if it sees food in the Pet POV chapters?

Oh, I've been trying to do that. I think the pet should ideally have a "tell" that highlights the direction it's going to move and the human target. I thought I could get away with just popping up a speech bubble with "meat" in it, but I think you're right that it is not enough.

Thanks for the feedback! It's helpful!

itch.io

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