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happysquared3 years ago(+1)

Yes! Completed Neokyo City! I think the idea of a side scrolling open world is neat. Super ambitious for a game jam! I enjoyed the interactions with the NPCs. They really added to the vibe of a city. I do wish I knew more about the world. What is Neokyo city? Why do I need to free the denizens? Lots of things to explore there! 

Some game feedback

  • Felt the map wasn't built out for ease of platforming. I understand it is kinda a puzzle but at the same time, being an open world, I think I'd prefer more convenient traversal. There was a cool platforming portion where you need to climb pretty high up. I found that challenging and fun. There were however lots of places where you easily hit your head and you kinda need to jump and strafe up. There are a lot of those. They are far from impossible to get past but are also obtrusive to the feeling of quick precise platforming I feel
  • I think it would have been nice to have a bit more explanation on the hacking. It isn't super obvious which number is the active one you need to stop. It makes sense once you figure it out but I think the active number indicator isn't noticeable enough. Maybe even having an instruction on how "X" would stop it would make getting into the game a bit easier.
  • It would be nice to see an indicator on what you can interact with. Nearly missed the power boxes for the hacking because of the lack of sign.
  • Not sure if it is by design but being shot at by the drones makes the hacking harder. I'm of two minds in this. Part of me feels because you have to start over at the beginning if you are being shot at by the drone, it's too punishing and it feels RNG if a drone spots you or not. The other part of me feels I think it can be orchestrated to be a tense situation with higher stakes. Hacking under pressure... trying to be quick before the drone spots you

I thought the movement of the drones was super cool. Definitely felt anxious trying to out run them and hide. I loved talking to the NPCs. I did find the jump to feel really good!! Jumps and ease of movement can definitely make or break a platformer. Your game feels really good to move around in. Though I was a bit critical of the level design, I think if the movement of the player didn't feel as good as it did, I'd dislike the level design a lot more. Because of how good it feels to jump and move around, I was able to navigate the trickier spots of the level despite how low hanging a lot of the ceiling was. So excellent job getting the "feeling" right. It definitely balanced out the areas I was not as fond of. Just feel in a lot of platformers I play in a jam, you definitely got the right thing going in terms of game feel. 

Nice job on the entry! Seems there's a lot of opportunities to explore the world you've been crafting :D

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nandbolt3 years ago

Thanks so much for completing the game and giving me incredibly thoughtful feedback! I was really hoping at least one person would make it to the end.

How I approached the jam was to work on each mechanic one-by-one, slowly building to the idea that I wanted to get to. This worked well at first, but it was pretty slow, and towards the end of the jam I had to start tying everything together really quickly. I ended up making the entire level hours before the jam submission period, as well as the player's main objective in order to give the player something to complete, so I didn't even get a chance to test the level, or complete the game, before I submitted. When making the level, since I didn't get to the other platforming mechanics that I wanted in the game (e.g. walljumping), I tried to make each building climbable for the player, so I ended up putting little ledges all over the place.

I really agree with your point on making the world more fluid for platforming, and I'll definitely be working on that, as well as making it more "open-world"-like. And for sure, conveying more information to the player is a must, and I was really anxious if people were going to understand what to do. The hacking was sort of my "version" of lockpicking from Skyrim. I wanted it to be tense when you tried hacking, and I definitely understand how random the drones can be. If I had gotten to it, the drones wouldn't have even pursued the player normally, only after or in the process of doing "crimes", like hacking or being in a restricted area.

I'll be working on the game over the next couple weeks and hopefully get it closer to where I wanted it to be, so if you're interested stay tuned! But most importantly, thank you for playing my game!

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