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lupercalia2 years ago

Very well done! How do i start? I gave you a fairly high rating in most of the categories, since i think your game is really well done. It seems quite polished, has nice pixel graphics (which i like most!) and the coin collecting sound is soooo satisfying. And this is good, since i like to have a good feeling when i play. This is where i think most that a game is worth to play. When i resonate with a good feel.
I want to emphasize the sprites of the protagonist and the coins. There very detailed and i judge this to very well chosen, since both are the main sprites for the game; while it's perfectly functional, that the background and ground is quite simple in comparison.

Off to your core idea: I like your concept regarding the theme a lot. Fake coins are quite innovative i think, in a game, where you are supposed to collect everything shiny ... and fast! :)

But, and here comes my personal criticism: Your great idea kills the gamefeel and fun for me. There is a timer and i should be fast, there is this nice and simple level, where i can imagine how i am going to fly through and have fun jumping and reacting. And then: I go a bit, then stop, then look hard: left spin? right spin? err ... get ....next....stop, look, think....avoid! ..jump ... then stop again...and look. This feels tensed. Playing it "right" is no fun at all. It's literally a platform crawl ...

So the next time i just ignored your fake coin idea. I rushed through, collected everything, had a nice mixture of good and bad coin collecting sounds, jumped like crazy, moved fast, back and forth and when i got ALL the coins, i smiled and felt well: THIS was so much fun. And i appreciate you for the same end screen with "next time avoid the fake coins", which i can easily disregard and add to myself: "yeah. or i don't and just have fun with your game". :-)

So what i want to say: Your game IS well made AND fun. Your fake coin idea is still promising and a very good one, i judge. I just ask myself, how could you implement it, without necessarily slowing the game down so much. I see, that you could memorize the fake coins and then make a speed run through your level. But then it would be a memory plattformer, not a "distinguish between fake and real" one. 

I have one suggestion, a kind of compromise: Maybe DO make the fake coins easily recognizable. But only for a short time. Like every coin is the same, but the fake ones have a glitching animation for some seconds. So if you get near one and the coin glitches, you don't have to look hard, but you instantly know this one is fake and you can frantically try to avoid it. Maybe this would help to still be fast in playing and being in a fun flow, without stopping everytime. You could even stand still for some seconds in the beginning and trying to memorize the glitching ones. This would be easier, but since the glitching occurs from time to time and for some seconds a fake coin looks like a real one there would still be some kind of difficulty involved, challenging your memory: "Wait. this one was real, wasn't it? oh, glitch! (frantically hitting JUMP)" Maybe this idea doesn't really address the platform crawl problem in the end, but maybe it can be another impulse of making the game fun AND staying true to your concept.

This said, i want to be honest, and state, that i don't play speed running platformer games at all and i see, that speed running such games is often very much about memorizing, so ... well. :)

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Ran d'Reille2 years ago(+1)

Hey thanks for the well thought out feedbacks! I appreciate the amount of effort being put to make this feedback; from my experience this kind of feedback takes at least 15 minutes (after typing the whole message I realized your feedback probably took at least 20 minutes) to type.

Thank you very much for giving high rating in most categories. I have said this in other comments too but at first I actually doubted the concept; but I guess I was surprised when I actually tried to execute it.

The criticism about the timer is definitely something new. The reason why I added the timer is because well... try to imagine for a second if this game had no timer... you play it once and it is done. I thought that during the game development so I added the timer for extra challenge; emphasis on being extra. Clearly since you felt like you had to go fast first try I failed to convey that intent though; so this is definitely a room for improvement. One thing I may consider doing next time is giving an option for time attack mode, hiding the timer first time (or until you do the level properly), hiding the timer the moment you get a fake coin, or showing the timer only at the end of the level if no fake coins were collected.

Regarding the time attack/speedrun mode becoming a memorization challenge.... Haha yeah I just realized that. I suppose because I am the dev I cannot properly understand the experience of players who first come to play the game since I already know the placement of each coin since the first time I placed it. One thing for sure this feedback was rather new and surprising since my testers in my jam's discord server all loved the timer. One thing I notice about speedrunning though it does often become a memorization challenge separate from the more immersive intended experience. I mean try the genre of metroidvania; the genre is supposed to be about exploration -- but obviously after it is completed that thrill is gone forever and so people speedrun it with of course some form of memorization of the map. Though I suppose I also need to recognize that usually metroidvania speedrun are players creating their own challenges.

The glitchy coin idea definitely seem interesting... but I think for easier sprites maybe instead in addition to the fake coins spinning in opposite direction, they are also less shiny -- assuming I will one day update it.

In any case thank you so much for playing and giving all those helpful feedbacks.

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lupercalia2 years ago

Timer are your thing, aren't they? Since you start timers also, when writing posts? ;-) I'm kidding. :)

I appreciate you much for the amount of words of your reply, Ran. I haven't thought at all about your ideas about the timer's attack mode or any kinds of implementation for that. These are very interesting things to consider in a game. Cool. Thank you for bringing this ideas up.

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