Post by Signol_Games in John Goblin jam comments

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I don't think I have to say how impressed I am from the aesthetics of the game. I could tell just from the animated and interactive main menu that both of you cared a lot about presentation. Owen, I love the OST you made!

Your gameplay is complete, and I was able to beat both levels after a couple of tries. I can tell that you are talented gameplay programmer, Clancy. My largest mechanical comment was that it felt frustrating that I couldn't run and shoot at the same time. I know that the theme is Don't Stop, but it would have felt better to me if left-click caused me to stop moving for a moment, rather than clicking while running and not understanding why bullets weren't leaving my gun.

I also get the impression that there wasn't much time for playtesting, because Gnolan's speed is very unforgiving. It made me nervous during the live presentation that the developers themselves could not beat the levels consistently. Making games too difficult is a design problem I am infamous for struggling with as well. If you, as a developer, think your game is a little too easy, you're probably doing it right. Otherwise, consider reigning it in a bit.

If you two have an interest in platforming games, I strongly recommend checking out this project by GMTK: https://gmtk.itch.io/platformer-toolkit. I think that if you incorporate some of those ideas into this and future projects, you can create platforming characters that feel and play much nicer.

You two made an awesome game, thanks for submitting!

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clancy!2 years ago(+1)

Hey this is Clancy! This was actually my first time making a platformer, so I really appreciate the feedback. I'll try to tackle each point one by one. I can't speak on behalf of Owen, so I will only be speaking on my own part.

The reason you need to stop moving for a few frames in order to shoot was to prevent the player from constantly sprinting. Basically the idea was if the player had to stand still for 5ish frames before they could shoot, it would make it more difficult because the gnomes would have a chance to hit you and it require a little more skill to time when you can shoot since there are bombs falling down on to you. On paper, it seemed like a good idea but after implementing it into the actual game I can agree with you it definitely needs to be reworked or removed.
You are correct, there wasn't much play testing which is something we will have to try to incorporate next time. The thought of having people play test kind of went over my head, but if we had people play test then we would have caught some of the things we did wrong such as the stop to shoot mechanic and the speed of Gnolan. I based Gnolan's speed off how long it took me to complete the level and then tested it a few times after that to make sure it was possible, but I wanted it to be close so that the player truly couldn't stop moving. I've also been playing this game since the beginning of development, so I'm going to beat each level way quicker than people who only just started playing it. I'll wrap this point up by saying next time we need to have people play test, this way we can get a gauge for difficulty and also see where our design doesn't work.
I appreciate the link! After working on John Goblin, I can say platformers are pretty fun to make so I will check it out once I'm done typing this out.

I want to continue to move forward with this game beyond the jam, so the first thing I want to do is get rid of standing still to shoot and rework the movement and bomb mechanic. I think I might just make the bomb thing an enemy type. Maybe if you are in the line of sight of a wizard gnome, it will put an exclamation point over your head and it will have the wizard do a summoning animation and then drop a bomb on you. Again, thank you for the feedback!

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