Post by Pastruvium in Fire All the Thing jam comments

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What worked:

I really love the art for this game. It actually looks as if I'm walking across the pages of a comic book. It reminds me a bit of Comix Zone. I like the objects interacting with your burns. I would have loved to see this expanded on with more objects being used, but of course with jam constraints it's only the one level.

What didn't:

I do think the ashes disappear a bit too quickly. I never felt that I got the full usage from my burns.

I think the enemies could be improved. I like the idea of sneaking around them, and I like that they drain your resources by erasing your burn trail. I don't like how the only direct way to deal with them is to hit them a bunch draining resources. I'm not sure what you could do, but something else would work better than hitting them over and over again with a burn trail. (something with the environment maybe?)

Bugs:

Level is not properly reset on death and restart.

Great job!

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MIUNOVO1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Thank you for your play and such detailed comment!!

About the ashes lasting time, I would try to find way to make it longer, the algrithm for now is just instantiating them under the fire (which takes more memory), may be I sould try particle system.

About the enemies, thank you for pointing out, we actually didnt pay enough attention to design the way they interact with the environment, the hit and eliminate way is just too basic, maybe adding some gates or barriars that could be triggered to block them? Or making the ashes ‘toxic’ and staying on it for too long would light the enemy? I would think about it.

And, I think I should label it, the reset actually would not reset the enemies but the explosion bubbles and player energy. This is because the final goal would record the time you spend to reach the end no matter how many times reset, so the more player is familar with the map, the less time he/she would spent. Also, the level might be a little bit hard with enemies respawn. Since you consider it a bug, I would reconsider it and try to make some modification. ( If you mean the reset after reaching goal, I truely didnt make that)

Appreciated for the long comment and those suggestions!

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Pastruvium1 year ago(+1)

Going through it again to see what I meant I found two things.

Yeah, you're right on the reset. I didn't even realize that it worked that way. In that case it's not a bug at all, but is working as intended! I think I thought it was a bug since I thought death was a "full reset", and not a "respawn at checkpoint." I don't think the way you have it set-up (now knowing) is a bad thing. Maybe the presentation can be adjusted? "R to Restart" seems to me to mean a full level restart. It might be better to have a "fail" animation, then respawn automatically.

The second thing I noticed was in regards to how long ashes last. Looking at them, the amount of time they last by themselves is just fine. The problem comes with where they start to disappear from. If the player is walking down the path of ash, each step they take makes the ash under them disappear. The problem lies in the ash in front of the player disappearing while they are almost to the end of the trail. I think the ash disappearing probably starts from the first ash that is not already disappearing. I understand how this could be implemented this way, but I think a better way (not necessarily on memory) would be for each ash to have an individual timer if not stepped on. Whether it is implemented in this way, or you find a different, better way, I think the problem lies in the ashes running on the timer of the first ash pile created. (I hope this makes sense, it feels kind of like I'm rambling. Let me know if this is unclear)

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MIUNOVO1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Sure, I would change the way the reset shows in the game, thank you for pointing out!

And the ashes actually have individual timers (and thats why too many remains would require more memory), but the trigger to start disappear was not the player but the fire, so it goes like: after the instantiation, it starts to count down and disappear unless the player is near them. A few comments also talked about this problem, I think I would change the trigger to player and make it: unless the player touches them, they would not start disappear like you said, in the next update maybe. Thank you for the thoughts!

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