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The Gray Space1 year ago(+1)

Felt a bit confusing at first that I wasn't able to jump, wondered if I was just missing something, though at the same time I was able to progress and figured I'd just see where it'd take me. But it does feel a bit jarring as we're so used to jumping in games, and I wonder if a simple story-related reason for the inability to jump (and later learning to) would help with that (maybe the stereotypical ghost with ball & chain look lmao).

Shift + X for moving down platforms seemed a bit weird as a button choice, until ledges became a thing. Still, if you're not using the arrow down key for anything, maybe just pressing down would be more intuitive? Speaking of buttons, I'm not sure why the UI doesn't allow me to use spacebar (e.g. when moving through text), and why the button for skipping text is different from the button to proceed to the next sentence. That felt a bit unintuitive to me. On the other hand, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to remember all the controls for grabbing ledges, but those ended up feeling pretty intuitive.

The intro felt a bit long to me. That's partially because when playing a game, I generally prefer to be thrown into it immediately and get to run around, get a feel for the character and controls, etc. I'd prefer a cut scene to happen after I've done a bit of running around, preferably by running into that character myself. It just makes it feel more like I chose to start the cut scene, rather than this feeling of waiting around for the game to begin. But that could very well just be me.

These are all pretty nit-picky things, though. Generally, the game felt good to play and the challenges were fun and of the right difficulty. The checkpoints always felt fair and prevented any annoyances on dying. I quite liked the section from the first screenshot, with all the jumping from ledge to ledge.

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JD Nation1 year ago (1 edit)

Thanks for the feedback.

While it's not super explicit, the way the witch talks about Luna being weak and frail was supposed to be the reason she couldn't jump, or do anything else.  But like you say, people are so used to jumps being a given.  Maybe a bit of optional descriptive text in the first room like "I'm weak as a kitten.  I can't even jump up to that ledge" would do the trick.

Actually, if I had the time to make a longer game, and I wasn't trying to squeeze quite a few abilities into the run-time, I might have made the whole tutorial centred around not being able to jump.  And I wanted to give the character a different (maybe slower) walk cycle prior to getting the Jump Upgrade, to greater contrast the frailty with getting stronger.

The controls may need some tweaks.  Like you say, the R1+ stuff may be superfluous.  It's actually a carry over from another game concept where up and down certainly had other uses.  So I considered simplifying it in this, but like you say, it makes a bit more senese after ledges are introduced, and if I did have time to add some more abilities I might have had to change it back.  Right now the only clash is, if you want to go down stairs/avoid climbing stairs by default, you can hold down while moving.

I was this close to making Z speed up the dialogue too.  And did consider making Space a viable choice.  I guess the reason I kept X and Z as separate functions was to make it less likely that people would skip text accidentally, since some of it does have dynamic typing, and even pressing Z to go to the next box could mess with it.  I guess I could have a speed negation variable so players need to release the button before they can speed it up again.

I get what you're saying about the intro.  I'm quite used to wordy games, and even I thought it was slightly too long.  But I wanted to establish the characters, the mystery, and introduce branching dialogue, so I didn't feel like I could cut any of it.  I did intend to include an intro sequence depicting the chase that was alluded to (which might have helped a bit), but it didn't feel like I had time to spare for it.

The feeling of initiating a cut-scene rather than being just dropped in one makes sense.  So I wonder, did the Slime Stuff interactions feel less intrusive?

Glad to know you liked it generally though.
Thanks for playing! 😄

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The Gray Space1 year ago(+1)

I think a line like that would work well! It's simple and gives the player that instant feedback.

I'd be careful implementing something like a slower walk. The idea makes sense on paper but tends to annoy players in practice. But you could do a 'weaker' looking walk animation, perhaps. And don't underestimate how the gameplay itself makes the player feel; being unable to reach spots that seem within my reach already makes me feel weak, or having to avoid things that insta-kill because I have nothing to protect myself. And picking up abilities that now let me do those things already flips that feeling around, with or without a 'weaker' walking cycle.

The way I handled the text is: press Space once, it skips the dynamic typing process by writing out the full text, press Space again, it moves on to the next bit. It checks if the writing loop has finished, which happens either through naturally letting the text write out, or by pressing Space the first time. I can use the same button for both functions that way, and I wouldn't worry too much about people skipping text by accident, since these are common text mechanics in virtually all games.

Yeah, the interaction with the Slime feels better to me, because I'm the one who initiated it. Whereas a forced cut scene feels like having control stripped away, something that I prefer games avoid where they can.

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JD Nation1 year ago (2 edits)

Cool!

Maybe just getting the jump suffices, but I feel like it could really add an extra kick to that moment when it ups your speed too.  Plus, since it would be your starting speed, you wouldn't know what you were missing.  Long as it wasn't too much slower.  It's something I'd definitely have to try out and tweak.

On the text, your way does sound good, but I've actually never experienced it that way before to my recollection.  All the other games I've played have a Next button, and Speed-up button, and a Speed-Skip button (sometimes a double input).  Could it be a Western vs. Eastern thing?  EDIT:  Oh wait, I can think of a few actually.

Cool  Though doesn't seem like anyone's taken him up on his side-quest so far.  I wonder how much that's not caring, forgetting, it being too well-hidden, or it's a Jam and people are just trying to get through at a brisk pace.

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