Post by Zebeth in Bring It On! comments

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The fun is back!

In hindsight the fact that the corruption was full strength even on the first level, with completely un-upgraded characters, was what made it so repellent. The way it's strong only on later levels now works so much better because by then you have characters upgraded that can deal with it.

There's not much to dislike anymore. It's great how the game is shaping up. I did see it mentioned elsewhere that development is winding down and there probably won't be many more updates. I have a few suggestions for things that could hopefully still be improved at some point.

1. If there's only one thing out of these that gets added, please, please do this one. The character selection is frustratingly clunky and slow still on a controller. Having to move left/right and then confirm, to go through each character one by one, is just far too cumbersome. The fact you have to scroll through all the characters again after beating a level if you want to use the same character again is especially frustrating.

Being able to hide locked characters would sort of help, but there's a much better way. Please, put in an extra screen where you see all the character portraits and can just choose from any character on the same screen. After choosing the character there, then you could see the character specific screen where you can upgrade. That would be so much quicker and convenient. Plus, there could maybe even be a random button to choose a random unlocked character to play as.

2. The level selection screen moves backwards. What I mean is, pressing right on the controller moves the level selected to the left, and pressing left moves the level selected to the right. I don't know how that got reversed but it's very confusing and causes me to select the wrong level sometimes.

3. When a relic shows up in a chest, there's no delay at all. If you were tapping a button when you opened a chest with a relic, it gets instantly selected. If you're very used to confirming the chest automatically because usually there's no choice, same thing. I've opened chests and instantly taken a relic without even seeing what it was multiple times. Some kind of delay or extra input (like maybe having to press left/right to select take or leave, instead of having take automatically selected) in the rare case that there's a choice to be made would help.

4. Some kind of indicator to know that you've unlocked all characters in a level would help.

I started from a fresh save so I have four levels unlocked right now. Playing the fourth level for the first time, I saw a red arrow and followed it to a character I then unlocked (fire). A minute or less later another character showed up which I also unlocked (axe). I don't know if one was tied to the other or I just got kind of lucky. But I had been assuming that there was one character to unlock per level (even though I haven't seen any in the second or third levels yet).

Now I have no idea how many characters there are to unlock in each level, or how to tell if you've gotten them all. Even if it's something that has to be unlocked (maybe after beating a level a few times, or with a few characters?) it would really help to have an indicator on the level select screen to let you know if you've gotten all characters in a level.

5. Chests can spawn where you can't get to. My first time in the fourth level I saw not just one, but three chests stuck inside unwalkable squares. They couldn't be reached so they couldn't be opened.

I took screenshots. I could upload them somewhere if you think that would help.

Maybe there could be a check to see if a chest is on a walkable tile when spawned, and if not the chest could slide toward a walkable space until it was completely on a walkable tile.

Btw it's excellent the way chests now remove corruption around them. Exactly what was needed.

Edit:

I was playing the fifth level and was pretty close to the end when there was a "null" error and the game closed.

--------------------------------------

filename: BringItOn

package: com.example.myapp

version: 0.14.15

sess. ID: bio-v0.14.15-65c6e1b4-1113-4e25-8d88-692ee217c073-2024-03-11_08'22'33

started: 2024-03-11 08:22:33

--------------------------------------

crashed: 2024-03-11 16:24:02

duration: 08:01:29

error: Null Object Reference

stack:

substates.ChestOpenSubState.openChest (substates/ChestOpenSubState.hx line 337)

substates.ChestOpenSubState.start (substates/ChestOpenSubState.hx line 101)

flixel.tweens.FlxTween.finish (flixel/tweens/FlxTween.hx line 707)

flixel.tweens.FlxTweenManager.update (flixel/tweens/FlxTween.hx line 1276)

flixel.FlxGame.update (flixel/FlxGame.hx line 747)

flixel.FlxGame.step (flixel/FlxGame.hx line 679)

flixel.FlxGame.onEnterFrame (flixel/FlxGame.hx line 552)

openfl.events.EventDispatcher.__dispatchEvent (openfl/events/EventDispatcher.hx line 402)

openfl.display.DisplayObject.__dispatch (openfl/display/DisplayObject.hx line 1399)

Zebeth287 days ago

This got really long so I'm posting it as it's own comment.

I saw mentioned elsewhere that the game hasn't had too many sales. That's real unfortunate. It's clear a lot of work has been put into this. I think this might be about the fourth best Survivors like I've played. If that sounds low, understand how much of a compliment that is. Out of all of them I've played, I only consider three other ones, and this game, to be fun enough to be something to really keep coming back to.

I can think of a couple things that might have been a factor for this game not finding it's audience. It probably wouldn't help anymore with this one but might for future games. I don't say any of this to be harsh. I hope this can at least be somewhat helpful.

Obviously there's a lot of Survivor like competition which is a major factor for all games in the genre, so I won't go any farther into that.

In particular, I think the art style combined with the pretty generic name (I don't mean to be offensive, but does feel generic) didn't help it any. Honestly, I could imagine some people seeing that and thinking it was some port of a low effort mobile game.

I understand that the same artist as Vampire Survivors was used iirc, but the thing is no one ever said Vampire Survivors looked impressive. If Vampire Survivors wasn't the originator of the popularity of the genre, and was just another game in the crowd that came later, I do wonder if it's art style would have hurt it.

Back to the name, I think the problem is that it doesn't say enough about the game. Sure, it says that there's combat. But there's so many games which have combat. That doesn't set it apart from other games, or help to get it noticed.

There's several Survivor games whose names I think have helped them in a way a name like Bring It On could not. so I'll say those as examples. Vampire Survivors indicates a gothic theme, and is a wink at the clear Castlevania inspiration to it. Halls of Torment implies high difficulty (which it lives up to), and is an indicator of the hellish feel to it's look, and even it's music. Holocure is an outlier because it's based on an existing IP Hololive, so it benefits from that a lot automatically. But "curing" enemies is the lore for the game so cure being in the name itself adds to it's identity. And 20 Minutes Till Dawn is set at night, with 20 minute levels, so it's name is not only concrete and memorable but also describes the game well. Brotato isn't a game I'd be interested in playing at all myself, but the name shows a non-serious, and likely humorous tone.

All those names tell something about the game even if you've never heard of the game before and don't know anything about it. All of those names are unique, something that not just any game could have.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about "Bring It On!" Once again, I'm not saying any of this to be mean. But Bring It On just doesn't communicate any real kind of identity. There's some attitude because of the way it's confrontational, but that's it. It's doesn't say anything about how the game might be themed or where it might be set. It doesn't say anything about tone or difficulty. It doesn't say what about the game stands out, why someone should play it, or put a memorable idea in someone's head. It doesn't draw someone's attention.

There's a whole lot more factors for a game than just a name, of course. But a really good name can really help. And a forgettable name, or one that doesn't say much about a game, can have problems drawing any attention at all. Since I found out that Bring It On hasn't sold well it's something that's been on my mind.

Ironically, now that Bring It On is almost done, the corruption that came in so late would have been a great thing to indicate in the name from the beginning (if it had been planned back then). That's a core part of the game's identity now, after all. And it sets it apart from other games.

Something like Scourge of Corruption for example, even though it's still kind of generic, could make someone curious to know more and check a game out in a way Bring It On just could not. At least there's a little bit of mystery (What scourge? What corruption?). Plus something like Scourge of Corruption is so much more likely to stick in someone's head and be remembered.

Honestly, after thinking about this and saying all this, I'm starting to wonder if giving the game a rename when it gets to the final version might actually help some. If sales are as unfortunately low as the impression I've gotten, I don't see how it could hurt. Except for having to redo the logo. Anyway, I'd suggest asking for opinions on this.

Axol Studio287 days ago

Thank you for your very verbose comments!

Yes, development is coming to a close (finally!) The goal was to have 8 levels in the game, and level 8 is being worked on now.

When it's all said and done the development of this game took over 2 years - it was started on 02/20/2020 and we hope to have the Full non-Early Access version released probably Late April or May.

Of course, we'll come back and make fixes and tweaks based on feedback after that, but we probably won't add more content (unless the game suddenly explodes in popularity and people want more!)

We will add your comments to our list and we'll see if we want to try to implement or them or what we can do with them.

Axol Studio284 days ago(+1)

We figured out the cause of this crash and it will be fixed in the next release (which we hope to have our in a few days!)

Zebeth284 days ago (2 edits)

I can't get past the level because of it so that's great to hear.

The chests being unreachable problem I mentioned is caused by knockback I think. The light aura for example, combined with the relic with 500% knockback, really knocks everything back so far. And I've seen defeated enemies/chests continue sliding into unwalkable tiles.

So the real problem might be that defeated enemies/chests can slide into unreachable areas and come to rest there, instead of continuing to slide until they're somewhere that can be walked on. Or if they were to bounce off of unwalkable areas instead of sliding into them that could work too.

Zebeth277 days ago (1 edit)

Some other thoughts.

1. The balancing isn't quite right in the beginning. What I mean is it feels like most characters aren't ready to take on the second level until they're fully upgraded (except for the bonus 1% upgrades). It really would be more fun to feel like it's not a pointless waste of time trying to go onto another level beyond the first one before a character is fully upgraded.

There's no real reward for trying to take on a level beyond the first one until a character is fully upgraded either. Because with the deck stacked against you so hard past the first level until you're just about fully upgraded, and dying resulting in any time spent on the level practically going to waste (because you earned maybe a handful of soulstones if you didn't succeed), trying to play the second level until then is more an exercise in frustration than anything else.

But it gets boring having to play the first level multiple times with most characters before that character can reasonably move on from the first level. I've played the first level much more often than any other level specifically because of this - because I felt forced to by the level scaling rather than because I wanted to - and that's getting more monotonous with every new character unlocked because then you have to go do that again every time. Unlocking characters isn't exciting anymore. It just means I have to grind the first level yet again.

2. The damage from those obstacle trees in the marsh is excessive. I saw today that running into a tree a single time - just one hit - took an entire half of my health away. Why? Why have them cause so much damage? I did only have armor upgraded once at the time, but still. Half your health in a single hit? Why? Bosses don't even do that much damage. And this is only the second level.

There are also so many trees around sometimes that it's kind of ridiculous. I have had times where I have been lost with tons of damaging trees all around me and it's taken several minutes to find my way out of them to somewhere there was at least some reasonable area available to dodge.

The amount of damage caused, and the amount of damaging trees in some places, really does not seem in like with difficulty for a second level.

itch.io

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