itch.io

Hi! Sorry I didn't get back to you right away. I wanted to take the time to sit down with this. All in all, I enjoyed it, and I see a lot of promise with this (and I'll eagerly follow you to see) as you go forward. Ok, that sounds  a bit tame. I should say, "By the end, I wanted it to continue on, and I will jump on any new updates you have to see what you come up with next." The puzzles themselves were quite creative and varied, even if some were basic (as they should be in the beginning). I'm glad I didn't have to do the fire/person walking/balance beam one again, but I do wish I had had a second attempt at the rotating room one. I was in a bad corner when it started moving, and I didn't have the time to make it to the bottom. (I might play again to that point and give it a go.)

I played it a second time, as (after the longer speeches of the previous one), it seemed a bit abrupt at first. Then I restarted it multiple times after that when I realized the dialogue had changed. It was nice to see how the dialogue was different on multiple runs. I don't know if it was random or if you actually track what has been said. I'm thinking the latter, since the narrator also mentioned that I had played the ball game before, and it skipped past the bits I had heard before on the second go. All very well done. I can see you have designed in a lot of details.

I like how the dialogue adapts. For example, there were references to how I had done on the first tests. (But leave my father out of it!) It's probably not too hard, but it makes a big difference in immersion, and you did that well. I also started messing up on purpose and, eerily, the game seemed to know. :) I don't even know if I have encountered all the content. I suspect not, which adds to replayability. 

I hope I didn't come across too harsh in my first comment. It's good you are responsive, and I can tell you want this to do well. I think you can have a little more dialogue in the beginning, as it does set the context (<sigh> balance). But I'm glad I was able to see more of what you have created. And, as I said, I'm looking forward to what you do next with this.

Nice job. :) 

(And don't let those heretics who can't appreciate art get you down.)

Post-mortem: http://www.aniamosity.net/impulsing-devtober-post-mortem/

Here it is, November 1st, and devtober is now no more. It has been a wild month. I have had highs of creativity and several periods where I was so depressed, I felt like I would never be able to progress.

Lots of takeaways, in no particular order:

I enjoyed writing each day. I used to write more, and it felt good to write again.

Being part of devtober forced me to do a little each day, just to have something to write about. It wasn’t much, and sometimes barely anything at all, but there was daily effort and daily progress of some kind.

Writing the daily entry stirred thoughts that didn’t occur otherwise. Perhaps it’s a bit like “talking to the duck”.

The most frustrating parts were struggling with the Godot engine, in terms of learning how particular features worked and then working around idiosyncrasies in the implementation. When you use a game engine, you’re at the mercy of the features as they are implemented.

Some of the most rewarding parts were becoming competent in those same features in the Godot engine. You have to go through the pain, but you come out the other end with something that works better than you would have had if you had done it on your own. You are really standing on the shoulders of everyone who has worked to make the engine what it is. The body of knowledge, experience, and expertise embodied in the engine is tremendous. And there is so much I haven’t explored yet.

Making screen captures is a really good way to see progress. And it’s really nice to see the progress, to look at where you were and where you ended up and know, “I did that.” Without a way to measure, you can have a dim view of what you actually accomplished, which means you’re deprived of that energy that can help keep you going.

Sometimes it’s good to walk away for a while and then come back.

I need to – and want to – get better at art. I’m often pleased with what I can do, frustrated with what I can’t do, and determined to increase how often I’m in the former category.

You will have times when you know exactly what the next step is, and you will have times when you have no idea not only what the next step is but where you’re going at all.

If you want to complete a project like this, you have to be persistent. Never forget what you’re trying to do. Don’t compare yourself to others how have “made it”, thinking you can never do that. You may not do what they did, but you can still do what you can do. And what you can do is something that is yours, your creation, and part of you. If you want to share it with the world, then make it happen.

Game programming is hard. I have been writing software for over 30 years, and I’m continually surprised how working on a game is different from other software in a way I haven’t been able to quantify yet. Part of it, I think, is that you can’t fudge things. You can’t cut corners. Everything is right up front. Everything is part of the player’s experience.

That’s all. Well, there’s probably more, but I’m running dry. In half an hour, I might have ten more thoughts. But I don’t know if anyone is going to read this anyway.

I’m glad I took part in devtober. It has been an eye opener in many ways, and what I started here is something I want to continue.

#devtober, ober and out.

(A note: the game author has responded with an update based on my comment below. The game is well worth a try. I didn't want my initial comment here to put anyone off.)

I gave this a try today after seeing it on reddit. I'm going to give you my honest thoughts, in the hope they might be of use.

I think you did a great job with the graphics (the beginning was really nice), and I like that there are puzzles that you will be led through. Unfortunately, I didn't get past the second one (the jumping one), because there's just too much waiting around while the narrator speaks. At least in the beginning. I don't know how it changes later.

I had a sort of bad feeling when I was looking at the teaser trailer, as I wanted to know what the game play was, and it was just this sort of cheeky wall popping up. I didn't make it through the trailer either. You can only take so much of that, where the person creating it thinks it's funnier than it actually is to someone else.

I'm going to use a phrase that is meant with good intentions and that I hope isn't too harsh: self-indulgent. The idea that we have in games like Portal and the Stanley Parable (and related games) of this sort of quipping narrator only works to the extent that the player actually gets to play the effing game! If you look at Portal, for example, you listen to Glados (in Portal 2, Wheatley and Cave Johnson) while you do things. You're not just sitting around waiting for someone to stop talking. When the narrator dialogue overshadows the game play - when it becomes more about the game designer trying to show how clever he is with endless banter instead of it being about making something the player can engage with and enjoy - that's when it begins to feel that it's more about the game creator than the player. Hence the "self" part.

Again, I'm not trying to sound harsh. I really wanted to play and enjoy this game. I just couldn't stand another long sequence of standing around listening while the narrator has a conversation with himself on my behalf since I didn't speak when I have no player agency to speak to begin with. And all, meanwhile, while I'm standing around, waiting for it to stop so I can actually get on and do something.

I jumped a bit. I tried squatting. I tried jumping to the sides of the hidden box to see if I could get out. I started analyzing the 3D tiles. (It looks like they don't quite meet up properly in the corners. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.) I was bored out of my mind. I tried doing anything to simply pass the time, and I glazed over on the dialogue, because it's just not all that. If that is the intention (to have the game be a sort of mind numbing torture chamber) - and I'll admit it may well be - then you succeeded. If not... then you really might want to reconsider your approach.

The other thing you might want to handle is that, since this is so dialogue heavy, you handle the transitions between parts more seamlessly. It's a bit jarring to have the dialogue cut off sharply mid sentence when something new is triggered. 

I get this is a demo, and well done so far. And I'll be happy to try your next incarnation, if you can just allow me to get to things a bit faster. Life is short, and as much as you enjoy your dialogue, it's not enough to put up with to play the game.

Which is a shame, because you definitely have some game-making skills, and there is a lot of potential here!

Hi!

I had already started blogging on my WordPress site before noticing this forum. I hope people don't mind taking a look at it there, if interested.

http://www.aniamosity.net/

Thanks!

- Jay

Hey, a fellow Godot user! I managed to get through. I would get frustrated, but then I would persevere and solve it. That might mean it's the right amount of difficulty (or maybe I'm just not that good :). I would put a loading screen in the beginning, because even with the Windows version on a beefy machine, whatever it was doing when I hit Play took a long time. Knowing it's loading (or whatever) will help with that. Really nice graphics, relaxing music, and some clever mechanics. I enjoyed it!

Definitely a good start. Just a note: if you head over to the plateau with the three colors and veer slightly right and follow the trees along your left, you can walk right off the island. I enjoyed splashing around in (or under?) the water.

Looking forward to getting to the telescope!

A couple more things I noticed. Sometimes when moving the block didn't work, it seemed to shudder a little, like it was stuck. And sometimes when it didn't move, if I then tried to move forward, the block would then move.  Perhaps because I had moved... Best of luck with your game!

I really enjoy the game, and I'm looking forward to where it goes. I've played it a bit (and wandered around the lake a little), but I did run into some frustrations. It took me a while to figure out how to move the blocks because they didn't always move - and then suddenly they would. I'm not 100% sure why, but it seems like if I walk all the way up to a block where I've touched it, it has a good chance of not moving when I click the mouse, despite there being the arrow showing me I can. I tend to have to back up and try again or walk away and come back or just not get too close to it. Even that doesn't make it work all the time. I wish I could offer more, but that's my only issue with this otherwise excellent game.

Be sure to play it past the first few levels. It does evolve as you go along. (Maybe only one solo level might be good.It doesn't take long to figure out how to move around. I had this momentary fear that that was all the game was when I got to the third level...)

A very enjoyable game! I didn't get too far into yet, but I will come back and try again.

One mistake I made: I saw the door with "Erase Save", and I assumed that was two separate choices: "Erase" and "Save". In hindsight, it's clear now that it wasn't, but I did end up losing my progress, because I saw a door with "Save" and thought I had to explicitly save my state. If the wording can't be changed (perhap "Start Over" or "Reset Levels" or something) then at least some sort of warning to confirm that all will be lost would be handy.

Great job!

...until I walked off the edge of the world and fell into oblivion. Sadly, I didn't land on Myst Island.