itch.io

No possibility to start or end the game with the usual keys in the main screen just after start. It took a while until I accidently hit arrow keys and seen this hat moving. And only got to start the game while trying to get rid of the hat after getting annoyed over not being able to start the game. Usually I do crtl+alt+del and kill the process before doing that.

It felt like I was running too long distances without anything interesting to do or to see when outside the house at night. The idea with the light just around the character is good. But seing at least a bit of the surroundings would be better, since there is nothing to do and no monsters hiding anywhere.

When I got the rod(?) from the old man, it seems that it just disappeared. At least I could not find it anymore nor could I do anything new or more powerful. I felt pretty powerless and could not do a thing in the world.

Then I got into a circus-tent that is supposed to be a dungeon. The door of the first room closed behind me and since I had nothing to fight the skeletons in there I had no chance but to let myself die.

Positiv was the nice background music. The game resembles the map design of Zelda 1 (FamiCom/NES) a lot. Well, maybe there will be a lot of mechanics in the future but actually I can not do anything of importance in this world. So there was no real play testing.

If you can get rid of all these points that can annoy users or hinder them playing your game and add some spells or possibilities to really interact with the games world (not just stun an opponent for 1 second), I can image that would be a fun-to-play RPG. And play-testing would make more sense.

Thank you very much for your detailed feedback, DimaLink!

I now added a how-to-play more close to the game. I hope that will help players in future to play, especially using the bombs wwhich seem not to be easy to notice.

Title: BABU - Blow All Blocks Up! Retro-Arcade Shooter with Reverse-Turret-Game concept

Link: https://hardgames.itch.io/babu

I completly forogt the one that comes closest to what you described: Subnautica!

I do not know of any game like that. Something like that is one of currently two choices for my next project in a month or two.

But to kill some time until such a game comes out, I can recommend you films like ‘Interstellar’, ‘The Martian’ (though it is only Mars) and a few others. Or just read through Wikipedia about Exoplanets or even about our solar system’s planets and moons. Same goes for such articles on NASA or ESA websites. I also remember some series about exploring a new world but usually they remind me too much of earth with a few aliens added.

I hope that helps a bit for a while.

I really like the general idea and the basic functionality of the children’s behaviour. Also the soundtrack matches quite well. BGM and sound are often forgotten on so many games, not only indy ones.

I would like to have a bit more of options as a player though. Like ‘special move: clown’, ceasing all whining and half of all fighting in a circle of 5 meters around the player. Not sure if that should have a set cooldown of like 60s or being loaded by grabbing 20 children one after another.

But maybe that’s the limit what can be done in a (weekend?) game-jam. Good work!

If I was to hire you for money or to choose of several artists for a collab, I would like to see all the different styles you are able to draw in decent quality. This way I can judge, if your art style matches the type of game that is planned or the style of the other artists.

The other aspect is, how ‘professional’ you present yourself. There are many ways a portfolio can look and I am sure one can find lots of guides telling you, what is best. But honestly: Any presentation that gets me to what I mentioned first in my replay is good. But if the portfolio is just thrown together without any care (missing or broken links, lots of wording and grammar mistakes) it will leave a bad first impression.

And usually you do not get a 2nd chance for a first impression. So to summarize: Show off, what you have got. Put enough care and love into your portfolio. Do not try to be some kind of artist that you are not (people will realize as soon as you are working together, so: Just be yourself). That’s it.

Do not feel disencouraged by not having hundreds of examples. Your portfolio should present you and your growth.

Good luck!

I think this is just common to the whole game industry - not just indie games on itch: Most games do not bring back what has been invested - even when you calculate just the minimum wage for the hours of work put in.

At the same time, their publishers also do not get enough money from these games to cover their costs. Especially when the publisher paid the gamedev studio for completion of the game. But they still succeed because of the very few games that have a huge success. So it is like from 100 games

• over than 80 are a great or complete loss
• 10 are barely bringing in the money needed for their creation
• 7 are pretty good
• 3 are top sellers, also cross-financing the upkeep of the other 80 games from the worst category

But the Devs of the better 10 games will not have time to write here: They will be completly busy with bugfixes, customer support, preparing new features and content for the next update, paying taxes, giving interviews and many more.

I also donated to very few free games only and those 2 have been really successfull (also meaning: really good).

This is also, why I am keeping my fulltime job instead of going fulltime indie-dev: I keep my financial stability and can be a lot calmer and having a lot more fun than I would have, if my existence was depending on the success of my next game. :)

I could not play much longer than 5 minutes because it is confusing. I do know (or guess) that I should use glitches inside the game to beat the levels. But to use a glitch I must know what the game mechanics originally are ment to be like.

I started the game, some enemy(?) spawned and hit me. I tried to use the arrow keys but could move left and right only. Arrow up or aswd’s ‘w’ would not let me jump. I later figured how to jump. But only because I hit the x key by mistake.

I am not sure how much fun and how balanced the game is because I could not get further than two screens from the starting point. My main issues are

• Not telling about controls (jump, fire)
• not having any clue or tutorial or hint what to look out for to beat a level

That makes it difficult to get access to the game. So most people will quit at the point the game starts and that’s sad.

If you tell the player, what to use and give an example how to use your game mechanic (of using glitches) then people will spend time playing. The idea itself is not half bad. So try to get rid of the problem of accessibility. :)

I wish you will succeed. :)

Looks like an already well-refined game. You also said what this game is all about in one sentence, what is a good thing.

But ‘get rid of his devilish side’ is hard to imagine. Or too many ways one could imagine. So, from platformer action aside, I am not sure what this game will be about from description and trailer.

The trailer uses changes of scenes and other screens, but somehow lacks some impact. I did not get that ‘I really must play this. NOW!’ feeling. But maybe that’s just me so consider the opinion of others as well. :)

The music is really beautiful and underlines the setting of being in a magical world. Just the action (shooting another) and the peacefull music did not match at that point in the trailer. When the maincharacter was just running around, it matched really well.

I hope that was somehow helpfull.

Thank you for the detailled feedback! Good you had at least some fun playing it. :)

‘L Strg’ is my fault. It should be ‘L Ctrl’. I did not translate.

I am currently thinking about, what new features to set up ingame. So some of your suggestions might be implemented. :D

In a month or probably two I will bring out the next update. Hopefully using some of the potential.

Thank you for playing and writing some feedback! :)

I can reproduce the problems with movement sometimes (using keyboard atm) but unfortunatly I am not using a if/else construct. Maybe a side effect from using the new input system… well, I will try to solve this problem.

Some temporary debris from the blocks… sounds good. Not sure if I can include it until the 30th but the next update will include it.

I do not understand the point of the timer to go off though… The timer just calculates the bonus points for clearing the stage. One always has to blow all block up or kill all of the workers. What did you mean exactly?

Maybe I should reduce the amount of bombs in the early levels. I will look into that as well. Again, thank you very much for your feedback.

I got an error trying to play the web version in Firefox: ‘abort(114). Build with -s ASSERTIONS=1 for more info.’

It worked in the Chrome browser though.

I played a match and think it would be nice to have either a start-instruction or the game (the timer) would start automatically. I needed a few moments until I found the spacebar had to be pressed.

Maybe you can make the pads a bit faster, so the match can last longer. The ball would increase its speed over time.

It would also be cool, if you could add a few more options for colors for pads and ball. Generally that is a nice feature.

Looking forward, what you will add to really make it differ from the usual classical Pong. Defence mode was definitly one of them. An online multiplayer mode would be perfect but I know it is harder to implement than to think about it.

Nice idea.

First I'd like to suggest any type of menu to start and end the game. You will need it later anyways. In that menu you can also have some options for players to change the control for ... flapping(?) ... to another key. For example I'd like to use the space bar to relieve stress of my hand I am using my mouse with. At least have a hint what to do after starting the game. :)

Next would be interaction feedback. One guy mentioned a sound effect. It makes the button more fun to press. You can see this guys video for some ideas: 

Well, keep it up! Depending on what and how much work you put in, that can turn out well.

No one actually got, that ShakierHeart53 does not do this for free. It is linked to an external site (fever). So ShakierHeart53 will test your games for some money.

It is up to you if you want to accept such an offer.

I get an error trying to play your game. I am using NoScript for security reasons, but despite temporary enableing all content for this page, I still get the error.

I would test you game and give some feedback - but not by first buying it, sorry :)

I forgot to mention: Starting the levels in paused-mode (press space to start the level) would be nice since you could at least get the layout and position of opponents and most traps without the gameover screen in front of you. :D 

Replay ability of puzzle games is hard and works only for some of the puzzels: You would need to keep the solution the same, but changing the pattern. Dull example: Instead of fireing from the right side, the opponents are fireing from the left side next time.

The game I would like you to try out is: https://hardgames.itch.io/babu

It's a Beta but I am already working on the final release. 

Good to know. I will change the auto-save to every 2 or 3 levels then.

Thank you for taking the time :)

Here some honest feedback on your game. So you don't need to hold back judging my beta...

In options menu: What is the difference between back and menu? Both seem the same to me. And first I tried 'exit' but it closed the game despite being in some sub-menu.

The music in main menu stopped after a while. Seemed strange to me.

I realy like it that you introduce the 2 characters at the begin.

The increase of difficulty seems okay. I think the first boss is too hard, since I always have to think which of the 2 guys I will move with my keyboard. That will require a lot more skill in controlling these 2 and that will only happen by playing it often.
But once you solved the puzzels the replayability is not too great. So players might not be up to build it up to that extend in the first level.

Using slow mode would make it easier, but still the boss has several new techniques for the player to learn. IMHO too many for 1st level:
1 Moveable shields
2 Direction of enemy fire changes over time
3 Change of fire pattern (not clock-wise but anti-clock-wise.
4 Introduction of random change of fire pattern (clock-wise, anti-clock-wise, clockwise, clockwise, anti-clockwise and so on)
5 maybe increasing speed of the boss. I am not sure about that, since I was put under stress.

Thank you for caring. :)

I alreay made it a lot easier but I am not sure if that is enough - or too much. One should not beat the game in one or two runs, not even with just 10 levels right now. And I have no clue if the controls are confusing. I wrote keyboard controls ingame but controllers are something else.

So I am just waiting for a bit of feedback now.

Hello.

I am at the final stage of completing my Arcade / Action / Retro game BABU, that is currently in Beta state.

Because it seems a bit different in concept I would really appreciate a 2nd or 3rd opinion. Especially before adding the rest of levels.

https://hardgames.itch.io/babu

Is it accessible enough? Meaning, one can understand what the player has to do?

Does it become too difficult after the first minute / few levels? (Yes it can be pretty fast completed in the beginning)

Thank you very much for taking the time testing it.

Sorry if your controller does not work. There are so many out there and I have only 2 at home. But Keyboard always works.