What an interesting concept. I wish I knew how it worked, though. It feels like it isn't random, but it's hard to find a clear pattern in how it operates.
I found the characters and story to be likable enough for what it is. If I had a specific criticism it would be that the game felt incomplete, like there wasn't quite enough material to really get invested in the story, but since it's a game jam that's not really unexpected.
Okay, I'm starting a review-for-a-review system, since getting new feedback is a chore. Details in the opening post. This will remain open until I decide I have enough feedback.
Another update, made some general QOL improvements to the world editor and added a bunch of tooltips in the aim of making it easier to build using pre-packaged assets.
I'm aiming to cater to two main level building players - basic builders who just want a straightforward level editor with a ton of importable objects, and power users who actually create new objects. In the past I've mainly aimed for flexibility over accessibility, but I'm focusing on the first group now.
First off, the good. The opening cinematic is excellent, feels like something straight out of the Genesis era, which is not a bad thing. Background graphics and enemy design is also pretty good, could use a bit of polish and animation to really make it stand out but the look is fine.
Next, the horrible. GET RID OF THAT TUTORIAL. I don't need a forced 2 minute practice room where all of the controls are locked except the ones I'm "supposed" to use to understand "WASD to move, left click to shoot, right click to use special weapons, middle click to use bombs." I expect a lot of players will quit right there. Either make a single popup screen to explain the controls, or if you want to be really fancy make them pop up on screen during the first level when you encounter appropriate enemies.
Okay, now on to the gameplay itself. It took me about until the third level to understand what you were going for, up until that point I figured it was just a terrible game where the enemies had way too much health. It feels like you're going for a sort of "bullet hell" gauntlet of fights where you have to defeat each "wave" of enemies before you can advance, and you have a bunch of special weapons with different effects to deal with them. Almost like an RPG series of battles. This is an interesting concept!
Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, the execution is bad. Most fights are extremely boring. When you're just sitting there shooting at a randomly-placed bunch of enemies that take way too many hits to defeat, and the enemies just sit there and shoot straight ahead, there is no real challenge, you just have to position yourself in the right spot, then shoot a bunch of times. There are also a bunch of times when several enemies are placed on top of each other, and they have a continuous beam of bullets. In this case it is practically impossible to shoot them without being hit, and also it looks ugly.
The first thing you should do is come up with a system for placing enemies deliberately, instead of randomly. Use fewer enemies, but plan out each wave in ways that will present interesting challenges, don't just throw a bunch of bullet sponges at the player. At least do something to stop them from being spawned in clumps. I know it's the easy way to make a shooting game but it's lazy and feels bad.
The game could also use some more interesting enemy behaviors. Make some of them actually move, and fire in different patterns (there are a few, but most just shoot straight ahead). Some can even interact with each other, like maybe some could generate shields to protect their allies, so you have to hit those first. Plan out each encounter carefully, and you could have some very interesting situations for the player to deal with.
Another interesting thought that might work for a game like this - give each battle a time limit, after which the enemies pass, and reward the player with upgrades for defeating them before they escape. This way, mastering the early parts of the game could make the player more equipped to deal with the harder parts later.
This game has potential! It's bad right now, but with improvement it could be a lot better.
Ehhh...I don't think it really adds anything to the game though. "Tricky platforming" and "invisible character" are two concepts that just don't mix well. There are better ways of adding challenge.
Very fun game with an interesting, well-implemented mechanic. One suggestion - there should probably be a visible indicator to show you where you are when shifted, like a dotted outline of the player. I can see the ripples when walking, but it makes things very difficult during tricky jumps.
Interesting concept! Text-based conversation games are typically very straightforward mechanically, but the "flappy reindeer" dialogue selection system mixes up the standard formula in an interesting way. It's neat to see systems that add some game-like quality to dialogue, which isn't very common.
However, the execution could use some improvements. A lot of the dialogue options basically amounted to the same thing, there were a number of "loops" that led to the conversation repeating (missing all dialogue options often causes you to jump back to an earlier point in the conversation), and the path to the best ending (at least, I think it's the best...It's the one that said "congratulations", while the other ones said "you didn't get the best ending") is also the easiest - you basically have to TRY to mess things up in order to get a bad ending.
I think the best way of making a game like this would be to set up the dialogue tree first, with a large number of different paths, but at least three basic endings - bad, neutral, and good - and make it so that "automatic" responses (snapping out in anger) typically lead to the bad endings - and then construct the gameplay segments so that these automatic responses are hard to dodge. Missing all responses (being silent) should still progress the story, but be interpreted as "being silent" and prompting the other person to talk.
Interesting. Reminds me of Getting Over It, but slightly less awkward. Still too awkward for my tastes, but I guess some people might be into it.
One suggestion I would make is to add a bit of Coyote Time - a moment or two after falling off a ledge where you are still considered "grounded" and can still fire the gun twice. It can be hard to tell where the ledge actually is, and the round shape of the player character makes it hard to tell when you are "on the ground", so this would help provide feedback in areas with uneven terrain and would make the game a little less frustrating.
The credits screen seems bugged. It moves at a snail's pace and there doesn't seem to be any way of leaving the screen.
I can't install it. It appears to use the WindowsApps folder, which is full of all kinds of security and access issues. Publishing it as a zip file would probably be better.
As requested, I have added an option to test the World Editor without logging in. You can sign up from inside the World Editor itself to publish, or you can download the world's file to your computer and re-upload it later to continue building.
I've also made a number of other UX tweaks which should hopefully make things clearer for new players.
Anyone want to give it another go? At the very least, I'm hoping it should be clear enough to build something using the Legendary Dungeons package.
The connection between different worlds and the general lore is very flexible - a world builder is allowed to decide for themselves whether a particular entrance should be considered a "story start". It is possible to link to other players' worlds, so there is a potential to create a single interconnected multiverse (in fact that's what I'm encouraging) but that's up to each individual world builder. (The theory was that it would be a kind of game maker where, instead of forcing players to browse through a million unrelated games in a menu, they could just pick a starting point and then wander from one world to the next).
I'll see what I can do about the text skipping (right now it doubles in speed every time you press space, but I can see why that would be annoying to speed-readers.) I'll let Kamani know about your specific comments regarding their world.
All of the comments regarding the world editor are very useful! It is unfortunately not really possible to create a world anonymously, because there's a lasting connection between a world and its creator - or at least, it isn't possible to save it anonymously. I could potentially let people build but then add an extra page for signing up before allowing them to save, but that seems more annoying than helpful. My hope was that people would get excited by seeing what other people had built and that would be enough to push them to sign on, at least if they were the kind of person who enjoyed making things. It seems pretty normal to make people create an account before they are able to add content to an online game, you know? (Though I guess if I just want people to test the world builder...hmm...I'll keep that in mind.)
As far as the interface itself, I'll get working on fixing the problems you addressed right away (probably will be fixed up by the end of the day). I think I see now why so many people have gotten as far as starting a world and then just left. To start adding tiles and objects, you need to add a layer. Things should be more intuitive after that point (I hope)!
Since it's basically impossible to get proper feedback on these things, I'm setting up an exchange system: A review for a review. Post your game here and I will give an honest, extensive review of it, plus constructive criticism where applicable. However, my computer sometimes has issues with running downloaded games so I can't promise that I will be able to play it unless it's browser based (but I will try).
Specifically I'm looking for constructive feedback on the world editor, to help me improve it and make it more accessible. I want it to be easy for players to create a simple world, even if they don't have experience with in-depth level editing.
ORIGINAL POST
I'm looking for feedback on my game...level building...creation...thing. Let's call it a game to make it simpler.
BoundWorlds is sort of what you'd get if you took something like Game Maker and turned everyone's project into a single, cohesive multiverse experience, with a main character who can jump from world to world by passing through portals.
The "base" game style is a retro action-adventure type game (kind of Zelda-like), and the editor tools are built around easily creating cutscenes, dialogue trees, combat stats, and other things you'd expect to find in a story-based adventure game, but the editor is ridiculously flexible - you can pretty much reprogram everything. You can also export your objects and use objects created by other players.
Try it out and play a few worlds - they vary in length from less than a minute to about a half hour. (I'd recommend anything by me or Kamani, who has been adding content since the game was in early Alpha). Keep in mind that anything you see in-game can be reproduced in the world editor. "Devs cannot make anything that players cannot" is one of the main design philosophies behind BoundWorlds.
I'm mainly looking for feedback on the editor, though. My goal is to make it as intuitive as possible for players looking to create something simple, without sacrificing flexibility for those looking to make something more advanced.
I did make a tutorial series, which starts here. My objective, though, is that the tutorial should not actually be necessary. (The older videos are from earlier versions so they look different - new versions are much more polished - but the mechanics have not changed significantly.)
