Fair enough. Thank you anyway.
Mr. Hobbyist Games
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A member registered Apr 09, 2021 · View creator page →
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Challenging NES-styled arcade game based on the classic game "Walnuts".
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Awesome! Mine is currently sitting at 7050. Thanks so much for playing! I'm glad you liked it. :)
It was a remaster of the first game I ever tried to make back when I was 14 years old. I used to own a game called "Walnuts" for Windows 3.1, and as a young lad just trying to figure out how game development worked, I chose to make a game similar to Walnuts as my first project. Fast forward to now, and I finally decided that I wanted to try remaking that first game I made so many years ago, and see how it would be with all of the skills I have learned since then.
Thanks so much for playing the game. I'm glad to hear you liked it.
It was a relief to read this review because all of the problems and bugs you reported have already been caught and fixed.
Controls on keyboard have been improved. You can now use both WASD and Arrow Keys to move. Space and Z to jump, and Shift throws the key instead of Ctrl due to better ergonomics.
Double jump has been fixed.
The key phasing through the platform has also been fixed.
There are now more tutorial levels before things get a little challenging. I've also tuned and fixed some of those tougher levels.
There has also been many other fixes and improvements that will be released in an official demo after the contest results are finally revealed. When it's released, I would love to hear your thoughts on the improvements.
Thank you again for checking out the game, and for your kind words. It is very much appreciated. 🙂
Also, Happy New Years to you as well! Hopefully, it will be a very productive and successful year.
Thank you so much for the wonderful review. It was a really nice thing to wake up to today, especially considering how sick I've been.
Good news is, your suggestion for improvement has already been taken care of. I've been working really hard on the game ever since the contest ended. Lots of bug fixes, control improvements, level design tweaks and tuning. There's also more tutorial levels now that will come before the level you mentioned. I'm hoping this will help players feel more comfortable with the controls before I start challenging them a little.
As soon as the contest results are in, I will be uploading all of these changes in a 20 level demo.
I'm really glad you felt this game felt very retro, and fit the theme. I'm very fascinated with the ZX81, and I've been wanting to design a game in its style for a long time.
I'm also very happy you thought the graphics looked great. That was the hardest part. I was only allowed to make the graphics using characters from the ZX81's 128 character set. Each character is 8x8 pixels, and cannot be rotated, flipped, scaled up or down, or be manipulated graphically in any way. What I had was what I got. I also had to follow a "no transparent pixels" rule. So, it was quite the challenge, but I weirdly find those kinds of challenges fun.
Anyway, in closing, I just want to say thank you again, and I'm glad you liked Super Block World. Hopefully it was able to engage you enough to want to try it again once I'm allowed to get the updated demo up. :)
I love me some space shooters, so I had a blast with this one. My highscore ended up being 11675, which I feel isn't bad, but it definitely could be better. The graphics were really nice as well. Too bad there wasn't any sound.
One note I might offer, though, is I feel you should have included a lives system. The game is pretty hard already trying to keep the toxic waste from hitting Earth, but instantly getting a game over if you are hit by anything may make some players not as happy. This would be good as a hard mode, but not as a normal mode.
Other than that, I feel this turned out pretty solid. I didn't run into any noticeable bugs, and I had a great time playing it. Great work! :)
Okay, so I finished playing this awesome game, and I love it! The choice of the Gameboy Color was a great choice. I really liked the style, and it made me want to keep playing. I did play it with the Xbox controller like you suggested, and you were right. It felt good to play it that way. I really like these kinds of games. I dunno why, but they really appeal to me, so I had a lot of fun playing this. It's just too bad you weren't able to get any sound in yet.
I will say I found some weird bug that I'm not entirely sure what caused it. My theory is that it happens when the game restarts because that's when it took place. Whatever it is, it ended up helping me out in the end because it gave me unlimited lives. I'm wondering if maybe some variables didn't get properly reset when the game restarts. However, another bug accompanied it as well. I kept randomly dying... a lot. There would be nothing on the screen and then I would just explode. Thankfully, the unlimited lives kept me from restarting the game again, and I was able to reach the finish line. YAY!
Another note, but on design choice. I'm not entirely sure how the powerups work. If I were to take a guess, I would say it has something to do with the blinking letter "D" on the ground at certain parts, but it wouldn't react when I touched it or shot it. However, when I got my powerup, it was usually when I was close to one of them. It was just difficult to tell because my ship would keep exploding, so I never got to fully enjoy the upgrade. I would advise, if the blinking letter is the powerup source, to have it at least disappear to let you know you picked something up.
Other than that, the game was really fun to play, and despite it being because of a bug, I was glad to see the whole thing. I will say, I never would have made it to the end otherwise. That game was super hard. :) Granted, you did warn me that this game was a little on the buggy side, so I imagine you probably were already aware of all of this, but I thought I would let you know just in case.
Ouch! That stings the soul a little to read, but regardless, this was an immensely useful review.
The good news is, I was aware of some of the issues you mentioned after I submitted the game and have fixed them already. An update to this demo will be made available after the judging process has been completed.
- The double jump has been corrected and is working a lot smoother, I believe.
- I spent a lot of time fixing and tweaking the controls. I too noticed that "Ctrl" was not a comfortable button choice, and it has been changed to "Shift". I also have made it to where players can choose to use "Space" or "Z" to jump, and "Arrow Keys" or "WASD" to move. I figured this would help give players a couple of options based on their preference. I also did it because I learned that a lot of laptop and cheap keyboards have a major bug where if you hold "Up" and "Left" at the same time, the "Space" button does not work. Having the extra controls offers a way around this if someone has this bug in their keyboard.
- The issue with the wall appearing on your character in the last level happened to me in post-testing as well. I hate, hate, hate that I didn't catch this before submitting the game, but it has been rectified. However, it was pretty hilarious to watch the player character float up to the door through this glitch, haha!
- Sadly, on the point of the spikes, this is where it gets a little challenging. So, the ZX81 did NOT have transparent pixels. There was absolutely no way around this. You also could not make any alterations to the character set from which you made your graphics. This meant you could not rotate, scale, or edit what the characters looked like in any way. So, you are correct, there is a section to the left of the spikes that registers on the hitbox. This is because each character is 8x8. A single spike is made up of two 8x8 characters: a checkered square and a square with a smaller, black square in the bottom right. The "invisible" pixels are the white filling the rest of the space. I could make the spikes from three 8x8 solid black characters, but they would be much larger and impractical. So the dilemma is: do I remain faithful, or cheat for more accurate collision detection? That's a tough one. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on that.
- I'm glad you brought up the issues with throwing the key into the ceiling. That is something that needs to be fixed, so I will make that my next mission this weekend when I work on it some more.
- Lastly, you're freaking awesome! I can't believe you made a speed run video of the game. I turned into a giddy, little schoolgirl when I saw that. No one has ever made a video of something I've made before, so it was surreal to see that. It was also extremely helpful to me because I could see all of the issues you mentioned.
- Thank you again for making such a detailed review. My pride got hurt a little, but I needed to see it. This goes a long way in helping me to improve the game, so thanks for that. :)
Thank you! This was a really nice comment, and it made my night.
I think you're right, though. I'm gonna have to find a way to get some play testers. Not sure how, but you're not the only one who said it was a little tough. I can be really bad about trying to make games challenging for myself without thinking about what that'll do to a first time player. However, I will definitely put more effort into game balancing in further updates. Thanks for that feedback.
What really made me smile was the comparison to Super Meat Boy. That's some high praise there, and I won't lie, I'm feeling pretty giddy about it, haha!
Thank you so very much for your feedback! It means a lot that you were willing to take the time to provide it. I'm glad that you enjoyed it and felt that it stayed true to the platform it simulated. :)
Yeah, I won't lie, I kind of rushed the code for the key respawn time. That is definitely something I plan on doing more testing and balancing with. My theory with making this demo submission was that I wanted to showcase how challenging the game could get, but I think I may have overdone it, haha. These will be the beginner levels, so I need to be nicer to the player here. Being the developer of the game, I can sometimes forget that difficult for me can be near impossible for a first-time player.
As for the double jump mechanic, I noticed it acting a bit funky myself when playtesting after submission. Unfortunately, until the judging process is over, I can't upload any updates to the game. However, I did do a massive overhaul on the mechanics and controls, and I believe I may have fixed this problem as well as smoothed out the rest of the controls. Once judging is finished, I will upload all of the updates to the demo that I have made.
Thank you again for your feedback. If I never got any, I would never know if something was working well for the players or not, so thank you! :)
Alright, I have finished playing the game to completion. For the purposes of a proper review, I did not use the walkthrough that you provided in the comments section. I wanted to play it as a fresh player, knowing nothing, and see how well I faired. As I mentioned, I did complete the game, so it IS possible to beat the game without any hints. However, there are a few game design choices that I would like to bring up in a minute, but let's start with the positives first.
To start, I really enjoyed playing this. I'm a big fan of the Metroidvania style of games, and so I was pretty excited to test this one out. You did a phenomenal job on capturing the Gameboy spirit, and not just because it's actually a Gameboy game. The sounds, music, and graphics really hit that spot, and it really brought me back to my childhood days. I'm also impressed with how much you got done in such a short timeframe. It's a full game. That's amazing!
Now, there are a couple of critique points that I would like to bring up. The first is quite minor, and you can take it or leave it as it is more subjective in nature. I found the button choice for jumping and attacking to feel a bit off. I'm just so used to the "A" button being jump and "B" being attack. Granted, all I had to do in the emulator was reconfigure the buttons, so I guess it's not really that big of a deal.
My second point, however, was a bit of a bigger issue. Although I was able to figure everything out in the end, I had a really difficult time doing so. I'm not saying "hold my hand through it all", but there needs to be a little bit more in the sense of providing clues. A great example is how you provided the hidden clue for the last part of the game. That was perfect! It added more gameplay, while also saving me the confusion at the end, and it still managed to remain vague enough to not give everything away. However, I couldn't really find many other clues for some of the other Triangons. I really struggled with the one in the hidden wall, and the one that you're supposed to use the fireballs for I figured out through sheer luck.
Other than that, this was a very solid game that I thoroughly enjoyed. I even broke out my USB SNES controller to play it (my NES ones don't work very well). It was a blast, and I'm glad I got to try it out. Thanks for the experience! :)
Okay, so I got a lot to get through in this review, so this may be another long read. However, I feel this game deserves it because I really think you got something good going here, and so I want to make sure that I am as thorough as I can be on here.
I always like to start positive, so that's where I'm going to begin. This is a phenomenal idea! Making games for the disabled should be (I feel) a bigger deal. There's a lot of untapped avenues that could be explored, and I think this game concept you came up with is a fantastic example. I didn't get to play through the whole thing this time, but I explored enough to get a pretty good understanding of what you were trying to accomplish and what the game feel was like.
In real life, I love cooking, so cooking games do appeal to me quite a bit. My favorite game in Game & Watch Gallery 2 for the Gameboy was "Chef". As such, when I saw this game was going to be a cooking game for the visually impaired, I was immediately intrigued. I absolutely love this, you two. I really believe you got something here if you can manage to polish up a few things which I will discuss here in a minute.
I was surprised by the sheer size of what was available as I know you all made this for a game jam. Lots of different food options and cooking methods, and having thirty recipes is pretty solid. I also really appreciate you having a timer sound for counting seconds. That was a very smart design choice.
For English not being your native language, you did a really good job. I didn't find myself having any problems understanding what you two were saying. Good job there!
Now, there was one major thing that I think you may want to consider doing. I know it won't be fun and will require a lot more work and recording, but I strongly suggest creating an optional tutorial recipe that walks you through each and every step. You did a really good job writing the instructions on your game page, and going over them briefly in the "How To Play" section of the title menu. However, it's a bit of an information overload, and I found myself forgetting the instructions once I started my first recipe. It took me about four different failed attempts before it all clicked.
The best way to combat this would be to have one, maybe two recipes that you walk the player through. Tell them each and every step as they perform said step and offer them the option to replay the tutorial if they need to go over it one more time. You can make it optional by asking the player when they start a new game if they would like to play the tutorial before beginning.
Overall, I really loved this game idea, and I really hope you decide to do more with it. I could see a story mode done for this where you play as someone starting a new career as a chef and maybe include some visual novel (without the visual aspect) elements to add intrigue. You could include time limits for completing dishes, while also having multiple orders being made in the later, harder levels. All of that was just tossing some ideas out there. It's your game, so it's totally up to you, but it's something to think about. I really do believe you could turn this into something amazing for the visually impaired. Anyway, my brain has melted a bit, so I'm going to wrap this up here. However, if you would like to discuss this more with me, you know where to find me. :)
Yeah... I'm still listening to that song on loop even now... I think something could be wrong with me...
A new game already? Wow! That's impressive. I will check it out as soon as I finish writing this response. I'm glad I could make you smile. I certainly want to remain in touch too, so don't be strangers now. :) If you all have an Instagram account, I tend to be quite active on there as well. If you do, just send me your tag and I'll be sure to follow you on there too.
I told one of the other developers on here this as well, but I know all too well how frustrating it can be to put so much time and effort into a project, just to get a comment like "wow", or "cool", or "neat". Not to say anything negative to those who write those comments and mean that, but it can be a rather underwhelming reaction to something that required so much of our skill and time. That's why I only comment on something when I'm willing to actually put some thought into what I'm going to say. Otherwise, what's the point?
I'm glad I was able to support and experience what you all did with this game. Like I said in my previous comment, although this isn't generally my kind of game, I can still recognize how much work you put into it, and I think that deserves to be acknowledged and praised. So, once again, fantastic job on this. :)
Just finished playing this fun little game. First off, I just want to let you know that I did indeed complete all three endings. I almost didn't think of what the last one was, but it did eventually come to me. Actually, without spoiling it, I liked where you put it. If you're not paying attention, then you'll completely overlook it, but its placement makes sense. Nice level design choice. ;)
As for the aesthetics, they felt spot on. I love the color palette of the original Gameboy. Something about those greens just warm my heart, and they felt appropriate for this game. The design of the levels, enemies, and player character really screamed Gameboy to me, so good show on that.
My favorite part was the jetpacking. That whole part of the game just felt so natural and smooth, and I loved the part where you can see the outside just flying past as you jetpack to the next section. It was very visually appealing.
Now, I did find a couple of points of critique as well. They're nothing too major but would make the experience feel a little more polished if you ever decide to expand this idea out further.
First off, the camera felt a little janky. It would throw me off when it would suddenly switch positions. When you are using smooth scrolling, it's best to have the camera continue following the character. There are ways to make it more interesting than that, but it's very disorienting to have it suddenly change positions when you're used to it scrolling. The opposite approach would be to split the level into sections that the camera switches to as the player enters and exits said sections.
The other critique I have isn't a major one, just one that can easily be overlooked (I've made this same error myself many times). When you get the gun, you don't set any limits on how far the bullet can travel outside of the view area before getting destroyed. As such, all I had to do was spam the fire button, and I could clear out all of the enemies directly ahead of me before even seeing them appear on the screen. My recommendation would be to do a check on if the bullet has reached just outside of the viewing area, and if true, destroy the bullet. Other than that, I would say the game played appropriately.
Overall, this was a very good, short game. It checked all of the boxes for what makes a game a game, and it has the ability to be expanded if you decide you would like to do that. However, if you're happy with its current size, it works really well for a short game as well. Good job on this. I enjoyed playing it. Thanks for the experience! :)
You two won me over with your charming personalities, so I couldn't just let this game sit here without at least one comment, especially when I had so much fun playing it.
The prompt for the jam you joined was a good one. I wished I could have participated as well, but I totally missed out. With that being said, I think you two did a really good job with this. At first, I wasn't sure how I would feel going into this, but it turned out to be quite a nice little surprise.
The concept, although simple, was very well executed. I felt like there was a good balance in the difficulty. Sure, at the beginning I just couldn't stop flinging my ship into the endless abyss, but by the end, I started getting the hang of it. I actually won a few rounds. I also appreciated that you remembered not to make the ship get destroyed by an asteroid while orbiting. I nearly had a heart attack when I realized I was on a crash course with one on a winning round.
I also want to thank you for introducing me to the song "Change" by AGST. I am currently hooked. I've been playing it on loop the entire time I have been writing this review, haha!
Overall, for the restrictions you had making this game, this turned out to be quite fun to play. That makes two games that I like from you. I look forward to seeing what else you have in store for the future. I will definitely be keeping my eyes on you two. :)
This was honestly a lot of fun. I originally was thinking I was just going to try it a couple of times and then write my review on it, but the next thing I noticed was that I was playing it over, and over, and over. Sadly, I could only get a highscore of 61, but I struggle when it comes to using the 'Q' and 'E' keys for quick decisions. However, with a little more fleshing out, this could easily turn into quite an addictive arcade game. It has an appropriate level of difficulty, and the challenge curve flows perfectly.
I did find one major bug in the game, though. If you place the barriers very quickly in the same spot over and over, the car starts to rotate at an extreme level. At first, this is good because it makes the car resist you and can keep you from spamming that move. However, if you do it just right for long enough, the car will rotate to a completely horizontal position and stop driving. At this point, the score just keeps adding up, but nothing happens and you can't get the car unstuck. My suggestion would be to add some code to check for angles and correct the car's position if it angles too far in one or more directions.
Overall, I really enjoyed playing this. It was short and sweet and definitely had that addictive flavor to it. Great job! You did really well on this. :)
I wasn't expecting a full experience there. That was a lot of work for such a short time. Generally speaking, these types of games aren't really my cup of tea, but I can appreciate and respect the hard work you put into this. I made sure to play it until the end. Like everyone else, the random stone sound effect at the end startled me. I had forgotten that people had mentioned that, so it totally took me by surprise, haha.
I have to say, I was very impressed by how polished this was. I purposefully tried to find a bug, and I only found one. That's not bad at all. Great work. The one bug I did find was if you leave the factory after collecting the teddy bear, and then return, the teddy bear comes back even though the portal is open.
The reason why I said this isn't normally my kind of game is that I like doing stuff in games, whereas this was more of an interactive story. Nothing wrong with that, and I know a lot of people really enjoy that. With that being said, I did enjoy a lot of the dialogue. There were definitely some humorous moments. The plot was pretty good as well.
I also really enjoyed the choice of a Gameboy Color. That was one of my most favorite systems growing up. The visuals were very well done, and it really did feel like a Gameboy Color game. I'm bummed you didn't have a chance to add any sounds (minus the stone sound effect, haha) or music. I think that would have really added to the game's mood.
It's also worth noting how impressive it is to have made both a web browser version AND a GB ROM version. Just programming a GB ROM file is mind-blowing. I know I don't have a clue on how to do that, so props go to you on that.
Overall, even though I don't play these kinds of games often, this was very well-done. If you had managed to include a soundtrack and sound effects, this would have been a complete package. Honestly, with the exception of the one bug I found and maybe a little proofreading on some of the dialogue, nothing really needs to be changed. Fantastic work! You should be very proud of yourself. :)
You're very welcome. I had fun playing this, and I love being able to support other indie developers. There's nothing worse than putting a lot of time and effort into a project, and then receiving almost zero input after sharing it. That's why I try my best to write PROPER reviews, so people know that I really did pay attention to what they poured their blood, sweat, and tears into.
It's true, though. I don't recall finding any bugs. It doesn't mean there aren't any, but if there are, they're not game-breaking or very obvious. That's pretty impressive, and you should be proud that you were able to accomplish that in such a rushed amount of time.
As for Panda, don't worry, I totally get that. We all got to start somewhere, and it's hard to work with sleep deprivation. Just keep at it. I have full confidence that you will end up being amazing at your craft. :)
Wow! This was a very nice comment. Thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate it. I love working with limitations when it comes to game design. It's weird to think how difficult it is to replicate the restrictions of these older systems. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Regardless, I love the challenge.
I have a ton of ideas on how to expand this game. I've already been working on it. I've got a nice CRT screen effect, I've finished designing a fully complete and functional title screen and options menu, the game engine has been greatly polished, and I've set things up to increase obstacle types and level size. I can't wait to share what I've been up to.
This was an absolutely charming game! I loved everything about it. The style, the music, the sound effects, the gameplay... EVERYTHING! I would have totally played this on the Gameboy as a kid. What surprised me was how smooth it played. It felt very polished.
Some "minor" points of critique would be that it wasn't quite obvious what could hurt you at the beginning (you learn pretty quickly though). So, if you decide to turn this into a full game, you may want to think about how you draw the obstacles more. However, because of the way the game is designed, you may not want to. The level design introduces you to the concepts very well, so by the end, I knew what I was doing and what to avoid.
Overall, FANTASTIC job on this! Time well spent, and I would totally play this if you flesh it out more. Thanks for the experience! :)
I just finished your game. Loved it! The concept was fun and made the game more interesting. I also really enjoyed the little boss fight at the end.
My only gripes would be the controls and music. It may just be how I am, but I felt using the 'Q' and 'E' keys felt a little uncomfortable. That's more of a subjective opinion, so feel free to take that with a grain of salt. The music, however (although pretty faithful-sounding) had a very short loop that was extremely noticeable.
Beyond that, I was very pleased with what I played. I loved the style, and everything worked as it should. I ran into zero problems. Once again, the concept was a good choice. Great work, and thanks for the experience! :)
So, I just finished playing this. I'm a big fan of 2.5D games. It's one of my most favorite aesthetics for games, so I enjoyed cruising through this. My one big issue would be the AI racers. I was able to blow them out of the water quite easily. I even lapped them twice. Besides that, I felt everything worked as it should. Collecting the coins and soda was a nice touch, and the sounds were enjoyable. Overall, I had fun. Thanks for the experience. :)
Great game, Hawkwork. The aesthetics and sound were spot on, and the gameplay mechanics were a fantastic idea. It was challenging, but it wasn't so hard that I didn't want to continue. I'm pretty sure I played all of the levels because it looped back to the first one. My only gripe with it was that the webpage scrolled every time I pressed the down and up arrow keys, and I had some difficulties on the title screen getting the game to play. I would definitely find a way to freeze website controls while the game is in focus if you decide to flesh this game out further. Other than that, I was very pleased with the experience. Amazing work!