[WIP] Data ( Little endless runner - Now much more! )
First Post Updated.....
@Elyaradine You got me thinking and thinking and more thinking.... Thanks. In a good way! :)
@kobusvdwalt9. Would love your feedback too....
Ok So I got thinking about what you said. Remembering the type of classics I played. Inspired by this one I played when I was young. Sky Roads.
And Post you high score! :)
Thank you guys!
Web Build to play
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10742778/RunnerShip.html
@Elyaradine You got me thinking and thinking and more thinking.... Thanks. In a good way! :)
@kobusvdwalt9. Would love your feedback too....
Ok So I got thinking about what you said. Remembering the type of classics I played. Inspired by this one I played when I was young. Sky Roads.
And Post you high score! :)
Thank you guys!
Web Build to play
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10742778/RunnerShip.html
Comments
- when I get respawned, it's possible to spawn directly over a blue pit, which can mean dying immediately again
- the camera seems to move along with the virus bits, rather than the character, so that I can't run as fast as I feel I want to in the beginning
- at some point (after restarting?), my number of backups goes into the negative numbers, and I can continue playing indefinitely while increasing my score.
- grammar: "mannaged" and "it's" should be "managed" and "its"
It feels like I pretty much always want to run to the right. Are there reasons to run left too? It seems to me like I pretty much always want to keep my right direction key held down, only tapping space sometimes when I jump. Perhaps there could be reasons not to do that? Otherwise, maybe you're just running right all of the time anyway, the way Canabalt's got it.
It also feels like wall climbing isn't reliable (sometimes hitting a wall and pressing space still results in falling to my death), and it would be nice if double-jumping had some in-world reason for existing other than just being able to get another boost in thin air.
There are some walls that are pretty tall, where it feels like there literally was no way to climb it before dying, even if I had all of the foresight and could've seen it coming, which feels unfair.
If you're going for black with bright lines (like Tron), you can get pretty far using an emissive shader, and having a Bloom shader on your camera.
I think this is a decent base on which to build a bunch of obstacles and stuff, though I'd also try and think about ways to differentiate yourself mechanically from the many endless runners that I believe are out there. I'd try and think of a moment that would make me say "Haha, that was amazing!" (maybe close calls, or impressive acrobatics, maybe a great theming/story moment, or some kind of surprise/delight), and try to make those things happen more often.
Will look into the Backups problem. I was thinking about that. Maybe always run at the same speed slightly behind the middle of the screen.This will give you a great view of upcoming platforms. Only then pressing backwards to slow your speed slightly. Then the player will auto catch up to the preferred point on the screen over time. Will use this to slow down when you might jump over the platform. Must think about this. Great point.Will look at my algorithm to gradually increase or decrease the height. Thanks!
That I will. As soon as I get the basics right. I am looking to add things like.
Bad Sectors that you can land on that does something to the player on environment.
Gaps between the data bits get more fragmented :) More gaps more frequent. Pick up something that defragment the next 50 bits or so.
I agree with everything @Elyaradine has said.
I also think the pacing is not as good as it could be. Perhaps you could decrease the speed of the virus once you died or have it delayed for a couple of seconds once you respawn. Because at the moment it felt like at some point there is nothing I could do but die because the virus was catching up faster than the time it took me to climb up a wall. I would suggest you look at how some of the established runners controll their pacing. Canabalt, Temple Run etc. I am not suggesting you directly copy their methods but look at what they do when they do it and what the effect on the pacing is. This will give you a better understanding of what works and what doesn't in endless runners.
Hope that helped !
There was some stuff around dying that I found pretty frustrating. In particular, when there's a gap in the level, you seem to just explode immediately upon reaching the gap, which doesn't really make sense. It makes sense if you hit a wall, but not if you hit "nothing". In games that involve platforms and stuff, they usually allow for some space after leaving a platform during which you can still jump. (It makes some intuitive sense too, as when you push off of something, you're leaping while technically being over the blank space.)
I also found a few times when I'd die upon hitting a gap, and want to press Space to do a jump, and I'd instead respawn right in the gap again and immediately explode again in thin air.
I didn't really understand the energy management. I never seemed to run out, and jumping didn't seem to use it up.
I think there's a lot that you could do with the feeling of speed, like changing the camera's field of view, or using some kind of motion blur, or faking the feeling of motion blur with contrails and speed lines, or distorting the geometry.
There might be something cool in the holes in the level, where some of the blocks flash a couple of times (as a warning) before dropping. Maybe you can still move over them while they drop, but you'd have to jump to get back up to the main road. Or maybe some of them slam upwards after dropping, launching your ship way upwards if you were over them. Again, just trying to think of things that would differentiate it mechanically from other endless runners.