Thoughts on this "game"
Hi there, I wanted to know what you guys think of this : http://sarif.clay.io/
It is the first prototype i made that i am proud of and i would like to make it into a commercial game.
Could you give your thoughts in terms of :
1. Is it worth spending 2 years on this game i have technicaly already made.
2. Would you buy this if it were more polished.
3. Do you have suggestions to improve the game.
4. Should i start fresh with another idea.
I am currently deciding what my next project is going to be so i am just weighing up my options.
Thanks for the time.
It is the first prototype i made that i am proud of and i would like to make it into a commercial game.
Could you give your thoughts in terms of :
1. Is it worth spending 2 years on this game i have technicaly already made.
2. Would you buy this if it were more polished.
3. Do you have suggestions to improve the game.
4. Should i start fresh with another idea.
I am currently deciding what my next project is going to be so i am just weighing up my options.
Thanks for the time.
Comments
Gave it a play, constructive crits follow...
Think you might be suffering from the dreaded "I find this easy because I built it" trap just a tad - I found it incredibly hard to get into at first, then eventually I hit the level after the one that introduces D and A, died a crapload and gave up. Sorry. I think that you could spend quite a bit more time getting the player into the feeling of moving and jumping in your game. For instance: That shelf-jump in the second level, that has to go.
This feels very similar to VVVVVV, with a touch of And Yet It Moves. I have no idea how to answer the question of should you put tons of time into this to create something to sell. Um... I wouldn't. I'd treat this as a starting game, learn as much about game design as I could from it and move on. Maybe at some point you'll come back to it and have a really solid idea that will add to it so much that it stands out against the hordes of indie platformers - when that happens, awesome, that's when you go back and rebuild it to sell.
So stuff that I'd suggest tweaking:
-The controls felt rather imprecise sometimes, like there was a ton of momentum moving me around in the air and I didn't really feel in control of it very often. I have no idea how to poke this to feel better. Maybe increase the impulse when a player hits a key in the air?
-Sometimes turning a room felt like it moved me in the air, so I couldn't really plan where I was going to land with much accuracy. Could you maybe freeze the player in mid-air while the room turned?
-At one point I ended up standing on the corner of a wall with spikes on both sides of the corner.
-In the second level, while trying the shelf-jump for the billionth time, I fell through the wall and ended up dying outside. That usually happens when you're doing positional collision detection (as opposed to sweep detection) and your character is moving faster than the walls are wide. Easiest way to fix this is to make the character's max speed slower than the width of colliding elements.
Good luck! Keen to see what your next project is.
To answer your questions:
1. Is it worth spending 2 years on this game i have technicaly already made.
Don't think this sort of thing should take longer than 1 year. Maybe even 6 months if you're an experienced game developer. It will also largely depend on how much content you want to include and what graphic style you choose (eg. how many levels will the game have, will you have high detail sprites / models? etc.). You could keep the style in the same, simple vein that you currently have, but it will require more TLC than what it currently has (I assume these are placeholder graphics.). Even minimalist aesthetics require careful crafting and consideration.
2. Would you buy this if it were more polished.
Depends on what sort of polish you're referring to. Graphical polish will catch my eye, but what else are you planning to add to the gameplay? Bonus collectibles? Teleporters? etc. To be honest, I'm not totally into this kind of puzzle platformer, so I probably wouldn't buy it, but that shouldn't really be a deciding factor for whether you should make the game or not.
3. Do you have suggestions to improve the game.
Make the jump strength variable depending on how long the player holds down the jump button. Also add a jump input buffer (thanks @Karuji for enlightening me to this great technique... courtesy of Kyle Pulver) http://kpulv.com/106/Jump_Input_Buffering/
I would also suggest reducing the players inertia, it doesn't need that much of it. Also check the 180 degree flip, which I expected to allow me to land on the spot directly above me, but instead offset me into an unexpected position. I would also suggest making the player have control of the flip whilst either jumping or falling, not just jumping. I would also strongly recommend that you spell check your instructions!
4. Should i start fresh with another idea.
Only you can really answer this. I would suggest that you carry on with this game to get a feel for platforming mechanics. See what new elements and mechanics you can introduce to add variety to the experience. I would also suggest looking into this guide to implementing 2D platformers. http://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the-guide-to-implementing-2d-platformers/
Play around with a few, short prototypes first before committing to a long term project.
NB: Don't be afraid to cut out mechanics that aren't working, nor be afraid of abandoning a project that is going nowhere. In the words of Ernest Hemmingway "Kill you darlings."
@retroFuture I wanted to make the jump height dependent on the time the spacebar was held but it just didn't feel right. If you get to the later levels (witch I now know is impossible) you will se there is a lot of different mechanics including teleporters. I also don't think that the game has much in common with VVVVVV because the camera moves with the direction of gravity. And you can shift right and left.
I think I will move on and start with something fresh. The feedback was awesome (useful) and I have come to the conclusion that the idea of shifting gravity is great but my execution is not so great. Maybe when I have learned enough I could come back.
One thing that AYIM does really well is make rotation a simply keypress in a direction, it's a lot easier to think in terms of "rotate left, rotate right" relative to where I am now. Rotating "up" then just becomes two key presses. Or, if you're wanting to switch immediately, rotating up could be pressing both keys at the same time. It's not like you ever want to set the gravity to "down" anyway ;)