[Early Access] Gumstein : The Awakening

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Good day all

I'm part of a 4-man team that has released our game on Steam this week. https://store.steampowered.com/app/906650/Gumstein_The_Awakening/

We are currently in Early Access in order to receive as much feedback as possible on the game mechanics, levels etc. so we can address any issues while we finish up the final parts of the story. This will allow us to have a polished game on our hands when we release v1.0 (aimed at November 2018).

Please take a moment to have a look. Any feedback is greatly appreciated and honest opinions are welcomed!

Regards,
Raymond Beets
Thanked by 3MajorPAIN Kulu Sephira

Comments

  • First impressions are that the game seems pretty. Good graphics. Cool 2D animation. Though the foreground characters and the background feels a bit disconnected - lots of shading in the background art that has zero impact on the player character, and that disconnect is pronounced by the extreme light/darkness.

    The trailer beginning is really boring. The title screen is too long and for a while I thought the trailer was broken The jumps and such are super standard platformer tropes that it's simply doesn't sell your game as anything special. Cut the standard fair stuff and go for what differentiates your game first.

    Sometimes the foreground/background differentiation isn't clear. There are VERY dark and VERY bright bits both in the foreground, and that makes the game less intuitive than it could have been. Sometimes things look like they should block/interact but then the player just passes right through them.

    In the beginning, the player touches a bunch of spinning things and nothing happens. Then later there are spinning things that the player avoids. I'm not sure what's up with that.

    The bits where the player "stretches" and shoots things is very unclear about what's happening. Very little visual clarity and the projectiles are tiny.

    There are lots of moments where the player just stops and does nothing. Minimise that for a trailer that's supposed to excite people. A lot of that kind of stoppage makes the game feel boring. Maybe that's what real gameplay looks like, but this is not about "real gameplay".

    The mechanics of splitting feels interesting though I don't feel like I know enough about it. The most interesting thing feels like is in about 10 seconds of your 2:40 video.

    If you put up playable stuff here, some people might be able to playtest for you. But it seems very late in the game for that, it would have been good to have seen your game in prototype form to give feedback while they're still actionable.
    Thanked by 1Pletterpet
  • Hi Tuism
    Thanks for your reply.

    We are busy working on a new trailer at this moment, and your input will be of great help to us.
    Unfortunately when we created our first trailer a lot of the levels that used the cooler abilities such as splitting and launching yourself weren't drawn yet, so we had to use the levels we had to try showcase what we had. But your suggestion of starting with the more interesting parts of the game is very helpful.

    About the play-testing. We have actually gone through 3 rounds of playtesting so far, and have a group that has been very helpful in helping us iron out some issues. We hope during early access to find the elements that people like about the game and use them more often in the remaining 10 levels (minimum) we want to create before we go out of early access. The abilities and levels that are in the game at the moment will stay there, but we still have a lot of potential for growing the content of the game with new levels and abilities, and this is what we hope to achieve with the Early Access state.

    Thank you again for the post. This is all very helpful in helping us better our game.
  • I am continualy impressed by the level of work being produced by this community. well done
    Thanked by 1Pletterpet
  • We have posted a new short gameplay trailer to better demonstrate some of the aspects of our game while we work on making a new trailer.
    Same link
    https://store.steampowered.com/app/906650/Gumstein_The_Awakening/

    Thanked by 1Pletterpet
  • Hi. It's nice to see people releasing games.

    The new trailer is much more exciting than the old one. I think it should play first on Steam. But I still feel like it needs a hint of story and context. So a piece of a goo has come to life in an apocalytic wasteland? How did this happen? Can we see him emerge from a vat or something?

    And where's he going? What's his mission?

    I also feel like a blob of gum is not that interesting to me. Although the moustache helps. Is it a scientist who fell in some toxic vat?

    Hopefully in the game the mechanics are explained because I wouldn't know how to stretch and throw things and it might not even occur to me to do that without hints.

    The picture at the end is nicely designed but feels like it comes from a different game. Who is that girl?

    Joel
    Thanked by 2MajorPAIN Pletterpet
  • Thanks for your comment.
    I'm glad to say that all your questions get answered in the opening comic strip (when you start a new game). However your point is valid in that the gameplay trailer does not answer any of those questions. Perhaps for the actual trailer we should include snapshots of the opening comic in between gameplay elements. This might give hints to the story, but I also feel that just straight playing through the comic would not be interesting for someone wanting to know what the gameplay is about. I actually love our comic, and the art on the final screen would make more sense when the comic is shown.

    I will play around with the idea of dropping some comic pages in between the gameplay and see what I can come up with.

    Also, we do have a pretty cool (I think) mechanic for teaching the player new abilities. Will see if I can also work that into the trailer.

    Thanked by 2Pletterpet Sephira
  • Gumstein is going to Africa Games Weeks and Playtopia :D

    I really loved the game. There have been so many improvements since the pre-release launched, with more to come. It's a little slow to start off with, but once you reach level 13 and start the complex puzzles, you're really hooked. It's challenging and fun.

    This a game you really need to give a chance. I love the slick graphics. Something I really like about this game is the way it’s staggered. Each time I’m just getting comfortable and I think: “Is that all there is?” The game throws you a curveball. The first few levels get you used to the controls. Then you get to the first few puzzles which makes it more interesting, but those could get old really quickly. Just when I think I’ve got it figured out, there’s a new challenge. The puzzles become increasingly complex and the as the abilities are unlocked there’s a whole new dimension that’s added.

    I'm looking forward to finally finding Ruby in December :P
  • This game looks epic dude!

    I can see you guys know how to create a dynamic platformer. I really dig how the many ways you can use Gumstein.
    Also the animations are lekker!

    I agree with Tuism that the foreground and background characters seem a little disjointed from each other.
    Some shading and highlights would work great!

    But otherwise, congrats! It's pretty epic.
  • Where are you guys based so that I can add you to the MakeGamesSA curator's list?
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