Yeah I just pushed another update that smoothed out the attack interactions, but if you land on top of an enemy currently weird stuff happens. I think just registering that as a damage collision should fix the issue.
Thanks for noticing the attack missing, it's SHIFT at the moment and I added it to the graphic.
I enjoy what you have started here. Maybe give us some fun things to do like; Jumping on moving platforms, A more smooth leveling experience, Levels we can travel to and from. This will help us test more features and supply more precise feedback. Loving what you have started here.
Thanks so much for the feedback! I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend trying to smooth out the combat mechanics and stats/menus, and then the game will actually be just about full alpha, and I can really start building out the world and adding more enemies/levels/platforms.
Could you add some instructions on what's there and what's not there? It's a nice experience, but being completely in the dark also takes away some of the fun of continuing. As in, what was added in which level? How can I use it? What changed?
Yeah I failed pretty hard at communicating the controls here, sorry about that! Backspace advances the text to the end and also goes back in the menu system, which can be accessed with TAB. I really appreciate all this feedback on the keyboard experience/issues, I never play platformers with a keyboard so I really need and appreciate the feedback here.
Full controls right now are:
- ENTER: Select (in menu), Advance Text (in dialogue) - BACKSPACE: Back (in menu), Fast-Forward (in dialogue) - SPACE: Jump - Double-Tap Direction: Run - TAB: Menu - M: Map
I have been playing more with keyboard and haven't be able to duplicate any of the problems with stuck movement or dead input, but I'm going to keep trying, so thanks again for the heads up!
I just pushed an update where I started on a "Controls" section in the System menu, eventually I'm going to add key mappings. That seems like low hanging fruit so hope to have it done by next week.
I've had two occasions that the character kept moving left or right after closing the "you feel the power of" text box. I had the feeling it happens when you have one of the direction keys pressed while pressing space to close, but it's not always the case.
Also happend now without any text box. Clicking out of focus and in focus again fixes it, like with the buttons not working.
Also had the arrow keys suddenly stop working, but when I clicked out of the game on the webpage and back in again, it worked again. Same applies to the space button which was reported below.
Hmm, been mashing the buttons like crazy both with a controller and the keyboard and can't duplicate. Mind if I ask what input device you're using? (And thanks for taking the time to check out this page!
Seems like the game isn't in a ready state yet. No sound, no apparent way to interact with the one visible object aside from the character. Walking to the right leads to you falling off a platform and getting stuck off screen. The only keys that seem to do anything aside from WASD to move and space to jump were tab, caps lock, and shift, which only opened slow unskippable text boxes that implied the powers associated with them were not unlocked yet.
Thanks to you both for your interest! This game is super alpha and I am looking for exactly some of this kind of feedback (like the unskippable text being annoying.) Sorry if it wasn't clear about the state of the game, I put another note about it at the top of the page.
I removed all the starting exposition. The orb is now collectible. In the devlog I mentioned wanting to reparent it to the player, but I haven't done that bit yet. I think I'm moving on from that for now and I hope to have the stats screen completed by the end of the weekend so you can actually see the EXP gains happening.
I like the idea presented for the game, and kudos on actually getting things going. I know criticism can come across as someone is upset, so I want to make it clear that I'm presenting the negatives to highlight areas of improvement as I see them.
First, I'll describe my experience thus far. I was intrigued by the idea of the game, and so I opened it to see how it was implemented. By the time I had identified my character and how to move, I ran into the end of currently available content. I thought, surely there's more to this, maybe they just haven't put in the explanation of the controls yet. I'll press every key and see what they do. Nothing. Ok, maybe I need to walk to another area and come back to check out the orb, sort of Metroidvania-style. A bit early to do that, but it's early days for the game. Jumped the gap into a pit, had to reset the game. Had to sit through the slow intro again to find nothing did anything. Left comment to see if I was missing something.
Secondly, feedback as I understand it. As I said, I like that something has been made, but I feel it's been posted far too soon. The experience I had left a bad first impression, as it's little more than a starting template you might expect Unity or whomever to provide. Generally, when working on a project, it's important to release work in deliverable increments. If the audience can't experience whatever feature you have, it doesn't appear to exist for them, and asking them to just know the context you have is unreasonable. They can only know what is presented to them in game. Communication with the user is also vital, and it needs to be in-game. Expecting everyone to get confused and stumble around until they eventually look elsewhere for info, like the dev logs, is too far when you don't have people invested yet. Dev logs and external resources are only useful if you have people interested and they know the importance of them, two things that haven't been established by the game yet.
I would recommend that the initial release have something for the player to do. If there's nothing to play, there's nothing for them to playtest.
I genuinely appreciate all the feedback! I did weigh the options here of putting this live too early, but I decided to just go for it because I have the terrible habit of seeking no input at all. So now I'm doing the opposite extreme of that, LOL.
I've posted another update and quickly focused on implementing some progression. I'm going to also do a tech post soon as I'm going to try to quickly implement a map system using an add-on.
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Some bugs i noticed with the new update:
Going offscreen turns the character completely invisible
Jumping onto the skeleton enemy pushes character far offscreen
Not a bug, but keyboard has no bound key for attacking.
Yeah I just pushed another update that smoothed out the attack interactions, but if you land on top of an enemy currently weird stuff happens. I think just registering that as a damage collision should fix the issue.
Thanks for noticing the attack missing, it's SHIFT at the moment and I added it to the graphic.
I enjoy what you have started here. Maybe give us some fun things to do like; Jumping on moving platforms, A more smooth leveling experience, Levels we can travel to and from. This will help us test more features and supply more precise feedback. Loving what you have started here.
Thanks so much for the feedback! I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend trying to smooth out the combat mechanics and stats/menus, and then the game will actually be just about full alpha, and I can really start building out the world and adding more enemies/levels/platforms.
Could you add some instructions on what's there and what's not there? It's a nice experience, but being completely in the dark also takes away some of the fun of continuing. As in, what was added in which level? How can I use it? What changed?
Maybe some quick info on the controls?
Also I'd add a 'skip' option to dialogs to instantly show (and close) them. It's annoying to have to wait for the whole text to appear.
Yeah I failed pretty hard at communicating the controls here, sorry about that! Backspace advances the text to the end and also goes back in the menu system, which can be accessed with TAB. I really appreciate all this feedback on the keyboard experience/issues, I never play platformers with a keyboard so I really need and appreciate the feedback here.
Full controls right now are:
- ENTER: Select (in menu), Advance Text (in dialogue)
- BACKSPACE: Back (in menu), Fast-Forward (in dialogue)
- SPACE: Jump
- Double-Tap Direction: Run
- TAB: Menu
- M: Map
I have been playing more with keyboard and haven't be able to duplicate any of the problems with stuck movement or dead input, but I'm going to keep trying, so thanks again for the heads up!
I just pushed an update where I started on a "Controls" section in the System menu, eventually I'm going to add key mappings. That seems like low hanging fruit so hope to have it done by next week.
Really like the movement of your character btw, it looks good and it feels 'natural'.
I've had two occasions that the character kept moving left or right after closing the "you feel the power of" text box. I had the feeling it happens when you have one of the direction keys pressed while pressing space to close, but it's not always the case.
Also happend now without any text box. Clicking out of focus and in focus again fixes it, like with the buttons not working.
Also had the arrow keys suddenly stop working, but when I clicked out of the game on the webpage and back in again, it worked again. Same applies to the space button which was reported below.
Sometimes the jump button randomly stops working, and I have to refresh the page to get it to work again
Hmm, been mashing the buttons like crazy both with a controller and the keyboard and can't duplicate. Mind if I ask what input device you're using? (And thanks for taking the time to check out this page!
Just the keyboard on my laptop. I'm using an HP Pavilion, and playing on chrome.
Thanks! I've mostly been testing with a controller so I'll spend some more time with the keyboard.
Had the same, Logitech wireless keyboard on a Windows PC running Chrome. Not sure when it happened. I think after a few upgrades ;-)
Seems like the game isn't in a ready state yet. No sound, no apparent way to interact with the one visible object aside from the character. Walking to the right leads to you falling off a platform and getting stuck off screen. The only keys that seem to do anything aside from WASD to move and space to jump were tab, caps lock, and shift, which only opened slow unskippable text boxes that implied the powers associated with them were not unlocked yet.
Was the wrong build uploaded?
Same experience here. Also got stuck walking left
Thanks to you both for your interest! This game is super alpha and I am looking for exactly some of this kind of feedback (like the unskippable text being annoying.) Sorry if it wasn't clear about the state of the game, I put another note about it at the top of the page.
I removed all the starting exposition. The orb is now collectible. In the devlog I mentioned wanting to reparent it to the player, but I haven't done that bit yet. I think I'm moving on from that for now and I hope to have the stats screen completed by the end of the weekend so you can actually see the EXP gains happening.
Thanks to you both for the feedback!
I like the idea presented for the game, and kudos on actually getting things going. I know criticism can come across as someone is upset, so I want to make it clear that I'm presenting the negatives to highlight areas of improvement as I see them.
First, I'll describe my experience thus far. I was intrigued by the idea of the game, and so I opened it to see how it was implemented. By the time I had identified my character and how to move, I ran into the end of currently available content. I thought, surely there's more to this, maybe they just haven't put in the explanation of the controls yet. I'll press every key and see what they do. Nothing. Ok, maybe I need to walk to another area and come back to check out the orb, sort of Metroidvania-style. A bit early to do that, but it's early days for the game. Jumped the gap into a pit, had to reset the game. Had to sit through the slow intro again to find nothing did anything. Left comment to see if I was missing something.
Secondly, feedback as I understand it. As I said, I like that something has been made, but I feel it's been posted far too soon. The experience I had left a bad first impression, as it's little more than a starting template you might expect Unity or whomever to provide. Generally, when working on a project, it's important to release work in deliverable increments. If the audience can't experience whatever feature you have, it doesn't appear to exist for them, and asking them to just know the context you have is unreasonable. They can only know what is presented to them in game. Communication with the user is also vital, and it needs to be in-game. Expecting everyone to get confused and stumble around until they eventually look elsewhere for info, like the dev logs, is too far when you don't have people invested yet. Dev logs and external resources are only useful if you have people interested and they know the importance of them, two things that haven't been established by the game yet.
I would recommend that the initial release have something for the player to do. If there's nothing to play, there's nothing for them to playtest.
I genuinely appreciate all the feedback! I did weigh the options here of putting this live too early, but I decided to just go for it because I have the terrible habit of seeking no input at all. So now I'm doing the opposite extreme of that, LOL.
I've posted another update and quickly focused on implementing some progression. I'm going to also do a tech post soon as I'm going to try to quickly implement a map system using an add-on.
https://arnick.itch.io/quick-level-up/devlog/634190/update-and-taking-some-feedb...
Thanks again for your input, it's a huge help.