[Feedback Friday #35] - Nov 6, 2015 (Happy Thanksgiving!)

Feedback Friday #35 is CLOSED - Next opens Friday, Dec 4!

Want design feedback for your new game? Then you've found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until 11/20, when we'll lock this thread to start the two week break.

How To Ask For Feedback?

• Show - Pics, videos, or best of all, a playable game!
• Be Concise - Who's got time for Wall 'O Text? Less is more

How To Give Feedback?

• Be Positive - Finding redeeming qualities in the worst of games, is in itself a game
• Focus On The Design - Not the designer
• Be Specific - "Your game sucks!" is for nubs

What To Show?

• Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play >>> everything else
• How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)

Gigi

[PS - Feedback Friday #34 is here]

[Feedback Friday (FF) has changed. TL;DR; Open for 2 weeks, closed for 2 weeks]

 

Once more unto the breach! ...Mostly. I've been working on my latest project, Saleria: Zombies vs. Knights. It's come along a bit, but still has a very long ways to go yet...

I know this game needs work, I just want to know what you find confusing/bad/improvable.

Things that I know need to be implemented:

• In-match AI - The AI still won't fight back.
• Commander - The progression system has not been implemented. Don't press Commander!
• Settings - You also can't yet tweak the settings for the game, but this is a 'polish' point anyhow.
• More Units - It's 'easy' for me to add units to the game at this point, but I'm sticking with the old units at this point to test how I'm communicating to the player.
• More Sound - I'm avoiding writing any music or buying sound FX until I get to the 'polish' phase.
• "It's Still Not Quite A Game" - I have had some distractions over the past two weeks that stopped me from making more progress on the game. It's no excuse, though - I should be further along than I am...for what it's worth.

Webplayer Build
Note: You must use Internet Explorer to evaluate this build; it will not run in any other browser due to the Webplayer being an NPAPI plugin.

 

Edit: Working link further down

 

I wasn't sure what I was doing here because both bases looked the same but I eventually worked out I had to click the white square then click the other base that the red cubes didn't exit from. I had a number of goes (it just seems to be the same mission over & over even when I win or choose the other campaign) & I worked out that I only had to click the white square to spawn red cubes that just went & attacked without being directed. Skirmish just gave me a black Unity screen. The pointer also seems quite large for the size of the play area. Apart from the initial confusion of what to do the rest was easy to work out but from previous games like this there is usually an explanation of the UI on screen & what each represents so the player knows what to watch out for.

 

Ted for some reason its not working for me it keeps asking me to download the file.
http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/954694/is-it-still-possible-to-host-web-player-builds-thr.html

 

Edit: Working link further down

 

Skirmish UI - Eep! I forgot about that. I just updated the webplayer to fix that. I also created a basic UI for the Commander screen as well - when playing my build you should no longer be orphaned if you go to a specific UI.

Right now, both missions of the two campaigns are pointing to the same map actually. The difference is, when you play the Knight campaign, you play as the Knights; when you play from the Zombies, you play as the Zombies (this means that your cubes will be blue if you're the Knights, and red if you're the Zombies - this is the placeholder stuff I was talking about. Sounds to me like you went straight for the Zombie campaign. Nice!)

As for faction bases, I'm looking into it. I'm going to create some Zombie-specific prototype assets this week (the Necropolis and Crypts, specifically.)

Did anything appear on the map that you noticed you might want to direct a unit to?

Lastly - and, this is the big one - what can I do to make the UI more intuitive? The fact that you're asking for an explanation of the UI, means I have failed to design it in an easily-understandable way. I think creating an icon for the Zombie's Ghoul, like I did for the Knight's Footman, is a first step, but I'm sure there are others.

 

I did try both types of campaign but they both led to being a zombie but I will try to get to it to have another look after your changes today. As for the UI, I think I worked part of it out after a few goes - one is the damage done to the enemy base which seems to increase instead of decrease which is what I'd be expecting (people are used to things losing health rather than accruing damage). I did try clicking on the other areas of the screen to get my troops to go there, like the thing that has a coin or something in it. I tried clicking to the side of the building to stop the troops bumping into each other (they all went to the same spot & got in each other's way) but it didn't do anything.

 

I was wondering if you had seen the coin. You should be able to order a unit to move to the coin. If you couldn't, then I need to make sure that you can always order a unit to move to the coin. Since I had wondered if you had seen it, I think I need to make the coin more obnoxious - some particle effects, and/or lights will help.

As far as structures 'gaining damage' vs. 'losing health', that's definently a UI problem - I designed the health mechanics as 'lose health', not 'gain damage.' My game isn't communicating clearly with you. I suspect that I need to implement a floating health gauge for units, so you can see how much HP they have. I'm not exactly sure how to do that using the New GUI...but, I'm sure it's possible.

As far as getting units to not bump into each other...I'm looking into that, too. The fact that units didn't experience appreciable knockback is a problem - one of the things I went out of my way to tune in this build was the physics. The 'chestbump' combat in the last Feedback Friday was one of the big problems that @Aiursrage2k had noted. I always test from the Knight side, and it seems like the Knight physics are OK; I did some tests from the Zombie side in response to this and found that the physics aren't quite responding the same way for them. I'm going to find out why that is, and before the two weeks are out, have it fixed.

 

I tried and play as the zombies both times as well didnt matter which UI i picked.

 

Hey friends!

I made a spelling game prototype. Your given some letters, and you try to spell a word.

http://bit.ly/spellword

It's at its barest bones. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't get sidetracked with art and I'd make a living breathing prototype of the core game.

I'd love for some feedback on the number of letters given. I average a four to five letter word pretty regularly with eight tiles.

I'd also love to hear your first impressions when you first open the player. Does the interface give you a clear idea of what to do without instruction?

 

Hello again, got such great feedback here last time I thought I would give it another try.

I have made quite a bit of progress on King Zombie and I think most of the game mechanics are in place and functioning now. All the weapons are working now as is the armor system.

King Zombie: Escape
http://nothingproductivegames.com/UnityDemos/King_Zombie/KZWeb.html

NOTE: Old save games are not compatible with this version, if you have old saves just start a new game and save over them.

Any feedback greatly appreciated!

 

Interface works well, had no problem figuring it out. I was able to:

Spell words using the buttons on the bottom.
Reset the word I was spelling and spell another.
Get a new set of letters to spell words with

So far looks like a nice intuitive interface, well done sir!

 

Definitely an interface improvement over last time I saw it. I like the scene fade and the menu system(for picking campaign mode etc.) is clear and looks good. The game system was easier to understand also, though I was not able to command the units to move to the coin. Also, as someone else said no matter which campaign I picked I was playing with red units.

 

Thanks for the kind words! I put as much real work as I could into designing the supporting menus - I went through a few on-paper drafts of what modes to include, and what views they should have. They're not done yet as you can no doubt see, and most of my UI assets are actually salvaged from Sara the Shieldmage. I'm glad it holds up even in this basic form, though!

As far as always playing as Zombies...that's troublesome, above and beyond the 'can't pick up coins' problem. Out of curiosity - did you play as Knights first, or was it that you started as Zombies, then attempted to play Knights?

 

I don't really remember, however in order to respond to your question I went back and started again this time as the knights first and they loaded fine. I then tried loading the zombies and they loaded. So maybe the bug lies with trying the zombies first. Also this time I was able to get the curser to change when hovering over the coin, though I was not able to get a unit to go to it.

 

Yeah, I played as zombies first when I had the same problem. Also, I didn't have to send the zombies to attack the base, they just went straight there when they spawned. That might be why we can't direct them to the coin (because they already have a target set)?

 

No, you should be able to - I've tested the heck out of that mechanic; it's been in for weeks at this point. How were you attempting to direct the units to the coin? I might need to change the interface to be more intuitive.

The way the target assignment in S:ZvK works, is that units target the enemy 'key structure' by default; the two main actions all units can do is either defend an area, or move to a target. Changing targets just issues a new order, and changes what the entity is moving towards. There is some logic in there to account for LoS blocks; that's why the torch is in the test scene. The torch is a pathfinding waypoint. In fact, something I'm experimenting with in this project is having map object reflect the underlying game mechanics - the 'knight town' is where Knight units spawn, for instance. The farm is the spawn point for resources. While not originally planned for, my vision is that the game is very explicit in how it communicates with the player. This is not an immediately complicated game...until you're ready for it to be.

One thing I am aware of, is that when the coin has the narrow of the coin facing the camera, even if the mouse is squarely over the coin, the icon goes away until the coin rotates enough; during this time, move-to orders don't have any effect. I think the fix for that is simply scaling up the coin, which would help with the coin being noticeable. One of my big fears coming into this test was that no one would notice the coin.

 

That may be it, I wasn't trying to click exactly on the coin. I was just clicking on the whole structure area

 

That helps. This is telling me that A) the coin needs to be bigger as noted above, B) the coin needs to be more visible to the point where people "just know" it's important (you thought the structure was important, and while this makes sense...it means my game isn't communicating well...), and C) I need to give better feedback on when a move-to-order has been received. Sound will help with that...but a visual cue is needed as well.

In all fairness, AI will help, as resource pickups are something I'm designing to be a priority for the AI to fight for. They who get a unit sitting on a resource spawn, will have an advantage. The unit you garrison on a point determines how best to capture that resource.

 

I must be doing something wrong it wont load for me gives me the "unity web player install now" graphic.
if I click on the link instead of copying it I dl your game file instead of playing it in browser.

 

Edit: Working link further down

 

Ted you should try uploading to itch.io all you have to do is upload the unitywebplayer and i guess set it up. Or gamejolt (jupiter hadely did a tutorial video).

 

Seconded. I used to use GameJolt a lot for alphas/WIPs, but started using GitHub because it's off-site storage and still offers hosting.

 

Ok, Thanks. I'll check it out after class.

 

Webplayer is still running fine for me on Firefox (version 42.0 at this time).

Looks like a great start on your game. There isn't much I could test at this point but I like the viewpoint. I thought the fading on the campaign selection and other text was too slow. I'd prefer that to have a snappier response. The icon at the bottom I think just corresponds to Spawn Cube Unit at this time but I did not realize that was actually how I spawned units right off the bat. Still it only took a few seconds to look around and click it to see that yep that is how I spawn a Cube Warrior.

It all actually has a kind of nice feel to it for such an early point. Looking forward to playing it a few iterations from now.

 

It all works well. Good selection of available letters to work with. The only words that were not recognized as such were mona and monah. Maybe this is true for all names though not sure.

 

Took a bit to get used to the controls but only because I haven't played any games that use this control scheme in a while.

Thought it was very cool the enemies show some intelligence in that when I fired my gun they heard the bang and immediately rushed to my position.

 

Solid progress! I felt like the controls screen was a bit too much information at one time. I wonder if you could walk the player through one piece at a time in a safe space. "Walk here with these controls..." "Pick up weapon with this button" "Oh no! A single slow dumb zombie! Shoot it with this button."

I think the controls would feel better if the character was facing the mouse position at all times. Or I wonder if a graphical arrow indicator would work to let the player know which direction they are facing.

I also felt like the zombies were too numerous at the beginning. I wish I could have more time to figure out the controls, or get a better weapon before I am trying to deal with ten or fifteen zombies.

Good luck good sir! Keep at it.

 

Ok, this should work as I just tried it. This won't work on chrome.

http://gamejolt.com/games/pogo-panic/107685

This is a game mechanic test build for Pogo Panic, a casual (mobile) game that I worked on in down time on a school group assignment. It is in a totally non-polished state

• Esc will restart anytime.
• Left & right arrow keys to rotate the player, try to have the tip of the pogo stick hit the ground so he keeps bouncing.
• Hitting space bar just as the pogo tip hits the ground will give a jump boost - this is not easy to time.
• Score is based on distance, coins collected & bombs hit (bombs lower your score but can increase your distance).
• Spend gold to continue if you think you can improve on the score.

Known issues:

• The black pixels are bleeding for some reason
• Occasionally the player pierces the ground. The only option is to hit Escape to restart.
• Sometimes it still registers you as dead even if you choose to continue.

Thanks for trying it

 

Ok, game jolt was down when I tried, then I remembered I had a local copy from your post yesterday, so I played that one.

I really like the bouncing mechanic, it has a nice blend of difficulty and it feels quite rewarding each time you successfully bounce or get a coin.

I think the bombs are probably a bit to strong at least at the start. Maybe start with lower powered (different color maybe?) bombs to give the player more time to get accustomed to the game and make more progress before things become really challenging.

I would really like to have my score on screen during the game weather that's coins collected or number of bounces or both.

The hot keys need a re-think, so that you can reach them easier from the home keys (y and esc are a long way from the space bar). Might not be a big deal since you are headed to mobile but it could make your playtesters lives easier.

Overall I think you have a fun concept here. Good luck with it sir!

 

@GarBenjamin - Thank you so much for the kind words! Yeah, each weapon has it's own level of noise ranging from rocket launchers, explosive mines and chain guns which will wake most of a small level; to bows, swords and other melee weapons that make no noise at all. Also skill points put into the "martial" tab add to the players stealth and can make it quieter for the player to walk and open doors.

I was aiming for giving the player a choice of using big weapons to deal with the whole level at once, or stealthily dispatch a room or sometimes one monster at a time.

@Bridin - Thanks for the feedback! I have been debating with myself for sometime weather to make a tutorial level or not. I guess the answer is clearly "YES it needs one"! I will go back and do that before I proceed with making more level prototypes and monsters.

As far as facing, did you notice that the right mouse button causes the player to face the mouse position? I actually set that up for the dark difficulties when you need your flashlight to see what's coming at you, but it turned out to be very useful for aiming before pulling the trigger on the other weapons (no fun hitting a close wall with the rocket launcher because you weren't aiming the right way).

Your feedback on difficulty is particularly valuable. Since I play the game all the time the first level just seemed to easy and dull, and I increased the potential amount of zombies by quite a bit. Perhaps the tutorial level will help split the difference, especially if I let the player keep the weapons from it.

Thanks again for the feedback!!

 

@MJNuchia I should also mention that I was playing on a Mac track pad where the right mouse button is not easily accessible!

 

Okay I played it. One thing I found was that the monsters get bunched up, so while it might look theres only 1 zombie theres infact 10 stacked in the same spot following the same route.

 

Thanks. I managed to get the game jolt version with clearer pixels & the scores shown on screen (# of bombs hit, coins collected, distance, bounces & score).

Good point about the bombs, I will see how I go with it. I did notice how much it moves you really depends on how fast you are moving & the direction you hit it (since the force is averaged between your velocity & the velocity adjustment made by the bomb) so I will also try to balance that.

 

Ok, I'm feeling brave so I have 2 more to ask for general feedback on. Note that none of them have had any proper art or UI work done.

Grogger

Practice getting home safely while tipsy from the safety of your PC!

This is a prototype build so please provide any constructive feedback.

* Use WASD or arrow keys to control your player & safely navigate them to the bar on the far side of the map.
* You need to hit the door of the bar to load the 2nd level. (Note that there is an error with it registering sometimes so just keep bumping it).
* The character moves in the direction he is facing.
* Water & vehicles will cause you to lose a life.
* Note that there are currently only 2 playable levels.

Press Enter on the start screen to start the game.

The idea behind this is to build tension as you prepare to move, release it when you pass an obstacle safely, then have it build again. The overall level of tension should continue to rise as you get further across the map.

http://gamejolt.com/games/grogger/107808

 

Cr@ppyWhale

No prizes for guessing what this prototype was influenced by. This is being considered for a mobile game using 4 buttons, 2 on the right for up/down & 2 on the left for attack/defence.
Again, the UI & art are all temporary & there are no sounds. I will try to describe the controls (sorry they are awkward for keyboard) as I'd really like suggestions on how I can convey them to players as I don't find them difficult once I know it but I have trouble explaining them to testers.

• Up arrow will move you up. The longer you hold it down the higher you jump. You must start pressing the up arrow on or below the water surface, starting to press it when you have left the water will have no effect.
• Down arrow causes you to dive. The longer you hold it the deeper you go. You must start pressing the down arrow on or above the water surface, starting to press it when below the water will have no effect.
• While under water your water spout will recharge (icon appears top left). You can use this to scare birds out of your way (they see it coming & move up to avoid it). Left shift shoots the water.
• Eating plankton (green squiggly stuff) will obviously create a need to poop (icon top left). Doing a small poop on a boat will get you extra points. Eating 2 or more plankton will give a super poop that will sink boats for even more points. Left control drops the 'bomb'.
• Try to build a rhythm & watch the right of the screen to try & time your movements ahead.
• This is a copy of the pc build so obviously pressing N won't exit the game as it says.

The best score on this current build is 38 but I'm sure people can beat it.

NB I used art from a free site but the document with the details is corrupted. If anyone knows the artist let me know & I will add the details to gameJolt.

http://gamejolt.com/games/happy-whale/107812

 

It was pretty clear I needed to type in a word. But I wasn't sure what to do after I'd typed in a word.

 

I haven't a real clear idea either! But I'm working on it. My best guess is there will be some sort of 'enter' button that let you lock in the word and what ever happens next is what I am trying to figure out now.

 

Okay. Got a totally buggy, barely viable prototype here. Possibly barely legal too.

The game is a reversal of the popular IP. Left click to select a character. Right click to make him move. Get revenge.

https://build-beta.cloud.unity3d.com/share/-k-Pf9lQFg/

There are a couple of key features that need to be added before I can call this a true MVP. Specifically AI and path visualization. But I'm curious to see what people think of the idea. I did a quick google search before making it and can't actually find any decent implementations of the concept.

Edit: WebGL build, so chrome or firefox. I'll also try to make a couple more updates before this thread closes to turn it into a real game.

 

I didn't encounter any enemy in my play through. Won both campaigns.

I couldn't figure out the coin. After a couple of goes I realized I could click on one of my units and that gave the coin a mouse over thingie. But still nothing happened when I clicked on it.

 

A little more line of sight, especially when looking down, would be nice.

Not being able to shoot on an angle was a pain, especially when the zombies could attack on an angle.

In general I got swarmed and killed pretty quickly.

The difficulty of each level seemed pretty random too. One moment there were plenty of weapons and the zombies came at me one at a time. Next time around their were no weapons and firing a single shot brought down 50 zombies at once.

 

Ok, so your the ghost chasing P*&-Man? In my case the yellow fellow kept running into the ghosts before I was able to do anything. Reloaded with the same result.

It is indeed a game Idea I don't think I have seen before, I think however, to make it viable, you will have to somehow nullify the huge advantage the ghosts already have (4 to one advantage). Maybe something were you have some critters that kill you and one critter you are chasing who is trying to get the dots thus giving you an opportunity to guess its path to a limited degree.

Seems like an uphill climb to me. Good luck with it.

 

Really like the engine, scrolls smoothly and looks good. Not sure about the turning mechanic however, to me it was just a pain instead of a challenge. I had a nice world I wanted to explore and a fairly difficult challenge with the traffic and water, and the spin the controls thing just frustrated me. Maybe if you moved the whole point of view by turning the camera with the player (spin the world instead of the player) and left the control orientation the same it might be more appealing.
Still I really like the world implementation. Worth developing I think.

 

Very clever! Took me a bit to figure out how to get the whale to dive deeper and jump higher but once I did it was fun. Probably a bit too difficult at start and maybe a bit of a tutorial might help. Maybe some score targets as well as things to avoid might be nice.

Again really like the dive jump mechanics feels like old school skateboard ramp/surfing games... Maybe you should make the screen to scroll and allow the whale to really go for some air/depth, would definitely add to the excitement.

 

Thanks for looking at these.
Re Grogger - interesting take. I had tried spinning the camera with the player but made myself sick. I didn't consider spinning the world. I might see if I can get it to work, it would make working out which direction to move in a lot easier.

Re Cr@ppy Whale - maybe I could pull the camera back a bit to allow more height/depth. I tried having the camera follow the whale but it was even harder as you lost track of the boats below. The eventual plan is to have whalers come across screen & shoot at you if you are on or below the water. The number & time before they appear will depend on how many boats you poop on or sink. I'm hoping this balances the risk of trying for extra points (pooping) with the current safety of staying below the water line. And I totally agree about needing some way to convey the controls, I'm thinking as you say that a tutorial is needed, probably one with lots of pauses & pop-ups to explain when to hit each key/button.

Again, thanks for taking the time.

 

Lefty-click or righty-click?

 

I saw a first person pacman before but never a reverse pacman.

 

Yeah its still a very early prototype. The PacMan AI needs a fair bit of work. I also need to implement the bonus dots to let PacMan eat the monsters.

The other factor I though of using to tune the difficulty was adjusting the speed. I think that being able to move slightly faster would give PacMan a bit more of a fighting chance.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I found one in my research. Its not a very good implementation. The game only lets you control one ghost at a time, making the other ghosts essentially useless.

http://www.playzgame.com/online-flash-games/AntiPacman.php