I am going to have a lot of criticism nitpicks, so let's get some praise out of the way first. I absolutely adore the aesthetics, the music, the graphics, the everything! The movement mechanic is so interesting. There are a few areas that need fixing up as well- the controls were very offputting, and the enemy system seemed like an unneeded weight in its current form. Aswell the whole "pushes" thing felt funky, and I am not quite sure how to fix it.
First of all, it is completely unclear where the player will fly when releasing from a cog. To improve movement I would release directly outwards, or with the direction of rotation (perpendicular to the former). Next, it's no fun searching for one last enemy. It feels like enemies just artificially extend the game. It could feel better if you connect movement and enemies mechanically. For example, to kill enemies you must slam into them with the player character. Next up- pushes! I wish they could be regained as you play, but no idea how this could work. I might also replace the complicated directional pushes with a single key gravitating the character to a nearby cog.
I have gained an appreciation for per-pixel lighting in a pleasing pixel art game and believe me, the pixel art is VERY pleasing. The single graphics thing that bugged me is the anti-aliased text for pop-up messages. It took a minute straight to read, "Kill more enemies." It appears the display location needs to be rounded to the nearest pixel. I hope someone sat through all that, and I hope I didn't ramble. Now it is time for me to stop procrastinating on English homework... keep well and keep creating!
Thank you for the critisicm, as a solo developer there isn't a lot of feedback, so I appreciate another perspective and I love how extensive you wrote about the aspects of my game!
If I coded it correctly, the direction of the launch should be where you logically would assume to be going, given the applied force.
It's 8 directional, which means there are 8 different launch points. If you launch with your character down, you're going to launch down-right. I am very proud of making this. It was hard with my spaghetti code.
Searching for one last enemy isn't fun. I agree, so I decided to now make it so you're not required to get all the enemies to pick up the yellow key, instead it's optional and killing the 8 enemies will save you one second of time on your final score per enemy.
The pushes was created as a "get unstuck" feature for level 1. But eventually became the main focus of level 2. While I have time, I will think about tweaking it a bit.
I've made some changes to the text, to make it easier to see and last longer.
Thank you for all the compliments and the great feedback you provided, it means a lot.
I checked on the movement system today and it felt better. I don't know if the perceived improvement was from a edit to the code or me knowing it was an 8 directional system.
Sadly I still had difficulty with text, example below. I suggest you open the image in fullscreen to see the problem clearly.
I think you made a good solution to the enemies problem and I am happy it was not pushed off tell after-jam.
Glad you noticed the improvements, I did some small alterations based on your and other peoples feedback. It remains an 8 direction system though. I think I came up with the best possible solution for the enemies, the suggestion from you helped the game a lot!
I see that text is small, It's a cursor system I mostly use that for development, it tells me the TAG of the gameobjects. Didn't really think about it because it doesn't serve any purpose.
There are still some things I wish I made better. Like when you enter a new level, using UI text would be way better. I still have a long way to go to become a good game developer, but it's a start. Appreciate the feedback as always!
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I am going to have a lot of
criticismnitpicks, so let's get some praise out of the way first. I absolutely adore the aesthetics, the music, the graphics, the everything! The movement mechanic is so interesting. There are a few areas that need fixing up as well- the controls were very offputting, and the enemy system seemed like an unneeded weight in its current form. Aswell the whole "pushes" thing felt funky, and I am not quite sure how to fix it.First of all, it is completely unclear where the player will fly when releasing from a cog. To improve movement I would release directly outwards, or with the direction of rotation (perpendicular to the former). Next, it's no fun searching for one last enemy. It feels like enemies just artificially extend the game. It could feel better if you connect movement and enemies mechanically. For example, to kill enemies you must slam into them with the player character. Next up- pushes! I wish they could be regained as you play, but no idea how this could work. I might also replace the complicated directional pushes with a single key gravitating the character to a nearby cog.
I have gained an appreciation for per-pixel lighting in a pleasing pixel art game and believe me, the pixel art is VERY pleasing. The single graphics thing that bugged me is the anti-aliased text for pop-up messages. It took a minute straight to read, "Kill more enemies." It appears the display location needs to be rounded to the nearest pixel. I hope someone sat through all that, and I hope I didn't ramble. Now it is time for me to stop procrastinating on English homework... keep well and keep creating!
Thank you for the critisicm, as a solo developer there isn't a lot of feedback, so I appreciate another perspective and I love how extensive you wrote about the aspects of my game!
If I coded it correctly, the direction of the launch should be where you logically would assume to be going, given the applied force.
It's 8 directional, which means there are 8 different launch points. If you launch with your character down, you're going to launch down-right. I am very proud of making this. It was hard with my spaghetti code.
Searching for one last enemy isn't fun. I agree, so I decided to now make it so you're not required to get all the enemies to pick up the yellow key, instead it's optional and killing the 8 enemies will save you one second of time on your final score per enemy.
The pushes was created as a "get unstuck" feature for level 1. But eventually became the main focus of level 2. While I have time, I will think about tweaking it a bit.
I've made some changes to the text, to make it easier to see and last longer.
Thank you for all the compliments and the great feedback you provided, it means a lot.
I checked on the movement system today and it felt better. I don't know if the perceived improvement was from a edit to the code or me knowing it was an 8 directional system.
Sadly I still had difficulty with text, example below. I suggest you open the image in fullscreen to see the problem clearly.
I think you made a good solution to the enemies problem and I am happy it was not pushed off tell after-jam.
Glad you noticed the improvements, I did some small alterations based on your and other peoples feedback. It remains an 8 direction system though. I think I came up with the best possible solution for the enemies, the suggestion from you helped the game a lot!
I see that text is small, It's a cursor system I mostly use that for development, it tells me the TAG of the gameobjects. Didn't really think about it because it doesn't serve any purpose.
There are still some things I wish I made better. Like when you enter a new level, using UI text would be way better. I still have a long way to go to become a good game developer, but it's a start. Appreciate the feedback as always!