Comments on 304: The Number of the Ben: Appleseed Prototype, Part 5

TwinMoon - Thanks for the compliments and critique...

2008-10-29T03:26:00.000-07:00

TwinMoon - Thanks for the compliments and critique, I appreciate these both equally :).

TheJBurger - Yep, another thing I stupidly forgot to mention in the post :/. I'm glad this resolved the issue and made the game much harder ;)

Sebastian - I, too, was concerned that someone should say "I finished this in one shot" when I still die playing the level after designing it and playing it several hundred times :D.

Paul - Very good point, and I agree entirely. The fact that there are still bugs in this game shows that point, and I actually spent a lot more time testing and fixing bugs for the game than I did drawing or building it, funnily enough. I do agree that bug fixing is entirely worth it; I don't want to release something that looks slapped together or cheap :)

"11. Fix remaining bugs."Hm... would that it were ...

2008-10-29T01:11:00.000-07:00

"11. Fix remaining bugs."

Hm... would that it were so...

It's more like "11. Fix all remaining bugs you can find." Believe me, I fix bugs for a living and the to-do list only gets longer... The trouble is that you fix those last two bugs, then the game (or program) goes in to the beta-testing stage and the user comes back with twenty more.

Still, I don't want to be too negative. Even if after fixing an insane/ridiculous/considerable number of bugs there are still a few little ones knocking around, a program is still going to be in pretty good shape for all that bug-fixing, and users will thank you for it.

There! I was really wondering how anybody could fi...

2008-10-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

There! I was really wondering how anybody could find this too easy and doubting my long standing jump'n'run operating experience.

Ah. Alt+Enter fixed it. That was weird. Now it fee...

2008-10-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Ah. Alt+Enter fixed it. That was weird. Now it feels like it's too fast. :P I consistently die on about 2-3 goblins now.

I was going to say it was incredibly easy, but hit...

2008-10-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

I was going to say it was incredibly easy, but hitting alt+enter fixed that.
Played at the right speed (;-) it's a very enjoyable game, and I think it's not too easy but also not too difficult.

This is really a fun game, even when it is only one level.
Although I'm still ambivalent about the die-and-get-promoted-thing; I'm not sure I would pick up a powerup if it meant I would get weaker.

If I may do some unasked-for betatesting:
- Not being able to strike while jumping make Applecore softcore, but JB already said that.
- When you hit the spacebar the game restarts (which is annoying when you acciden- tally touch it halfway through the level ;) )

Thanks for trying it out, J :)I agree that in this...

2008-10-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks for trying it out, J :)

I agree that in this particular stage it is possibly harder to play as Applecore, perhaps with better level design I can reverse this. Incidentally, it took me about 18 seconds to get through the level as Appleseed and 19 to get through it as Applecore (using the attack function on perhaps half or a third of the goblins).

If it ran slow for you it might mean that the window resize thing is doing strange things. If you hit Alt+Enter once it should all go to normal speed (Without resizing). Perhaps this is why you found it easier?

Anyhow, I appreciate the comments and it's given me plenty to think on :).

I had the exact opposite experience as bundeskanzl...

2008-10-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

I had the exact opposite experience as bundeskanzler. I thought it was too easy, and I never died once on my first try. (I guess your initial assumption about a needed difficulty curve was correct!)

I died intentionally to play as applecore, but I thought playing as applecore was actually harder. It was harder to judge the time of your swings with the varying movement speeds of the goblins in order to kill them. I thought it was much simpler just to jump over them.

The animation and jumping also appeared to be a bit in 'slo-motion.' This occasionally made it hard to time jumps and falls.

Graphics and sound were nice, as usual. :)

As a demo, I had fun, but it's very simple right now. I think you might need more gameplay mechanics for the concept to work better.

Oh damn, I forgot to mention one thing.You have to...

2008-10-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

Oh damn, I forgot to mention one thing.

You have to be stopped in order to attack! (sorry, I'm quite tired and I guess the forgetting of this shows that :P)

Considering that most of my games people say "too easy" I thought I'd make it challenging - perhaps I went too far?

Most of the goblins can be jumped over (the one with the short platform I rarely kill because it is not worth it). The main point of the game is to avoid goblins, not to kill them :). I could make it easier, I guess, but I've played it so many times I guess I know the level like the back of my trousers.

Perhaps instead of a different colours thing I could do different enemies completely? Such as "Oh dear, it's a knight, I must be careful" or "Oh, it's just a goblin, this shouldn't be too hard"? I thought making them a different speed would add much needed difficulty - perhaps I was too worried that the game would be easy?

Thanks for the feedback, anyway :D

Oh, what do you know, I finished it! What makes th...

2008-10-27T05:12:00.000-07:00

Oh, what do you know, I finished it! What makes the game very hard is the lack of aility to judge the speed of the goblins - they all look the same but the all walk at different speeds.

How about simply enforcing a different style of clothing for the goblins and thus indicating their speed, along with maybe four uniform speed levels? I am thinking of a "Oh no, it's one of the fast pink ones, watch out!" reactions here...

I've been playing it for some 10 minutes now with ...

2008-10-27T05:05:00.000-07:00

I've been playing it for some 10 minutes now with my trusty old Logitech Wingman, and I have to say: Too damn hard!

I'm a pretty okay player when it comes to Jump'n'Runs, but one-touch-death always puts me off a bit and doesn't encourage me to try harder. Also, Applecore didn't seem like much of an alleviation of my fear of goblins - the detection of her attack is too fiddly, in my opinion, and you can't strike while you're in the air, which makes the platform with the very fast goblin almost unbeatable.

I'll try it again and harder soon, that's just my unbiased and hopefully not too harsh feedback at first glance.