Slimey Carnage (alpha)

[thebwainz]

I pushed a quick update to address some of the issues (see post above).

Ghost jump is allowing the player to jump even after they left a platform and started falling, usually just for a couple to several frames. It is used in the vast majority of platformers - at least good ones -, it vastly improves the feel of the game, and eliminates the latency issue where the player actually presses the jump button at the right time right at the edge of the platform, but because of latency, the jump press will register in time, and he will fall instead, or in the case of your game, cannot double jump after the air jump.

More elaborate articles:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20140810/223001/Game_Feel_Tips_I_The_Ghost_Jump.php

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamSaltsman/20100929/88155/Tuning_Canabalt.php

I see. I've read about that technique before, and I'll look into it.

Glad it helped, I reach the end of a project sometimes, and nothing help me improve it more than a brutal but friendly other pair of eyes. 

Yeah, that kind of feedback really is the most valuable. Thanks again!

[eXpl0it3r]

Ghost jump is allowing the player to jump even after they left a platform and started falling, usually just for a couple to several frames. It is used in the vast majority of platformers - at least good ones -, it vastly improves the feel of the game, and eliminates the latency issue where the player actually presses the jump button at the right time right at the edge of the platform, but because of latency, the jump press will register in time, and he will fall instead, or in the case of your game, cannot double jump after the air jump.

More elaborate articles:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20140810/223001/Game_Feel_Tips_I_The_Ghost_Jump.php

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamSaltsman/20100929/88155/Tuning_Canabalt.php

This has gotten my quite a lot. Would love to see this changed a bit.

[thebwainz]

Update!

09 Apr 2016
v0.1.4.2

• Fixed instant death when moving outside the screen: You can now move up to 1 tile outside the screen without getting killed.
• Added an ending sequence when beating the game! The sequence can be repeatedly played by beating the last level.
• Updated a few audio files that were supposed to be updated in previous versions. Now all music/ambience is up to date.
• Fixed a couple of bugs

You may have noticed the alpha tag was removed. This is because the campaign is 100% finished and I decided against creating new content (e.g. new game modes), and leave the game in its current state - at least for now.

As always, all feedback is welcome. If you find bugs please let me know.

Enjoy!

[KitKatKitten]

Awesome game, love the visuals and sound. Simple, but requires timing and precision and challenges the player's skill. I really like it. Yeah, it's difficult, but not (too) unfair. 

Constructive feedback:

• The ghost jump someone else mentioned would help the game feel so much better. The game requires plenty of double-jumping right off the edge, which makes this kind of mechanic much more impactful on the game. I would say 1 in 4 deaths are due to slipping at the edge and failing to double jump.
• Consider speeding UP the bullets from the shooters. As it stands, they are so slow that you often have to worry about every bullet more than once, since you can outrun them so easily. You jump to dodge a bullet then land back on it. You can dodge a bullet, cross the entire screen, and find yourself having to dodge it again. There's also the funny scenario of getting killed by a bullet, then getting killed by it again after respawning. They just travel so slowly.
• How about allowing the player to exit the screen through an open ceiling? Getting killed by the open sky seems like...an unintuitive obstacle.
• Exploit: you can exit the level and re-enter it somewhere else. Example: Level 2-10. You can exit to the right of the spawn point, fall a little bit, and re-enter onto the platform below, which happens to be the exit, effectively skipping the entire level.
• This next bit is pure opinion, feel free to ignore it, but I think the spike block hitbox should be slightly smaller than the normal block hitbox. Right now, if there are a normal block and a spike block side-by-side, and you're standing on top of the normal block, poking your character slightly out above the spike block results in death. It would match the visuals, and feel better, if you could "hang" from the normal block above the spike block, kinda like how you can "hang" from a block and not fall down from it.

That was quite a bit of feedback, but it's because I like this game and want it to be a bit better .

If I didn't mention something above, it just means it's good and warrants no complaints!

Keep it up!

[eXpl0it3r]

Consider speeding UP the bullets from the shooters. As it stands, they are so slow that you often have to worry about every bullet more than once, since you can outrun them so easily. You jump to dodge a bullet then land back on it. You can dodge a bullet, cross the entire screen, and find yourself having to dodge it again. There's also the funny scenario of getting killed by a bullet, then getting killed by it again after respawning. They just travel so slowly.

While I have run into one bullets multiple times myself, I think speeding them up would make action in close range quite a lot harder.

[thebwainz]

Sorry for the late reply, I was kind of busy.... anyway: Thank you, I appreciate it! I have implemented some stuff you mentioned. In fact, I have been working on the game a lot for the past few weeks and it's soon getting a full release.

[eXpl0it3r]

Awesome!
You obviously already got my YES vote! Hope this gets quite some traction.

Do you have a Twitter account?

[thebwainz]

Awesome!
You obviously already got my YES vote! Hope this gets quite some traction.

Do you have a Twitter account?

Thanks for the support!

I don't have a Twitter account.

I probably should have started using Twitter a long time ago... I was just never really into that whole thing. I might create an account soon and start posting updates and gain some followers but I have literally no experience with it and I'm not sure if it's worth it / too late?

[eXpl0it3r]

For the promotion of the game, it may be a bit too late, yes. Getting a group of followers can take some time.
But it's never really too late. If it gets some traction people might well search for it on Twitter and through the promotion of the game at other places, you can at the same time "promote" your Twitter account.

[Ironbell]

Voted Good luck with your greenlight campaign!

[thebwainz]

Thanks! I'll post an update soon (next week or so) on how it's going.