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I haven't posted here much lately because I've been busy with all kinds of things, but I've also been working on a new little game for my site. It's an autoscrolling 2D retro platformer, and if anyone wants to try it out, here's a link: http://www.dibblez.com/game18.php

It might still need a little bit of tweaking, but I'd love to hear what you guys think.

Edit: updated the link with the final version.

I'd kill for a cheakpoint. It's pretty fun so far, though. I'll need to play it some more and see if I can get past the first level without using most of my lives.

Is it randomly generated? Or are there X number of each level layouts?

I've made 45 different screen-sized layouts that are randomly selected to form the levels, but they also get progressively harder (level 1 only uses the easiest layouts) A checkpoint might not be a bad idea actually.

That's a cool game. I really like the idea of switching up who's in the lead, but that antigrav dude confuses the heck out of me.

Man, yeah a halfway point would be pretty rad. Also the ability to switch order in midair, which didn't seem to be working, for me at least.

Pretty nifty though.

By the way, did you see you have credits at the bottom of the page?

yeah, thanks a lot for the link Dave!

I'll start working on a checkpoint system. Thanks for bringing that up! Switching in mid air is disabled, because that would allow you to float by quickly switching back and forth between normal gravity and anti gravity, which would be kinda cool, but it would also make most of the game pointless.

True, it's just that I found so few occasions where I NEEDED antigrav that when I actually DID need it I ended up falling down a big hole, unable to switch to it. Really trial-and-error. Maybe this balances out as you get past the first level, as I was only able to do once.

Is there any way to get extra lives? Maybe you could scatter some around the level that cause players to come dangerously close to fire/walls/cliffs in order to get? I dunno, might help.

I like the concept. I found it a combination of a) a bit too difficult and b) not a whole lot of visible reward, and between the two of them I had a hard time maintaining interest.

I absolutely love Robot Unicorn Attack, which is close to the same difficulty but has a catchy song and happy dolphins showing up sporadically to keep me motivated. You're obviously more concerned with the game design than graphics or sound, but I think you could retool it so that players with less practice at this sort of thing can get a reward before they give up in frustration.

(I actually liked the antigrav guy and used him more often than the double jump guy at first. I do think that it was really frustrating when you needed one guy and then rapidly needed to switch to another guy who was 2 clicks away. I'd replace the arrow keys with three hot keys that let you select whichever one you want.)

Also, buttons need to be more responsive or something. When I miss a jump I should be thinking "damn, missed that jump" not "what the hell? I jumped. I jumped DAMNIT!" This is particularly infuriating in those sections where you come out from under a ledge, and then you have one square in which to make the jump before you fall into a pit.

A related issue is that the double jump thing only seems to work half the time and never when I need it to.

I agree with having set keys for each color. If you tried to cycle through til you got to the color you wanted the anti grav guy would stop you since he makes you go up in the air and cant switch til you are on the ceiling. Otherwise pretty good and really tough. oh If you wanted to stick with using only arrows you could have right be fire, down antigrav and left double jumper

Actually I just realized that since there's only three guys and you have a forward and backward button that's not really an issue.

Its just annoying because you have to keep thinking "ok Im blue have to go left to get to red right to green" but then you go to green and have to think "ok left to blue and right to red" and it is very easy to get them mixed up because you are switching quite often and kill yourself because you hit the wrong one.

For your problems with the double jump guy he only double jumps if his first was on the ground. If you are coming down off of a platform he will only jump once since you are considered in the air and he only does one air jump at a time.

Thanks for playing everybody!
I've uploaded a new version with a checkpoint about halfway through each level, which should make the game a little bit easier. I also totally agree that switching can be confusing at first, but I do like the simplicity of it. Maybe I should just have both options: left and right for switching and 1,2,3 for selecting a color.
And Rovewin is right about the blue guy. He has a single air jump, so he can jump twice from a platform or jump once when falling down, which I thought was pretty standard for doublejumps/airjumps.

Understanding the blue guy helps a little, but the game still feels pretty unforgiving when trying jump off a ledge. It seems like as soon as part of your front character is even partway off the ledge, you can't jump anymore. Although sometimes I'm on a flat surface and the button still feels unresponsive. It might just be me.

The halfway point is definitely nice. Having a giant sign in the middle feels a little forced and runs against some weird grain in my head - for some reason it would feel more natural to me for the level to be split into 3 pieces than two. (3 or more and it feels like a checkpoint, 2 just feels like it should be two different levels or something. I can't really explain why)

I'll give you one thing though, it's addicting. Man, I had the easiest first level yet (never had to switch guys) but I just kept getting killed on stupid mistakes. Finally I make it to the 2nd level and just misjudge a jump and it's game over.

I will get to level 3 though. This I swear.

Updated again (same link)
Now you can also use the 1, 2 and 3 buttons to select red, green and blue, but the switching with arrow keys still works as well.
I've also fixed a little bug that might have caused some of the jumping issues Raemon was having. There was a tiny invisible gap between layouts which caused you to "fall" for 1/60 second.
Good luck getting to level 3 I haven't been able to get past level 5 myself yet.

I only got to play a few times but i did notice that the jumping issue is better but still exists. It mainly happens when you land right on the edge of a platform. Also I don't know if you wanted it to do this or not but I did notice that when you die and hit retry it keeps your score from the last time

FUUUUUUUUU

I got the level 3 FINALLY! But I was on my last life. Then, for whatever reason, I decided to jump at the continue sign and ran into it and died.

I WILL GET TO LEVEL 4!

---------- Post added at 09:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 PM ----------

HA!

LEVEL 4!

WTF THOUGH! I have to double jump, land and INSTANTLY switch to my fire guy. I WILL get to level 5 though.

Holy crap this game is fun.

hylian said:

I only got to play a few times but i did notice that the jumping issue is better but still exists. It mainly happens when you land right on the edge of a platform. Also I don't know if you wanted it to do this or not but I did notice that when you die and hit retry it keeps your score from the last time

Click to expand...

I can't believe I missed the score reset thing. Thanks for mentioning it I fixed that, and I also completely changed the jumping controls. I think the problem happend when you press the jump button right before you hit the ground and it wouldn't register. Hopefully it feels better now.

phil said:

HA!

LEVEL 4!

WTF THOUGH! I have to double jump, land and INSTANTLY switch to my fire guy. I WILL get to level 5 though.

Holy crap this game is fun.

Click to expand...

Hehe, yeah it gets pretty brutal in the higher levels. Glad you're enjoying it

I like this game a lot more now that the jumping works 100% of the time, it's a lot less frustrating.

Having now topped out at level 3.5, I can't believe that I EVER died on level 1.

Fun times y'all.

ooooooooh now I get it.

What I thought was a double jump then instantly switch to fire guy, is ACTUALLY reverse gravity at *just*the right moment and then go to fire before you hit the wall of fire.

I'm on to you


Now if only I could get to level 4 more often.

I think this might benefit from something similar to Spelunky, wherein after you've beaten a level a certain number of times you are able to skip it. When you reach the point that you can beat a level without dying once, getting past it just becomes tedious.

Of course, you might happen to get through once easily on a fluke. But maybe for every two levels you get past without dying, give a password that players can use to skip the previous levels. So, if you can beat both levels 1 and 2 without dying, you can skip level level. If you can beat levels 2 and 3 without dying, you get the password to skip level 2. You'll still miss out on points so if you want to get the full credit there's still a reason to a perfect playthrough from the beginning.

Raemon777> Interesting idea, but all the games on my site are highscore-based and this one now also has a highscore list. Skipping levels would be bad for your score, so I'm not sure many people would use it. If it was a more traditional game, I'd certainly consider using passwords or something similar, but I'm not going to bother with it now.

Here's the final version of the game, with higscores: http://www.dibblez.com/game18.php
Thanks for testing and all the feedback, guys! Really appreciated.

When all I'm trying to do is practice a new level, I'm not terribly worried about high scores. There's a particular section that doesn't appear until level 3 (where you have to use antigrav, and switching back to normal is tricky without hitting a wall on the way down). Until I learn how to beat that section I'm not going to be getting scores any higher than I have right now, and having to run through levels 1 and 2 before I can even try to practice at level 3 is frustrating. I usually give up after one or two tries, whereas before (when level 1 and 2 still offered a challenge) I would try repeatedly.

I actually regard it as a weakness when the only thing a game has to offer me is high scores. If your game was just one long level that gradually got harder I wouldn't still be playing it - I'm motivated to keep playing because getting new levels with new artwork/themes makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. (The other thread with the article on the techniques that MMOs use is relevant for any game. I recommend giving it a read if you haven't already).

Some games don't really have anything to offer but a high score list and are still fun, but I don't see any reason to arbitrarily limit yourself to that.