"Release" Contest Feedback (voting closed)

[squirmonkey]

Can someone please clarify for me? I dont understand what everyone loves so much about the airplane game?

--Ryan K

Did you see the number of explosions?! Good god man, the explosions!

Really? That's your criterion? Explosions?

[Cefallon]

Can someone please clarify for me? I dont understand what everyone loves so much about the airplane game?

--Ryan K

Did you see the number of explosions?! Good god man, the explosions!

*Sigh* Matt, stop trolling.

Bruce managed to take the theme and make a fun game out of it. I wouldn't say I -love- the game (the theme is only in the game mechanics, and not in the story theme of the game itself, which I would have liked), but it is, in my opinion, the best of the entries. And I like all of them, by the way.

[Theotherguy]

Can someone please clarify for me? I dont understand what everyone loves so much about the airplane game?

--Ryan K

Did you see the number of explosions?! Good god man, the explosions!

Really? That's your criterion? Explosions?

Well that, and it was really fun and witty.

[Bruce]

Bruce: What's the source of the music?

If you press F1, you can see the credits/instructions. The music is a band called Binaerpilot (all their stuff is free to download from their website http://binaerpilot.no).

Assuming I can't vote for myself, here's my votes:
1. Ben: Love the graphics and music, but I wish the game got harder as time progressed (more UFOs perhaps)
2. Duncan, Connor, and Matt: The game is a bit confusing, but I eventually got the hang of it. Instructions would have been helpful. Also, it seems odd that the game gets easier as you progress, instead of getting harder.
3. Ryan: I really disliked the graphics in the game. The whole rainbow background was a bit overwhelming. Also, the ball getting stuck in the walls glitch was annoying. I like the amount of content in the game, but I found that the game wasn't particularly challenging, since for the first several levels (I didn't play too long for this reason) it seemed like you could just leave the ball bouncing for a long time, occasionally nudging it, and the level would solve itself if you waited.

And if it makes anyone feel any better, you can think of it as trying to get released from your debt. Also, the missiles don't launch (or track you) if you're flying below radar and you can blow them up with your bombs.

[Cefallon]

Bruce's comments raise an interesting question -- Do games always need to get harder as they go on? This is a common assumption, and generally correct -- but I personally believe not universally so. It depends on what kind of story you are trying to tell. For example, Phoenix Wright cases sometimes get easier towards the end of a case, to give the sense that the case is unwinding and things are falling into place. The most difficult part is often in the middle, when you have yet to figure out what is truely going on -- and this makes sense.

In the case of our guilt game, the original concept was that the player would be told to "escape" at the beginning. Like a warioware mini-game, part of the challenge was to figure out "how" they were supposed to escape -- in most cases, escaping as defined by running. However, in order to be released from guilt, you have to confront it -- which is why in order to win our game, you actually have to stand in one place and fight it -- running only results in you becoming more and more weighed down. Thus, it makes sense that it would become easier the longer you confronted it -- you are slowly being 'released' from your guilt over time.

[Theotherguy]

Connor, the answer is yes. Yes they do.

[zizhuang]

This space reserved for me to remind myself to give feedback later today.

EDIT: So, since the voting was already closed by the time my plane landed in PGH, I figured I'd be a bit lazier about getting back to this. Nevertheless, here it is. Note that most of the adjectives here I use are relative to the other entries, and are probably not statements in the general case.

Bruce: Good show for the competition-level!

• Gameplay is enjoyable and engaging. Controlling bomb trajectory based on velocity is a nice touch that makes playing the game feel more natural - in that you can think about wanting to drop bombs somewhere and do it without having to wonder how.
• Design could use a bit of work. Haphazardly carpet bomb with normal bombs and it's really hard to lose if you just worry about evading enemies and painful things, but the big bomb rarely pays off - and also requires thought in placement. Some windows seem impossible to hit - like if tall buildings are packed closed together. That aside, the feedback of actions is nice and immediate, and you can do things while expecting the results, thus allowing the player to gauge difficulty of doing something. Probably the most fun out of the entries to play, and the only one that gives a sense of challenge.
• Music fits the touch, but I think this game would be much more improved with some low-key SFX for window breaking/bomb releasing, and especially for launching rockets and turrets shooting at you.
• Theme following is good. The title screen tells you what you're getting, and you get it.
• Story is fairly throwaway, but with this kind of game (as with many side-scrolling shooters) it doesn't matter as much.

Ryan:

• Hate to lay it on you, and this is partially not your fault, but I really, really hate Breakout-esque games.
  
  • Momentum is not consistent and actually tends to go -down- as you get closer to finishing a level, due to many more bounces being dead ones. Or ones you don't care about.
  • Momentum often just dies when the ball bounces trapped within a room of indestructible blocks (happened to me on Level 2) for any significant amount of time. Your controls do not actively effect the flow of the game - they just keep it from slowing down further or stopping - which doesn't make the game 'alive'.
  • It is entirely possible to 'accidentally' break out without having rescued anyone intentionally. You then have to restart the entire level, which is both momentum breaking, infuriating, and a consequence that might have nothing to do with player failure.
  Like Breakout becomes something to do as a past time as opposed to a fun game where the player commits themselves, this game suffers a similar plague due to inconsistent momentum and the lack of natural controls.
• As Matt commented on before, the usage of a mouse for a control scheme would improve the control scheme, as would the usage of a smaller 'breaker bot'. Remember that small size means that you have less firm control over the bounces, but it will at least let you deal with very unfortunate circumstances like the one in Level 2 where you can have Dr. G. Ray 'stuck' in the same box for hours.
• Oh, and 'excusing' away physics flaws in getting stuck with in-game snark is probably not the best way to get player favor. At least, compared to fixing the flaws.
• Lots of content design, which shows time spent. Unfortunately, the amount of content you have will do nothing to salvage unengaging gameplay. I got up to powerups but never bothered to go on, and doing even that took me multitudes more time then it took me to go through the other games, even though playing became a chore for me about as quickly.
• Music fits the touch, but could also make use of SFX, as in Bruce's game. Plenty of event triggers in this game that you could attach SFX to.
• Theme following is good. Liberating oneself is an interesting way to go, though I should hope a liberator has more control over their actions than trying to control the motion of an indestructible yet completely rubber ball. The relative lack of player-side control of game proceedings really hurt here.
• Story is fairly throwaway, but with this kind of game it doesn't matter as much. After all, most games of its kin just don't have a story, period!

Ben

• Gameplay is simplistic and natural, though it seems strange that you can point and click to places where the water hose can't possibly reach, like the top right corner when you aren't right under it (This is probably fine). The ability to move and shoot at the same time, funnily, struck out to me here (it usually would not) because I had played DCM before you, but it is comfortable to control nonetheless.
• Design could use a bit of work. It's not hard to just shepherd the UFOs into one corner, and then just keep your hose on the place they're stacked together in forever. Given a mouseclick bot that communicates to the applet, you could keep the game going for an arbitrary amount of time, and herding them in a corner isn't that hard, either. The lack of feedback, however, really hurts. You don't know how well you're doing, don't know how long you have to do it, and the only way to end the game is to lose.
• Music fits the 8-bit style. Could probably use some accompanying SFXes.
• Theme following is good, and similar to Ryan's.

DCM

• I really do have a thing against the controls in this case. Why make it so that you can't move and shoot at the same time? It breaks the game mechanic one way or another - as is, once sufficiently frustrated with the controls, one realizes that they don't have to care about moving as long as they shoot back, so they can finish the game without ever noticing that you get faster as you get less mucky. On the other hand, if you have to move and shoot (and have to struggle with being in 'shoot' mode and in 'not-shoot, move' mode) with this control scheme, you'll spend more time being annoyed at the controls than actually playing the game.
• In addition, shooting is really unnatural in real time if you have to use controls to directly change the angle rather than just shooting where you want. This style of aiming pretty much results in a scatter shot game style in any real-time game I've seen with the system - and since you 'lose your aim' if you move in the middle of shooting here, you might as well just sit still and keep a steady aim rather than move around and then lose your sense of aim due to 'left' both meaning angle change and movement. Really big ouchie here. Also, why be able to shoot the top right corner of the screen when -nothing- that can be shot ever goes there?
• Design could use a bit of work. If you don't do anything for a bit, the game becomes literally unwinnable, as your rate of shooting things is overwhelmed by their spawn rate + their fire rate (it doesn't help that moving and shooting nerfs your shooting rate so bad that you essentially take more damage doing it then just shooting) - so you stay at the state one muckier than the one you start with forever. On the other hand, it's way too easy, as dodging the shots is completely optional (which betrays the point of the game) and just scatter shooting in roughly the right arc will win you the game.
• The music here is pretty nice, as are the transitions from track to track as you 'change forms'. Again, could use a touch of SFX, especially when you're trying to give the player a feel of what shooting actually means in this case (ie. heals you).
• Theme following is... interesting. The player will likely have no clue what's going on the entire time they play the game, and be all 'what' when they get to the end, can still shoot, but there is nothing to shoot and nothing but barren landscape to infinity on both sides. There is no story exposition here nor any hint given to the player, so nobody who plays has any clue what goes on - like a gigantic inside joke that outside people would have to completely speculate upon. Art game or not, it's a silly way to carry a meaning. Getting faster as you get healed more is a nice touch, but as I said before, without being able to shoot + move, the chance that people will find it useful is a lot less.

[The_Chris]

This space reserved for me to remind myself to give feedback later today.

This is a method I could learn from.

[Cefallon]

I'm a little late, but voting is now closed. It appears that Bruce is our winner. He should come to the next GCS meeting to pick up his prize. However, even with voting closed, Feedback is still appreciated!

Also, for those of you who did not have a chance to participate, we will be having another contest sometime this year. With even more prizes. So do not despair! There is still hope!