Puzzle Moppet (source released)

[grumpymonkey]

I like it but PLEASE if your going to have grid-based actions then have grid-based movement!! Its super annoying to have to fall along a grid and then be able to walk diagonally. I accidentally fall off and I have to restart the level

btw nice update last time I saw this it was pretty good now its like complete.

Some things i didn't like:
It went kinda slow at times even though I have 5gb of RAM and a 4870 ati gfx card(I can play bfbc 2 with no lagg, but not this) so the shaders should be checked again.

Also the little animation in the beginning with the title and the dude that falls was too slow and I though it had frozen and I was about to quit before I saw the dude fall. You should add something moving in the back, like animated water or a portal on the floating island. Just so you know its not frozen.

Also, a nice menu would be great. High scores, completed stages, settings(to DISABLE SHADERS), etc. The pause menu was nice.

The sounds were too quiet! I wouldn't have even noticed there was sound unless I coincidentally stepped on an elevator at that little interval when pandora decides what song to play next. Even when I turned my music off I couldn't hear it that well. So that should be improved.

One more thing: Its REALLY hard at times! You need to get a really good look at the level before you do anything otherwise you'll get stuck. A cool feature would be a birdseye view of the map so you can see everything and can plan your strategy.

What I did like:
GRAPHICS!! They were amazing, I loved the grass and elevator textures they look great. It kinda bothered me that the character didn't have a nose o.0 but oh well not that big of a problem.

Animations. The portal looked cool and everything transitioned smoothly. The magic portal things looked nice as well.

Gameplay. The puzzles were fun and got me thinking. I didn't, however, like that all you could do was push around boxes and step on elevators. Maybe add some more stuff to do, like stepping on enemies or jumping over lava pits.

Overall its a nice polished game. You just need to fix that grid-based/non grid-based movement scheme orgy you came up with. Its annoying to fall off because you thought you were aligned with the box. Shaders are laggy, and the gameplay is redundant.

I give it 8.5/10 stars

[pera]

Got crashed on my integrated graphics, then I turned off shaders and fullscreen and it worked well.

I also think animation in the beginning was poor, I think i saw some text based adventures with better animation back in 1985

I feel that every game no matter how simple should have a background story, and intro animation is good place to tell beginning part of that story.

"At the very beginning, the world was stiff. Inhabit only by Eternity Winds. Then, lovely animated mute character named Kiki silently flew across the screen. And everything was still again. Few years later, he fell on the mandatory floating piece of the ground. And so our adventure begins."

Game atmosphere with no music is at first spooky but eventually grows to good playing experience. I missed jumping but soon realized that is the puzzly part so no problem. I loved the puzzles. Heavy but solvable. I had to restart each level few times, but it doesn't get annoying. I really loved it. Its polished little puzzle game. Will play it more.

Suggestions:

If you have two ground levels, like in second level, grass on higher level could be slightly different shade of green, so you can easily differentiate slopes. I don't know if I explained this well, but on second level couldn't tell if that whirlpool portal is on higher ground or not.

If you want to sell it, I think the game is missing budget intro animation, story, youtube trailer, youtube gameplay video (on high graphics settings), option to turn on music.

All in all, wonderful work. Keep it coming!

[serengeor]

I wouldn't really buy it because its not my type of game, and it needs to be improved a lot if you're going to sell it.

I remember a game that was in 2D and you had to push boxes into marked places in order to beat the level, it was kind of fun trying to figure out everything, but I understand that this is something else.

The boxes fall of and you have to restart, also if you step on the ?fan? you get stuck up in the air.

Character is not attractive to me can't really explain why, maybe he needs some more happyness in his face.

Good luck on your game

[Strong99]

@serengeor, that thing is for the boxes Also I think the falling boxes is just the trick to make it harder. In other box games pushing them against the wall results most times in unmovable boxes. So its just the game element Same for those stupid lifts, I got always stuck because the lift doesn't move back and I'm so stupid to just jump of the higher platforms!

@xDan, I thought in the intro "do" I miss something? And then some seconds later the character fell down. Didn't seem like something would happen. Maybe somewhat faster?

Beside that, I think the game quite is self explaining

[serengeor]

@strong99 I know I was just playing around and tought of walking myself on it
And maybe you're right about the boxes.

[xDan]

Thanks guys, that's some awesome feedback

Two things mentioned I have thought about quite a bit: the lack of grid based movement and the lack of a menu system.

Regarding grid based movement, I thought that would be quite restrictive, e.g. you have to walk in a zigzag pattern to go diagonally, you can't just walk from A to B exactly how you want. Also, unless the camera is at a fixed angle it is not always intuitive as to which grid direction the player should move in. (And I can't fix the camera, since some puzzles require you looking all about the environment). I'd like to hear more people's opinions on this.

Menu, I know I should have a proper menu system. But it is a lot of (boring) work. I was hoping to pass the lack of a menu off as the game being intuitive to play, i.e. it starts and immediately you are in this 3D world, without any 2D menu taking you out of it, so it is more immersive. And then the levels just come one after another like you're travelling through this world. I guess most puzzle games do have some kind of level selection system though. Hmm.

[serengeor]

Regarding grid based movement, I thought that would be quite restrictive, e.g. you have to walk in a zigzag pattern to go diagonally, you can't just walk from A to B exactly how you want.

I think that walking in 'zigzag' is actually the proper way to go as you can't push boxes on the edges, and you don't want user to go trough two boxes like

Code: Select all

0B0
BX0
000

Code: Select all

XB0
B00
000

X = user
B = box

Actually this could be avoided but still I don't think its really necessary to have 8 direction motion.

[xDan]

He still can't go through boxes like that if they're fixed (like ground tiles). Only movable boxes would get pushed out the way. But yes I get what you're saying, I need to consider this.

*off to research block pushing games*

[Tihtinen]

One example of a good game with lots of block puzzles and a non-grid based movement are the newer Legend of Zelda -titles. It was alright so I don't think it is the problem here.

What I suggest though is that the player wouldn't so easily push the blocks by accident. For example that it would need a second of pushing before the block actually moves.

And btw, very nice game overall : )

[RaverGames]

Wow this game look great love the Design!

[xDan]

@Tihtinen, yup, I think I must also make it so only when you walk directly towards a block it is pushed. I haven't played the Zelda games, I'll look up some videos. Thanks!

I think sadly the post by arjdrine06 may be spam...

[xDan]

Hey peoples, I have a quick question:

Can anyone give me a rough idea of how long it took them to complete a particular level? (or better still, tell me how many levels you did and the total time). Just a guess would be fine!

So I can get an idea of the amount of gameplay time there is at the moment, and thus an idea of how many levels I need to make in total.
(and if you have an opinion on that too, let me know )

[xDan]

Ok. The game is now more or less "finished", though I won't properly attempt marketing it for a while until any bugs have been completely fixed. Yes it's probably rubbish, no-one will buy it, and it's priced far too expensive etc.

Once again, anyone testing it is much appreciated. It's available for Windows and Linux. Also any opinions on the website? I'm no web designer, but I try.

NEW FEATURES (but only in the full version ):
- 18 levels (the later ones will hopefully be rather hard and time consuming)
- more block types (ice blocks, exploding ground, balloons)
- end game sequence



See the website here: http://garnetgames.com

(So I'm now calling myself "Garnet Games"... and the game is called "Puzzle Moppet". Don't ask )

[fmx]

Not a bad website, clean and crisp.
Navigation is a bit of a pain though, when you click "More Info >>" there is no easy way to go back to home page (clicking Back on the browser is not always possible)

You can always vary the price later, but I wouldn't charge too highly for your first game, not immediately on release.
If you feel the game isn't going to be a blockbuster smash (lets face it, how many of us do?) then setting a low initial price can help to gain some loyal followers quickly

Will try the demo later though
Congrats anyway

[shadowslair]

Sometimes when the new level is loaded, I get strange results:
http://pics.data.bg/categories/1/%D0%BE ... tmap_image

About the website, I totally share fmx`s opinion.