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elsee7

7 Game Reviews w/ Response

All 10 Reviews

Graphics
- Great work all-around
- Some font characters seem to have alignment problems (lowercase 'l'/ uppercase 'I' are placed too much to the left, 'V' seems to be placed too much to the right)
- I'd like more contrast on the button text strings color
- the phoneguard legs animation is not 100% convincing (they seem to drag rather than walk)
- the animation when falling down from a platform should be the same used when jumping (the idle pose is used instead)

Sound
- impressive music, sets the tone of the game wonderfully
- the sound effect when I click on buttons/help screens/enable audio is pretty harsh
- the sound effect when the player lands is a little too 'bouncy'
- a simple sound effect when colliding with blue objective symbols would have added to the sense of progression of the game
- when I reach the street level, it would be nice to hear a street ambient background noise
- what about a (realistic, not cartoony) sound effect when jumping ?
- a sound effect should be played when a tower is completely disabled

Interface
- It is not perfectly clear that you have to click on the phone screen to get to the next page of the
instructions (a prompt of some sort would be very helpful)
- The second help screen "you now..." should be the first, the third should be the second, and the first help screen should be the third one
- I would not display the disabling mine counter for missions that do not use them

Gameplay
- I wish I had a checkpoint during the rooftop mission
- the elevator should be 'enterable' from below, too (the player sprite remains stuck with the jumping pose)
- what does a tower on the ground/street level do ?
- During the random mission selection, does the game also present the missions that were already completed ?

Crashes/Mishaps
- pausing/quitting the game does not reset the objective counter
- a few typos: 'You now live int' 'wont' 'recive' 'both edges the city' 'be slaved'
- I disabled the first phoneguard throwing a disabling mine along its path, but the counter did not
increase

Bottom Line
- A very well done platform game, with elements that reminded me of mirror's edge and watch dogs, and perfectly nails the theme of the construct 2 jam, imho.

BobieThe11th responds:

Thank you very much man!
you are right on every word!

Graphics
- Very nice parallax effect
- The 'play' button has a distinctive sci-fi style
- Nice work with the main ship bitmap, I would have liked a tilted bitmap when moving left/right, though
- I also would have liked more variety with the enemy ships, at least different shades of color
- Since each enemy takes more than one shot to be killed (unless you launch a missile), some sort of differentiation (different color/differently 'dented' sprites) would have given a good visual feedback

Sound
- Nice eerie title screen track
- Good (even if a little short) game over loop
- As about the in-game music, It feels more like a 'gangsta rap' song than a space one, making the game involuntarily hilarious (unless you were going for that vibe, of course...)
- I was expecting a sound effect when launching the missile

Interface
- When I first started playing, I had a hard time telling what the numbers displayed on screen meant (displaying the missile and 'energy object' bitmap besides the digits should suffice)

Gameplay
- The game has its own playability, I liked the auto-fire and the fact that both damage and fuel revolve around the same unit of measure
- Difficulty progression seems missing, I reached 3000 points without any change of pace
- Using the keys to move the ship is not a viable option due to the inertia of the ship

Crashes/Mishaps
- The game name is 'Space Odissey' while the bitmap says 'Space Odyssey'
- When the game is over, I get 'Pontos' instead of 'Points'
- When I collect 10 missiles, the number disappears, only to reappear when I have 11 missiles

Bottom Line
- A simple but promising game, that has a lot of room for improvement.

GeneralTec responds:

Thanks for your feedback!
Check our latest update, i hope you like it!

And again, thanks again for the well written feedback, this is our first game from a group that started just for fun, so we know that we have so much to learn, and as players we know how important is to listen to the comunity!

-Leonardo "Owl" Felix, member of the GeneralTecnologia Team.

Warning: these notes contain spoilers

Graphics
- The 'square/pixel' concept is interesting and nicely presented
- The eye animation of the main character is very well done
- During the game, having the words of the voice-over shown on the screen adds to the overall 'comic-like' setting
- I would have opted for a darker background color, the sky-blue color feels too 'natural'
- The particle sprite is a little too small
- I could not follow the comic dialogs with ease because of the balloon positioning: it might be worth it to investigate the techniques to better render the flow of the dialog

Sounds
- Nice music throughout
- Maybe a sound effect when picking up items could have been added
- Also a sound effect when you turn the page of the comic would have added to the feeling of reading a 'real' comic

Interface
- It would have been nice to get some feedback once I got the key (open door/key shown in some inventory space or besides the player sprite)
- crossing the left/right boundary of some levels causes the level to restart, I would have liked a visual clue about this

Gameplay
- The game plays well, I had to fight a little with the jumping controls, though
- having infinite 'lives' is a good choice, imho

Glitches/Mishaps
- A few English mistakes ('they aren't not perfect' / 'did you smoked' / 'the only thing you must know about them IT that...')
- Right clicking on a page should automatically reset the page position to its left/topmost corner
- At the beginning Alice says that she loves Redd, at the end she says that she made him believe that she didn't love him

Bottom line
- An enjoyable platform game with an interesting setting, captivating comic-like presentation, great music, and an important final message.

Luminem responds:

^^ Thank syou very much :D I'm sorry for english mistakes, I'm from spain :P I know there are mistakes, and this game needs a GUI. But I have not enough time, just three days left until 'university access exam' and I've to study very much. I saw the announce of the contest yesterday and I wanted to participate so I made this game very fast (one day).
I'm sorry for the balloon positioning, this is the first time I make a comic.
I want to make this game better, so probably I'll fix all and I'll add more levels for a more detailed story, but not before Construct 2 Jam
Thanks you very much for your great review, it's very useful for me :D

Graphics
- I liked the style, good job
- You could consider some background scrolling, though, especially if you plan to add horizontal player movement

Sound
- Music is great and the sound effects are good, except for the 'enemy spawn' effect which is not particularly nice on the ears

Interface
- Having to press 'r' to restart does not feel very user-friendly to me: why forcing me to reach another key when I could just press 'z' or the spacebar ?
- When points are over 99, they get too close to the medal sprite
- If I choose not to use the online hi-score service, why does a window say 'your score was added' at the end of every game ? (this does not really happen, though, as my score is not saved on the leaderboard)

Gameplay
- The game idea is interesting, I liked the opportunity to choose between fire and stomp
- Why not allowing horizontal movement ? It would feel more natural and be very useful, especially when the game starts to speed up
- You can hit (and score on) the same enemy more than once with consecutive bullets: is this by design ?
- Difficulty ramps up too abruptly

Crashes/Mishaps
- When the game is over, the 'enemy spawn' sound effect should not be played
- When the game is over, if I press 'z' the corresponding sound effect is played
- Stomping enemies does not award any coins (a coin is shown but the score is not increased)
- At the beginning of the game (i.e. before they start moving vertically) some enemies are too high to be hit

Bottom Line
- A nice game with great potential, I found it an impressive achievement for just three hours work.
My high score is 111, did anybody really score 1594 points ?

jupitron responds:

Hi!
I´ve though about bg scrolling but to get it properly done would have taken me a lot of time, just wanted to "close it" as fast as possible with a "decent" quality, I mean not feeling like a prototype besides the game is pretty basic and has a lot of flaws.

About spawn sound fx, its cool you notice it, I found it annoying too but as before just wanted to finish it. I´ll soon change most of the things you notice.

About R key to restart, in first instance I´ve made a "press any key to restart" which is almost the same but if you are playing and lose and keep pressing keys in the very exact moment game over screen appears the restart happens too fast, i didnt want that, I´ll work around it, with some delay maybe.

Taking note about numbers too close to coin sprite.

When you lose your score is automatically uploaded as "Anonymus" if you didnt log in.

Haven´t really thought about moving freely, it´ll really change the entire game as skulls only spawn from the right side. I´ll need to change several things to feel correct with that kind of movement I think.

You can hit several times after hitting an enemy, is a combo but didnt have time to put a feedback number to get clearly. Did this felt ok or needs a change?

Difficulty curve needs a lot of playtesting, didn´t wanna to spend too much time so it was important to me that a player that enjoys this kind of game learns how to control and then go straight to the core that is to survive. With more time maybe I´ll make it more appealing but also think that the easy part gets kinda boring after losing on the hard part and knowing the real challenge if I can name it so.

Taking note of Crashes/Mishaps.

To end, let me thank you for your words, things like this just force to keep doing games besides some are good or bad, believe me that you are a valuable player that deserves to be listened and impulse me to make things better to give a better overall experience.

WARNING: these notes contain spoilers

Graphics
- Great job with the pixelated/lo-fi art (the perspective in the corridor seems off, though)
- In the corridor, some of the room names are a little too tiny to be easily read
- The item in the lower right corner of the lab is hard to tell (is it a broken sample vial ?)

Sounds
- The in-game lo-fi sounds feel coherent with the graphics
- The lo-lo-fi sound heard before starting a game is a little too hard on the ear

Interface
- The text boxes at the beginning are displayed too fast: keep in mind that not everybody can be fluent in your language ! A click-to-continue prompt would have been nice
- I would have liked a visual/verbal feedback when I picked up the security gear
- Clicking on the life support doors does not produce any feedback until you can enter the room
- 'what the f*ck'/'sh*t'... I didn't find the cursing appropriate with the sober/suspenseful setting of the game
- the sample machinery in the lab room can be clicked but no verbal/visual feedback is given unless a vial is dragged onto it
- the hint given when I tried to click on the sample room was a little weak/generic: instead of 'I should check the other rooms first', which is not something a real person would say, maybe something like 'Why should I go collecting samples ?' could better connect the player to the game objectives
- "I've been in the lab all day, I'm close." To 'be close' feels a little abrupt/incomplete... what is the author of the note close to ?
- when the credits appear at the end of the game, I would have liked to return to the main screen

Gameplay
- The game felt a little on the short side, but the overall experience was great.
- I was a little disappointed by the lack of a puzzle with the different vials, though (the notes about the colors seemed to hint at some form of interaction between them)
- When the game ended, I wanted to restart it and try different things/see different endings: I think this is the most important thing for an adventure game, and you nailed it

Crashes/Mishaps
- I don't know if this is by design, but I could not exit the lab without turning the lights on
- If I click more than once on the light switch in the lab, the 'sh*t...' text appears again
- If I enter/leave/enter again the lab, I cannot longer leave the room
- Moving the sample out of the inventory area leaves it floating on the screen while I move across the rooms
- I can leave a note open, and leave a room: the note will stay open in the middle of the screen

Bottom Line
- An interesting story, nicely told through a captivating presentation. A little too short, though.
Keep up the good work.

MustDeath responds:

Thanks heaps, exactly what I was looking for! Had trouble with coding as I have little experience with it so some of the bugs I just didn't know how to fix it. Some new ones though that I didn't catch myself. Shall try get onto fixing these when I can.

Thank you again.

Graphics
- Everything fits the theme well, and the use of coins makes the numbers pleasantly easy to read

Sound
- Just one (unobtrusive) effect that can be disabled at any time

Interface
- What the 'average score with best play' hint means is beyond me
- When a game ends, I would not repeat the score (it is already shown on top of the screen)
- I would make the game over message more prominent (maybe at the center of the grid ?)
- After I ask for a hint, the 'get hint' button disappears during the next turn: is this by design ?
- The 'get hint' button does not provide a proper hint: it should assist the player with making the best decision, but all it does is show the possible directions (something that could be always visible instead of being shown by request)

Gameplay
- Smooth as silk

Crashes/Mishaps
- Nothing to report after many playthroughs

Bottom Line
- A nice and challenging game (my hi-score is 71)

randomstrangers responds:

Thank you for that feedback.

> What the 'average score with best play' hint means is beyond me

I should explain it within the application.
"Average score with best play" tells the score of the position when playing optimally ("best play"). It is "average score", because after each move a new coin appears in a random position - the score is averaged over all possible draws.
The purpose of that message is to tell the player exactly when he is losing the game, and when he still has a chance.
The game was completely solved, and 35% of all positions are won - meaning that, when playing optimally, the score 511 will always be reached independently of how the random coins are drawn.

> After I ask for a hint, the 'get hint' button disappears during the next turn: is this by design ?

Yes. I want to give hints no more often than every two moves. Perhaps, instead of removing the button, I should just disable it, end enable after the next move.

>The 'get hint' button does not provide a proper hint: it should assist the player with making the best decision, but all it does is show the possible directions (something that could be always visible instead of being shown by request)

"Get hint" works correctly, just at the beginning of the game almost all moves are optimal - they do not lose the game. The hint button becomes very useful later in the game.

Thanks.

Graphics
- Great work with the presentation, everything is very attractive.
- Nice work with the title graphics, too: it looks like 'space 4 - in a row' rather than 'space - 4 in a row' which is a nice (and witty) touch

Sound
- I didn't miss the music, but I would have liked a few sound effects

Interface
- I would have liked to have the opportunity to pause the game (I could not find a way to stop my timer when I had to leave the pc) - also an option to return to the main menu during a match would be welcome
- The buttons should say 'play against' instead of 'play with'
- Right after starting a game against the cpu, the pawn is hidden, it is shown only after the mouse has been moved (this caused me some confusion because at first I could not spot where the pawn was)
- I noticed the game keeps track of victories/losses against the cpu even after closing the browser, nice touch
- The game asked for my name only once, but did not display it (maybe because I used non-letters/digits characters to see how the game would handle them) - maybe it could be worth it to have a 'set name' menu voice for changing/checking it

Gameplay
- Do I always have to start the game against the CPU ?
- Maybe a couple of difficulty levels would have been great
- Why not implementing a local 1-on-1 game against another player ?

Crashes/Mishaps
- I played 15 games against the cpu, and the game never exhibited erratic behaviour.

Bottom Line
A polished and enjoyable take on a classic game.

Disclaimer
I could not try the online play (I could not find any opponent online - maybe because the game is still Under Judgement).

TreSensa responds:

Thanks for your incredibly thoughtful feedback, elsee7! We are taking all of your suggestions into consideration. Enjoy the game and thank you for improving everyone's gaming experience.

Joined on 6/5/14

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