Reddit | #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org (Info)
Thanks for making Ludum Dare 26 AWESOME! See you in August!
Ludum Dare 26 — April 26-29th, 2013
[ Results: Top 100 Compo, Jam | Top 25 Categories | View My Entry ]
[ View All 2346 Games (Compo Only, Jam Only) | Warmup ]
[ 10 Sec Video Compilation (x3) | 260 Game Video Compilation | IndieCade Deal | Ludum Deals (Unity Deal Ends Soon!) ]
Hey Canobie!
So I went on Indievania to purchase your game for 0$ and give it a try. Nice to see that you went through the October Challenge and released something! Congrats for that! Now on the game, to be honest I do not think you can sell this game
It clearly lacks polish at all levels. Few examples: Instructions in separated html file, window title is ‘Game’, no executable, no sound, etc.. All this is easy to fix!
However the main problem is the game itself. The gameplay is very repetitive and not rewarding. I kept dying a lot, but never seemed to be game over. Is this an infinite game? The enemy movement are always the same, they move towards you which is a bit annoying. Enemy movement is the main thing you need to improve. Try different approaches, search the web for help, look at what other games do, experiment.
Also there seem to be no progression. I mean the difficulty is always the same.
3)
Graphics need much more work. There are plenty of resources about how to do pixel arts. Google for ‘pixel art tutorials’ and practice a bit. After that redo your game graphics and they will look much better
That’s all I got to say. Just hope I’m not being too harsh here, it’s not what I intend. I’m just trying to help by giving honest feedback.
Hey Zapped Cow!
Thank you for your feedback!
This game, Rockwell, will never go on sale (again).
I understand your criticism, and it will taken into consideration in my next game.
As far as the sound goes, I’m new to Java, and I’m learning on the go. If you could guide me to a tutorial that would be nice.
As far as the story goes, it will be in my next game. This one was my first game, and I never had a good plan going in to make a story.
As far as the enemies go, I was using a primitive method and I relied on a good spawn system (never again).
As far as the art goes, that was my biggest challenge. I was using paintbrush, and I really thank you for the advice.
As far as difficulty level goes, OMG IT NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND (NEVER AGAIN WILL I MAKE THAT MISTAKE)!
I REALLY THANK YOU. I would love to here you critique on my next game during alpha.
Hi Canobie, I’d have to agree with Dir3kt, the presentation is absolutely crucial for first impressions. If you don’t want to invest the time to learn the art (which is time consuming), you can always get art from a 3rd party. Here is a link on our forums which has a ton of resources:
http://www.scirra.com/forum/site-list-graphic-artists_topic56942_page1.html
Glad to help, we are all in the same boat here
You can check this post for using sound in Java program (using JDK only). A the bottom there is the code of a simple helper class that you class use in your project:
http://forum.processing.org/topic/jetpack-pixel-ludum-dare-23
This class allows to play different sound effects at the same time. It would need some adaption to play background music (most likely you want to loop the sound). But it’s already a good start.
Thank you for your advice once again!
I decided to look at some of the games you made to get an idea on how I could improve.
I played Jetpack pixel. It’s real good fun.
I like the advice you gave me on my first game, and I would love to hear the same on my next.
I’d love to keep in some sort of contact (through twitter or something).
Sure thing. Just drop me a message on twitter (@ZappedCow) and we can follow each other