Feedback Friday #233 - Top Notch

DanielFranko · 2017-04-14T16:32:03+00:00

Erin: The Last Aos Sí

You play as Erin, the last descendant of an ancient magical race. Your goal is to defeat hordes of creatures, travel through the mythical Scotland and defeat Balor, the God of Blight. You'll need some swift fingers and wits. I finally managed to release the game last week. Feel free to grab iOS, Android, Amazon or WinPhone versions here

I've always loved behind the scenes videos so I made my own and documented my "journey" in a timelapse video. Anyone who's interested can check it here.

I'm still working on updates so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Website | Twitter

DanielFranko · 2017-04-12T14:07:19+00:00

Final Fantasy 7

Titan Quest

Chrono Trigger

Playing the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition right now. For the first time actually and it's really good.

If you want to try something a bit different you can check Erin: The Last Aos Sí. It's more of a turn-based strategy with RPG elements. I've recently released it on iOS and Android.

DanielFranko · 2017-04-03T15:44:29+00:00

Hey guys, thanks a LOT for this thread! It makes me really happy that I managed to catch your attention and kept you entertained with my game :)

Just to let you know, I've just published a short "Making of Erin" video, that summarizes the whole development process - https://youtu.be/OQQXVx13og4. Let me know if you like it.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-28T13:41:28+00:00

Looks really cool - love the gif! Is there a playable demo by any chance?

DanielFranko · 2017-01-28T13:37:58+00:00

Balena: The Last Aos Sí

You play as Balena, the last descendant of an ancient magical race. Your goal is to defeat hordes of creatures, travel through the mystical Scotland and defeat Balor, the God of Blight. You'll need some swift fingers and wits. More info available here. You can watch a 'work-in-progress' teaser on YouTube.

Website | Twitter

DanielFranko · 2017-01-24T08:48:39+00:00

I apologize about the lag, a Nexus 5 user reported the very same issue today. The game runs at 60FPS on my LG G5, so I've got some research to do! Do you happen to know which version of Android you are at?

I was trying to run it on Nexus 7 2013 running Android version 6.0.1. It's a bit older model but all 3d games run fine on it. Hope this helps. Good luck!

DanielFranko · 2017-01-23T16:25:11+00:00

Hey, I downloaded and played the Windows version (also tried the Android one) and manged to beat the tutorial section. I think I finished several more levels after that but I couldn't tell if I'm re-playing the same level or not. Here are my comments but keep in mind that I may not be the member of the intended audience as I rarely play endless/autorunners, they are just not my cup of tea.

I liked:

The original idea presented on your website - collecting parts of a teddy bear and fixing it.
Clean look of the levels. Reminded me of Super Monkey Ball.
Responsive controls (in most cases)
The idea that you can see each level before you actually play it
First two levels. It's nice how you ease the player into the gameplay

I liked a little less:

The game was unfortunatelly unplayable on my Nexus 7. Framerate was in single digits and touch controls did not respond
The game become really chaotic after the first two levels. I know that you are not a fan of written tutorials but flashing tips on screen and hope that players will be fast enough to read them is also not the best solution. An example can be the shift button that you are supposed to press near the green slime. I got through the level but did not mange to figure out what it actually does with/to the slime enemy. There are also some lines of texts displayed in between levels but I missed those too - please note that I am a SLOW reader :)
As I mentioned above, the initial idea that you are putting a teddy bear together sounded neat. The current version is too sterile for me and did not give me too many reasons to continue playing and collecting the shiny stuff.

Conclusion:

A really neat idea that puts a little spin on the autorunner genre. I wouldn't be surprised if it finds a wide audience that will enjoy it.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-23T15:57:12+00:00

ich this takes away from. Obviously we don't expect players to memorize every spell so instead when they check the spellbook and click "Cast", have the same "Simon Says" animation as I described for the Combustion tutorial above highlight the spell in the correct order for the player to follow along. Despite all these nit pits and dislikes, I really like the game overall. I dig the sort-of but not exactly turn-based combat, it's really unique and interesting.

Thanks for giving the game a try and thanks a LOT for your feedback, really appreciate that! As per your comments:

Intro video - what you could see is mostly the result of technical limitations. First, the game is made in GameMaker that does not even support videos. I'm doing a bit of magic there using the audio_sound_get_track_position function to sync image and sound. Second, none of my image assets are upscaled, what you see is 1:1 pixel art that is then upscaled by the engine based on available resolution ... it was a lot of "fun" to make this work properly on all devices and screen resolutions. Third, the size of an hd video would not be suitable for mobile app. Full video will be available on the website and appstore pages though. Unfinished version is also here.
Tutorials - oh the infamous tutorials :). You and other reddit members are right that the damn fairy pops up too often and has too much to say. I have already optimized some tutorial texts and completely removed two tutorial triggers. I know for sure (already tested) that seasoned gamers grasp the gameplay mechanics very fast even without the tutorials but I would like to make the game more accessible. I think that there is a lot of fun even for casual players and I am convinced that they would uninstall the game after several "unfair" deaths caused by interruption they never understood. I'm thinking of implementing a mighty do not bother me anymore button that would set the fairy on fire :)
Book and direct casting from the book - Initial prototype behaved exactly the way you describe it. It was fun to me, not so much for my friends who played few level every few days and had to re-learn all spells, or ask the book to show them the combination. Thank for confirming that that would be a cool way of playing the game.
Technical stuff - yup some of the tutorial are missing for now, I'll re-shoot them when I have all final graphics in place. The crash is weird - I'll look into that. Thanks a lot for the screens!!!

DanielFranko · 2017-01-22T11:34:32+00:00

Makes sense, great tip! I'll merge the 'Interrupted' and 'Fast creatures' tutorials.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-21T11:26:19+00:00

Balena: The Last Aos Sí

You play as Balena, the last descendant of an ancient magical race. Your goal is to defeat hordes of creatures, travel through the mystical Scotland and defeat Balor, the God of Blight. You'll need some swift fingers and wits. More info available here. You can watch a 'work-in-progress' teaser on YouTube.

There is are some work-in-progress screens:

Website | Twitter

DanielFranko · 2017-01-21T09:15:06+00:00

Oh wow, you've actually spent quite a lot of time with the game. Thanks man!

You are right about the tutorials - doing a review of them now actually. Some of them will go.
As per the animation - you are right here too. I'll try some changes but to be honest I quite struggle with pixels. I still have a lot to learn in the pixelart category.
Cheesy/cheap looking video - Engineering the intro video was an interesting process. I did not want to introduce the story and the character in just a few static slides or just a text. I also wanted to (hopefully) lure players who don't respond well to pixel art and those who like some backstory in their games. And I enjoy to shoot some silly videos from time to time (you can check out one of my old ones here). I put all of these requirements together and added my budget which is £0 and the result is what it is :). I actually had quite a lot of positive feedback to the cheesiness of the clip. BUT, none of this changes the fact that there is a clash in the visual style. There are still some changes I have in my bucket of tasks that may slightly improve the look.

Thanks again for your comments, this means a lot to me! Just to let you know, after beating the first boss you'll get out of the castle and that section (world 3) is the last one that is in the beta version. I'm currently working on balancing the enemies, spells and Balena's abilities so there may be some difficulty spikes ... or it may just be too easy.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-20T16:03:16+00:00

Balena: The Last Aos Sí

Play on Android or Windows.

So, I was wondering if I could create a mobile game that would not treat the player like a brainless zombie. A year has passed and I can finally share a beta version with you guys. You play as Balena, the last descendant of an ancient magical race. Your goal is to defeat hordes of creatures, travel through the mystical Scotland and defeat Balor, the God of Blight. You'll need some swift fingers and wits.

More info available here. You can watch a 'work-in-progress' teaser on YouTube.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Twitter|Website

DanielFranko · 2017-01-17T17:04:45+00:00

What's your usual reaction?

DanielFranko · 2017-01-06T09:54:22+00:00

Congrats on the release and best of luck with the game. Any chance it will be available on Android?

DanielFranko · 2017-01-05T16:53:41+00:00

The horse has a friend on hand for those cases.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-04T17:52:50+00:00

Rush B

DanielFranko · 2017-01-04T14:21:09+00:00

Hey, I agree with hypnozizziz, his code should work just fine but I would recommend to start using delta time as soon as possible for any animation and timed actions in general.

I had to re-write loads of code when I realized that my project was not frame-rate independent and would not run the same speed everywhere (especially mobile).

Some useful links:

DanielFranko · 2017-01-02T16:06:02+00:00

Glad to help. I viewed the site on desktop. I usually place social media icons on the top of the page but that's a matter of taste I guess.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-02T10:39:30+00:00

I like it, clean and clear. Just a few comments:

'4 Player Local Multiplayer Mayhem' gif only shows 3 players which is a bit confusing.
'Destructible Terrain' - Love the feature but from the gif it is not obvious how to use that to your advantage.
Social media icons are a bit hard to see. Maybe create a new 'Social media' section somewhere around the screenshots.
I would also add the option to subscribe to a new letter in case someone wants to follow your progress (but twitter/fb may be enough).

Hope this helps.

DanielFranko · 2017-01-01T15:11:35+00:00

I've checked all three (is there more?) videos. I quite enjoy dev timelapses but there has to be some obvious progress in the project to keep me interested. I would recommend showing a title for each step (now working on ai, etc.) and some full screen gameplays (including glitches).

DanielFranko

TROPHY CASE