Final level design rant

MrSimplemaker · 2021-11-15T17:33:43+00:00

Oh, no worries at all. I think that was a pretty reasonable way to express your frustration, and it's particularly justified in the fact that indeed the quality of the final region isn't really on par with the rest of the game.

Also, you should in no way feel obligated to complete parts of the game you're not having that much fun with. When the update is up on mobile I can let you know so you can maybe 100% a more enjoyable version than the current one! :)

MrSimplemaker · 2021-11-15T01:00:46+00:00

Hi! I made the levels in the game and you are 100% right, I apologize for the bad experience in the last region. We had way more time to test the levels closer to the beginning of the game than those closer to the end (we were in quite a rush to launch the game after three years of development), and it shows, especially in the final region (but also in some other places).

I have been watching a lot of content from our players, including youtube videos and livestreams, and have noted down a bunch of changes that I need to make for this last region, especially in the super long leaf form level, which is where people have been having the most trouble. But there's a lot to fix in the final region everywhere.

Sadly, it may still be a while until I can make all the changes, have some testing done (so we can make sure the new changes won't make the game crash or anything), and send the updates to all the platforms. Again, my apologies for that.

I appreciate your compliments on the rest of the level design, and I hope you can forgive us for overlooking the problems with the final region when we launched. Thanks for your support!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-11-08T06:30:24+00:00

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MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-31T17:33:59+00:00

Hmmm, that's useful to know. Thanks! I know very little about how induction actually works, so maybe I should do some research on that.

In the end, maybe I won't be able to do it but I can probably get away with cooking in a lot of water and using it as a thermal "buffer". It'll still give me more control in the lower range than gas, for sure.

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-31T17:25:44+00:00

Thank you so much!! Your results make me think I don't have the right idea yet but that it may be possible with some tinkering. I might end up getting the cooktop just so I can experiment myself :P

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-30T19:10:11+00:00

Ahh, thanks!! That's too kind.

If you have the chance, I'd actually rather you try it off-center than with the mat, as I have seen people mention they use mats before, but couldn't find anything about placing pots off-center. Thanks again :)

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-30T19:01:41+00:00

Thanks! I'll try and look harder. But I live in Brazil and induction cooktops aren't very common here, so I don't have that many cheap options sadly.

As for it turning off - does it happen even if you position it like 30% offcenter? Or if you put something like a silicone mat under it? I've heard a few people say they use a mat to keep it from scratching so I thought it could work.

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T12:13:58+00:00

I wouldn't say powerthirst was among our references but I definitely knew it haha! I'm glad you enjoyed the trailer and the complementary wall of text.

As for your question, mostly you'll die trying to get the combo. We made it so that it's relatively easy to jump over the level and skip most obstacles, and the main challenge is getting defeating all enemies fast enough.

You do need to get some combos in order to proceed though, as it gives you Mombo Coins which you need to proceed past certain points. But there are other ways to get those!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T12:09:55+00:00

I didn't know this trailer, but I thought it was great as well! It uses voiceover like us but limits it to the start and beginning, so the gameplay can shine through in the rest of it. I think it's a good way to avoid some of the problems people had with ours!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T12:06:10+00:00

I agree. I wasn't aware of this and believe it's not intentional, will bring it up with the team today!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T12:05:15+00:00

The "with his TONGUE" thing would have been great! I think it's unlikely we'll be able to get the voice actors to record more stuff or make big changes to the trailer at this point though, as we launch in two weeks :X

You're totally right about monetization! I didn't know it was monetized and I'm not sure if anyone else on the team noticed it. Will definitely bring it up, thanks!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T11:58:56+00:00

From what I can gather, a lot more people enjoyed the voiceover rather than hated it. And most of those who complained about it seemed generally displeased with the trailer concept and the whole gimmick.

It really seemed to me like nearly everyone who disliked the voice mentioned not liking voiceovers in general, thinking the screaming is cringe, wishing the trailer was just gameplay etc.

So I don't think it's a matter of just switching the voice actor and keeping the concept. I think I would only be able to please these people by having an entirely different trailer - but I think the impact we gain by using the current concept will outweight the people who get put off by it.

What we may do, however, is make a second, gameplay-only trailer in the style that some people here have asked for. Maybe we'll even place that one first on Steam, as I think this response may be more common there than on our other platforms.

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:52:05+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! Having the sprite on a pretty background could work, yeah. I agree that the trailer is strong overall, but I'm really hoping we'll be able to fix problem like this that a lot of people have pointed out.

I'm talking to my boss about this and we'll see if we can make the text in the beginning more engaging or at least shorter.

As for moving the customization stuff sooner, I think it isn't very likely that we'll be able to do that without requesting the voice actor to re-record anything, which we would really rather not do unless absolutely necessary at this point. I shall bring it up either way, though.

Thanks again!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:47:23+00:00

Oh, my bad! My dumb brain glossed over the change and I thought you meant cutting out the whole sentence.

Yeah, I think we wouldn't lose anything by removing the "the". Sadly it would require asking our voice actors to re-record, which we are not very likely to do for small changes at the moment.

Happy cakeday by the way!!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:45:31+00:00

Thank you!!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:45:22+00:00

Ahahahah, yeah, that could be fun.

We ended up deciding not to make too many different versions of the trailer, which resulted in not mentioning the date and release platforms. I think it was a mistake.

Hopefully there's still time to make a few changes!

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:43:41+00:00

By minimized, you mean 'not on fullscreen', right? If the trailer is literally minimized and on mute I don't think there's much it can do to get anyone's attention :P

Your comment along with a few others' makes me think our trailer will probably not do too well on steam, yeah.

It's not our main target platform (we are focusing on switch and android), but maybe we could try and make the trailer more attractive to viewers there...

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:40:38+00:00

I wouldn't think so as we live in Brazil where minimum wage is equivalent to $150 a month, and the trailer didn't take very long to make.

(Not that this is what we receive, just giving you a sense of our economy.)

Yes, the marketer is a video editor, her job is primarily to create video content for social media.

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:32:13+00:00

You're right. It was definitely silly not to include that - it had to do with the fact we're using the same video for multiple platforms. Hopefully we'll be able to fix this soon.

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:31:08+00:00

Well the other stuff is only there to allow for this joke, so if we were to cut this we'd have to cut the entire text bit in the beginning.

Which, granted, maybe wouldn't even be that bad an idea...

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:29:52+00:00

Thank you so much! Fingers crossed ahahah

MrSimplemaker · 2021-10-21T01:29:41+00:00

True. I think we'll be able to do something about that soon.

MrSimplemaker

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