Suggestions

An upcoming game about Electricity, Magnetism, and Cephalopods
exfret
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Suggestions

Post by exfret »

I have a few suggestions for the game. Here they are:
-In the level editor, make it so you left click to place/destroy a block and right click to destroy/place a block to make it easier to place blocks down.
-Is the magnetic force 1/(r^2) in the game? If so, shouldn't it be 1/r due to the charges' being rods?
-Make it so you have to switch levers from one block away. Whenever I switch a lever and head back, the lever just switches off again.
-Make it so you can have anything go on/off w/ the switches. I mean, really? Why exclude blocks?
-An undo button (while clicking a lever, I accidentally pressed 'b', destroying an hour of work in an instant)
-Fix the boss battle. I've hit a missile onto the boss when it had ZERO red thingies left, and it just kept on doing its thing.
-Make the boss battle more interesting. I don't want to just do the same thing 3 times to defeat the boss. Make it so you have some more interesting things happen after you get 1, 2, and 3 hits on the boss, like him getting angrier and starting to release velociraptors from his robot thingy, or have him shoot antineutrinos and neutrinos that blow up at you, or electrons that attract you and positrons that deflect you, or planets that attract you, or corn mazes you have to defeat, except don't really include those things. Just do something besides the old walk, field, missile.
-Make it so you can change the period and offset and speed of cannons like you can in VP (that would be really helpful in level editing

Oh, and fix this glitch:
TTGbutton.tiff
TTGbutton.tiff (1.92 KiB) Viewed 12829 times
TTGbuttoncontext.tiff
TTGbuttoncontext.tiff (83.52 KiB) Viewed 12829 times
Also, try to get that first star in this level:

Code: Select all

"My Level"q3swdxmu1we03u01c002f2tw7ulxuw51nwavkuf3r2uve1tvf3p1jvfurwxuev21q17vgwc113e3p010509xb0lv5vmuvx3373hujvavlvauhvl18uq233lvg3vwk022sv711ud2n0lwg1lx23j0h3j0q0r0l290s250h0k25w4x5wl2j3d1e1mumw61e2n2p3muh1p2sve3lwsxn18x6wuxsur2qvdwrwgu3xswu021c3w0336xaumxj3e1lwdvuux3p2238v9uj2fxs2a041rwhv0232g243l2b31x20q30v2vq0w200n0e30u7ve2su5uk1qvexa1v0tun0t0kwr192qur123k2bw71e35xbv5uwx2xk2m113pwnvq1n39141kvw3w1aug0exe1rx4x7wtw7v0ufu63k142kxn0gwxvx1wxtxk01240r393
It's glitchy.

I will edit this to add more in the future.
Last edited by exfret on Sun Dec 01, 2013 12:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
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exfret
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Anyone there?

Post by exfret »

So, it's been a week since I first started this topic. Is anyone going to reply?
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testtubegames
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Re: Anyone there?

Post by testtubegames »

exfret wrote:So, it's been a week since I first started this topic. Is anyone going to reply?
Nope.

Wait, damn, I messed it up. Well, while I'm replying... (breaking it apart into manageable quotes...)
exfret wrote:-In the level editor, make it so you left click to place/destroy a block and right click to destroy/place a block to make it easier to place blocks down.
-Is the magnetic force 1/(r^2) in the game? If so, shouldn't it be 1/r due to the charges' being rods?
-Make it so you have to switch levers from one block away. Whenever I switch a lever and head back, the lever just switches off again.
-Make it so you can have anything go on/off w/ the switches. I mean, really? Why exclude blocks?
-The reason 'clicking' alone doesn't add things is that you need to select a switch, say, without destroying it. I'll think about ways to improve the fluidity of it all, though.

-I think what you're describing is the electric force (the black field lines/arrows pointing towards or away from electric charges). And the charges do have a 1/(r^2) force -- since I was able to calculate them as points and not rods. Took some extra work in the calculations, but I like that it's more true to the real world.

-ya, still working on making the levers work more intuitively.

-I did this to keep everything simple. The only tiles you can control with switches are ones that have no other interaction. (they don't flash, or fade, or get destroyed) That keeps the code much easier. But if I have time at the end of making the game, I would be open to expanding the controls a bit. Same goes for the cannon offset. Do-able, but might not make it into the game for lack of time.
exfret wrote:-An undo button...
-Fix the boss battle...
-Make the boss battle more interesting...
I like the idea of an undo button. I've had that same experience with switches. The boss battle will end, though I've still been polishing up the 'you won!' screen. As for ways to make the fight more interesting -- you've got some rad suggestions. And while I probably won't add velociraptors into the game ( ;) ), I will think about ways to make the battle more interesting. Maybe he at least speeds up as you attack him. Or his attacks get harder and harder (more heat seeking missiles, say).
exfret wrote:Also, try to get that first star in this level:
Ah, a problem indeed. That's like what I mentioned before, about why I don't want switches controlling tiles like stars -- it leads to weird stuff. I'll tweak the game so that stars aren't allowed to be added to switches.

And the glitch about the appearance of the switch... thanks for passing that one along.

Anyway, all-around, thanks for the feedback, exfret
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Re: Anyone there?

Post by A Random Player »

testtubegames wrote:Maybe he at least speeds up as you attack him. Or his attacks get harder and harder (more heat seeking missiles, say).
If you need some inspiration, just check out some Touhou vids :P
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testtubegames
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Re: Anyone there?

Post by testtubegames »

A Random Player wrote:
testtubegames wrote:Maybe he at least speeds up as you attack him. Or his attacks get harder and harder (more heat seeking missiles, say).
If you need some inspiration, just check out some Touhou vids :P
Careful, I may end up with a crazy hard boss battle with inspiration like that! ("500 heat seeking missiles? Sure!") :)
exfret
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Re: Anyone there?

Post by exfret »

testtubegames wrote:-The reason 'clicking' alone doesn't add things is that you need to select a switch, say, without destroying it. I'll think about ways to improve the fluidity of it all, though.
Just make something like clicking a button to go into 'lever mode' or maybe just pressing 'l' while hovering over a lever for connection and releasing 'l' to get out of 'lever mode' or pressing 'l' to toggle 'lever mode' on/off, or something. Complicating so much of the process just for the levers isn't very [insert adjective here]. Just do something, and leave the single click for blocks.

testtubegames wrote:-I think what you're describing is the electric force (the black field lines/arrows pointing towards or away from electric charges). And the charges do have a 1/(r^2) force -- since I was able to calculate them as points and not rods. Took some extra work in the calculations, but I like that it's more true to the real world.
Ah, so they're points now. I guess that means ~TES~ can sneak around them. That is, if he's able to not fall.

testtubegames wrote:-I did this to keep everything simple. The only tiles you can control with switches are ones that have no other interaction. (they don't flash, or fade, or get destroyed) That keeps the code much easier. But if I have time at the end of making the game, I would be open to expanding the controls a bit. Same goes for the cannon offset. Do-able, but might not make it into the game for lack of time.
Well, it's actually still possible to turn blocks like stars on/off, but it's a kind of easter-eggy thing. Just keep it that way. I like it. I could tell you how you add blocks like stars, but I don't want you to remove that feature. It adds awesome things, like ghost go-through blocks, and super-stars, and black blocks, and more special ghost-y blocks and awesomeness. I can't decide whether I want you to fix these or not, but if you don't get to it, I'll just use it how it is. (Super-secret star levels here I come!)

testtubegames wrote:I like the idea of an undo button. I've had that same experience with switches.
You could also make a dialog box saying, "Are you sure you want to remove this switch? If you do, all the blocks 'attached' to it will be removed as well." An undo button would probably still be a good idea even with the dialog box.

testtubegames wrote:The boss battle will end, though I've still been polishing up the 'you won!' screen. As for ways to make the fight more interesting -- you've got some rad suggestions. And while I probably won't add velociraptors into the game ( ;) ), I will think about ways to make the battle more interesting. Maybe he at least speeds up as you attack him. Or his attacks get harder and harder (more heat seeking missiles, say).
Here are some real suggestions:
-Make him get 'madder' (e.g. better, faster, stronger, harder)
-Give ~TES~ lives, preferably just one, so that, uh, [he/she] doesn't have to get passed the whole thing w/o getting destroyed even once (you could show ~TES~ finding that octopus that the yeti kicked away, or you might be able to have a scene thing where shocktopus finds a suit like the yeti's and it gives [him/her] an extra life or something as an 'excuse' for it)
-Have progression, like making the magnetic jumps with electric fields first, but then with magnetic fields, and then maybe some challenging/weird thing that makes you think. Also, you could have the sand things be solid, then sand after hurting mag-yeti once, and then turn to spikes at the yeti's last life
-I like how you made it so you don't have to wait a long time before getting a shot at hurting/killing the yeti
-On that topic, I think you should add in some stress to the hurting the yeti part (make it harder) in order to maximize "YES!!"-ness when you finish the game
-This should be merged with the bullet above, but oh well. Anyways you could make the yeti move when the missile is moving (especially when, uh, [he/she] gets 'angrier' after being hit once or twice), have more than one missile (one added after each yeti-hit?), or have the yeti release velociraptors at you.

testtubegames wrote:Ah, a problem indeed. That's like what I mentioned before, about why I don't want switches controlling tiles like stars -- it leads to weird stuff. I'll tweak the game so that stars aren't allowed to be added to switches.
NO!!! It's better having features than not having them. What harm could ever come from something that's not super-easy to do and that just adds to the game? If you ever fix the stars, you can choose whether to implement that 'fix' into the game, but don't get rid of a perfectly fine feature!!! By the way, why don't you just have a variable for whether a specific star was collected that level or not, and have it not make the star when that variable is true? You could do this for all things. Also, why do cannons act so weird when added to levers?

testtubegames wrote:switch
You mean button...

testtubegames wrote:Anyway, all-around, thanks for the feedback, exfret
You're welcome. Actually, I'm kind of feeling kind of discouraged kind of, because it's been a while that I've been in the testtubegames community and I haven't seen any major changes, like ~TES~ being released or anything. I can't help but ask myself, "What does Andy do all this time???" I'm sure I just don't know what it's like being a professional programmer, but may I ask what you do in an average day, or is that a little too personal? I can program a "decent" (as in playable) game in a few days that would be comparable to a 'feature' of a real game, and from my point of view, it seems like you'd just spend a few months adding in those features, and you've got a game. I never spent much time on making graphics (I was horrible at it anyways), so maybe that's what I'm missing. I haven't programmed very much: only 2 'games' and a minecraft mod (plus a bunch of tiny insignificant things) (the minecraft mod would actually be pretty good for a minecraft mod, but the 'games' weren't good enough to be real games, but they were all on pretty much the same level), so maybe I'm not able to understand from lack of experience, but I just don't understand what takes so long. Of course, time does seem to go faster as you grow older (at least from my perspective). Well, thanks for reading, bye!
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testtubegames
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Re: Anyone there?

Post by testtubegames »

exfret wrote:Complicating so much of the process just for the levers isn't very [insert adjective here]. Just do something, and leave the single click for blocks.
I totally agree with you. Make the thing people do most often the easiest. I haven't uploaded it to FGL yet, but in the current version, I've made it so simple clicks add tiles. The solution with levers was actually pretty straightforward. You can't draw over them. (You have to delete them first.) So if you click on them, it has the same effect as before. This also makes it harder to accidentally destroy switches. (Though there's an undo button, too, which stores up to 20 previous states. Should be sufficient :) )
exfret wrote:NO!!! It's better having features than not having them.
Hrm, I'll take a look at how much work it'd be to implement this, then. I agree, it's a nice added dimension (and as we've learned with the simulator, the more you can let people do, the better)
exfret wrote:Actually, I'm kind of feeling kind of discouraged kind of, because it's been a while that I've been in the testtubegames community and I haven't seen any major changes, like ~TES~ being released or anything. I can't help but ask myself, "What does Andy do all this time???" I'm sure I just don't know what it's like being a professional programmer, but may I ask what you do in an average day, or is that a little too personal? I can program a "decent" (as in playable) game in a few days that would be comparable to a 'feature' of a real game, and from my point of view, it seems like you'd just spend a few months adding in those features, and you've got a game.
That's a great question -- and fear not, I don't take offense to it at all. What one imagines game development to be like is often pretty different from the actual process. I had this conversation with some friends, in fact, about what I spend most of my time doing. They all assumed it was mostly programming. But, perhaps surprisingly, it *isn't*. I'd like to do a better breakdown of this topic at some point... but briefly -- I spend maybe 20% of the time programming... 20% on art... 20% on marketing/answering emails/forum stuff/blog posts... and then at least 40% on 'design'.

And that last one is the real kicker. So much of the process of making a game isn't about *doing* stuff, but about figuring out what stuff *needs to be done*. So I chart out what the level progression looks like, playtest to see how difficult the levels are to people, plan out menu systems that are relatively intuitive, decide what features to keep, and which to cut, tweak parameters of the game (is the Shocktopus jumping too high? running too slow?), tweak controls so they're as smooth as possible, decide how to best give instructions and tutorials to the game, etc. There are plenty more examples of 'design' decisions, but that gives you a taste of it.

Now, stepping back from the day-to-day to the "man, it takes a long time for things to get done!"...

Yeah. It does. Game development takes a long time. Or, more precisely, *good* game development takes a long time. (There are counter examples, as with everything, but yeah, it is a lot of work). Because it's easy to make a simple prototype. I had the first version of TES done in a couple weeks. You could run and jump, charge yourself to fly around, magnetic fields were there, too. That first part of development feels *GREAT*!

But after that, things slow down a lot. Because if you want to make a polished game (which is what I'll need to sell this game to sponsors), you end up working on *tons* of details. You rewrite the level-designs countless times. You try out different methods of giving instructions. You worry about all those details I mentioned up above. Basically, there's an adage in game development that the last 10% of making a game takes 90% of the time.

That's something I've been really noticing working on TES. Since my goal with this one is to make a very polished game. Much more than Velocity Raptor or Agent Higgs, say. And that's really been reflected in how much time I've had to invest in it. Agent Higgs took just a few months start to finish. But it isn't one that I polished very much. There's some quick, basic animations, sure. But I didn't spend nearly as much time working on making pretty menus, 'just right' levels, and overall polish as I am doing now.

(Hrm, this seems to be turning into a full blog post!)

At the end of the day, though, I'm completely with you. I'd love to be able to finish things faster, but even after having made a few games, I, too, am constantly surprised how much time it takes. (Which is why I've botched so many release-date predictions! ;) )

Anyway, this is a cool discussion, if people want to take it in any particular direction. (Might be it's own thread... maybe we should take it to that one in General Chat you just started) Cause, yeah, I try to be pretty open about my game development, and would like to be even better about being open in the future. (Keeping in mind I only have 20% of my time for stuff like this! ;) )
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robly18
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Re: Suggestions

Post by robly18 »

Quite the interesting read.
I, myself, have recently been playing around and making my own (horrible) roguelike in python. I've got a playable demo up, and I don't plan on doing much polish and instead merely learn the syntax for the module I'm using. Been learning quite a lot in fact.
Still, if I ever do make a science-based game (which I'm planning on!) I'll be sure to let you guys know!
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exfret
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Re: Anyone there?

Post by exfret »

testtubegames wrote:Hrm, I'll take a look at how much work it'd be to implement this, then. I agree, it's a nice added dimension (and as we've learned with the simulator, the more you can let people do, the better).
No, I just thought you were threatening to take my invisible blocks away. (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65&start=30#p1111)

testtubegames wrote:That's a great question -- and fear not, I don't take offense to it at all. What one imagines game development to be like is often pretty different from the actual process. I had this conversation with some friends, in fact, about what I spend most of my time doing. They all assumed it was mostly programming. But, perhaps surprisingly, it *isn't*. I'd like to do a better breakdown of this topic at some point... but briefly -- I spend maybe 20% of the time programming... 20% on art... 20% on marketing/answering emails/forum stuff/blog posts... and then at least 40% on 'design'.
Oooh, that makes so much more sense now.

testtubegames wrote:But after that, things slow down a lot. Because if you want to make a polished game (which is what I'll need to sell this game to sponsors), you end up working on *tons* of details. You rewrite the level-designs countless times. You try out different methods of giving instructions. You worry about all those details I mentioned up above. Basically, there's an adage in game development that the last 10% of making a game takes 90% of the time.
That makes me think there should be a job where you assist a game designer with all the design and menu stuff, but yeah, the graph to perfection must be logarithmic.

testtubegames wrote:That's something I've been really noticing working on TES. Since my goal with this one is to make a very polished game. Much more than Velocity Raptor or Agent Higgs, say. And that's really been reflected in how much time I've had to invest in it. Agent Higgs took just a few months start to finish. But it isn't one that I polished very much. There's some quick, basic animations, sure. But I didn't spend nearly as much time working on making pretty menus, 'just right' levels, and overall polish as I am doing now.
Just get all your perfection out now so you can zip through everything later.

testtubegames wrote:(Hrm, this seems to be turning into a full blog post!)
It definitely sounds like one, too. Maybe you should post it on your blog.

testtubegames wrote:Cause, yeah, I try to be pretty open about my game development, and would like to be even better about being open in the future.
Yayz.

testtubegames wrote:(Keeping in mind I only have 20% of my time for stuff like this! ;) )
That's like 2 hours a day!!! Well, I guess if you're bombarded by questions by 4 different people, it does take up most of that 2 hours...
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exfret
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Re: Suggestions

Post by exfret »

My sister had a really good suggestion: when you're pressing up, could you jump when you touch the ground again instead of just having to press up again?
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