Wanna help test my funky new 2D arcade platformer?

New version up:
Download!

So what's new?
Well, for starters it has partially improved graphics. The graphics themselves are actually very much improved, but only in the first level.

It's also easier. Sooo much easier.
Says the guy who made the game and has no problems whatsoever running and jumping through even the later levels. But I did just get a score of 52085. I probably cycled through all 9 levels 5 or 6 times. Eventually I just stopped playing and let the timer run out.

You get one extra second for completing a level (meaning 6 seconds in total), and there's way more gold/loot in the levels and one or two more multiplier gems.

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What's next?
I'm working on a few new hazards.
One is a cannon that fires a bomb at you if you're close enough to it and it can "see" you. The bomb is set off after bouncing off a surface and it explodes a moment later. It kills either on direct contact or if the explosion gets you. It'll take a while to get this working right as I have to figure out how to make it accurate enough; if the player stands perfectly still the cannon will hit every time, no matter where the player is (so long as there are no obstructions).
I'm also thinking of a variation on this that shoots an arrow at the player.

I also need to just make more levels. I'll be splitting the levels up into four difficulty settings (each with its own unique visual theme and music):

• Easy - about 12 levels - you'll play through about 6 randomly selected levels before moving onto medium
• Medium - about 16 levels - you'll play through about 8 randomly selected levels before moving onto hard
• Hard - about 30 levels - you'll play through about 12-15 randomly selected levels before moving onto brutal
• Brutal - about 100 levels - each level you play is randomly selected and you play on this difficulty until game over

As you progress through the game you'll move on from Easy to Medium and from Medium to Hard and finally from Hard to Brutal. The goal is to have Brutal be so difficult the player has to keep moving all the time, collecting gold and gems (or not if he's low on time) and getting to the exit as fast as he can. A lot of the work on the game will be in balancing it right to make sure players can't just stockpile extra time in the easier stages and breeze through the harder difficulties. I also have to try and make it so that a single death isn't necessarily the end even if you're playing on Brutal (while also making sure that even if you are doing really well on Brutal you don't have minutes and minutes of extra time to waste).

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Okay, so this topic isn't really getting the attention I was hoping for. It doesn't help that it's in the least active part of the forum... would it be frowned upon if I advertised this topic (one-time only, no reposts or bumps) in General Gaming?

What did you code it in?

I have to say I feel jealous because I can never get myself together to get any where with making a game or any kind of decent programming.

lex-man wrote:What did you code it in?

I have to say I feel jealous because I can never get myself together to get any where with making a game or any kind of decent programming.

I'm using Game Maker.

It's fairly simple to use, but it's still something you have to learn and try to understand and that's neither quick nor easy. It's taken me several failed/abandoned projects and a couple that I finished, over about a year and a half of using it, to get me to this level. And I still have problems doing the simplest things.

Don't let that dissuade you though. If you want to give it a try. Just remember to keep it simple, and keep at it. It may be hard to let go of some grand idea that you've had in mind for a while (if you have one), but you pretty much need to if you want to learn. You don't ever start at the top.

You can sign up at the Game Maker forums and ask the regulars there for advice.

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/

Game Maker does do mac, but I'd have to have a mac myself to create an executable. Also macs only have version 7 of Game Maker at the moment and I made this in version 8 so even if I could port it there might be functions I'm using that aren't compatible with version 7.


Doesn't Wine run on mac though?

I didn't want to go down the road of making it like N, but once I had the controls and the feel of movement as I wanted them, and I knew it was going to be timed and there would have to be something to do to to add more time to the clock... it was all I could think of: a collectible item that gives you more time. My gold pieces even look almost exactly the same as the gold pieces in N!

But the knowledge that it was so similar to N was a big part of the impetus to take the idea in a different direction: the multiplier gem and the gold deposit box. I'm hoping those two make a big enough difference that it doesn't feel too much like an N clone.

Gave you some feedback, but you'll have to check my blog to read it

Here.

Wow, thanks a lot!

A few Qs and comments:

In some ways it’s too early to just run to a level’s exit.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Did you mean to write easy instead of early?

Less jumping off and and into the ledge

Again, not sure what you mean. This time though I don't even have a clue.

The time limit is a touch too short

That's a balancing act (and a tough one, as I explained in a post on the previous page detailing my plans for the game). It's not really something I can work on at the moment since almost all the levels haven't been made yet. No sense balancing things out when there's things to do which may just unbalance the whole thing again.
But when I play it I find I have too much time. Of course I'm far from being the perfect yardstick, but I need to work out the balance so that someone who's as good at it as me doesn't end up with minutes of free time, and someone who's new to the game doesn't get the game over screen after clearing just two or three levels.

Forcing collectibles... obvious deposit zone... more clear prompts...

Yeah, I need to make it much clearer to the player what the game's about. There's a few things in there that I've implemented, but it's probably not enough.

you don’t get enough time per treasure

Did you get the idea of the gems? There's a few of them around, usually in dangerous or hard to reach areas. Picking up one of these gives you a +0.1 multiplier to your loot for when you deposit it, and the loot directly influences the amount of time you get.
I think I need to make it clearer that that's what it does.