Feedback statement to comments
simono on 2007/04/22 16:33
of Ninja on the Wall
thanks for all the constructive comments. some general comments on the main critique points:
The good- gore - blood particles, die sounds and such. some liked it, some hated it - controversy is a good thing in my book. I spent quite some time getting the sounds right. A gun needs to sound like one *ratatata* and when I kill a bad guy I want to get feedback (particles+die sound)
- level pacing - I made the random level generator first, which explains why it works so good; added custom-made levels (+editor) on the last days (levels are just a serialized list and the editor is a hacked - COPIED - game engine). I wanted to make more levels and a real story, but didn't have enough time. This is more important, I realize now - presenting the game content in a considered way makes everything look more professional then just dumping everything at the user in a random fashion
- different enemies, pickups - where top priority. lot's of content makes the game more varied. I sort of succeded
- rope + collision physics - made those on the first few days, improved them only a little bit. The thing is: they work, if you have a strong machine (2ghz ++). The "bottom goes into screen" effect takes a lot of CPU - don't do dangerous rope-jumps during this phase and you should be fine (would be my excuse). I won't optimize... time will solve that problem for me.
- menu - there isn't much to do in the menu, so I just made it one screen. Worked okay, some even mentioned it as nice :-) made it in inkscape and spent some time tweaking it
- graphics - some found them okay, some hated them. I never aimed for better graphics. I can't draw and already spent more then one day collecting fitting sprites. Found it more important to add more enemies/items then improve the existing ones.
- even more enemies. I'd love to have 20+ with different behaviour and boss enemies.
- better + more levels (20 or even more) with a story
- rope physics. the way the rope behaves is strange at least, but somehwat consistent. I don't know what to do about it, but I should investigate how worms and other games handle them.
I'm really rather content with how the game came out. I see that A LOT OF people had trouble with the collision physics, but that's a performance issue not "bad physics" per se (one could argue wether this is not the same thing). I should have slowed down the game if the machine is to weak.
Final note: take a look at my source code. It's UGLY AS HELL. this is alright for a one-week-shot project. I don't want to sound like a preacher, but do-the-simplest-thing-that-can-possible-work is a good thing. If something doesn't add to the gameplay-value (ie refactoring, nice structure).. forget it.