Jason Bakker

Post Your Game for Playtesting and Feedback!

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NEVER GIVE UP!

unless of course it's making you and/or others miserable.

I'll try it tonight if I get a chance. I'm starting to get a somewhat intimidating backlog of small-games and prototypes I want to play. I'm having to keep them in a list. This is a good problem to have. I didn't realize that there were so many great little experiences and cool people making them until I started making them myself.

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I am such garbage at this, it's been a long time since I needed to send stuff like this to people. :(

 

Here should be the working link. If not, I'll just leave this thread alone.

 

 

It worked this time!

 

I like it. It's fun. Propulsion that requires dangerous waste is an interesting concept in both theme and mechanics. Don't Shoot makes me feel reluctant about action in a way similar to Snake or the Tron's light cycle battles, but making the moment active rather than passive takes a lot of the stress away (I like that). In games where I am creating my own barriers while moment is passive, I experience a frustration with growth and the feeling that I just have to manage more and more. I like how in Don't Shoot, my decisions remain essentially the same. I would like to see this as a game where I move through an environment rather surviving on a static screen since I leave no permanent waste. 

 

Here's my wish-list by perceived importance divided by ease of implementation:

 

-In its current state, Don't Shoot needs a "Restart" option. A button or a key-press to restart would make the game much more enjoyable and is easy to do. 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/any-way-to-reset-the-scene.23986/

Importance=8, Ease of Implementation=1

 

-Do not underestimate how much sound adds to a game even in it's early stages. Sound is so important to the impression a game makes on my memory. Even if the sounds are place-holders, I will get attached to them. Sound attached to the collisions , preferably a different one for each potential type of collision (friend/player, friend/friend, and torpedo/friend) would make this game significantly more enjoyable for me. 

Importance=9, Ease of Implementation=6

 

 

----------------------------

 

 

 

I forgot to actually post this in the relevant thread.

 

Here is a super early build of Spacething, a game I have been working on for a few weeks where you talk to a computer and renovate a spaceship. Currently that is all it is. Windows build. 

 
I can't figure out where the .exe is
 
Or when I open SpaceThing.exe I get an error that says the program can't start because MSVCR120.dll is missing from my computer.

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I like it. It's fun. Propulsion that requires dangerous waste is an interesting concept in both theme and mechanics. Don't Shoot makes me feel reluctant about action in a way similar to Snake or the Tron's light cycle battles, but making the moment active rather than passive takes a lot of the stress away (I like that). In games where I am creating my own barriers while moment is passive, I experience a frustration with growth and the feeling that I just have to manage more and more. I like how in Don't Shoot, my decisions remain essentially the same. I would like to see this as a game where I move through an environment rather surviving on a static screen since I leave no permanent waste. 

 

Here's my wish-list by perceived importance divided by ease of implementation:

 

-In its current state, Don't Shoot needs a "Restart" option. A button or a key-press to restart would make the game much more enjoyable and is easy to do. 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/any-way-to-reset-the-scene.23986/

Importance=8, Ease of Implementation=1

 

-Do not underestimate how much sound adds to a game even in it's early stages. Sound is so important to the impression a game makes on my memory. Even if the sounds are place-holders, I will get attached to them. Sound attached to the collisions , preferably a different one for each potential type of collision (friend/player, friend/friend, and torpedo/friend) would make this game significantly more enjoyable for me. 

Importance=9, Ease of Implementation=6

Thanks for the feedback! I actually think I can have a good way of exploration working. I have a sort of running fiction in my head that you're a submarine and the friends are fish, so it could be about you exploring around the seafloor and I definitely have directions I could take that in to flesh it out past one screen.

 

Those are both good suggestions. Simple things to just improve the basic interaction. Likewise, I want to make the graphics a little less plain before I build onto the code. As I said to you on twitter, looking at the whole is something I ought to do more so I think I'll run with that a bit first.

 

That's the right .exe. Probably you need this: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784

 

I finally gave SpaceThing a look! It was as gorgeous as the screenshots showed. Unfortunately my 2 year old mid range PC is kinda garbage so it wasn't the smoothest experience.

 

Sadly I don't have anything of worth to point out apart from a couple bug things. One isn't a big deal, but out one window I was able to see the edge of the skybox texture and it was kinda jarringly noticeable.

 

The other thing was just that I walked into one tiny room that had no floor and was just able to fall right out into nothingness. As far as I'm aware, I didn't accidentally ask it to take out the floor or anything.

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That's the right .exe. Probably you need this: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784

 

 

Yup, that did it.

The lighting is so photo-realistic. It almost feels like Myst or some sort of panoramic displaying application, but with a different type of distortion. I'm not entirely sure what that distortion is, maybe it's the fact that I'm looking at it through a flat screen. 

Building rooms is impressive, it works. I felt like Siri was helping me design the perfect space-doublewide for my particular needs. The voice in my head was like some sort of car commercial or something.

"This wall, can we get rid of it."

"No problem."

 

I'm glad you put in additional lines for an ad-lib feel. Oddly, I really wanted her so say "Let me go ahead and take care of that for you." but she never did. 

 

I know there are more recent examples of the pandering customer-service fantasy, but this is the only one I could recall specifically:

 

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I just tried out your study, I liked it! I don't know if it was entirely intentional, but when I hold down the mouse instead of just clicking, the shapes just vibrate on the spot as if they're being nudged about uncomfortably and I kind of like how it's a jarring contrast to when I just let them move smoothly on their own and watching them is enjoyable rather than trying to take much control.

I also think the ability to switch scenes on the fly is an effective way to broaden your experience easily, and handled smoothly. Though I thought I was able to switch back to ones I had done before. Not sure if that would be difficult to add but it'd be a nice option.

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Switching back to one's that are still at the point of progress you left them in would be a good excercise for me. Maybe I'll do that at some point.

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That was really fun, I like the idea of taking a music tool and having it reshaped by the whims of the physics engine. And the (presumably) random sizing of the boxes made for some weird results. Like when there was only a single small pillar or another time when there were 4 huge towers that collapsed in a big mess and made it impossible for me to read the sequence any more.

 

I'm curious about the name, is it because of the potential for messes like I mentioned above or was it something else?

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That was really fun, I like the idea of taking a music tool and having it reshaped by the whims of the physics engine. And the (presumably) random sizing of the boxes made for some weird results. Like when there was only a single small pillar or another time when there were 4 huge towers that collapsed in a big mess and made it impossible for me to read the sequence any more.

 

I'm curious about the name, is it because of the potential for messes like I mentioned above or was it something else?

 

The reason for the random grids is kinda interesting. I was going to make it so that much larger grids would be made, but I ran into some bug (possibly a Unity level one) where as soon as I go from making a grid of 100 gameObjects with audioSources to 101, I get an error and some boxes become duds. So until someone figures out how to fix that, I had to make sure that I never have more than 100 of the on the screen. Since the pitches and steps are assigned based off of the position in the grid (the pitch of the sample is divided by how many boxes there are in the column and then pitches are assigned by position; the length of a musical bar is determined by width of row and then steps are assigned to the boxes by position) I was able to just generate grids, but I wanted them to vary wildly. So I figured that I could never have more than 10x10, so the width gets a random num between 3 and 19, then the height gets a random amount between 1 and the previous randomNum minus the width. It doesn't seem to work perfectly, but I've been enjoying the results enough not to fix it. 

 

Yes, you nailed the reasoning for the name. One of the last things I did before I made this build was move the player-cube a bit to the left, until then it would fall into the pile by default everytime. I decided to make it more of an option, but it gives you a sense of how I  was playing with it before the build was made. I think the controls of the game have a happy-accident clutziness to them (which I like). As an additional bonus I like the idea that the name can create a lack of expectations for player-objective. As an additionaly additional bonus, I think this would be a great game to play on a day where I feel like I can't do anything right. Thanks for playing.

I uploaded a video of me playing my game. I really like playing my game.

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Friends! Gritfish on twitter suggested I post my completely dumb little experiment (my dad joke game) to the forums, so here I am!

 

http://danielleri.itch.io/the-wonderful-world-of-dad-jokes

 

It's very short, and very silly. It's also quite rough - I basically made it to teach myself a bunch more C#, and to create my own framework for an adventure game (with a basic dialogue system, inventory system, etc.). It was actually a lot of fun to work on, and I felt releasing it on Halloween was really appropriate.

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I played your game before and I really liked how the Dads just plough on regardless of what dialogue options you choose. Very true to dad form.

 

Also... maybe this isn't that much help now, after you've made your framework. But I know of a framework called Fungus that exists for this style of game, I don't know if it handles inventory or not yet but it does dialogue boxes and switching screens and the main things you'd need.

Here's the link in case you wanna check it out, maybe it could still help a bit.

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clyde, everything you post is wonderful.

 

Friends! Gritfish on twitter suggested I post my completely dumb little experiment (my dad joke game) to the forums, so here I am!

 

http://danielleri.itch.io/the-wonderful-world-of-dad-jokes

 

It's very short, and very silly. It's also quite rough - I basically made it to teach myself a bunch more C#, and to create my own framework for an adventure game (with a basic dialogue system, inventory system, etc.). It was actually a lot of fun to work on, and I felt releasing it on Halloween was really appropriate.

 

That was silly :) I've been looking forward to playing it. Supposedly Unity 4.6 is going to have way better UI stuff, maybe worth checking out.

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@SpennyDubz

Thanks!

@Dinosaursssssss

I like the camera zoom, but I used a lot of guess-work in making it and now I'm not sure how to slow it down when I fly past horizontally really fast.... Oh I just got a cool idea. Maybe I should slow down the time-scale if position.x changes too rapidly while camera is in full zoom.

I'll post the camera-zoom script when I get home today.

@ihavefivehat

The way I develop the cube games is really slow. I put in some mechanic and then fiddle with it for a day or two. Trainwrecks are made quickly and I have to depend on iconic imagery and melodrama. I also enjoy the dualism of it though. I've started to refer to the messy games as "trainwrecks" and the others as "works in progress".

I played the clown game a couple of times yesterday.

I keep think about that lollipop he was suckin' on. And the Home-Depot bucket he paid FIVE dollars for.

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Here is the Camera Zoom Script in case anyone wants to try it out.

 

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class CameraZoom : MonoBehaviour {

//You can use, modify, sell, eat, or sit on this script with or without attribution.
//Have fun, make something cool.



//Place this script on the Camera GameObject

	//Camera Component Reference
	Camera _camera;

	//The position of this gameObject's transform will determine the zoom
	public GameObject _player;
	Transform player_transform;

	//A record of the camera's zoomLevel at initialization.
	float initialSize;
	
	//This is how far the _player object can go from center horizontally before the zoom begins to change.
	public float player_xPos_allowance=25f;
	float xExpansion;
	//Same for vertical movement
	public float player_yPos_allowance=30f;
	float yExpansion;

	//How much the camera zooms once those allowances are exhausted
	public float zoomRatio=1f;

//
//Methods
//
	// Use this for initialization
	void Start () 
	{
		//Get the reference to the Camera component
		_camera=this.GetComponent<Camera>();
		//Record the initial zoomLevel
		initialSize=_camera.orthographicSize;//For the record, my Size is set to 20 in the inspector.

		//Get the reference to the player Transform component
		player_transform=_player.GetComponent<Transform>();
	
	}
	
	// Update is called once per frame
	void Update () 
	{
		ZoomCamera ();
	}



	void ZoomCamera()
	{
		//Once the absolute value of the player's xPosition gets larger than the amount allowed...
		if(Mathf.Abs(player_transform.position.x)>player_xPos_allowance)
		{
			//The amount of expansion beyond the allowance is the absolute value of xPosition-the xPosition's allowance
			xExpansion=Mathf.Abs(player_transform.position.x)-player_xPos_allowance;
			//There is only one zoom quantity, so we want to pick the largest trespass, the xExpansion or the yExpansion
			if(xExpansion>=yExpansion)
			{
				//Make the camera's size equal to how much the player has gone beyond its allowance multiplied by a value chosen in the inspector plus the initial size of the camera.
				_camera.orthographicSize=xExpansion*zoomRatio+(initialSize);
			}
		}
		//Same for the yPosition of the player gameObject
		if(Mathf.Abs(player_transform.position.y)>player_yPos_allowance)
		{
			yExpansion=Mathf.Abs(player_transform.position.y)-player_yPos_allowance;
			if(yExpansion>xExpansion)
			{
				_camera.orthographicSize=yExpansion*zoomRatio+(initialSize);
			}
		}
	}
}

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I was hoping I could get some feedback on a game I'm doing as part of one game a week . You can find it here (you'll need two xbox 360 controllers connected to play. I tested it out on firefox, and it seemed to work pretty well). It's local-multiplayer; grab the purple thing and take it back to your side while avoiding your opponent. It's the result of about 4 days work so far.

 

I've also have a post up for my week 1 game up here if anyone is interested.

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I basically made it to teach myself a bunch more C#, and to create my own framework for an adventure game (with a basic dialogue system, inventory system, etc.). It was actually a lot of fun to work on, and I felt releasing it on Halloween was really appropriate.

 

With a little more practice you could be just like a certain farmer my father told me about once. He was outstanding in his field.

 

Playtesting notes: I playd this game this morning, and then I beat it! Sometimes the top half of the top line of some text was cut off for me, not sure if that is a known issue. I thought the main character was some type of mullet dad (probably because I heard so on a podcast I listen to called Idle Thumbs), until the end of the game when I found out it was a lady. Not to criticize the art direction or anything ^_^ it just meant that the ending was a BIG REVEAL because I thought I was One Of Them the whole time!!! Also impressed that you found the budget to include a whole separate character model for children in your game instead of recycling the Grown Man sprite. :tup:

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Everyone's making such cool stuff, I want to add mine to the mix.

 

I've been working for maybe 6 months on SUPER PUNCHY FACE, a twitchy top down brawler about punching faces. It looks rough, but I've been focused on tightening the combat.

 

Anyway check it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/at84q83dlhx0toc/SPF%2011-19-14.exe?dl=0

 

WASD to move

aim with your mouse cursor

left click jabs, hold it for a SUPER punch

right click dodges, hold it to block

 

left bar is your health, right bar is your stamina :D

R to restart!

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Everyone's making such cool stuff, I want to add mine to the mix.

 

I've been working for maybe 6 months on SUPER PUNCHY FACE, a twitchy top down brawler about punching faces. It looks rough, but I've been focused on tightening the combat.

 

Anyway check it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/at84q83dlhx0toc/SPF%2011-19-14.exe?dl=0

 

WASD to move

aim with your mouse cursor

left click jabs, hold it for a SUPER punch

right click dodges, hold it to block

 

left bar is your health, right bar is your stamina :D

R to restart!

 

Chrome is flagging the file as containing malicious content 

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Everyone's making such cool stuff, I want to add mine to the mix.

 

I've been working for maybe 6 months on SUPER PUNCHY FACE, a twitchy top down brawler about punching faces. It looks rough, but I've been focused on tightening the combat.

 

Anyway check it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/at84q83dlhx0toc/SPF%2011-19-14.exe?dl=0

 

WASD to move

aim with your mouse cursor

left click jabs, hold it for a SUPER punch

right click dodges, hold it to block

 

left bar is your health, right bar is your stamina :D

R to restart!

 

This is fucking awesome. The enemy punch animations are perfect, it really feels like they are doing a slinging-motion. the combat system is super enjoyable.

Your Spelunky-sensibility is well honed. Everything reacts the way it should. I won't spoil how interactive your mechanics are.

 

Chrome is flagging the file as containing malicious content 

I'm using Chrome, but I did not have this problem.

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I made a lil' browser game about some colorful specks traveling in majestic orbits. Maybe I will expand it into more of a thing someday, but if anyone wants to play it and let me know whether they find it neato or just infuriating, I'd be much obliged. :)

 

Here is a choppy animated graphics interchange format of one of the levels:

8eG8HTr.gif

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