Hi guys! Try out my new game on Google Play Store!

Simple Gamer Arts

Hi everyone, I would so appreciate some feedback on my new game, "Before The Flood," on the Google Play Store.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Before.Theflood

Thanks!

Two.E

Nice playable game. I always liked the doodle jump style mechanism.
The only critic I had from a developer perspective, or two rather, was the animation of the water flowing was too fast and became too distracting. I think slowing it down a bit will still have a sense of danger but not so distracting.
The game over menu is quite bland.
Other than, it works fine and wish you best of luck.

Best,
Two.E

Simple Gamer Arts

Thanks for the feedback @Two.E !! Yes, I've heard the game is a bit aggressive (hard) but I kind of like it that way. I just think the player will get a rewarding-feeling when they last longer than 10 seconds... but hey, I will consider it.

As for the game-over screen being bland, my friend told me the same thing the other day lol.

mikejamesfisher

Looks nice! Dont have google tho. I tthink Two E means the side to side motion of the water animation is so fast it is distracting and looks like its on fast forward. But that may be the best way to make it look smooth. Sometimes slowing animation makes it herky jerky.

Zwire

Its way too difficult. Often cant get past the first or second jump. Think its better to make the jump things as big as the first one so players can last a bit longer. To me, it gets frustrating pretty quick and wanna turn off the game.

Anyway, good luck with it!

Zwire

Simple Gamer Arts

Thanks for the complement and for clarifying that @mikejamesfisher Hope to have it out in App Store when the generator issues clear up!

Simple Gamer Arts

I am considering in lowering the difficulty @Zwire , I love that it's crazy hard but at the same time I understand why that could be annoying. Thanks for your feedback, appreciate it!

Japster

@Simple Gamer Arts said:
I am considering in lowering the difficulty @Zwire , I love that it's crazy hard but at the same time I understand why that could be annoying. Thanks for your feedback, appreciate it!

Looks a fun game! - Although, I think I agree with the other guys - difficulty levels can be skewed when you're the developer - Back in my 8-Bit days, it was VERY easy to make a game way too hard, as, being the developer, playtesting it to destruction, it becomes very easy to play, pull off really cool runs, etc, and think that it's the right difficulty.

However, someone playing your game from scratch may well die, die, die, die, uninstall. I'd maybe recommend having your platforms a little bigger at the start, and using a simple formula to maybe decrease the width to a minimum, over time?

That way, players will find it gradually gets harder, the higher they get?

Something like:-

Game.StartGamePlatformWidth = (Say 100)
GameMinimumPlatformWidth = (Say, 50)
Game.CurrentPlatformSpawnWidth = 0 (Will be calculated)
Game.HeightGained = (Whatever you're using to track height gained, if at all - This could be time, etc, whatever your progress is counted by, simply replace it with HeightGained below)

In your controller / game logic actor:-

CONSTRAIN Game.CurrentPlatformSpawnWidth TO min(MinimumPlatformWidth,StartGamePlatformWidth-(HeightGained/200) )

(This would make your platform start size 3.84 pixels narrower, per say, every screens-worth of platforms traveled? (if working on a 768 'pixels' high scene))

Then in your platforms:-

CHANGE self.width TO CurrentPlatformSpawnWidth

...and yep, I'm guessing you know all of this stuff already, but implementing it might provide new (or less-skilled) players with a sense of achievement, to get them hooked, then once they're better, and are able to reach the smaller platforms you've got above, the 'hook' will be in place...

Seasoned players will simply whizz up the screen quickly anyway, so this will be the soft break into their high score attempts....

NOTE - You could even simply pick from a couple of images (wide platform, narrow platform), to graphically keep it similar throughout the game - ie. if self.width < 75, in the example above, select say, the smaller 50x20 image, as opposed to a wider 100x20 one. Only needs to run once per platform spawn / reallocation, so no real performance hit.

Simple Gamer Arts

@Japster that is awesome! Thanks for the suggestion I appreciate the detailed feedback! I'll give it a shot!

I like the excerpt about how we as developers master the game and become immune to the normal amount of difficulty; so true.

Japster

@Simple Gamer Arts said:
@Japster that is awesome! Thanks for the suggestion I appreciate the detailed feedback! I'll give it a shot!

I like the excerpt about how we as developers master the game and become immune to the normal amount of difficulty; so true.

Hey, no worries mate - happy to help....

Yep, let me know how you get on!