I can't really call it fun so far, although I generally like platformers.
It' s really irritating to have to play avoidance and perfect strike with continously moving enemies that do lazy contact damage and yet you must hit perfectly to damage; the latter being difficult to do when damage has a control lockout effect. And the character movement is a bit slippery, makes it hard to be precise and super easy to bump a top edge and drown while trying to jump.
Game is looking good so far! I like the reasonably challenging nature of the levels and the boss.
Unfortunately the boss was rather vulnerable to just "run in, do one sweeping attack, run away, wait, repeat": no matter which attacks the boss does they don't need anything except that one pattern. It's possible to jump over the boss's low attack, so maybe it'd be nice if (maybe 2/3 of the way through the boss's health) she starts doing a low attack too quickly to run away from so you have to jump over it instead? Something like that to mix it up a bit.
At the moment the interaction with characters in the town epilogue is somewhat painful as I can't find any way to progress through their text: LMB causes the character to just attack, which is always embarrassing in peaceful village zones, and pressing "up" a second time doesn't advance either. I just need to wait, which is rather boring.
Apart from that, though, this is looking very promising. I particularly like 1) the animations - very fluid and satisfying, somewhat reminiscent of the original 90s rotoscoped Prince of Persia; and 2) the hidden areas - though as another commenter said, they do want some more reason for existing than they have at the moment, obviously.
To be fair I have spedrun the game a few times. The sliding high jump attack can actually be used to reach some higher ledges or ave yourself from landing in water. The Goony boss is actually quite easy if you can recognize the pattern and even exploit the hit detection boxes. Let me explain, everytime Goony does an upward spike attack across the floor she stops for about a second, in that second deploy M1+A M1+ S M1x2, this will do about 900 points of damage since Goony fires the slime balls as she recovers, making you clip into her for a fraction of a second, making all 3-4 slimeballs miss. The small jump mechanic can also be used to dodge her low attacks but only if youre far away enough. As for the tenta ponies who throw things at you if fairly easy to get by them, on Normal they throw an object a certain range and at a certain angle, the best way to beat them in Hard is to predict their movement, now I know youre asking "BUT Trash, they throw many items how can I avoid them?" Easy, deploy a quick slide jump boost, S Jump + S M1, and youll whiz by, do this after jumping over the tenta pony and you should be clear.
Now as for the game. A solid 8/10. I like it, I bet some people can probably speedrun this for money and stuff. I know I would.
Oh and Bit Assembly, dont fix these exploits, I need them to beat my personal records.
Just played through it. So far it feels like a prototype, but it's alright.
Animations are pretty great. Both on the main character, enemies and the goo boss. Backgrounds also look good, especially in the town area at the end. Can't really comment on the music, since there isn't any :3
I really like the ledge grabbing, and overall controls seemed fine. There are a couple of things that started to stand out later on:
Jumps are very committed, which I'm usually not a fan of, but I don't really mind if there's a reason for it and right now this game isn't at the point where I can say if there's a reason.
Also jumps have a couple of frames of start up when the pony crouches before leaping. That bit of delay before jump adds to the feeling of stiffness. I know animation-wise it's more realistic that way, but in games I prefer maximum responsiveness over everything else.
I don't really mind the lack of crouching, but I would like to have some sort of response to down button press (even just moving the head 1 pixel lower). Without any reaction it feels weird.
I'd prefer the strong attack to be not on "forward+attack" but on "up+attack" or a separate button entirely. It's too easy to do it accidentally.
Level design seems okay. Right now it's hard to judge based on just one introductory level. Hidden areas were a nice surprise (even though there's little point to them right now).
There are also some features that make me wanna ask: "why is this here?" - like health bar and damage numbers, coins and crates. It feels like this game wants to be a metroidvania where eventually your health will grow, your attacks will do more damage, your coins will be spent on something in some kind of shop, and so on. But right now it's just a straightforward platformer and all these things add nothing to a straightforward platformer. Also the fact that you still take a lot of damage when you block leads me to feel like this is something that player should want to improve and it's sort of a motivation for the player to look forward to all the upgrades that will happen, but right now it just makes blocking pointless.
So, the combat. The combat has one problem. And here comes a pretty long paragraph about it. It's not a rant, just some feedback and I hope it'll help to make the game better. So: there are no moves that can cancel attacks. I think is a pretty big problem, since attacks have quite a bit of recovery and get stuck in attacking animations for awhile. Backdash in Castlevania/Bloodstained and rolling in Souls/Borne games cancel your attack into evasive maneuver which leads to way more fun and fair feeling combat, since you can react to enemy's attacks and avoid taking damage if you're good at it. In this game, because you can't cancel your attack and you're stuck in animations for so long, fighting feels very restrictive and you really have to play it super safe or you'll eat a bunch of damage that you can't avoid even if you see it coming. So the difficulty of combat here ends up coming not from your ability to react and response accordingly, but from how well you remember for how long you'll be stuck in the recovery and will you be able to move in time. To beat the goo boss I had to just do one attack, then run away, then run back in, do one attack and run away again, otherwise I'll be put into a position where taking damage depends not on me, but on enemy's AI and my guess work, since even if I'll stop attacking as soon as I see that boss is telegraphing her attack - I don't have enough time to get unstuck and jump or move away. That fight was not fun. If I could've dodge or cancel my attacks in any way, by ducking or jumping, or rolling, or anything, it would've been a pretty alright boss, but with this combat it's either feels unfair when you eat a bunch damage you see coming a mile away, but stuck in a recovery or it's boring if you play it super safe like I described above. (also this goo boss can move all the way to the left corner of the arena, which also leads to unavoidable damage).
It's not like you can't make a combat system without ability to cancel moves, but it only really works with "one attack" combat systems, like in old Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden games, where you have just one attack and, yes, you do have to remember how long your recovery is and you do have to account for it, but it's the recovery of your one and only attack, so it's not hard to learn it and account for it. When you have combos and multiple attack types - remembering recovery timings becomes a nightmare and it just not a fun time.
I hope that helps :3
It's a neat game so far and I hope it will continue to improve.
Thank you for the thoughtful and helpful feedback, I just want to point out that.
You can cancel attacks when you hit with them. You're only commited to the full recovery on a miss. This is to encourage measured agression and punish just flailing. It does introduce a learning curve, but I think it makes it more satisfying when you get into it.
But how do you cancel? I've loaded the game right now and I'm trying to do something after an attack has landed, and I'm getting nothing. I can't jump or block or move, and I'm landing those attacks. And I remember yesterday, during that boss fight, I've tried many times to get away after my attack has landed and I don't remember at any point being able to do anything until my recovery was done. So if it's true that you can cancel attacks I'm mystified as to how to do it.
And regarding allowing cancel only on hit, I understand this as a design choice and some games do that, but I'll be honest, I never was a fan of it. I prefer to have one specific move that can cancel at any point (like a dodge or a backdash), that way it's easier to learn and it feels more reliable. But it's a matter of taste, I suppose.
i did not like it, it was chore to play threw - visually its ok tho it could been better atm it seams a bit empty - game play wise little stiff but solid - level design and difficult curve tragic levels are quite plane and lack of substance not to mention some of the obstacle are place just to be mean to the player forcing player to get domaga not because he/she made a mistake but how the level was put together - lack of some nice beat/ music dulls the experience
It was a really interesting platformer since there is a halfway state when jumping onto corners where you can dangle on them, but there is no parity so certain sections of the map are unfair and are blind jump -- the issue could be solved by fixing the parity to have down be the reverse parity to crawl down onto a ledge from a flat standing position to pan the camera.
Blocking was pretty much pointless and at times the developer can make sections absolutely brutal for people who don't want to take damage. There is a section in which there is a low ceiling and a manticore and some flying enemies backwards -- the flying enemies are timed just perfectly to prevent the player from just jumping over the manticore so as to force a fight. It is also highly unfair that the projectiles go through solid surfaces when the player has no projectiles or means of actually preventing damage. Blocking doesn't actually prevent damage, just basically thirds it, so it doesn't encourage much use or at all especially notable in 'fight' sections or the boss fight. This could be remedied by putting in a back dash, since forcing the player to take damage to pass is entirely nongranular and between unfair and boring, or it's just me and the game isn't designed with me in mind as I'm not an avid or hardcore player.
The boss fight was really neat, but there is no crouch which means a third of the attacks are unavoidable to what looks like was designed to be a crouch dodge, but there is no crouch.
The shoryukens are pretty pointless at the moment since it is not good for tight platformers as well as a lack of enemies that make it viable besides some ceiling slimes and the one manticore.
Pretty neat overall, the mechanics presented were interesting but lacked parity in other actions. The game seemed stiff as there were not many movement or viable attacking options, but overall a fun one time playthrough as it stands, but I would probably not revisit it in the future if this was a final version.
My suggestions are to add more movement tech, such as a backdash, a crouch, and hold onto ledge from a standing position which would solve a bunch of parity issues as well as open many more systems to mess with such as a potential for crawling thorough 1 wide tiles. Also a better combat system because if blocking does not prevent damage, then it should be more fair that enemies do not have supernatural projectiles, vision, a superior attacking speed, and a larger attack hitbox than the player to spurn the player. Also having a diagonal up and a diagonal down attack from facing without moving from the position of standing would alleviate my issues with some corner sections that were created.
I some how did many accidental shoryukens, and I wish I knew actually how to do them when I want, insight on the actually controls you need to do them would be nice. Thanks.....
this game is already really fun, with four different attacks and 3 different enemies. the jump physics are a little weird, but i feel like the base of the game has come together quite nicley. cant wait to see what this game holds in the future.
Damn... Just when I thought the fandom needs more games. A small but very well polished action game indeed, the basic fighting mechanism is solid. I can see lots of potential in this game, really, keep up the good work! <3
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this game still in the works? or has it been put away?
I think the game looks amazing. I love the graphics and the background music is really nice as well. This is a very cool project!
I can't really call it fun so far, although I generally like platformers.
It' s really irritating to have to play avoidance and perfect strike with continously moving enemies that do lazy contact damage and yet you must hit perfectly to damage; the latter being difficult to do when damage has a control lockout effect. And the character movement is a bit slippery, makes it hard to be precise and super easy to bump a top edge and drown while trying to jump.
A good MLP based Game in 2019 iam Exited.
I Hope this Project isnt one of those wich where Hyped and looked awesome and then get forgotten about!
Played it for a bit now and its really fun good job :)
what are teh system requirements to play? I am on an older OS and it wont play in any of my browsers.
I have not tested that out yet.
You should be fine with anything capable of running windows 7 or later. It's not very demanding.
that explains why i wont be able to play it heh. I am on VISTA
Game is looking good so far! I like the reasonably challenging nature of the levels and the boss.
Unfortunately the boss was rather vulnerable to just "run in, do one sweeping attack, run away, wait, repeat": no matter which attacks the boss does they don't need anything except that one pattern. It's possible to jump over the boss's low attack, so maybe it'd be nice if (maybe 2/3 of the way through the boss's health) she starts doing a low attack too quickly to run away from so you have to jump over it instead? Something like that to mix it up a bit.
At the moment the interaction with characters in the town epilogue is somewhat painful as I can't find any way to progress through their text: LMB causes the character to just attack, which is always embarrassing in peaceful village zones, and pressing "up" a second time doesn't advance either. I just need to wait, which is rather boring.
Apart from that, though, this is looking very promising. I particularly like 1) the animations - very fluid and satisfying, somewhat reminiscent of the original 90s rotoscoped Prince of Persia; and 2) the hidden areas - though as another commenter said, they do want some more reason for existing than they have at the moment, obviously.
Good stuff!
To be fair I have spedrun the game a few times. The sliding high jump attack can actually be used to reach some higher ledges or ave yourself from landing in water. The Goony boss is actually quite easy if you can recognize the pattern and even exploit the hit detection boxes. Let me explain, everytime Goony does an upward spike attack across the floor she stops for about a second, in that second deploy M1+A M1+ S M1x2, this will do about 900 points of damage since Goony fires the slime balls as she recovers, making you clip into her for a fraction of a second, making all 3-4 slimeballs miss. The small jump mechanic can also be used to dodge her low attacks but only if youre far away enough. As for the tenta ponies who throw things at you if fairly easy to get by them, on Normal they throw an object a certain range and at a certain angle, the best way to beat them in Hard is to predict their movement, now I know youre asking "BUT Trash, they throw many items how can I avoid them?" Easy, deploy a quick slide jump boost, S Jump + S M1, and youll whiz by, do this after jumping over the tenta pony and you should be clear.
Now as for the game. A solid 8/10. I like it, I bet some people can probably speedrun this for money and stuff. I know I would.
Oh and Bit Assembly, dont fix these exploits, I need them to beat my personal records.
3min and 15sec.
Fun detected, deploy patch.
It plays great. Please add more levels
Just played through it. So far it feels like a prototype, but it's alright.
Animations are pretty great. Both on the main character, enemies and the goo boss. Backgrounds also look good, especially in the town area at the end. Can't really comment on the music, since there isn't any :3
I really like the ledge grabbing, and overall controls seemed fine. There are a couple of things that started to stand out later on:
Level design seems okay. Right now it's hard to judge based on just one introductory level. Hidden areas were a nice surprise (even though there's little point to them right now).
There are also some features that make me wanna ask: "why is this here?" - like health bar and damage numbers, coins and crates. It feels like this game wants to be a metroidvania where eventually your health will grow, your attacks will do more damage, your coins will be spent on something in some kind of shop, and so on. But right now it's just a straightforward platformer and all these things add nothing to a straightforward platformer. Also the fact that you still take a lot of damage when you block leads me to feel like this is something that player should want to improve and it's sort of a motivation for the player to look forward to all the upgrades that will happen, but right now it just makes blocking pointless.
So, the combat. The combat has one problem. And here comes a pretty long paragraph about it. It's not a rant, just some feedback and I hope it'll help to make the game better. So: there are no moves that can cancel attacks. I think is a pretty big problem, since attacks have quite a bit of recovery and get stuck in attacking animations for awhile. Backdash in Castlevania/Bloodstained and rolling in Souls/Borne games cancel your attack into evasive maneuver which leads to way more fun and fair feeling combat, since you can react to enemy's attacks and avoid taking damage if you're good at it. In this game, because you can't cancel your attack and you're stuck in animations for so long, fighting feels very restrictive and you really have to play it super safe or you'll eat a bunch of damage that you can't avoid even if you see it coming. So the difficulty of combat here ends up coming not from your ability to react and response accordingly, but from how well you remember for how long you'll be stuck in the recovery and will you be able to move in time. To beat the goo boss I had to just do one attack, then run away, then run back in, do one attack and run away again, otherwise I'll be put into a position where taking damage depends not on me, but on enemy's AI and my guess work, since even if I'll stop attacking as soon as I see that boss is telegraphing her attack - I don't have enough time to get unstuck and jump or move away. That fight was not fun. If I could've dodge or cancel my attacks in any way, by ducking or jumping, or rolling, or anything, it would've been a pretty alright boss, but with this combat it's either feels unfair when you eat a bunch damage you see coming a mile away, but stuck in a recovery or it's boring if you play it super safe like I described above. (also this goo boss can move all the way to the left corner of the arena, which also leads to unavoidable damage).
It's not like you can't make a combat system without ability to cancel moves, but it only really works with "one attack" combat systems, like in old Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden games, where you have just one attack and, yes, you do have to remember how long your recovery is and you do have to account for it, but it's the recovery of your one and only attack, so it's not hard to learn it and account for it. When you have combos and multiple attack types - remembering recovery timings becomes a nightmare and it just not a fun time.
I hope that helps :3
It's a neat game so far and I hope it will continue to improve.
Thank you for the thoughtful and helpful feedback, I just want to point out that.
You can cancel attacks when you hit with them. You're only commited to the full recovery on a miss. This is to encourage measured agression and punish just flailing. It does introduce a learning curve, but I think it makes it more satisfying when you get into it.
But how do you cancel? I've loaded the game right now and I'm trying to do something after an attack has landed, and I'm getting nothing. I can't jump or block or move, and I'm landing those attacks. And I remember yesterday, during that boss fight, I've tried many times to get away after my attack has landed and I don't remember at any point being able to do anything until my recovery was done. So if it's true that you can cancel attacks I'm mystified as to how to do it.
And regarding allowing cancel only on hit, I understand this as a design choice and some games do that, but I'll be honest, I never was a fan of it. I prefer to have one specific move that can cancel at any point (like a dodge or a backdash), that way it's easier to learn and it feels more reliable. But it's a matter of taste, I suppose.
i did not like it, it was chore to play threw
- visually its ok tho it could been better atm it seams a bit empty
- game play wise little stiff but solid
- level design and difficult curve tragic levels are quite plane and lack of substance not to mention some of the obstacle are place just to be mean to the player forcing player to get domaga not because he/she made a mistake but how the level was put together
- lack of some nice beat/ music dulls the experience
It was a really interesting platformer since there is a halfway state when jumping onto corners where you can dangle on them, but there is no parity so certain sections of the map are unfair and are blind jump -- the issue could be solved by fixing the parity to have down be the reverse parity to crawl down onto a ledge from a flat standing position to pan the camera.
Blocking was pretty much pointless and at times the developer can make sections absolutely brutal for people who don't want to take damage. There is a section in which there is a low ceiling and a manticore and some flying enemies backwards -- the flying enemies are timed just perfectly to prevent the player from just jumping over the manticore so as to force a fight. It is also highly unfair that the projectiles go through solid surfaces when the player has no projectiles or means of actually preventing damage.
Blocking doesn't actually prevent damage, just basically thirds it, so it doesn't encourage much use or at all especially notable in 'fight' sections or the boss fight. This could be remedied by putting in a back dash, since forcing the player to take damage to pass is entirely nongranular and between unfair and boring, or it's just me and the game isn't designed with me in mind as I'm not an avid or hardcore player.
The boss fight was really neat, but there is no crouch which means a third of the attacks are unavoidable to what looks like was designed to be a crouch dodge, but there is no crouch.
The shoryukens are pretty pointless at the moment since it is not good for tight platformers as well as a lack of enemies that make it viable besides some ceiling slimes and the one manticore.
Pretty neat overall, the mechanics presented were interesting but lacked parity in other actions. The game seemed stiff as there were not many movement or viable attacking options, but overall a fun one time playthrough as it stands, but I would probably not revisit it in the future if this was a final version.
My suggestions are to add more movement tech, such as a backdash, a crouch, and hold onto ledge from a standing position which would solve a bunch of parity issues as well as open many more systems to mess with such as a potential for crawling thorough 1 wide tiles. Also a better combat system because if blocking does not prevent damage, then it should be more fair that enemies do not have supernatural projectiles, vision, a superior attacking speed, and a larger attack hitbox than the player to spurn the player. Also having a diagonal up and a diagonal down attack from facing without moving from the position of standing would alleviate my issues with some corner sections that were created.
Fun to play for a demo, but stiff.
I some how did many accidental shoryukens, and I wish I knew actually how to do them when I want, insight on the actually controls you need to do them would be nice. Thanks.....
this game is already really fun, with four different attacks and 3 different enemies. the jump physics are a little weird, but i feel like the base of the game has come together quite nicley. cant wait to see what this game holds in the future.
Damn... Just when I thought the fandom needs more games. A small but very well polished action game indeed, the basic fighting mechanism is solid. I can see lots of potential in this game, really, keep up the good work! <3
i really like the pony animations. the attacks are all super snappy :3
i especially like how the ledge grab looks. good stuff <3