Greetings all, I'm fairly new to this forum. Myself and my dev partner have been beavering away at our upcoming iphone game for a while. It should now be out in a couple weeks...! Here's a couple videos, one talking about the music, one just showing gameplay. All feedback is welcome. Feel free to be blunt. It's much more useful than being polite. Cheers Edit: We're now looking for people to test the game. If you're curious how it plays just let me know and I'll email you the latest build.
Thanks Paradiso - also thanks for posting the video correctly. I was thinking it would auto post a url like wordpress does. Ah well.
Cheers MrLeQuack. (Do yo make the people at the bank address you as that? haha) I hope one or two (million) people agree with you!
Dynamic Music = win I'm a huge fan of dynamic music that can adapt to different game situations. Nice work, and thanks for sharing!
Cheers, yeah the dynamic music is quite simple in this game but I think it's much more interesting than just having a linear loop running in the background. Hopefully in a game or two, when I'm more experienced with game development I'll combine dynamic music with dynamic storytelling.
Cheers Peter So I maybe new around here but was still hoping for some blunt feedback from everyone. Where is that Mr.Ugly guy to 'say it how it is'?
i saw your thread.. but honestly i did not see the point to post.. you are very advanced in the developement cycle of your game and there is nothing in the slightest that appeals to me and it would make no difference to post extensive comments. good luck anyway.. with your 1 or 2 (million) sales.. if HeliApps predicts a hit thats as good as the millions already on your checking account.
HeliApps, I hope you're a descendant of Nostradamus Mr.Ugly, I dare you to go a whole 24 hours withought being sarcastic. I bet you can't do it. For some reason I have a mental image of you looking exactly like the keyboard player from Ramstein -
Christian "Flake" Lorenz, not even close. at the end who care about this one nay sayer if everyone else say yay.. the artistic direction is not my cup of tea and judging alone from the video the technical approach could need alot more care.. alone the horrible alpha masks on the assets is getting me goosebumps, and that by looking at a compressed video. nahh.. i don't get started here.. good luck with your game. lets hope heliapps is the correct descendant
Hahaha I laughed at that one. But not as hard as I laughed at the price repository thread , but close LoL.
Another nay-sayer here I'm afraid: While I like the idea of hand-painted graphics I'm simply not falling in love with this iteration of said concept. I think it might be the character design that's not quite my cup of tea. (I love everything about Tiny Wing's presentation though, but this doesn't feel as sophisticated to me). Regarding the music: Yes it's dynamic, but not particularly catchy in my book. It sounds like a bunch of harmonizing loops, but there's no theme that excites me. A cool game soundtrack will have me humming and whistling the tune even when not playing. This is more like random elevator-music to my ears. I'd actually prefer a nice atmospheric wall of nature sound effects to this. Of the top of my head: An updated chiptunish verison of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee seems like a perfect fit... (?) (I believe it's actually old enough to have entered the public domain as well). All this being said, I've demonstrated time and again my complete lack of understanding what will succeed or fail at the App Store, so this might actually be good news for you...
@ Mr Ugly - I didn't fully understand what you were saying. However I shall assume you meant that the technical approach is giving you goosebumps. So glad that just watching the video is exciting for you! You'll love it even more when you can download the game and play it on your very own device. I'm sure you'll have hours of fun! @ Yemi - @ NickFalk - thanks for your honest and detailed feedback. Actually Flight of the Bumblebee was one of the first things I thought of. I also have a really good SID emulator which is a lot of fun. Also experimented with the music getting faster and slower depending on your character's speed. But after trying different things, a soundtrack that felt acoustic seemed the best fit. Probably I just wanted to make my own music too as that is the most enjoyable part of all of this! I totally accept that you're not into this soundtrack and wouldn't expect everybody to love it. But I would hedge my bets and say that if you don't find it 'catchy' enough after one listen, your opinion may change after you actually play it. Because of the way the sounds trigger it feels a bit like you (via the character) are playing the main melody of the music. Which is quite satisfying (some feedback from playtesting). So yes, I've purposefully not made the backing music too busy or prominent so that the focus can be on melodies that the player 'creates' by collecting the flowers.
Hi Shaz! I think it looks really nice - sort of like John Craven's Countryfile meets Rez. My game has hand-painted artwork too, so can appreciate how much time goes into creating assets like that. Obviously without seeing menu's and game structure (you mention a story mode in the second video, so I presume there's several gameplay modes) I can't comment too much, but based on the gameplay there, a few things jumped out at me: 1. The main character is pretty small - I felt I wanted some hero moments (perhaps when he got a star?) where he came right up to the screen, so I could appreciate his character design a bit more. Maybe at the beginning or end of each level? 2. I worry about the controls - just tilting the device (which is how I'm assuming you're controlling the bee) won't work for all players as some people hate gyro controls. On the other hand, moving your thumb up and down the left half of the screen would get in the way of the onscreen action, so you're in a bit of a pickle there. Perhaps you could illuminate me a bit? 3. The gameplay is a fairly simple slalom, which is fine, but it felt like there should be one more thing to do - the action looks like it's going to be fairly frantic, and just like, say Asteroids, you need a button that can take the pressure off for a second, some sort of smart bomb. Perhaps you could call a swarm of bees that would blast you through obstacles, with each object losing you a small cluster of bees till you're back to flying solo again. Or a 'bee sense' bullet time slow motion button? Something to give you a rest for a second if you're struggling. 4. Gameplay might need changing up a bit - maybe you could have a meta game, where different flowers give you different amounts of honey, with a risk/reward mechanic for the more pollen heavy (yet dangerous to collect) flowers. 5. I really like the music, so DON'T CHANGE THAT. Hope that helps!
