MoX

Public => Public Discussion => Topic started by: Hordecore on 22 May, 2013, 11:29:36 am

Title: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: Hordecore on 22 May, 2013, 11:29:36 am
Good day to you lot.


A friend of mine is working at a small game design company, Critical Bit. http://www.critical-bit.com (http://www.critical-bit.com)
With their team of 4 members, they made a demo or vertical slice and uploaded it on newgrounds.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/615516 (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/615516)

I'd say play it.
It's a side scrolling spaceship shooter. But you can outfit your ship they way you want.
If you dislike the music, there is a mute button for that ;-)
Don't be afraid to die, just pick up more weapons. Also, there is a boss!

Pro tips:
Watch your agility, it affects your acceleration.
Bear in mind, it is an HTML5 game, so performance differs from browser to browser.

He asked me to enter feedback in a review here or on newgrounds or mail it to: sybren@critcial-bit.com

I enjoyed it and I hope you guys will as well :-D
Heck, we might even get a credits spot if they decide to revise this game.

Horde
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: ZombieB on 22 May, 2013, 09:45:07 pm
It was pretty fun. The agility vs. weapons was a nice twist and being able to tilt the weapons the way you like is good.

All in all I liked it - even completed it on "hard" after completing it once. However, I never read your instructions nor did I read the comment underneath the game. I think the game itself should explain what's happening...so with that in mind :)

Room for improvement would be:

Pretty cool game though :)
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: Archangel on 22 May, 2013, 11:21:37 pm
I enjoyed it, was a good fun way to waste 10 -15 mins
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: CB_Sybren on 23 May, 2013, 10:36:31 am
Thank you, both of you. I probably speak for the 4 of us when I say I am glad you liked it.

Did you guys have a specific tactic. Did you think one or some of the guns was/were overpowered? Or under-powered?

@ZombieB
Thank you for that list! It is or will be very useful to us, for newer versions of this game and of course it challenges us in a way; "Make a game that explains itself, but not by the means of a long tutorial." - As we find long tutorials tend to be boring.
One question:
What did you mean with your last bulletpoint?
...I almost never even bothered after dying the first time...
Bother with what? Do you mean the lack of a death penalty?
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: ZombieB on 23 May, 2013, 06:35:49 pm
You're welcome :) And congrats with your vertical slice!

As for the last bulletpoint I meant that since I wasn't aware that you actually continued with the same life, I thought I simply sucked and was left with a "meh..whatever" feeling when I died the first time, almost making me quit. Some "Fear not, equip more guns and continue your adventure" feeling could be good to convey to the player so they're not put off by dying.

If it wasn't for the fact that I had actually looted a couple of guns I probably wouldn't have noticed that I could continue.


As for tactics, my initial tactic was to create a cone with a bunch of varied weaponry(mostly because I was too eager in placing guns, placing guns is fun after all) and that worked fine enough for the first playthrough. However, on "hard mode / nightmare / continue-mode" that tactic seemed less efficient, and I shifted more towards higher agility + more frontal-facing guns.   
After grinding cash to upgrade my agility, I switched out all weaponry. I ended up using:
Rapid-fire Lasers in a cone
Heavy missile launchers
Dumbfire bomb-launchers primarily firing forwards (I used these to take out asteroids)
Cone shaped beam-projectors (these are primarily good for pulsing mass-destruction).
1 or 2 light missile launchers just to hit targets that managed to pass through the initial barrage.

I probably had mostly dumbfire bomb-launchers in the end. Most of them fired forwards while some fired at a slight angle to ensure slightly more efficency when there wasn't any asteroids around. Agility was around 200 if I remember correctly.

For the cones I set up my cone so it fired in a X, so that the bullets would pass in front of my ship (to increase frontal damage) and cross over onto the other side.

Seeing as you already have damage and fire-rate listed, you might want to show damage-per-second as well since its a better indicator on how efficient a weapon is. Damage per agility is another thing that could be shown (but that might remove some of the "magic").


Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: Gnuko on 23 May, 2013, 07:17:10 pm
It was pretty fun. The agility vs. weapons was a nice twist and being able to tilt the weapons the way you like is good.

All in all I liked it - even completed it on "hard" after completing it once. However, I never read your instructions nor did I read the comment underneath the game. I think the game itself should explain what's happening...so with that in mind :)

Room for improvement would be:
  • A quick tutorial in the game would be good. Just to let people know of the agility, weapons, etc.
  • Setting the angle on the guns wasn't 100% intuitive. I kept clicking the gun a second time to set the angle, which didn't work.
  • Its possible to drop guns to the left of the inventory.
  • The debris after you destroy asteroids is very similiar to the bullets that you want to dodge.
  • The GUI for the ship-equip has 2 unclickable panels down right. Might be better to use that for instructions or to make the Launch button more visible
  • It wasn't intuitive that you could continue after you had died once. Again something that could be solved with a tutorialesque thing.
  • An "unequip all" button would be nice.
  • Weapons should list how much agility they cost to equip.
  • Unequipping wasn't 100% intuitive. You can drop weapons back into the inventory to unequip but it wasn't obvious. Perhaps allow right-clicking of weapons to unequip?
  • The "next page" and "previous page" arrows in the inventory GUI could use larger arrows or text. Something to make it more obvious that you can switch pages.
  • The upgrade agility thing isn't intuitive either, needs a tutorial or some starting cash so you understand that its clickable. Or perhaps a popups if you click it and don't have enough money which tells you what to do.
  • All in all I liked it but I almost never even bothered after dying the first time. I think the entry-requirement needs to be lowered.

Pretty cool game though :)

I've played and killed the main baddy and i have to say it was fun to do but there are some points that zombie already said which i entirely agree with, those are the ones stated in bold.
How i started playing the game:
I had the two main guns where you start with no the ship which took me a few seconds to realize how i could adjust them properly. Once i went on my first flight and died i had more guns but didn't really figure out at the start selling them and upgrading the ship worked the way it did. Once i found out it was a matter of running a few times towards the main baddy and gather enough guns to put on the ship to fully upgrade the agility and just facemelt through the enemies that there were available.

My main guns used:
At the start i kept using those main guns you get at the start but eventually i traded those all in for money and upgrade.
I used 4-5 missile launchers, 6-7 red laser shooters and 3 big ass beam projectors in a cone
To finnish it i believe i was almost back on full agility which makes the final baddy that much easier. Though i had the feeling the 'ducking' phase took a bit longer than it should have. I would have preferred some more stages which require more dodging when the main body is up than the mines that follow your path ( i think that is what they did no? )
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: Yam on 23 May, 2013, 07:34:21 pm
The Yam Approves!
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: CB_Sybren on 24 May, 2013, 11:13:52 am
Thank you for the clarification. And yes, I have to agree.

What I hear is the game really needs to be either more intuitive or needs a tutorial to explain how it works or both.

The explanations of how you play and how you interpret events  is very useful.
For example I was taken by surprise by the feedback about the debris. Since we didn't put any of that in the game as of yet.
Though in essence it is still good feedback, since it isn't clear that the debris are actually clusters that come out of the dumb-fire/cluster bomb. (by the way, these will not explode on player contact)

Also: We are currently making a mobile/tablet version. Would you guys be up for testing that as well?
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: ZombieB on 24 May, 2013, 01:10:06 pm
Sure, just let us know :)

Just another point - after you kill the boss the first time, you should make the "New Game +" button say something like "Nightmare Mode" or "Continue Game +" or "Round 2" or something along those lines.

The + is pretty hard to spot and i would guess a lot of people would assume the game was over at that point.
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: Gnuko on 24 May, 2013, 01:29:00 pm
Yeah and the amount of firepower needed to safely get to the boss takes a really long while to get with the amount of agility needed :(
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: Durugai on 25 May, 2013, 01:52:02 pm
I know it is vague, but as a casual Shoot'em'up'er, it feels very slow and sluggish. To me it takes too many hits to take down the early stuff, and also, which might have been mentioned, tutorial plz
Title: Re: Critical Bit - Web Game testing
Post by: CB_Sybren on 02 July, 2013, 11:39:51 am
I am sorry to announce we can not release a mobile version just yet. Only if we were to rewrite everything in another engine would this be possible. Simply because most browsers and html-parsing apps don't use the gpu yet for rendering.

When we do release it or something else I will keep you guys/galls  posted :)