The text is too tiny on real hardware, for people who needs (better) glasses. An optional bigger font for the dialogue text would be nice.
When jumping up shafts, the screen transitions too soon when we need to jump alternating between the left and right on those tiny platforms in the walls of the shaft. We try to jump onto a tiny platform on the left, and before reaching it the screen transitions and in the new screen the first platform is on the right, which is disorienting.
As for the rest of the game, it's really well made and I hope it gets fully funded. I find that the lack of vertical aiming is an interesting differentiation between this game and the Metroid series, because it opens new challenge possibilities in the level design. Maybe the diagonal or vertical aiming could be exclusive to certain weapons.
Interesting - I loved the text on the GBC screen - was neat to see how small and still fully legible it was. The use of slight colour for anti-alising was a neat touch! It is small text though!!
I hear you. Also 45, and while I don’t need glasses I will admit playing on a real GBC can be taxing in a way it wasn’t 30 years ago.
The slightly larger screen of an Analogue Pocket is fine.
I’ll think about how to handle this. It may be that I go with a slightly larger font, but I don’t want to go big; I was trying to avoid the massive fonts you got in games like Dragon Warrior III:
https://i.imgur.com/MwAFdZO.png
Where you have to scroll text constantly. Maybe there’s a middle ground.
Thanks. The only text that really needs it is the dialogue text (logbooks, characters talking). The GUI text (menus, status bar) is fine enough as it is because once we memorize it, we can easily figure out what's written.
By the way, I suggest making all pick-up items blink in a subtle way, to make them easier to distinguish from the scenery.
And when playing in the DSi, with the SuperGameBoy borders option enabled, the game displayed a checkerboard pattern in the borders of the screen. I guess the SuperGameBoy reads the border art data from the game's ROM, because some other games display an unique border with that option active, so it would be nice if you can add SuperGB border art to this game.
Just realized I forgot to comment here, but I have implemented a new super gameboy border that will show up in the next version - it looks a bit better than the placeholder grid I put up earlier.
And yeah, I was planning on cycling the palettes I use for pickups so that they “shine” periodically - I know at the small size they can be hard to see/identify as pickups.
I don’t know if I’ll bother for the demo but it’ll be there in the full game.
I enjoyed the demo, though I did want to bring up some stuff (I am playing on an Everdrive x7):
• I saw that below someone mentioned it took a while for them to figure out that jumping down a platform was Down + A, (which while it is a commonly used combo) for the full game something like a tutorial for the basic movement could be helpful as not everyone is as familiar.
• I want to echo the request to be able to shoot upwards. I understand if the game was built around only being able to shoot left and right, but it can be frustrating seeing an enemy above you and not being able to do anything about it.
• If it's possible, could you add a preview image for the Chameleon Circuit in the inventory? A minor nitpick for this one but it felt annoying having to press Start, change menu, scroll down, change suit color, exit out, look at my character, repeat.
• I noticed that jumping down a platform while moving left or right causes you to flying downwards really fast. Is this intentional? It certainly was surprising when I discovered this on accident.
• Final issue, my game doesn't save at all. I thought this was intentional after beating the demo but I decided to simply save and reload at an earlier point to see and it doesn't save at all for me.
I am very much looking forward to seeing where this game goes though!
I will try to balance the need for tutorials better in the full game - I’m almost considering a sort of “training” room you can access from the menu for the very basic stuff - experienced players can ignore it, that way.
And yeah, I am evaluating vertical firing along with adding a crouch. Whether it’s done by allowing aiming or via an alternative weapon, you will eventually have more options in combat.
A preview option on the chameleon circuit is a good idea, and yes, it should be doable. I’ll be reworking the menus for the full game and I’ll try to incorporate that sort of affordance wherever I have an option like that.
The issue where you sometimes drop down quickly is a real one and known. It’s been surprisingly hard to track down, but it’s on the list and will be fixed.
As to your final issue - I have an Everdrive X3 and it saves on that, though I have to press the button in the cartridge to go back to the menu for it to persist - if I shut the gameboy off it just disappears.
I tried the demo, and overall I like it -- especially the atmosphere -- but I have a few concerns:
§ The controls seem slightly unresponsive, like there's a slight latency on input. Not enough to be a deal-breaker, but still noticeable.
§ The game seems to choke very easily, with just a few objects (enemies/bullets) on screen. Even without any enemies and just a few bullets there will be slowdown. You might want to limit the number of bullets allowed at once further to avoid this...
The above two might be related to GBstudio's performance I guess, and if so difficult to do much about...
§ When firing rapidly, maxing out bullets on screen, the firing sound will play even if no bullet is fired.
§ The way the player is turned around when damaged is very disorienting. Though I guess this is intentional, and you might get used to it.
There was even worse latency -- significant latency -- when playing the browser version, but it might be related to me being on Linux+Firefox. Still, it might be something to consider as it doesn't put the game in its best light.
I am also on Linux and Firefox - it runs okay here, but that’s going to be heavily dependent on hardware and how your system is set up - I’m on Wayland and KDE6 with latest Nvidia drivers.
The game itself does have a handful of screens where you can see slowdown, but not generally just by firing with no enemies present. The Observation Deck uses some complex parallax that has a performance impact, and you can see some dropped frames there while all three enemies in the room are still active. The long corridor in Medical can have some because of the AI for the sniping enemies, and the first room of medical can slow down when you approach the door to Surgery if the enemies are still alive and active.
If you don’t mind, what emulator were you using outside the browser? And does the performance of the Demo seem worse than other Gameboy Color games in that emulator?
I tried it both in Mesen and VBA-M, and the slowdown with several objects on screen (even if just bullets) is present in both. With ~4 bullets on screen everything starts to slow down -- not any extreme slowdown, but noticeable. I noticed it in a bunch of different rooms, not just "special rooms".
Yeah, the browser latency might be system dependent---just thought I'd point it out as (for me) it ran way better in a local emulator and the browser performance was not indicative of the game's quality.
Looks amazing, sounds amazing! Maybe down tap or down hold to drop from a platform... I thought I was stuck till I tried all combos to find drop was down+A, just a minor one. The transition going up tunnels is a little jarring as it looks like you can hop from side to side, but you go straight to the upper level - again, only minor. Not played much more, but will download for the GBC to try some more. And checking out the Kickstarter!!
Hello, i have just tried your demo! excellent work! i think the game is amazingly fun but i do have some minor things i think would help make it a bit better in my opinion. first, i would recommend maybe adding the ability to look/shoot upwards (and perhaps the ability to crouch or a morph ball equivalent but this part is the metroid lover in me talking) as it would help with minor sections such as the part where there is two plant things going up and down or when there are enemies rounding corners and i do think it would help bring a bit more personality to the soldier and some people like messing around/fidgeting and that is a way to do that. second, one the way to the boss room there are these platforms that move around, i would perhaps find a way to make them easier to land on or recover because it would be helpful. not really asking to make it dumbed down, just a case of i had minor issues but it could be a me thing. (although i do feel like the enemy should be moved from the wall to the top platform, the moving platform commonly has one being shoved into it.) third (and this is a really minor nitpick i just think its odd but neat at the same time) when going up from "the blurp" ship to loading dock there are stairs but the loading zone is below it so that you can't reach the second stair when going up or down (kind also applies to the first area of the ship but only from the bottom, however, again, just thought it was funny and i would mention it, no pressure about it). last suggestion is that i would recommend giving the boss's shoulder tackle a bit of windup due to the speed at which he comes dashing at you due to being a first boss. Sorry about the long winded suggestions, i REALLY like what you have done so far and i do plan on backing your project i just had some minor recommendations if you are willing to look at them. if you have a reason to not add these or just don't feel like it, thats all good. again, great job and thank you for reading this if you do.
Thanks for your comments, and I’m glad you enjoyed the demo!
The full game is going to have a few more movement options, though I’m still experimenting with how much to do as far as aiming - being able to aim changes how you deal with enemy encounters, so I’m seeing what works there on both sides of that.
And yes, I know what you mean about it not being clear where the scene transitions are as in Docking. This happens on some vertical rooms due to some early decisions I made in structuring the demo, but it shouldn’t be a problem in the full game.
After opening up the promenade door (close to the armory) I lost the ability to shoot. Jump still worked. It persisted even after a save and reload. I experienced this in the web build. It was fun up until then. Looks great :)
Thanks for trying the demo and thanks for the bug report.
It may be that the caps lock key on your keyboard got hit - the emulator the web embed uses apparently differentiates between capital and lower case letters.
One other user also reported not being able to shoot after a certain point on the web build, and the caps lock key was all I could see that might cause that.
I’ll add a note to the instructions when I push the next update.
Caps lock was not on, and I still had the ability to jump. Testing in another browser, I noticed that caps lock being on stopped both shooting and jumping.
Reloading the save, I could still not shoot. Without changing anything, when I died, I returned to title and started a new game, and could shoot/jump. Reloading the previous save, that save still did not allow shooting.
So unfortunately not an input issue as this apparently corrupted my save.
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This game is amazing! If you didn't tell me this was Gameboy, I wouldn't think it was
Played the demo, excellent stuff. Some remarks:
The text is too tiny on real hardware, for people who needs (better) glasses. An optional bigger font for the dialogue text would be nice.
When jumping up shafts, the screen transitions too soon when we need to jump alternating between the left and right on those tiny platforms in the walls of the shaft. We try to jump onto a tiny platform on the left, and before reaching it the screen transitions and in the new screen the first platform is on the right, which is disorienting.
As for the rest of the game, it's really well made and I hope it gets fully funded. I find that the lack of vertical aiming is an interesting differentiation between this game and the Metroid series, because it opens new challenge possibilities in the level design. Maybe the diagonal or vertical aiming could be exclusive to certain weapons.
Interesting - I loved the text on the GBC screen - was neat to see how small and still fully legible it was. The use of slight colour for anti-alising was a neat touch! It is small text though!!
I played it in a regular DSi, with aspect-correct scaling. Without scaling, I couldn't read anything.
But as I said, it may be because I need better glasses. I'm 45 years old.
I hear you. Also 45, and while I don’t need glasses I will admit playing on a real GBC can be taxing in a way it wasn’t 30 years ago.
The slightly larger screen of an Analogue Pocket is fine.
I’ll think about how to handle this. It may be that I go with a slightly larger font, but I don’t want to go big; I was trying to avoid the massive fonts you got in games like Dragon Warrior III: https://i.imgur.com/MwAFdZO.png
Where you have to scroll text constantly. Maybe there’s a middle ground.
Thanks. The only text that really needs it is the dialogue text (logbooks, characters talking). The GUI text (menus, status bar) is fine enough as it is because once we memorize it, we can easily figure out what's written.
By the way, I suggest making all pick-up items blink in a subtle way, to make them easier to distinguish from the scenery.
And when playing in the DSi, with the SuperGameBoy borders option enabled, the game displayed a checkerboard pattern in the borders of the screen. I guess the SuperGameBoy reads the border art data from the game's ROM, because some other games display an unique border with that option active, so it would be nice if you can add SuperGB border art to this game.
SGB borders for the win... always!!! Love making them, and playing it on my Super Gameboy - serious old school vibes!
Just realized I forgot to comment here, but I have implemented a new super gameboy border that will show up in the next version - it looks a bit better than the placeholder grid I put up earlier.
And yeah, I was planning on cycling the palettes I use for pickups so that they “shine” periodically - I know at the small size they can be hard to see/identify as pickups.
I don’t know if I’ll bother for the demo but it’ll be there in the full game.
I enjoyed the demo, though I did want to bring up some stuff (I am playing on an Everdrive x7):
• I saw that below someone mentioned it took a while for them to figure out that jumping down a platform was Down + A, (which while it is a commonly used combo) for the full game something like a tutorial for the basic movement could be helpful as not everyone is as familiar.
• I want to echo the request to be able to shoot upwards. I understand if the game was built around only being able to shoot left and right, but it can be frustrating seeing an enemy above you and not being able to do anything about it.
• If it's possible, could you add a preview image for the Chameleon Circuit in the inventory? A minor nitpick for this one but it felt annoying having to press Start, change menu, scroll down, change suit color, exit out, look at my character, repeat.
• I noticed that jumping down a platform while moving left or right causes you to flying downwards really fast. Is this intentional? It certainly was surprising when I discovered this on accident.
• Final issue, my game doesn't save at all. I thought this was intentional after beating the demo but I decided to simply save and reload at an earlier point to see and it doesn't save at all for me.
I am very much looking forward to seeing where this game goes though!
Thanks for trying the demo!
I will try to balance the need for tutorials better in the full game - I’m almost considering a sort of “training” room you can access from the menu for the very basic stuff - experienced players can ignore it, that way.
And yeah, I am evaluating vertical firing along with adding a crouch. Whether it’s done by allowing aiming or via an alternative weapon, you will eventually have more options in combat.
A preview option on the chameleon circuit is a good idea, and yes, it should be doable. I’ll be reworking the menus for the full game and I’ll try to incorporate that sort of affordance wherever I have an option like that.
The issue where you sometimes drop down quickly is a real one and known. It’s been surprisingly hard to track down, but it’s on the list and will be fixed.
As to your final issue - I have an Everdrive X3 and it saves on that, though I have to press the button in the cartridge to go back to the menu for it to persist - if I shut the gameboy off it just disappears.
I tried the demo, and overall I like it -- especially the atmosphere -- but I have a few concerns:
§ The controls seem slightly unresponsive, like there's a slight latency on input. Not enough to be a deal-breaker, but still noticeable.
§ The game seems to choke very easily, with just a few objects (enemies/bullets) on screen. Even without any enemies and just a few bullets there will be slowdown. You might want to limit the number of bullets allowed at once further to avoid this...
The above two might be related to GBstudio's performance I guess, and if so difficult to do much about...
§ When firing rapidly, maxing out bullets on screen, the firing sound will play even if no bullet is fired.
§ The way the player is turned around when damaged is very disorienting. Though I guess this is intentional, and you might get used to it.
There was even worse latency -- significant latency -- when playing the browser version, but it might be related to me being on Linux+Firefox. Still, it might be something to consider as it doesn't put the game in its best light.
I am also on Linux and Firefox - it runs okay here, but that’s going to be heavily dependent on hardware and how your system is set up - I’m on Wayland and KDE6 with latest Nvidia drivers.
The game itself does have a handful of screens where you can see slowdown, but not generally just by firing with no enemies present. The Observation Deck uses some complex parallax that has a performance impact, and you can see some dropped frames there while all three enemies in the room are still active. The long corridor in Medical can have some because of the AI for the sniping enemies, and the first room of medical can slow down when you approach the door to Surgery if the enemies are still alive and active.
If you don’t mind, what emulator were you using outside the browser? And does the performance of the Demo seem worse than other Gameboy Color games in that emulator?
I tried it both in Mesen and VBA-M, and the slowdown with several objects on screen (even if just bullets) is present in both. With ~4 bullets on screen everything starts to slow down -- not any extreme slowdown, but noticeable. I noticed it in a bunch of different rooms, not just "special rooms".
Yeah, the browser latency might be system dependent---just thought I'd point it out as (for me) it ran way better in a local emulator and the browser performance was not indicative of the game's quality.
So well made, i love it!
Just backed the kickstarter after downloading the ROM and playing on a GBC, looks, sounds, and plays great! Best of luck!
jesus, I didn’t know gbstudio could do this
Looks amazing, sounds amazing! Maybe down tap or down hold to drop from a platform... I thought I was stuck till I tried all combos to find drop was down+A, just a minor one. The transition going up tunnels is a little jarring as it looks like you can hop from side to side, but you go straight to the upper level - again, only minor. Not played much more, but will download for the GBC to try some more. And checking out the Kickstarter!!
Hello, i have just tried your demo! excellent work! i think the game is amazingly fun but i do have some minor things i think would help make it a bit better in my opinion. first, i would recommend maybe adding the ability to look/shoot upwards (and perhaps the ability to crouch or a morph ball equivalent but this part is the metroid lover in me talking) as it would help with minor sections such as the part where there is two plant things going up and down or when there are enemies rounding corners and i do think it would help bring a bit more personality to the soldier and some people like messing around/fidgeting and that is a way to do that. second, one the way to the boss room there are these platforms that move around, i would perhaps find a way to make them easier to land on or recover because it would be helpful. not really asking to make it dumbed down, just a case of i had minor issues but it could be a me thing. (although i do feel like the enemy should be moved from the wall to the top platform, the moving platform commonly has one being shoved into it.) third (and this is a really minor nitpick i just think its odd but neat at the same time) when going up from "the blurp" ship to loading dock there are stairs but the loading zone is below it so that you can't reach the second stair when going up or down (kind also applies to the first area of the ship but only from the bottom, however, again, just thought it was funny and i would mention it, no pressure about it). last suggestion is that i would recommend giving the boss's shoulder tackle a bit of windup due to the speed at which he comes dashing at you due to being a first boss. Sorry about the long winded suggestions, i REALLY like what you have done so far and i do plan on backing your project i just had some minor recommendations if you are willing to look at them. if you have a reason to not add these or just don't feel like it, thats all good. again, great job and thank you for reading this if you do.
Thanks for your comments, and I’m glad you enjoyed the demo!
The full game is going to have a few more movement options, though I’m still experimenting with how much to do as far as aiming - being able to aim changes how you deal with enemy encounters, so I’m seeing what works there on both sides of that.
And yes, I know what you mean about it not being clear where the scene transitions are as in Docking. This happens on some vertical rooms due to some early decisions I made in structuring the demo, but it shouldn’t be a problem in the full game.
After opening up the promenade door (close to the armory) I lost the ability to shoot. Jump still worked. It persisted even after a save and reload. I experienced this in the web build. It was fun up until then. Looks great :)
Thanks for trying the demo and thanks for the bug report.
It may be that the caps lock key on your keyboard got hit - the emulator the web embed uses apparently differentiates between capital and lower case letters.
One other user also reported not being able to shoot after a certain point on the web build, and the caps lock key was all I could see that might cause that.
I’ll add a note to the instructions when I push the next update.
Caps lock was not on, and I still had the ability to jump. Testing in another browser, I noticed that caps lock being on stopped both shooting and jumping.
Reloading the save, I could still not shoot. Without changing anything, when I died, I returned to title and started a new game, and could shoot/jump. Reloading the previous save, that save still did not allow shooting.
So unfortunately not an input issue as this apparently corrupted my save.
Hopefully that might help a little :)
Interesting. It does help, thank you.
I’ll have to think about what might cause that.
Omg, this is soo good so far! Loving the Doctor Who references! Can't wait to buy the full version! Please tell me you're doing cartridges...
This game looks great :)
Beautiful game and well executed!
Wow! Very interesting metroidvania game.