The full game is being beta tested and I have been getting awesome feedback from players on what is working and what still isn't. At this point, it is relatively small tweaks but I wanted to touch on a few of the comments from the testers so far. If you are interested in joining the conversation, join the Discord. The game releases on July 18 on Steam and, of course, Itch!
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This first comment is relevant to parts of the game not included in the demo. Certain platforms and walls can move and affect player momentum.
“The only thing that I really disliked throughout the game was the momentum physics. When you are on a fast moving platform and flick off of it, it gives you a boost. But the boost you get seems completely random, and I find it so annoying when rooms require multiple momentum jumps that feel random.”
I really want the gameplay to feel good and not random, so I hated that it felt that way for you. So I did something about it and now platforms and walls have more “velocity forgiveness” when launching or jumping.
Details: If you jump or launch near the end of a platform/wall path, the velocity passed to the player will not immediately go to zero. This logic was coded into Synchro platforms (the ones that move when you dash) but it didn’t translate properly to other walls and platforms; until I did it a different way.
Here’s a table that maybe explains it better. The scenario is that a platform/wall comes to an abrupt stop. So what velocity should it pass to the player for their jump? (numbers completely made up for simplicity)
Old version:
Time Platform/wall velocity Velocity passed to player
0 300 300
1 300 300
2 0 0
New Version
Time Platform/wall velocity Velocity passed to player
0 300 300
1 300 300
2 0 250
3 0 200
4 0 150
…
This still rewards players for a well-timed jump but doesn’t absolutely punish players when they miss just a bit. I will probably need to tweak some parameters of this but so far I like how it keeps things a little more consistent. It DEFINITELY makes Skynest-Unseen_04 more fun.
This comment has some relevance to the demo, you can see this change when selecting SP_006, Bullet's room.
“Just a QOL thing, can you give some kind of indication of important things on the level selector to indicate if some characters are there or the entrance to a secret bonus level area”
Two ways I am addressing this problem:
- Adding signs that allow the player to teleport to characters. Sometimes there are NPCs that have this in their dialogue, but I think it’s good to be consistent and add the signs as well. In the Cliffs, for example, there is a sign near the barrel that will take you back to the level with Olivia and Schroeder. These signs didn’t always exist everywhere so I have added them in.
- The suggestion to add a visual cue on the level selector is a good one. Here’s what it looks like:
“Probably my main concern with the game is the ceiling for creative expression with the movement, I hate to just make comparisons but take a platformer like celeste for example. No matter what the level design is, you can always string together your moves to perform tricks, gain speed or do skips etc. but with kiopioke im not sure if how the current movement physics work really allows for that kind of expression, seeing as im not sure if you can gain more speed than your base dash without moving platforms”
This design decision is partly that I am not a skilled enough coder to make what EXOK made. Supermanning around the level in Celeste is an amazing skill that is reserved for a very small percentage of players so I didn’t pursue it; I was never going to be able to replicate Celeste in that area. I tried to make it so that there are a lot of levels that can be done in different ways, and that is how the personality of the player shows. I was watching a friend play last night and even after all the players I’ve watched, he still had different ways of finishing demo levels that I had not seen before.
“A much smaller nitpick is it can be a little weird to try and walljump, as it can sometimes feel like im "stuck" to a wall and jump upwards when im trying to jump away. could be a skill issue lol”
Here is how it is set up:
I would have to double check but I believe this is different than Celeste, which only allows jump upwards when the input is upwards. I made this choice based on really early alpha feedback from a much smaller group of players; when I watched them play, they would attempt to jump upward and be surprised when they jumped to the side. Not sure what the solution is or if there is a clear cut one here.
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That's all for now! You can wishlist on Steam if you'd like or follow me on Itch.io.