What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series

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What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« on: October 16, 2009, 00:03:17 »
Recently I started making this series called "What Happens Next?" It's a series of short game episodes, each building off the last. What was supposed to be the real hook is that players, after completing each episode, could post on a forum to help decide what would happen in the next episode. Outside of a select few, no one has really contributed. However, I do not post this here to tell people to help, only for more people to play it. I want criticism to help me with my game design skills. If you want to contribute, you're free to do that as well.

I'm currently up to episode five and working on episode six.
Here is episode five's game page at the daily click: http://create-games.com/download.asp?id=7961

If you do not want to play through all of them, start with episode five.

Here are all the games so far:
One and Two - http://diexero.googlepages.com/WhatHappensNext.exe
Three - http://diexero.googlepages.com/WhatHappensNextEpisodeThree.exe
Four - http://diexero.googlepages.com/WhatHappensNext-EpisodeFour.exe
Five - http://www.filefront.com/14723399/whne5%20THE%20TEMPLE.exe


And some screenshots:





Let me know what you think.
Thanks.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2009, 22:42:44 by diexero »

Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2009, 00:49:33 »
well one annoying thing is that you have to use shift for the reflector, which causes stickykeys to pop up.

Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2009, 01:15:25 »
I apologize for that. I'm used to using shift a lot as it's very common in click games. You won't use shift at all after episode 2.

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Offline Shawnachu

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Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2009, 01:34:37 »
well one annoying thing is that you have to use shift for the reflector, which causes stickykeys to pop up.

You can turn off StickyKeys, you know.

Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2009, 02:16:52 »
well one annoying thing is that you have to use shift for the reflector, which causes stickykeys to pop up.

You can turn off StickyKeys, you know.
I'm incredibly surprised you haven't, Mathexpert.


Also, the reflector is a rather weird way to present challenges, no offense.
Lurk more.

Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2009, 02:31:04 »
Indeed. Skip to episode five, that's where the quality picks up.

Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #6 on: October 16, 2009, 04:37:45 »
Indeed. Skip to episode five, that's where the quality picks up.
Completion time: 2 minute 59! :D
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Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2009, 05:52:14 »
well one annoying thing is that you have to use shift for the reflector, which causes stickykeys to pop up.

You can turn off StickyKeys, you know.
I'm incredibly surprised you haven't, Mathexpert.

now you know how much I fail at common sense. But still good at math :P2

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Offline Razzorman

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Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2009, 11:12:41 »
I stopped playing after episode two.
The reflector stays up for way too short to be usable. At least against these enemies.
They will not attempt to shoot you over long distances, meaning that you have to stand so close to them that surviving has nothing to do with reaction time.
Instead, you need to have almost perfect timing to reflect their bullets. This doesn't work very well over short distances though, since you need to time your reflections a little before the demons actually fire. That makes it hard to reflect the very first bullet they shoot, since you have to already know exactly when they shoot it. The only way to do that, is from pure trial and error, which is never nice.
This would still probably be alright to some extent if the game gives you a little more time to adjust your timing (insert :| here), but you die after three hits, so you absolutely have to reflect all of their bullets if you want to stand a chance against the boss.
Also, there is no life bar, and no way to tell if you are getting hit or just standing out of range.

I like the graphics a lot, but their overall feeling is spoiled by the lack of sound, or even music for that matter.

tl;dr... I don't like the reflector, and the game needs music.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2009, 00:45:21 by Razzorman »
My only star: :hiddenstar:

 :D

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Offline Kasran

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Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #9 on: October 17, 2009, 20:28:53 »
Interesting-looking. I might play sometime.
grao!

Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #10 on: October 17, 2009, 22:43:18 »
I stopped playing after episode two.

Please at least play episode five.

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Offline Pick Yer Poison

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Re: What Happens Next? A kind of cinematic platforming series
« Reply #11 on: October 18, 2009, 02:20:08 »
Yeah...episode 5 is alright. Much better than the others. The reflector seems to be the "gah why" point for everyone, including myself.