Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)

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Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« on: December 30, 2012, 02:29:48 »
Hello people!  :)

This is my very first level, it took me only two days and I put a little bit of effort into it.
It only has 98 screens so I consider it kind of small.
The level is about Juni having an adventure travelling to past, present and future by time portals. All time portals are indicated so you don't have to look for them pressing down all the time.
There are 3 endings: Future ending, Present ending and Past ending.

I would be grateful to know your opinions   :^^: And yeah, my English level is not really advanced yet; I'm sorry if some texts in the level sound strange  X)

*I've corrected some errors.

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?1u3nmy4h1v01ynt
« Last Edit: December 30, 2012, 14:09:05 by Jardíndeparaguas »
JdP

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Offline Widget

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Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2012, 03:49:30 »
The first few screens look really good but you've got some of the major design-flaws common to most first-time levels; piling in loads of enemies to artificially hike the difficulty and then mislabelling the level's difficulty aswell.

As-is, the first screen to the left is Hard and so off-putting just to look at at 2am that I've lost the will to continue playing tonight. I'll try to get back to it tomorrow so I can offer more feedback.

Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2012, 12:32:42 »
The first few screens look really good but you've got some of the major design-flaws common to most first-time levels; piling in loads of enemies to artificially hike the difficulty and then mislabelling the level's difficulty aswell.

As-is, the first screen to the left is Hard and so off-putting just to look at at 2am that I've lost the will to continue playing tonight. I'll try to get back to it tomorrow so I can offer more feedback.

Thank you so much for your comment!  :D

Yeah well, that was on porpuse indeed  XD You're supposed to go the other way, because it's only possible to avoid those tons of enemies later when you get a power-up.
JdP

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Offline LPChip

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Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2012, 12:48:55 »
This is actually a bad move.

If you want the player not go one direction, make it impossible by movement, not by skill.

There will be people who will be able to cross this and then get in trouble because of lacking powers. Other people will go this way, and will give up before actually trying the level further because they're like: well this should be passable right? Then think you mislabelled the difficulty as Widget pointed out.

Instead, make a ledge that you can only reach using that powerup so people understand they can't go that way.
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Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2012, 13:29:02 »
This is actually a bad move.

If you want the player not go one direction, make it impossible by movement, not by skill.

There will be people who will be able to cross this and then get in trouble because of lacking powers. Other people will go this way, and will give up before actually trying the level further because they're like: well this should be passable right? Then think you mislabelled the difficulty as Widget pointed out.

Instead, make a ledge that you can only reach using that powerup so people understand they can't go that way.


Yeah, I guess you two are right. I've uploaded another with those sort of fails corrected  :)

Thank you very much for commenting!  :^^:
JdP

Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2012, 19:09:52 »
Here's another little flaw:

If you go here, where i put the arrow, because of the way the game is made you'll end up in the next tile. Not only is it annoying, but (if you know how) you can still control Juni when this happens, so you could just move around the guy's house and not get the umbrella. I'm not sure why you would want to do that though. The problem can be fixed by removing this particular tile (the one i circled).

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Offline Widget

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Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2012, 00:05:36 »
Thank you so much for your comment!  :D

Yeah well, that was on porpuse indeed  XD You're supposed to go the other way, because it's only possible to avoid those tons of enemies later when you get a power-up.

Ah, that clears things up a little. As LPChip covered, that screen is technically possible to pass through which was creating ambiguity about the intended direction of travel. In fairness, you weren't to know that dozens of first-time levels have very similar-looking screens that are intended to be passed through; or that said levels are then almost invariably labelled as easy, normal or every single difficulty all at once  :P

I've redownloaded and I'll get back to it later this-evening. On a side note, I would like to re-emphasise that I really like the appearance of the level; it's very rare for a first-level to have this kind of attention to detail in the screen-design and very impressive  :)

Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #7 on: December 31, 2012, 19:58:17 »
Here's another little flaw:

If you go here, where i put the arrow, because of the way the game is made you'll end up in the next tile. Not only is it annoying, but (if you know how) you can still control Juni when this happens, so you could just move around the guy's house and not get the umbrella. I'm not sure why you would want to do that though. The problem can be fixed by removing this particular tile (the one i circled).

Yes, I'm a disaster designing  xD Thank you for commenting  :)
JdP

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Offline LPChip

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Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #8 on: December 31, 2012, 20:05:31 »
There's this saying you know...

Practice makes perfect. :)

This is your first level. Don't feel bad about it. Your next levels will be better. We're sure. :)
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Offline Widget

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Re: Past, Present & Future (Small/Easy-Normal/Misc)
« Reply #9 on: January 01, 2013, 14:26:28 »
Yes, I'm a disaster designing  xD Thank you for commenting  :)

It's not that you're a disaster at design, not by any stretch. That particular issue is just one of the quirks of the way the game works; to avoid such 'wallswims' it's best not to have floor levels change across a screen transition.

This level really does have a lot going for it; all this is just constructive criticism to help you understand what's behind the things that could be improved. I assure you, some fantastic level designers have started with far less promising first tries  ;)