I just made my first game, Hoppy Ball. It took about 6 months, including breaks. It is a game where you play as a ball with a smiley face. There are 3 levels and 1 bossfight in this demo. All feedback is welcome. In the full game there will be several bossfights and more levels and a very basic story. Hoppy Ball Demo by Barrel of Flames
It’s a nice start.
- There is a weird tone that plays in the menu. It is annoying, but goes away when you start the game.
- The gameplay is very difficult. Even once you know the controls, I couldn’t get very far at all. It seems like you have to hit everything perfect, which isn’t a lot of fun because you keep dying.
- The tutorial is a good start, but left-click isn’t mentioned anywhere. I hit it by accident. Plus the double-jump was unclear from your instructions.
- The controls feel like an old-school 80s game where everything has to be perfect. I’d recommend making something a bit more forgiving, and make parts of the level that train each movement feature - before throwing them at a pile of spikes you have to double jump and dash over.
Good start! Keep it up!
I used the odd tone because it was the only sound that allowed smooth transitions. Any other sound would have obvious transitions. I will make the game easier and I will make it more clear you can infinite-jump. Thank you so much for playing my game! Also in the second level I attempted to use a diagram to show that you can dash. I will make it more clear.
That tone drove me nuts immediately. I almost killed the game without playing it. Here’s a tutorial on how to fade music in/out, and how to crossfade.
Thanks! Although now that I think about it, I dont think I need a main menu sound.
It would be great if you customize your itch.io page,some screenshots add a description etc.
Cuz you have spend 6 months but the page looks like a game that was made in an hour …
Best of luck!
I made this new tutorial for the game. What do you guys think? Also I will still use the old tutorial as a 2nd level. The video quality might not be the best because I had to compress it.
It’s probably too late for me to say this but thank you for the suggestion!
I have finished making the tutorial. I make it look better, and I added checkpoints. I would heavily appreciate feedback =D
Which parts did you find too difficult?
IIRC the timing of the jumps in the beginning was just too fiddly.
I quite like the character animations, they look great!
Just noticed though, when you slide under using shift; in the newer tutorial, you cant see the character anymore?
Other than that, seeing as jumping is done a lot; the sound effect might end up sounding a bit repetitive. Its not a must - but you could either change the pitch of the jump at random, or increase it per jump. Or you could have a softer sound effect.
That’s it from me for now - keep up the great work
How so?
I fixed the sliding issue by simply moving the sprite sheet up a layer, and I softened the jump sfx and I will add minor pitch variation.
The initial ceiling was too low so it gave me no time to master the air jump.
I updated the game so now all of these tweaks have taken affect.