Ocean Legacy invites Gamedev.net to DEMOtesting!

It looks great -- the graphics and music are wonderful (particularly the parallax scrolling on the ocean, above-water only!).

It took me a frustratingly long time to figure out the controls (i.e. click to move up!). At first, I thought it was the arrow keys, then I thought maybe it was moving the mouse up/down. Then, I noticed that the fish moved when I pressed the mouse button down, but with that knowledge I could only get it to jump out of the water for some reason! I don't think the controls are intuitive at all.

Also, collision detection (e.g. for the net) could use some work!

But like I said above, great work so far. It's absolutely amazing to see a project start on the forums and progress to such a great state -- that seems to be such a rare thing nowadays :-)

Coming along nicely!

Some constructive criticism in semi-random order (I hope I don't make it sound too harsh):

Difficulty

It's a little too easy. For instance, you can just keep "crawling" on the ground and occasionally press the mouse button to finish the level.

Addictiveness

Fairly low, you need to make the game play more interesting without making it too difficult to play for a casual gamer. You could make static objects that the player has to swim around but which will not attack him like coral or a sunken ship. Perhaps you can pick up items on your way for extra points. Maybe "live" enemies that move, making it more challenging to avoid them (sharks, harpoons, etc.).

Awareness

No, I didn't bother to read the notes. To counter that, you may want to consider a splash screen with the text automatically scrolling by. The text shouldn't be as short as possible while still long enough to get the message across. Scrolling the will make the text looks less daunting as you will only see so many words at a time. If you have time, you may even consider an animation to communicate the message.
Maybe this has to do with unfinished graphics, but the font should be much bigger to allow people with less than perfect eyes to read it.

Length

Perhaps I was playing it wrong, but I only played one level over and over again. You could stick to a single level, as long as you make it more difficult over time: increase speeds, more "enemies" etc. All in all, I found the one level a bit short.

Graphics

It would be nice if you could indicate which of the graphics are done and which of them are currently missing or worked on, so it's clear where we can comment on. Like it's fairly obvious that the "main menu" needs some polishing, but I suppose this isn't ready yet.
Some sprites (the fish for instance) have a noticeable artifacts around the border: try using an alpha layered PNG, vectorize the original image or use a mask layer for transparency.
I like the "obvious" parallax for the style, but it would be nice if the ground and wave graphics would tile better horizontally.
Lowering the alpha for the fish nets to make them somewhat transparent could be nice (not sure, you'll have to test it out).

Music

Some sound effects perhaps, like the sound of air bubbles floating up?

Bugs

No real bugs encountered.

What the?

Quote:

Like when you swim just close to a fishing net, but get caught anyway.

Exactly that. The collision detection should be more forgiving: currently, it feels "unfair", which is annoying and frustrating for players.

Miscellaneous

It's a very simple game, yet you could include some instructions. Like how you have to press the mouse button to float up or exit the credits screen. You could also allow alternate controls, like the arrow up key or space bar.

Add a "replay" button, so the player can restart the game without having to go to the main menu.

It's unclear to me how the final score is determined.



Well, that's all I can think of for now. Good luck with the game!

Thanks for your input Wan! There are a quite a bit of SFX that haven't been put into the build yet, roughly 95 of them! So that should be coming soon!

All of your comments as well as AIDev's are very much appreciated!

Thanks,

Nathan

Thank you both very much for this excellent feedback. It will definately be put to use. As said on our wikiforum, our programmer only has time to work seriously on this game in the weekends, so if you want to see if the game has changed since the posting of your comments, then I suggest you check back in after this weekend's end.

Keep those comments coming!

The bounding box issue is extremely annoying. You should just have a very thin box for the entrance of the net and leave the rest of it untouched (because I don't see how you can get caught in the net unless you go through the opening). Other than that, the game just needs some more speed and a bit more variation. Also, some sort of collectible point system would be nice and you could think about putting some above water and adding some seagull enemies.

Quote:

Original post by AIDev It took me a frustratingly long time to figure out the controls (i.e. click to move up!). At first, I thought it was the arrow keys, then I thought maybe it was moving the mouse up/down. Then, I noticed that the fish moved when I pressed the mouse button down, but with that knowledge I could only get it to jump out of the water for some reason! I don't think the controls are intuitive at all. Also, collision detection (e.g. for the net) could use some work!

I would say the same... once I figured the controls I got stuck everywhere because of the collisions with the net. I felt frustrated, stuck where the second net is, and stopped playing after a couple of tries (which I guess is not what you want).

Otherwise the music is great. The parallax effect is great... but I'd try to find a nice way to blend the different layers together.

Also, I kept the mouse button pressed and I was stuck at the top jumping...

JFF

Difficulty

Same as what Wan said mostly. You can just stay at the bottom and your good. The only times I lost was because I got distracted while waiting for a hook to come along. Since I was distracted I lost.

Addictiveness

Its not addicting at all. It amy get a little more addicting once you add a high score board, but only for people that a really competitive and try and be #1. I would recommend giving the player a new kind of fish for each level.

Awareness

I read it but mostly because Im a curious person. It looked pretty boring. If you add a scrolling option and something happening in the back groud like a reef, bubbles, and to help get the point across to the reader fish getting caught in nets and on hooks. Just if you add bubbles put them on the sides of the screen where there isn't any text to read. Also put the fish getting caught above the text. If its behind the text it will be distracting. For the text box put it at the bottom of the screen with the backgroud a reef.

Length

Mostly the same as what Wan said. However if you are going to increase the speed on each new level I would recommend speeding up the music to match the pace of the level.

Graphics

I don't have any recommendations other then what has already been previously stated.

Music

The music is really great for the setting of the game. They match really well. The addition of sound effects would be nice though. Just going from the music played during the game to the menu music is not all that great you need some sort of sound effect for when you die. And a different sound effect depending on wether you get caught by a net or a hook.

Bugs

I didn't encounter any.

"What the?"

Quote:

Original post by SadrLike when you swim just close to a fishing net, but get caught anyway.

Yes thats very annoying. Its like you have to imagine the hooks and the nets being bigger then they actually are.

Other

If i haden't read the other posts on here I also would not have figured out the controls right away.

Again, thank you all very much for the constructive comments. They have all been taken in consideration and will aid us in achieving an enjoyable game as early as possible.

We're hoping to see the latest changes having taken place at next weekend's end, so make sure to check back in then to see what's changed.

Bump! I'm on a computer I can't use to try your game at the moment, but it's good to see this worthwhile project making good progress, good luck finishing up the game. [smile]

Always nice with a moderator's support :)

Replies have gone dry for a while now, but I guess that's because there's not that much more to say. Our programmer recently came back from some time of absence, and is now back in full swing, dedicating whatever time he has to spare in the weekends in order to piece these suggestions and comments together.