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help me finishing/polish my game

Started by Kirl Mar 16, 2010 at 5:05 AM 3 replies 1k views

Original Post

Mar 16, 2010 at 5:05 AM

Please have a look at my game and tell me what you think can be improved. I'm not planning on adding new features, I want to complete this game and move on. I'm not entirely happy with the sounds and the interface can be better (logical, self-explanitory positioning etc). I also need some sort of name, I've been thinking about BackBack, but better names are welcome! Clicky here to play the game! Increase your score by avoiding the side walls, if you hit a side wall 5 times, it will dissappear. If you hit the back wall 10 times it will move further back, making it harder to avoid the sides. Also, I'm planning to sell my soul and add Mochiadds (short adds before loading the game). They offer good and easy highscores and other cool features which are not within my capabilities but can greatly improve the game. It still feels slightly cheap, what are your thoughts on this? [Edited by - Kirl on March 16, 2010 5:25:35 AM]

wodan

Mar 16, 2010 at 5:25 AM

Your link is not working, but I believe you mean this game?

Kirl

Mar 16, 2010 at 5:32 AM

Yes thanks, I fixed it before but I always forget to refresh when editing a post for a second time...

Any thoughts on the game?

jouley

Mar 16, 2010 at 8:34 AM

The mechanics are simple and fun, that's a plus. As far as polish goes:

I'd get rid of the fps counter in the lower right or, at the very least, make sure it doesn't start by displaying "undefined/NaN". Casual gamers will find it distracting, and it does sort of break up the clean interface you've got going otherwise.

From a visual polish standpoint, either label all the stats or do away with labels and let the user figure them out (it's not hard, I think most will pick up on them fairly quickly). Regardless of the path you take, I'd steer clear of "Depth" as the label. Something like "Stage" or "Level" will be more immediately understood.

From a "self-explanatory positioning" aspect, you could always label the back wall with its depth. The user would see the number increase as the wall moves away from them, linking the two. Also, it doesn't need to persist - you could have the number fade in/out briefly when they hit it the 10th time and then display it once they die, but it's not something that they need to be aware of at all times.

Something that might be good to show, though, would be the status of all the walls: how many hits left before they disappear for the sides, and how many hits left before the back wall moves even farther back. I don't have a good idea of how to go about this while keeping the clean look, though - sorry!

As far as using Mochiads goes - will you be trying to make some money off of your game, or just use some of the features it offers? Not that it matters, I guess, just curious. As long as an ad isn't shown between rounds (only at the initial load), I think people can live with it.

Background music?

For both background music and different sound effects (recommended, they could make a huge difference and shouldn't take much work), check out some of these: www.sounddogs.com, www.freesound.org, or www.soundsnap.com.Both free and paid sounds to peruse! (There are also probably more suggestions in the sound/music forum.)

I really like the transitions between the "start game" screen and the game then the game and the final screen.

In all, nice work! You should definitely be proud for finishing and moving on - something lots of people have trouble with.

Kirl

Mar 16, 2010 at 10:21 AM

Thank you for your excellent suggestions and links, exactly what I was looking for!
Finally someone else who embraces the true power of neat little lists, use them only for good! ;)

I mentally blocked out the fps counter, forgot it was ever there. :)
You're right about the depth/level thing, I doubted that initially, I'm labeling it level again.
The wall status is a great idea, I'm going to display the back wall status on the back wall, I'll have to think about where/if to add the sides.
I actually just assumed the adds were necessary for the highscores, now that you mention it, I'll have to double check that. I was planning a single pre-load add, shown once when loading the swf.
Been thinking about BGMusic, always tough to find something suitable and available. Thanks for the links! I'm lucky I signed up at soundsnaps before, as an oldskool member I can still dl 5 free sounds a month. I wasn't familiar with the other two.

Thank you, that was a very helpfull post!

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