I thought it was about time to take the next step and post my progress I’ve made. This started by trying to learn UE4 but as i became more comfortable with it i started to focus on a development. Anyway (haha) I will start to post as often as i can and would love to hear feedback, thoughts, etc.
Affinity - A puzzle platformer with lite combat where you use Light, Matter & Force to change the world around. This is a magical scifi fantasy world where you must will the power of your predecessors and rise against the Abyss, the ones who shifted the balance between what is and what isn’t.
This is WIP and things can and will change so lets start from there.
UPDATE
tweaks made to:
player movement speed - increased
player air control - increased
player jump velocity - increased
Player gravity - increased to make player heavier/fall faster
player teleport speed - increased
life time of teleport trail -decreased
I want to get my current progress out to the community and see what you guys think. Looking to find out what you might have trouble with, what isn’t conveyed properly, etc. I plan to post a link to download a pre-pre-alpha(hahaha) its very WIP but I just want to know if people are enjoying it and if i’m headed in the right direction. Link coming soon, hopefully this Sunday night.
It’s live and I hope you guys take the time to download and play. I’d love to hear your feedback. It’s very alpha and some bugs i’m aware of but it would great to know if the controls and game flow it fairly represented at the state the game is.
NOTE* In order to play you will need a Preferably XBOX one/PS4 or a PC gamepad controller that has a similar layout to the XBOX one controller.
Please feel free to express your thoughts and or concerns in the comment section of this post, I will be sure to reply in detail. Thanks!
Woah this is so cool! I really like what i’ve played. There are some bugs and performance issues (shooting), but i guess you know that.
But i really like the concept of this prototype and i want to see more of that!
Except for one heavy bug:
(I don’t know, maybe it’s my hardware, it’s kinda old)
Almost all the time i’m walking i had this white sphere thing blocking the view
The video is private and wont play. As far as the bug i’m unsure what you are referring to. Is it possible to get a screen capture of the bug so i can resolve it?
Thanks alot man i’m glad you were able to finish it.
Played it all the way through! I liked it, Pretty good for a Pre pre alpha!
Like what’s going on with the lighting seems like a cool stylized approach to handling the mood in the game.
Didn’t get the sphere error thinking that might be a gfx card issue I’m running on a
Nvidia machine not sure if other manufactures might have an issue with that area.
OH WOW!!! that has never happened on my end i know exactly what that is. I’m going to remove that, it is a temp VFX for when the character starts to run like a dust cloud/poof. Will recook and re upload in the next 30mins.
Hey Phoenix-Really cool stuff so far!! Mojo and I did separate playthroughs so here’s what we found:
When you first use your ability and create the first staircase, if you just walk off the platform and onto the stairs without jumping you’ll die or respawn where you started. Not sure if the collision is set up properly or if for some reason you’re still hitting the spikes that were there before the stairs appeared? I took a screenshot from the video KrautPotato posted to show you the location:
Another issue is the controls seem to lag a little bit. So if we press the jump button or the dash it has about a half second delay. Overall we would like the controls to feel a little snappier so as players we will feel the reaction is happening immediately. A good example of snappier control movement is Ori or Strider (both are 3D sidescrollers on XBox one). They both have really well animated characters that move dynamically and are snappy and responsive in control. A lot of the older 8-bit game sidescrollers (like Mario, and Mega Man) have the same feel.
Here were some videos that talked about animation transition and improvements on control feel:
Ori:
Metal Gear Solid (fwd to 6:10):
Mojo got some tutorial white text on a solid black rectangle in his bottom left corner at the beginning of his playthrough and it never went away. The black square made it hard to see where he was jumping on platforms because it blocked the view. I don’t think that was supposed to stay there because it didn’t happen on mine, but having the text on an alpha card would really help out.
When I used my Ability for the second time/obstacle, I pressed the Right Trigger and the screen changed color as if the Ability was activated, however nothing was happening. I started spamming all of my buttons and text showed up on the left hand screen in a column saying “FOUND ME” over and over all the way down the entire screen. Eventually everything worked and the text went away.
Framerate issues like some of the others mentioned are present. For us it was mostly on the FX where you use the projectiles. I was afraid the game would crash when killing all the blocker stars because we fired off so many shots and there was a ton of slowdown, but we sure showed them!
Camera angle mad it a little hard to see on the last jump-zip-zip over the pit before the end of the demo. It zoomed into the character if you got too close to the right edge so I died a lot here because it was hard to see at points when trying to jump.
We know this may still be too early, but for graduation sake it would be cool to have a sense of urgency or climax at the end of the level so it feels rewarding for players when they finish. You learned everything so now let’s put you to the test and make it a timed obstacle so you can use your skills, survive for the finale and feel smart. Btw have you ever played Mega Man 2 quick man stage? The Ori video above also relates to this in terms of level pacing.
I really liked the purple portal warp where you saw it at first and were like, “What IS that thing? I can’t reach it even though I got this awesome triple jump!” And then later on after you get your relic you get to use it and are like, “This place again? how did I–oh nice one!”
Overall you’ve accomplished so much and it’s really creative and fun! We can’t wait to see as it continues to grow. Prologue was amazing too!
Hey thanks for the feedback DarKris3 & Mojo, much appreciated!
I will take in account for movement/control over the character seems like people would like it to be more snappier. ill see what i can do on my end.
The other issues you stated i can resolve with the spikes, tutorial tips and the spamming of text (developer build, haha)
as far as frame rate i’m unsure the particles i created are fairly optimized and there is nothing in the scene but i will be sure to look in to that.
*** It would also be beneficial if people could post their computer specs***
As far as the end of the level i just cut it off there it wasn’t a proper ending and this currently represents about 1/6th of the first level. Providing the community with this small portion helps me find out what is fun, or not fun, what is easy, difficult, etc before i take any further steps. This allows me to really change things early based on the community feedback.
I’ts gratifying to know people were able to complete it and played long enough to get to the end.
Made some control/movement updates and i think it feels better. More snappier, fast paced and responsive…new build upload so you can re-download to check it out.
Love the mood and style so far, I think its awesome!
When it comes to your constructs, are players going to be given options to what kind of construct to make, or is it always going to be the appropriate one and you just need to press a button to set it? Asking because while the mechanic is pretty cool on it’s on, it might be cool to have the added challenge of making the right choice?
All of the particle systems you’ve created are spot on, very nicely done and they help make the atmosphere that much cooler. Can’t wait to see more!
Thanks for playing you know it’s funny that you bring this up. Initially/ currently the construct system is set up for the player to choose different types/shapes that he can place. For this 1st test i wanted it to be more controlled and I was unsure if giving the player choice would help the overall design.
When i first tested “switching contructs types” in my test level it seemed as if it would be trouble some if i gave the player access to multiple shapes but after some thought i came to the conclusion that based on a specific puzzle area i could give the player access to the few necessary shapes he/she needs.
Example:
player sees construct portal
portal opens and grants access to 3 shapes
player can cycle between which one he wants to construct at that time
each shape constructed will potentially give the player access to a certain path
NOTE currently if you play the demo if you have a construct built and selected, clicking in the right thumbstick will destroy it.
other note, there also is functionality to move construct spawn locations but this is not accessible in the build that is available.
I had a chance to play it. I loved it. I was having fun and wanted to play more.
So more levels! And can’t wait for the final art.
It’s a small thing. but a little feedback on control.
When you have to spawn a stair or a platform using R stick, you need to hit LB while holding down RT before you can spawn stuff with R stick, right?
Maybe I’m not remembering it correctly.
Is this intended?
Maybe I was not paying attention to the tutorial while I was playing, but I had to figure that out.
I think it would be great if you can skip the ‘hitting LB’ step.
@ Thanks!, I’ve been focusing on design and mechanics and really want to flesh most of that out before i start to create art. I am 3d artist by day and dev by night, ha!
@ryanwyc In the next build i will be sure to make the closest Construct/Construct Portal automatically targeted. The reason for the LB will be used to switch targets for when you have multiple portals within a certain distance and you can cycle between each one. Your concern is more than valid and I will try to fix this ASAP, thanks!
