The Binding of Crate Box

[adnzzzzZ]

Hi. I could use some feedback on a game I'm working on. As the name implies, it's a mix of The Binding of Isaac with Super Crate box. Here's a video:



Downloads: .love (0.8), Windows .zip

Any type of feedback is welcome! Keep in mind that most assets (graphics and sounds) are temporary until I find people with the proper skills who want to work on the game, so don't worry about telling me how those could be better...

Thanks for your time!

[davisdude]

Controls:
Are the controls okay?
For people playing with Xbox controllers (I use the PS3 one), is there anything that I got wrong?
For people who prefer arrow keys instead of WASD for movement, what key scheme would you use considering you also have to have keys for dashing left/right?

I did not use a controller, but would like it more if instead of qe you did lshitf + a/d

Performance/other bugs:
Any huge/noticeable FPS drops?
When on low FPS, any type of weird behavior like objects going through each other?
Blue screens of death?

Not any I got.

Game design:
Is the game fun to play? Is killing enemies + getting items interesting?
How long before it became boring?
Do you think the songs fit the game?
I plan of making the game more Binding of Isaacy (more room types, an actual dungeon, and so on...), but I wanna make sure the core gameplay is interesting enough first.

Maybe I'm just really, REALLY bad, 'cause I died on the first level...
I like the gameplay and think it is fun how you incorporate all the game things (razor leaf, etc.)
I LOVE the music (except the end one when you run out of lives)

Maybe a random starting attack each time? I think that would be pretty cool, anyway...
Also, have you thought about a slowdown time ability (You may have it, I'm just not far enough in)?

[adnzzzzZ]

Maybe a random starting attack each time? I think that would be pretty cool, anyway...
Also, have you thought about a slowdown time ability (You may have it, I'm just not far enough in)?

Yea you can unlock stuff as you beat the game more times.

[Murii]

Awesome game! 10/10.Super hard,but cool!

[adnzzzzZ]

Awesome game! 10/10.Super hard,but cool!

Thanks!

I updated the game a bit:

• First few levels are easier (you start with some money and you need to kill less enemies per room)
• Death screen is faster and no longer Linkin Park's In the End, because
• Higher heart and mask drop rate on earlier levels
• Better passive descriptions
• You start with more items unlocked (if you downloaded a previous version and try to use this new one please delete the save files (AppData/...) OR ELSE)

[Rickton]

I made it to the final room before dying.
It was pretty fun! I like both Super Crate Box and The Binding of Isaac, so a mix of the two was pretty fun. The new version definitely seemed easier than the first one you uploaded, but not too easy...even though I got a lot of coins and items, the difficulty ramped up pretty quickly (although I also drank a potion of Increase Difficulty, so I dunno what it would have been like normally). There were a lot of times I came pretty close to dying before the end.
I liked that you didn't have to kill every enemy to move to the next level. Opens up a small tactical choice: do you want to cut your losses and run, or stick around and get more coins and items, at the risk of getting hurt?
Giving the option of using different weapons at the beginning is neat, but given the rest of the game is random, it might be better just to give the player one randomly at the beginning. Otherwise you'll just stick with a weapon you like all game and never even consider buying another one, especially since they're pretty expensive.
Also, the weapons could probably use some balancing. The fireball in particular didn't seem that good...yeah, you only had to hit someone once to kill them, but they'd make it to the bottom of the screen and come back around as angry-version before they died. The recharge rate was also too slow...the majority of enemies would be able to make it to the bottom of the screen and get angry without you even being able to try to shoot them.

The controls were fine, though like someone else mentioned I'd probably prefer shift+move for dashing, and some people would probably prefer to use the arrow keys rather than WASD since you're not using the mouse for anything.

Performance wise, the game really slowed down for me when switching songs (like, to an unplayable level), and since it seemed like it switched songs every couple of seconds that was a problem (side note, I checked out the length of the songs in the sounds directory, and it was definitely switching before they were done, so that might be something to check out? Sometimes it would cycle through a bunch of songs all at the same time before playing one). I have a 6-year-old Mac laptop, though, so it's pretty crappy when it comes to playing games.
I commented out the content of the playSong() function and it worked fine. I didn't see a noticeable FPS drop even with lots of enemies and bullets on the screen.

Bugs:
A couple of times I got stuck on the corner of a platform when jumping up. I wouldn't fall, but couldn't walk, either. Jumping again solved it. It only happened twice, and one time was right after the other, and I couldn't reproduce it.
Probably intentional, but getting multiple passives that increase your jump don't stack. I got Shoot n' Jump man which gives triple-jump, then got The Scout which gives double-jump, but was still only able to triple-jump. Again, probably intentional, because quintuple-jump would probably be kinda ridiculous (but fun!)
I one found a chest inside a chest. I actually thought it was pretty funny, and even if it was unintentional I think it should stay, but I figured you should know just in case.
At one point about halfway through the sounds just stopped playing entirely. Again, might be the fault of my computer, but it could still play other sounds. It happened when I was launching a bunch of rocks, so there were a lot of projectiles and enemies onscreen.

[adnzzzzZ]

Thanks for the feedback, Rickton!

Giving the option of using different weapons at the beginning is neat, but given the rest of the game is random, it might be better just to give the player one randomly at the beginning. Otherwise you'll just stick with a weapon you like all game and never even consider buying another one, especially since they're pretty expensive.

I agree. I'll change that!

Also, the weapons could probably use some balancing. The fireball in particular didn't seem that good...yeah, you only had to hit someone once to kill them, but they'd make it to the bottom of the screen and come back around as angry-version before they died. The recharge rate was also too slow...the majority of enemies would be able to make it to the bottom of the screen and get angry without you even being able to try to shoot them.

Yea, I agree here as well. Although I don't wanna buff some weapons too much because some of them benefit way more than others from certain upgrades. For instance, the fireball one benefits a lot from pierce + reflect, such that if you get those two stats high enough you'll pretty much always have all enemies on fire. But yea, I'll change the fire rate to be a bit faster.

Performance wise, the game really slowed down for me when switching songs (like, to an unplayable level), and since it seemed like it switched songs every couple of seconds that was a problem (side note, I checked out the length of the songs in the sounds directory, and it was definitely switching before they were done, so that might be something to check out? Sometimes it would cycle through a bunch of songs all at the same time before playing one). I have a 6-year-old Mac laptop, though, so it's pretty crappy when it comes to playing games.
I commented out the content of the playSong() function and it worked fine. I didn't see a noticeable FPS drop even with lots of enemies and bullets on the screen.

At one point about halfway through the sounds just stopped playing entirely. Again, might be the fault of my computer, but it could still play other sounds. It happened when I was launching a bunch of rocks, so there were a lot of projectiles and enemies onscreen.

If the sounds stopped playing entirely after you commented playSong() then that's the reason, otherwise I'm not sure. But that's a really weird bug. I actually have no idea what could be causing that... Oh, well, I'll try to figure something out.

A couple of times I got stuck on the corner of a platform when jumping up. I wouldn't fall, but couldn't walk, either. Jumping again solved it. It only happened twice, and one time was right after the other, and I couldn't reproduce it.

Yup, I have yet to fix that one. It's tricky.

Probably intentional, but getting multiple passives that increase your jump don't stack. I got Shoot n' Jump man which gives triple-jump, then got The Scout which gives double-jump, but was still only able to triple-jump. Again, probably intentional, because quintuple-jump would probably be kinda ridiculous (but fun!)
I one found a chest inside a chest. I actually thought it was pretty funny, and even if it was unintentional I think it should stay, but I figured you should know just in case.

Yea, both of those are intentional. I also really like when chestception happens!

[Nixola]

First: it's the first time I play a game I find the whole afternoon because I can't get off that. It's just addictive. I'm playing it with an Xbox360 controller because I don't like the keyboard controls (actually I don't like the keyboard at all...); anyway, I mapped the dashes on the arrow keys, use and bomb on Q and E and I played a lot better before getting the controller.
I think I recall something about OSX having a terrible OpenAL implementation, so those audio bugs would be OSX only
P.S: if the second dash provided by Rainbow was a Sonic Rainboom, it'd be 20% cooler.

[davisdude]

If you die and start again you can still shoot razor leaf.
It's easier now. I made it to level 2! (I'm definitely just bad...)
How do you use the passives?

[Nixola]

They're passives, they permanently modify one or more stats as soon as you pick them up
Also, I'd prefer being able to choose the initial weapon; it's the only non-random thing in the game, let us keep it