My project: Spiral Adventure

[Ensayia]

I get a really strong Sega Genesis era vibe when playing this. Paralaxing is a an easy way to get a really good background visual going on and the mountains look really good, even though the water is weird.

Looks pretty neat, if you keep the ideas simple and the controls tight and focus on making it a good jumping based platform you might just have something here.

[molul]

I get a really strong Sega Genesis era vibe when playing this.

That's what I'm looking for, so, cool! However, the final look will be HD, which may result in losing some nostalgia factor, but I think it's for the best. I just don't think it's neccessary to have pixelated graphics nowadays to catch what made games like Ristar or Dynamite Headdy so great

the water is weird.

Hahaha I know, I know. I had an even worse picture for that, actually. But I can promise it won't stay for the next demo

[molul]

I've attached a new version in the OP, "spiral_alpha_0.2.love". Here's the changelog:

-Now the game is time based, instead of frame-based. It's been a bit hard, but I finally got it. I've turned on vsync, but you can disable it in conf.lua.

-New movements, and wall jumping improved (see the OP for more info).

-Joystick support.

-New scroll planes. They're far from the final style we have on mind, but they're better than the previous ones. There are also 2 or three more planes now.

-Some new cool sound effects. Also I've made the sound balance dependent on you positions relative to the center of the screen. It's not impressive right now, but when I implement some enemies it will be cooler.

-Hidden places: there are a couple of hidden places (actually they're the same, copied and pasted) in the map. Can you find them?

[coffee]

I've attached a new version in the OP, "spiral_alpha_0.2.love". Here's the changelog:

-Now the game is time based, instead of frame-based. It's been a bit hard, but I finally got it. I've turned on vsync, but you can disable it in conf.lua.

-New movements, and wall jumping improved (see the OP for more info).

-Joystick support.

-New scroll planes. They're far from the final style we have on mind, but they're better than the previous ones. There are also 2 or three more planes now.

-Some new cool sound effects. Also I've made the sound balance dependent on you positions relative to the center of the screen. It's not impressive right now, but when I implement some enemies it will be cooler.

-Hidden places: there are a couple of hidden places (actually they're the same, copied and pasted) in the map. Can you find them?

What happened to megajump? S dont works for me anymore. Loved the "vertical" planes. Blured background and clouds seem also nice. I was to annoy you with the hidden places but if is to be really hidden it's ok this way then. Didn't understood well how spin is used. Seems very good and becoming a nice plataformer.

Edited Also got the top black bar and a total white screen in 0.8 when full-screening

[molul]

What happened to megajump? S dont works for me anymore.

Mmmm not sure. I changed the jump button from J to K in the keyboard. Are you pressing down (S) + jump (K) to accumulate power? Also I've just tested the version I uploaded (spiral_alpha_0.2.love) and it seems to work fine. I'm using Löve 0.7.2. Could it be that?

I was to annoy you with the hidden places but if is to be really hidden it's ok this way then.

Hahaha. I was kidding. These secret places are just caves that you can only see if you enter them. It will look like you're trespassing a wall, and then the cave will unveil. If you explore the whole map (and it's not very big), I'm sure you'll find them

Didn't understood well how spin is used.

My fault. Try this: when on ground, and stopped, press and keep pressed spin (L). You'll see the "SPIN" counter increasing in the top left corner. If you release spin (L) when it reaches 50, Spiral will roll very fast to the direction you were looking. It's some kind of homage to Sonic's spin dash

[coffee]

Ahhh! I didn't remember was a combination. Also I don't see why it needs to be a combination. Why not just press "s" to accumulate and then when we ready release it? And if we release it before reach 50 would jump with that smaller value.

Sorry I found the hidden places before read all your text. So I thought that were internal/inner levels and were bad signalized. Could have for example some slighty alpha if was intended to be more easily found.

About the spin got it. I was using it near a wall so nothing was happening. I thought was some for use as some kind of DRILLER! lol. Could be useful to bypass fast clossing gates or something.

Nice work molui.

[molul]

Thank you! About megajump, I've actually been thinking of doing it as you say (just pressing down), but I wanted it linked somehow to the jump button, being it a special jump... Also, if I remove the combination, you could never cancel the megajump (you cancel it by releasing jump instead of down), but perhaps it's an unneccessary feature. I have to think about it a bit

About having a proportional jump power if you release down before reaching the maximum, I'm not sure. I thought of the megajump as kind of a "reward" for accumulating the full power, but depending on the feedback I might change it to what you say. Actually everything could change once I finish a whole stage, with enemies, items, secret places, etc and get some feedback

The secret places are meant not to be easily found. I want to hide special stuff in them for people who like to explore. I liked this in Mario games because I think they added replayability value to the game (like when you have to collect special items that unlock new levels, and you spend a lot of time finding them). It's more or less like the special movements. They will be unlockable through the game (you'll start just with the jump) and will allow you to reach places that you couldn't reach before, thus unlocking secret levels, bonus stages, collectable items, etc.

By now I'm done with special movements. There are two more still to be done, but I want to focus on other things now, like diagonal grounds, and enemies and items. So I guess the next demo will come in several weeks. I hope I have the new graphics before then!

PS: by the way, did you like the ground pound movement? It took me a lot of time to make the camera shake work with delta time! lol

[coffee]

Well but if don't want to have middle jump values later then you haven't really need use for a 2 keys combo. Just cancel it when releasing the button before 50. I thought that you used combo because you wanted to introduce later "variable" jumps".

The small shake is also nicely done. I noticed also your smooth water movement. The layered background engine is really amazing.
The secret areas is cleverly done. Just need now contents or real funcionality.

All it's well executed but you have a major flaw. Commands. As in the mega-jump you like to complicate because you have a weird key layout hard to memorize and not intuitive. Why the absence of directional keys? They are intuive, natural keys in every keyboard. So, please also add arrow keys for movement. Have megajump "S" so close to direction movement it's not pratical and intuitive when the rest of commands (spin and jump) are "somewhere" in the middle of keyboard.

I suggest: one side of keyboard for movement + opposite side for action (jump, megajump, spin in order). Preferably near a corner of a reference key (z/m). Preferable layout: directional keys + z,x,c. Alternative Layout: your w,s,d + b,n,m. I found it much more logical (one hand for movement + another for action). camera up/down could be key up/down key for w,s,d layout or w,s for directional key layout (in top of action keys).

[molul]

Good point. I'll definitely add arrow keys in a later build. It's not difficult at all, I just focused on joystick this time and barely played with keyboard Also at some point I'll let the user define its keys, and have a couple of presets (with arrow keys and with WASD).

About giving megajump its own button, there's another problem I dealt with: I'd like to have just two action buttons, as I plan on porting the game to iOS and Android once it's finished, and three buttons is too much for a smartphone game. A first approach was that if you press and release the jump button quickly, you'd do a normal jump, and if you keep it pressed for some miliseconds, it'll start accumulating megajump. But I'm not sure about it either, as I often keep the jump button pressed with no reason. I think that's a bad idea.

On the other hand, I should probably not think on the iOS and Android ports as I'm currently focusing on PC versions, so having megajump its own button wouldn't be a mistake at all. I'll check with my partners to see what they think.

Thanks for the feedback, coffe, I really appreciate it. And I'm glad you liked the layered background and secret places!

[coffee]

About giving megajump its own button, there's another problem I dealt with: I'd like to have just two action buttons, as I plan on porting the game to iOS and Android once it's finished, and three buttons is too much for a smartphone game. A first approach was that if you press and release the jump button quickly, you'd do a normal jump, and if you keep it pressed for some miliseconds, it'll start accumulating megajump. But I'm not sure about it either, as I often keep the jump button pressed with no reason. I think that's a bad idea.

No it's not. I was to suggest the same. It's the perfect solution since if you dont need a complicated mega jump so you also don't need complicate jump. As you say just jump when "quick press" or megajump with finger pressing and then release it. Also seems suitable for mobile. Remember that in mobile you have more "natural" commands than only touch screen. You can jump by quick vertical oscillate or shake and spin by quickly side inclining. And you can obvious reroute control by detecting the platform.

"coffe" out! ;D

Note: I also liked one thing that is still not very used today in indie games even that a lot of screens/devices are: it's panoramic...