Right, so I tried to make a post compo version of NOPAEW with more levels and features and bosses and fun. But… I had too many ideas and too little time. So i’m not done. Also more games need rating. For the time being here’s a gameplay video for you to enjoy if you’re into that sort of thing (or you don’t like difficult games… (like me ;-))
Also, some things I learned:
- Minimalistic pixel art is well received.
- It helps to choose a genre that needs no explanation and play with its conventions, there is still a lot of innovation possible.
- Should not try to implement elevator-platforms… total waste of time.
- People are very particular about jumping mechanics being “right” (gravity vs constant speed, inertia vs instant response, overall movement speed, …). Still need to research that some more.
- Enemies/Creeps/Trash can be pretty standard and still be fun. There are a ton of simple ideas what make for fun combat.
- 1-hit deaths are easily frustrating, should always allow the player a second chance e.g. via double-tap death, companion swap, power-up loss, or some such thing (Mario had Yoshi and mushrooms, Samus had hitpoints (meh).
- Test all platforms and not release the ones that can’t be tested on faith.
- A smaller hit-box is always appreciated.
- Script execution order can be different on different platform builds, should always make sure dependencies are explicit.
- Others have better ideas.
- Jumping and Explosions are like bacon and gravy.
- Everything you put in your game can be misunderstood as either a bug, a feature, bad design or good design.
- If there is a clever way, there should also always be an obvious/brute-force way.
That much for now. More later. Maybe.