First of all, thanks for all the comments concerning Greyout, I highly appreciate it
Some of the bugs you addressed will be fixed in the next version and I am also working on a guide on how to create levels.
But now, its REVIEW TIME
Disclaimer: I am very critical with all the games, not because they are particular bad, in fact quite the opposite is true, but because I think every mistake made (in my eyes) has to be pointed out in order for the maker to consider it and maybe improve next time (and I would like people do the same with my game) - this also is the reason why some games have a more lengthy review than others. Personally I have reasons for why I did most stuff in Greyout like I did and I guess other devs have, too, so please feel free to discuss the points I make here and maybe tell me why you did it that way
So please keep that in mind, not because I mostly mention bad things does that mean your game is horrible.
Also, in lack of a Pandora I played all of the games on my PC, experience may differ with real gaming controls.
Addendum: HOLY COW, that has grown one hell of a post, I might stress here that it mostly is aimed at the devs of the individual games, but I highly appreciate everyone reading through it.
I don't know why I took the time to write so much stuff, probably cost me half of the day, but some times I just like to write
This might just be the longest post on this forum, do I win something?
The post apparently even is too long for the forum to handle as I get a "You must enter a post." error, so it comes in two parts.
Wars Commando
An old-school action side-scroller with lots of bullets and steep difficulty curve and nice sprites, which could have been ripped directly from a SNES game.
Ok hands down, this is the most polished and overall best made game in the competition, it is challanging, yet seldom frustrating, the art is very well done and fits perfectly.
Yet this means there are few general things to criticize, still there are minor details, so the following probably will sound like major nitpicking, which it just might be.
First of all the game mechanics feel very solid, moving and jumping has the certain, right feel to it, you feel like you have full control over the character in all situations.
Still I think there are a few things which could be improved, especially the running mechanic, which the number one source of frustration in this game.
To run you need to double-tap in a direction, which this seems like a right and intuitive way to do it in theory it does not work out that well in practice. This mostly is because the player already moves a tiny bit when you only press a directional button for a very short amount of time which on the other hand sometimes can push you over the edge of a cliff or platform when you are standing close.
A better way to do this in my eyes simply would be to go the standard way of assigning a button to sprint, R or L for example, which seem to have nothing assigned currently (this for example also is how it is done in Warioland 4 and it works quite well there).
On the other hand, this would not be a source of frustration of the the level design allowed for errors in jumping, but at times jumps have to be nearly pixel perfect when you are not running, so it is almost required to make the jump or make it safely without cautious positioning.
Overall when you are not trying to make your way across certain platforms the running and jumping mechanisms work quite well, especially the jump feels spot on, you have a good control on how strong you go up and decent air-control.
Another thing bothering me about the sprint is that it is nearly indistinguishable from the normal walk/run, the player moves slightly faster, but not substantially and as the camera is fixed on the player as the center you barely notice it. At first I though there was no difference at all.
This could be fixed either by speeding up the sprint, so the player moves noticeable faster or, my favourite way, to delay the camera movement when sprinting, so the player gets slightly off center when sprinting and the camera takes some time to catch up. This would also make the whole camera movement look more organic, instead of rigit, like it is now.
By default (and all of the time) you are equipped with your trusty assault rifle, which is the number one weapon you will kill enemies (at least soldiers) in this game.
Sadly you can only aim your rifle left or right, which probably has several reasons, but feels like a waste of potential in certain situations. I understand that being able to aim the rifle would have needed additional animations and also would have made it much more powerful (maybe too powerful even), but in some situations it is just frustrating to see that the player is not able to do so.
I don't think just adding the ability to shoot directly upwards would be a good compromise as there rarely is an enemy directly above you which you can shoot at the same time. Full 5 directions and aiming with the d-pad would be in order I guess (which poses another problem with movement, but I will get to that now).
Now shooting your weapon does not hinder your movement at all, so there is no disadvantage in shooting all the time, basically you can tape down the shoot button before starting the game and have the finger free to do all the jumping.
I guess that is not really the intended behaviour and an easy fix would be to slow down the player slightly when shooting, also introducing another tactical component as the player has to decide whether to run and gun (slower) or simply run away (faster).
As said before the art is great, especially for a guy claiming to never really been into spriting before
I especially like the death animations and how the blood flies into the direction you hit the enemies, that is a nice touch and overall the graphics fit very well and feel right.
The tilesets also look brilliant, could be taken directly from a SNES game, some areas like the forest could use some additional colours, but that's a tiny nitpick
A minor thing, though is the font used for the level and lives text on the map, it does not seem to fit and looks misplaced.
The background are simply solid colour fills, which makes the foreground and action stand out, but some parallax scrolling landscapes with a still image of the war going on would have given the game an extra touch. Still the colours are chosen to match the tiles, which works very well and one does not notice an absence of background art in the heat of the battle anyway making me wonder whether that would actually add that much to the game (considering the amount of work).
The level design overall is great, sometimes there are multiple (2) paths, usually one hard and one more easy, while the hard path always seems to give some kind of reward, like a grenade or bazooka enemy at the end (whose weapon you can collect upon killing).
As said above, some jumps could be made a tad easier to be less frustrating, especially the upper path on the first level, which is just too much for an easy start.
To end every level with a mini-boss fight to provide a challenge is also a good idea, although the second boss seems easier than the first the the tank much harder (especially after you run out of grenades and rockets).
The game also is very hard - I haven't been able to get past the fifth level yet, so far new enemies or elements have been introduced (like bazooka soldiers, tanks, spikes, stationary guns) on nearly every level, which is very nice and also keeps the replay value up.
I wish there was a continue or code option so I would not have to start from the beginning every time, though it only underlines the arcade style of the game (for some reason I suspect there might be one hidden... that would be the final blow).
Another plus is that you can quickly skip any intro text and map animations and not have to watch them on the tenth playthrough.
The sound effects are decent, though the default rifle could use more power, currently it sounds more like a gun shooting rubber balls (well it also kinda looks like that
).
All in all it is a great game, which feels very polished and brings back memories of classics like "Contra" or "Turrican", it is a joy to play and a challenge at the same time. It is not innovative, but well made, all the pieces come together and form the overall best entry in this competition in my eyes.
Though with the above wall of text it might look different, there actually is not much to change or criticize about this game.
A small bug I noticed: You don't seem to be able to jump when running up a slope, turning mid-way (still in the slope), running down and trying to jump while still on the slope. But it is hard to pull off and does not happen that often in real gameplay.
Snowman
In the only 3D entry in this competition you control a snowman fighting his way through a horde of rotating circles and ellipses to free his land (which apparently is a bunch of floating platforms in the sky) from them.
In a way this game is similar to Wars Commando as you the game mechanics are similar: You can shoot you have a "bomb" attack and enemies shoot back. Well I guess that is where it ends with the similarity though as you also got a broom (for twice the damage) and the game features a nice twist.
Because every action (except for the broom) from jumping to shooting costs snow, which your character is made of, jumping for example costs 1, shooting 2 and being 3.
You gather snow by collecting white-blue-ish, rotating circles/coins (ironic isn't it) and as a very nice effect your snowman will grow (or shrink) with each additional snow collected (or lost).
This whole mechanism is a nice twist and creates many strategic options, sadly it also leads to some frustrating dead ends, but the good points outweigh the bad on this one by far (it's not that there is a lack of snow and making errors probably has to lead to death, also there is no inevitable dead-end).
What is slightly bothering me is that you take the collected snow with you, while all levels are completable with the small snowman in the beginning, it becomes much easier if you start with the big one. I guess that also kind of is a reward for completing the previous level successfully, but at some points the game becomes unbalanced by that.
Movement and jumping feels tight and overall there is not much to complain about, apart from the fact that, like in Wars, you cannot shoot directly upwards or in an angle. This would be a necessity to properly hit enemies above you, while currently you have to jump next to them and shoot at the right time - not ideal.
But I guess being a snowman without arms is an excuse for that shortcoming.
The "bomb" attack, in which you sacrifice your entire "big belly" is the most powerful in the game and can kill boss enemies in one hit if fully charged (the more snow, the more damage). It takes some time to get used to through as you need to make a big sacrifice (loosing your big belly also means loosing a good chunk of your health) and the bomb travels rather slow in which case most enemies can run away from it if you don't time it correctly.
The game consists of 3 chapters with 3 levels each and a boss battle.
The difficulty ramps up nicely, though the last few levels seem to be slightly easier or on par with the levels in the second set. At least the last boss is not that much of a challenge if you kill it directly with a big bomb attack.
New elements are introduced throughout the game, such as the broom, new types of enemies, one-way gates (only horizontally sadly) and trees. Again later levels don't feel that good in comparison as, even with changing layouts, the game already showed everything it got (the same might be true for Wars btw, but I have not gotten far enough to judge that yet).
Snowman still remains fun though, no question.
Graphics are nice, especially considering the whole 3D engine has been made from scratch which is impressive considering the short amount of time (also the game is supposed to run on the GP2X so I guess it has better performance than Wars, Greyout, Rescue and Robo Hell which are all 2D games...).
Animations are certainly lacking, as well as proper models. The main character is looking good, the grow/shrink effect as explained above certainly makes it stand out, though it feels too solid in my eyes, separating spheres on a jump and maybe some horizontal movement relatively seen between the spheres would have helped to make it look more organic and less like a plastic figure.
All enemies are rotating circles, which is a bit dull on the long run, I hope this will be improved in future versions.
The level exclusively consists of blocky platforms, which are nicely shaded, but also become dull after the first set of levels. The trees introduced in late chapter 2 help, though I would have liked to see more "useless" decoration, like piles of snow, falling snow-flakes, plants, etc.
Level backgrounds consist of scrolling 3D clouds, which makes the level stand out from it and do not distract.
Sound effects and music are spot on fitting very well into the game. The music is relaxing, yet not too slow or sleepy, still another track or two would have been good for a change.
I also liked the menu which is a nice transition to the game and give a nice retro feeling, I remember something like this has been done a lot in the past, but not any more, currently most menus are only text-based.
It is not really adding much to the game, but feels right also one can get used to the controls and test the movement without any harm.
Now the biggest shortcoming of the game in my eyes also revolves around what makes it stand out: the 3D.
The 3D graphics are nice and dandy, but they don't add anything to the game. While they also don't distract or confuse the players like in other 3D platformers (I am looking at you Sonic), this is a missed opportunity in my eyes.
Something like multiple layers (think Little Big Planet), levels which make 90-degree turns or moving platforms in multiple dimensions would have added much depth and gameplay possibilities to the game.
It might be route not taken due to time constraints, but in my eyes then the whole 3D would not have been necessary at all and one could have done it in 2D and concentrate on other gameplay elements more.
Still I am happy to see at least one 3D platformer in this competition and I hope gameplay additions like the ones above will be considered in the future, because there are certain things which are only possible in 3D and I would love to see this pulled off well.
Overall it is a very nice platformer, it is not as challenging as Wars providing a better entry for novice players, but still remaining a tough battle for experienced players in later levels.
It is fun to play and a fresh change to the other 2D games, I can see some potential in this one.
Rescue
Well, I cannot say as much about this one as I would like, mostly because it does not run decent in my VBox and I have not yet attempted to compile a Windows version. So part of this is judgement based on the trailer alone - I will edit this section if I manage to get it running properly.
First of all, what is Rescue? That is a good question, to me it is one of the most interesting entries in this competition because it is so "different".
Beginning with the bright orange tiles, over the nude character sprites, the strange-looking purple aliens, ending with the psychedelic music - this whole games somehow feels like I am on a trip...
I really like the music, btw, that song is just pure genius, I would like to know where you dug it up, it might be the only song in the game and I should probably mock that there should be more, but in this case I personally don't care
Now the goal is to rescue several girls from the aliens and get the out of a cave. The girls will try to follow you when you get near them, but apparent are as dumb as the hostages CounterStrike.
There also are gems to collect, but as the game is missing a score counter as well as a menu or highscore list there does not seem to be much point in it.
I can't say much about the level design as I did not explore the cave much, but it seems to be fairly large with a range of different geometry, from pits over to small pools of water and bigger hollow areas, all a decent cave need is present.
The game mechanics have both good and bad sides.
Also reading the previous posts the game seems to have a fairly sophisticated physics engine, which is nice accomplishment over the usually static and rigid collision detection in the other games.
This becomes apparent when destroying blocs (gems roll down a hill and float in water) or standing on a slope (you will slowly slide down) as well as using the rope feature (which I could not test for myself yet
but it seems to be very sophisticated and also a very interesting addition you don't see like that in many games).
The player movement on the other hand is not that great. Acceleration and deceleration are way to slow for my liking, making the player slide more than walk, also making precise jumps becomes tedious. This might work in theory with the accurate nature of the rest of the physics engine, but it falls short in actual gameplay and feels like it does not fit the rest of the game anyway.
What's a really nice twist is that you need to watch out not to hit your head on spikes or the ceiling, which creates a nice contrast to Mario where you destroy everything with your head.
The graphics are, well.. different. The orange tiles really stand out and underline the psychedelic nature of the game, but are not especially easy on the eyes.
The sprites are not very well animated and still have magenta borders around them, which probably should be transparent. Yet, in the context of the rest of the game that is actually kind of fitting.
The best thing about it are the particle effects - you will loose drips of blood when hitting a spike, which will then pour all over it and also drip down, creating a really nice effect. This is also helped by the fact that collision detection is pixel-perfect.
Another thing that is bothering me is the fact that you are supposed to kill the aliens by jumping on there head, yet this is never indicated and to top it off all aliens have a white spike (which probably is not one, but still looking like one) on their head clearly indicating "don't hit me there or it will hurt you" to me.
The camera is very well done, it feels very organic and the constant shifting, tilting, rotating and twitching only adds to the feel of the game. It is also very unusual to see such a "free" camera in a 2D platformer.
All in all I think of this as an experiment and a very special one. The whole concept and execution seems very interesting to me, also seeing there is much though behind each part of the game.
Sadly the actual gameplay does not hold up to the premise, but especially with some polish this could be one of the most interesting games in the Pandora library.
