Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
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June 19, 2017
dave's disk [browser]
When Dave Flimsy, a game developer for a large company, opens his mailbox in the morning he finds a rather unpleasant message. It's the start of a horrible day in the platformer Dave's disk created by Quinten Clause for the Adventure Jam 2017.
14 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Worked on Firefox but not Chrome. Quite short. The wall jumps work well. The boss can't get into the hallway he is so fatheaded.
1) I totally misread the name of the game initially :/ 2) In Chrome, I needed to pause AdBlock for it to load. I was rewarded with an ad about constipation. Thanks, game.
As far as the game itself: 1) There's a spelling error on the intro screen 2) The wall jump mechanic is weird and not explained 3) Climbing ladders is slow to the point of annoyance 4) Moving sideways off of a ladder causes a small movement in the opposite direction initially 5) Scrolling is poorly done near the edge of the world 6) Pressing e.g. down and right on a ladder favors one direction over the other 7) There are no instructions (it took me a while to realize that jumping on guards killed them) 8) The boss fight was pretty pointless
Wow take it easy Anonymous, this game is free and made under pressure for a game jam. I will happily play your perfect game if ever you release one. Thanks for posting this Bart, enjoyable funny game!
Palat : I'm another anonymous but I'll stand for my sis/bro.
Not being able to make a game doesn't prevent you from having a judgement. If you have to make great games just to be able to share your thoughts, then there won't be much people who'll be able to. Games are designed to be played by other people, not only game makers. Anon up there didn't like the game, s/he listed what s/he thought was problematic in it and thus provided constructive criticism which is not just saying "This game sucks baaah", s/he deserves better than "Do something as good or shut up".
Just accept criticism, that's what make people improve.
As a game developer myself, I'm inclined to agree with the Anon who was complaining. I've participated in a lot of Jams, and you can do better than that. A lot of the game mechanics (wall jumping and head jumping, namely) are poorly explained, and while you will definitely notice wall jumping is a thing the first time you get to a point where you need it, unless you accidentally jump on the head of one of the guards you would never know about that mechanic. Like, for me, that only happened once, and it was right before the boss fight, so it could easily happen to someone where they go through the whole game not knowing that is a mechanic, and just waiting at the final boss, not knowing they can kill him, and hoping that he's the kind of boss that just dies after a timer runs out. The ladders are also realllly slow, and there's not really an excuse for that-- It doesn't make the game harder, it just makes the game more boring, and it would take less than a minute to fix. Another kinda bad thing that the Anon failed to mention was that you can take fall damage? And fall damage is almost always a bad thing in a 2d platformer, unless it's one of those story based realistic physics platformers (Limbo, for example.) I wouldn't go as far as Anon did to say that this is how not to make a platform game, but even for this time limit, it's mediocre at best.
Don't know if the tips were added after so many people griped! But everything is clearly explained on the page now -------- You can climb by pressing the up key when you are over a ladder. You can climb up, but also down and left and right. When you are on a platform and there is a ladder right beneath you you must press down to start climbing. You can start climbing while you are in the middle of a jump by hitting the up key.
You can also wall jump by hitting the jump button while you are sliding off a wall. When you fall from too high you will get killed, but wall jumping or starting to climb will cancel this effect.
You can talk to friendly npc's by striking the down key.
The agents and the boss will shock you when you hit them in a horizontal direction. To fight them you must jump on their heads. -----------
If you are you looking for a solution or a walkthrough for one of the game links, please have a look in the comments.
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14 comments:
Worked on Firefox but not Chrome.
Quite short. The wall jumps work well.
The boss can't get into the hallway he is so fatheaded.
Worked on Chrome for me... But it used 1.7Gb of memory... That's quite a lot for a tiny short game like that.
Works well on Chrome here. Nice game, looks and plays well in fullscreen!
Didn't work on chrome, took long time to load firefox, nothing new anyway, just a rehash of old ideas.
Enjoyed it, fun little game, enjoyed the humour!
Decent, but nothing special. Was there supposed to be an ending screen? After I beat the boss, it just restarted.
Chrome reported a 403 error, Firefox was ok, but ran slow even in a window.
I like the pun with the 'boss' in the end actually IS the boss of the company!
1) I totally misread the name of the game initially :/
2) In Chrome, I needed to pause AdBlock for it to load. I was rewarded with an ad about constipation. Thanks, game.
As far as the game itself:
1) There's a spelling error on the intro screen
2) The wall jump mechanic is weird and not explained
3) Climbing ladders is slow to the point of annoyance
4) Moving sideways off of a ladder causes a small movement in the opposite direction initially
5) Scrolling is poorly done near the edge of the world
6) Pressing e.g. down and right on a ladder favors one direction over the other
7) There are no instructions (it took me a while to realize that jumping on guards killed them)
8) The boss fight was pretty pointless
In other words: how not to make a platform game.
Wow take it easy Anonymous, this game is free and made under pressure for a game jam. I will happily play your perfect game if ever you release one.
Thanks for posting this Bart, enjoyable funny game!
Palat : I'm another anonymous but I'll stand for my sis/bro.
Not being able to make a game doesn't prevent you from having a judgement. If you have to make great games just to be able to share your thoughts, then there won't be much people who'll be able to. Games are designed to be played by other people, not only game makers. Anon up there didn't like the game, s/he listed what s/he thought was problematic in it and thus provided constructive criticism which is not just saying "This game sucks baaah", s/he deserves better than "Do something as good or shut up".
Just accept criticism, that's what make people improve.
As a game developer myself, I'm inclined to agree with the Anon who was complaining. I've participated in a lot of Jams, and you can do better than that. A lot of the game mechanics (wall jumping and head jumping, namely) are poorly explained, and while you will definitely notice wall jumping is a thing the first time you get to a point where you need it, unless you accidentally jump on the head of one of the guards you would never know about that mechanic. Like, for me, that only happened once, and it was right before the boss fight, so it could easily happen to someone where they go through the whole game not knowing that is a mechanic, and just waiting at the final boss, not knowing they can kill him, and hoping that he's the kind of boss that just dies after a timer runs out. The ladders are also realllly slow, and there's not really an excuse for that-- It doesn't make the game harder, it just makes the game more boring, and it would take less than a minute to fix. Another kinda bad thing that the Anon failed to mention was that you can take fall damage? And fall damage is almost always a bad thing in a 2d platformer, unless it's one of those story based realistic physics platformers (Limbo, for example.) I wouldn't go as far as Anon did to say that this is how not to make a platform game, but even for this time limit, it's mediocre at best.
Don't know if the tips were added after so many people griped! But everything is clearly explained on the page now
--------
You can climb by pressing the up key when you are over a ladder. You can climb up, but also down and left and right. When you are on a platform and there is a ladder right beneath you you must press down to start climbing. You can start climbing while you are in the middle of a jump by hitting the up key.
You can also wall jump by hitting the jump button while you are sliding off a wall. When you fall from too high you will get killed, but wall jumping or starting to climb will cancel this effect.
You can talk to friendly npc's by striking the down key.
The agents and the boss will shock you when you hit them in a horizontal direction. To fight them you must jump on their heads.
-----------
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