Hi I saw your intro in the GWJ discord. Here’s some feedback.
Cool mechanic to be able to rotate the bar! Helps with starting & finishing levels. Adds some additional skill to master compared to a basic brick buster. I find the angle maybe a tad bit too wide.
However, that bugged out after I finished the first level and could not angle the bar on the second level. That was on the windows version, haven’t tried the rest.
I got bored out and did not go further.
It’s a bummer, I was curious to see the other types of enemies (the spiders and the worm). Do you need to dodge the enemies as well as hitting the ball? That would get interesting (and too hard maybe :D)
I was thinking you could have crabs that move like in Invaders, going left to right, slowly crawling up to you.
Anyway the art is simple but looks nice. I think you could try to remove the black outlines, usually it looks better imo. Try to replace the black with a darker green, maybe you will need a third green to transition between the two. You could also add a shade of lighter green for a shiny effect.
For additional “juice”, which is very important in this kind of game, you could have a trail effect on the ball (instantiate a temporary copy of the sprite with some blur/transparency effect), some scale deformation on impact, particles, …
The music works well but could be refined as well. Players might expect chiptune to go with the pixel art style. Do you know anything about music? (Innocent question, not trying to bash you!)
The animation of the green blobs seem to be synced with the beats or almost synced. Not sure if that’s on purpose but it’s a nice detail.
Lacks some score mechanic but I suppose it’s in the works. You could use some formula including the time spent on a level, i.e the faster you finish the more score you have. Maybe additional points for a “combo”, i.e quickly destroying multiple enemies in a span of few seconds.
And of course there needs to be tons of bonuses (and maybe maluses too?) that give you additional balls, magnetic effect, etc. Maybe one where you can rotate indefinitely by keeping X or C pressed!
Dude I love basically every idea you gave me! About the art style and the juiciness, I totally agree, both could be improved quite a bit. I still have a long way to go lol
I really want to do the crabs crawling up to you thing. I think it could be fun, specially if coupled with an twitchy song or something like that, raising the anxiety levels as the crabs approach you.
And no, I don't know the first thing about music lmao I really liked this track because it has the feel good lo-fi vibe I wanted, but I agree that something more chiptune-y would be more expected in such a game.
Finally, on the bug, thanks for pointing it out! I had just changed the ball behavior code a bit and was too tired to test it appropriately lol
Anyways, thanks so much for your time and attention, keep tuned for some improvements!
I really like the visual atmosphere and the sound design! The way the paddle makes a noise when you move it feels really good.
A bug I encountered: I got to the worm level and he shot the ball out. When it hit the paddle, the collision seemed to bug out with the ball rapidly bouncing up and down on the paddle without going back up to the rest of the level. Eventually I let the ball fall off the paddle to reset. But when I launched the ball again, it did the same thing, only this time it got stuck on the screen's top wall. Very mysterious.
And then a design observation. Sometimes the ball bounces at a really shallow angle and you spend 30 seconds watching it bounce left and right before it comes back to you and it kills the momentum of the game.
Nice breakout game, with simple but nice sprites and a proper breakout feel. I liked being able to twist the plate :D. I haven't played much because I was not very good at it, but it is fun :)
Thanks a lot man! I've just added the rest of the sounds, so all the levels made so far are fully playable as of right now, including the different enemies.
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Hi I saw your intro in the GWJ discord. Here’s some feedback.
Cool mechanic to be able to rotate the bar! Helps with starting & finishing levels. Adds some additional skill to master compared to a basic brick buster. I find the angle maybe a tad bit too wide.
However, that bugged out after I finished the first level and could not angle the bar on the second level. That was on the windows version, haven’t tried the rest. I got bored out and did not go further.
It’s a bummer, I was curious to see the other types of enemies (the spiders and the worm). Do you need to dodge the enemies as well as hitting the ball? That would get interesting (and too hard maybe :D)
I was thinking you could have crabs that move like in Invaders, going left to right, slowly crawling up to you.
Anyway the art is simple but looks nice. I think you could try to remove the black outlines, usually it looks better imo. Try to replace the black with a darker green, maybe you will need a third green to transition between the two. You could also add a shade of lighter green for a shiny effect.
For additional “juice”, which is very important in this kind of game, you could have a trail effect on the ball (instantiate a temporary copy of the sprite with some blur/transparency effect), some scale deformation on impact, particles, …
The music works well but could be refined as well. Players might expect chiptune to go with the pixel art style. Do you know anything about music? (Innocent question, not trying to bash you!)
The animation of the green blobs seem to be synced with the beats or almost synced. Not sure if that’s on purpose but it’s a nice detail.
Lacks some score mechanic but I suppose it’s in the works. You could use some formula including the time spent on a level, i.e the faster you finish the more score you have. Maybe additional points for a “combo”, i.e quickly destroying multiple enemies in a span of few seconds.
And of course there needs to be tons of bonuses (and maybe maluses too?) that give you additional balls, magnetic effect, etc. Maybe one where you can rotate indefinitely by keeping X or C pressed!
Dude I love basically every idea you gave me! About the art style and the juiciness, I totally agree, both could be improved quite a bit. I still have a long way to go lol
I really want to do the crabs crawling up to you thing. I think it could be fun, specially if coupled with an twitchy song or something like that, raising the anxiety levels as the crabs approach you.
And no, I don't know the first thing about music lmao I really liked this track because it has the feel good lo-fi vibe I wanted, but I agree that something more chiptune-y would be more expected in such a game.
Finally, on the bug, thanks for pointing it out! I had just changed the ball behavior code a bit and was too tired to test it appropriately lol
Anyways, thanks so much for your time and attention, keep tuned for some improvements!
You’re welcome, I’m following you on itch.io so I can see your updates in the future.
I can help you with composing the music if you want!
You can also come to my stream when I’m live and chat about game dev or anything else https://twitch.tv/vikfro
There’s also my Discord with the #game-jams channel if you want to post updates and ask for feedback :)
I forgot the link to the Discord… Here it is: https://discord.gg/64n4Kjc
Basically I’m trying to build a community of indie game devs (and gamers in the general sense) to help each other, give feedback and collab!
I really like the visual atmosphere and the sound design! The way the paddle makes a noise when you move it feels really good.
A bug I encountered: I got to the worm level and he shot the ball out. When it hit the paddle, the collision seemed to bug out with the ball rapidly bouncing up and down on the paddle without going back up to the rest of the level. Eventually I let the ball fall off the paddle to reset. But when I launched the ball again, it did the same thing, only this time it got stuck on the screen's top wall. Very mysterious.
And then a design observation. Sometimes the ball bounces at a really shallow angle and you spend 30 seconds watching it bounce left and right before it comes back to you and it kills the momentum of the game.
Both very good points. Will try to address them in the next update. Thanks a lot!
Nice breakout game, with simple but nice sprites and a proper breakout feel. I liked being able to twist the plate :D. I haven't played much because I was not very good at it, but it is fun :)
Thanks a lot for playing man <3
Nice pong game, very challenging
Thanks a lot man! I've just added the rest of the sounds, so all the levels made so far are fully playable as of right now, including the different enemies.