Laz-o-Sketch Beta

[BrainDx]

Hey everyone,
I recently released a beta of my new game, Laz-o-Sketch. Do you think you guys could check it out and let me know what you think? Thanks.

http://www.laz-o-sketch.com

[stan]

You should put screenshots on your site... (and here)

[stan]

Ok, I just tried your game. It *really* needs a tutorial. There's nothing to tell the player which keys to use! Could be a better idea to use the left mouse button and a palette (as in MS Paint or any paint program), and the right mouse button to erase... I didn't understand how to erase stuff with wxc or such keys, BTW. Sometimes it works and sometimes not...

I think it'd probably be a good idea to drop keyboard entirely and go mouse only. At least, the level selection screen should accept mouse input.

The music is nice but its instruments sound low quality (low sampling rate?).

The graphics could use some improvement. Also the gfx that the player is supposed to reproduce could be much better... (I've only seen the bunny so far.) By using simple graphics at first and going up to more complicated/beautiful graphics as the levels go, maybe you could promote your game as a "learn to draw" game! That would probably interest quite a few people.

I hope this helps.

Edit: Almost forgot: the game opens its window in the top-left hand corner of the screen. The window's drag bar is _under_ my task bar, so I can't move it. I suggest you open the window in the center of the screen.

Edit 2: Ok, I've finally understood the controls. a,z,e are used to spray 100% red, green and blue. q,s,d are used to spray 50% red, green and blue. w,x,c are used to spray 0% red, green and blue. (that's on an azerty keyboard.) I can also keep the keys pressed and move the mouse to draw many squares in a row (I was drawing them one square at a time.) Then maybe my "go mouse only with a palette to choose the colour from" isn't appropriate... though it would probably make the game easier to understand (and enjoy?) for many people.

The ingame music is quite nice and appropriate, but the volume is a bit too high. You should add volume settings.

[BrainDx]

Wow, thanks for the input! There's a manual that comes with the game. I believe there's shortcut for it in the Laz-o-Sketch program group in your Start Menu. The main part of the game is really supposed to be the multiplayer, competing against your friends to see who can reproduce the picture the best. The other nice thing is the ability to throw your own images in there to play with. Read the manual for more instructions on how to do that. Thanks for your suggestions though. They really help. I've been thinking about doing the palette thing, especially because I want the game to be playable for people who have a Tablet PC.

[DanDanger]

Hello,

You could definately do with a first level tutorial, I didnt know how to play it until I read this forum. There may be a manual but I believe that no-one will ever read it.

It's a very interesting idea, using three keys to combine colors, very original. Though I found using 9 seperate keys just to much. Perhaps you only need three keys for the colors? Maybe you don't even need the ability to delete pixels?

I'd really like to see some work done on the game as I think it is a fantastic idea, its original and it could be very interesting :)