Feedback request: TimeBreaker iteration 27

[dntoll]

2005.08.29 - Time Breaker i27 Released!
Iteration 27 of Time Breaker is available for download

Changes are:

New background graphics!
New menu graphics
New levels
New music
A lot of small fixes


Small screenies
Menues (http://homepage.te.hik.se/personal/ttoda/TB/screen0.jpg)
Flower level (http://homepage.te.hik.se/personal/ttoda/TB/screen1.jpg)
Chicken brothers (http://homepage.te.hik.se/personal/ttoda/TB/screen2.jpg)
the Crane (http://homepage.te.hik.se/personal/ttoda/TB/screen3.jpg)

Download
TimeBreaker_i27_Setup.exe (10 826 KB). (http://download.spellofplay.com/TimeBreaker_i27_Setup.exe)

Thanks for any comment! :D

[redito]

I could only play the first level. When I got to The Parrot I got the error message "timebreaker.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close".

However I already noticed 2 things.

In the settings menu, under sound I can see the menu choices and the arrows < > but there is no bar or line or anything to show you that you move those arrows < > left and right to make the sound higher or lower. I figured it out easily but a novice gamer might not. Also the arrows are quite light and hard to see against the background. Might want to work on this page a little.

And the toxic waste bright green bar on the right hand side while playing is a little hard to look at. :eek: Perhaps a softer color might be in order?

I'd love to play more. I'll try again when I have more time and see if I get the error message again.

[dntoll]

Thanx for the feedback!!!

The toxic green bar will be replaced probably during I28, it is just like the sliders just placeholders for new menu graphics and ingame graphics. :o

My present feeling is to go with the same colors and style as our site... :rolleyes:

We are right now trying to select the ~20 levels for the demo. If anyone has any suggestions on how to choose good levels, should it be a mix of hard/easy levels or just nice graphical?

[dntoll]

Iteration 28 of Time Breaker is available for download (http://download.spellofplay.com/TimeBreaker_i28_Setup.exe) (10 826 KB). Changes are:

Keyboard control
Keyboard and mouse sensitivity settings
New ingame gui graphics (work in progress)
New and modified levels
New music!
A lot of smaller fixes!

We are now closing in on the final release of Time Breaker, it has taken far to much more time than expected... :mad: But every iteration is at least better than the last one!

I just wish we could be finished now!!!

Please test this latest version and tell me what you think we should prioritize next! :D

I think sound effects and gui is the most important things right now... :rolleyes:

[whisperstorm]

The mix of levels should include easy ones for kids, so they can pester their dads and moms to buy the game :) Also include ones that really show of your game's features so that you make folks want to see whats next.


Edit:

I like the graphical fonts you use for the initial dialog -- where you choose "play", "exit" , etc. I really really really hate the fonts you use for the in-game score on the right -- the plain green fonts. It makes the game seem amateurish - and the gameplay definitely isnt! Go scope out the top 5 games at realarcade or something like that and look at the in-game fonts. I really dig your game alot and it seems to me this is just the one glaring smudge on an otherwise awesome game!

[Anatoly]

Oh, my! It's great! The best 3d arcanoid idea so far!
I absolutely loved it - I've played it until I beat it! Any more levels? ;-)

[dntoll]

The mix of levels should include easy ones for kids, so I really really really hate the fonts you use for the in-game score on the right --

Thanx for the feedback... we are now trying out new fonts! :)

I agree on the easy levels for kids... currently we have a mix of childish levels with flowers and more grownup levels with heavy machines and historical levels from egypt and inca...

[dntoll]

Oh, my! It's great! The best 3d arcanoid idea so far!
I absolutely loved it - I've played it until I beat it! Any more levels? ;-)

We have 100 levels right now and plan to release 20 levels per demo version. So if you try out the next demo (released in approx two weeks) you will get some new and some improved levels...

If you have any suggestions on changes just tell me and I will try to fix em in the next version.

Thanx for the feedback!!! :D

Edit:
You made my day :) ! It has been so much work lately and little visual progress, it is really nice to get such nice feedback!

[StefanM]

What a great game! I played it from start to finish as well.

I liked the music but the quality of the recording seemed quite low?

I loved how the game wouldn´t let me try to hit the last bricks for very long before throwing me a minigun or a couple of missiles so i could finish the level :).

Don´t know if this is good or bad but in a couple of levels I would get the many balls powerup at the beginning then duplicate ball and then many ball again so the level was over in like 15 seconds without me doing much at all.

Anyway very good game and with good marketing to back it up im sure it will sell very well.

[dntoll]

Thank you StefanM for the feedback!

I liked the music but the quality of the recording seemed quite low?
Yes the recordings are 11khz and you are the first to notice... :D We have 5 different tunes in the game and they take alot of download space... the 22khz and 44khz is much better but takes much more space... maybe we could do a separate download for the ones with good hearing... ;)

Don´t know if this is good or bad but in a couple of levels I would get the many balls powerup at the beginning then duplicate ball and then many ball again so the level was over in like 15 seconds without me doing much at all.
Hm... we might have to make those powerups less frequent... In one level it is supposed to happen... :rolleyes:

[redito]

First of all let me say that this game is getting better all the time. I've played the last few iterations and the progress is noticeable. This is getting to be a seriously great game! :)

However, since you want feedback I'm going to nit pick a little.

When I started the game the first time I got the high score screen and not the main menu but it didn't happen the second and third time I tried the game. :confused:

I loved the clock behind the main menu when I first started the game. Then when I went to play I realized it was a level I could play. It's beautiful but I expected the screen to change to a level when I started the game. Does that make sense? For instance, in Ricochet Lost Worlds there is a sort of demo game that plays in the background when you first start up the game. Then when you actually go to play it changes to the actual game play. I'm not suggesting yours has to be like that but I was surprised to play what I thought was a background for the main menu.

I like the green side band colour much better. Less radioactive wasteish. If I was to be really picky I'd say now you should punch up the bars that denote how much time you have left for a certain powerup. Again - being really picky here.

I deliberately let myself die after a few levels just to see what would happen. You might want to add a cursor where you put your name in for the high score list.

Something I didn't really like was that when I died, instead of starting over at the beginning the next game just picked up at the level where I left off. This is fine if I'm the only player but if someone else in my household wants to play they are going to want to start at the beginning. It seems like you've got the default set to pick up where ever the game left off. I think the default should be the first level. Then you can change to a higher level if you want to.

This becomes very important if your levels increase in difficulty as you go along. I personally like this concept but it's sometimes hard to tell with demos if that's what the designer is doing. If you are going to do this for the final release of the game, then it definitely makes sense to have the game default to the first level for each new game.

Something I'd love to see is the ability for more than one player to have a game on the go at a time. I like that I can stop my game and resume it at a later time but no one else in my house can play Timebreaker while I'm in the middle of a game. It would be nice to have the ability for other players to play at the same time without wrecking my game.

Here's something really picky. Some of the powerups carry over into the next level. If you catch one right after you end the game it can be used in the next level. I think each level should start fresh but that's just an opinion.

I also like the score box at the end of each level better now. Easier to see and read. Better fonts all around. Much!

I love some of the new graphics. The bird (2nd level) that grows. I actually said "Wow!" Doesn't happen very often!

Seriously, this game is getting better all the time. I'm being picky here but you can feel free to ignore my suggestions since you obviously are on the right track.

[dntoll]

Seriously, this game is getting better all the time. I'm being picky here but you can feel free to ignore my suggestions since you obviously are on the right track.

Thanx!
Actually I think you hit the spot on almost all flaws in the game!!! ;)
gr8 feedback as usual!!!

We will consider the profile ideas... we have been walking around this for far too long...

We are currently working on fonts, levels and dialogs...

[dntoll]

2005.09.26 - Time Breaker i29 Released!
Iteration 29 of Time Breaker is available for download (http://download.spellofplay.com/TimeBreaker_i29_Setup.exe) (10 462 KB).

Changes are:
Ingame gui is refined
New sound effects
New gravity effects
Modified levels
A lot of smaller fixes!

Still a long way to go but we would really like if you tell us what you think!

We are currently working on
New menues, maybe save/load capabilities
sound effects
new pad
new ingame gui
polishing, polishing, polishing
level improvements
level unlocking

Only a few iterations more and we should be ready for launch!

[Werzel]

dntoll, I've had a play through the latest iteration of your game and I have some feedback.

Overall, I liked the game more than I thought I would (if that makes sense!) - the overall idea of 3d arkanoid was something I'd not really considered. I was impressed by the simple install. The 3d graphics are nice and the animations are really good!

I'm sure you're already working on most of the things I'm about to suggest, but here's a few things I noticed weren't quite right, and some suggestions too:

When I change the difficulty on the difficulty select screen, the difficulty in the stats panel updates too. This is fine, but some of the difficulties are called different things in the lists e.g. "Very Hard" is shown in the stats panel as "Guru"

The Stats panel should explain what each item is e.g. "Score", "Lives" and "Difficulty". I figured out "Score" but I didn't have a clue what 5 meant until I lost a life.

Some spelling mistakes on the level introductions:
"The egyptians believed that some animals where (were) holy"
"Crocodiles ... because they ate a pharao (pharaoh) or two"

If I mouse over the word "play" on the level select screen, when it rotates I can see its white box on top of the level list.

The graphics for the sliding bars and the sliders on the game options screen aren't vertically aligned properly. What do "key" and "mouse" mean, sensitivity?

I set the game to 1280 x 1024 and the text that appears above the bat is pretty illegible at that resolution - it should get bigger when I change the resolution.

I think the points power-ups should be a different colour (maybe silver or something?), that way I can tell whether what I'm going to collect is a power-up or merely a bonus.

Some of the powerups are very similar (flame gun and machine gun, acid ball and exploding ball) - I'd pick one of each pair to simpliify things.

The side-panel could use a nice graphical background rather than a plain colour.

I'd prefer the weapons panel to be either empty until I pick up a weapon or show faint pictures of the weapons. I kept thinking I had weapons to use when I glanced up there and saw icons, even if they were greyed out.

Some of the backgrounds are too plain, especially the blue gradient one - the underwater wavy one is great, the clouds one is a bit basic (could it change colour in a day/night cycle and the music change to crickets at night or something?)

The demo doesn't stop at the end of the levels, it just loops round. I had to lose all my lives before I could put a high score in.

Some things I didn't understand:

What does the "force" meter do? The electricity around the bat is cool though.

When I get the heavy ball powerup, it only seems to go through a few blocks before reverting bouncing off them - is this because of the "force" meter? If it isn't I couldn't really tell what difference the "force" meter had on the gameplay, sorry.

As always, these are just my suggestions and observations. I'd like to congratulate you on getting your game this far - it's certainly further than I have come!

Werzel

[Anatoly]

Hello! It's me again - your biggest fan!
Wow! This looks different, but this time I do have some suggestions:
1) New sounds... Are they of higher bitrate? Because you CAN hear the difference between them and the music quality... Also "vinyl scratch" sound is annoying...At least to me 'coz it doesn't make any sence in the game... It's not a bounce sound. Seems a bit out of place.
2) Force meter. It looks cool, but can confuse some people because it's not on empty when the game starts. I know it's a cool effect - the arrow wobble, but then you can't tell if it's empty or not. Also the name "force" is kind of confusing. Change it back to gravity.
3) Scroll bar in the level selection menu. If you drag it - nothing happens, but it's a windows-user habbit to drag scroll bars!

These are just minor things - I enjoyed the game again! How do you come up with these wonderful levels?

[redito]

I'm always glad to try a new iteration of this game to see what you've come up with next.

I like the new sound fx. Much more interesting now. Much! But I missed the gravity sound effect. It was a great sound and clearly let me know the gravity was working.

I also noticed the spelling errors pointed out by Werzel and one more. Decendent should be descendent. You should also check your grammar on a few of these title boxes. Some have punctuation and some don't. It's erratic at best. And be absolutely sure of your facts.

I like the idea of the title boxes and their tidbits of info but if I click to get rid of it and see your wonderful graphics it automatically releases the ball. I miss some of the great animation you've created this way. Maybe one click to get rid of the box and then another to release the ball?

I agree that the guns box is confusing. When you have the guns it should be very obvious, even if you are just checking out of the corner of your eye while trying not to lose the ball. Greying them out to begin with is a good solution. I disagree that some of them are too similar. Lots of games have similar, but slightly different, weapons and powerups. If anything, I'd add more guns and more powerups. I will say, however, that the acid ball doesn't really seem to have a lot of 'punch' in the game. The heavy ball rips through things, the exploder makes a satisfying bang but the acid ball just sort of fizzles. Maybe it could make a cooler sound or perhaps it could eat away a few bricks at a time. Just a thought.

The Force box is also unclear. I figured out what it did after a while and still didn't like it. I liked the power bars in previous iterations. They were clear and obvious. I also missed knowing how long I would be in overdrive or slow motion. Keep the gun box and bring back the other bars IMO.

I love the underwater blue background. Cool bubbles!

The Stats box needs labelling. I got the score and lives section figured out right away but I didn't know what the OK was for under them. It never changed even though I played through the whole loop of levels.

About the levels. I think you might want to start breaking these up. Put the Aztec ones together, the underwater ones together, the transportation ones together, etc. Maybe sets of 10 or 20 levels each that you can play through to a logical end. Then you can choose to continue with another set of levels (keeping your score as you go) or choose to stop entirely, take a high score, and start fresh somewhere else another time. And perhaps at the end of each set there could be a bonus level of some sort. You had these in one of the earlier iterations and I liked the idea a lot. Where did these go?

As has been mentioned on this board many times before, and by wizards wiser than I, there needs to be short, medium and long term goals for these games. The short goal is completing the level and the long term goal is completing the game but you haven't got a medium. If you had the levels broken up into sets with bonuses at the end - voila! Medium.

As I've said before I do like this game. The graphics are amazing and there is a great, addictive game developing here.

[dntoll]

What does the "force" meter do? The electricity around the bat is cool though.


The force meter shows how much gravity force you have... (not explained anywere) The gravity powerup can be used to attract the ball using right mouse button. (this will probably change, since most people just use the LMB)

Thanx for some gr8 feedback, I will forward it to the team asap! :D

[dntoll]

Hello! It's me again - your biggest fan!
Wow! This looks different, but this time I do have some suggestions:
1) New sounds... Are they of higher bitrate? Because you CAN hear the difference between them and the music quality... Also "vinyl scratch" sound is annoying...At least to me 'coz it doesn't make any sence in the game... It's not a bounce sound. Seems a bit out of place.
2) Force meter. It looks cool, but can confuse some people because it's not on empty when the game starts. I know it's a cool effect - the arrow wobble, but then you can't tell if it's empty or not. Also the name "force" is kind of confusing. Change it back to gravity.
3) Scroll bar in the level selection menu. If you drag it - nothing happens, but it's a windows-user habbit to drag scroll bars!

These are just minor things - I enjoyed the game again! How do you come up with these wonderful levels?

The sounds will be divided in three or more categories, brick bounce, pad bounce, wall bounce...

Hm scrollbars should be working... :-(

Thanx!

We will work hard this iteration to fix a lot of issues...

[dntoll]

Thanx!


I agree that the guns box is confusing. ... The Force box is also unclear.
...
The Stats box needs labelling. I got the score and lives section figured out right away but I didn't know what the OK was for under them. It never changed even though I played through the whole loop of levels.


We will probably just show the sidebars for the powerups when you actually have the powerup...
The "OK" is the difficulty level... I agree that we should perhaps change back to "Easy", "Normal" and "Hard"... I think the "guru" and "ok" is the result off a to large font for the dialog in 640*480...


About the levels. I think you might want to start breaking these up. Put the Aztec ones together, the underwater ones together, the transportation ones together, etc. Maybe sets of 10 or 20 levels each that you can play through to a logical end. Then you can choose to continue with another set of levels (keeping your score as you go) or choose to stop entirely, take a high score, and start fresh somewhere else another time. And perhaps at the end of each set there could be a bonus level of some sort. You had these in one of the earlier iterations and I liked the idea a lot. Where did these go?


We rotate the levels in order for them to be tested... so all levels you have played will be in the final release... probably in "packs" the first pack will probably be a mix of levels so that you see what you get when you try the demo version...


... If you had the levels broken up into sets with bonuses at the end - voila! Medium.

As I've said before I do like this game. The graphics are amazing and there is a great, addictive game developing here.

Thanx again for some gr8 feedback redito... It is so much more fun to work on trying to please you (as our imaginary customers).

Gah I want this game ready launched now... just a few iterations more... :cool: The hardest thing is to prioritize....