[Feedback Request]Pow Pow's Mini-Golf (Web 3D Game)

[Chris Evans]

Hi All,

I've pretty much finished our latest game, Pow Pow's Mini-Golf. I'm basically just making bug fixes and gameplay tweaks from user feedback. I'll probably give it an official release in a week or two.

Pow Pow's Mini-Golf is a web-based only game utilizing shockwave.
You can play it here: http://www.outsidetheboxsoftware.com/shockwave/webgame.php?game=MiniGolf

Screen shots:
http://www.outsidetheboxsoftware.com/media/powpow_minigolf14_sm.jpg
http://www.outsidetheboxsoftware.com/media/powpow_minigolf11_sm.jpg

Some of the Features
- There's no loading in-between holes. Pow Pow's Mini-golf features a full 3D course where you can walk around from hole to hole.
- There's multiple play modes such as Strokeplay and Matchplay. You can play Solo, challenge the CPU, play a friend/family member on the same computer, or even challenge someone worldwide in Online mode. Whatever tickles your fancy.
- There's a Level/Experience system as well where you can choose to improve certain skills once you earn enough experience points.
- There are hidden and secret items in treasure boxes scattered throughout the course. Though many of them you can only open if you have a certain experience level

What I'm Looking for

As I said the game is pretty much complete. Right now I'm mainly head-hunting for crash bugs. Shockwave gives very generic crash errors, so it makes it tough to diagnose the crashes. So if you do crash, try to recall what you were doing exactly when it crashed and give me your browser details.

If you happen to see someone online, please try to play a game. I really need to get more feedback on the online mode.

Of course any general gameplay feedback good or bad is welcome.

Known Issues
- There's a few "black" spots on the terrain ground texture. I'll fix it eventually but it takes a long time for me to render & generate the lightmaps (many hours), so I'm saving it for the end.
- The ball occasionally slides through the corners of the walls if it's hit very hard


Additional Info

This game is completely free. It's not a demo or trial-ware. I basically wanted to create a high quality standalone web game to help drive traffic to my site and get our name out there. If you like it, feel free to spread the word. :) The game is beta, but it's pretty much open to the public. The more feedback I get, the better.

On a side note, our website will be redesigned shortly.

Thanks guys for taking the time to check out the game! :)

[Chris Evans]

I'm a little bit disappointed. My logs show a lot of people playing it, but no feedback yet? :(

[dntoll]

Very nice game, ran without any trubble, long downloading time, good that you display tips during download...

Very funny with the dialogs during play... I think the walking between the holes could be removed... its quite cool but boring after a few holes.:p

Sometimes obstacles (like the fence) are in the way of the view during animations...
I like the shoot viz and the gameplay!

Gr8 game!:D

[Bmc]

i think it's nice but i had a problem on the first hole. made my first shot missed the hole, but then i couldn't do anything. i tried clicking to walk to the ball nothing.

just played it again and had no problems, i'm not sure what happened the first time.

also I actually like walking between holes, but maybe you can add some type of mini-game to make it more interesting, maybe not

1 thing that would be cool is to have some of the enemies from the other pow pow games running around the course and if you walk into them you have to "fight" them. have a little mini-game pop up. if you win you get xp points, if you lose, you lose xp points.

simple mini-games like memory, guess the number that type of fare.

edit -
i guess you do have something "There are hidden and secret items in treasure boxes scattered throughout the course. Though many of them you can only open if you have a certain experience level" my bad :) still think enemies would be cool though.

[Sirrus]

i think it's nice but i had a problem on the first hole. made my first shot missed the hole, but then i couldn't do anything. i tried clicking to walk to the ball nothing.

just played it again and had no problems, i'm not sure what happened the first time.

also I actually like walking between holes, but maybe you can add some type of mini-game to make it more interesting, maybe not

1 thing that would be cool is to have some of the enemies from the other pow pow games running around the course and if you walk into them you have to "fight" them. have a little mini-game pop up. if you win you get xp points, if you lose, you lose xp points.

simple mini-games like memory, guess the number that type of fare.

Same thing happened to me...

Cool game though...

[Jack Norton]

I'm a little bit disappointed. My logs show a lot of people playing it, but no feedback yet? :(
When people play and give no feedback, is a GOOD sign ;)

[Sharpfish]

When people play and give no feedback, is a GOOD sign ;)


That is actually true. I played it - and I saw nothing wrong with it other than long-ish loading times. When it had loaded I was met by a lovely looking game, seemingly mixing Cellshading with Global illumination type-thing.

I had a quick go on one hole, but I can say I was looking at it at that time from a technical standpoint and I thought it was great what you achieved in shockwave!!

I do think people like to point out obvious flaws more than pat people on the back (just how it is I suppose)... so yeah, a few niggles but very impressive and for free!!?? wow! :)

I would have to play it more to comment on gameplay but as usual I am too busy working on my own game at the moment :)

[Dock]

Very first impressions are bad, simply because the loading time is very long, even on a fast broadband connection! Quite misleading was it said 'out of the box software presents'... and then presented another loading bar. When it finally loaded I chose my character and then... loading bar! It's downloading 3D media at the moment, but it's pretty painful. I would have probably given up by now. :(

[Jack Norton]

Got a problem, had a moment to try it on mac, but a Shockwave windows pop-up saying that there's an error and stops :(

[jankoM]

When people play and give no feedback, is a GOOD sign
Yes I agree. I tried it and was impressed and it's more boring to give positive feedbackt than to criticise. I will try to give you me feedback anyway.

+ great cartony graphics - very good - nice animation - consistent pleasant look - nice environmental feeling
+ it's great that how you combined that you can normally walk around and play the game/next court.
+ inteeresting golf courts
- sound when the blue popup shows up and hero speaks is not pleasant and not in tone with the rest of the game, at least to me. some cartony babling would make me feel much better
- a little to repetive music (maybe some envoment bird/water sounds would make me far more relaxed and pleasantly feeling)

just thougths
?sometimes I wished I could zoom in the camera, but no big deal
?maybe If I have less power accurancy pointer could move slower, because it's easyer to be acurate with les power

all in all very nicely done game

best wishes

later: you see I got a chance to criticyze too ... yeah baby! ;)

[Sharpfish]

Yeah the loading times are very long (for an online game) but the game itself looks great once loaded. As it is free I suppose people can take it or leave it (ie not wait) - he will still have got some traffic to his site from the screenshots alone. If he could make the loading times smaller then it would be great - though the graphics do look great, better than many downloadable games.

Now.. it takes LONGER to download a 10mb on average surely? (ok so once it is done it is done but...)


edit - excuse the overuse of the word "great".. I imagine it is annoying to read, but well.. the game looks GREAT! ;)

[Chris Evans]

When people play and give no feedback, is a GOOD sign ;)

Hehe, good point. :) I guess I got a little paranoid. New releases make me anxious. :D



@Bmc - Interesting idea about the enemies. I also have several other ideas I stashed away should I ever do a download version (which would be a sequel to the Web game). For now, I think the treasure boxes and earning skill points give pretty good incentive to keep playing.

While there aren't enemies walking around the course, I did insert a rather big statue of one of the boss characters in the middle of the course. Basically giving a nod to those who've played Pow Pow's Great Adventure.

@Sharpfish/JankoM - Thanks for the kind comments regarding the graphics! Aside from the character models, I did all the graphics for this game including the animations. I made this game to drive traffic to my site, but also as an exercise for me in 3d modeling and texturing, so it's gratifying to hear people enjoy the visuals and style.

Regarding the sounds, I agree there is a lack of ambient sound effects. There's a waterfall sound, but that's pretty much it. However I was worried about increasing the download size (since the load times are long as it is).

@Load Times - Yes, I'm aware they're pretty long, especially if you don't have broadband or if you live overseas. The initial load time is very long, but once everything is cached, the load times do go a little quicker. I tried to soften the blow of the long loading screen a little by adding tips & news and making the progress bar fairly verbose.

But in the end I feel once people get into game, they usually feel it was worth it and usually forget somewhat about the long wait. Also, the average game session last anywhere from 15 - 45 minutes, so the gameplay/loading ratio still favors gameplay substantially.

@Jack's Mac Crash - So far, the Mac has been giving me the most trouble for some odd reason. I have an I-Mac and the game runs fine in Safari and Firefox, but I'm only able to test one Mac configuration.

One thing to check is to make sure you have the latest version of Shockwave Player on the Mac. Often times on the Mac, it doesn't automatically prompt you to download the latest plugin version like it should. Instead it let's you get all the way into the game until you crash... :(


Anyway, thanks everyone for the feedback thus far! It's much appreciated!

[BinaryMoon]

I think it has a lot of potential, but there are some things that frustrate me. I've made a list of comments below.

- I quite like the walking, I wonder if the walking when playing a game should be removed. Maybe make him walk to where the ball is after a shot, it's often hard to see the ball. The 'click here' thing to get to the ball is awkward because the ball isn't where the click here thing is, but lower down. Maybe if you click the actual 'click here' sign the character walks to the ball?
- Nice graphics but there is some z fighting on my pc. This seems to be a common problem with Shockwave games though.
- Load times have been mentioned, although the size of the level is quite nice and makes up for it.
- The interface grphics when you're taking a shot. Do they have to be so big? The putter, and golf ball take up far too much space hiding parts of the course.
- Actually taking a shot is hard as well. It's not clear what the power bar does unless you have played golf games before, and the max power is insane. Each time I used it the ball left the course. Maybe if you tell the user how far the ball is from the hole, and add a scale to the power bar so that you know how far the ball will move with a specific power (which wouldn't include bouncing, slopes etc)
- The accuracy bar is very hard to get on green, in fact I have never had a straight shot.
- The visualize shot thing is nice, but you should be able to change the ball angle whilst visualizing. Otherwise you have to visualise, tweak, visualise, tweak, and that's frustrating.
- when you get to the ball the camera should move so it's in line with the shot - makes aiming simpler and saves user interaction.
- after you take a shot the camera should move so both the ball and the character are in view - shows where you need to walk.
- On hole 7, on a couple of shots, I couldn't see the entire hole when behind the player because there was a hill in the way, maybe lower it a bit (the grass opposite the fence)

hope that helps.

[Chris Evans]

Thanks for the comments! I'll address some of your points:

- Nice graphics but there is some z fighting on my pc. This seems to be a common problem with Shockwave games though.

Yep, bingo. Shockwave has issues with certain ATI cards and machines with only a 16bit buffer. I tried a few workarounds, but it seems to be only effective in certain cases.

Maybe if you click the actual 'click here' sign the character walks to the ball?

That's a good idea! *writes it down*

- The accuracy bar is very hard to get on green, in fact I have never had a straight shot.

Initially it's tough to get the accuracy bar in the green, but as soon as you improve the accuracy skill, it gets a lot easier. By the time you max out your accuracy skill, it's pretty much impossible not to get it in the green.

But if I do get more complaints about the initial accuracy speed being too tough, then I'll make the default speed a little slower.

when you get to the ball the camera should move so it's in line with the shot - makes aiming simpler and saves user interaction.

The only problem is, you don't always want the camera directly behind the character. I know I personally want it aligned parallel to my character depending on what shot I take. Though you'll notice, on the very first stroke, the camera does automatically align directly behind the character. But after the first stroke, I leave up to the user to pick their ideal camera angle since it's pretty subjective what's the best view for the shot.

- The interface grphics when you're taking a shot. Do they have to be so big? The putter, and golf ball take up far too much space hiding parts of the course.

I like the icons big so it's plainly obvious what you're suppose to do. However I may fade the icons while you adjust your shot angle so they don't obstruct the course too much.


It's not clear what the power bar does unless you have played golf games before, and the max power is insane.


It's true for the first several holes, you don't need anywhere near the Max power. However there are some holes later on in the course that do require extra power. Also, you can rack up more XP points by ricocheting the ball off multiple walls with the extra power. But yes, I'll think about a way to communicate roughly how much power is needed for a given shot aside from trial and error.


Thanks BinaryMoon for the feedback!

[Drake]

I'll think about a way to communicate roughly how much power is needed for a given shot aside from trial and error.Idea: When you click the Visualize Shot button, instead of having the line of balls appear white, have them appear in the color corrsponding to the color of the power meter for that distance. The closest ones would be green, and they'd edge into yellow and red farther out. I guess the usefulness of that would depend on your visualization stat, but that seems fair.

[Chris Evans]

Actually I implemented that (it's in the code now, but disabled). It was accurate on flat surfaces, but not so much so on slopes. The distance and curve (and therefore the power needed) to get over or across a slope is greatly affected by the initial velocity of the shot. For the power visualization to be truly accurate, you'd need to be able to choose the initial velocity (the desired power) before clicking the visualize button. But this adds a whole layer of complexity that I don't want for the putting. It would probably end up just confusing people.

Also by the time you'd improve the angle visualization skill enough to see the full power-band, you already have a good handle of how much power to use anyway. Most people who've played the game a few times have little problems guaging the power. Basically I need to figure out something to aid first time players.

I'm thinking about maybe adding a distance marker on the very last vizzy ball (like that says 12m), and the actual power bar icon would have a few markers like 5m, 10m, and etc. This will give you a rough idea of what power is needed, but it's not meant to be exact.

Then again, is a little trial and error really so bad? :) That's how it was with my Nes and Genesis games when I was a kid. :D

[Drake]

Ah, I see what you mean about the slopes. Now that I think of it, Mario Golf (the only other golf game I've spent much time with) gives you putting power estimates based on flat terrain. If there's an elevation difference between you and the hole, it gives you that value, but it's up to you to determine how much to adjust your power to account for it.

And no, a little try/fail/retry isn't bad. After I sent a shot ricocheting down the walking path for the third time, though, I was ready to swing the club at something else. Why let me roam around the course if I can't vandalize it? Come on! :D

[Chris Evans]

Haha, now that's a good idea! :D I'll definitely add some destructible objects on the next major update.

[Red Marble Games]

Two other comments:

-- The CPU player is an idiot. I would putt out and then have to sit around while Mai Mei took 8 or 10 strokes to reach the hole. Generally she hits way too hard, often knocking the ball off the course.

-- I crashed on hole 3. Mai Mei was doing one of her many shots, and the ball appeared to go precisely into a corner wall. It was not one of her power shots, so I think it's different than the issue you mention of hard-hit balls going through walls.

Outstanding game, though, otherwise -- I'm seriously impressed!

Mark

[Chris Evans]

-- The CPU player is an idiot. I would putt out and then have to sit around while Mai Mei took 8 or 10 strokes to reach the hole. Generally she hits way too hard, often knocking the ball off the course.



Thanks for mentioning this. Last week I played the CPU a ton and it was extremely competitive. I really had a hard time beating it. I made some slight tweaks to have it make a few more mistakes. When I re-tested it, it seemed better. However I'll admit I didn't play against the CPU as thoroughly as before, so it's possible I broke something without realizing it. I'll check it out.

Thanks! :)

[Adam]

1337 hacks.

When the player is dropping the ball, keep clicking somewhere else, the player will slide towards that point dropping the ball in a different position. Easy hole in one on 2nd course.

Doing the same trick when the ball is sitting in the previous courses hole screws things up more (i think). I was unable to pick the ball up after i had done this.

The game recieves input when it does not have focus.

EDIT:
Windows XP SP2
IE 6
Not the newest version of the shockwave player, i had a popup in my try this morning about updates available.

[Chris Evans]

1337 hacks.

When the player is dropping the ball, keep clicking somewhere else, the player will slide towards that point dropping the ball in a different position. Easy hole in one on 2nd course.



Not any more! :D .... Thanks. ;)




The game recieves input when it does not have focus.

I know about this, it really annoys me too. Unfortunately there's a bug between Firefox and the Shockwave plugin. Firefox doesn't recognize the built-in function that runs certain code when the focus returns to the window. For the first day when I released the game, almost everyone in Firefox who clicked out of the window would be stuck in a paused state when they returned to the window. This was only in Firefox. Safari, IE, and others were fine... Unfortunately since Firefox is gaining browser penetration fast, I had to comment out that piece of code. When I have more time on my hands I'll see if I can do a little browser detection that can be passed to my game. Then I'll run code that basically pauses the game state if the window loses focus except if the browser == Firefox.