Blobyrinth Beta [feedback request]

[TimS]

Yay!

It's almost time for Blobyrinth to be set loose...

Screenshot 1 -- main menu
Screenshot 2 -- the Theater
Screenshot 3 -- gameplay

Hey all. The time has come for us to put Blobyrinth: Maze Island Quest out on test... and we'd like your opinions and feedback on our beta release as it stands so far. It is our first game, and it is nearly finished. Does it work on your system? Does it explode your computer into little pieces? What is good? What needs additional work?

Thanks for trying 'er out -- It's been a long time in development.

I've decided to make this a 90 minute demo... When the 90 minutes is up, it'll expire, and not very gracefully. Sorry about that... is just a beta after all. I'm mostly curious what you all think of the state of it so far and how well it runs on all manner of PC configurations.

Some things that didn't quite make it into beta, but we are aware of:

• confirmation of profile delete before deleting
• a movie skip button... sorry beta folks... just watch 'em.
• lots of things you'll never see within 90 minutes
• The 'arcade' button doesn't do anything... it will later.

If you LIKE the beta... and you want to help us with additional testing... drop me a PM. We could use some deep testing on the full game.

OK... the link

[edit] I should add... if you have an integrated on-board video card... this game will likely not treat you well. You're welcome to try and report what happens, but don't count on it being too smooth. [/edit]

Thanks,

-Tim

[Shawn S]

Woohoo! Beta time!

Looking forward to the feedback

[jeb_]

Argh, please add that skip story button!

Other problems:
- If you alt+tab you can't write your name in the profile menu.
- The intro needs subtitles for us who don't have English as mother-tongue (the subtitles can be in English, it's just a lot easier to follow the dialogue when you can read as well as listen)
- If you press ESC during the intro the menu will appear behind the intro screen.

Sorry I haven't tested the actual game yet because those problems have always stopped me before the game started

[Emmanuel]

I tested on an amd athlon64 3500+, ATI Mobility Radeon XPress X200.

The keymap is forced to qwerty. I have a French (azerty) map and I couldn't enter my name. The 'm' key is nowhere to be found even in qwerty mode.

I tried to skip the extremely long intro by hitting ESC.. When I did that, the background changed to the main menu but the story continued playing.

The rightmost column of pixels on the screen displays random data (ie, noise that keeps changing).

When the game starts, the desktop is temporarily rendered as 800x600 and I have to click the Blobby icon in the taskbar to actually start the game. Signature OpenGL weird quirk..

A Messenger window popped up; when I alt-tabbed back to the game (which was still playing the long story), the story textures had disappeared (the game was drawing all white; the theater and mouse cursor drawn fine, though). Same behavior when alt-tabbing.

Signature rendering quirks make me think this is a Torque2D/OpenGL title. I haven't tried this game on my Vista machine but all GL games render in software at 2-3 fps on it.

There is no way to pause the game or exit to the main menu with the mouse.

The "Next" arrow when you complete a level has a white border around it that flickers.

In the tutorial where you have to push a symbol, I couldn't move it. Edit: I finally figured it out; I thought the arrow was pointing near where the action was, while it's pointing to nothing useful (or near the target I guess). The block to be moved is on the other end of the screen.

Tutorial is long, it kind of fails to sell the game in the first few minutes.

Music is great, sounds very much like Prof. Fizwizzle. The game also seems to draw from Gish for the story and the main protagonist.

Edit: oi, that's coming out pretty strong, unintentionally. Congratulations for releasing a beta! Looking forward to seeing the release.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[TMK]

Very nice job with the game, Tim!

My configuration: Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+, 2GB ram, GeForce 7800 GTX video card, on-board Realtek AC'97 audio.

Pro's:

• Game menu's were smooth, and in-game it was also smooth and fast.
• Controls were good, I used the mouse and had good responses.
• The tutorial system was very good, didn't stop the game flow.
• Great graphics, love the moving bushes and the rain effect

Con's:

• Long loading time on the intro and other story videos, and no way to skip as you already know.
• There was no sound on the intro and story videos, the main menu had music and sound, but when I clicked on "Story", there was no sound on the Loading screen, and also no sound on the videos, so I could not hear what they were saying. Same with the video between the tutorial levels and the real levels.
• I tried to press Escape while playing expecting to see a menu so I could restart the puzzle, but it took me to the main menu.
• When I Alt+TAB in and out, it crashed when I tried to tab back into the game.

Other than that, a great game and I wish you good luck with it!

[TimS]

Looks like technical glitches and design oversights abound. Now we're having fun!

Thanks all for the feedback so far!

I'm going to respond one at a time since I just typed for about 15 minutes and then accidentally deleted it all. Grr.

Originally Posted by jeb

Argh, please add that skip story button!

I will... sheesh.

Originally Posted by jeb

- If you alt+tab you can't write your name in the profile menu.

I can fix that... fonts lost. Added to the list.

Originally Posted by jeb

- The intro needs subtitles for us who don't have English as mother-tongue

hm... This one might not make it in... Mebbe...

Originally Posted by jeb

- If you press ESC during the intro the menu will appear behind the intro screen.

This bug I thought I had fixed already... guess not. Added back to the list.

Thanks jeb! Hopefully you'll get to the game itself one day...

[TimS]

Originally Posted by Emmanuel

... rendering issues ...

Yeah it's a T2D OpenGL game... some of these rendering quirks I may be able ot fix though. Thanks for the detailed feedback and the system specs!

There is no way to pause the game or exit to the main menu with the mouse.

True... and good point. Design oversight! I'll fix it.

Tutorial is long, it kind of fails to sell the game in the first few minutes.

Been too close to the project for too long... thank you for the design feedback. We'll have to see what we can do to fix this up, since it's pretty important!

Music is great, sounds very much like Prof. Fizwizzle.

Thanks to the fact that we... erm... used the same excellent music guy... Michael Huang. Yay!

oi, that's coming out pretty strong, unintentionally. Congratulations for releasing a beta! Looking forward to seeing the release.

No worries... all honest feedback is appreciated, even if it is harsh. I know I've dealt out my share of critical feedback around here. All opinions are valid and it'll only help us make the game stronger before release!

Thanks a bunch Emmanuel.

-Tim

[TimS]

Originally Posted by TMK

Very nice job with the game, Tim!

Thanks! Also thank you for the system specs.

There was no sound on the intro and story videos

Yarr... good sized bug there. Added to the list.

Escape while playing expecting to see a menu

Agreed. I should've known better on that one.

Alt+TAB in and out, it crashed

I'll see what I can do to make this more stable... ack.

-Tim

[disaffected]

a very nice game you have! great work Tim!

to add to the list of bugs: one thing I noticed is that when you reach the goal of the level, there seem to be 2 music clips playing at the same time.

[SteveZ]

Congrats guys! It's worth a celebration in itself to release a title. I beaten the training session and went through 2 levels of the first world.

Technical issues I've encountered:
1. Resolution for 1024x768 doesn't show the movie properly
2. Fullscreen (make window mode) option doesn't save when I quit game and restart again
3. I was playing in 800x600 window mode - losts all lives, goes to gameover screen, and the resolution changes
4. Level unbeatable w/ reset: In one of the levels, I made a puzzle mistake by pushing green block to green floor slot, preventing me access to red block. I touched the Checkpoint, then pressed "R" - which doesn't reset the green block's position.
5. I got a "B" from one level, quits game, and killed all enemies in the next level, only to get the "B" again.


IMHO, changes that can enhance the gameplay:

1. When I get a new ink, it drains very slowly allowing me to clear all enemies of the same color in that level. To add more challenge, when player squishes another enemy, perhaps make him lose 50% of the ink. This way player can decide if its best to stay immune and avoid enemy or squish enemy, risk losing ink, and go for "bonus"

2. After the training session: To increase the challenge per level and boost replayability, time limit can help. Each level on the map can show it's best completion time.

3. When a level starts or is beaten - the music and sfx conflicts since the sfx feels like a short melody in itself. Try lowering the volume of the music while the sfx is being played.

4. Because the game is in a grid, what about positioning the player per grid space: if player walks more than 50% to the next grid, it'll continue walking until it reaches to that grid, otherwise it'll backtrack to the original grid. With this format and moving with mouse, it can help with a "boxed" icon on the mouse pointer.

The game is fun, visually appealing, and has a good mix of puzzle and action to it. Hope this helps and good luck with the release!

Regards,
Steve Z.

[TimS]

Thanks SteveZ and Disaffected for trying it out and chiming in.

SteveZ:

... Technical Issues ...

Yay more to add to the list... some serious stuff in there. I can't believe I didn't catch #4... As to the rest, can you give me your system specs?

... enhance the gameplay ...

RE: #1 -- The challenge comes later... we wanted to ease the players in, just in case they're very casual players. Later on there are situations where you need every drop of ink as supplied!

RE: #2 -- After the tutorial zone, there IS a time limit... sort of. After some amount of time Madbeard finds you and starts shooting his cannons at you while you try to solve the level. Perhaps we'll have to make this timer visible to give you a little more incentive to hurry. I'll ponder it.

RE: #3 -- Good point. It does sound muddled. I'll fix it.

RE: #4 -- We're very set in our ways of NOT having grid-based movement. A sokoban game with a free-moving character?!? Yep... Thanks for the input though!

Overall quite a lot of good feedback there. It is appreciated.

-Tim

[ZeHa]

Just wanted to ask how old you estimate your target audience? Of course it's clearly targeted to kids, but I think you have to watch out a bit, sometimes even kids might think of something as way too cheesy. For me (also feeling like a kid sometimes ), it was the intro and the background music. The sprites are cute and don't seem to be a problem. But of course, be sure to test this with some "real" kids, as it might be hard to really know how they'd react. Speaking for myself, though, I think sometimes it's important not to think too cliche-driven and be aware that many kids want to have "real" stuff and not the over-fluffy-cheesy stuff

Gameplay: I thought the movement of the main character is rather "gluey", he reacts too slowly in my opinion. And he's moving a bit too slow as well
I'd also say you should shorten the tutorial - a single level for explaining how to use keys (and then having to collect three of them to prove that you understand how it works) is way too much. It should be combined with the other door levels. Perhaps it would also be possible to explain some basics with smaller levels - how about making a tiny room that takes about one sixth of the entire screen, located in the middle, surrounded by a black border (or your theater), where you just explain "that's a key, that's a door" and all the other mechanics? It would be way faster to complete, and personally, I always hate tutorials and want to jump right into the game, though I know that it's important to play it. So why offer full-sized levels? Old games didn't even have tutorials, they just showed some objects with a short description next to them on one or several screens. I know which benefits a real tutorial provides over simple instructions, but I think it's possible (and probably better) to find something between both worlds.

Technical: The intro was a bit slow. Perhaps it was intended to do so, but the speech was a bit distorted because it was played a little too slow, so I assume the whole intro was too slow.


EDIT: To clarify my tutorial idea a little bit: of course it shouldn't be just ONE single tiny room for the whole tutorial containing everything - it should be ONE single tiny room level for every mechanic.

[TimS]

ZeHa,

Thanks for the input.

I think I'm going to overhaul the tutorial... Much of what it explains could probably be fit into 5 levels instead of 10.

As for the cheese -- the story of the game gets pretty strange. The target market is a bit fuzzy since it wasn't clearly defined prior to designing the game, but it's more leaning toward an older crowd that is into more 'core' games than towards kids. It's an odd little game. We're quite aware of that bit.

As for your technical slowdown issue -- can you give me system specs?

Thanks!

-Tim

[ZeHa]

I played it on a ThinkPad R60 with 1,83 GHz Dual Core and ATI X1400, shouldn't be to slow, I assume. Of course I can't judge for ingame (because I also thought it's rather slow, but it might be just subjective), but the speech in the intro was clearly stuttering.

[SteveZ]

Originally Posted by TimS

As to the rest, can you give me your system specs?

Dell Optiplex
Windows XP
Intel Core 2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13Ghz
Intel GMA 3000
2Gb RAM

[bignobody]

Ran it on my laptop:
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Processor: Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 2.40GHz
Memory: 494MB RAM
Page File: 286MB used, 1151MB available
Card name: Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller

Yes, one of those integrated cards. The game itself actually ran very well, it was just the cinematic sequences that slowed into uselessness -the audio went hopelessly out of sync with the video. The video finished minutes after the audio did.

The only other problem I had (that I didn't see already mentioned) was that there was a collision detection issue along the left wall - I first noticed it on the level where keys are introduced. I had the yellow key and was trying to use it, but it would not let me through. It turned out I was "stuck" to the left wall. Once I moved back up to the top corner, I was able to free myself and move back down and use the key. I had the same experience on the next level as well. It seems to happen after I collide with something to the right, I get pushed back and stuck to the wall behind me.

I thought the menu was very slick. Clearly a lot of polish went in here.

I like that even though you are moving about a grid, there is still a bit of "give" to the movements - you've really managed to capture the "sliding on goo" feeling.

I think the colour changing (and esp. mixing!) is quite a clever mechanic.

If there was a single feature I'd like to see in there it would be joystick/gamepad support.

Overall, not my type of game, but I could see it doing well with the Spongebob crowd

Best of luck with it!

Regards,

[TimS]

BigNobody, thanks for the input!

Gamepad support will be added before release... it's a very gamepad-esque game, so I also think it'll be worth putting in there.

Sorry about the extreme slowdown issue... not sure if I can bend the engine to the whim of integrated chipsets... They don't like me.

The collision issue you had has been added to my list -- it's most likely my fault, and I think I can fix it.

Yay for lots of feedback!

-Tim

[Dock]

I tried this out, but ran into some problems:

- I couldn't choose arcade mode.
- I couldn't always slide the slider in the options menu
- When I started story mode there was an unskippable cut scene (arrgh!). Seeing as it was my lunch break I needed to skip this, but it wouldn't let me skip... and then when I pressed ESC it tried to go back to the main screen, but left the cutscene going, and then went black screen once the cutscene was over. I had to Ctrl+Alt+del to Exit from the game.

So I didn't get to play the game because of the cutscene, and the bug.

[ZeHa]

I think the colour changing (and esp. mixing!) is quite a clever mechanic.

Oh yes, colour mixing is really cool and hasn't done yet in other games (at least none that I know of). Colour changing has been there (think about Crillion or something), but mixing gives that special kick.

Only problem perhaps could be colorblindness - perhaps you should add the name of the color onto the tile? (Or has it been there already? Can't check it out right now)

[TimS]

(Or has it been there already? Can't check it out right now)

While it IS there, it really is of no use, since the enemy blobs themselves aren't labelled with a color tag. Ah well...

-Tim