The Adventures of Froghead!

Scirra Community!

Im proud to present to you the first stage in my upcoming platformer - The Adventures of Froghead! (Works best in Chrome!)

(Link to the game is temporarily disabled - will be back better than before in a couple of days).

[TUBE]-XKKTvTTm-s[/TUBE]

(Note: this video is now a bit dated, there has been some major gameplay changes- Mostly focusing on the difficulty issues.)

Everything you see is a work in progress and some elements are not in a complete state (Paticularly the title page which might seem out of context right now but will make sense later).

I would really love to hear what you think and your thoughts on what I could improve.

Hey, not a bad game, but the death on one hit and restart is a big pain made me stop after the first couple as the attack system takes a little getting used to. But perhaps if you have some energy for life so two or three hits before death might be better or more checkpoints.

Anyway i got a solid 60fps during gameplay but a slightly lower fps on the initial game load up.

Overall I would say this is a good work in progress.

AJTilley Thanks for your feedback, very much appreciated.

I understand what you mean, Its not meant to be an easy game but I may have gone overboard with the difficulty. Especially As you mentioned its a new type of attack system.

There are currently 3 checkpoints in the level, but i may add another at the beginning after the waterfall.

Wow GenkiGenga! your game is very beautiful. I'm waiting for the final title screen because what I saw is very impressive.

I agree on some points with AJTilley. I had a lot of difficulty to understand the attack system. I will suggest in the final version to add a tutorial section where the player can try the attack system. It's seems very confusing at the beginning and I can assure you, I couldn't last very long.

If you can't add that, maybe add in the game screen a button that reminds you the different kind of attacks and how to use them.

You can be sure I will stay tuned bro. It looks very impressive.

Concerning the FPS, even if I have an old computer, I didn't notice any slowness. So everything is good on that side.

Good job!

Nice graphic and sounds! <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

There is a delay between pressing jump button and jumping.

I can only confirm what people said before me <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />, graphics look good to me, but couldn't figure out the attack system. I tried to kill the enemy but failed, couldn't get past him. He seemed to die, then he would explode(?) and kill me too.

I don't think the attack system itself is a problem, just its steep learning curve. I would say, try making a tutorial. First level you have to jump over some hole using cat jump, and guide the player how to do it as explicitly as possible and in as few words as possible - I found that players tend to ignore long text, best to keep it simple. No, VERY simple. Then next level practice the basic attack, then the "multiplied" attack etc.

I didn't notice any slowness either, constant 60 fps as far as I could tell.

Die on one hit is not good, people these days don't seem to have the patience they (we <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />) when we played video games 20 years ago. If they can't figure out a game EASILY, they move to the next.

Also what I noticed is that people like to have a story of sorts going on, like who's this Froghead and why does he do what he does? And why does he look like a cat with a frog head?

HTH, and nice work!

It looks great and there's the makings of a good game there. It is way too hard though. I found that if you try pre-emptively charge up the attack then the monkey runs at you and kills you, and if you wait until he throws the ball then you don't have time to charge the attack before the ball hits you. I think if the first bar charged up in half the time it would greatly improve things.

There was a bug one time when I fell down into the water at the first jump, I didn't die and was able to "swim" to the end of the level.

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8367729/construct/pics/bug.jpg" border="0" />

Thank you for the feedback guys!

One thing is becoming very clear - My tutorial is not as effective as I hoped. One possibility is adding a "replay" button for the tutorial but Im not sure.

anthonykojima Cheers mate, all of those suggestions are really good - I might add a hands on part to the tutorial where you can practice charging up. Also adding the abilities to the UI is something I had considered, most likely will end up implementing it.

Peteer Thanks for playing, there is actually 2 jumps available to froghead - I assume you thought the superjump was the only one (the way it works you hold the button and he jumps on release). I dont blame you though, the tutorial video either needs to be scrapped or slowed down - a lot.

Geo Thanks for your input, those monkeys arent to be trifled with! They are so focused on getting froghead that they are willing to sacrifice themselves to ensure they get him in their grenade blast. The monkey shuts his eyes when he grabs Froghead because he knows the blast is coming.

Maybe i do have some wasted words in the tutorial, I agree it could be simpler. The one hit death not being good is debatable I feel, but i do appreciate your perspective nonetheless. I definately agree with gamers not having the patience we once had. Once im happy with the gameplay you will see some of the story. :)

ramones Thanks for playing and the suggestions! (I will take the charge time into consideration for the next few versions). Regarding your observation, I really didnt want the monkeys to have a predictable behaviour. They calculate the best action to take by a random selection. This can result in what you experienced, I designed it this way to keep players on their toes but its clear i went overboard.

Thanks for the bug report, I will fix that issue.

Once again thank you all, Im going to start making changes - though first I am going to upload a video of me completing the stage so people can see what they missed.

Here is a video of me playing the first stage (at top of page!), not that I dont agree with all the criticism of the difficulty so far! - Just showing whats ahead of the first part. (Quality is pretty bad - In future i'll look into a better capturing software)

I think that im going to redesign the monkey AI to be a little bit more predictable. I would still really like to see if anyone can beat it the way it is currently though.

Ok, I've played some more and got to the rolling boulders. I don't think the monkeys should be more predictable, I just felt that I didn't have much time to react to them. I take back what I said about the charging up time. I think it's fine as it is. The bombing part was tricky but fun. What I didn't like was being killed by a boulder and having to go through the bombs again (and again and again and again... <img src="smileys/smiley19.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> ) A checkpoint there would be nice.

Bugs:

I had the same "falling into the river and not dying" bug a number of times. It happened 3 times at the gap in the bomb part which was annoying because I had to reload and start from the beginning. One time when I died I respawned in the river. And randomly some dead monkeys didn't despawn.

ramones Thanks again for the great feedback! I really thought i had the falls covered! I apologise for you having to reload so many times and appreciate your persistance (I vow to have all the falls fixed for the next version!). (The other bugs i am aware of but arent as simple to get rid of, still they will be gone by final version.)

To be honest im not sure how im going to proceed, maybe i will put checkpoints after every major challenge (my only concern then is that the game might be a little too easy). But Still, i guess thats better than people not playing out of frustration.

Im glad that you came around for the charge up time. At this point I think that I might either 1. put more checkpoints in and leave the challenges as is. OR 2. make the monkeys always dive at you when close instead of potentially throwing a grenade in your face (which should hopefully decrease ones chances of dying after getting past a hard part).

Thanks mate.

Edit: Minor update - all death related bugs should be sorted now.

About checkpoints: I know it's just a demo but in the full game I think it's a good idea to have a checkpoint after each new major challenge. It's easy for you because you've been programming and testing it constantly but for a new player you spend ages trying to get through the bombs and then you encounter the boulders. Something you haven't seen before: do you jump over them? on them? freeze them with charge-up? Oops, too late you're dead. Back to the bombs. You know? <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

In later levels, when the player is used to the controls and the gameplay, you can string challenges together without checkpoints to make it more difficult.

It's a fun game. I'm close to killing that gorilla.

ramones Im convinced, a checkpoint after each challenge seems fair (especially on the first stage as you pointed out).

Your breakdown of the rolling barrels both made me laugh and feel like a cruel game designer at the same time :) (very good point). Thanks again mate.

Also, I think i have come around to the idea of making a mini stage to put the tutorial into action before you start the actual game. Now to buckle down and get these changes into action.

In the meantime if anyone has anything further to add to the already great feedback, please dont be shy. (Even if you just hated it because of X reason, Id love to know what your thinking).

Hey guys,

Updated to V1-4

Added a few more checkpoints (now 6 in total) for the stage. I feel this is now much fairer and should allow most people to pass with persistance. :)

Also ironed out a couple of little bugs, though 1 or 2 still remain - they are not game breaking.

Welcome to V1-6 (tute graphic prob in 1.5)

Along with fixing a couple more bugs there has been a big change to the monkey AI which I think will give fresh players a better experience (and is just more fun in general). Its still quite challenging, but now when a monkey gets close enough to grab you he will always lunge. No more suprise grenades in the face.

The monkeys also now get the wind knocked out of them when they are jumped on while sliding.

As always id love to hear what you think so dont hesistate to share your thoughts :)