My New Game

Hi,

I've written a game using Construct 2. Please have a play and let me know what you think?

amusementarcade.net/bombbombbabies

Thanks

I'm not quite sure, but didn't get even level one. <img src="smileys/smiley19.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

But I would suggest two more buttons to set the launch angle and an "restart level" option during gameplay.

Something about being a father makes me not want to play this game very long. Besides I couldn't seem to jump over the first car no matter what angle or speed I was at.

eh, why give the baby ragdoll physics unless you wanted it to flail like a rag doll. you could make it a cute bounce with a giggle and that might let some folk off the hook. But its up to you, and if you find an audience, good job.

thanks for the feedback, the setting launch angle I tried to keep the controls simple by having only 3 controls rather than 5. Would you think that 5 controls would be better or too much to think about as the game gets much faster later on?

TPorter, How come you couldn't get over the first car? was the pram not jumping high enough? is the pram jumping to early or too late i.e. laggy controls what browser are you using? Do HTML 5 games normally run ok?. In terms of audience, I'd shown this game to a number of people during development, some people loved it and some didn't like it at all. It gets better later on but it certainly isn't a main stream game so I'm not anticipating a huge audience. For me it setved as a good way to discover the abilities and limitations of Construct 2 and myself. I gave the baby ragdoll physics because originally it looked too stiff when being thrown out of the pram.

I'm with TPorter, the father in me made me not want to play after I saw the baby launched from the cart. Just not my cup of tea. The game seemed to play fine on my end though, and would probably be more enjoyable if not that the baby :).

One suggestion, if you are using adsense, be very careful and read the Google TOS. I believe all banners need to be at least 150px away from the game window. Double check before you get the google ban hammer :).

I'm a father too :-) although I assure you I've never thrown him out of his pram. It's supposed to be that the baby has asked you to help him collect the balloons so he can get the present at the end but perhaps i've not got that across? Maybe I need to incorporate a back story? I'm starting to think now that I've created something of an offensive nature but that certainly isn't my intention as the baby isn't harmed Because he's tough. I might dress him in armour or a super hero costume, would that make it seem more appealing to play?

Thanks for the adsense heads up, I'll check it out.

Alright, gave it another shot. I think I was just pressing the jump button too early or not long enough or something because I'm able to clear stuff now easier. Though it took a few tries to realize how important the jump angle is at the very end.

Actually, it feels kind of counter-intuitive now that I think about it. You have the player pressing left and right to adjust speed. And after a few runs you realize you probably need some good speed to make it off the ramp properly so your instinct is to hold down right as much as you can and even moreso when you hit the ramp, when actually you have to pick some time kinda before or during the ramp to switch that up in favor of picking a launch angle.

The presentation is pretty rough but I can see you thought out a lot of how one screen, menu, help window goes into another so thats good. I would however remove mouse control entirely. You have the player using the arrow keys to adjust speed but you have the space bar for jump. Well that ensures that your player is using both hands really. To have to pick up your hand to move the mouse a smidge or click on its button broke the flow, especially with a game like this that seems to feed on constant retries until you "nail it". I would let the player navigate using the left/right/space config for the menus as well. Its awkward to jump back and forth.

Back to the theme then. So first, yeah it would look weird just a static baby image flying so ragdoll fits. It's not done gratuitously such as a lifeless body flung around bending and twisting limbs, etc. Ok, the point is to not throw your baby from a pram by hitting those obstacles, then you are supposed to throw your baby from the pram by hitting a final obstacle which results in the baby hitting multiple obstacles. I think there could be a market for this game but you have to choose whether its "that crazy game where you are supposed to throw your baby from a pram" or "that crazy game where you are not supposed to throw your baby from a pram". I think it may be hard to find an audience who is fine with both, even done up right. Some ideas I had to mitigate this:

-Have the Pram launch with the baby and then the baby jumps out with a parachute hitting the tower?

-A superhero or armor costume might help with letting the player know the baby is safe.

-Make the tower at the end like a pillow fort, or a blanket fort. The whole game is kind of a strange scenario. This could be a series of dreams the baby has so even transitioning the art to a bedroom/crib area at the end could help sell this or other scenarios.

-Play a sound of an adult gasping when the baby launches, but then have the baby giggle as it flies, accompanied by a sigh of relief from the adult.

You don't have to water down your concept to make it more appealing, just have to pitch it the right way. Good luck. I'm also learning a lot about construct and HTML 5 by making my first game and of course playing everyone else's here.

Wow TPorter64, you?re feedback is amazing!

I wrote this game on a tiny asus eepc netbook and used the track pad to navigate the mouse controls and as the space bar is directly above the track pad it was an easy fit. I never even considered a desktop user with a mouse; the thought never even appeared in my head. Now that you?ve mentioned it, it seems so obvious and I?m a dimwit for not considering such a commonly used setup. I did plan on adding touch controls so will be adding your suggestion of keyboard menu navigation, I may keep the mouse navigation in there so the option is there for people who choose to use it. I?m not too sure yet.

When I started writing this I had no idea what I was going to write I just started putting stuff together. As a kid I used to love a game called Moon Patrol so took inspiration from that hence the seemingly strange control scheme. I think I?ve spent too much time with the game and no time at all with instructions to explain how to play it or the instructions I?ve made are very poor. I applied the bullet property to the pram and it accelerates at a fixed rate, whilst holding down the right arrow it adds a small percentage to the speed but not the acceleration so the acceleration occurs at the same fixed rate so regardless of whether you hold the right arrow down or not the acceleration remains fixed and the same with the left arrow except it subtracts from the speed. If say the pram travelled from point A to point B the speed and acceleration would be exactly the same at that fixed point if I were to hold down the right arrow then release it just prior to arriving at point B as it would if I were not to hold the right arrow key down. The Arrow keys are more there to help control the pram during a jump as you need this control to make some of the jumps later in the game. I need to have a really good think about this.

I tried to make the player know the baby is safe by playing a sound clip of the baby screaming a joyous wahhooo. I am going to add a helmet to the baby as in real life babies heads are very soft and perhaps a cape. I?m going to work a back story, maybe as a little cartoon animation or comic strip that explains that the baby is a bad ass and has asked you to help control his pram as he wants the balloons. Hopefully that should mitigate any feelings of mistreatment.

This game is quirky with a limited appeal; I never intended it to be a mainstream blockbuster, whilst the pillow fort idea is a good one, it would involve a lot of work to redo the levels for something that will still result in a game with limited appeal but hopefully a good back story will help make sense of the environments.

Again thank you for this valuable feedback, you?ve certainly given me a different perspective and a few ideas to try, I?m slightly deflated as it means more work for me but I?m definitely grateful for your honest and well informed opinions which ultimately should help make this a better game.

I've made a few adjustments based on your guys suggestions, I've changed the controls so left and right or A and D control Pram movement. Up and Down or W and S set the launch angle. Space or Mouse clicks to control jumping that way the players hand does not have to leave the mouse. I've added a Hard Hat to protect the babies head and a back story to inform the player that the baby is a volunteer and is not harmed. On my site I moved the Adsense banners away from the game window.

Thanks guys for all your informative feedback, I will continue to try and make improvements, unfortunately I'm no Graphics guru so graphical improvements are unlikely.

Thanks again :)