Hi, we are sorry for taking so long to review your game. We actually played it yesterday but we didn't have enough free time to write the review until now, so here it is.
First of all, you chose really hard graphic limitations but it seems like you followed them with success.
Also, the concept of the game is really interesting and fun, simple platformer mechanics mixed with puzzle level designs and a bit of physics.
However, we found that the game controls for the keyboard were a little confusing. We are used to having the directional movement keys on our left side (e.g. WASD), and the action keys on our right side (maybe arrow keys, numbers, etc). Also, we wanted to point out that, as far as we know, the ZX81 keyboard didn't include neither the arrow keys or the control key.
We (which actually means Frog, because Panda was only watching him play over the shoulder), got a little stuck in some levels. Especially in the one that's called "Seems a bit easy". As you probably know by now, there's some kind of "bug" that makes the key item slide upwards to the surface that's above the player when the player releases it as it surpases it. Do you understand what we're talking about? The thing is, there were some levels, the one aforementioned above all, that were so hard to complete for us that we thought there might me some mechanics that weren't properly explained. We even thought that the so-called "bug" might not be a bug but a mechanic itself. We were unsure about that and we hope that you can clarify it for us. The double jump thing was also slightly complicated to get used to, since you can only double jump if and only if you press the space bar key after the first jump arc is completed. We think it might be a good idea to allow the player double jump regardless if the first jump arc is over or not.
We played through the entire demo, so we could get a grasp of the whole thing, and overall we think the idea is great and it is bound to be much greater with these few retouches. We're excited for you to release more levels and we'll be willing to try them once they're out.
Good luck on your project(s).
Also, we want to wish you a happy new year. Let all your dreams and wishes come true, and let's keep in touch!
Thanks so much for playing the game. I'm glad to hear you liked it.
It was a relief to read this review because all of the problems and bugs you reported have already been caught and fixed.
Controls on keyboard have been improved. You can now use both WASD and Arrow Keys to move. Space and Z to jump, and Shift throws the key instead of Ctrl due to better ergonomics.
Double jump has been fixed.
The key phasing through the platform has also been fixed.
There are now more tutorial levels before things get a little challenging. I've also tuned and fixed some of those tougher levels.
There has also been many other fixes and improvements that will be released in an official demo after the contest results are finally revealed. When it's released, I would love to hear your thoughts on the improvements.
Thank you again for checking out the game, and for your kind words. It is very much appreciated. 🙂
Also, Happy New Years to you as well! Hopefully, it will be a very productive and successful year.
I really enjoyed playing this game! The graphics look great and i'm impressed that you were able to create the art and the game in such a short amount of time as a solo developer.
One thing I would note would be to make the first level (the one after tutorial) a little less challenging and to increase the key despawn time.
This was a fun play and it definitely fits the theme well, it's got a very retro feel to it.
Thank you so much for the wonderful review. It was a really nice thing to wake up to today, especially considering how sick I've been.
Good news is, your suggestion for improvement has already been taken care of. I've been working really hard on the game ever since the contest ended. Lots of bug fixes, control improvements, level design tweaks and tuning. There's also more tutorial levels now that will come before the level you mentioned. I'm hoping this will help players feel more comfortable with the controls before I start challenging them a little.
As soon as the contest results are in, I will be uploading all of these changes in a 20 level demo.
I'm really glad you felt this game felt very retro, and fit the theme. I'm very fascinated with the ZX81, and I've been wanting to design a game in its style for a long time.
I'm also very happy you thought the graphics looked great. That was the hardest part. I was only allowed to make the graphics using characters from the ZX81's 128 character set. Each character is 8x8 pixels, and cannot be rotated, flipped, scaled up or down, or be manipulated graphically in any way. What I had was what I got. I also had to follow a "no transparent pixels" rule. So, it was quite the challenge, but I weirdly find those kinds of challenges fun.
Anyway, in closing, I just want to say thank you again, and I'm glad you liked Super Block World. Hopefully it was able to engage you enough to want to try it again once I'm allowed to get the updated demo up. :)
As 8enB noticed, the double jump inputs are a little sketchy. I think it's probably best for the second jump to be active at any time during the jump arc, rather than just after the peak.
When the key hits the top of the stage, all of its horizontal velocity is immediately cancelled. I don't think it's necessarily an issue, but it made some segments of the game a little less intuitive. In "Seems a Bit Easy", I noticed sometimes this happened with a left throw at the top without jumping. It wasn't consistent, so it's weird that the physics seem a little random. But for me, this actually happens pretty often. It seems to be well over 50% of the time. I imagine the intended solution to this room is to just carry the key, but throwing the key can be an option - if you get lucky. x3
I have no idea if this was intentional, but in the last level, picking up the key to cause the wall to appear on top of you has some interesting interactions with the player.
Similar to the above point, it is possible to throw the key into the ceiling, for example, in "Seems a Bit Easy." It's not game-breaking. Just funny.
The choice of Ctrl and Space for the left hand is a little tricky; I held my index finger over space and my little finger over Ctrl, which did start to be a thing after a while. I imagine you'd want to change this for more playability, especially as the game gets longer. ^^
EDIT: I'm noticing that with spike hitboxes... is there an invisible pixel to the left of the visible spike that's part of the hitbox? If so, that would explain some of the fun I had trying to figure out the fourth level ahaha.
Ouch! That stings the soul a little to read, but regardless, this was an immensely useful review.
The good news is, I was aware of some of the issues you mentioned after I submitted the game and have fixed them already. An update to this demo will be made available after the judging process has been completed.
- The double jump has been corrected and is working a lot smoother, I believe.
- I spent a lot of time fixing and tweaking the controls. I too noticed that "Ctrl" was not a comfortable button choice, and it has been changed to "Shift". I also have made it to where players can choose to use "Space" or "Z" to jump, and "Arrow Keys" or "WASD" to move. I figured this would help give players a couple of options based on their preference. I also did it because I learned that a lot of laptop and cheap keyboards have a major bug where if you hold "Up" and "Left" at the same time, the "Space" button does not work. Having the extra controls offers a way around this if someone has this bug in their keyboard.
- The issue with the wall appearing on your character in the last level happened to me in post-testing as well. I hate, hate, hate that I didn't catch this before submitting the game, but it has been rectified. However, it was pretty hilarious to watch the player character float up to the door through this glitch, haha!
- Sadly, on the point of the spikes, this is where it gets a little challenging. So, the ZX81 did NOT have transparent pixels. There was absolutely no way around this. You also could not make any alterations to the character set from which you made your graphics. This meant you could not rotate, scale, or edit what the characters looked like in any way. So, you are correct, there is a section to the left of the spikes that registers on the hitbox. This is because each character is 8x8. A single spike is made up of two 8x8 characters: a checkered square and a square with a smaller, black square in the bottom right. The "invisible" pixels are the white filling the rest of the space. I could make the spikes from three 8x8 solid black characters, but they would be much larger and impractical. So the dilemma is: do I remain faithful, or cheat for more accurate collision detection? That's a tough one. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on that.
- I'm glad you brought up the issues with throwing the key into the ceiling. That is something that needs to be fixed, so I will make that my next mission this weekend when I work on it some more.
- Lastly, you're freaking awesome! I can't believe you made a speed run video of the game. I turned into a giddy, little schoolgirl when I saw that. No one has ever made a video of something I've made before, so it was surreal to see that. It was also extremely helpful to me because I could see all of the issues you mentioned.
- Thank you again for making such a detailed review. My pride got hurt a little, but I needed to see it. This goes a long way in helping me to improve the game, so thanks for that. :)
Fun and addictive! I will say it's pretty tough and a little unforgiving at times. I think this is the sort of game you'll need other people to playtest so you can adjust the difficulty curve.
Other than that I think its great. It has a Super Meat Boy way to it, where you just want to give levels another go.
Thank you! This was a really nice comment, and it made my night.
I think you're right, though. I'm gonna have to find a way to get some play testers. Not sure how, but you're not the only one who said it was a little tough. I can be really bad about trying to make games challenging for myself without thinking about what that'll do to a first time player. However, I will definitely put more effort into game balancing in further updates. Thanks for that feedback.
What really made me smile was the comparison to Super Meat Boy. That's some high praise there, and I won't lie, I'm feeling pretty giddy about it, haha!
Fun and simple game! Always nice to see how far a few simple rules can go!
I really liked this game, one thing that I think could be a nice change though is being a bit more lenient with the key despawn time xD! For me it was often times a little tight but these are just the things that come with playtesting, the only other thing I really saw any issues with was that it took a bit of time to realize I could only jump again if I was moving down, so for a while it felt like my double jump was randomly not working. But apart from those couple things I enjoyed this game a lot and liked how you stayed true to the style! Nice!
Thank you so very much for your feedback! It means a lot that you were willing to take the time to provide it. I'm glad that you enjoyed it and felt that it stayed true to the platform it simulated. :)
Yeah, I won't lie, I kind of rushed the code for the key respawn time. That is definitely something I plan on doing more testing and balancing with. My theory with making this demo submission was that I wanted to showcase how challenging the game could get, but I think I may have overdone it, haha. These will be the beginner levels, so I need to be nicer to the player here. Being the developer of the game, I can sometimes forget that difficult for me can be near impossible for a first-time player.
As for the double jump mechanic, I noticed it acting a bit funky myself when playtesting after submission. Unfortunately, until the judging process is over, I can't upload any updates to the game. However, I did do a massive overhaul on the mechanics and controls, and I believe I may have fixed this problem as well as smoothed out the rest of the controls. Once judging is finished, I will upload all of the updates to the demo that I have made.
Thank you again for your feedback. If I never got any, I would never know if something was working well for the players or not, so thank you! :)
This game is impressive! It gets challenging fairly quickly, but it's all good fun. I love what you did with the limitations you have. I'd love to see how you can get creative with these limitations and expand on this idea further. Great job!
Wow! This was a very nice comment. Thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate it. I love working with limitations when it comes to game design. It's weird to think how difficult it is to replicate the restrictions of these older systems. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Regardless, I love the challenge.
I have a ton of ideas on how to expand this game. I've already been working on it. I've got a nice CRT screen effect, I've finished designing a fully complete and functional title screen and options menu, the game engine has been greatly polished, and I've set things up to increase obstacle types and level size. I can't wait to share what I've been up to.
Thank you so much! That means a lot. I had so much fun working on this. I noticed not many had chosen this wonderful system, so I just had to give it a try. There's something really enjoyable about trying to make something out of these kind of limitations. I love the challenge.
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Hi, we are sorry for taking so long to review your game. We actually played it yesterday but we didn't have enough free time to write the review until now, so here it is.
First of all, you chose really hard graphic limitations but it seems like you followed them with success.
Also, the concept of the game is really interesting and fun, simple platformer mechanics mixed with puzzle level designs and a bit of physics.
However, we found that the game controls for the keyboard were a little confusing. We are used to having the directional movement keys on our left side (e.g. WASD), and the action keys on our right side (maybe arrow keys, numbers, etc). Also, we wanted to point out that, as far as we know, the ZX81 keyboard didn't include neither the arrow keys or the control key.
We (which actually means Frog, because Panda was only watching him play over the shoulder), got a little stuck in some levels. Especially in the one that's called "Seems a bit easy". As you probably know by now, there's some kind of "bug" that makes the key item slide upwards to the surface that's above the player when the player releases it as it surpases it. Do you understand what we're talking about? The thing is, there were some levels, the one aforementioned above all, that were so hard to complete for us that we thought there might me some mechanics that weren't properly explained. We even thought that the so-called "bug" might not be a bug but a mechanic itself. We were unsure about that and we hope that you can clarify it for us. The double jump thing was also slightly complicated to get used to, since you can only double jump if and only if you press the space bar key after the first jump arc is completed. We think it might be a good idea to allow the player double jump regardless if the first jump arc is over or not.
We played through the entire demo, so we could get a grasp of the whole thing, and overall we think the idea is great and it is bound to be much greater with these few retouches. We're excited for you to release more levels and we'll be willing to try them once they're out.
Good luck on your project(s).
Also, we want to wish you a happy new year. Let all your dreams and wishes come true, and let's keep in touch!
❤️Frog & Panda
Thanks so much for playing the game. I'm glad to hear you liked it.
It was a relief to read this review because all of the problems and bugs you reported have already been caught and fixed.
Controls on keyboard have been improved. You can now use both WASD and Arrow Keys to move. Space and Z to jump, and Shift throws the key instead of Ctrl due to better ergonomics.
Double jump has been fixed.
The key phasing through the platform has also been fixed.
There are now more tutorial levels before things get a little challenging. I've also tuned and fixed some of those tougher levels.
There has also been many other fixes and improvements that will be released in an official demo after the contest results are finally revealed. When it's released, I would love to hear your thoughts on the improvements.
Thank you again for checking out the game, and for your kind words. It is very much appreciated. 🙂
Also, Happy New Years to you as well! Hopefully, it will be a very productive and successful year.
I really enjoyed playing this game! The graphics look great and i'm impressed that you were able to create the art and the game in such a short amount of time as a solo developer.
One thing I would note would be to make the first level (the one after tutorial) a little less challenging and to increase the key despawn time.
This was a fun play and it definitely fits the theme well, it's got a very retro feel to it.
Great Job!
Thank you so much for the wonderful review. It was a really nice thing to wake up to today, especially considering how sick I've been.
Good news is, your suggestion for improvement has already been taken care of. I've been working really hard on the game ever since the contest ended. Lots of bug fixes, control improvements, level design tweaks and tuning. There's also more tutorial levels now that will come before the level you mentioned. I'm hoping this will help players feel more comfortable with the controls before I start challenging them a little.
As soon as the contest results are in, I will be uploading all of these changes in a 20 level demo.
I'm really glad you felt this game felt very retro, and fit the theme. I'm very fascinated with the ZX81, and I've been wanting to design a game in its style for a long time.
I'm also very happy you thought the graphics looked great. That was the hardest part. I was only allowed to make the graphics using characters from the ZX81's 128 character set. Each character is 8x8 pixels, and cannot be rotated, flipped, scaled up or down, or be manipulated graphically in any way. What I had was what I got. I also had to follow a "no transparent pixels" rule. So, it was quite the challenge, but I weirdly find those kinds of challenges fun.
Anyway, in closing, I just want to say thank you again, and I'm glad you liked Super Block World. Hopefully it was able to engage you enough to want to try it again once I'm allowed to get the updated demo up. :)
This game is impressive!
It's fun to play and the key mechanic makes it fairly challenging :]
Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. :)
Mkay! So some things I noticed:
Ouch! That stings the soul a little to read, but regardless, this was an immensely useful review.
The good news is, I was aware of some of the issues you mentioned after I submitted the game and have fixed them already. An update to this demo will be made available after the judging process has been completed.
- The double jump has been corrected and is working a lot smoother, I believe.
- I spent a lot of time fixing and tweaking the controls. I too noticed that "Ctrl" was not a comfortable button choice, and it has been changed to "Shift". I also have made it to where players can choose to use "Space" or "Z" to jump, and "Arrow Keys" or "WASD" to move. I figured this would help give players a couple of options based on their preference. I also did it because I learned that a lot of laptop and cheap keyboards have a major bug where if you hold "Up" and "Left" at the same time, the "Space" button does not work. Having the extra controls offers a way around this if someone has this bug in their keyboard.
- The issue with the wall appearing on your character in the last level happened to me in post-testing as well. I hate, hate, hate that I didn't catch this before submitting the game, but it has been rectified. However, it was pretty hilarious to watch the player character float up to the door through this glitch, haha!
- Sadly, on the point of the spikes, this is where it gets a little challenging. So, the ZX81 did NOT have transparent pixels. There was absolutely no way around this. You also could not make any alterations to the character set from which you made your graphics. This meant you could not rotate, scale, or edit what the characters looked like in any way. So, you are correct, there is a section to the left of the spikes that registers on the hitbox. This is because each character is 8x8. A single spike is made up of two 8x8 characters: a checkered square and a square with a smaller, black square in the bottom right. The "invisible" pixels are the white filling the rest of the space. I could make the spikes from three 8x8 solid black characters, but they would be much larger and impractical. So the dilemma is: do I remain faithful, or cheat for more accurate collision detection? That's a tough one. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on that.
- I'm glad you brought up the issues with throwing the key into the ceiling. That is something that needs to be fixed, so I will make that my next mission this weekend when I work on it some more.
- Lastly, you're freaking awesome! I can't believe you made a speed run video of the game. I turned into a giddy, little schoolgirl when I saw that. No one has ever made a video of something I've made before, so it was surreal to see that. It was also extremely helpful to me because I could see all of the issues you mentioned.
- Thank you again for making such a detailed review. My pride got hurt a little, but I needed to see it. This goes a long way in helping me to improve the game, so thanks for that. :)
Fun and addictive! I will say it's pretty tough and a little unforgiving at times. I think this is the sort of game you'll need other people to playtest so you can adjust the difficulty curve.
Other than that I think its great. It has a Super Meat Boy way to it, where you just want to give levels another go.
Thank you! This was a really nice comment, and it made my night.
I think you're right, though. I'm gonna have to find a way to get some play testers. Not sure how, but you're not the only one who said it was a little tough. I can be really bad about trying to make games challenging for myself without thinking about what that'll do to a first time player. However, I will definitely put more effort into game balancing in further updates. Thanks for that feedback.
What really made me smile was the comparison to Super Meat Boy. That's some high praise there, and I won't lie, I'm feeling pretty giddy about it, haha!
Fun and simple game! Always nice to see how far a few simple rules can go!
I really liked this game, one thing that I think could be a nice change though is being a bit more lenient with the key despawn time xD! For me it was often times a little tight but these are just the things that come with playtesting, the only other thing I really saw any issues with was that it took a bit of time to realize I could only jump again if I was moving down, so for a while it felt like my double jump was randomly not working. But apart from those couple things I enjoyed this game a lot and liked how you stayed true to the style! Nice!
Thank you so very much for your feedback! It means a lot that you were willing to take the time to provide it. I'm glad that you enjoyed it and felt that it stayed true to the platform it simulated. :)
Yeah, I won't lie, I kind of rushed the code for the key respawn time. That is definitely something I plan on doing more testing and balancing with. My theory with making this demo submission was that I wanted to showcase how challenging the game could get, but I think I may have overdone it, haha. These will be the beginner levels, so I need to be nicer to the player here. Being the developer of the game, I can sometimes forget that difficult for me can be near impossible for a first-time player.
As for the double jump mechanic, I noticed it acting a bit funky myself when playtesting after submission. Unfortunately, until the judging process is over, I can't upload any updates to the game. However, I did do a massive overhaul on the mechanics and controls, and I believe I may have fixed this problem as well as smoothed out the rest of the controls. Once judging is finished, I will upload all of the updates to the demo that I have made.
Thank you again for your feedback. If I never got any, I would never know if something was working well for the players or not, so thank you! :)
This game is impressive! It gets challenging fairly quickly, but it's all good fun. I love what you did with the limitations you have. I'd love to see how you can get creative with these limitations and expand on this idea further. Great job!
Wow! This was a very nice comment. Thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate it. I love working with limitations when it comes to game design. It's weird to think how difficult it is to replicate the restrictions of these older systems. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Regardless, I love the challenge.
I have a ton of ideas on how to expand this game. I've already been working on it. I've got a nice CRT screen effect, I've finished designing a fully complete and functional title screen and options menu, the game engine has been greatly polished, and I've set things up to increase obstacle types and level size. I can't wait to share what I've been up to.
Hi Mr hobbyist, those are some hard limitations. Well done!
Thank you so much! That means a lot. I had so much fun working on this. I noticed not many had chosen this wonderful system, so I just had to give it a try. There's something really enjoyable about trying to make something out of these kind of limitations. I love the challenge.