Comments for SLEEPY-GENIUS: tHE gAME dESIGN mUSINGS oF mARCUS mONTGOMERY

Comment on Farmer in the dell… by Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:39:45 +0000

I know. I suck. I wish I could post up a game jam project I did at work. That would be neat. We’ll see. I’ve got my eyes set on going back to an old game idea. I’ll have to meld my action prototype with some old GM code. Hopefully that won’t be too painful.

Comment on Farmer in the dell… by biggedy

biggedy — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:23:16 +0000

Oct 23, 2011… where’s the next post?!

Comment on Experimental Gameplay Project – Offspring by Marcus

Marcus — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:13:19 +0000

Bah, bugs shmugs. Stop getting hit and you won’t have any problems.

Yeah it was done really quickly. I’ve seen some issues with the children getting stuck on the parents. It’s weird. I’m sure it has to do with the collision events not allowing movement to be updated. Oh well. Done in a week!

Comment on Experimental Gameplay Project – Offspring by Biggedy

Biggedy — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:21:39 +0000

Awesome! This turned out pretty awesome from the build you sent me. Not sure if it was already in the one you gave me, but the borders for the initial color of the square’s properties are a nice visual for conveying that information. The pace is built up pretty nice, and those darn red squares are killer! Good stuff man.

Oh I did find a bug when I got hit and surrounded by the squares on the screen edge. I still hat 2 hits left, but my ship got stuck when all the squared jammed up on me and I couldn’t move… so I just kept getting hit til I died.

Comment on That’s not all we rabbits are good at! by Marcus

Marcus — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:29:57 +0000

@Biggedy Yup! Dibs on Randy! I'm awesome with little shepherd boy. I can't wait. I'll plug in my 360 as soon as they announce a release date.

Comment on That’s not all we rabbits are good at! by Biggedy

Biggedy — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 20:41:04 +0000

Plug your xbox360 in and look for me online when this comes out!

Comment on The best laid plans… by Biggedy

Biggedy — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 06:52:51 +0000

Do it man! Sounds like a good idea!

Comment on Experimental Gameplay Project – Neverending Game by Marcus

Marcus — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:54:33 +0000

@vazor

Thanks for your feedback.

I’m wondering did you play the Updated version or the one with the stick figure guy?

The stick figure guy version is REALLY buggy. I had some problems with the basic engine. There were some quirky Game Maker issues I had to discover before the platforms would work better.

I haven’t looked at the code in a bit, but I believe there was a bug in the ledge grab. There is also a quirk in the way I check for the ledge grab. I actually look to see if the character can climb up to the ledge above. There in lies the problem. If there are two platforms one above another the character won’t grab. It’s annoying and a flaw in the design.

The comment you made about the platform design are great observations. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to explain the game mechanics. Small changes to the art would have done much to help new players.

The controls are chose are a personal preference. If I were to continue working on it. I would definitely consider different options. Arrow key movement drives me crazy, but when making a game for other people options are very important.

Thanks for your review. It is greatly appreciated.

Comment on Experimental Gameplay Project – Neverending Game by vazor

vazor — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:40:46 +0000

Interesting. Overall executed well, and fun idea, but has a few problems that make the experience a chore.
First, it is often seemingly impossible to proceed. Sometimes the seemingly random vertical movement of the platforms and vertical spawning of enemies makes it appear impossible. It was this way on my first try.
*SPOILERS*
Second, there are many things that are not effectively communicated to the player. The first problem above of course can be resolved by the not actually completely random vertical movement of the platforms, but by jumping again and again you can make it move up (which can lead to a moderately boring one-button game). It took a lot of experimentation and patience to discover this. Something like the platform lighting up green with an up arrow for a split second when you land on it would notify the player that there is something to learn here. Similarly, when the player jumps, sometimes it seems like the horizontal “air-control” movement is blocked. I suspect this is due to your cliff-hanging code, or some other aspect of your platform collision detection. Having been trained by generations of Keen/Mario/Sonic/etc. games, many players will instantly say a game has bad controls as soon as you limit their horizontal impulse movement in the air, for any reason other than hitting a large and obvious wall or brick (and by obvious I mean you must not be able to get through it in any way at all).
Third, the controls… generally you should provide at least a couple layouts if possible. WASD + Enter is fine, but consider W for jump as well as space, and possibly space for shooting. Another popular scheme is Arrow Keys + ctrl/space/z/x/c for shooting/jumping. The idea of first person shooter controls in my mind implies using the mouse to shoot and aim.
Finally, the strong points. Great animation! It was nice to see all those frames in the jump animation (especially considering that’s mostly what you’re going to stare at as you play this). The dynamic platform generation is good. The cliff hang feature is fun and adds some tension. The jumping sound is nice.
Hope that helps some, maybe add in some bg music and double jump if you decide to keep working on it. Good luck!

Comment on Of course… by Biggedy

Biggedy — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:35:50 +0000

Haha! Thanks dude! I now await your posts! I won’t be able to lob anything back until after the wedding. I just read your post about your jaded bias and unfortunately I share your sentiment as well…