Flood Escape

[end3r]

Some time ago I wanted to make one game per month - my previous one, Wizard Quest, was released around June 2016, so you can see I'm not good at that anymore. With Flood Escape the story is simple - I wanted to make a game during Global Game Jam in January, so we built a prototype, and then spent a few months trying to finish it. The game itself is very simple - I wanted to focus on polishing it up. It was built with Phaser 2.6.2 and my template.

Play Flood Escape: http://flood.enclavegames.com

There's also the making of blog post if you're interested to learn the details: http://dev.end3r.com/2017/05/sick-game-jam-the-making-of-flood-escape/

I'd love to get some feedback from you about it, thanks!

[RubbleGames]

It looks really nice. I'm pretty rubbish at it though so it would be nice if the power-ups were permanent so I felt like I was getting somewhere.

[end3r]

@RubbleGames thanks for the feedback, I'll consider the powerup thing in the upcoming v1.1 build.

[Umz]

I love the sound it makes when you get it good or excellent. It's really rewarding! I want to use that sound.. It's amazing.

Also, I love how it shaves off a little bit every time you're off, that's a great idea. Perhaps if you get (n) good/excellent in a row give a little bit back to the width, that way the player can extend the height record distance and be rewarded for being skilled. Also, if you get (n) correct in a row, do another sound or something to show.

And the effect of the power ups should be written or shown or explained, as I can't figure out what is what from the icon, and I don't want to spend my hard earned coins on something I don't know the effect of.
I'm hoping for a 'slow down' power up 

[end3r]

@Umz thank you for the feedback! I was thinking about giving some extra coins for a few excellents in a row, but widening the floor also sounds interesting.

And yeah, a few people already mentioned the powerups aren't obvious and need some clarification - I'll work on that too.

[Jammy]

Its fun, some way to re-extend the block would be nice, like a little "oh thank god i reached that level" i dunno something like every 30 clicks or something add 100% width back to the block

[away168]

Hey nice game! I like the idea and definitely good casual game.

I am expecting one thing though, will the water rise up by itself, or is it just rising for every click I make? Cause it would be even more fun if the flood rushes up and you give "warning" kind of scene, which should make the Players click faster and fail! That dilemma moment.

[end3r]

@Jammy thanks, it sounds like a popular request, so I'm probably gonna add it in the upcoming update.

@Alectora that's the casual approach here - the water is just the background. It's not affecting the gameplay in any way, it just follows the player so he have the time to think. I was thinking about the situation where the water would actually drown you if you stop for too long, but thought it will be too hardcore for a fun little game. I may consider it a defferent game mode though, or something for the next levels as it may be interesting ;]

[bambo]

Nice game My best is 65.

I like the design. This blue title caught my eye when I saw it amongst other banners on the main page of this forum and this was the reason why I wanted to check the game. The only thing I would consider changing is the 'menu' button. For me this symbol connotes flower or something like this and it's not immediately clear that it's 'menu' button.

This transition between e.g. Island and City works nice as well

On 13.05.2017 at 7:50 AM, Alectora said:

I am expecting one thing though, will the water rise up by itself, or is it just rising for every click I make? Cause it would be even more fun if the flood rushes up and you give "warning" kind of scene, which should make the Players click faster and fail! That dilemma moment.

It's a great idea but probably more just for visual effect – I can imagine this action in game trailer when water wave is about to catch the surfer (it's the moment of movie slow motion) and he escape at the very last moment (and the movie smoothly goes into normal speed) and then makes couple of excellent matches. But as @end3r said for gameplay itself it wouldn't be a good solution because it would make it too hard.

When it comes to power-ups:

• slow down – I don't want to look at the botton of screen to check how much time is left – what about moving this timer somewhere over player in the background or even make just 3 sec counting down at the end?

• Life saver – players will probably lose life when block is quite thin so another chance to put this block in the right position isn't much useful. Maybe it would be better to introduce minimal width of block that you start with.

What about adding another button on game screen e.g. next to pause button which allows you to restart the game without need of going into the menu when you know after couple of clicks that this attempt won't give you new high score?

[away168]

I'd agree on different mode; Rush Mode or something with different scoring. It's like bejeweled with timer.

[end3r]

@bambo cool score - thanks for playing, and the valuable feedback!

What would you expect the menu button to be, something along the 'home' style?

Moving the slow down timer makes sense, although I was afraid it would be too much to have up top. Counting down can definitely be added though so you can expect when it runs out - great idea!

As for the life saver - what do you mean by that? Minimal width when the powerup is active, for example you can't use it if the floor is too short?

Removing restart button is a conscious design decision, so the less buttons the better as the UI is more clear. I do understand it would be easier in the case you're describing, but you can always lose quickly on purpose. It's a rare case so we didn't want to bloat the pause screen just for that. The same went with removing the sound/sfx button on pause screen - you can do it from the settings menu even if it's more clicks away.

@Alectora this can be tested on a per-level basis, so releasing new, special level with such functionality may be an interesting way to see it in action ^^

[bambo]

Yep, I think that using home or three horizontal stripes (optionally with dots on the left) symbol would be much more clear.

Regarding slow down power-up: letting player know that his power-up is about to run out without forcing him to move his eyesight to the bottom of screen was supposed to be the main purpose of this moving timer or adding counting down

21 hours ago, end3r said:

As for the life saver - what do you mean by that? Minimal width when the powerup is active, for example you can't use it if the floor is too short?

You could use it always but if the last floor width is less than some minimal width you would get block of minial width instead of another thin one as it is shown on the image:

Currently it usually doesn't help me at all (because it's hard to put such a thin block in the right place) and in rare cases gives just one floor more to my score. If there was this minimal width I'd find this power-up definitely more useful.

[end3r]

@bambo noted - I'll add the countdown up top, and will add that minimal width feature, thanks!