Classic Space Adventure

[jalex]

 

Now my platform game Classic Space Adventure is finished! It is inspired by the Classic Space theme by LEGO®, and is an action adventure game that you play in a browser on a desktop computer. Since it is based on LEGO® I am not planning on making  any money of it, but I hope it will be played by many people. So if you got any ideas to share on how I can spread the game to a bigger audience, please let me know in the comments

The game is written in Javascript without the use of any frameworks or libraries. The music I have composed in Famitracker. In total there are 6 bosses and around 70 different enemies and characters. 

I have a webpage for the game here, and a trailer which you can check out here.

Any feedback is welcome! 

 

Play the game here!

(Chrome is recommended)
 

[b10b]

Awesome, I've been looking forward to this   Thank you.

[jalex]

2 hours ago, b10b said:

Awesome, I've been looking forward to this   Thank you.

Thanks! Hope you will like it! ? Let me know if you find any bugs!

[jalex]

For those of you who have tried it, how did you find the difficulty of the game?

[Wolfsbane]

Oh, come on, man, it's the first sentence in the game! ?

 

(Sorry.. it's obligatory to give a game dev a hard-time for typo's.. we all do it. ?. Game looks really good, did you do the graphics yourself?)

[jalex]

14 hours ago, Wolfsbane said:

Oh, come on, man, it's the first sentence in the game! ?

 

(Sorry.. it's obligatory to give a game dev a hard-time for typo's.. we all do it. ?. Game looks really good, did you do the graphics yourself?)

Haha sorry, the game is partly autobiographical... 

Thanks a lot! Happy you have tried it out! Yes I made graphics (apart from that some of the vehicle designs are from LEGO's own sets), and the music as well.

[totor]

i went to robocity then i was lost, i had no clue to where to go to find the key, where to find the laser and my space drill was no use against robots then i thought that i could jump on a moving platform but i fell through, by luck (or years of experience playing video games) i activated something by pushing enter when i was near something that looked like a console and i could go on but then i died because when you are on a ladder it's very difficult to jump from it to somewhere without falling first, falling to the ground i mean so you have to redo it all over again.

The game seems nice though but it lacks visual cue with objects of interest that don't stand out from the background, some robots seems harmless since you can go through them others are hurting but again no cues, the real problem is with the controls that are unforgiving and that is not fun in 2018. One game can be hard and unforgiving but not the controls unless the controls are part of the game like in qwop or getting over it.

The point with the controls is the more important, by chance i just went out from a conf today where the author of dead cells was making a part of his talk precisely on this and the idea is that the dev silently cheat the game to help the player with the controls giving some advices :

when the player jump from a cliff don't let him fall because he was a pixel late,
when he arrives on a cliff don't let him fall because he was a pixel short,
an enemy comes from the back and the player fires the laser in the wrong direction : makes him auto turn before,
the player does not have to be blocked because there is a block on the ground a few pixel higher,
boost the jump if he wall jumped a bit to short to go up the wall,
etc

Anyway, i"ll try again later, i won't let that little red guy lost on mars.
good rover too ;)

[jalex]

13 hours ago, totor said:

i went to robocity then i was lost, i had no clue to where to go to find the key, where to find the laser and my space drill was no use against robots then i thought that i could jump on a moving platform but i fell through, by luck (or years of experience playing video games) i activated something by pushing enter when i was near something that looked like a console and i could go on but then i died because when you are on a ladder it's very difficult to jump from it to somewhere without falling first, falling to the ground i mean so you have to redo it all over again.

The game seems nice though but it lacks visual cue with objects of interest that don't stand out from the background, some robots seems harmless since you can go through them others are hurting but again no cues, the real problem is with the controls that are unforgiving and that is not fun in 2018. One game can be hard and unforgiving but not the controls unless the controls are part of the game like in qwop or getting over it.

The point with the controls is the more important, by chance i just went out from a conf today where the author of dead cells was making a part of his talk precisely on this and the idea is that the dev silently cheat the game to help the player with the controls giving some advices :

when the player jump from a cliff don't let him fall because he was a pixel late,
when he arrives on a cliff don't let him fall because he was a pixel short,
an enemy comes from the back and the player fires the laser in the wrong direction : makes him auto turn before,
the player does not have to be blocked because there is a block on the ground a few pixel higher,
boost the jump if he wall jumped a bit to short to go up the wall,
etc

Anyway, i"ll try again later, i won't let that little red guy lost on mars.
good rover too

Thank you for trying it out and for your feedback! I really appreciate it.

Making the good robots stand out more is something I agree with and will try and change, also maybe making it a bit more clear in the beginning of Robocity of what to do. I know myself I often get tired of games where I am clueless too early. But one part of the game is also to be a bit lost and not knowing what to do right away, and therefore the player has to explore some first. 

I understand the critisism of the control and that maybe it is more of a standard for todays games. But I think I will not change my controls on that point since I want them to be a lot like the controls of older games from the 80s. I hope that players can get used to this control after playing it sometime  

Let me know what you think if you play more!

[aaryte]

I love the very true-to-Lego theme. I had some of those space sets! The sit-to-duck thing is so true to form.

It was solid and responsive throughout. Nice!

My biggest problem was getting off of ladders and other climbables, across a short gap, onto a ledge. It seemed like I had to climb really high to clear even tiny gaps. But I didn't get far into the robot city - just a bit past the first raygun.

[hromoyDron]

Its strange, but game don't work in Safari. There is no sound and keys don't work. Only mouse. So game ends when I need press Enter.

In Chrome work perfect. But to find active objects I press Enter several times a second. So I just missed several dialogs and don't know what to do. It would be perfect to make something like log, where I can reed all important dialogues in chronological order.

I finde key, laser gun, but can't ride on bike. What to do?)

[aaryte]

Hah, I did the same thing - I would just walk around hitting Enter really quickly.

It might be better if there was a more obvious sign when something can be interacted with, either the whole time it's on the screen, or when you get close to it.

[hromoyDron]

1 hour ago, aaryte said:

It might be better if there was a more obvious sign.

Yes. It may be some kind of special animation of object, or twitching of object or simple glow effect.

[jalex]

15 hours ago, aaryte said:

I love the very true-to-Lego theme. I had some of those space sets! The sit-to-duck thing is so true to form.

It was solid and responsive throughout. Nice!

My biggest problem was getting off of ladders and other climbables, across a short gap, onto a ledge. It seemed like I had to climb really high to clear even tiny gaps. But I didn't get far into the robot city - just a bit past the first raygun.

Thanks! And thank you for your feedback! It helps a lot!

Not sure if you played it after my latest update of the game, where I (thanks to "totors" feedback above) changed the jumping a bit so that you can walk a few pixels in the air first before jumping.

Do you mean that it was difficult to jump from a ladder (timing with pressing the jump and arrow button, that you just fall down easily)? Or is the jump too small?

[jalex]

3 hours ago, hromoyDron said:

Its strange, but game don't work in Safari. There is no sound and keys don't work. Only mouse. So game ends when I need press Enter.

In Chrome work perfect. But to find active objects I press Enter several times a second. So I just missed several dialogs and don't know what to do. It would be perfect to make something like log, where I can reed all important dialogues in chronological order.

I finde key, laser gun, but can't ride on bike. What to do?)

Thanks for the feedback!

I heard someone else say the same that it does not work in Safari  Unfortunately I don't have a Mac so I can't test it that easy. Not sure what causes it not to run? Do you see any error messages?

For many of the dialogs you can press enter again to read them. I will consider having a log.

For starting the bike you need to select the key-card from the items menu (pressing Esc) when you are at the bike. 

 

 

[jalex]

3 hours ago, aaryte said:

Hah, I did the same thing - I would just walk around hitting Enter really quickly.

It might be better if there was a more obvious sign when something can be interacted with, either the whole time it's on the screen, or when you get close to it.

Aha, so you mean you tried to hit enter on different items such as computers?  There is actually only one machine you need to hit enter on, the one you activate the transporter with at the beginning of Robocity. Other machine you either use a tool or shoot at it. Maybe I could have some kind of sign for that first computer that activates the transporter.  And perhaps I should add a kind of "talk sign"  over robots that you can talk to?

[aaryte]

6 hours ago, jalex said:

Aha, so you mean you tried to hit enter on different items such as computers?  There is actually only one machine you need to hit enter on, the one you activate the transporter with at the beginning of Robocity. Other machine you either use a tool or shoot at it. Maybe I could have some kind of sign for that first computer that activates the transporter.  And perhaps I should add a kind of "talk sign"  over robots that you can talk to?

There are a bunch of humans to talk to at the start too, so I was trained to look for stuff to talk with, I guess? I did eventually stop doing that once I got into the combat section.

[aaryte]

6 hours ago, jalex said:

Thanks! And thank you for your feedback! It helps a lot!

Not sure if you played it after my latest update of the game, where I (thanks to "totors" feedback above) changed the jumping a bit so that you can walk a few pixels in the air first before jumping.

Do you mean that it was difficult to jump from a ladder (timing with pressing the jump and arrow button, that you just fall down easily)? Or is the jump too small?

I think I just tried walking off the ladders sideways? I remember I would leave at a sharp downward diagonal, not straight sideways, so I needed to be pretty high up to make it. I don't think I even tried jumping off, but I might be misremembering. I'll give it another try.

[aaryte]

5 hours ago, aaryte said:

I think I just tried walking off the ladders sideways? I remember I would leave at a sharp downward diagonal, not straight sideways, so I needed to be pretty high up to make it. I don't think I even tried jumping off, but I might be misremembering. I'll give it another try.

Yeah, that's right. If I step off a ladder sideways, I start falling at terminal velocity immediately. I even took slow-mo videos, and I can see that the player starts falling at max downward velocity as soon as they step off a ladder or a ledge. Some more gradual gravitational acceleration would make stepping off ladders easier - maybe the same as you have when starting the parabolic descent from the top of a high-jump. Even dismounting with a combo of up+right/left causes you to fall down at high speed. Maybe take the up/down arrows into account? Sorry to obsess over this one thing.

[jalex]

2 hours ago, aaryte said:

Yeah, that's right. If I step off a ladder sideways, I start falling at terminal velocity immediately. I even took slow-mo videos, and I can see that the player starts falling at max downward velocity as soon as they step off a ladder or a ledge. Some more gradual gravitational acceleration would make stepping off ladders easier - maybe the same as you have when starting the parabolic descent from the top of a high-jump. Even dismounting with a combo of up+right/left causes you to fall down at high speed. Maybe take the up/down arrows into account? Sorry to obsess over this one thing.

Thanks for feedback! I have heard some others also say they have problems with the ladders, so I should solve that. It is hard to experience the UI problems yourself sometimes since as a developer you are so into the game  I did make an update of the game a day ago where I found a bug regarding the ladder and falling speed, that it was not reset to 0. Not sure if you played the old or new version of the game. Could you try again and see if there still is a problem? 

[hromoyDron]

Usually I look at the errors in the browser console, made on the Unity WebGL unit, all the info is transferred there. But in your game the console is empty.

How to pass your game?
I got into the dungeon in the first part, and fell into the second part.
Is it considered that I passed the first part? Or should I still return to her?

[jalex]

1 hour ago, hromoyDron said:

Usually I look at the errors in the browser console, made on the Unity WebGL unit, all the info is transferred there. But in your game the console is empty.

How to pass your game?
I got into the dungeon in the first part, and fell into the second part.
Is it considered that I passed the first part? Or should I still return to her?

Ok that is very strange... Wonder if it is something with the keyboard input that Safari does not like in my code... 

Yes chapter 1 (the chapters can be selected as you can see from the main menu) is passed when you fall into the hole, and you don´t return there until the game is finished. To get to chapter 3 you have to talk to the Martian village leader and he opens the door to Robocity.

Instead of saving the game, or using codes, I have so that you can continue from a chapter if you take a break from the game. 

[hromoyDron]

3 hours ago, jalex said:

Instead of saving the game, or using codes, I have so that you can continue from a chapter if you take a break from the game. 

Why did you decide to do this?

1st chapter is not too long. But as for me it's better to save inventory and player position.

Also I can't continue old game. I finished 1sh chapter,  and was on the middle of 2nd chapter. I refresh page and can start only new game (there is no continue button) or choose from all 12 chapters. But I can play in chapter number 12 even I not finished previous chapter. This is strange.

I think it better to add continue button to start from last chapter. And chapters which I didn't reach should be unavailable in chapters menu.

[jalex]

10 minutes ago, hromoyDron said:

Why did you decide to do this?

1st chapter is not too long. But as for me it's better to save inventory and player position.

Also I can't continue old game. I finished 1sh chapter,  and was on the middle of 2nd chapter. I refresh page and can start only new game (there is no continue button) or choose from all 12 chapters. But I can play in chapter number 12 even I not finished previous chapter. This is strange.

I think it better to add continue button to start from last chapter. And chapters which I didn't reach should be unavailable in chapters menu.

I decided to use chapters because I thought that storing the exact positions of all objects and other taken enemies or items would mean a lot of data, so an easier way was to just let the player choose (and remember...) the chapter he was on last time.

But I think that is a great idea to have an option continue from last chapter! I will add that. Thinking about if it should be an option "Continue" below "New game" or "Continue form last chapter" (longer text) in the Chapters menu?

I let all chapters be playable just because I wanted a player to be able to see the rest of the game even if he/she can't reach long. Hmm, have to think about if they should be hidden or not...

[totor]

If i may suggest a few other things :

- add the option to set the volume for the Music and another option to set the volume for the Sounds
- add the option to reconfigure Keys, because arrows+xc+return+esc is not easy when you have small hands

-make it clear at the beginning that you can access the inventory with esc key, for example when you grab the first item

[jalex]

41 minutes ago, totor said:

If i may suggest a few other things :

- add the option to set the volume for the Music and another option to set the volume for the Sounds
- add the option to reconfigure Keys, because arrows+xc+return+esc is not easy when you have small hands

-make it clear at the beginning that you can access the inventory with esc key, for example when you grab the first item

Thanks! I actually have an option to change the keys already, if you press "I" during the game, and there is a robot at the space station which informs the player about that. Having a text that says I can press Esc after you get the first item is a good idea. I will implement that.