itch.io

Awesome, just checked it out!

I haven't seen the newest trailer until now: I like it and added the game to my wishlist!

Did some testing tonight:

• After I die, I your logo first, which turns into the startscreen. Maybe this can be cut with a press on "start" or "fire", since I want to go directly back in action ("Einmal noch!"). If you keep the short animation, it breaks my "flow". ;)
• As a test I changed some values in the "hacker intro" (less damage) and in the game itself (less screenshake) and the whole game felt slowed down/running slowly. The situation did not change after I died once or twice, it's permanent.
• I restarted the whole game, changed nothing and started it: No slowdowns, runs smoothly as I expected.
• I needed to take a break and hit "P" on the keyboard (old habits, I guess) and I die. I had my break now, however I did not expect that :D

Apart from I did not encounter anything noteworthy. I will do some more testing in the next days.

Happy Easter Holidays!

Man, sad to hear this. I hope you get back on your feet easily (i will not say fast, take your time).
I will try to test the heck out of this version for one evening within the next two weeks and let you know about the details.

Again: Take some rest, health is the most important thing! 👍

Nice, as expected!

Hi,

thanks for the feedback! No worries, as I said: All just ideas, no "must haves" from my side, the game is fun and works. Your statements about the cheat menu and the music makes total sense. And I know from (non-game-related) programming projects, that there is always "more you want to implement". Take your time, happy to see the update in the next days and I will play it and try to find bugs. :D

Have a great Sunday evening
Constantin

Just played Splinter Zone after some days of vacation and computer-free time. And it still is fun! :)

What I like:
More enemy types. More levels and unexpected turns (I dropped into a pit and below it was more of the level), awesome idea! Also the "being exhausted"-animation is cool.

What I don't like:
For me the game is still challenging, but I'm not sure how it might be, if I know all the different levels... it will still take some time to get to know the ememy spots, the difficult places and more, but I'm not sure if the "oh, just one more time"-feeling will stick. I hope it does. Same applies for the music. Maybe additional songs (each per "level" type) would be sufficient?

• You said, that you will work on the menus. Maybe you can add another option called "Enemy gallery"; where you can see every enemy with it's name and his animation?
• I like the trainer-menu, maybe you can implement it forever, but it only opens up, if the left button on the game pad is pushed at the start. Or it will open, when you do the Konami-Code in the menu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code). And if you want to stick to a true hacker-demo from the Amiga, two things might be help "credibility" > Move the cursor with the mouse and exit the hacker-demo with a right click of the mouse. This was, how most of the hacker-demos on Amiga worked (at least the ones I know).
• If there is an "unwanted" option-set (I do not know, if there is), which might break the game, use it as an option to create a "TILT"-screen, which is shown as soon as you select these options.
• When you enter a boss-stage, there is always a short amount of time, where I wait for the boss-fight to start. I guess this is a valid setting, that it takes a little time. However to make the player a little bit more aware, how about to words, which appear during that "waiting time". The first one is the name of the boss, and then the word FIGHT and then it starts.
• Not sure if this is difficult, but maybe some more "movement" in the background (turning fans, "thick things" moving through pipes... like they do in the cartoons). It would give the game a more polished look and not everything that moves has to be an enemy. :)

I just played some rounds tonight, the game overall feels more advanced. I like the placement of the new enemies, as well as I could not here any sound when I disabled the sounds in the menu ;)

There was one tiny bug with an enemy (the long jumping guy, who fires 3 shots and jumps again) within a room were you enter from the upper right corner on a ladder and leave the room on the left with a ladder again. Maybe (just as a debug / beta test option) you could show a room number / name for each room so we easily tell where we found something strange / weird,.. same for the enemies :D

Awesome, I will check it in the next few days

currently sick and tied to the bed... :(

Thanks for the clarification on the conveyors belt and the pixel art.

No worries, a game takes a lot of time to make and we are all subjective in aspects like graphics or sounds. However it's still your game and already fun to play! I'm not disappointed at all.

And I will provide more feedback if any and bugs as soon as I encounter them.

Have a good night!

Two new things mostly for the PIXELART:

1. Shadows: Instead of using fading shadows, use only 3 different greyish to black colors and use these as tiles for the shadows (e.g. for the top tile of ladders) to keep the pixelart a little more consistent. This tutorial might help to show what I mean:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130214211735/http://kiwinuptuo.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Tutorial-Shading-184136991
(Seems like this forum messes with the link. just copy the full line.. the page is hosted at archive.org)

2. I got to the "fire end-boss" for the first time. Is it true, that the treadmill is changing directions? If yes, the animation of the treatmill should clearly indicate the direction through animation AND there should be a two second indicator, that the direction will change soon (flashing maybe?).

I just played two or three times without MUSIC and without SOUND.

Apparently there have been some sounds :)

I guess it is a "per enemy"-variable, which sets the sound and it is not set properly for some enemies.

Great stuff!

Problem with your suggestion is that it would lead to players sometimes being stuck. For example if they fall down a deep spike pit, while being invincible and then not dying, because they didn't fall onto the spikes.

The invincibilty is needed though, because of situations like the one in the picture below. If invincibility wouldn't count on spikes, you might get knocked back into some spikes and then die instantly, which feels really awful.

Understood and agree! Thanks for the clarification.

Hi MOKKA,

here some things from tonights playthroughs:

1. It seems that some sound effects are distored. Like a "crunch"-effekt. Not sure if this is wanted, but for my ears it sounds like to much... if the sound is clipping because it is too loud.

2. When I get hit and fall into spikes, I do not die instantly (because I'm invincible for a short time). How about keeping the charakter alive, if he is standing "in the spikes" (similar to the way it works in the first Prince of Persia or first Tomb Raider... walking through the spikes doesn't hurt; running or falling into is a different thing. The total opposite would be "getting hit and being invincible, however spikes will kill you always". :)

3. If I move the main window to another position (since I like to have other stuff available as well), it jumps back to the centre after a game (when the main screen appears again).