Comments on: Ragnar’s Game Feel P1

By: mulletman

mulletman — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 04:45:48 +0000

I really liked your use of particle effects for the aggressive/strong game feel. I also noticed your use of different sound effects for when the player hits to ground. That definitely helped with seeing the different between the strong and weak game feels.

I do not fully understand how the twitch was supposed to create a scared/weak feel. Also, I noticed you used the same music for both game feels. It seems as though you focused on only the character movement to convey game feel instead of using polish. If you had changed the audio and/or the textures, it would have been easier for me to see the difference.

By: duetosideeffects

duetosideeffects — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 03:26:10 +0000

I like the handling of the character. The aggressive one feels very tuned and precise; that could be mostly from the fact that it is controlled by a mouse. The weak has a nice twitch that is so fast it seems like a monster.

The play area was a bit empty unfortunately. The textures also were devoid of color. The lack of color can work when in the right context, but there doesn’t seem to be any context here.

The scared feel didn’t seem to be scared because the twitch, and the slowness was the only part reinforcing said feel.

By: tsa2

tsa2 — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 23:27:33 +0000

I could really tell the different states. I like how the character in the scary state leaned back and had its head down and in the aggressive state the character is upright. I also like the dust particles and thump sounds when the character is running in the aggressive state. I couldn’t really tell the character is angry in the aggressive state. Maybe an angry sound effect when the character collides with the stuff in the room would help. I also found that when I used the scroll on my mouse that it zoomed in and out of the scene. I only figured that out because I hit the scroll by accident.

By: starlord

starlord — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 17:11:08 +0000

I liked the different walking sounds for both feels, it gave the characters a different sense of weight that matched up well with the movement speeds. I think the dust cloud for the strong/aggressive feel also did a good job at adding a sense of weight, and making the acceleration slower might also help give the strong/aggressive one even more of a sense of weight. I think using different background music and textures would have helped make the differences stand out more though. The same is true for the collisions. Collisions do feel different, but adding some sounds for them would have emphasized the differences. Those extra polish elements really help sell the differences between feels. Some extra polish would also help to display the scared and aggressive parts of the feels, which I think aren’t obvious enough. The mechanics are solid, but adding more polish would help the player differentiate between feels.

By: livingled

livingled — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 14:52:25 +0000

“what are some things you LIKED about what they did, and why do you like them?”

I liked the strong aggressive character – felt pretty good to manipulate. The way the character bounces and the particle effects upon landing, I thought, made it pretty exceptional and cool.

I also like the setup of the game world. Minimalistic, but enough to get the point across and show the differences between characters.

“what are some specific things that could be improved, and how might they be accomplished? do the two motions feel like they meet the assigned “feel”?”

I felt the area that could use the most improvement is game polish. I didn’t feel that the music worked particularly well to enhance either Game Feel – it was more of just a background tune for the demo. So in that sense, the music could be more of a Game Feel tool than it currently is. Likewise, different textures and lighting could accentuate Game Feel as well.

The motions of the controllers did meet the assigned feel. The strong and aggressive one most obviously, but the weak scared one did, as well. I also did weak/scared – it is not really very easy to convey – but I get a “hesitant” vibe whilst playing the character.

“do the interaction aspects help create game feel (controls, avatar movement and how it interacts with the world, polish effects used directly to emphasize these interactions)?”

The main interactions are with the big GameObjects in the middle of the screen. These do emphasize the relative strength of the two characters – pushes with the strong and aggressive guy result in a lot more motion than the weak dude. Avatar movement is similarly indicative – the strong guy has dust particles pop up on landing whilst running. The other character does not – this contrast gives you an idea of the Game Feel at play.

“are the other parts of the prototype (textures, sounds, etc) helping or hurting?”

I already covered this in response to the second question. The characters, motions, and interactions are all pretty good, but the polish effects, I think, still have plenty of room to improve. So, in this case, I wouldn’t say they are helping or hurting, really – I’d say they are under-utilized. There aren’t other textures and the music isn’t used too much as a Game Feel tool, I feel like.