Comments on: P1 – bear

By: happypandafrand

happypandafrand — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 06:36:20 +0000

It was an interesting approach to have the darker/scarier scene first then have the joyful scene second. Most people’s games that I have seen usually start off with the joyful scene. I think that this works in your favor however because in the scared scene the environment is drab and uninviting and leaves you with an odd feeling. But then when you switch over the joyful scene the player gets an immediate feeling of relief which is amplified by the yellow color, bouncing music and the cute background. Even though the character does not really appear to be humanoid, you have added personality to it by having it hide its head when it jumps in the scared scene and then open up the character when it joyful jumps. This gives the character emotional dimensions that the player then feels in return.

I think one small thing that would help the joyful scene be even more joyful is if you made the scene overall brighter. Right now it feels like a nice dusk or sunset relaxed feel, but if you lit up the scene a little more it could make it feel more like a mid-day, frolic outside sort of day.

By: munkahunkus

munkahunkus — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 23:56:36 +0000

This game has some really good ideas! I like the textures and sound effects, they do a good job of creating the mood you were going for. The red particle effects did give me a sense that I was harming the character somehow by being on the spiked platforms, but I couldn’t really sense the “emotion” of the character, simply because its appearance was the same in both modes. The design of the character is pretty cool, especially the spinning animation during the second jump.
Most of my suggestions for the game relate to polish stuff. First, it might be a good idea to cap the avatar’s velocity; it’s cool that holding the button down allowed me to accelerate to Mach 2, but I don’t think that’s what you were going for. Second, Strafe controls, as opposed to the current steer-and-go controls, might be better suited to a character that appears to be rolling on a ball. Finally, a previous commenter mentioned having the boxes chase the character; this would be so rad, and it would add some great interaction to your game!

By: overload3d

overload3d — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 20:34:59 +0000

I did this one in class! I just cannot get over the fact of how happy the joyful mood is!!! I just want to keep flying all around; the feel of the character’s motion sells the mood
and truly translates the feeling you were going for. The particles and different animations were just little joy sprinkles on top of the joy cake 😀
The speed is really what makes this mood (including the strong aspect) and whenever I would land after a jump, or hit a wall, it would completely break the whole sense of motion. This is really jarring, and instead it might be worth “bouncing” off of everything with a sound effect to emphasize either mood you are trying to convey.
As for scared weak, the music and environment are spot on. So are the sound effects. I’m not sure about the feel of the character. Maybe animating the head as a walk cycle could make the character look scared. The blood particles need a bit of tweaking, maybe just a burst of blood.
It would be horrid if the monsters actually attacked the character.

By: verryberry1

verryberry1 — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 22:59:31 +0000

The background lighting, music, and textures The background lighting, music, and textures display a sharp contrast in feelings, which is good. The sound effect for colliding with the angry-faced boxes in the weak/scared state also helps portray the hostility of the environment. However, the movement of the character doesn’t feel very different between the two states, because there is no noticeable change in speed or other movement parameters. I do like how the joyful state conveys the strong aspect through lowering the platforms, which shows the power/weight of the avatar, and playing the collision sound effect. Overall, nice job!

By: kchen34

kchen34 — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 17:49:08 +0000

I liked the movement and particle systems for both of the game feels. I feel like they portrayed the feels pretty well and contributed to the game. I didn’t really like that there was a ton of debug text on the screen, and I also didn’t like the fact that the GUIText was not lined up: small things like that don’t really affect gameplay but they definitely influence the polish. Not having small things like that make an otherwise good game look bad.

The motions assigned to the object definitely help the player get the assigned feel for the game. The fast speed of the second game option definitely feels “joyful” and helps the feel of the game. The other game mode doesn’t really feel “scared”, but that might be my personal feel. You might want to see what other people think.

The avatar movement and world interactions are pretty good, but like I said above, the polish needs work. Overall, the game feel was pretty obvious and well done; without knowing from your description, I probably could have picked the two feels of each game mode. The textures of the world look a bit plain, but like Blair said, we’re not Unity experts. I just think that they could be improved just a bit to help the overall game feel.

Good job!
-Kevin (kchen34)