Comments on: Ninebolt’s P1 Game : Christmas Snowstorm

By: hedgehog

hedgehog — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 11:23:26 +0000

I really liked the lightning and other polish effects for the game. Small things the head turning when jumping, and the fact that the joyful side had a smiling face and the scared side had a frowny face. Those small things I think really added to the prototype. The different interactions with the boxes, the lighting differences, as well as the sound changes are what really made the difference to me in the two modes. The movement also helps convey the different feels.
A higher quality texture would have been nicer to use for the floor however, as it looks stretched on the floor. Also, while I understand the second mode is weak and scared, the jump is almost too tiny, making the interaction of jumping not very fun. It doesn’t give the opportunity to do things like jump over a box to avoid the scream. Overall, I liked the prototype and think it shows different game feel elements nicely.

By: squarehelius

squarehelius — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 06:34:59 +0000

The two things I like the most in this project is the detail design of different facial expression on the snowman and the respawn of the objects. Those details convey a sense of focus and efforts.

In the first mode, the fast movement and the ability to push the gifts definitely make it joyful and strong. But it would be better to make more animations and environmental polish. I think a little bit snow particle effect would be great.

In the second mode, however, I don’t feel much of scare. There are grey colors and scream sound effect when you push the “gifts”, but I think those are not enough. One little scary background music would make it better. And it would be great if you change the gifts to something horrible in my opinion. Gifts are for joyful mode, aren’t they.

And maybe you should add some blocks to prevent the player from going outside of the platform. It will fall into darkness. You have already paid attention to details; it would be great if you can pay more 😀

By: masterchief

masterchief — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 03:11:30 +0000

First, it’s great to see another snowman project! I would say the polish on this project is outstanding, and the movement/feel is solid. The polish really creates a different mood between the two modes. I also really liked the happy/scared face on the snowman as it made it quite obvious how he was feeling. The scream was a little jarring, you might want to find a more subtle sound, but other than that the polish was on point.

The feels were good too, though not as good without the polish. I think you should add movement while you’re in the air so that you don’t feel so locked out during/after a jump. Maybe for the scared one the snowman could jump back after hitting a present, and the present would stay in place rather than fly away.

All in all, great work.

By: patches

patches — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 22:36:37 +0000

For the joyful/strong feel, the joyful felt kind of forced with the smiley face when jumping. Beside that, there really isn’t much going for joyful. Thisisaname is correct on the music could have been more joyful and that would have definitely have helped the feel. The lighting does work though. The strong feeling really only comes from the interactions that the snowman has with the presents, and arguably there really isn’t much more you could have added to create a strong feel. Maybe adding some arms that wave around while moving, and actually extend to push boxes would help the joyful/strong feel, somewhat like a Santa’s little helper, moving around presents.

The scared/weak feel, on the other hand, does a good job on created a scared/weak feeling with decreased movement and a weaker jump. The sad face when jumping is once again a little forced, but I guess there really is no other way to see the character’s face other than some form of animation when doing something. The audio tracks you chose for this were well thought out, and the lighting fit well. One suggestion would be to create maybe a shivering animation to help create a more scared/weak feeling.

By: thisisaname

thisisaname — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 13:34:13 +0000

I found this to be rather creative take on the assignment, and there are things I both liked and disliked. The general idea was fresh and interesting – if not a bit out of season – and the choice of sound effects was apt. I particularly liked the sound of hitting the ground, which feels exactly like snow landing on snow should, and the sound of the presents breaking and simply being hit both sounded proper as well. I do, however, feel that Christmas music would help with the joyful setting, and it would also make the scared and weak one feel more barren in contrast, but the sounds in general felt right even when they didn’t necessarily make realistic sense. The only true ‘issue’ in terms of sound was that the scream seems to play on every single tick the avatar collides with the boxes.

I had a few issues with movement; there’s a feeling of flow being broken when you’re brought back down to a full stop upon landing and can’t adjust movement at all in the air. Still, the discrepancy in speed, jump height, and acceleration felt right for the feelings involved. Perhaps a slight hopping motion while moving would help convey the movement better and add some emotion to the avatar? It slides without even tilting in any directions at the moment, which makes the movement while not jumping a bit stale. Jumping back slightly upon colliding with a box would both help with the feel of being scared and the constant screaming that results from touching a box for a prolonged period.

While the sounds of the boxes felt right, the interaction with them felt a little off. Flying off into space as they do makes them feel light and fragile, instead of the snowman feeling strong. I would suggest increasing their size and not making them fly as far, and perhaps having them break with a particle effect on impact if touched with enough velocity. Lastly, given the setting involved, I would suggest snow falling of various intensities for the two settings as a last bit of polish. All in all, this was a good prototype, especially in terms of sound design and texture use.