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Zygotimus

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there is nothing intuitive about the workings of the game:
If the game stood alone and you didn't write a description, I would have to figure out what kills me. Add some instructions that visually tell you (show the sprite in the instructions rather than a description) what harms you, maybe how things harm you (the crowd moves you back). Be sure though not to overwhelm the player with instructions, make it as small and concise as possible

bugs: going through walls from underneath
you can get pickpocketed to the point of being in debt
you will often get stopped by the side of a building

The game design is surprisingly not bad. There are moments where i think about the risk and the rewards of my actions, which are made from the elements in the game. The very middle of the road is the safest part of the street (which could be a good quirk of the level even if it might be an oversight), but I'm not able to stay there the entire time because I slow down if I don't get to a bathroom. the pee mechanic is fairly well implemented, as it forces the player into taking risks .

The game seemed unfair at first, but the game allowed me to think around my previous problems. I think the biggest unfair element might be those instances of getting stuck between the the risk of crossing the road and the girl and guy that will instantly game over you.

The scoring of the game is completely abstract from the player. What gives me more score? What's the point of scoring? Is score only dependent on time? There is no indication of this, and we need some clarification if you want people to really try getting more score.

buying anything is useless at this state. For food, there is no incentive for a player to buy food accept for the possibility that it might make them faster. buying food has the huge possible detriment of slowing you down to a pixel per second. The risk is rarely considered because recovering from being sick is painfully slow and too difficult. This makes buying any food pointless. The only other thing you can buy is transportation, which doesn't add much to the game as it just skips the level. You should make buying things more interesting and rewarding, rather than pointless and too risky.

The art and audio clash. The audio in the title screen has real voices: real things compliment other real things. the art it pixelated and retro: retro things compliment other retro aspects. The art and the audio have different qualities that don't match up when put together. This is bad as it is a break in unity. A break in unity can be jarring and sometimes humorous, but is a show of a lack of understanding how certain things fit with each other. you should find the biggest represented aspect in your game (I would say retro feeling) and make everything fit into that feeling well. A break in unity can sometimes be used to contrast two things, or to make some point. In your case the game breaks its unity because you wanted the player feel like their in some bar or cafe or something before they start the game. I think it's not too terrible in your case but if it's reoccurring it could pile up and get real bad real quick.

Overall I don't think this game is too great, it has only a few good things, like its interesting and possibly unintended risk-reward considerations. The concept and execution isn't crazy innovative. The art is bad and clashes with the audio.

You want to improve this game and make it better, but the rating that you get is going to be based mostly on this first version. I think you need to get out of the habit of "I'll fix the bad things later," and you should try showing us the extents of what you can make when you first release your work. Personally I don't care whether or not you choose to leave in flaws in your games, but if you leave in flaws you won't be able to get feedback on aspects of your game that people would have commented on if it were fully developed. Most feedback is going to come from the first time you published, not later with the improvements. The most important feedback you can get on your work is when you think you can't make the game any better than it is right now. Don't get in the mindset of trying to only improve your work, try to improve yourself and your understanding of your work as well.

-Sorry for being an internet jackass, Sincerely Pizza Roll

ruthers responds:

Hi Pizzaroll!

Thanks for playing the game!

The bugs you have mentioned I am aware of and have posted them already on the Stencyl website forums page. I like to approach it all on a full free day because I know when you go to fix one bug another two pop up and I don't want to lose my trail of thought of how to fix things if I only have an hour or two free. I'll hopefully get at least a day or two over the festive period to iron out the bugs.

I agree with you that I need to keep the style retro both in graphics and audio. The audio on the intro screen is just me in a bar with my iPad recording the ambience.

I'm not the best artist or musician evidently thats why I'll always go back and revamp things on all of my games as I improve over time.

What I'll do the next time I sit down to this game is go over your paragraphs and see whether I can implement the suggestions you've written. One point you've suggested is to make the food buying more rewarding to the player rather than it being a risk, my initial thought is to maybe remove the food poisoning aspect of this altogether.

Again thanks for the constructive feedback.

this game is absolutely atrocious, i do not like.

MENU
the color choice of the menu is boring, the gray text and background don't compliment the happiness feeling of "bubble bouncing," gray is a color of bore, abstraction, and depression, it's not a good fit based off the sounding of the title of the game, which is silly and happy sounding to me.

why do you bother putting in a quit button? who in their right mind would stop bubble bouncing?
no, but really, you seem to have the expectation that people would need to "quit" or exit out the game, i see no reason for this on newgrounds, since it's just sitting on the website and doesn't actually close anything. it's pointless to have the quit button.

in the help menu, the button for the main menu is slightly off the window (unless you fullscreen). all the text, in the help menu's menus, is unnecessarily large, the text takes up the whole screen. it forces me to go full screen just to get out. it makes navigating a pain for those that don't want to go fullscreen

GAMEPLAY
the concept is meh, i don't know how far you can really go into "bouncing le bubbles" but, i can't imagine it getting very far.

the execution of the concept is meh, there isn't much to say about the gamplay other than it being lackluster-all you really do is touch bubbles and go left and right there's not much else to the gameplay. it's just rather boring

multiplayer is unnecessary, why would anyone want to play this with a friend?

ETC
graphics suck, one frame of character animation

you only need two buttons to play this game (and a mouse). so why are you spending time implementing controller support? no one is going to spend time hooking up a controller just to play a game that needs two buttons, it's highly unnecessary.

END
listen dude, you've got your priorities all wrong, you focus too much on "additional features" like multiplayer, controller support, customization, and a quit button.

you say this is your "first major game project" i don't see how a flash game is "major"

also "a bit rough" might be putting it lightly

I don't know you in any way other than your username and a game you posted. you seem ambitious (maybe even a bit arrogant) calling this seemingly insignificant flash game "major," even going so far as to make a bug report direction.

this game is crap, please don't take it too seriously. you have the freedom to create whatever weird or fun thing you can think of. you have no corporate business shackles on you, don't pay so much attention to the tiny features that no one is going to use. build an audience that wants these features first. create, make, and dominate.

let not money control your decisions, get experimental with your creations. don't get too ambitious with things you don't even know will work. figure out what you CAN do before setting out extreme goals. take this advice with a grain of salt for it is not fit for all. the greed of success will be met with a great unsatisfaction, a loss.

you asked for constructive criticism, i hope this was enough. ; )

-sincerely, a jackass over the internet

Here's just a "few" of my problems

-audio
1 the mute button in the menu doesn't work
2 it only silences the current loop so, when it replays the loop, the music comes back aka not muted
3 pressing the unmute button, simply adds a layer of music on top of the loop.
4 in the "instructions" menu, the music goes silent once the loop is done
5 pressing either of the audio buttons doesn't matter because the music resets when starting the game (making #3 less of a problem)
6 the sounds are LOUD and i don't really care about the music

-Visuals
1 The game is ugly
2 the "instruction's" text is tiny
3 the animations are bad
4 the colors contrast, but don't make sense

-Game Design
1 the level design is boring - shooting zombies in a straight line isn't very fun (imo)
2 a side-scroller shooter game isn't anything new
3 the player is over powered
4 the tank is more over powered

-Miscellaneous
1 the game is very buggy - getting stuck in walls - the "e" tank situation
2 Im a bit salty seeing that "This Flash has reached protected status."
3 just because this is your first game (im assuming from your newgrounds profile) doesn't mean that it should be given any pitty points, all flash games deserve equal respect (imo)

-summary
I don't like your game, it's boring, ugly, and sounds bad.

i hope for you to make better games in the future with a little more effort put into them.

Good luck, and have a nice day,

-sincerely some jackass over the internet

ThallasTV responds:

RUINED MY DAY TBH.

Jokes aside, this game was created using the software Stencyl. My group and everyone else in the class had 4 weeks to create a game whilst simultaneously learning the software>

Game design isn't the best, there are CLEAR issues that need to be addressed soon>

The game could have done with more colour but I used the "Tiles" that my group member made, should have communicated better to make sure there is more colour.

Thank you for your rather Blunt & Brutal criticism and I will take them into consideration when creating the next game in the future :)

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