Sorry for the late feedback report, but some things that I found difficult were the platforming. I was OK with the MegaMan style gameplay, but when the platforming came in, I had trouble with distinguishing what was a pit and what was not a pit. I also found Gems hard to acquire and it took me a while to figure out how to jump from ladder to ladder. I stopped playing at 1-3. Also, is it just me or the save is not working?
On the good side, I liked the weapon system and the slide, despite not using it much. I also liked all the little interactions with the shopkeeper about skiing in the mountains, and all the optional puzzles.
Oh hey, thanks for the feedback! (also its never too late for feedback, I didn't want you to feel obligated or anything to drop any, sorry if I made you feel pressured!)
Do you know which pits in particular are giving you trouble? I can look into improving that part of the level design for better distinction. I am also planning to make Gems easier to acquire in the future, I might lower down the weapon/shield prices a little bit and also reward people more gems if they've clear the challenge score. I'm glad it isn't just me feeling that (I often worry if I make things too easy so I tend to overcorrect).
Lastly, as for ladders, was there anything in particular that made it difficult?
For the saves, did you extract the game out of the zip file? That's the usual cause of it not working since files don't get updated inside zip. But if that wasn't the case, I'll look into what's causing the bug.
Anyways, thanks! I'm excited to keep improving the game for everyone. <:
One: the reason this came late is because there are so many other great, developing games as well as this one, and also, you should add a game manual. With stage 1-2 near the end, with the "waspins" (I think they are called) and hives and vertical section there was difficulty. To outline the pits, you should put some sort of red outline at the bottom of the scream so that we can tell in a "platforming assist mode?" There should be text on the walls or notes left by Clara or something outlining controls or something. *Shrugs* Anyways, I found even on easy, the difficulty curve was steep.
Yeah I will rework some parts. I notice people struggle with the Waspins way more than I anticipated. I will figure out everything else as well! Thank you for the feedback again!
I had a fantastic time with the demo! It’s impressive how much content the demo build has already! The gameplay was solid, the character felt great to control and platform with. There’s a good amount of weapons and items to experiment with. The level designs are pretty great as well. (I loved those minecart sections, they were insanely fun!) The music and art are also well done! Overall, great work on this and I’m looking forward to the finished game!
I atleast plan to make a Megaman x Style game, I understand if you say no but would it be alright to use more or less the same sprite artstyle as your game prototype N
Just played the new demo, and I'm a huge fan! The levels are really well designed; they're difficult enough to be challenging, but never frustrating. There's collectibles that are more challenging to get, and I always felt like I had to grab them. Oh, and the minecart stages were so fun!
I also gotta give a shout out to the character designs! Everyone's so cute! My favorite is Clara the shopkeeper, I loved just talking to her until she ran out of stuff to say.
Anyways, great work on the new demo, I'm really excited to play more!
I played the SAGE 2023 Demo and it's a wonderfull game in every aspect, the main mechanics, environment mechanics, level design, art and sound. Can't wait to play the full version!
Fantastic game, loved the cute bot enemies. The levels are engaging and the music keeps me jazzed to adventure forth. Very fun to slide-dash around the maps and tackle the puzzles creatively, as well as finding hidden areas. Some things take a couple tries but are still very fun even if I failed at them before landing it. Incredible art, very nostalgic but with its own distinct charm. Playing around with the weapons is awesome, I was so psyched when I found out the missile was maneuverable!! I have adopted the spider bot, she's my daughter now uwu
Loved it, great demo! Very solid and straight forward mechanics. Liked all the hidden areas, but I did jump down a few holes thinking they were hidden areas when they were actually just death pits.
Enemy design was fun, I loved the slide, and didn't feel a need for a free aim as the game was designed around only being able to shoot left / right, at least in this demo! Also liked how the flamethrower was used for small puzzle solving when it came to finding the right angle to burn the wood blocks.
This is very solid. A lot of the mechanics are interesting and I like the style. The addition of the challenge score system in this demo is good since it made me play it more times then I thought I would trying to get that perfect score. I realized a lot of things that I would have missed on one or two playthroughs.
The slide feels really good. I got the hang of abusing slide jumping for speed running purposes and the movement started to feel really good to me.
The weapons feel good except for the missile launcher. I'm not sure if the lag in the air is really necessary. The other weapons don't have any restrictions in the air and feel about as powerful.
The fire mechanic is good enough to design a whole level around. Having to have enough weapon energy to burn the last set of ropes at the end is a neat little challenge.
I feel like the controls could be streamlined a little bit. Have you thought about using the up or down inputs more? I think being able to crouch under projectiles along with a slide cancel would be good additions.
This is a minor complaint, but I kept wishing there was a faster way to get maximum height on the springs. Maybe with a well timed jump button press like in other games?
-I might do something regarding the Remote Missile's mid-air recoil. Something about it doesn't feel right. But otherwise, I did add the lag to balance it around the fact it's a powerful weapon.
-Crouching might be a feature. I'm deciding between that or multi-directional shots. Slide cancel has been added in the upcoming patch, so look forward to that!
-I've slightly adjusted the strength of the spring as it was frustratingly slow to reach maximum height. It should be noticably better in the next patch.
I really like how the slide feels, the weapons are versatile and varied, the visuals look great, I like the soundtrack so far, you can rebind the controls which is always a welcome inclusion, the enemies are decently varied, I like the branching paths, there's a lot to like here for what is so far only a prototype.
If I may make a few suggestions for things that could be changed, or perhaps more accurately things that could be added if you feel they fit the game and/or aren't too beyond the planned scope of the project:
-What if you made it so, when you hit an enemy with an attack, the projectile, in addition to exploding, also had debris particles? And if you do that, what if the number of debris particles were based on the amount of damage the attack did? Might give the combat more of a punch (it already feels nice don't get me wrong) and while conveying information to the player, if you think it wouldn't be too hard to implement/too far beyond the project's scope/etc.
-What if the player could adjust the height the cluster bomb fires at using up or down? It could potentially make it too good admittedly, so I can understand if implementing that wouldn't make sense for balance reasons, but it has the potential to be fun so I thought I'd suggest it in any case.
-Perhaps adding a slide cancel button could make sense? As it stands there isn't any way to cancel a slide early after it's been started best as I can tell, so adding a button mapping for cancelling a slide could be helpful as an option. Alternatively and/or additionally, perhaps pressing down could cancel a slide? It's not really necessary, the game controls fine as-is, but not having to commit to slide speed (keeping in mind you keep slide speed if you jump while sliding until you land) would potentially make the game a bit more forgiving.
-Yeah I was thinking of doing that with the Remote Missile. It doesn't have enough impact in general.
-I was thiinking of adding back the multi-directional shooting for a few weapons, but decided against it for the demo due to time + I wanted to avoid giving it to the Flame Cannon as it'd break the one puzzle in the level. I'll see what I can do!
It's a definitely solid prototype, though as it is it deserves refinement. Here are my thoughts and suggestions.
- A speed increase. While the controls are responsive, the movement feels a tiny bit slow. Frameskipping will help this, though it could also be adressed at the physics level. This is a delicate issue that I'm sure you've spent a lot of time tweaking.
- Make me want to use the secondary weapons in combat. This means making them slightly overpowered, as I need to make the choice to spend ammo on shooting when I could just use plasma. Personally, I would also have them fired on a second attack button, so I can easily switch between plasma and the secondary I have selected.
- The best part of the tutorial (IMO) was finding secrets and how it taught you to use fire on hay. The gameplay should more properly imply/teach the combat role of the secondary weapons (the dash's attack value too), essentially forcing you to use them against enemies. After ponderance, I think the missile would be effective against distant enemies and the fire against crowds, but I would have liked to learn that organically. Probably remedied with more levels in general.
- Challenge in general. I am aware that this is like complaining an appetizer platter should have more protein in it, so instead I am going to wait patiently for a later release when the game actually has a difficulty ramp.
- Feedback for pressing up and down. Cave Story has good visual feedback for pressing those keys - of note is Down (used for interaction when on the ground) turning the character to look away from the camera and placing a ? over their head. A little aiming would be nice, but it's also important in your design and I'd understand if you don't want to implement it.
Overall, a solid demo for what it's worth with a lot of potential for future challenges.
-The player used to move faster in older builds, but I often felt he was a little too fast. I will see about adjusting it again though now that I got a better idea of how to do it!
-This was an idea that was in my mind for a while. I migghhttt make it so there's an extra button just to use Plasma. I will also try to balance the weapons more too. I forgot to add the function of Cluster Bombs to pierce through armored enemies (such as Tortoisebot hiding in shell).
-Oh yeah. This is the very first level, so it was designed to be pretty easy and to focus on the core mechanics. I had thoughts of making it harder just for this demo since it was the only stage though. The next major demo update will have plenty of stages.
-Yeah, I was gonna do something like that! Might have it so there's a button prompt showing along side the arrow.
Very interesting game, love the genesis (?) style. i enjoy it but there's something that i wanted to point out
at the early part of the third screen (the one that you put in second screenshoot ) the pit is filled with diamond and you not died if you go down there, but then later on part where you burn boxes to open a hole, you died if you fall. because the first pit is safe i thought it this pit would lead me to a secret room or something XD i think it's better to turn it into a spike pit rather than bottomless pit
btw please add frameskipping, it's not your fault but it's really slow in my laptop
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Sorry for the late feedback report, but some things that I found difficult were the platforming. I was OK with the MegaMan style gameplay, but when the platforming came in, I had trouble with distinguishing what was a pit and what was not a pit. I also found Gems hard to acquire and it took me a while to figure out how to jump from ladder to ladder. I stopped playing at 1-3. Also, is it just me or the save is not working?
On the good side, I liked the weapon system and the slide, despite not using it much. I also liked all the little interactions with the shopkeeper about skiing in the mountains, and all the optional puzzles.
Out of 10, I find this is a 7.5/10.
Oh hey, thanks for the feedback! (also its never too late for feedback, I didn't want you to feel obligated or anything to drop any, sorry if I made you feel pressured!)
Do you know which pits in particular are giving you trouble? I can look into improving that part of the level design for better distinction. I am also planning to make Gems easier to acquire in the future, I might lower down the weapon/shield prices a little bit and also reward people more gems if they've clear the challenge score. I'm glad it isn't just me feeling that (I often worry if I make things too easy so I tend to overcorrect).
Lastly, as for ladders, was there anything in particular that made it difficult?
For the saves, did you extract the game out of the zip file? That's the usual cause of it not working since files don't get updated inside zip. But if that wasn't the case, I'll look into what's causing the bug.
Anyways, thanks! I'm excited to keep improving the game for everyone. <:
One: the reason this came late is because there are so many other great, developing games as well as this one, and also, you should add a game manual. With stage 1-2 near the end, with the "waspins" (I think they are called) and hives and vertical section there was difficulty. To outline the pits, you should put some sort of red outline at the bottom of the scream so that we can tell in a "platforming assist mode?" There should be text on the walls or notes left by Clara or something outlining controls or something. *Shrugs* Anyways, I found even on easy, the difficulty curve was steep.
Yeah I will rework some parts. I notice people struggle with the Waspins way more than I anticipated. I will figure out everything else as well! Thank you for the feedback again!
And the platforming in stage 1-3!!!
Also, a small note: I am a bit of an "Easy Mode" person.
is there going to be more than three worlds
At the moment seven worlds are planned in total
Ok, thank you for answering, and thank you for your time
megaman inspiration W
YEAH!!
Great game, congratulations!!!
thank you!!
I realized the description for the game is several months outdated. It has been updated to reflect the description found at the SFGHQ website!
I had a fantastic time with the demo! It’s impressive how much content the demo build has already! The gameplay was solid, the character felt great to control and platform with. There’s a good amount of weapons and items to experiment with. The level designs are pretty great as well. (I loved those minecart sections, they were insanely fun!) The music and art are also well done! Overall, great work on this and I’m looking forward to the finished game!
Thank you so much for the video! I'll try accessibility options for sure. Shouldn't be too hard to add a reduction and off option for screen shakes.
I loved prototype's prototype!
I atleast plan to make a Megaman x Style game, I understand if you say no but would it be alright to use more or less the same sprite artstyle as your game prototype N
I don't mind at all. I'm flattered people are inspired by my game enough to learn from it :>
Go for it!
Thank You!
Loved the Demos! This game will be amazing!
We have a discord server dedicated to my VTuber *and* GameDev stuff including Prototype N!
https://discord.com/invite/4JgX7SbVfX
Just played the new demo, and I'm a huge fan! The levels are really well designed; they're difficult enough to be challenging, but never frustrating. There's collectibles that are more challenging to get, and I always felt like I had to grab them. Oh, and the minecart stages were so fun!
I also gotta give a shout out to the character designs! Everyone's so cute! My favorite is Clara the shopkeeper, I loved just talking to her until she ran out of stuff to say.
Anyways, great work on the new demo, I'm really excited to play more!
I played the SAGE 2023 Demo and it's a wonderfull game in every aspect, the main mechanics, environment mechanics, level design, art and sound. Can't wait to play the full version!
Fantastic game, loved the cute bot enemies.
The levels are engaging and the music keeps me jazzed to adventure forth.
Very fun to slide-dash around the maps and tackle the puzzles creatively, as well as finding hidden areas.
Some things take a couple tries but are still very fun even if I failed at them before landing it.
Incredible art, very nostalgic but with its own distinct charm.
Playing around with the weapons is awesome, I was so psyched when I found out the missile was maneuverable!!
I have adopted the spider bot, she's my daughter now uwu
Cool game! Kinda reminds me of Mega Man: The Wily Wars.
Made a video
do you have a discord server?
I don't have a discord server for the game, but it was something I had in mind.
then do it it's a great way to be in contact with the people who like your game
I have one now! https://discord.gg/4JgX7SbVfX
Your game is great!
keep going and maybe release it on switch!
i'll buy it!
Thanks! I definitely would love it to be on the Switch if I'm ever able to get it there.
I really like this a lot, it brought me back to the sonic 2 days but with that weird (but very cool) megaman attack system (buster, power ups)
DUDE
THIS IS SO GOOD
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
THIS IS LIKE THE BEST ORIGINAL SAGE GAME SO FAR
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS I LOVE IT SO MUCH
THANK YOU FOR THIS COMMENT,. IT MEANS A LOT <3 <3 <3
Loved it, great demo! Very solid and straight forward mechanics. Liked all the hidden areas, but I did jump down a few holes thinking they were hidden areas when they were actually just death pits.
Enemy design was fun, I loved the slide, and didn't feel a need for a free aim as the game was designed around only being able to shoot left / right, at least in this demo! Also liked how the flamethrower was used for small puzzle solving when it came to finding the right angle to burn the wood blocks.
Can't wait to see more!
This is very solid. A lot of the mechanics are interesting and I like the style. The addition of the challenge score system in this demo is good since it made me play it more times then I thought I would trying to get that perfect score. I realized a lot of things that I would have missed on one or two playthroughs.
The slide feels really good. I got the hang of abusing slide jumping for speed running purposes and the movement started to feel really good to me.
The weapons feel good except for the missile launcher. I'm not sure if the lag in the air is really necessary. The other weapons don't have any restrictions in the air and feel about as powerful.
The fire mechanic is good enough to design a whole level around. Having to have enough weapon energy to burn the last set of ropes at the end is a neat little challenge.
I feel like the controls could be streamlined a little bit. Have you thought about using the up or down inputs more? I think being able to crouch under projectiles along with a slide cancel would be good additions.
This is a minor complaint, but I kept wishing there was a faster way to get maximum height on the springs. Maybe with a well timed jump button press like in other games?
-I might do something regarding the Remote Missile's mid-air recoil. Something about it doesn't feel right. But otherwise, I did add the lag to balance it around the fact it's a powerful weapon.
-Crouching might be a feature. I'm deciding between that or multi-directional shots. Slide cancel has been added in the upcoming patch, so look forward to that!
-I've slightly adjusted the strength of the spring as it was frustratingly slow to reach maximum height. It should be noticably better in the next patch.
Thanks for the feedback!
Pretty solid so far!
I really like how the slide feels, the weapons are versatile and varied, the visuals look great, I like the soundtrack so far, you can rebind the controls which is always a welcome inclusion, the enemies are decently varied, I like the branching paths, there's a lot to like here for what is so far only a prototype.
If I may make a few suggestions for things that could be changed, or perhaps more accurately things that could be added if you feel they fit the game and/or aren't too beyond the planned scope of the project:
-What if you made it so, when you hit an enemy with an attack, the projectile, in addition to exploding, also had debris particles? And if you do that, what if the number of debris particles were based on the amount of damage the attack did? Might give the combat more of a punch (it already feels nice don't get me wrong) and while conveying information to the player, if you think it wouldn't be too hard to implement/too far beyond the project's scope/etc.
-What if the player could adjust the height the cluster bomb fires at using up or down? It could potentially make it too good admittedly, so I can understand if implementing that wouldn't make sense for balance reasons, but it has the potential to be fun so I thought I'd suggest it in any case.
-Perhaps adding a slide cancel button could make sense? As it stands there isn't any way to cancel a slide early after it's been started best as I can tell, so adding a button mapping for cancelling a slide could be helpful as an option. Alternatively and/or additionally, perhaps pressing down could cancel a slide? It's not really necessary, the game controls fine as-is, but not having to commit to slide speed (keeping in mind you keep slide speed if you jump while sliding until you land) would potentially make the game a bit more forgiving.
Thanks!!!
-Yeah I was thinking of doing that with the Remote Missile. It doesn't have enough impact in general.
-I was thiinking of adding back the multi-directional shooting for a few weapons, but decided against it for the demo due to time + I wanted to avoid giving it to the Flame Cannon as it'd break the one puzzle in the level. I'll see what I can do!
-Sure! I think Down will work fine for it.
It's a definitely solid prototype, though as it is it deserves refinement.
Here are my thoughts and suggestions.
- A speed increase. While the controls are responsive, the movement feels a tiny bit slow. Frameskipping will help this, though it could also be adressed at the physics level. This is a delicate issue that I'm sure you've spent a lot of time tweaking.
- Make me want to use the secondary weapons in combat. This means making them slightly overpowered, as I need to make the choice to spend ammo on shooting when I could just use plasma. Personally, I would also have them fired on a second attack button, so I can easily switch between plasma and the secondary I have selected.
- The best part of the tutorial (IMO) was finding secrets and how it taught you to use fire on hay. The gameplay should more properly imply/teach the combat role of the secondary weapons (the dash's attack value too), essentially forcing you to use them against enemies. After ponderance, I think the missile would be effective against distant enemies and the fire against crowds, but I would have liked to learn that organically.
Probably remedied with more levels in general.
- Challenge in general. I am aware that this is like complaining an appetizer platter should have more protein in it, so instead I am going to wait patiently for a later release when the game actually has a difficulty ramp.
- Feedback for pressing up and down. Cave Story has good visual feedback for pressing those keys - of note is Down (used for interaction when on the ground) turning the character to look away from the camera and placing a ? over their head.
A little aiming would be nice, but it's also important in your design and I'd understand if you don't want to implement it.
Overall, a solid demo for what it's worth with a lot of potential for future challenges.
-The player used to move faster in older builds, but I often felt he was a little too fast. I will see about adjusting it again though now that I got a better idea of how to do it!
-This was an idea that was in my mind for a while. I migghhttt make it so there's an extra button just to use Plasma. I will also try to balance the weapons more too. I forgot to add the function of Cluster Bombs to pierce through armored enemies (such as Tortoisebot hiding in shell).
-Oh yeah. This is the very first level, so it was designed to be pretty easy and to focus on the core mechanics. I had thoughts of making it harder just for this demo since it was the only stage though. The next major demo update will have plenty of stages.
-Yeah, I was gonna do something like that! Might have it so there's a button prompt showing along side the arrow.
Thanks for the feedback!!
Very interesting game, love the genesis (?) style. i enjoy it but there's something that i wanted to point out
at the early part of the third screen (the one that you put in second screenshoot ) the pit is filled with diamond and you not died if you go down there, but then later on part where you burn boxes to open a hole, you died if you fall. because the first pit is safe i thought it this pit would lead me to a secret room or something XD i think it's better to turn it into a spike pit rather than bottomless pit
btw please add frameskipping, it's not your fault but it's really slow in my laptop
I've been thinking of changing up the pits a bit. Maybe I'll add a secret area? Or maybe make it more clear it's a pit.
As for frameskipping I'll see adding that!
Loved it! It gives me Megaman vibes. For sure, I will buy it when it comes out.