SWATCH by TheScragglyMan
*NOTE* I am not happy with my submission this time round, And i realise how flawed this is as a game, I have turned on anonymous feed back to hopefully grow as a developer. So be honest, but please be helpful with your comments.
Telling me what's wrong is all good and well, but telling me why it is, or what i could do different is even better. I want to grow as a developer. and you guys have a chance to help me do so.
Many thanks
I tried to take the theme a little more seriously this time round, Feeling like i played it safe with STS in December. This time round I decided not only to take the theme as literally as possible, but push that a little further. Your unconventional weapon is Colour, You play as swatch and you possess the ability to manipulate the background colour of the game, If you stand upon a block the colour you have collected, Activating the colour (either Left Arrowkey or Right arrowKey [depending on the screen] That block will vanish, allowing you to progress. Beware there are traps.
swatch is a challenging game, And although there are only two levels to play at the moment, I have supplied two versions of these levels, easy mode, for a nicer ride, and hard, for the extreme.
all art work, coding and music is my own, I had to enter jam due to my poor time keeping skills.
How To play:
*There is a slight amendment to the Controls Screen which i was unable to fix in time. W-Key will scroll through the left most slot, Displaying colours you have attained, S key will scroll through the Right most slot, displaying the colours you have collected. You can mix both slots by pressing the down arrow, Or use each slot on its own by pushing the relevant arrow key (left slot left arrow key).
A few game play hints, Keep moving, The range of Swatches power, reaches far higher then he is, He must be standing on or close to the centre of a block if his weapon is to work.
There are traps, there will be frustration, but I really enjoyed putting this together, and i hope you guys enjoy playing it.
I hope i haven't missed anything.
Oh yeah, please assume that Space = okay or select and Escape = exit ^^
Telling me what's wrong is all good and well, but telling me why it is, or what i could do different is even better. I want to grow as a developer. and you guys have a chance to help me do so.
Many thanks
I tried to take the theme a little more seriously this time round, Feeling like i played it safe with STS in December. This time round I decided not only to take the theme as literally as possible, but push that a little further. Your unconventional weapon is Colour, You play as swatch and you possess the ability to manipulate the background colour of the game, If you stand upon a block the colour you have collected, Activating the colour (either Left Arrowkey or Right arrowKey [depending on the screen] That block will vanish, allowing you to progress. Beware there are traps.
swatch is a challenging game, And although there are only two levels to play at the moment, I have supplied two versions of these levels, easy mode, for a nicer ride, and hard, for the extreme.
all art work, coding and music is my own, I had to enter jam due to my poor time keeping skills.
How To play:
*There is a slight amendment to the Controls Screen which i was unable to fix in time. W-Key will scroll through the left most slot, Displaying colours you have attained, S key will scroll through the Right most slot, displaying the colours you have collected. You can mix both slots by pressing the down arrow, Or use each slot on its own by pushing the relevant arrow key (left slot left arrow key).
A few game play hints, Keep moving, The range of Swatches power, reaches far higher then he is, He must be standing on or close to the centre of a block if his weapon is to work.
There are traps, there will be frustration, but I really enjoyed putting this together, and i hope you guys enjoy playing it.
I hope i haven't missed anything.
Oh yeah, please assume that Space = okay or select and Escape = exit ^^
Ratings
| Coolness | 54% | 3 |
| Overall(Jam) | 2.58 | 982 |
| Audio(Jam) | 2.67 | 538 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.48 | 891 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.20 | 556 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.96 | 471 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.33 | 356 |
| Mood(Jam) | 2.74 | 737 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.32 | 544 |
The colour scrolling was a quick fix, and if i had more time i would totally rethink that. Perhaps have the colours automatically scrolling through the combinations you can get. alas it didn't occur to me till just then :/
Since you wanted some feedback:
The movement felt a bit clunky to me, having the player build up (and lose) speed rather than instantly translating may help smooth things out.
Hit detection seemed a little off, spikes falling through floors and the player getting stuck on platform edges.
I think some sort of graphical effect showing the range of the power might have also been helpful. Highlighting blocks or something like that.
Many thanks for taking the time to feed back ^^
My main issue is with how you cycle the colours, i feel personally looking back, that it distracts from the game in some way and that perhaps having one button which automatically alters the colour combination would have worked better, do you think something like that would have helped for you personally?
I think you are spot on, I realised mid way through that most of the things i wanted to do were out of my understanding with coding currently, I do plan on attempting to polish it up a little as judging goes on.
Hopefully the Post version handles a little better. Thank you for feeding back and for your suggestion
On tips, I think you need to simplify the color activation mechanic and have more feedback when it activates. The collision detection for platforms is a bit off especially when the blocks are taller than the player, probably with how you stop the movement when colliding. Also I felt like the game is cruel hard (uhh im guilty of that a lot too haha) which made me rage quit right in the middle of the game.
Im working on a graphic-less version of the game, to really push the concept in terms of being something interesting, And level design is the number one element i am going to work on with it ^^
It's sad because the concept is awesome!
Great job anyway!
Well done and it was nice talking to you during the event.
Thank you all for playing and rating, I have been short of time this week, but plan to play through and rate those who have on my own submission along with playing some other.
Means a lot to get some useful feed back from you all, and I shall heed your suggestions. Currently working on a post version which will hopefully appease all of the frustrations of the entry.
There will be slight graphical changes (most people experienced clipping collision issues which impacted player movement), This occurred not only through my dodgy coding, but mainly because the graphic i used (from a photograph edited in photoshop) contained extra pixels, also the flat plane where the feet should be was actually curved, the only fix i could really come up with was to alter the look of the game a little bit.
Level design has been altered, Each level exists independently from the other. Although some levels will group together like in the submission. Dying will No longer restart from the beginning, Check points shall be used, and they may be placed around the harder sections of levels.
So yeah i have been pretty busy, but i plan to take a short break to play some more great submissions.
Take care everyone