No Happiness World, by FK

[FK_]

Warning : if you play with the Safari browser, you can experiment some weird bugs. I recommend Firefox.

 

 

Hello everyone.

This is my first post on that forum, sorry if I didn't introduce myself, I'm ridiculously shy and I easily feel uncomfortable. So, just to be polite : I'm 26, my name is Franck, I am french and I am dreaming of making video games since I am a child. Well, enough of that, here is my game.

 

No Happiness World.

 

This is my really first game. I used the physics motor Phaser, and the software Tiled to do the level design. I used MSPaint and Gimp to do the design. And everything else is by me, I did it all alone.

So ! Let me introduce my game.

 

No Happiness World is an old school typed Metroidvania platformer with ultra minimalist, black and white graphics. You are trapped in an unhappy, lifeless world and try to escape.

 

Caracteristics :

 

• Minimalist
• Short scenario
• About 20 minutes to clear the game assuming you know the walkthough (else it's longer)
• A good ending and a bad ending. The good ending is harder to reach and requires to explore everything and to think.
• Three power-ups, a forth one if you want to reach the good ending.
• Strong work on the level design.
• Automatic save when you change level. Save is deleted when you reach an ending.

 

I am a level designer and I am a game developer, I am neither a game music composer nor a game designer. I put all my efforts on the level design, remember that I am alone and this is just my first game, so I can not be experimented. Actually, I have some ideas for further games.

 

You can play it here :

http://www.kongregate.com/games/FKombre/no-happiness-world

I'll submit it elsewhere depending of the feedbacks.

 

Three screenshots (on attached thumbnails)

 

Edit 21h53 : link has changed.

[marcgfx]

Error!!! Error!!! Error!!! Error!!!

 

was better than I expected. at first I was taken aback by unexpected things (invisible blocks, blocks you can walk through, etc). but as the game is very forgiving it's fine and I wanted to see where it was going. good job!

 

I did not like the block based collisions. If I don't touch something visibly, I don't want to die

I feel like after aquiring the double jump, I should also be able to jump once in the air, whitout jumping first.

I did not like the automatic double jump, when holding the key, but I guess thats just taste.

the worst one for last: whenever I press space, the whole kongregate screen scrolls down (macbook chrome), so it was a real pain watching the dialogue.

[Neoprofessor]

Very cool but I had a hard time with it. I'm a spaz

[FK_]

Thank you for the two feedbacks !

I tested the game with the Mac of a friend and seems like there is things Mac does not like. I tested it on Windows and Linux and there were no scroll down, unless you have the focus on the game. I know about these invisible blocks and false blocks. I did not abuse them, because I thought it could be frustating and unfun.

 

About the double-jump, even if you hold the key, there is a timer in order to avoid a disfuctionement But you can also press the key twice.

 

Yes NeoProfessor, according to the first feedbacks from friends, this is a hard game.

 

Thanks !

 

Edit: I found a bug, I put the game offline and work again on it.

Edit2 : done.

[marcgfx]

to be honest, I found it far from hard. It was more about taking leaps of faith, when there seemed to be no further way. thanks to infinite lives, no problem. I'm just not sure if I finished it... as indicated in my first post, "Error!!!" was the last thing I saw.

[FK_]

Fixed the bug about the ending. In fact, the bug was in the two endings, so thanks for noticing Sorry about that.

 

So, according to the first feedbacks, my todolist for further games is :

 

Lower the difficulty. (or maybe not, according to the last post)

Find a way to test the game on Mac.

Find a way to fix the problem of double-jump when the player falls and did not jump.

 

Thanks, I try to take feedbacks in consideration, I created that game to know what I have to do or undo to make better games.

 

EDIT JULY 6TH

 

Last updates :

 

Pseudo-fixed the thing about the space-bar by replacing it by another key. Seems like Google Chrome does not like spacebar. Anyone have a suggestion to allow pressing spacebar on Chrome without scrolling the screen ?

Added a warning if the player is close to the bad ending because I admit it could be frustrating.

 

About the incoming game :

 

Waiting for some feedbacks in order to know what I have to do to make a better game. (Actually No Happiness World is rated 2.6 / 5, it's not a high rate thought it's my very first game, I guess players have suggestions)

Some of spikes and other kind of traps won't be unmoving anymore, so it will be harder.

No more invisible / false blocks. (Funny for the developer but not funny at all for the player)