[WIP] Penguine Promenade

[Penguinee]

http://penguinepromenade.weebly.com/

If you care to like my facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/PenguinePromenade

Game description:

Penguine promenade is an exciting platformer that puts the player's skills to the test! To earn the jackpot, you will need to control your penguin and navigate him through the various challenging landscapes of the earth. Will you be able to do it?

As you can see by the title, my game is named Penguine Promenade (Penguine purposely spelt wrong).

I first started developing it at the start of Christmas holidays (Yes, I'm still in highschool). The aim of the game is to control the penguin and to navigate yourself using the cannon balls to the crate of fishes. (The tutorial explains it better)

My two main struggles:

1. Trying to get users to understand the mechanics of the game (Big one Eh?). So please tell me if you have a hard time trying to follow what the tutorial is trying convey.
2. Getting the aesthetics right. I keep feeling that my game isn't up to a good enough standard.

 Enjoy!

[Phoenix Labs]

Really liked the game mechanics and level design. It felt a bit random when the cannon balls disappeared though, you should try changing it so they get destroyed once they go outside of the screen and at no other time. Apart from that I had a lot of fun playing, I got to level 19 or 16 can't remember I got stuck because the cannon ball disappeared before I could jump on it every time Keep up the good work!

[Penguinee]

Thnx for the feedback  . I'm actually planning to remove level 19 since it tends to be really laggy and as a result, make everything really slow.

Thanks for the valuable feedback  .

[Penguinee]

I ended up doing some minor adjustments in the projectile code  . Now it disappears based on distance traveled instead of time. This means that the projectile will certainly exit it's detection range before it "Resets" instead of "Resetting" after 4 seconds.

Thnx.. again 

[r00]

I like the concept you have there. It took me a couple of seconds to understand that you are not supposed to avoid the cannonballs, but instead use them to reach the other platforms. But after I got that, it was pretty fun concept.

 

Talking about understanding the mechanics, you might want to move the tutorials from Help section to the beginning of the levels. I only found the tutorials after I had played the game. You could do something like show one help panel per level, and make it so that users can hide further help panels if they so choose. And start the help panels from the fact that you are supposed to use cannonballs for travel. In the beginning of every level that you introduce a new game mechanic, like jumping on top of the canon platform, you could then show a tutorial box describing the new mechanic.

 

Edit: Tried the game again, and there actually was a help screen implemented. For some reason, it didn't fire at all on my first gameplay, and even on the second time, it only fired after I had already reached the platform with the fish.

 

Additionally, the game could do with a level selector. You now offer possibility to choose level theme, but in addition, it could be handy to be able to go back to a specific level. Also, you might want to rethink the level order. Some of them at the beginning seemed way harder than some that came afterwards.

 

On the graphics side, I like the cartoony look. Especially the penguin's animations are pretty cool. The clouds also look nice, but they have a white pixel noise around them that sticks to the eyes pretty easily. You might want to work a bit more with them clouds. Also, the mountains at the background have a bright green outline that doesn't work well with the rest of the color palette. The northern lights on the sky have similar palette, but the outline doesn't really have any connection to them, so it doesn't count. You might want to try some other color for the mountain/snow outlines. Perhaps a darker shade of the blue that you use on the bottom of the mountains could work.

 

You have quite a lot of menu items currently, and I would probably get rid of some of them. For example, if you only plan to have toggle music and reset progress options at Settings, i would probably move them to the first level of the menu. Perhaps make them toggle buttons. The feedback menu is pretty cool way to get in touch with your players. I also noticed that you currently have both continue and back buttons doing the same thing. You could probably do with only one of them. Main thing, you might want to keep the main menu simple.

 

The social panel appearing after couple of levels felt bit pushy. You might want to move it somewhere else. For example, you could show it in the main menu somewhere, for example when the player returns to the menu after first time playing the game.

 

But in overall, I enjoyed playing the game pretty much.

[Penguinee]

Thank-you for the complements and the constructive criticisms!   You have really been a big help!

I'll be applying many of your suggestions very soon. 

[Penguinee]

New Game Edits!

• Tutorial now auto plays on the first level!
• Back Button now closes the entire menu.
• The Continue button that is seen upon accessing the menu from a level has been replaced with a level selector.
• And therefore, a level selector.
• "Like this game" popup has been moved to menu instead of passing a level.

Short-term goals

• Removing the rough edges from the clouds (Having some trouble)
• Organizing the menu so there's less options
• Reordering some levels

Long-term goals

• A separate world
• More decorations to improve asthetics

[Dream Of Sleeping]

First things first is that a loading countdown? Cause  if it is I think you should replace it with a loading bar. The numbers things looks like I'm waiting for an advert to finish. I thought the advert just hadn't loaded or something the first time.

 

The graphics are really great. The penguin especially. And I love the trees and how they are just made up of those little lines.  Because the art is so totally professional, it's suprising the "progress saved" thing looks so bland. Same with the level text in the corner too.

 

The game is a good idea. It's a good job the first level it tells you how to do it though. But after that I got the hang of it.

 

I don't think I'll ever be able to get fully absorbed in a game without sound. But that's just me. I suppose it's better than what I did and have so much sound the game won't load. haha

[Penguinee]

Thanks for the feedback  . I always wondered if the countdown felt too much like an advert.. I'm sure to change that soon.

And yeah. Haven't really focused on the sound much.

Yet again, thanks for the feedback 

[Penguinee]

Changed countdown to load bar- Check

Better level selector- Check

Darn.. Really need better sounds and music... XD