For a demo, its pretty good, IMPROVE THIS DAM
Reviews for "College-Ruled Universe"
Overall, it is a great game. The music is well chosen and not distracting. The gameplay is fun and addictive, but I do have some issues with the graphics, perhaps it's just me.
I find the ship is a little static (not much animation) but I don't really mind.
The background is a little distracting though, with the fast flying asteroids, sometimes I confuse that from the actual enemies, end up firing a few rounds at it (not much penalty though). Perhaps change the color of the animated asteroids to something lighter? Then again, it's just me... maybe.
Another issue I came across is the lack of warnings.
Right before fighting the bosses, there are these -stalagmites?- that came in without warning. During the first encounter, I thought they could be shot, and tried but died after colliding into them. Second time, I found out there's a little gap that you can fly though to avoid, but that gap closes after the stalagmites reach the midway point of the screen. It punishes players that weren't daring or fast enough to move forward. I suggest editing the behavior of the stalagmites so that it gives a second chance to players who missed the first gap. At least their death is more justified.
The boss battle... the only thing I hate about it is the sudden appearance from the back. It's cheap and I felt that it was unfair that I should die to that. There is no warning whatsoever that the boss was coming from the back. The only visual warning that I had was the boss flying at the background, and he disappears to the right of the screen, which makes me automatically assumes that he will reappear from the right. Change that.
I suggest giving some warning or hints of something that can potentially kill players from behind, this way, players will feel that it is fair to die to the boss if they did not heed the warnings.
Overall, a well done game (especially since it's a demo). Interesting concept with the gun and shield, since many shoot-em-up games have you dodging the bullets or projectiles.
I'm not beating down on the game whatsoever, just giving an honest opinion.
Please give the game changeable controls....I'm German and z-y is quite uncomfortable to reach (Even I would know that much AS3 to change that ;) ) More to say: Graphics are awesome but a bit static as already mentioned...
This was pretty cool. Needs a lot of work, but obviously it's just a demo...
Cool designs overall, and a really cool use of colors. I especially like the designs of the charge bar and the boss.
Every once in a while I mistook a background object for a foreground object and wasn't sure if I should dodge or shoot it. Not sure if this is intentional in the design.
The intro was really confusing. It was telling me all these controls and was thinking "Ok, when do I get that item?" I'd thought it was going to be a platformer.
Major suggestion, change the name. I understand that you're referring to standard lined notebook paper, but "College Ruled Universe" is just too confusing. I should say, the correct meaning is not the first thing that jumps to mind, even when I know what it is.
LordDF responds:
Rlght, I'm starting to consider a name change to something more catchy. Maybe...doodleverse? Notebook Adventure? Hmm, if you think of any good ones, PM me! I may just use it.
And yea, I'd like to show more in the intro, but I couldn't purely due to my lack of ability as a programmer. The final will expand immensely on that!
Glad to see you've posted something again! I admired the artwork in your movies and games, especially Dreams, and I can say the same for this game too!
I do think that there are a lot of things that you could improve here... I know it's just a demo, and you probably have more things up sleeves that you're including, but I think that there a few things that I thought could be improved *as of now*... Such as the movement of the ship; rather than letting it directly just move, you could make it accelerate instead. Also, the background music COULD use a change, but that one is largely my own preference.
Anywhos, hopefully this turns out great! Good luck on the project!
LordDF responds:
Thanks man! If this project succeeds at market, I'm definitely continuing Feverdream. (story built on the dreams series)