To me, a cool game, but sometimes a bit unfair, and quite too short.
Reviews for "Snowbrawl in HELL"
Good art. Controls are solid.
But, feels a little slow paced; reminds me of pitfall. I'd do away with the limited lives, it gives an arcade feel, but no one really likes that anymore; just restart screen is enough. And I'd make it a little more face-paced and a little more mid-air control. Also, yea, nothing feels that unique as well.
farfromsleep responds:
The slow pacing is deliberate, like I mentioned in the description it's a tribute to Hunchback, which was itself derivative of Pitfall. Even though it seems a little slow it's actually been sped up massively from the original (I remember it playing slow, but couldn't believe how slow it actually was when I revisited it). The simple layouts, specific timings and fixed jumping are all references to it. It's probably not for everyone, but it was designed with those elements in mind, for better or worse.
I wouldn't normally go with limited lives, but for a short game with a handful of screens I felt it gave it a bit more challenge. The whole thing was built from scratch in a few days, so there's certainly things I'd change given a little more time, but for what it was I think it turned out okay, if not to everyone's taste.
Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it!
Feels like slow motion, but I enjoyed playing. I don’t know why Bcadren complained about limited lives. I didn’t need the three I had.
farfromsleep responds:
The browser version isn't optimised as well as it could be, so there's a chance it could be running a little slower than intended if you've got an older PC. Even running properly, it does play slower than most platformers though. I just have a soft spot for that old, slower style with the floaty jumping and all.
Sounds like you're better at the thing than I am :p
Um, it's not completely without value. It is a working game, and provides its own challenge, but polish seems to be lacking at several points. For the sake of hopefully providing some positive insight, I'll list off the ones that stick out to me:
-No sound. Or Music. If you're not used to working with audio these can be hard to procure or install, but they are very key to setting the ambiance of a game. Players are gifted with sight, sound, and thought as their 3 real sense for a virtual environment, so completely leaving out one of these is a major blow the game's impact and environment.
-Window size seems non-relative, especially seeing how it quite literally breaks the bounds of the player area. This isn't so bad, but I suspect this could get weird depending on monitor size and ratio.
-Intro and main menu are basically nonexistant. We're given no major backstory (though this is not always necessary) and the controls and mechanics were very "get your feet wet". The controls seemed odd as they were limited to A D and space. Complete WASD, AD and say Z or X, or even options for all of the above and arrow keys would have made more sense, and generally fits a larger range of player tastes.
-Controls and physics are a tad weird. I should explain this one well I think. It seems the way the player jumps and runs are very separate, in fact, they also feel like very separate physical states as well. Jumping simply holds the current velocity of the player and adds some upwards movement to it, and this does, for the purpose of jump, work. However most major platformers also tend to install "air control" (The ability to alter or influence one's aerial velocity) or have running and jumping seem fluid or combined. The way jumping is and the way it is required in this mini-platformer seems very rigid and unnatural, or at least in the realm of gaming. The way players stuck to ropes with just the current height being used as a stick-point relative to swing. Considering combination of fireballs and no further controls except releasing post-stick, this was counter-intuitive as well as really awkward. I would incorporate W & S for that maybe, if you insist on a non-WASD control scheme for jumping, this could work better in-combination.
-Little devil fire dudes rising in the back. I assume this was a finite time limit being implied, but this was neither explained or very well demonstrated.
This is, for most purposes, a functioning, relatively bugless, and style-making game. These are all good points I want to re-emphasize because these are things the game has going for it, and are important in that sense. What stops this from being a great game instead of an OK one though seems to be the fluidity, the polish, and generally the incomplete ambiance of the game.
I think this is the start to something truly wonderful, and it is anything BUT a waste of time to continue pursuing things of this style or layout. I really see a lot of potential laid down here, and think you should follow-through as best you can. For now though,this remains a solid "OK" label game. Hope to see more from you in the future, cheers.
6/10, 3/5 ~WCCC
farfromsleep responds:
It's actually got sound and music, but due to some HTML5 limitations with the audio system it'll only play on certain browsers (Chrome definitely works, but Firefox can be very flaky with HTML games).
Apologies for the relative lack of polish, it was entirely put together in a few days after another project fell through, as I still wanted to release a little something for xmas. Think of it more as a playable xmas card than a full-featured game.
The fixed jumping is a deliberate part of the design. If you check YT videos of the game "Hunchback" (or if you've played similar stuff like Pitfall) you can see the inspiration. It's meant to be a throwback to early (pre-mario bros) platformers, with the set jumping patterns, fixed lives, slower pace and limited range of movement. It's definitely not to everyone's taste, for sure, but I felt modernising it too much would remove too much of what I enjoyed about those games.
Some fair comments about aspects of the controls, I'll try to tweak those a little for later versions (update: changes have just gone live). Thanks for taking the time to offer such a detailed critique, I appreciate it!
Not using W or Up for jumping is inherently unintuitive and it makes the game more difficult to play than it otherwise would be.
farfromsleep responds:
I'm not a fan of up to jump personally, but I'll add it in for a future version, along with additional arrow controls.
(Update: new control options have been added)