it's a nice try, a nice aesthetic
but the controls ruin it for me.
oh and having a time limit on levels. that makes no sense. just have a par time or w/e. but let us figure things out and get a handle on the nuances of the controls.
Reviews for "SQUADADDLE"
did anyone even playtest the "harder" levels at all?
i understand that the game is supposed to be difficult, but i had trouble even with the early levels tbh; the difficulty seems to be all over the place. (this was on easy mode)
i figured i'm just that bad at it, so since i wouldn't stop dying i went with training mode to see if i couldn't figure something out.
i went all the way up to 25k points, until i could not clear a single level anymore.
i've been stuck on the same 10 levels loop for at least half an hour, and went all the way back to -1500 (yes negative points) before i just gave up.
for starters, there is simply not enough time to figure out which level you're on, and then execute everything flawlessly just to barely make it to the goal. even if the timer was double the current one it would be difficult, but the way it is now makes it almost impossible.
the air mobility and hitboxes seem to be all over the place, especially with the long jump.
i understand it's supposed to follow your side directional inputs, but it's way too sensitive considering how little room for error there is, plus the insanely short timer.
given this, having to hold down and a direction at the same time to perform it is also a bad idea, because you will be holding a direction while performing a jump when most of the time it's going to get you killed. having to hold down doesn't help either since you'll probably have to climb upwards right after a jump not to fall into spikes right below.
i've had my fair share of controls accidentally "not working as intended", but i reckon that's probably just the combination of game mechanics clashing against each other so i can't really say it's due to "unresponsive controls". might just be that the gameplay loop itself is too demanding to even realize if you're making a mistake or it's the controls not responding.
i would honestly like to see someone clear every level at least once with this time constraint. this would be even ignoring the bonus fruit on each level, since i personally wouldn't even try bothering with those considering how difficult the base game already is.
i liked the previous games so i feel like this one just happened to be a miss, or i'm simply not the intended audience for these types of games, though that's how i felt about it.
even then i probably ended up rating it lower than i would have normally due to the frustation i just went through. i'll see if i feel differently about it after taking a break; sorry about that
kaiakairos responds:
review is completely fair, my other games have been much slower paced but this one is a hard 180 in the other direction. every level is possible, yes, but it was definitely made for an audience that prefers a brutal challenge. Another reviewer said a “free play” mode to try any level at any time would be nice, I think i’d agree.
Decent.
But is seems strange that climbing requires Shift + Up, when Up on it's own appears to do nothing. (It's not even used for Jump.)
kaiakairos responds:
the controls for the climbing are just ripped from celeste
I agree with the other comments about the controls, they could be better.
Climbing with shift at first is weird, and even tho you get used to it, it should of been like maybe just holding jump near a wall or maybe just x, if you jump with z, why not climb with x? (i tried using j and k and i cant get used to it know, its too late) Also, it would be nice if you could wall jump by just jumping while touching/near a wall, having to hold shift just to wall jump shouldnt be necessary (Celeste does this btw)
Another thing i have a problem with and it gets very annoying and frustrating (and idk if im the only one with this problem): the game lags for half a second everytime an animation activates for the first time in a run. When i activate a sign for the first time, it freezes for a moment. The explosion of the kiwi, when you die, when those platforms break, in all of those moments i get a moment of lag the first time they activate EXCEPT when you collect a kiwi and when a platform break, they will always lag for a moment, and i have died a lot because of that. There is also a level where when you press the button to activate the sign a kiwi appears, and that gave me lag for a moment too.
Like i said, idk if that last thing is just me, but thats the problem that prevented me giving the game a higher score
kaiakairos responds:
The game originally controlled with z and x as climb, but i changed it to shift because I personally didn't like how it felt. I wasn't aware celeste did that tbh, I always climbed first to wall jump when I played it.
The lag problem is weird though. Godot has known lag spike issues whenever a particle effect is first loaded into memory, but this is fixable by loading them all on start instead. I set it up that way, and I haven't had any issues with it since, but the fact you're still getting that issue is bizarre.
Kiwis and platforms both spawn several physically simulated particles, which have been properly optimized. There's not much I could change about those other than adding an option to turn them off. It could be an issue with your web browser not being powerful enough (check to see if hardware acceleration is on)
You can also try the downloadable version on itch to see if that runs any better, although the exe version isn't hooked up to any leaderboards :(
This game is fine, but it has a few problems. When I started the training mode I actually thought it would help me train, but no it's just the same as every other mode, a random level is picked for you and you either beat it or you don't. Really barebone training mode indeed.
Also holding down the escape key to leave that screen without any hint that what I'm doing works should be criminal, I was this close to refresh the page. Yeah it does work for anyone playing, you have to wait like what 3 seconds? A visual hint or just making it go to the main menu ASAP would have spared me some frustration esp since I've had problems before where games just wouldn't work properly with some keys, worst offenders are TAB and ALT BTW. Anyways this aspect of the game's bad for anybody playing the game first time, fix it.
The character is slippery and floaty, and yes I do mean really slippery even outside ice levels. Man do I love running into spikes or jumping over a platform. The character should be more tight than it currently is TBFH. Super Meat Boy has better controls than this. I got the hang of it somewhat, but really hate anything involving precision platforming in this game because it almost never goes well.
There are some levels I'm 100% sure are impossible, I could prolly figure this out on my own if the training mode let me play those damn levels over and over again instead of selecting a completely random level each time.
In addition to the above, it took me several attempts to realise that there is some hidden game mechanic in this game. Holding the jump buttom allows me to do a short jump on those trampolines, would've been great knowing this via the training mode or even a small comment in the description. So again maybe the levels aren't impossible I have just no damn idea how to finish them.
On top of all that the game has lag spikes, neat.
To recap:
-Bad nonexistent tutorial.
-Input feedback is nonexistent when it should be there.
-Controls are unprecise, despite the level design requiring precise platforming.
-All the bullshit above compounds into some levels that simply look impossible to beat at all.
-Oh and lag spikes of course.
This screams very first game ever made in terms of general game design, totally abysmal.
Tho that wouldn't be noice of me to just leave 2 stars when I can see a ton of efforts were put into it, I actually liked the music and graphics. Although I criticised the controls, the climbing is pretty much the only thing that's working well. It's tight, responsive and most of the time I died it was either due to the timer giving me pressure making me jump off my wall like a moron or because some levels have wall-jumping, with the floaty crap jump these can go rot in hell for all I care. The level design for what it's worth is good in a vacuum, each level is unique in its own way.
kaiakairos responds:
lol, most people seemed to like everything BUT the climbing. The only parts of this review I disagree with would be the floaty character, you saying that makes me question how many platformers you've played because this guy is SIGNIFICANTLY heavier than most side scrolling platforming games I can think of. Also, the "short jump" you said you can do on the springs does not exist, and as far as I know is not even a bug as I couldn't recreate it.
As for the other critiques though, I can definitely agree. The training mode was put in last minute because my friend who was playtesting asked me to, the escape button taking a second was done that way so people wouldn't accidentally hit it and fuck up a good run, but it does need some sort of feedback. Since its a high score based game, many of the later levels are extremely precise, but they are all possible. Like you said, it would probably be easier to tell that they're possible had there been a proper training mode.
Glad you at least liked some parts of it, lol. I won't be fixing any of it though because I'm moving on to new stuff. I'll make sure to put sonic and mario having gay anal sex in my next game for you to enjoy. <3