I really did enjoy the simplistic controls coupled with the beautiful animation and fairytale music. But beating the nightmare seems to require you to run for a ridiculously long time. Perhaps you should add a checkpoint option to the upgrades? Otherwise, a delightful game.
Reviews for "Fear Less!"
This game is kind of fun, but also kind of annoying. Those skulls really pissed me off because they'd fly at you suddenly and you wouldn't have enough time to react for them, or you'd already be mid jump and can't jump again so it inevitabley hits you.
Another thing is there's no indication of how close you are to the end. It just felt like it dragged on and on and never stopped, and when I died after running for ages I just felt annoyed because I didn't know if I was nearly there or only halfway or what.
innomin responds:
The skulls in midair fly faster, so a better strategy is to stay near the ground as much as possible. It also saves your double and triple jumps for when you need them. =)
We decided to use a minimal HUD to preserve the 'scary' atmosphere. On the personal side, though, I think highscore displays are more nerve-wracking than helpful. The ones in VVVVVV always seem to trip me up around 10 seconds before I would break my record...
After taking the time to look through the game, play it to get all but 2 medals, and reading some of the reviews, I feel informed enough to make my decision.
It's...a very nice game. It's fun, at least for a while, and I do get hooked into it once I understand the controls.
The problem lies, and I am not the only one hear who thinks this, with the random generation of obstacles and some...interesting...design choices.
Now I can see, like with any project that is fun to play and decenty developed, that a lot of time was put into this. I appreciate that. I myself am still trying to get some of my ideas out into a playable format.
HOWEVER, there are a few rather large bugs in this game preventing it from the best score it could receive.
First off, the random generation. I cannot count the number of times in which I ran into a situation where I could not go either over OR under, and thus was forced into taking damage. This is a big problem, as it will most definitely kill players when they don't have any way of avoiding the damage. The point is that we are supposed to take damage as part of our OWN fault, not the game's.
Next, the design choices, or rather specifically, the lack of i-frames (invincibility frames) after taking damage, two of the upgrades, and the instant ground penalty for air damage. Well, the truth, after a moment of thought, is perhaps only one of the upgrades needs to be thought over. Specifically the fox ears.
As of now, they seem fairly useless late in the game when you have all the other upgrades, as just jamming on your sword key will 9/10 kill any fox. If the fox ears prevented ALL animal based damage, that would change the situation favorably, and definitely make them useful.
Furthermore since I'm on the topic of damage, you get about 3 frames of invincibility after taking a hit, and you are instantly put on the ground after taking damage in the air. Now if this is meant to be a punishing game like Super Meat Boy, that's fine, but I don't believe that there are NEAR enough frames to do anyone any good. You can even be comboed on obstacles from one hit into instant death. That is most definitely not fun. That is frustrating to no end, especially when you cannot to anything to stop it.
I do not see as much of a problem with the achievement pop up as other people, although I do admit it is a bit distracting. If it were made smaller, like about Newgrounds pop up size, that would be easy. But that's a minor complaint.
Now having gone over my complaints with this game, I find it very cute and attractive, and already in my favorites folder. The game is easy to understand, like any hop n bop, and, more importantly, has clear love and care shown in its development, as well as a neatly disguised level of challenge once you get a third or so way into you level ups.
I love this game, I'm sure a lot of people do, but it needs a bit of patching up in a few areas. Other than that great game, guys. Good work.
innomin responds:
Thanks, we really appreciate it! As much as a few people want to bash the randomness, it is not structured in a way that impossible situations can happen (though it may seem to be at first). Staying low to the ground or triple jumping quickly can often save you, and the high scores above 9000 really prove more than anything that the randomness is fair.
Low invincibility was a choice we made to preserve challenge with rapid health regen (and because damage = tripping, it makes sense in the story as well). While it might make you cringe sometimes, I think it adds to the atmosphere of 'fear' that we were going for.
The real purpose of fox ears was to help with Inception and the other flawless time medals, as the early game (which has mostly foxes) becomes crucial for these medals.
Trust me, a lot of work went into the design of this game, and all of these concerns were tested extensively. There was a version where you had variable jump heights and held the attack key to aim, but held keys proved overcomplicated and confusing in playtesting. This formula seems to be the most fun! =)
Good game, simple controls anyone could master this game if they chose to.
Not too shabby a platform jumping game, although there are some things that could be improved. I hold a personal grudge against the jumping mechanism. While the graphics are a plus, the obstacles on the ground blend in a little bit too much with the background in the beginning. You start off jumping low and so, have difficulty jumping over middle-tier obstacles. Once you jump higher...well, I there were a decent amount of times that I jumped over a grave and right into the fire that WTF flew out of nowhere and I was totally at a loss because I can't control how high I jump. I personally don't like how some of the basic game mechanics are restricted from the player in the beginning like double jump (there's no other way to pass the fire + tomb combo) but that's just me.
On toppa that, most games like this give the player a short period of 'invincibility' after they hit something to ensure that if the player gets punched in a direction they totally didn't intend, they don't suffer chain damage. This jumping game doesn't have that, so if you hit something in the later part of the game (or even earlier) you might suffer more damage than intended so that is quite infuriating, especially taken into the account that some obstacles are so hard to dodge it almost seems unfair. But your character can recover relatively quickly later, so that's a plus.
Overall it's quite balanced once you get used to the flow. Graphics and music are great, medals were really fun to get, and it becomes a good game to kill some time. I suggest to get the last medal, you should get all jump upgrades first, top priority, try netting a few medals in one run at a time, and save fox ears upgrade for last. I kind of expected the game to expand on the story a little bit due to the tutorial in the beginning, but it didn't. That doesn't detract from the charm of the game, though, because the characters speaks for themselves well enough throughout the game without elaboration. Happy Dreams!