Good graphics, controls are solid. It would be nice to know you can double jump and the shield should be instantly available. Fun but pretty difficult.
Reviews for "Sci-Fi Runner"
Hazneliel responds:
Thank you, ohh yeah, I have to update it with a way to let know the user that beating the boss at 1000 mts unlocks the new character, and also that the new character can double jump. Any Ideas?
Ok, interesting, but poorly balanced.
Needs a tutorial level. Getting killed repeatedly just to have time to read the screen over, and understand what's your health, that bullets are limited, etc.. leaves a bad first impression.
Need to be able to manoeuvre other than just jumping; the mines dive at you along your dive vector, or hang too low to be shot until they are on you, and basically cannot be countered if something else is happening on-screen.
- if there are all kbd controls, there should be a kbd restart button. Just clicking the mouse then repositioning my fingers on the kbd was sometimes long enough to take a hit.
- 2 hits and you die means it takes forever to get to score the first upgrade. So you've got a 2nd hurdle (counting the no tutorial) that will discourage a casual player, instead of entertain.
Nice graphics, tough.
Hazneliel responds:
Thank you for your comments, I will start to work on an Instructions screen right away. As for the difficulty, I have tested it and it should take you no more than 5 mins to get the first upgrade, I dont know if that may be too much.
Its a nice idea the restart key.
Im thinking for the tutorial to slow down the action while the instrucctions appear, what do you think about it?
There seems to be no preloader. Newgrounds lets authors download and use their preloaders for free if you can't write one yourself.
The resolution of your game is HUGE, but yet the help texts are so tiny that they are barely noticeable when a player starts the game for the first time. The next few tries he has to focus on the 'new' help text and will most probably die while reading them. Why didn't you just add an "Instructions" button to the menu? You could have easily fitted all those texts on a single screenshot of the game.
There is no indication that your gun needs ammunition. "This is your energy indicator" is open to interpretation - especially since the ammunition is mounted to the lifebar...
Having the 'jump' and 'shoot' buttons on different far ends of the screen means nobody will use the option to click. I'm guessing you have a reason like android application or something, but for a flash game, I don't really see it.
In some other countries the "Z" and "X" keys are not right beside each other. An option to configure the controls would have been nice. (And No: I wouldn't want to use mouse AND keyboard for a game that utilizes only two buttons...)
The player doesn't get any information about the 'other' upgrades (gained from running a certain distance) actually do or that he could get upgrades by covering a certain distance. The screen is HUGE: Why didn't you fill in some headlines and informative texts?
You could have included a highscore board. Newgrounds lets authors use their highscore servers for free.
You forgot to include your story from the author comments in the game itself. Speaking about the story: It seems rather short and you should think about expanding it. Maybe explain where the machines came from or why the character can't stop running...
During gameplay the character isn't recognizable as female (having a ponytail and no beard doesn't make someone female) and there seems to be no screen where the player could have a good look at her face. Thus, describing the character as a "sexy female clone" in the author comments seems like a huge exaggeration.
I needed just a few lousy minutes to make all these observations. I'm guessing making this game took you several days. You should really pay more thought to creating games.
I found no bugs in the gameplay or controls themselves, so that's a plus.
In summary, 'Sci-Fi Runner' is a 'Canabalt' clone where the player can shoot robots and earn upgrades. It has okay controls, average mechanics, decent graphics, a poor tutorial and offers only little long-term motivation. I wouldn't play his again and wouldn't recommend it even to hardcore fans of the genre.
Hazneliel responds:
Your opinion is very constructive, thank you very much explaining the points that I need to fix to make it a better game. I will work soon on fixing it.
About the preloader, when I load it it has a loader screen with the game´s logo, I dont know what preloader you cant see