The fact that there is no lives (or at least i didn't get far enough to see any) and the game is so simple in essence but with an increasing level of difficulty is why I'm going to definitely be voting this as one for the best monthly games. Amazing job. The reason i haven't given it 5 is someone like me would probably rage-quit seeing as i'm shit at things like these
Reviews for "Arisen [beta]"
crazy sensitive. and alot of work for a game. but kinda fun....
after a few times of dying the second pillar with the whole A/D mechanic. would NOT let me pass.
A nice and simple game, with a combination of mouse and keyboard controls which, despite having struck me as strange and unintuitive at the start, turned out to be a rather interesting and unique gameplay choice.
There are, however, some problems which make the game seem like it was put together by someone with a lack of experience or problem-solving skills:
Firstly, every ten 'levels' the character and screen are abruptly reset to their starting position and velocity. Now, this was most likely done because there is only so many sprites that the game can have loaded at once, and what you did to fix that was indeed a solution. But it wasn't a good solution. It would have been much less flow-breaking if instead of loading out the previous 10 'levels' and loading in the next 10, you had instead loaded them in five 'level' chunks and on the third 'level' you had unloaded the previous five and loaded the next five.
The way you did it is unnatural and flow-breaking for the player, while, if the way I have suggested had been used, the player wouldn't even have noticed the loading in and out of the levels, if it was correctly optimized.
Secondly, this is a more minor complaint, but the cracks in the 'logs' (at least that's what I think they are) were very hard to see, and the switches blended in with the background slightly, so a less keen-eyed player might have found it hard to distinguish between 'logs' that had to be broken and ones that required a switch. Either way, the cracks and switches should have been made slightly more visible, perhaps by using a sprite that was different enough from your average 'log' or the background to be noticeable.
Thirdly, this isn't about the game, but about the story. Or rather, the implication that there is a story followed up by the complete failure to deliver one.
Who is Serena? Why is she at the top of that tower? What is going on that makes her need saving? Why are we saving her?
These are a few of the questions I asked but which the game failed to answer. It's alright to have a story, and it's alright to not have one at all. But if you want to have a story, a single sentence stating that we have to do what we are doing to save some person we haven't even been introduced to with a thing we know nothing about will not suffice.
Either some amount of a story should be in the game, at the very least at the beginning so that the player has some idea of why they're doing what they're doing, or there should be no claims that this game has a story.
I came into this game expecting to see some amount of a story, because there was a brief description of it in the author comments, and I felt somewhat frustrated when I didn't even find out who Serena was.
The game has interesting ideas, and pulls them off decently well, but fails on basic things, making it feel more like a rough draft than an actual finished game.
AndrewSP responds:
1th: I tried multiple solutions and that I used is the best I found to remain randomness on every gameplay and decrease lag ( and too because i'm using real-time physics )
2nd: This can be fixed so everyone see things nicely
3rd: hope you understand I planned to make a second game that is less Arcade to explain the entire story [ Arisen : Prelude ]
I like the way you have to combine keyboard and mouse in this game. Took a little while to get used to, but becomes addictive very fast. In my last run i got to 85, then for no apparant reason the dude boosted up 5 floors and crashed. Made me saf, because I was getting attached to this guy. I gave him a name and backstory and everything. His pet snail was called Machu. Anyways, it was fun for 15 minutes, so thanks :)
AndrewSP responds:
glad you enjoy it :)
yea....naw...
it doesnt have great art, nor gameplay
it gets boring after 2 minutes....
hitboxes seem funky