Working on Post Jam Version of Swatch

*Where does the time go! it only seems like a week ago I submitted a game which I felt wasn’t to the best of my ability, and ventured on a mission to improve and fix a concept I was actually quite proud of.

*Unfortunately all this working and prototyping to find a game with in a game has taken far more time than i realised and I haven’t had much time left over to play and judge other peoples entries so i wanted to take a moment to apologise to that, and promise that i will return vote and play some more before the jam is up.

Feed Back analysis

I requested feedback directly on my submission, at the time of entering the jam i was pretty unsure of what went wrong, and have akin’d this to split focus, This entry was the first i had actually attempted to come up with a nice menu for people to look through, and whilst the “finished” project is limited, the direction sapped development time away from more important elements, like game play, and physics. I poured through the comments on my entry with one eye closed, nervous at what people would say.

Nice game, I liked your artwork and music, the idea is pretty interesting too.

Since you wanted some feedback:

The movement felt a bit clunky to me, having the player build up (and lose) speed rather than instantly translating may help smooth things out.

Hit detection seemed a little off, spikes falling through floors and the player getting stuck on platform edges.

I think some sort of graphical effect showing the range of the power might have also been helpful. Highlighting blocks or something like that.

It seemed as though some people managed to take something positive from what i witnessed as a more rage inducing game, and the feed back was extremely helpful in creating a new design and and concept to follow.

I think you have a good idea here but I believe the implementation needs a little work. The color system I think is intriguing as a design direction. Take a look at a game called Color Zen. You might be able to get some inspiration there to apply to your platformer.

It was great to see people behind the concept, regardless of the buggy example i had provided, the graphics overall was well received, i was quite shocked by this considering the method involved turning phone camera pictures into usable sprites due to a fail with my tech.

What was wrong & what i have done to fix it.

From Backwards controls, to Overly mean level design, there was a lot of feed back in terms of how hard the game was, i have stepped off the difficulty wagon onto a more fun design. Implementing more predictable yet challenging elements to the levels, whilst trying to retain some difficulty i want swatch to be a fun platformer.

RNG spikes are now more predictable, they fall at a specific rate. game mechanics have been reworked to include a more simplified version of play, There are a total of 4 buttons (minus alternatives for left handers), and the mouse & left click play an important role in how you play the game now.

Swatch no longer has the ability to manipulate the background, he can now interact with colour samples and use them to destroy painted blocks to get through the level. Left clicking, the method of using functions in swatch has been redesigned to allow for minimal controls, it uses something which I call object specific functioning, so the use and what it does depends mainly on the object you are interacting with. This allows me to have multiple functions without having to bind all the controls all over the place.

Movement is a lot better considering I simplified swatches design, he is now a block of paint, there has been health added to the game.

SLOW DOWN

So you have a game, and you want to make death and other events have more impact, you slow the game down right? well in swatch slow down is used to give you the player a few more fractions of a second to react and attempt to save yourself.

An example of this is a dropping spike, in the previous version a spike would fall, hit you and you’d die, in this one, as the spike entered a specific range of you, the game would slow down for a few frames, allowing you to attempt to avoid the spike.

Slow down is an important game mechanic in swatch now, considering the controls are divided between swatch and the cursor, you have to be aware of both of these elements at the same time. Slow down during large impacts, or near death allow you more time to switch focus. Currently I have tried these out on a few testing levels to see how it worked and i can’t wait to see what other people think of it.

Colour use

The use of colour has been redesigned also; with in the entry, you could only alter the back ground to delete blocks you were with in range of. Now you collect droplets of paint to alter swatches colour, and you can even “cannibalise” some of his “body” to create projectiles to shoot at enemies. Collect so much of one colour and swatch will change colour.

Paint samples used to unlock colours which you could use, not paint samples are moveable objects which you use to destroy coloured blocks. You simply navigate to them with swatch to activate them, then aim and click with the mouse to send them on their way. Paint Samples come in related colours to the painted blocks, and these must be paired in order for the block to be destroyed, Shooting directly at the sample, will mix swatches paint bullet with the primitive colour of the sample.

The game-play is all about progressing through the levels and surviving the hazards with in them. You will need to think about where and how you are going to play the level, collecting droplets of paint to manipulate swatch colour in order to mix with samples so you can progress, all the while avoiding spikes, enemies and other hazards in the level.

Swatch was never supposed to be a “holding hand” game, in design i wanted to make something people had to figure out for themselves, with a little added help from the tutorial levels, the rest of the game is up to you to figure out. The cursor helps with this, it changes and indicates points of interest in the room, you can use this to find objects which you need to progress.

Trigger traps, destroy enemies and avoid hazards, collect droplets, and use game objects (launchers) to reach hard to reach areas, whilst utilising effects (slow-down) for those last minute saves. Oh and now each level contains its own spawn point, no more starting from the beginning.

I really cant wait till I have more to show on this Post Jam version, and I hope the above has some of you itching to see more. (let me know in the comments)

From a developer perspective, I think I have finally found a direction I am happy with taken…it only took 3 weeks worth of concepts and coding.

Thank you for reading! (I promise to rate more games in the next few days)

TheScragglyMan