[Dude]

This is a very promising start. I had a great deal of fun with the demo. I would find a way to make the health mechanic less strict though. Perhaps spawn a player with full health at a respawn point?

Also, take more advantage of the slope system you've got going on. Rolling hills would be so nice.

Keep it up. I can't wait to see more.

This post has been edited by Dude: 03 August 2014 - 09:10 PM

[360]

Come on guys. More of us should show our support and download the game to give Lake some feedback. Demo downloaded and waiting for me to play it Lake. It's a little too late now but I'll give it a shot tomorrow and write you up a mini-review. Still think it's exciting that you're pursuing an original project and if I can help you make this game even better then I'd be more than happy to help you out. I hope others on here feel the same too.

This post has been edited by 360: 04 August 2014 - 02:13 AM

[Overbound]

This game is quite good, I got a chance to play it in advance so I haven't tried it yet at SAGE, but I played the pre sage build for several hours. It takes just a little while to adjust to the changes compared to a Sonic game after than the game plays really well. Might be the best game at SAGExpo, I think it will top his previous efforts.

[LakeFeperd]

Oh, just so you guys know, since I belive there might be some confusion on regard if this game will be free or priced.

I want it to be priced.

The reason why I haven't been talking about it is because I still don't know how I'm going to sell it, although I think the best thing to do right now is to just put this on steam greenlight. What do you guys think about it?

And one last thing you guys might have missed:

Falk, on 03 August 2014 - 04:34 PM, said:

So I've been told it's okay to announce; Andy Tunstall, Maxie and I each have one track in this demo. Since we seem to have set this hilarious precedent that projects of this sort in recent history need to have a giant roster of composers, there's also a few hidden cards up our sleeves right now.

So, yeah, falk, andy and maxie from the good old Sonic ATS sound team are back for this one.
Andy(the guy who remixed foliage furnace): first stage
Falk: Boss battle (this one is still sort of inconplete)
Maxiedaman: second stage (this one is sort of incomplete too, but not really)

@360
Thanks, I really appreciate that.
Altough, if nobody has nothing to talk about, maybe I've not done my job right. =/

But still, I really can't wait to see some let's plays pop up, and reviews are also good, if not better. =)

@Dude


That's actually I thing I keep in mind, in almost every stage I try to make some new kind of slope.
You are right about not adding health near the checkpoints tough, that was a pretty bad oversight on my end. My bad, that should be fixed in another version of the demo, if there is need for one.

[The KKM]

He should have the bug-like mouth and antennae the other guys have. It'd be a bit more striking in his face.

[DinnerSonic]

LakeFeperd, on 04 August 2014 - 03:44 AM, said:

Altough, if nobody has nothing to talk about, maybe I've not done my job right. =/

In my case, the only reason I didn't talk about it is because I played it late at night and put a response off till the next day and forgot I didn't do so. =P

Spark feels a little overpowered with his charged shot, everything else takes a bit of work but it seems almost too easy to charge up and snipe things from a distance, discouraging me from playing around with his moveset. It'd be a shame to see a lot of people ignore the work you put into the normal attacks, the sword powerup and all!

Outside of that little worry, I really enjoyed the demo! I like how even though there are (I believe) touches of the Sonic Worlds engine, it ends up feeling more of a complement to the gameplay. I didn't see any loops or tubes and there weren't as many ground slopes due to the locations, putting the focus on the other parts of the gameplay, but it was still possible to play around a bit with the ones that were there like the rooftops.

I also enjoyed the seemingly intentional physics quirks due to things like the charged shot's recoil, though I seem to have trouble pulling off the "shoot backwards to run fast" trick, I was still able to wall jump up a single wall with the Gravity Glove or go straight up underwater with the right charged shot timing.

How long is the game planned to be, again? Freedom Planet, a fellow Sonic Worldsy indie platformer, seemed pretty lengthy when I played it, and I remember Sonic: Before/After the Sequel having quite a bit of length due to the three act structure and other bonuses, will Spark have that same feel? I'm pretty excited for the game and want to know just how much I have to look forward to!

Lastly, about the selling options, have you thought about Clickteam's new store as one possible option? Then again, launch day is when you would get a lot of sales, so launching on something big like Steam can be important when you want to sell it, but that's still an option.

[LakeFeperd]

Small trivia for you guys: The sewer stage was actually the first stage designed for spark and it was always intended to be the fourth stage in the game. Also, the boss of this stage was actually re-worked about 3 times until I was happy with it.


@DinnerSonic
Thanks for the review, really helps me out a lot. =)

Anyway, some bosses will be designed around spark's overpowerd blasts, like the sword boss in the sewer stage, I've seen people dying due to the recoil and hitting the "lava" pools that the boss makes. I guess the reason you though those were overpowered is because the bosses in the earlier stages of the game will be designed for you to use his charge shot and learn it as a core mechanic of the game, later on the charge shot will become less usefull with the introduction of fast/smaller bosses.

About the lenght: So far I've planned for 16 stages around the same lenght as the ones in the demo, although more can be added later on.

[LakeFeperd]

Here's a screenshot for a boss I'm currently working on.



This is the boss for stage 3, if anyone wants to make an youtube let's play or stream spark, I can send you a build with this stage as an extra once I finish the boss battle.
Just send me a message here or in my youtube channel.

Also, about expanding spark's melee moveset: I was thinking of adding a downwards aerial kick that would let you bouce off enemies and bosses. What do you guys think?

[360]

SPARK THE ELECTRIC JESTER: REVIEW

Just played through both demo levels of your game Lake. Here's the review as promised. This is fucking fantastic. Seriously this is exceptionally good. Most people are comparing the inspiration and derivation of this game to Sonic given those are the games you worked on before but I think the game has more in common with Ristar. That second Sewer stage gave me some serious Ristar vibes. Even the music used was similar to Ristar's underwater stage. So let's first focus on the positive. Spark has excellent Genesis-era graphics. It plays like a dream. I particularly enjoyed the combat recoil. It's so satisfying to deliver multiple hits to an enemy and get the "shock" feedback via the camera shifting and powerful sound effects. That was particularly good. It made the combat extremely addictive.

Then we have the level design. Spark is impeccably well designed. Spark's level design is definitely above and beyond your Sonic fangames. I played through those too and I'm almost certain of that. You can see that your talent has evolved throughout the subsequent production of those games which also did improve and get better as they went along. The level design in Spark is great. I was really impressed. You have this perfect balance between intermittent combat and pure platforming which I loved. It managed to keep me entertained throughout because you were constantly shifting and switching up the challenge. What else. The save system is great. You're punished when you die by reverting back to your most recent save point but essentially have unlimited lives which allows this constant stream of regular progression without ever jumping back too far which carries the danger of leaving the player disheartened and unwilling to continue. So that was handled perfectly.

Then you have the wall kicking and power ups and then in tandem with that the level gimmicks. All three are excellent and really add to the experience of playing the game. You're always entertained and compelled to continue because there's a distinction, originality and uniqueness in the new abilities you receive and each level being markedly different from the last. I know this is a common trope in Sonic games for example and even the game I feel this most closely resembles with Ristar; but these ideas are employed in games like that because they work. Spark handles this exceptionally well. The music for the Sewer stage was also great. I felt this nostalgic retro vibe that I haven't felt in a long time. It really reminded me of Ristar which is absolutely and definitely a good thing.

So moving on we have the negative feedback. Please take this as constructive criticism designed to aid you in improving the game because that's exactly the purpose of this. Spark is still relatively early in development so you have the opportunity to still make changes where necessary. Firstly there's the music. Whilst I thought the music for the Sewer stage was perfect and definitely enjoyable; I must admit the music for stage one didn't really impress. I remember thinking "this sounds like elevator music" and kept imagining how much better the stage would be with a better track. I was surprised to be honest especially when moving onto the Sewer stage and hearing something that sounded a thousand times better. Potentially reconsider the track you use for your first stage.

The only other negative issue would probably be your bosses. They are seriously hard. That boss for your first stage is brutal. The boss required what felt like a million hits before going down which led me to rapidly slam the attack button to string multiple attacks in succession in order to take him down. In a way it was good because it made the fight enthralling and intense but then again it wasn't really fun being warped back to my previous save point something like five times before defeating your first boss. Spark only has very limited health. Three bars whilst the boss itself has something like thirty. It just felt unbalanced. The same goes for your boss at the end of the Sewer stage. The boss itself was really well designed and fun to fight. I just felt his health bar might just be ever so slightly too extreme making the boss brutal and punishing.

One other thing. Definitely consider giving your bosses their own visible health bars for when Spark approaches and fights a boss. I was looking for one during the boss fights and was disappointed to see them not included. I think this very small change would improve your game considerably. Outside of that one other small thing is Spark's jump height. The height itself is fine but there were moments during the game where I couldn't quite reach a platform and had to keep trying and trying before the game let Spark ascend. It happened very few times but it struck me as something that needs to be fixed. It was particularly true of the Sewer stage if that helps. I was even thinking of taking a screenshot or something to show you. It's basically when you have a platform that's just a few pixels too high so it's unnecessarily challenging to get Spark successfully onto an above platform. Definitely look out for that. I think this might be quite important.

And that concludes my review. Hope this has been helpful Lake. You have the makings of a fantastic game here and I seriously hope this goes on Steam Greenlight and then Steam and sells hundreds of thousands of copies. It deserves to. It's fucking great. I preferred my time with Spark over even Freedom Planet. The latter is excellent but I thought Spark was the superior and more enjoyable game. So keep going Lake. Finish this. Get it on Steam. I think by word of mouth alone communicating the excellent quality of the game you'll succeed and do well. Hopefully that could even provide the funding for Spark 2.

Spark is without a shadow of a doubt your best game yet by a mile. Please do take this feedback on board to make it even better. Good luck!

This post has been edited by 360: 07 August 2014 - 08:34 PM

[LakeFeperd]

I've been doing a lot of work today... Anyway, I should have a video of this stage as soon as I'm done with it.
I Hope you guys will enjoy it.

@360
Thanks for the review man, I really appreciate it.
Oh, and yeah, about the music: the track for the first stage is actually just a placeholder, it's from another stage.
The bosses, well, maybe I should have reminded the players that in the first boss, there are 3 things they can do to avoid his charge attack, which seems to be the cause of most deaths. And maybe I should put a hitbox in front of the boss while he is charging insted of making the whole boss the hitbox.
The problem with the health bar though, yeah, I can see that, I'm going to try to do something about it.
About not reaching heights, well, I'm not sure what exactly you are talking about but if it's what I think it is: those exist in order for you to use the downwards charged blast to gain some height, use the slope on the platform that's usually behind it or use the wall jump mechanics (by mechanics I mean that the wall jump adds to your total speed instead of setting it to a fixed value). They have a purpose to be there. Maybe I just wans't that clear when I explained what you could do with spark on the tutorial.

[LakeFeperd]

This is a "rage" bar. (I still have no name for it, any ideas?)
It's a bar that's raised by your normal attacks, once it's full you can charge and release a more powerfull charge shot. Depending on your position you can take out the first boss in one shot with that blast.
If this is overpowered, I'm not really sure yet, the idea is to add a new way to beat boss battles that gives an incentive to use both normal attacks and the charge shot instead of just using one or the other.
For the stages, it should be rare for the player to fill the whole bar during a stage since it starts depleting atfer a while, unless it's an specific section.

[InfinityInfinity]

I'm finding it hard to get invested in this game; I feel it kind of lacks pace and Spark seems a bit of a bland character personality wise. I really like the way you can use your powers for mobility, but I feel that Spark should move a bit faster when blasting side ways while airborne. Other than that I've nothing else to say; I'm neither really excited for or loathing this game, just kind of indifferent.
By the way, I'd go for calling the bar a "Tension Meter"; sounds a lot cooler than rage in my opinion and it's not like Spark gets mad when attacking. :P

[Bluecore]

Good Evening,

After having a look at Spark the Electric Jester, I feel this is very impressive for an ambitious indie title. The music is relaxing and conforms beautifully with the visual elements. Spark's image could be adjusted slightly and use a little tweaking, but overall. The game is pretty solid. The only two grievances I have with this game is I find Wall Jumping to be very meticulous most of the time. Regardless of how rapidly I press the jump button, or how precise I time my jumps. I can never get it working. In the beginning it was not really an issue, but with the latter level it becomes a problem when I cannot advance. I have been told by others that there is a rhythm to the Wall Jump, but I have yet to master it. My other gripe is with the Gravity Gloves which is not really much of a problem because I can just choose to avoid them, however I figured you might have wanted to know. While using them, my first instinct is to hold the D-Pad in the direction I would like Spark to be thrown to. Although the way you made the gloves control is not very easy to get used to at first. I find myself using it alot to reach top speed because Spark's jogging speed is a bit slow for my taste. However because the controls were made more complicated then it really needed to be, I find I am launching myself either straight up or straight down. Which in the end, wasted more time then if I had not used it in the first place.

Anyways I am not trying to hate on the game, and you do not really have to change anything if you feel it is alright they way it is. I am just giving my 2 cents.

[MKAmeX]

I'm interested in the design of your character, and I'm not too sure of the direction you'd like to take him at this point, but I felt inspired and quickly made my own "version" of sparks based on a few posts I read.



I haven't actually had time to try out the demo yet, but this looks promising and I look forward to seeing where you take this. />

[InfinityInfinity]

That...is scary... D: