Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

Hi all,

Erik was kind enough to allow me to post a Beta feedback request from the great people at this forum for my game Crumb. Please provide me with any feedback if you can. If there is something you don't like, give me some details. If there is something you really like, I'd like to know that as well. Also, let me know what machine and operating system you were using to play the game.

If you would like to post comments to my forums, you can do it here: http://piddlepup.com/forum/index.php

Web site is: www.piddlepup.com

Thanks in advance to everyone here and of course to Erik for supporting my project.

-Keith Sink
PiddlePup Games

Summary:
Crumb is a puzzle game in the same vein as Chips Challenge, Sokoban, and many others. Your goal is to help your character find her way out of different levels by pushing stones, picking up magical potions, finding keys, and avoiding enemies etc.

Keys:
M – Brings up in game map
S – Speeds up the character
R – Restarts a level
Arrow Keys – Navigation (also can use the mouse in the 4 primary directions.)
Esc – In game menu popup

Screenshots:
Screen 1
Screen 2
Screen 3
Screen 4
Screen 5
Screen 6

Download:
PC – www.piddlepup.com/beta/setup.exe
Mac – www.piddlepup.com/beta/CRUMB Beta.dmg.bz2

System Requirements:
PC – 3d card, Windows 2000, XP or greater
Mac – OS 10 or greater


____________________________
Piddlepup Games
www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

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[Last edited by Cartman at 07-12-2006 05:01 PM]

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Keith, I've moved this over to the "Electronic Games" board. No worries.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

UrAvgAzn
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 468
Registered: 04-15-2006
IP: Logged

Great game so far, Keith! I am now on level 'Around'. I will keep on testing, but soon, I have to go to TaeKwonDo. I'll be back on the forums around 9:00 EST. So far, heres my review:

Base Points: 5

Positive:
+1 - great music and sounds
+1/2 - nice graphics
+1 - multiple languages
+1/2 - full screen
+1/2 - allows to be minimized

Negative:
-1 - only full screen
-1/2 - tutorial could have been a bit more informative


Total Review Points - 7 = Great Game!

Hope that helped a bit.

Keep posting,


EDIT: Just saw that you could speed up the character. I'll update this.

____________________________
"The leaf, still green, must someday fall.
Such grief, such joy, to live at all."
- T.A. Barron, The Lost Years of Merlin

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[Last edited by UrAvgAzn at 07-12-2006 06:00 PM]

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

Thanks for the great feedback UrAvgAzn.

The fullscreen/Window mode can be changed in the options screen. There is an icon there you can click to change it. I defaulted to full screen, because most of the portals require it to start that way.

Thanks again. Keep the feedback coming.


____________________________
Piddlepup Games
www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
IP: Logged

Oh, I can reply here. Well, I'll do it here instead of using a account there

First to start off: It looks really pretty. It's probably meant for small girls, but it still look quite good.

I've just played most of the current levels, here are the rest of the comments:

- The help file talks about a he/she, are you sure the main character isn't a girl?
- Maze 1 is probably not solvable at the moment.
- The walking is very slow, even with speed turned on, but then again, I'm playing this on a AMD 1100, with Windows 98.
- If you use wildcards as "player name", the game hangs.

Oh, and one last thing, it seems that you are using a dictionary to translate into other languages? Because it seems that the Dutch translation is very funny For example: "Back" should not be translate into "Rug". It means "back", of course, but as a part of the body, not a "go back to previous page".

-- Tim

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the feedback.

There are six characters to choose from two girls, two boys, and two monsters. They are being animated as we speak, but won't be ready for a few more weeks. You can see what they look like by going here:
http://www.piddlepup.com/node/40
Good catch by the way.

- The walking is very slow, even with speed turned on, but then again, I'm playing this on a AMD 1100, with Windows 98.

Maybe I should offer a super speed as well.

- If you use wildcards as "player name", the game hangs.

Did you mean ***'s or something else? I need to fix that one.

The translations were done with Babelfish to expedite the beta. I'm looking for translaters now. If you are interested, let me know. One distributor wants me to do it in Japanese as well.



____________________________
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www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

wallu wrote:
This isn't big issue but could that download file name be more informative, e.g. containing name and version.

I can't change it at this point because I've sent this message out to many sources, but I'll do that in the future.

Thanks

____________________________
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www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2580
Registered: 04-12-2003
IP: Logged

The installer annoyingly installed shortcuts on my desktop even though I explicitly told it not to by unchecking the option in the installer. What's the use of having that checkbox there at all if it's ignored anyway ?

Can't comment on the game itself (at least not yet), as it crashes Wine (which, frankly, is normal, so don't worry about this unless you care about Linux support).

- Gerry

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

Looks like you found the record movement feature I put in a long time ago. It hasn't been updated and shouldn't be in there at all. Great catch.

Thanks

____________________________
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www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

trick wrote:
The installer annoyingly installed shortcuts on my desktop even though I explicitly told it not to by unchecking the option in the installer. What's the use of having that checkbox there at all if it's ignored anyway ?

Can't comment on the game itself (at least not yet), as it crashes Wine (which, frankly, is normal, so don't worry about this unless you care about Linux support).

- Gerry

Thanks Gerry. Good find on the installer, I'll fix that on the next build. Sorry to hear about Wine. Never tried running it on that.

____________________________
Piddlepup Games
www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
IP: Logged

Hi Keith,

Maybe I should offer a super speed as well.

Well, I don't think any speed tuning will help me much, as "speed" runs just as fast as "speed" turned off. I think that it might be faster if the parallax effect is turned off.
Edit: that might not be true, as the first frames before the hints are turned on, I can see the girl moving her hair very fast.

Did you mean ***'s or something else? I need to fix that one.

Yes. * in player name will hang the game.

The translations were done with Babelfish to expedite the beta. I'm looking for translaters now. If you are interested, let me know. One distributor wants me to do it in Japanese as well.

I think you would like to have someone who can translate it perfectly, unlike me. I can do some proofreading for you though. By the way, your English text sounds quite serious. Is it your intention to use difficult words? (like 'aptitude', 'overcome', 'impenetrable')

-- Tim

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[Last edited by Tim at 07-12-2006 07:26 PM]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3624
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

I'll go ahead and be the Mac tester. Downloading now...

____________________________
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zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1721
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

One odd thing about the "Add user", if the field isn't selected, and you're typing anyway, it'll find the first letter you typed, but only the first, when you select it. If there are no player names, I think it should default to that field, as well, which is why I found that letter thing.

More to come.

____________________________

Beef Row
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 471
Registered: 12-28-2005
IP: Logged

Hi Keith,

Nice graphics and music, this has a very cute feel. The fire could be a bit more intimidating, it looks almost more like crystals than a flame, and an animation as you roll a rock over it wouldn't hurt, say a puff of smoke.

Here's a few problems I found in the game so far:

1. I found a few typos in the license...

Under no circumstances shall PiddlePup Games be liable to you for any consequential, special, incidental or indirect damages of any king arising out of the delivery, performance or use of the Software. Under no circumstances will PiddlePup Games liably for any claim, whether in contract, tort or any other theory of liability, exceed the license fee paid by you.

These should be 'kind' and 'liability'.

2. If the game is running in the background in windowed mode, everything I'm running slows down greatly. If I tab away from the fullscreen mode, this doesn't happen. I'm running on a 3.0 Ghz P4 with 1 gig of RAM and other than the game and standard firewall and antivirus, only this forum is up.

3. Minor map touchup: the upper left corner of Tutorial 3 has an unfinished edge (it starts as a wiggly edge, but has a straight corner).

4. As mentioned by someone else, Maze 1 seems to be impossible, as there is no way to bring the second rock all the way down to the water.

5. The speed button isn't mentioned in the help file.

____________________________
"Now I will repeatedly apply the happy-face rule"

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3624
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

I'll third Tim's comment that Maze 1 is unsolvable - there's a tree in the cell South of the house's cell, so you can't push the rock through that and get the last crumb.

Another thing - it's possible to push a rock through a bee enemy, which will then kill you. Not sure how you want to handle this, but I found it annoying when I was trying to get the rock somewhere else.

Pretty good otherwise, though I found the demo puzzles rather easy.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

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[Last edited by Chaco at 07-12-2006 08:31 PM]

zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1721
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Allrighty--I've got some more comments, as I've played through the demo levels.

Interface--
1. There should be a "Menu" button from the second page of the help screen.
2. Should default to most recent player on player select screen.
3. Second (or third) the slowness of the character.
4. Fourth (or fifth) the vast amount of stuff the game currently uses--knock that down a bit.
5. The level should default to the next one, once the previous is beaten.

Graphics--the "downward" facing character looks disproportionate with regards to the mouth. It's very wide and low. Also, does the character have a nose? The dress looks too big in the sideways character graphic.

Sound--If other programs emit sounds while playing, the background music dies completely. e.g, AIM entry/exit status.

Gameplay--
1. You can push rocks over bees, and they will kill you. Either make the rocks kill them, or make it impossible to push rocks over bees.
2. On "Diamond", I pick up the crumb in front of the house by moving to the square below it.
3. Maze 1 is impossible.
4. I think Corral may be impossible as well--I haven't tried all options though, so it may still be solvable (Probably, an intended solution doesn't work.)
5. The sounds seem to play delayed--The character pushes a rock, and one square later, the sound of a rock being pushed is heard.
6. In Frog, near the upper right, where two rocks are side-by-side, there is some buggy action. I can't go beneath them, and pushing them down lands me on top of them.
7. Major undo problems!
7a. Undo will still count crumbs as collected.
7b. Undo will show that a fire is out, but nothing can go into that space anymore. No rocks, no characters.
7c. There should be a shortcut key for undo.

That's all I had.

____________________________

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

wallu wrote:
One other is issue.
I have 1.73 GHz prosessor and game uses all the time all available prosessor resourses. I have laptop and after 10 minutes computer is extremely hot. So, I recommend some resourse optimization.

I'd recommend capping frame rate at <=60fps (sleeping for x ms if a frame draws more quickly than 1000/60 ms, for instance). Even just a Sleep(0) after every frame does a token job of letting other processes keep running while the game is going.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

* After you complete a level and return to level selection screen, I think the default level should be the next highest level that you haven't completed. My instinct is to just click on the same level I just finished which starts it up again. If the next level were already selected by default then the level selection screen would be much more intuitive.

* I started up Crumb and played halfway through a level. Then I alt-tabbed. Crumb was then in the background--not visible. After a while the music volume unexpectedly increased. The music volume change may have occured right when the song looped--not sure.

* There is no sound effect for picking up the red potion. (Fire potion?)

* I think some of your levels could really use a checkpoint that allows restoring progress to that point after dieing. CC-style games like SubTerra and Rocknor's Bad Day have these and it really cuts down on frustration. I wrote a CC-style game that didn't have it, and the people that tested it got upset about repeating levels from the beginning.

* There is one level where a crumb is in the water and you can pick it up by standing next to it. This seems inconsistent to me, because other objects you have to walk on top of to pick up. I don't think you are adding anything by allowing this adjacent-pickup. It would be better to either move the object off the water, or require a rock to be pushed into the water so the player can walk to the crumb-containing square.

* Maze 1 - I'm pretty sure this level is impossible. 2 rocks are needed to bridge to the crumb. The northern rock doesn't have a clear path to the southeast.

* Corral - This level also seems impossible. I am assuming that it is necessary to pick up the red potion in the northeast corner. As far as I can tell, the two rocks in that area can't be pushed any way to make the bridge, and you can't push any more rocks into that area because the entrance to the area keeps pushed-in rocks trapped against the south wall of the area.

* Frog - I don't think its a good idea to put the player in a bee's immediate path when the level starts. Generally, I think the player should always start out safe on a level.

I stopped without finishing Frog. I guess I need to know that levels are possible to solve before I invest more time testing. Keith, if the above levels are insolvable, I strongly recommend that you take a run through all of your levels and make sure that you can solve them. I'm a lot more willing to bash my head up against a puzzle repeatedly if I know it definitely has a solution. Or it could be that I missed something about how the game elements work. In that case, the tutorial probably needs to enlighten the user a little better.

I also think that some more game elements would help get me excited about the game. As it is, I see a polished and likable version of other games I've played before. I suppose you have to decide what your goal is. If you're mainly going for portal sales, then I'm guessing this game would be decently received as it is now with minor fixes made. If you want long-term players and enthusiastic communities like Chips Challenge, SubTerra, and DROD has, then I think you need more game elements.

Also, I feel like every time somebody makes a game there needs to be at least one new thing in it that hasn't been in previous games before. Such a huge amount of time is spent making a game, so it seems a shame to let it out the door without something new in it. Even when somebody hands me a tight spec for some hack contract job, I always find a way to slip in some feature or game element I haven't seen elsewhere. My apologies if there is something coming up in later levels or you already have plans to add a new game element. I also acknowledge that you've done some good work in the theme of the game which sets it apart from other CC-style games. If you are open to the idea of adding more elements to the game, and want any ideas, just ask. I'll give you the best I can come up with.

I can imagine you are really anxious to finish this sucker, and are in a practical get-it-shipped mode. I definitely can relate to that.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:
* Corral - This level also seems impossible. I am assuming that it is necessary to pick up the red potion in the northeast corner. As far as I can tell, the two rocks in that area can't be pushed any way to make the bridge, and you can't push any more rocks into that area because the entrance to the area keeps pushed-in rocks trapped against the south wall of the area.

Red potions are used to show which fire is fake. i.e. not required.

RoboBob3000
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1978
Registered: 10-23-2003
IP: Logged

This much feedback after four hours of availability? Man, this forum never ceases to amaze me.

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Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

These are all great. Keep em coming.
About the levels. Maze 1 may be broken, however as I remember Corral was very difficult and you had to solve it in a very specific way. I'll test them all tonight and verify.

FYI: additional features coming in the release:
-4 tile sets(you only see one right now)
-6 playable characters
-teleporters

____________________________
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www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

Beef Row
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 471
Registered: 12-28-2005
IP: Logged

zex20913 wrote:
7. Major undo problems!
7a. Undo will still count crumbs as collected.
7b. Undo will show that a fire is out, but nothing can go into that space anymore. No rocks, no characters.
7c. There should be a shortcut key for undo.

I don't remember seeing an undo feature, where do you find it?
(I guess that makes for undo problem 7d. undo isn't clearly documented)

____________________________
"Now I will repeatedly apply the happy-face rule"

zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1721
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

If you hit Escape in game, it takes you to a menu, where one of the options is "undo last move".

____________________________

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Tim wrote:

ErikH2000 wrote:
* Corral - This level also seems impossible. I am assuming that it is necessary to pick up the red potion in the northeast corner. As far as I can tell, the two rocks in that area can't be pushed any way to make the bridge, and you can't push any more rocks into that area because the entrance to the area keeps pushed-in rocks trapped against the south wall of the area.

Red potions are used to show which fire is fake. i.e. not required.

That's what the help file says, but they actually affect whether you can step onto fires or not. In the first tutorial level that has a red potion, you can't walk onto the fire squares until you get the potion.

That potion isn't required for Corral though. I did go through and finish the level without it. So I'm revising my opinion of Corral a little bit: I think the unreachable red herring potion could be removed to bring the difficulty closer to the relative difficulty of the other levels. I think Corral is the hardest level in the demo because it's quite open-ended.

When I realized I only had 2 more levels left to finish, I played through Frog and Grid 1. So it turns out there is just the one (apparently) insolvable level in the demo. Those were nice levels. Not real hard, but they probably shouldn't be or you will scare people off.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Kevin_P86
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 535
Registered: 06-28-2005
IP: Logged

Not a serious problem, but if you restart a level at any point, then after completing the level, the default name for the high score for that level has an 'r' at the beginning (in my case, "rKevin"). Also, even after restarting more than once, there is still only a single 'r' at the beginning.

____________________________
+++++[>+++++<-]>[>+++>++++>+++++<<<-]>.>+.>-------.<++++.+++++.

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

If you are open to the idea of adding more elements to the game, and want any ideas, just ask. I'll give you the best I can come up with.

Erik. I would love to hear some other ideas you might have for additional elements in the game. Also, if anyone else has some ideas, I'd love to hear them.

____________________________
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www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3624
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Keeping in the idea of simple enemies...

How about an ant? Whenever it hits an obstacle, it turns clockwise or counterclockwise (at gardener's preference) This results in a circular pattern, or more complicated if trees are placed strategically. Also, it can't go in the water.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

Beef Row
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 471
Registered: 12-28-2005
IP: Logged

Cartman wrote:

If you are open to the idea of adding more elements to the game, and want any ideas, just ask. I'll give you the best I can come up with.

Erik. I would love to hear some other ideas you might have for additional elements in the game. Also, if anyone else has some ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Erik's comment about how each new game should have some unique element got me thinking. So far, there's nothing about the magical crumbs that really distinguishes them from any other 'collect n of the foo to beat the level'.

The name is appealing because a child wandering through the woods looking for crumbs makes me think of Hansel and Gretel, leaving the trail of breadcrumbs. And thats what made me think of a possible twist.

You have diffrent styles of crumbs.. I'm not sure how many, but lets say you have red, blue and yellow. Now, crumbs are fragile things, remember how the birds would eat the trail? I suggest certain squares which take 1 crumb of a given color. If you don't have any crumbs of that color, you lose nothing. These could be magical walls you need to power of the crumbs to break, birds that eat them, or something else.

So say you have a puzzle where you have to find a way to collect all the crumbs without passing over these barriers once you've gotten them. An example puzzle: The blue crumbs are behind a red barrier and the red crumbs behind a blue one, but if you solve the blue one first, you can bring rocks back from the blue area to make a bridge into the red area that lets you avoid losing the crumbs.

This would also allow variation in level objectives... some levels could be just as is, where you need all crumbs of all types. Some would be impossible to complete with all crumbs, but would instead set efficency standards where you can't lose more than one crumb, or more than two. And thirdly you could have levels that require you to save IE: 2 blue crumbs, 3 red crumbs, and 4 yellow crumbs out of a set of 4 each.

Another idea that would integrate well with this: to make it feel like these really are crumbs of magic, make your magical abilities depend on owning them. The red potion could require you to have at least one red crumb to work, and the blue potion at least one blue crumb. This wouldn't use up a crumb, so they would still have unlimited uses, but could leave you with a potion but no crumb to power it. Also, if a barrier took your last crumb of a given type, you'd lose the use of that potion. If you do this, I'd suggest adding more potions, one for each crumb type you want in the game, and adding seperate counters for each type.

This would give your game a much stronger puzzle element, make the gameplay fit the name just as the graphics fit it, and make the items you collect stand out alot more instead of just being 'ho hum, I'm collecting the random artifact of choice to meet an arbitrary goal '

____________________________
"Now I will repeatedly apply the happy-face rule"

Sergenth
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 296
Registered: 05-04-2005
IP: Logged

Interface Bug

- Sometimes, pressing ESC only "once" will not bring up the menu, though parts of it will flash onto the screen for a split-second. Pressing esc several times also sometimes does not bring up the menu.

Rock-Pushing Bug

- In the Corral level, within the lower-left "corral", there is a boulder that consistently causes a collision glitch if it is pushed from the right and there is an empty space 2 squares to the left. Follow the white path to recreate the glitch.





I also encountered this glitch, though I have not been able to repeat it:



Sound Bug

- Level Select screen - When the music is allowed to loop, the volume jumps upon repeating. This is probably what Erik noticed when he alt-tabbed out of the program.

Cartman
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-03-2006
IP: Logged

Some great ideas Beef Row.

Great finds there Sergenth. I appreciate the screen shots to help me fix these.

Thanks again guys.


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www.piddlepup.com
Games for the whole family!