(I didn't read all the other posts, so apologies if I'm repeating something here.)
I found myself in Windows a little while ago, so I thought, "
hey, why not test that Crumb game a wee bit"
. So I did.
First impression: "
Wah!"
When I started the game, the first thing I saw was the company logo of Piddlepup Games, what I assume to be the Piddle Pup. Now, usually I actually don't mind overly cute things, but yegads, I think that thing is past the line for me. In fact, I think it goes beyond cuteness into the not-so-cute-at-all. I guess you won't be changing it, though, so I'll go on to the actual game.
First bug I encountered: When typing in a name ("
MjauMjau"
, if that matters), I noticed that the cursor didn't appear at the end of the typed-in characters, but slightly before the middle of the last character. This was always true, both when typing and deleting -- the cursor just seemed to be offset wrong. Didn't get any screenshots of this, unfortunately (and I'm back in Linux now).
The game: At first I thought the game was
very slow-going, counting the seconds as my character inched its way across the first square. Later on I discovered that the game's not actually as slow as that all the time, but there seems to be some sort of bug that makes the game speed increase to okay speed (normal speed ?), decrease to painfully slow, then back up again and so on. I tried to find out if there was some particular thing causing this, but didn't find out much. Levels usually (but not always) seem to start out slow-going, and the slowness seemed to be more frequent when playing sounds (but not directly linked; it did play sounds without slowing down a couple times too). I guess this could be related to my CPU, which is an AMD Athlon64x2 4200+. I know a couple games have timing issues on dual core (widespread wrong usage of QueryPerformanceCounter or something .. don't remember the details, unfortunately).
I prefer keyboard control in these kinds of games, but I did try the mouse control a little bit as well. At first I just held the mouse at the next square I was moving to, but this felt pretty awkward, since the character moved into the square the cursor was in, thus forcing me to move the mouse to take another step. You can hold the mouse farther away to walk more squares at once, of course, but I didn't really like that much either. I felt I did a lot of moving the mouse around for just a little bit of moving the character around -- it wasn't that much, of course, but it felt that way. The only time I was perfectly comfortable using the mouse controls was when the screen scrolled, so the mouse stayed at the same relative position when the character moved. Maybe you could try moving the mouse programmatically when not scrolling the screen, to keep the same relative position when moving at all times ? (I'm not sure what bad effects programmatic mouse movement could cause, though.)
Also, playing a game with the keyboard, I like being able to use the keyboard for all tasks, but this is not possible in Crumb. Also, it was a bit annoying that the mouse cursor didn't hide after a little while when using the keyboard exclusively. I had to move it out of the way after starting every level. Anyway, I think it'd be a good idea to add the possibility of using the keyboard cursor keys in the menus and on the level select screen, as well as
exiting the map screen (ESC kinda worked, but that popped up the in-game menu as well. I think just pressing M to toggle the map would be natural).
Oh, and speaking about the map, it doesn't show the player character, or any monsters. It'd be nice if it did. It wouldn't have to animate or anything, just show where you are and where the monsters are so you could get a better overview.
As others have mentioned, I'd expect the next level to be automatically selected when completing a level. Also, when clicking a thumbnail for a level in the bottom of the level select screen, that level starts immediately, which caught me a bit off-guard. I'd expect clicking a level thumbnail to
select that level, not enter it.
Collision detection could use some work. It seems like monsters/characters moving from one square to the next are considered to be occupying both squares as far as collision checking goes, which results in "
unfair"
collisions like in the image below.
Also, there's something strange going on with rocks/bees collision. On one of the levels (I forget what it was called, but I'm sure you recognize it ..), I was pushing the rock you see there in the image (below) against the bee just as the bee was moving into the same square the rock was moving into, which resulted in the rock being put on top of the bee, and me dying. After I restarted the level, I was able to walk on top of that rock. A little bit later on I discovered that pushing a rock against a trapped bee also results in the rock being put on top of the bee, and then being caught.
Click for image:
Click here to view the secret text
×
Graphics
The fire looks like a bloody, pulsating lump of spiky flesh, which was rather creepy. Didn't fit in well, I thought.
This might be because a friend forced me to watch the Berserk anime with him some years ago, but still.
Also, the shadows are a tad inconsistent: Trees and bushes cast softer shadows, most other objects cast hard, black shadows, bees have dithered black shadows, and the vertical fence shadow is completely wrong -- all the other objects (well, maybe except the rocks) cast their shadow as if the sun/light is coming from directly above (zenith), but the vertical fence shadow seems like it's being cast by a light over to the west somewhere.
Also, some antialiasing wouldn't hurt.
Sound
The sound that comes when you push the rock loops very slowly. You start pushing a rock, hear the pushing sound, keep pushing it a couple more squares, and then suddenly you hear that pushing sound again. The sound is fine for starting the push, but I don't think it fits for looping. A grinding sound as you continue pushing the rock might be better (as long as it's not too intrusive).
The water sound as you plop a rock into water is too delayed.
If you attempt to push a rock that can't be moved, absolutely nothing happens. No feedback is generally a bad thing, so there should at least be some sound effect for when this happens, I think.
I didn't care much for the music, but hey, I'm probably not your target audience
Other
After playing the game, I had a look at the help, and discovered that our little heroine actually not only is missing a name, but the poor girl is described as a he/she! I mean, come on. She's clearly female, and the least you could do is give her a name.
As for the game overall, I think it's a nice little game, but there's not many elements, it's easy (well, apart from that impossible level
), and there's not really that much to do, so the game starts feeling repetitive after a few levels. I understand you don't want to overcomplicate stuff, with this being a casual game and all, but I think that some more (and unique!) elements (and baddies) would definitely be a plus.
- Gerry
[Last edited by trick at 07-13-2006 09:26 PM]
