Unity Live Critiques: Submit your Unity games and projects!

[Jonathan Gonzalez]

Thanks, I replied to your other thread regarding the issue. Lets try to keep this thread for submissions of projects to keep things organized. 

[Daniel Marti]

Hi Jonathan,

Here is the first level of my game (you tried one of my very first versions months ago, but this is an improved and more optimized version, it’s all redone from scratch, from the level to the characters). Your post about optimizing for mobiles was really useful. Thanks so much for sharing it.

My game is still on development, but the first level has all the functionalities and logic I will be developing for the rest of the levels. The game is meant to be for IOS, but I developed a simple input system for WebGL to be able to share and test the game from an URL. The movement is managed by the arrow keys and the action by the space button. Then you can use the mouse for the UI.

The game works fine on Chrome, I saw some errors in Firefox that have been already reported to Unity, I feel it’s some bug with the player. So I would recommend to play it on Chrome.

My game is an RPG with lots of combats and some humorous situations. It’s inspired by some old games such as Monkey Island and Ghouls’n Ghosts (even if none of those are RPG, but I used some of their ingredients).

I would like to know if the game feels interesting enough for the player to keep playing, exploring and discovering the rest of the levels. I’m interested to get feedback about functionalities, about if the game communicates efficiently how it works, if the combat feels responsive and appealing, about the style and mood of the game … I know I’m asking for a lot, so I will be happy just with an overview critique and if you detect any major issue.

Here is the URL: http://www.cbtsdesign.com/TheFiveWeb/

Thanks so much for opening a thread like this, and for your time. I really appreciate it.

[Jonathan Gonzalez]

Hey Daniel, I remember your game. I’m not sure when I’d create a live stream for this, there hasn’t been many submissions that I feel could use in-depth critiques but I’d be happy to leave critiques for your game here. 

Overall I enjoyed the game but I did have some input on what could be improved. I played the Web GL version you linked so the iOS version may look/play differently.

 Here are my improvements:

Character movement felt a bit slow, maybe a tad faster would feel just right. Animations in general were great though, but running around felt like it took longer than expected. 

Make everything brighter, it felt very dark. Not in a “night” sense but in a low light sense. Some areas were literally black while others were slightly brighter. More color would definitely help liven it up. 

Same with the skeletons, they were dark gray. Maybe they would look better with white, or just something that really makes them stand out color wise.

If I pick up something for the first time, it should be equipped without a notification asking me to do so. For similar pickups then I’d be prompted to.

Make it so that the player instinctively pulls out his weapon when enemies are nearby. The Witcher 3 does this and it’s great, you instantly know that you’re going into combat. I’d say reverse the mechanic you currently have, instead of the weapon being put away automatically, have it so that the player must press a button to put it away but automatically takes it out when danger is present. 

Will the repairing of weapons and shields be used in conjunction with materials needed? If not, then it seems a bit of a pointless feature that just detracts from the game. If I had to find a blacksmith to repair my parts and/or I needed to find metals to repair them then it could be a fun thing to have. On that note I would also ensure that weapons/shields last a bit longer.

I wasn’t aware of how the shield worked. I figured out the sword/axe mechanic after pressing a few buttons, but never knew how the shield would work. Could I use the shield to deflect attacks? 

The UI felt a bit big in relation to the screen. I would say decrease the size of the UI for the weapons/shield/armor. This is probably something to consider more for the mobile version, it may look great there if so disregard. 

I did run into this error a few times, it may just be Web GL but it froze the game both times requiring me to restart:

Overall though I think it played great. For a mobile game I think the visual style works and could make for a fun game to just play on your phone. Combat felt natural, although it didn’t excite me to attack the skeletons. I would love to play a fun adventure game like this on my phone so I believe it would make for a great mobile game. Controls are simple and would work with touch controls. Good job, feels better than the first iteration. I wasn’t able to complete the game as it froze when I got to the red orb/crystal.

[Daniel Marti]

Hi Jonathan, thanks so much for your time, your feedback has really interesting ideas.

About the Character movement, I guess you mean the speed of the character. I set the speed of the character to match the animations, I will check if I can increase the speed and still look natural. I felt the speed was a little bit slow as well, I think you are right, a faster speed will help.

About the lightning, I totally agree, there are some dark spots that should be lighter. I have to work a little bit on the lightning and maybe make everything a little bit brighter.

The idea about the materials is great, I like it. The blacksmith would be great as well, but I want the player to be able to look for energy to fix his items in the same level, adding the blacksmith role will make things more complicated in terms of development. But I really like the idea of the materials as a side mission in the levels. I will totally integrate that.

You can’t really use the shield to block attacks, the shield only increases your defense to take less damage. I had similar feedback about that, so I totally need to think about a way to include that, but I want to keep the controls really simple to not have tons of buttons on the screen.

I know the UI is a little big, but it works fine for mobile. 

The error you are pointing has been reported to Unity by other people, I think it’s a bug from the web player, there is no so much information about it. It’s annoying because I share the game via URL, but I’m not so worried as only happens in the webGL version. I t would be great to fix it though.

I want to work more in the combat, your comment saying it didn’t excite you made me worried, hehehe, … I created a routine that revives the enemies after x seconds, so the long you stay in the level, bigger are the chances for you to die. In the first level is not so obvious because I wanted to make it easy for players to learn about the mechanics of the game, so the first waves are small and not so noticeable. If you have any ideas to make it more exciting, I’m totally open 🙂

I appreciate very much your critique and you brought some brilliant ideas. Thanks so much!!

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