Rocket Boards completed - get the demo here
Community Forums/Showcase/Rocket Boards completed - get the demo here
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| I have finally completed my first blitz3d game; Rocket Boards You can get more information and the demo from my website http://www.binarymoon.co.uk - you can buy the full version from there also :)    Full size images are also available on my website. |
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| Erhm.. I installed it to 'c:\games\Rocket Boards Demo'. When i try to run the demo i get a memory acces violation!! Please try to figure out what's wrong. I'm gonna try to install it in the default folder. Looks great from what i've seen on the pics and played with the db version ^^ |
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| The download gets to 318k then stops. |
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| Okay, I've installed everyting on default and now it works. You should fix that. I have some coment on the game and some of it might sound stupid cos I didn't get any instructions in the game itself. Alrighty here goes: First of all, it look great! Simple but very effective and proffesional looking graphics. Takes me back to my ninty64 years ^^ Really I love it! Second, this was the first thing that 'bugged' me. You don't have some options that can say for example adjust the screen resolution and colordepth. And you can't adjust the keys on the keyboard. Third, I might have missed this one so if I'm wrong please don't note this remark. There is only one camera 'mode'. I couldn't adjust the camera to view my character from a little higher, or from further behind or something. You should at least make two views possible. One more close and the other more away. Fourth, where's the music? Might not be in here cos it's a small demo I think ^^ But I really missed a funky happy theme song, could you make another demo with music perhaps? ^^ Last but not least. I dunno that's all I quess. It looks good, playes good, feels good, sounds good (the sfx ^^). It's top notch (apart from the remarks above ^^). Great work! This can easily be one of the best Blitz games out there! |
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| Wow, great game Ben. Reminds me of Diddy Kong Racing with its colourful, vibrant graphics and catchy tunes. It seems a little difficult though; I couldn't finish any higher than fifth after about 10 attempts! BTW I got a memory access violation error when trying to run it from the desktop icon, but it worked fine when launching it from its own folder. |
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| Magitta - there is music. It should have worked :S Av - Try again :) I have had a play and have worked out why it doesn't work from the shortcuts. The app tries to load the media from the currentdirectory. So if you run it from the directory it look there for the media. Anyone know of an easy way to find out the exe path? |
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| "You don't have some options that can say for example adjust the screen resolution and colordepth. And you can't adjust the keys on the keyboard." -- This was a decision I made because I wanted to make everything as simple as possible... much like a console game. My next (3d) game WILL have a resolution selector. "First of all, it look great! Simple but very effective and proffesional looking graphics. Takes me back to my ninty64 years ^^ Really I love it!" -- Thanks :) I loved my n64 and was heavily inspired by Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing. "Third, I might have missed this one so if I'm wrong please don't note this remark. There is only one camera 'mode'. I couldn't adjust the camera to view my character from a little higher, or from further behind or something. You should at least make two views possible. One more close and the other more away." -- Thats right. I did play with other camera angles but the camera got stuck in different places. I may try adding this in again though. Anyone that is having difficulty with the game. You can use space for a turbo. |
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| I've solved the problem/ I'm on a 56k connection so the new demo will be uploaded in about a week :) ... or maybe half an hour Edit - The new demo has been uploaded. The full version suffers the same problem so that will have to be re-uploaded. This will be done tomorrow. |
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| When I tried to run the exe, I got a message saying, 'the setup files are corrupted'. |
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| Right got it working, I'm getting serious graphical glitchs with the feet swapping around (front foot drawing infront of back foot), the cap peak showing through the back of his head and stuff. Animation is really nice. The 'feel' of the board is good. The music in my honest opionion is totally wrong for the game, and general midi music sounds dreadful, I know you wanted to keep the download down to a minimum but this really lets it down. That's just me though. There appeared to be a distinct lack of sound fx, there were a few here and there but nothing grabbed me. I guess me telling you all of this is pretty worthless though as you've been through all this stuff with Idigicon and this it's finalised. |
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| "I'm getting serious graphical glitchs with the feet swapping around (front foot drawing infront of back foot), the cap peak showing through the back of his head and stuff." -- not seen that before. There are sometimes small glitches at the joints but nothing as bad as what you are describing. "The music in my honest opionion is totally wrong for the game, and general midi music sounds dreadful, I know you wanted to keep the download down to a minimum but this really lets it down. That's just me though." -- I like the music myself. As said before Idigicon are changing the music to oggs for the boxed version. If you don't like it you can add oggs/ mp3s into the music folder and they should play instead (haven't tested this much) |
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| Joe - What file are you running? the installer or the game. If its the installer download it again and see if you get the same problem. I am downloading the demo now to see if it happens to me. |
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| downloading... |
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| It worked fine on my computer so hopefully it was a problem with your connection/ my website. |
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| It worked this time. It was the installer not the game, so I guess it just got messed up while downloading somehow. Nice job. I like the graphics and handling, and it all runs nice and smoothly for me. The turbos are very well balanced, which is a rarity - in a lot of games they just make you crash. I'm glad you included a 'fast start' for Mario Kart players too. In short, seems like a fun game. :) |
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| Binary I had the same problem with the shortcuts the installer created for Bubble Bomb. Make SURE that the installer is filling in the "Start In" field for the shortcut so that it matches your games directory. Otherwise the current directory when the game runs is anywhere except where you want it to be. |
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| OK, downloaded the demo and here are a few thoughts. - I really like the 'feel' of the game. The sounds, music and graphics all go together really well. Nicely done! Now the picky parts : - The menu should have a mouse interface available. Just throw up a little arrow and give me the option of clicking around the main menu. It's a lot more intuitive. - When the race starts for the first time, throw up a window that explains the keys to me and gives me some basics on how to play. I was totally lost at first. Yes, you included a readme file, but that's not really good enough IMO. I should be able to figure out how to play from inside the game. - The demo race is pretty hard. Maybe I'm not playing right, but I can never seem to catch anyone. I can turbo past them, but they zip right by me again. People don't like to get their asses handed to them in the demo. :) It doesn't give them the warm and fuzzies necessary to buy the full version. Just some comments. Use them as you like ... |
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| Also, are there jumps/stunts in the game? If so, you might consider putting a small, easy jump in the demo level. Would give people a taste of what's in the full version. |
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| I've got to agree with Dr AV, looks good, plays well but the music is like being trapped in the elevator from hell!! :-) Spoils the overall effect for me. |
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| "The menu should have a mouse interface available. Just throw up a little arrow and give me the option of clicking around the main menu. It's a lot more intuitive." -- I didn't do that because the game doesn't use the mouse at all. "When the race starts for the first time, throw up a window that explains the keys to me and gives me some basics on how to play. I was totally lost at first. Yes, you included a readme file, but that's not really good enough IMO. I should be able to figure out how to play from inside the game." -- The controls aren't hard to use/ work out. You're the first person to complain about them. "The demo race is pretty hard. Maybe I'm not playing right, but I can never seem to catch anyone. I can turbo past them, but they zip right by me again. People don't like to get their asses handed to them in the demo. :) It doesn't give them the warm and fuzzies necessary to buy the full version." -- A number of people have complained about the difficulty. When I was making the game people complained that it was too easy and I spent ages trying to make it hard enough. I can't judge the difficulty myself since I can win every time. I think I will make the players slower on the early difficulties and get back to normal speed for the harder ones. I am going to have a think about the difficulty but for now it is staying as is. "Also, are there jumps/stunts in the game?" -- Nope. straight forward racing Ken - Sorry. I still like the music and as said, you can add your own if you like. Of course you could do what i do when I don't like the music in a game (Burnout 2 anyone?) and turn the music down and put on a cd. |
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| BM, I had a problem when I first tried to d/l the demo - I had to try 20 times or so before I could d/l it completely. The game is good fun, the difficulty definately needs tweaking, or provide a much greater range of difficulty. The idea is that you should win the first race without even trying and the AI should be all over the place. At higher difficulty levels they stick to the racing line. The handling of the hover racer was good, but the bump sound effect was a bit too harh, maybe you should soften it a bit. The levels look nice and the graphics fit together very well :) [Another minor note to all: This is my first post on the B3D forums. Couldn't decide between DBP and B3D so I brought both :) ] |
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| "I had a problem when I first tried to d/l the demo" -- Not much I can do about that I'm afraid. |
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| Well made game! but.. I also tried 3 times without getting higher position than 4.. you should probably instruct the player on certain important tactics for beating the competition.. since you win every time.. there must be something you have learned that works better than other things? I tried to follow the same path they did, and I never bumped into anything.. but still the same they just hovered past me every time.. got to frustrating for me, so I exited the game.. and I agree on the music.. I caught myself thinking "what is this doing here?" |
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| I didn't do that because the game doesn't use the mouse at all. Dude, come on. :) You could easily turn on a mouse cursor for the menus and turn it off for the game. But, hey, it's your game. The controls aren't hard to use/ work out. You're the first person to complain about them. Problem is, I figured out how to move and how to boost and was left thinking, "I wonder if I can do anything else?" and started hitting keys randomly to see if there was anything else (banking, jumping, etc). I didn't know. A help window would eliminate this doubt. Nope. straight forward racing That's a shame. It seems like the players can already jump (they get a little air on some of the ledges and stuff), so it looks like more of a level design issue. Oh well. I personally don't have a problem with the music. Seems like perfect fit to me. *shrug* A quick gameplay suggestion : What about awarding a new turbo for each completed lap? That way you would have a little reward for getting around the track. Start the player off with one turbo and let them gain more as the race goes on rather than fully loading them up at the start. |
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| "Not much I can do about that I'm afraid." Get another host? You're site is the only one its ever happened on. |
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| Downloaded straight away :) No servers downloading problem btw. But, hey, the share-it link doesn't work ! A part of that, great game! After 5 lifes (1 match + 1 life in a new match) I did qualify for the second track. Nice work mate :) Wasn't this game in the Idigicon's forthcoming page? Are you still being published by them or not? I ask as I see the ShareIt link. |
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| I was using the boosts already Ben! |
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| Too hard? Whaaat? Have you made it a lot harder since the last verion, Ben? |
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| When I was making the game people complained that it was too easy and I spent ages trying to make it hard enough. I'm a-guessin' Mr A. Flack was one of the 'too easy' peeps. :o) |
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| > Of course you could do what i do when I don't like the music in a game (Burnout 2 anyone?) Whaaaat!??!??! Burnout 2's got great music. I suppose there's no accounting for taste eh? :-D |
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| Well done. Lovely game. Too hard though for a demo. If people cant beat the demo level it will give them the impression that they will never be able to be any good with the full version and will put them off. The presentation is lovely. Should have a wide appeal, and not just to hardcore gamers. Good luck with it. Scott. |
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| Nice game, that. Good presentation, graphics, animation, sound etc etc. I found it to be way too difficult for a demo, and no matter how fast I go I always end up 5th place at best. I also didn't like the title music. That 'bell' sound reminds me of the music to University Challenge. The only other thing I would say is that the track edges are not particularly well defined. On my first go I was thankful I was at the back so that I could follow everyone else. |
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| Not too difficult for me. After a match(4 lifes) I could qualify as 2nd place, and get to the 2nd track. You know, when you want to play something you play it. When you only want to bring free-critisicm, then you play half a race, and make the conclusions. Again, nicely done mate! |
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| I didn't think it was too hard either. imo there's nothing worse than a demo which can be completed straight away. You need to know that the full game will provide a reasonable challenge. |
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| > I'm a-guessin' Mr A. Flack was one of the > 'too easy' peeps. :o) That's because Mr Flack is a talented hardcore gamer who makes perfectly completable games (Platypus) It's all you game skill weaklings that's the problem. ;) |
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| I'm a-guessin' Mr A. Flack was one of the 'too easy' peeps. :o) I admit it. The first few versions I tested, I played through every one of the tracks on the first game. I lost maybe 1 life throughout the whole thing. I've never done that on a racing game before. So yeah, I said, "Too easy!" If it's harder now, then good, great! Still, you definitely want the demo to be easy, that's for sure. Anyone who can't finish the demo doesn't need the full version... Anyway, my congratulations Ben, for completing a great game. |
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| Anthony - nope its the same as when I sent you the last version. Everyone else. I may change/ update a few things but I think I will be keeping it as is for now. Zurk - I am still selling through Idigicon. I asked for permission to sell the game on my website (seperate from them)... and they gave it. |
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| Anthony - nope its the same as when I sent you the last version. Okay. That was definitely harder and better. But still not what I would call "too hard"! Some people, huh? |
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| For anyone who isn't too lightweight the full version is on sale again. Grab it now and make me rich :) http://www.shareit.com/product.html?productid=185617&languageid=1¤cies=GBP,USD,EUR,AUD |
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| I need to download this and try it out, I remember when this was a DB game :) |
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| Share-it, 10 $, then Click, ooops 17 $ whoops ? |
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| Oh, and you will be able to furnish patches for your game also ? [double post, sorry!] |
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| Let me just say this about the difficulty : you can NOT use yourself or your friends as the gauge for this. You are expert gamers. You are experts at playing games and are therefore useless as a meter for how difficult your game is. You have to think about the guy who doesn't play games very often who might be downloading your game. Playing on "Easy" should disgust you with how easy you can win. "Hard" can challenge you and your friends, but "Easy" should be utterly ridiculous in your eyes. If you make it so, they MIGHT be able to win. Occasionally. Play UT2003 with "Novice" bots to see what I'm talking about. They run really slow, they hardly shoot back (and when they do, they're wildly inaccurate) ... it hardly seems like they're even playing. |
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| "Oh, and you will be able to furnish patches for your game also ?" -- yeah. Selling through shareit you get a list of all the people who have bought the game. They provide a mailing list service so you can advertise new games or send out patches. yeah - £10 approx $16.50. I think I will make that clearer. I'm a brit so use always use pounds and pence. Epicboy - I understand that. The request to make the game harder came from Idigicon who are publishing the game - as well as my own testers. Dynamo - it's changed quite a bit :) |
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| Seems illogical for the publisher to be pushing to make the game more inaccessible, but if that's what they want ... |
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| Ok, I just completed the demo after a few attempts. I thought the graphics and sound were well done, and the music was just fine. Overall the game had a great nintendo feel to it -very appealling. The control is very inuitive, in fact I loved the way you turn round corners and let the inertia carry you round. I also liked the fact that I didnt have to concentrate on braking all the time (well 'at all' actually), it made it easier to get into, but this also left me wondering about a possible lack of depth in the full game. I wouldnt say the game is too hard, but I didnt enjoy the way the CPU players seemed to go faster then you. Am I right in saying that if a cpu is abit behind you they get a little extra speed to catch up? coz they seemed to overtake me easily even tho i was going full pelt on a straigt(they werent going booster speed), or perhaps iniertia doesnt effect them as much on corners? I would think many players would consider this unfair. I personally find more enjoyment in winning a race because Ive taken corners more efficiently. There obviously was an element of this but as soon as I hugged a corner perfectly the cpu players overtook me straight away and stayed just ahead until the next corner -I felt totally dependant on boosters. Althought this was alot more evident on race2 where I could only manage 2nd. In diddy kong racing you could easily lap the cpu, which gave you a nice feeling of dominance :D I cant see that happening here(although admittedly theres only 2 laps on the second race which doesnt give u much chance anyway). Also one last thing, I didnt see any race or lap times? One reason I kept playing diddy was so I could try and better myself. I find it very odd that for a racing game it lacks this. Still, well done for managing to finish a cool game, something i can only aspire to atm! nice 1. |
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| How do you guys beat the levels, tell me the secret,;) |
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| I love it. I was only able to get to the second track. It's waaaaaay too hard for kids. I'd love to see weapons added. |
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| The general opinion seems to be it is too hard. I think I am going to play with the difficulty some time over the next couple of weeks and release an updated version. The final grandprix will be the same difficulty as it is at the moment (harder than this :) but the earlier grandprixs will all be easier than they are currently. Josh - I added powerups (rockets, shields and stuff) but they made the game really unbalanced. It was a lot harder than it is now... so I binned them. |
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| @BM Surely there must be a way of integrating weapons such that it is still fair. After all, many other games have succeeded in doing this. I just think that it may be hard to justify the purchase for a straightforward racing game. |
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| Cool. I'll try it again if you update it. |
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| I added powerups (rockets, shields and stuff) but they made the game really unbalanced. It was a lot harder than it is now... so I binned them. How about just giving them to the player to use against the AI? |
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| I tried it out. 1. I don't like the menus. Too plain, and menu text is too small. Would look better with a blue background than a white background. It looks like an application, not a game. It needs something animating in the background too. Stuff flying by, or spining lines... anyhting. 2. It's too hard. This is not because the other players are too fast, but because you don't seem to have the kind of "drafting" effect that games like Mario Kart have where you go faster when you are farther behind so you can catch up. In your game if you make one mistake at the start of a race, then you have no chance of winning. This is also because the tracks themselves are poorly marked. The first time I played I got last place because I went off the track into the water right at the start because I couldn't see a turn coming up. And this is because the jet boards are much too sensitive to turning inputs from the keyboard. If I press the arrow just breifly, the board turns a lot. You need to implemnet accleration in the turning input, so that when you first start turning it turns at say, 90 degrees per second, and over the course of half a second this accelerates to 180 degrees per second. This allows for fine adjustments, while not bogging the player down when they want to turn sharply. 3. It would be more fun if instead of starting out with three nitros, you either had to pick up the nitros, or if you started out with no nitros, but got one additional nitro each lap. I suggest the first approach though. 4. The character select screen does not show you which players are not available in the shareware version until you attempt to select them. 5. The level selection screen does show this, but only with a big red X. It would be better to tell the player "not available in shareware version" or "register to get this level". Because I'm not even positive that those X's aren't there because I haven't completed the test track in first place. But I'm guessing that's not the case. 6. You really need more than a total of 5 levels. You really should have more like 10 levels and give the player 2 in the shareware. Of course, it would be far better to have 15 levels, 5 each per "circuit" and give the player one complete circuit in the shareware. You could also offer an additional bonus circuit with 5 more tracks for an additional $5. People will pay for that. 7. When I finish a race and press fire I hear new music, and menu sounds, and can start a race, but I don't see a menu. 8. You need a title screen. An in game screenshot edited in photoshop would work fine. You just need to set a camera up from a low angle, pointing up, pointing towards a dfirection which the players will come from and then take a screenshot witha bunch of them and one guy really close. That would look cool enough. And as a bonus, you could overlay the main menu over that with a transparent black square and that would look pretty cool. 9. You've got an awful lot of logos at the start of the game, and some of them go by pretty fast. It would be better if you could keep the number of logs down to three tops, two would be better. 10. Providing a little more feedback to the player when turning, by showing little side jets firing would be good. 11. As epicboy suggested, having jumps would be cool. You don't need to have the players do tricks of course. The jumps could provide a short cut or something. Like in Mario Kart 64, on Koopa Troopa Beach, jumps allow you to grab items in the air (like those nitros I mentioned) or to jump over boulders. Don't make the mistake of deciding the game is "good enough". If you're not selling 20 copies a week, the game isn't "good enough". And you CAN sell 20 copies a week. But you need to add more stuff to the game. |
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| Don't make the mistake of deciding the game is "good enough". If you're not selling 20 copies a week, the game isn't "good enough". And you CAN sell 20 copies a week. But you need to add more stuff to the game. This is the gospel truth. I made that mistake with my first release of Bubble Bomb. After that first release I went back and refined the graphics, added extra gameplay elements (like the "bubble bonus") and a few other things. The game was WAY better in the second release because all I did was sit and think about how to improve and tweak it after it was finished. That extra polish times goes a LONG way. Bubble Bomb will never sell 20 copies a week, but it's selling a lot better than it was during the first release. |
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| I liked this game. I liked the music. |
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| "Bubble Bomb will never sell 20 copies a week," Don't make the mistake of deciding the game is "good enough". If you're not selling 20 copies a week, the game isn't "good enough". And you CAN sell 20 copies a week. But you need to add more stuff to the game. |
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| I like your attitude Shawn. Still considering adding single player modes to your tank game? |
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| "I like your attitude Shawn. Still considering adding single player modes to your tank game?" No. I am not considering it. I have considered it at length, and come to a decision. :-) I will have a single player mode, with AI. I dunno how smart they will be but I've gotta have something. If only for me to be able to test against since I can't find enough players to test with. :-) But that's enough discussion about my tank game, this is the hoverboards thread. :-) |
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| sswift Don't make the mistake of deciding the game is "good enough". If you're not selling 20 copies a week, the game isn't "good enough". And you CAN sell 20 copies a week. But you need to add more stuff to the game. It is what it is. Bubble Bomb was as much a learning experience for me as it was anything else. The fact that it sells at all, pleases me. I expect that it will sell a lot more copies, but I think it will do better when I have a few more games done and I can bundle it or offer it at a discount when you buy another game or whatever. You have to have a positive outlook, but you also have to be realistic. :) Bubble Bomb, while fun, isn't the next Bejewelled. |
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| As a matter of fact, once I get this '2D in 3D' code sorted I might do a new version of Bubble Bomb with alpha and other effects. We'll see. Anyway, yeah, back to Rocket Boards. Heh. |
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| "You have to have a positive outlook, but you also have to be realistic. :)" Yeah. My poker solitaire game sold so badly, like one copy per year that I'm pretty sure there's no helping it. It's not like it was that bad of a game when I did release it. It's just not popular. I haven't played bubble bomb though so I don't know if/how you could improve it. I was just being a smartass. :-) |
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| I haven't played bubble bomb though so I don't know if/how you could improve it. Well download the demo and get crackin' son! ;) |
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| "When I finish a race and press fire I hear new music, and menu sounds, and can start a race, but I don't see a menu" Thats strange. What happens exactly. The race finishes and the screen goes blank? If you loose you should get a screen that tells you you've lost a life and should restart the race. If you win then you get to move onto the next race via a track loading screen. "Providing a little more feedback to the player when turning, by showing little side jets firing would be good" -- thats what the trails are there for. They show the actual direction you are moving in. "You really need more than a total of 5 levels." -- Where did you read that? There are 4 grandprixs each with 16 tracks in the full game. The demo features the first two tracks from the first grandprix. I will have to make this clearer. Although I would have thought the four screenshots of vastly different tracks on each of the four grandprixs would have given you a small hint. "go faster when you are farther behind so you can catch up" That is there. The further behind you get the slower your opponents go. "As epicboy suggested, having jumps would be cool. You don't need to have the players do tricks of course. The jumps could provide a short cut or something. Like in Mario Kart 64, on Koopa Troopa Beach, jumps allow you to grab items in the air (like those nitros I mentioned) or to jump over boulders." Buy the full game. There are a couple of tracks that involve jumping off of cliffs/ down the side of steep hills. |
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| Buy the full game. The demo is supposed to make me want to do that very thing. A jump in the demo level would be a great addition, IMO. |
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| "Thats strange. What happens exactly. The race finishes and the screen goes blank?" No, I just hear new music and menu sounds. Everyhting else remains the same. I still see the course, and rider. I'm not sure but I might see a thin line appear at the top of the screen too. Unless that's always there. "thats what the trails are there for. They show the actual direction you are moving in." That's not good enough. Obviously the trail shows you where you've been, but it does not instantaneously provide feedback that you have pressed the turn button. You should get a visual, and a change in sound. Play F-Zero for the N64 or SNES. You'll see the rudder move, and the noise the ship makes change. Speaking of the noise the ship makes, do your hoverboards even make noise? I don't recall hearing any now that I think about it. "-- Where did you read that? There are 4 grandprixs each with 16 tracks in the full game." Well obviously I didn't read it in your game! :-) I saw the first screen showed five levels, and I couldn't finish the first race, and I didn't get to see that "you didn't do well enough to advance to the next level" screen. As a shareware game you need to have screens and stuff which say "get all this when you register!" And you should show that there are more circuits on the level selection screen. Of course maybe you DO have a screen when you quit the game that shows this stuff but I never got to that point. "Although I would have thought the four screenshots of vastly different tracks on each of the four grandprixs would have given you a small hint." Were there four screenshots on that first screen? I thought there were five. Anyhow, I thought those were LEVELS, not whole circuits. I don't remember seeing anyhting which indicated to me those screenshots represented groups of levels. In Mario Kart, you have a circuit selection screen, and then you have a screen where you select the actual track to race on. Though there is a game mode you can play where you go through a whole circuit so you don't get the individual level secreen. "That is there. The further behind you get the slower your opponents go." Well it wasn't enough to let me catch up. :-) "Buy the full game. There are a couple of tracks that involve jumping off of cliffs/ down the side of steep hills." I (the consumer) will not buy the full game unless the demo shows me that the full game will be fun. Of course you are supposed to hold some stuff back, but not major gameplay elements. Your shareware version makes me think that the game lacks any weapons, has no jumps, and no way to gain additional nitros. The only thing to do is drive around the track with some racing physics which while fun, are somewhat lacking. Play F-Zero and see how they make the game fun even though there are no weapons. You take damage when you hit the sides of the track, and can go over glowing track segments to gain back life. Each lap you get another nitro. The ships accelerate over time to get moving very fast, and can go over jumps and explode when you fly off the track. You can turn, but you can also strafe side to side which gives you more control and makes turning more fun. There are also differences in how fast you go over certain sections of track which makes it a challenge to stay on the fastest terrain. I am not trying to detract from your game, I'm trying to help you by offering suggestions on things which would improve it and make it sell more. Obviously each game is different, and you should not make a game exactly like wipeout, or exaclty like fzero, but you have to have more to the game besides simply driving around the track. This is clearly not a simulation of real racing. |
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| @BM I'm not going to buy the game for £10 as it is at the moment, I usually like racing games and I was looking forward to RB ever since Hoverboards, but I think Rocket Boards just needs a little something extra to make it worthwhile. There is a lot of potential there, you just need to exploit it. The graphics are good atm, and nothing needs doing to the basic formula. Here are a few suggestions: - Weapons or powerups of some kind or other - More dynamic levels - Sort the difficulty out. There should be a very smooth learning curve in the shareware. The first track should be very easy to win, the second should be medium, and the third challenging but not overly difficult. Extreme difficuly even on "Rookie" level is sure to deter punters. - Assume the customer knows nothing about the product before he first looks at it. Had I not read your worklog, I would have been confused about the Grand Prix / Levels. Give the shareware version a good variety of levels too, you may have noticed, but games rarely give you say, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd levels of a game in the demo, they give you the 1st,4th and 7th for example. |
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| Binary... Overall, I really enjoyed the game, but I too can't get out of the game screen, and was plagued by all of the other players being faster than me, and unable to catch up. Once I'm in the game, I can't get any other GUI to come up.. I can hear the music change and the sound FX of the menu system, and even somehow managed to start a new game without being able to see the menu screen. It needs some more polish before posting as a full release. But don't let that discourage you.. It looks and feels good. It just needs some debugging... |
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| > In your game if you make one mistake at the start > of a race, then you have no chance of winning. It was like that in Wipeout. In fact it feels a lot like that. |
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| "It was like that in Wipeout. In fact it feels a lot like that. " I hated Wiepout. It was all flash and popular techno music. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only reason people actually played it. Because it had "Firestarter". If it had graphics which weren't designed by a well known techno art desgin house and regular music, it would have gotten poor reviews because the gameplay was terrible. Besides which, Wipeout at least had weapons. And you could catch up to your enemies. One thing this game has going for it over Wipeout though is that the tracks are really wide. In Wipeout you would lose tons of speed hitting the sides of the track which was so annoying. FZero is so much better than Wipeout. |
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| The demo, while well written and IMHO well presented, did not make me wnat to buy the game. It does remind me of some N64 games. But it just seemed a little bit boring. I think if you take on some of the suggestions the others have mentioned in this thread it could become a enjoyable, fun and entertaining game. Having to collect the nitro's or getting awarded them for completing a lap just seems more interesting. Also having jumps and shortcuts. And a timetrial feature is always a bonus, trying to set the faster laps by taking risky shortcuts to impress your mates with your lap times is always fun. I have to say that if idigicon are willing to publish it as is I am suprised, I am not saying its a bad game, just that it needs a few more features to be a great game. Jon |
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| I played it a few more times, and I really love the game. I would gladly pay more than $10 if it had some weapons and you could adjust the difficulty. Ben, I think you have a great thing going here, and it could be a real masterpiece if you kept working on it. |
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| I played the demo and I took an instant liking to it, which is very rare nowadays. I really love the Nintendo-y look and feel to the game. However, that initial liking soon turned to feelings of frustration when I played the game. Why? It's too difficult and the controls need tightening up. I don't have a problem with difficult games, but your A.I is just plain annoying. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing the other racers zoom past me without using their boosts when I'm going full speed along a straight part of the track. I also think that there is too much inertia on the hoverboard. Sure, the inertia makes things initially interesting, but sliding helplessly into the water or a barrier just adds to the already growing frustration factor. I'm sure that with lots of practice I would get used to the intertia, but I doubt that the average gamer would keep playing this game long enough to reach that point. Sorry to be so negative, but the only reason I've even taken the time to think about the problems with your game and post this is because of the fact that there is something about it that I really like. The problems that I've mentioned are significant, but definately fixable. If you release an updated demo with these issues addressed then I'll definately take another look at it - and maybe even purchase the full game. |
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| i agree with lemort, its very good, but the AI kicks my ass too much -_- |
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| right here is my review. Binary, i am sure your a great guy and support your work, but somethings i want to say (but dont take offence). The game itself is well presented, your website is stylish and professional in a "modern" way. The demo was a small download but wortwhile. I booted the game, and went to options and noticed limited amount of control over options. A resolution selector might not be suitable as you mention, but at least make the config in an ini file so it can edited if really needed. The graphics are clean and well presented but blande. Their isnt anything intresting to look at and i quickly got bored (no pun intended!) of driving round the standard track with no intresting effects to view. While you probably went for the "compatible" with all option, i believe even the N64 had more effects in DKR than your demo has. The demo track did nothing to intrest me, and i was looking forward to your game. The lack of physics (ramps, etc) also makes things less intresting, again all gameplay aspects... The music, shouldn't be midi, were not in the DOS days. Who cares if the demo is 6mb download, with a decent track playing while racing would make it all alot better. Midi Music dosent kick it no more. Its like listening to a polyphonic ringtone. Keep at it, i cant say anything because i haven't completed a full game. But just my two cents... |
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| Josh - Thanks. I think I will make a version with weapons/ powerups but it won't be until I have finished another game. I need a break from cartoon racers. Anyone having trouble with the difficulty - I have been working on a new version this week that is quite a bit easier. I got Epicboy to test it and he reckons it is fine. I have also fixed the menu camea bug that Shawn mentioned. A new demo will be available tomorrow (possibly tonight). "I also think that there is too much inertia on the hoverboard." -- I think this is a matter of opinion. Other people have told me they like the controls. "Who cares if the demo is 6mb download" -- I do. I have a 56k connection. It takes me about half an hour to upload the 2meg demo, and then I download it again to make sure it has worked ok. "I booted the game, and went to options and noticed limited amount of control over options" -- What other options are there? |
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| bummer. it won't load. locks me up. |
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| You've fixed the difficulty already? Boy, you're quick! I can't wait to download and play the revised demo! |
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| I love this game! Totally rocks and very Nintendo like. Graphics are cute and classy, gameplay is cool, I must admit I thought the music was again very Nintendo like and fitted perfectly. What a corker! Well done and congrats. I can get to 4th place atm - still trying to better it :) |
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| OK got to second place :) I like it! I hope the easier version you are working on isn't *too* easy as I've just got to a reasonable standard with this. 1 gripe I had - the second track I raced on I only had 1 boost - that's nowhere near enough for ol Ravey! I finished 8th on the second track boo hooo |
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| I beat the demo. I think the trick is just minimize your turns...try to not hold down on the left and right arrow keys. I think I'll buy this one. I like it a lot. |
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| I agree - it's class, I'm gonna buy it too. |
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