Feedback requested: Next Iteration of the games

Comment

Comment by Scott A. Williams on July 29, 2010 at 10:09pm

I didn't play the quiz game too much, but I did give the other two a quick run through.

On the Malaria game, the mosquito do move too fast, making the game too difficult at the start. A point system would bring a little more incentive to continue playing. You could slow down tha mosquitos and make the villagers move around more. Make it so villages can be infected when touched. Adding a balance of mosquitos and villagers as the game progresses. Allow players to use points to buy or unlock medicine to cure those infected and give them a temporary immunity.

On the typing game, I liked seeing how its elvolved over time. The new animations and obsticals are nice and the backgrounds look very nice. However getting further into the game I noticed that I believe the scorpion is almost impossible to see against the background, and when starting the second word you were delayed until animations were completed.
I was wondering why the first few stages didn't involve the player attacking during typing, and I can see from this little bug that there may be a good reason not to have it.
In regards to the typing issue, I don't think that will be too much of a problem since this is for learning how to type. Beginning typers tend to be far slower then those who have many years under their belt, so this issue is easily forgivable by the target audience.
Personally I think your typing game is currently your best game and can benefit from a few improvements. One thing to add would be a points system based on the letters typed. A point given for each correct letter, but none given if the first answer is wrong. Or reversing this into an health point system and for each letter typed wrong you lose a point, minimum 1 point per letter not miss.

On the quiz game, I have to agree that the collectables are hard to discern which ones are good and bad, with the exception to the obivious skull and coin.

Instructions and more navigatable menus are nice, but something that can be saved for the end.

Comment by Dr. Mike Reddy on July 23, 2010 at 3:56am

I guess my first comment would be where are the instructions for play. Choosing one of the three games is fair enough; use arrow keys to select and Return to commit. Only trial and error - working on the basis that I was just jumping in - got me to the L button for swishing the fly swatter. There seemed to be some buggy collisions as I saw fairly frequently mossies being squashed when I hadn't swished, and unusual locations for squashes that made it unclear where to aim the swatter. There is no feedback, other than the too short squashed bug phase, to show I was making any progress. Of course, that might be the point... but in that case a timer or some way to signal the futility would maybe be good.
Is there no way to be able to quit back to the menu?
Quiz game
Again, no instructions. Had to find out that K meant select and Start was the Return key. Generally liked this, especially the ability to make progress by catching the good stuff; trial and error being needed to find out what not to catch. The bag mechanic was fairly brutal and I would allow a larger collision box to make it a bit easier to catch things without needing to really get in line. Also, there was a bug with one question appearing over and over again asking for the instrument for measuring temperature, but answering thermometer being marked as wrong half the time...
Finally, got a blank question screen after collecting a bag in space which returned me to a blank space scene. Random generation of drops needs work as in space the bags fly down the left side giving you enough up to just sit there...
On the positives, it looked really good. There was definite signalling of the good and bad - floating and sinking - and the change of scenery behind the character is excellent. A lot more questions, a few bug fixes, and a bit of polish and this is a really great game.
I've commented on the typing game before, but it still doesn't respond fast enough to quick typing; I had to physically slow my typing right down to be able to play. This element definitely needs optimising.

What an excellent ROM, BTW, showing real polish and some great ideas.

Comment by James Derek Lomas on July 22, 2010 at 11:13pm

I'm realizing that the discussion forum is a better place for posting feedback, versus the blog, because it is hard to respond to other people's comments.

I'll move it there, and link back to these original comments

Comment by Aybe on July 22, 2010 at 5:47pm

Malaria :
- Why aren't the kids directly involved in eradicating mosquitos ?
- Mosquitos may be flying a little too fast.

Hanuman Quiz Game :

When you're past the Earth, about 4500 points, it infinitely asks the same question about what device measures temperature, and the answer is always or mostly wrong.

Hanuman Typing Game:
- Why can't we type next letter until each animation has ended ?

Comment by James Derek Lomas on July 22, 2010 at 11:04am

Hanuman Quiz Game:
Skull should make you fall a lot more, maybe back 2 full screens
Change the Colors: blue potion, yellow/red fireball, yellow mango
Get rid of timer
Spikes should come from the side (for variety)

Quiz Questions
Quiz question icon should look more appealing.
The quiz questions should come with more frequency.
Quiz questions should have more positive feedback, zooming you up a full screen…

Invincibility:
Makes hanuman impervious to bad objects
Obtained when answering a quiz question correctly or getting a blue potion.
Lasts 5 seconds
Represented by new palette-- hanuman turns white or gold.

Flying Power Bar:
Start with 0 velocity. Top half of bar is green, bottom half is red. represents a numberline from negative -10 to 10. Good objects give positive velocity, bad objects give negative velocity. Bar runs out slowly, slowing you down, eventually giving negative velocity.

Good Objects:
ChocoCoin: +7
Mango: +5
Cherry: +3

Bad Objects:
Skull: Instantly changes velocity to -10
Fire: -7
Spike -3

---> this may result in less dramatic movement, actually…
---> Levels may need to be longer in this case.
--->This will take some time to balance…. we should give it some thought.

Currently, the other objects stop moving when hanuman is moving (screen scrolling).

Game should start with a pic of baby hanuman
Ask kids about the Hanuman character -- do they like him?

Hanuman Typing Game:
The first level should start by focusing on telling the story. Without barriers, this would be a different, but similar dynamic. So, as you type, hanuman walks, and the screen scrolls. Then, during the story, barriers can appear…
Tanvi wants to write the story.

As it is, the levels are way too repetitive--The enemies should be interspersed, for more variety
Don't slow their typing, with the snake timing… totally annoying and against the point--
Add "Level 2", "Level 3", etc
Add timer for each level
Maybe add points of some kind, just to show progression

Cut sequence for the beginning of the game:
Evil Ravan
Laxman dying
Hanuman
Far off mountain
Then pic of keyboard.


Malaria Game:
Maybe just add a simple counter, for now…
Later, maybe we can add some controls for removing the trash or draining the water.

Comment by paolo on July 22, 2010 at 10:50am

Hi, some comments:

HANUMAN QUIZ GAME:
The game is fun. I love the graphics and the music!

. It's not clear which ones are the good and the bad items

. The caracter could be faster (maybe with acceleration in order to not lose accuracy) and the falling objects more sparse. It might convey a sense of failure and frustration cause you are always missing so many goodies.

. The quiz items should give a bigger bonus than the normal ones, it seems there's no incentive to get them considering the abundance of other bonuses.

. If it's meant to be educational you probably don't want the objects to fall with different speeds like in the space level ( also I would assume the force gravity is weaker up there)

. I would really appreciate to have something like a progress bar showing the distance to the goal, otherwise the time counter is not particularly meaningful.

. Since you are already using a lot of text, I'd suggest an introduction that at least explains the goal and the falling objects, unless it's so embedded in Indian folklore that it's totally superfluous.

Minor bugs:
In the space level, I had a couple of items (one seemed uncatchable) appearing on the left, side by side, eternally falling on loop.

Also the quiz item kept appearing at the same x position, asking me the same question: "the instrument to measure temperature?" and punishing me if I answered "Thermometer" O_o

Major bug?:
It might have been an emulator issue but in the space level a quiz window appeared without text and after a keystroke I landed on a static screen with the Earth from space and nothing else happened. Is it the end state?



Unfortunately I can't find the keyboard extension for nestopia for mac so I didn't play the typing game.

I think I already expressed my perplexity about the malaria game. Aside of the flyswatter thing, I think is important to give an indication of progress and the possibility of win, otherwise it would simply imply that there is no solution to malaria or that you are framing the flyswatter as ineffective without providing an alternative solution.
Also I think it should be more evident that mosquitoes are coming from the stagnant water.
Maybe, since you are not using the lower side of the screen, you can have a simple animation of people draining the standing water. The player's goal would be to contain the infection by killing mosquitoes for the time it takes to remove their hotbed.

Anyway overall, it's looking great. Keep on the good work!

Comment by Paulo Silva on July 22, 2010 at 1:54am

it's hard to find the Linux version of Nestopia - http://nestopia.sourceforge.net/ targets to http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/?page_id=200