Hasty Penguin
get in the box
People are a danger to society.
 there is a guy who gets it on with three girls at once and they all have amazing unibrows
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Reg. Date: May 2002
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Reply 23 of 101 (Originally posted on: 08-17-13 11:30:59 AM)
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I might edit this post a bit later, but first impressions of the update:
I got through the 14 levels available in the update pretty quickly, and I like the increased movement speed a lot. I think the micro-level idea is good (and Super Meat Boy definitely had a fun, fast pace to it that could be mimicked to some extent here), but I liked the longer puzzle levels of the original, so I'm glad to read that the "boss" levels would be there, too. These levels are a nice introduction of concepts, and I'm interested to see how yellow switches will play out in the newer version. I like the altered gravity stuff a lot, and with improved controls, it should be even more fun.
The boxes going through portals is fun, and I like the way red switches work for puzzles. The shifting/timed portals moving around is a bit difficult right now (that may just be me having trouble figuring out how to anticipate the timing on those), but I think is a good concept.
The increased movement speed also makes the timed switches nicer, too. Some of those shifting portal levels are a bit frustrating to time out, and having more precision (air control) would make certain levels far more forgiving (1.09 in particular). The air control/jumping thing is, and I have no first hand experience, but from what I understand having read some game development journal kind of things, an enormous part of platforming design frustration for a lot of programmers. It is important, though, because I knew what I had to do to complete that level (1.09) for a while before I was able to grind it out of the air controls at current. Figuring out what needs to happen and then being able to execute that idea with relative ease of control (as in 1.14) is satisfying to me as a player, because I feel like the game is allowing me to make use of its features, rather than artificially challenging me through controls. I guess part of this is figuring out platform design to understand whether I, as the player, am supposed to be primarily challenged by the mental/puzzle aspect or the physical/visual aspect, or the balance of those elements. For me, it feels like it's primarily a puzzle game, but if you're looking to balance it out and add additional hazards to play more like a platformer with puzzle aspects later, then that adds yet another dimension of programming difficulty and consideration.
Conceptually, I think everything is really sound, though. I'll be interested to see some of the more advanced puzzles as you develop for sure.
The controls are still my biggest issue, but they're much improved, to my mind, from what they were before. I think that's one thing that Super Meat Boy really had going for it is that the controls felt very consistent and clear (with some exceptions in the gravity orb/fan kind of levels). Moving in that direction with a more puzzle based design concept is really appealing to me, so, cool.
how is this for a quote
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