quadrant - out now on Steam/Humble/itch.io!

[Zilarrezko]

Music is nice,





I think once I played an untuned guitar once. It wasn't very nice.

[undef]

Hey there,
It's been a long time since the last update, Hofstadter's law certainly applies to game develompent... Well, you guys know how it is

After a week of severe sleep deprivation I finally managed to release a demo on indieDB!

There is a bug in the menu when changing from fullscreen to windowed or back, but it's not game breaking and I will fix it next week.
Well that's what you get from frantic coding...
Which brings us to the source code.
In the current version it is still obfuscated, but I plan to release the source code once I cleaned it up - currently it still looks too much like a hotel room in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

But let me tell you more about the actual demo.
I strongly recommend you visit the training section before diving into the game, because that's the best way to learn the controls and you're still not tied down to a never ending tutorial.

Gamepad controls are supported, and there are several control schemes which are not yet reconfigurable.
You can even play one handedly if you fancy eating christmas sweets while playing, but I recommend a gamepad or W, O, D, K.

This demo logs a lot of things.
After having played at least once, the "EXPORT STATS" selction becomes available in the main menu, which exports a summary of how you and the game performed to your save directory.
On Windows it even opens the folder in your file explorer.
Of course these statistics and graphs only become interesting once you've played for a sufficient amount of time.
If you like, you can share this summary with me (or even everyone else in this forum), to help me improve the game using this data.

That being said, I'm also keen to hear any other feedback on the game and I take criticism well so just go for it!
This game is very important to me and I want to make it the best possible experience.

I'd like to thank the LÖVE community for their support, especially Xelu for those nice button propts, and of course the LÖVE development team... I'm really glad I can use Lua to make this game


Well, I think I've said everything I haven't forgotten.
I hope you enjoy the demo!

Edit:
For those who don't know where to find the save directory:

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\LOVE\quadrant\export or %appdata%\LOVE\quadrant\export
Windows Vista and 7: C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\LOVE\quadrant\export or %appdata%\LOVE\quadrant\export
Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/love/quadrant/export or ~/.local/share/love/quadrant/export
Mac: /Users/user/Library/Application Support/LOVE/ quadrant/export

[Doctory]

ive just tried the demo, and i shitted my pants over how hard it is

[undef]

Haha, I dind't want you to have completed the stage after 3 tries as well ;P
That would be boring

[Reenen]

I found it a bit unintuitive. Especially when you start to hide the middle box. Then as a user I am unsure if I should press the button for the middle (invisible) box or the small (visible) one.

I feel the concept is pretty decent (for me it reminds me actually of guitar hero and friends)...

My feeling is that it's OK until you start getting it wrong, then there is almost no chance of getting back. Which is really not a good thing, you want your players to be able to "get back on the horse" as it were. So it's a lot more like walking a tightrope than it is playing hopscotch.

[undef]

I found it a bit unintuitive. Especially when you start to hide the middle box. Then as a user I am unsure if I should press the button for the middle (invisible) box or the small (visible) one.

I feel the concept is pretty decent (for me it reminds me actually of guitar hero and friends)...

My feeling is that it's OK until you start getting it wrong, then there is almost no chance of getting back. Which is really not a good thing, you want your players to be able to "get back on the horse" as it were. So it's a lot more like walking a tightrope than it is playing hopscotch.

Hey,
thanks for your feedback!
I want the game to be quite challenging, but I don't want people to be frustrated to an extend they don't want to play anymore as well...
Maybe I should add different difficulty settings?

[Reenen]

My main suggestion is to never hide the box of the key I need to press, as it creates ambiguity.

Difficulty is not a problem (well it could be). It's fine if it's hard to execute, but you want to ensure the player totally understand what he needs to be doing constantly (even if it's hard). I didn't play enough to see many animations, and I understand part of the point is that the animations distract you.

If you keep it as hard as it is, it may be nice if I could change the song. You probably already have song 1 the easiest, and then song 2 is tougher, but it's nice to give the player early encouragement so he can finish 1 song at least. This gives the player the feeling he has accomplished something, and that he understands what the game is about.

[undef]

My main suggestion is to never hide the box of the key I need to press, as it creates ambiguity.

Difficulty is not a problem (well it could be). It's fine if it's hard to execute, but you want to ensure the player totally understand what he needs to be doing constantly (even if it's hard). I didn't play enough to see many animations, and I understand part of the point is that the animations distract you.

If you keep it as hard as it is, it may be nice if I could change the song. You probably already have song 1 the easiest, and then song 2 is tougher, but it's nice to give the player early encouragement so he can finish 1 song at least. This gives the player the feeling he has accomplished something, and that he understands what the game is about.

You're right, song 1 is the easiest.
Actually I started development on the song which is seen in the trailer, but then I realized it's way too hard for newcomers.
It's often very difficult to estimate the difficulty of a game when you've been working on it for that long...
And strangely this stage hast been quite easy until recently, when I implemented the precision rating. I guess people feel more hassled to get a higher precision and then overregulate - which I find pretty cool actually^^.

Anyway, maybe a slower song might really be appropiate.
Thanks a lot!

[micha]

That demo is pretty much fun. You total got me into the flow-zone, up to a point where my fingers started playing the game (quiet successfully) while the cognitive part of my brain was totally behind. Feels weird in the head, but is fun.

I think you could improve the win/loss condition and the rating system more. If I got it correctly then you currently have three statistics to measure "success": 1) Longest Combo 2) Average Precision 3) "Win a Level by haven less than 3 mistakes". They sort of point into the same direction, but they are still different. Therefore, as a player, I am confused on what is expected of me. Which of the three objectives should I follow to be a "good" player?
Here are my ideas on this problem, but maybe you come up with even better solution. First you should decide if this game is meant as a contest as in guitar hero. Then each play-through should give a (one-dimensional) score such that people can compare their performance. Maybe you can come up with some sort of combo-system like in Tony-Hawks games (e.g. one multiplier for the length of the combo and one which adds up the points for each "hit" and takes precision into account). But the game does not have to be a contest game. It could also be like a dexterity-puzzle game. Then you would for example have a list of goals for each level, such as "Finish the song with 5 or fewer mistakes" "Make a 50+ combo" and once a player reaches all goals of a level, the next level is unlocked.

And some minor things I noticed:
- In the first level one of the effects is a slight zoom in and out. I believe it would look better, if the score on the sides stays fixed and does not zoom in and out, too.
- I personally like the effect, where the middle box disappears. For me the situation is still unambiguous.
- I, too, found it difficult to get back into the rhythm once I screwed up. Maybe you can the player "invincible" for 5 beats before you count mistakes again and give some visual feedback that the player knows he has some time to get back into the rhythm (For example display a reverse loading bar. When it vanishes, then mistakes are counted.)

Okay, a lot of feedback. I hope it helps improving the game. Keep up the good work, this is going into an interesting direction!

[undef]

Wow!
Thanks Micha, that was a really detailed feedback!

The way to win a level is definitely to get to the ending of the song.
A "Game Over" is quickly triggered when you make three mistakes in a row, or slowly triggered if you don't press any button at all.
Each time you perform a correct action the squares regenerate slightly.

(Apparently this should maybe be communicated to player more clearly.)

My plan was that the player unlocks new levels by beating the level with a minimum highscore (combo lenghth).
At the back of the CD covers in the menu, I plan to show certain progress bars for achievements, like:
"Finish the stage with a precision of at least 90%", or "Finish the stage after only having one remaining square 5 times",
and then maybe put a "perfect-stamp" on the corner of the cover if you managed to get all the achievements.

It's definitely supposed to be more of a contest game, so friends can brag at each other with their higher score, and if the score is the same, they can brag with higher precision, or achievements.


I really like your idea to unlock levels, if all goals are reached!
I think I might add multiple options to unlock levels, like letting the players instantly unlock a harder level if they manage to get a perfect score, or letting them unlock levels if they've gotten sufficient achievements for the current level.

I know it is quite difficult to save yourself after making mistakes at first, but I want this game to be a game that is hard to beat, and where a Game Over is frequent.
I really like the games Bit.Trip Runner, or Super Hexagon, which in my opinion are even harder than my game.
I really like the feeling of achievement once a stage is completed, and the flow state that playing games like these induce.
I kind of want to teach players not to be frustrated by loosing, and not to be distracted by a more intense environment.

Thanks again Micha, that was some valuable feedback!