Critique 5 - The book wizard. & Weekly Contribution

Weekly Contribution:
Leo's Adventure - Final code.

Created an eye animation for final boss cutscene

fixed - a lot - of bugs. (woohoo)

The Book Wizard

Game Concept

Pros:
The concept that I liked about this game is how they creatively designed the letter shapes into functions that can be made in game with a logical shape. For example, placing the H letter and tiling it vertically will make it look like a ladder. Another example is the letter J when being held, can either serve as a weapon to attack enemies. I thought this concept idea was really creative and unique.

Cons:

I remembered the first week they presented this idea, the cons that I had immediately in my thought were hit detections. At first, for the player to pick up the letter, use it to attack using the right hitbox, or placing the inks to activate objects in the game require many precise hit detections.

Design & Innovation

Pros:
As I mentioned before, not many games out there that uses letter shapes to form an interactive object within the gameplay. Which I thought was quite innovative in the design. The artwork definitely attracts a cute-lover styled art mainly aimed for females or kids or to a certain extent, males.

Cons:

There weren't really any design cons that I had towards this game. Although when I playtested the game, I was a bit disappointed to find they changed their concept a bit. It was previously using letters, picking them up and using them each. Whereas now they use inks to activate functions for the game.

Art Content:

Pros:

Art content is really nice for the game's purpose. The soundtrack and color palette has a clear intended audience and it does give a fun feel even before we play the game. It certainly can be more dramatic as it is now, because I felt that it had little impact towards the character. With the art style being well done, I felt the need to increase the player's relation towards the main character. That is what I would do if I were to be in the creation of this game.

Cons:

I love it. No Cons

Game Interface:

the game interface was made pretty clear. and the level designs really helped me in learning how to play the game. Immediately when I walk towards a beanstock, the character would push it, making it really simple to learn. Also, as soon as the character (holding an ink bottle) reaches a transparent letter, it lights up to full opaque hinting that it is now interactable.

Compelling Gameplay Experience:

As compelling as it was, I felt that the attraction mostly came from the artworks. The movement was a mechanic that needed to be learned as the creation team uses a certain time frame for the character to move. When I press a move key, and release it a short while after, the character will move the exact same amount of distance as if I release it immediately after pressing it. This makes the jumping mechanic a bit difficult to master, and I'm pretty sure not in the intended way. Because in a platformer, sometimes it feels nice to jump right along the edge, or if we want to turn around direction in the air. Through the game's beta code mechanics it felt difficult to do so as it has small delays.

At first, the gameplay was engaging, but I felt that the pace wasn't fast enough for me to keep me interested to play more. For the beta code, the mechanics were only ink bottles, H letter as ladder, and pushing beanstocks to cover jump distances. I felt that those three could really be at most in 2 levels and not 4. Aside from that, a narrative addition to have players connect more with the character would also be nice to have.

Technical Achievement or sophistication:

As a programmer, I think the complexity of the technical side is quite low. When I started this class, I had no idea how to use gamemaker and thus having to learn it from zero. If I only compare the technical side and not the artworks, I felt like what I created is much more complex than what The Book Wizard has. All they had to do was to create a level selection room, main menu, and actual gameplay which will be elaborated. In the actual gameplay, they used many similar objects and mechanics such as platforms, inks, H letter, or beanstocks, and character movements which are all reused in each level. Not many new contents or objects are available yet in the beta, even though they have complete levels.

Difficulty?

The overall difficulty of this game is rather low. Aside from the movement mastery that I mentioned above, the game seems quite simple and easy to learn. I may not be the intended audience since I do feel that the challenge and pace was rather slow. To actually find out if it fits the correct challenge level for its intended audience, the game has to be playtested.

Improvements:

Narrative, is the most important part I can say about improvements. Making players relate and care more towards the main character. Find out why he has to go through this. What is his goal? Why is he progressing through these levels? Does it need to be levels? Why can't it be one big area?

Are just some sample questions that can still be answered to improve the game experience overall.
Movements can also be improved so that it is more responding to change rather than using a small timeframe to lock a movement direction.

Aside from those, I love the soundtrack and style.

Commercial Potential:

If the game were to be put on a store, I would definitely browse over it , view the actual gameplay video and maybe not buy it after seeing the gameplay. The concept does catch people's attention, but at the beta code's point, I do not feel that it is enough for someone to actually use money to play the game.