Sparrow

SimonH · May 27, 2009, 6:03pm

EDIT - plot: The evil crows have invaded the jade palace and stolen the sacred jade orbs from the caverns beneath, thus closing the links between the sacred places of the world. All peace-loving birds have fled the palace except you, brave Sparrow! Can you find and return the lost jade and bring peace to the world once more?

Demonpants · May 27, 2009, 6:53pm

It’s really cool in terms of style and idea, but the overall control definitely needs a bit of work. It was hard to get the bird to fly exactly as I wanted (mostly because of horizontal momentum). I felt more like I was in some combination of a zero gravity frictionless environment (outer space) and flying in the sky. I don’t know if this will mess up your gameplay, but if you look at birds in the sky they’re certainly very capable of making incredibly tight loops and twirls. Maybe something like in Starfox 64, where a certain key combination will make you turn around via a pre-made loop animation? Also, combat needs work as you already mentioned. At one point a bird was sitting on a stoop, and I did my call thing using a seed (why do I need a seed to do that) and it didn’t hit the bird because it was sitting… but then it was still able to hit me in response.

And why do bird calls kill me? That seems sort of odd. Why not make them dive bomb or something?

dishmoth · May 27, 2009, 7:31pm

Looks gorgeous and I really like its chilled-out atmosphere. But please, please do something about the controls! I would’ve assumed that it was just a problem with my keyboard (like one of the keys is getting stuck or something), but it seems like Demonpants is experiencing the same thing.

One possibility for improving the combat might be to get rid of it altogether. You could just dodge the enemy birds rather than fighting them. That would fit in with the peaceful tone of the game (as I see it).

Overall I found I just wanted to fly around and explore (and maybe collect those butterfly things). I wonder if the game really needs fights and races.

Looking at the two screenshots above, the top one looks a lot better than the bottom one. The forest background may have a bit too much detail compared with the minimalist foreground. Maybe a painting would work better than a photo?

Simon

SimonH · May 28, 2009, 1:44am

K, point taken about the momentum - New vers up with damping!
The bird calls thing was to try and ‘humanise’ the conflict; like: ‘if you’re chilled you’ll say the right thing at the right time and win the debate, if you’re stressy you won’t’. Sorta. You don’t get killed anyway, you just go back to the start of the level (unless you have a butterfly!)

SimonH · May 28, 2009, 7:04pm

Newer version up with a few slight cosmetic tweaks.
I’m wondering about ghosting the best player’s flight (like a semi-transparent opponent) for the first time a race is started - would this be off-putting to slower players?

teletubo · May 29, 2009, 2:00am

Hey Simon,

I agree with the above guys - the game looks very good, and it brings a very “peaceful” feeling, but (thogh I’ve tested the new controls) I still find it very awkward . It does not fit the feeling of “freedom” of the music. Actually I felt anxious as the bird was struggling and flapping its to move higher … I felt like the poor sparrow would die anytime from a heart attack.

It’s just a suggestion, but I think it would be nicer if you could enjoy a smoother flight, and really feel like you’re flying - which would definetly fit more to the rest of the game .
I was thinking about something like Triplane Turmoil, a very old game, but which made me feel very much like I was “flying” … I think you can download it , must be abandonware by now … or check this video out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nGLJmltmN4 (it’s from triplane turmoil 2, which I never played, but you can see a little of what I am talking about )

anyway, very beautiful game, but I definetly would change the controls

SimonH · May 29, 2009, 1:48pm

Thanks for the feedback - I’ll try and smooth up the controls!

casperjeff · May 29, 2009, 2:11pm

agreed…gorgeous game…(music and other effects)

Any thoughts of switching to mouse movement instead of keyboard?

I know this game is NOTHING like it…but the movement was so intuitive and I found it eerily easy to ‘avoid’ the bad guys…
http://www.2flashgames.com/f/f-Death-vs-Monstars-7108.htm

dishmoth · May 30, 2009, 8:26am

With all the new levels, it’s starting to get really good now! Like Metroid but with less stress. 8)

I’m still not a fan of the controls, but they’re much better than they were.

Simon

P.S. Not been mentioned so far, but the trees and plants are magnificent!

Red27 · May 30, 2009, 10:48am

Very nice. Really like the tree swaying. Have you achieved that via some kind of Fractal / Maths based algorithm?

SimonH · May 31, 2009, 12:30am

Thx! Not really maths as such -the tree are pre-drawn then ‘swayed’.

New map opened: ‘Valley of the Stones’.

I’ve tried to think how to improve the flight system, but I rather like it the way it is - once you’ve ‘got height’ you can fly anywhere gracefully (just don’t land!). I’ve tried loads of different mouse control ideas but the keyboard still beats them all for ease of use.

zoto · May 31, 2009, 1:12am

Cool game. I found 1 small bug.
If you replay ‘R’ the race, restart ‘S’ will restart the replay instead of the level.
I hope that made sense.

SimonH · June 1, 2009, 12:16am

It’s true! I’ll sort it - BTW, I just took 6 secs off your best time for jade palace
I think I will get the current best run ghosted…

SimonH · June 2, 2009, 6:41pm

New vers. up - few more baddies/secrets &c.

markmistry · June 2, 2009, 8:26pm

TOO HARD …lol

i couldnt get out of the hole and the other bird attacked by the bushes and i got stuck flapping around near the floor.
Would be an awesome game if it wasnt too hard to start with.

SimonH · June 3, 2009, 4:52pm

;D and there was me thinking it was too easy!

I’ve put in the highscore ghosting system, so now when you start a race for the first time you are ghosted by the best player for that map. After the first race the ghost is your previous run.
This has meant I’ve had to reset the highscores (sorry to all the winners!).
I hope the ‘best run ghost’ doesn’t put noobs off - some of those highscores were a bit good!

zoto · June 4, 2009, 4:42am

I got them all but Jade Palace. Are there plans for more boards? I have 1 extra gem but haven’t found a platform for it.

erikd · June 4, 2009, 2:09pm

It looks gorgeous! The style reminds me a bit of Pixeljunk Eden.

The framerate seemed a bit too low, though. It said 20fps, but it felt more like 10 or something.

SimonH · June 4, 2009, 2:37pm

Well done! (but I still rule the palace!) Sure there’ll be more maps. Watch this space…

The framerate is locked at 20fps - I wanted 25 but some older machines I tested just couldn’t do it…

EDIT: Eat my dust Zoto! 2 secs faster in blossom temple

EDIT #2: Tweaked highscores so only the best time appears for each player/IP combination.

SimonH · June 9, 2009, 7:19pm

New version up!
Completely revamped the combat system - loads more oriental now! (Seeds=health, Butterflies=lives).
Treasure chests and leaf piles added, but the contents don’t do anything yet, and you can’t open silver key chests at all.
Hmm… I might change that music…