A Koopa’s Revenge 2 has been out for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve received enough feedback to start working on some improvements. That is aside from the bug fixes and other small tweaks I’ve made up to this point in v1.05. But I’m still looking for more feedback, so leave a comment or send a message or whatever.
How I’ve been Learning
I’ve received a ton of feedback on the game. mostly on Newgrounds. But I’ve also been getting comments on Lambta.co and I’ve even received a few emails.
But the biggest help has been watching gameplay for AKR2 on youtube. It’s helped me to understand some of the complaints better, and beyond that it’s identified some issues that either can’t be conveyed well through text, or issues that the player isn’t even aware of.
So I’m going to ask that people post playthroughs of the game on youtube. It will really help me to improve the game. You have my blessing.
What I’m Changing
- Walljump mechanics. I personally like the way the walljump works now, but a lot of players don’t like it and/or can’t get used to it. So I’m altering it to work as close as possible to the walljumping n New Super Mario Bros. I figure that will be more intuitive for most players.
- Controls for picking up objects. I never really questioned the methods until recently, but having to duck and then start holding the attack key is pretty cumbersome. I realised this when I changed some of the controls to make the boss fights that involve throwing things easier. After all, the challenge should be in the environment and enemies, not the controls.
I’m considering having them work like Super Mario Bros. 2. Where you only have to start pressing the run button to pluck vegetables or enemies. Though that game doesn’t have an attack button. Simply holding the button, without having to release it at all, like Super Mario Bros. 3, is also on the table. But I imagine that would be annoying for vegetables. - Deathpit Visuals. Taking inspiration from Kirby, I’m adding a dark wavy pattern over all bottomless pits. I decided to do this after witnessing a player kill himself while checking for secrets.
- Separate Sound Effects for Entering Pipes and Getting Hurt. I know the old games used the same sound effect for these two, but there’s know excuse when I’ve got megabytes to work with.
- Kickable Babies. After witnessing a player die by touching a baby, I realised how silly that is. They’re practically collectibles after all. So they will no longer be able to harm the player, and there will be a little kicking animation when you walk into them.
- Enemies Stunned by Projectiles. I already changed the Buzzy Beetle like enemies to halt in play for half a second when hit by fireballs, to avoid a player trying to kill them with fire from being surprised when the enemy walks through the fireball into them. I’m going to extend this feature across all enemies so that they’re stunned in place by any weapon that doesn’t harm them.
- Shrinking the Bees. I noticed while watching gameplay and through my own experience that the bee enemies hitboxes aren’t quite right and i can result in death fairly often. Rather than increasing the size of their hitboxes, which would require extensive testing to make sure they still work properly, I simply shrunk the bees down to the size of their hitboxes. So mechanically, the game doesn’t change at all. I did this with the Yoshis before the game was publicly released.
That’s about it for the time being. But I’m sure there will be more. Do you agree with my decisions? I’m open to suggestions, so fire off a comment or send me a message using our Contact Page.