Review of And everything started to fall

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Erik Leppen

And everything started to fall Review
By Erik Leppen First Prize Winner on 31 January 2010


Pros: Original concept; nice overall appearance; appropriate music

Cons: Too hard; spoiler is in the way; controls in the wrong place

Great except for a few little things

I've no doubt it's cool as far as art goes, but it fails to do some pretty basic things game-wise. That makes it good art, but a mediocre game. And that's too bad, because I think only a few little changes would be needed to fix this, and you would have good art AND a good game.

The first thing is that it's too difficult. It seems that the only way to keep up with the game's speed is to not make mistakes. And I don't like games that you have to play perfectly, because it leads to a lot of repeating things I already did correctly, just because I couldn't do the part afterwards. Remember that if you can do a certain jump one in three times, doing five such jumps only works one in 243 times (including possibly 100 successful jumps that don't get you anywhere.)
Possible solutions: tone down the speed a little (that won't really have an impact to the art part) and the game is a lot more doable for people not so good at platforming. Adding more checkpoints along the way (would neither impact the art part) would also make the game easier. Also if I'm not mistaken, the game contained a few pixel-perfect jumps, so the game could be easier if some platforms are a bit longer and the gaps between them a little bit narrower.
Also note I'm not the only one who thinks it's too hard - I read some of the comments and several stated it was too hard. And that's a pity really, because that means the message of your game didn't really come across (and I think the whole purpose of an art game is to get some message across).

Second, the controls. Why is the jump button S? Why not, say, Z, Ctrl, Space, etc? Those are common action buttons, S isn't. It's counter-intuitive (at least, I never used S as an action button except for when it serves as the Down key of WASD controls).
Also, why are the controls in the Game Maker F1 help screen typically only used by novices? Repeatedly having to open this window (because I can't remember everything the first time, because it's too much information at once) breaks the immersion in the game. Explain a control when the player needs it, not earlier. This makes the player accustomed to the control before learning another one.
Also, the same help screen contained the spoiler just underneath the controls. That's inconvenient for those who don't want to see the spoiler. It'd be better if the spoiler was somewhere else, out of sight. Possible solution: add a bunch of blank lines between help text and spoiler so that the latter falls outside the screen, and then put "scroll down to view spoiler" below the controls. That way, people only see the spoiler if they explicitly want to.

Now for the scores.
Graphics: great. Love the black and white pixel art and the simple background. The clock is a nice addition (although the relative speeds of the three fingers are off, why?)
Sound: good. Nice little background song, fits the graphics well. Heard no sound effects, but that might also be because I didn't get far, or to not be intrusive with the background song.
Concept: great (yes I read the spoiler); original take at the timed platform game type, typical "why didn't I think of that" idea (which is a good thing!).
Programming: great; I experienced no bugs or glitches whatsoever, so nothing wrong there.
Gameplay: poor; too hard
Interface: average; explain the controls when needed.
Overall: it's a good overall package and I think it deserves to be featured, but please consider the issues I mentioned.

Final note: I know the review is harsh, but I write what I think and want it to be clear what I thought. Also, most reviews focus on things that could be improved, rather than things that are already good. That's the only way to improve smile

Anyhow, good luck with your next game smile

  1. makerManCan102

    makerManCan102 said 11 months ago

    a totally ignored review. What a shame, because you have so many great points in this. I agree with nearly everything you say, perhaps with the exception that the gameplay wasn't too hard, because there's so little gameplay involved that i wouldn't want to complete this after a few tries.

    Great review, thumbs up.

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