miniQuest Trials - Feedback is greatly appreciated!

After a month and a half of work we’ve finished our game!

miniQuest: Trials is basically a 2D room based platformer where it takes speed, skill, and fast reactions to beat each level in as little time as possible.

Goal of the game = Finish each level as fast as you can

Screenshots

Playable version of the game
(Playable Levels are = 3 – 5 – 9 – 11 – 13 – 18 – 23 – 26 – 28)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Arrow keys or WASD for commands
Z and Spacebar to jump
R = Reset level
M = Return to Main Menu

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Additionally we would like to know what do you guys feel about this ideas/questions:

1. What sound genre do you think players of this game would like? Something retro exciting or ambient or both?

2. We initially had background parallax, but later we found that it might not be that useful at all, do you think we should have some kind of parallax effect? or maybe with all the elements moving in later levels that would become distracting.

3. Basically, the whole game is about having the best time per level, well we have an idea about having some kind of “global” PAR time per level, which would be determined as the average time the players of the game took to finish each level.

Thanks!

PD.:
You can visit us at profusiongames.com /shamelessplug

W and UP arrow need to also make the guy jump
Looks more like a retro game to me
Why am I playing the guy from final fantasy
Maybe a beacon at the start of each level to show me where my guy is
Parallax would probably be distracting
Monsters please
Guns please
Don’t just black out, I want to see my guy burn alive in agony or get impaled by those thick spikes.
I would probably rate this a 2/5 or 3/5 if it came onto kongregate as it is now (but with all levels of course)

Looks really nice. Love the graphics. However, I think the character is a bit small. Also, when you die, I think it’d be cool to have some nice explosion particle effect rather than just the character standing on the spikes while the game fades.

Maybe you could have retro exciting music while the timer is up and ambient music on the level select.
I think parallax scrolling may ruin the feel of the game. Right now, it feels like I’m in a cave or a lab and it’s comfortable and not distracting. Just my opinion, though.

But all in all, the game is really good at this stage. Good luck with it.

Ladders feel ‘sticky’. I mean it’s hard to get off them laterally when standing at the top. Since the game is all about speed, giving the players some leeway there so they don’t have to overclimb would be nice. Also, when dying, it seems that keys need to be released after the new dummy pops up before they can be used to move, which is slightly frustrating and results in needlessly wasted time. Once again, it wouldn’t be a problem if the game wasn’t all about speed.

Finally, the chests don’t seem to do anything. Maybe the player should get a significant time penalty on the level if they don’t bother going for the chest, or make that a significant time bonus if they do. Problems: players don’t like to be punished so a penalty might not be a good idea, not to mention it would have to be significant because on some levels the treasure is quite a bit out of the way. Meanwhile, a time bonus that always makes it worthwhile to get the chest would have to be pretty significant too, and you would risk going into negative time for the shorter levels. Maybe cutting the level time in half if the player got the chest would be a proper incentive? Or keeping track of two times: with chest and without chest?

very interesting feedback guys, i’m currently taking notes of everything you’re saying. So far the most common feedback is the “ladder issue” and the dead animation.

@DannyDaNinja Hi! you’re playing the guy from FF because i suck at making characters and had to use a free one :p

@Feffers For our next game the character will be larger, what we wanted to achieve with the feeling of this game was to have everything mini, but you’re right, the character’s details are hard to see.

@Ace_Blue You got me thinking on the chests man, and i think you’re absolutely right. Chests currently unlock 3 secret levels and present a harder challenge for players that are looking for that kind of thrill, but you’re spot on having some kind of extra bonus from taking the chests.

I would definitely play this game when it was finished. It’s quite challenging at parts, which is a major bonus to me, although that could really turn some people off to the game.
I think the music should change as the timer goes up in levels. Like at 0-10 seconds the music gives a calm feel, then as the seconds go up the music gets more exciting.
I think having a global par thing would be cool, it would give people a sort of competitive challenge.

miniQuest: Trials launched! Play it here.