(shouting)

Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

here's a good place for FRIENDLY, ENJOYABLE, and otherwise very GENERAL discussion!
Post Reply
User avatar
Mandew
d'yo
Posts: 529
Joined: 14 years ago
First name: Marc
Pronouns: a person
Location: canada
https://fishingseasontraversal.talkhaus.com/

Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Mandew »

http://www.suitgames.com/suitgames/mandew1/

Mandew vs. the Forever Rain is a kind of generic Super Mario Bros.-style platformer inspired by Super Marisa Land, made by Space Yoshi X.

It stars, well, Mandew -> in an adventure to stop the endless rain that has been ruining his crops.

It features 4 worlds of four levels, each world ending with a boss, a small group of achievements and a trial mode in which you can try to get a top score for levels individually.

If you're bored enough, give it a go!

A protip before you do though - if you duck, then jump, your jump will have the same efficiency as if you ran before jumping, which is very useful for navigating some of the later levels.
Also there's a run button.

Update 23/07/11: The game got updated! The physics got tweaked in a way that makes it a lot more playable.
Last edited by Mandew 12 years ago, edited 3 times in total.
Image
video games
Kadj
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Kadj »

I only played up a little into world 1-2, but I wasn't very impressed. The game works like a bad version of the original Super Mario Bros. I like the basic control scheme, but the physics are not very pleasant - it took me about fifteen seconds to try and hit a certain block, for example, because I was trying to jump while moving, and it put me at an unpleasant angle.

I gave up in 1-2 because I died twice and was already annoyed at the level. 1-2 introduces the mushroom "spring" gimmick, which is practically unusable as it is for a platformer; you have to stand on it for a moment for it to boost you, and a bit before the midway point of the level, you have to use it to make a jump that requires a bit of precision as a result. If the boost were instant, akin to the springboards of SMB, or the springs of Sonic the Hedgehog games, the jump wouldn't BE difficult, because momentum would put you in the ballpark of where you need to be. Instead, I got locked up at that part for a good minute or so.

1-2 also introduces a new enemy - basically what I recall being named Panzer in the Mario series, it's a flower that shoots a fireball up and down. The thing is... it's pretty small, and it doesn't LOOK like an enemy because it's transparent(like the similar creature in SMB3, who only appears underwater and is much larger and more animated). I died on the same one TWICE because I could only clearly see the fireball - it looked more like a decoration, there only to make the fireballs seem more "natural."

The game's version of the fire flower isn't that great; it only instakills the game's equivalent of Goomba, whereas it takes two blasts to knock out the other enemy I had encountered by the time I stopped, some red bird thing. Yet all it takes is a single jump to take out both. Furthermore, there isn't much of an arc to the fireballs; they bounce a little bit, and then of all things, they fizzle out before even leaving the screen. It renders the powerup almost pointless; were it not for the crappy jump physics and collision detection which more often than not caused me to get hit by the most harmless enemy in the game, there would be no reason to use it.

For a game marketing itself as a SMB-style platformer, it fails to do virtually everything that made the original SMB playable(and that game was really terrible when you sit down and analyze it), and then goes further and screws up concepts that are practically cemented into platformer design theory.

Level design is reminiscent of SMB - which is to say it is pretty linear, but not terribly interesting.

Music doesn't loop effectively, which is jarring in the middle of a level. Both songs I heard through the gameplay were also taken from other games; the game is nice enough to credit the songs at the start of the levels, something I am quite happy to see and have never seen any other similar games do(I've only seen it in Smash Bros Brawl actually), but it doesn't really help the atmosphere of the game so much.

Perhaps it's just not my cup of tea, but I wasn't drawn into it. Part of it was the attempt to market it as a SMB-style platformer, which primed my mind into wanting a SMB platformer, and part of it was the lack of intro cutscenes; the download page clearly shows a dialogue of sorts in a later part of the game, but there is none to speak of in the first two levels. I'm not terribly invited into the plot!
User avatar
Mandew
d'yo
Posts: 529
Joined: 14 years ago
First name: Marc
Pronouns: a person
Location: canada
https://fishingseasontraversal.talkhaus.com/

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Mandew »

Hey, thanks for the constructive criticism. I know the game isn't perfect, having played it myself, but there are some things to be learned in your post - which helps me (and hopefully Space Yoshi X) to know better about tighter controls, which is good.
Image
video games
Kadj
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Kadj »

Yeah, feedback loops are big when it comes to game design(well, anything really, but game design's the current subject). Fact is a lot of players don't really think about what they're playing, so a lot of responses are just going to be "this is cool" or "this sucks," but a fledgeling (or even an expert) game designer won't know what they're doing right or wrong until the one person who does think about it comes along and gives their take on it. Even some corporate game companies are starting to catch on and are watching people's Let's Plays to learn how to make better games.

For what it's worth, the game does have potential! I do see that there's a version number and a statement that it's just the "first release" on the page, so I'm hoping that if I see it again down the road it might be a much better "2.0" version. I also see that this seems to be the effort of only one person, which makes it a pretty good initial release. Hopefully your friend goes back to it and improves on it, but if not, hopefully he'll know what to improve on for later games.
User avatar
FlareDarknight
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago
Location: No-Kywln

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by FlareDarknight »

Come on now...

The difficult control of the character is part of the game difficulty.Like in the flash game "N".It's not because it's not made well or anything...If this is removed,the game will not be challenging at all.
The mushroom springy-thingy is also part of the game difficulty.It tests the players timing+handling the loose controls.If they are fixed,anoher challenging part of the game will be removed.
The panzer enemy is hard to recognise indeed.I thought that its fireball was a star for immortality.(I'm so smart!)It's hard to recognise the panzer amongst the terrain,but that's what's good about it.If the player can see it,it would be easy to avoid it,which will make the game even easier.
The flower powerup have it's weak points indeed.Yet,I think that it's much more interesting if it's tricky of using the powerup instead of the easy usage of which we are used to in most games.(The same can be said about the hamer too.)
Music may be from other games,but if the author of the game can't compose music,is it better to listen to the awesome music from the old awesome games OR to listen to a awful soundtrack made by guy who can't compose?
Level design is OK I guess.Nothing special,but not bad either.It's just...normal.
Boss fights...they look a bit simple,but with the loose controls and the "not-so-good-to-use" powerups,they are quite nice.
There were things to unlock.Yep.And the game is not saying how to unlock them.Great!The player will have to take it's time to figure them out.Is this bad thing about the game?Not from my point of view...

It can kill time,it quite a challenge(But only quite.)and it's FREE.Simple story plot...I give this game 4/10.It needs a bit of modification,but apart from that it's a nice little game. :D
&(´ー`)& #(・A・)# (*(`Д´) (('A`)) (--)]]]
User avatar
Dollop of Mayo
Posts: 0
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Bonus Town

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Dollop of Mayo »

The difficult control of the character is part of the game difficulty.Like in the flash game "N".It's not because it's not made well or anything...If this is removed,the game will not be challenging at all.

You don't find that to be a problem in the least?

Fake difficulty is not good. Mandew controls like drunk Mario. Maybe if this game was called "Drunk Mario" I'd give it a pass. But the dodgy controls detract from the fun. Find a better way to introduce challenge than making your characters frustrating to control.

You know who else controlled like shit and thus made the game he was in a horror to play? Simon Belmont in the original Castlevania. He was like a boulder with legs. He'd lope around slowly, making fast enemies able to hit him more easily. He'd fling himself forward with a jump, and if you screwed up, that was it, no direction changing, you just hurtled into a pit and had to start the level over.

The reason that NES games were hard in this way was to extend the time you had to play them. Period. You couldn't fit much data on a cartridge so you took a game that would take an expert 3 hours to beat and filled most of the play time with starting over again and again.

There's no reason for this to exist in today's games. Hell that sort of thing started going away with the SNES.

Okay enough with THAT rant.

Well... about Mandew... it's... well it's exactly what you said it is... a Mario knock-off. Instead of Goombas there's rice balls for some reason, and instead of koopas I guess there are birds. You eat cherries to grow big instead of mushrooms, and you get a hot pepper to throw fireballs instead of a flower.

It brings nothing new to the table. I'd rather see this new character do new things. Not control like drunk Mario, throw fireballs like Mario throws fireballs except more awkwardly. If he does everything Mario does he may as well be Mario. Not sure why you didn't just make a Mario hack.

I dunno, have him be able to control the weather or something. Not more hop and bop banality.

I pretty much gave up in 1-2 as well. Awkward controls, unimpressive visuals, no reason to care about the character from the start, and that's about it.
The nature of the signature is significant and natural.
http://dollopofmayo.tumblr.com/ - I put comics here because they demand it.
User avatar
FlareDarknight
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago
Location: No-Kywln

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by FlareDarknight »

You don't find that to be a problem in the least?
Why should I?Back in the days when I used to play a lot of NES games I loved the games where the character was hard to control.(And I still love such games. :D )There was Robocop 4 for the NES.Shitty game,with hard gameplay and a lot of instant kill enemies.The robo-duder moved like he was allways on ice blocks.Levels were hard and required a lot of good timing and reflexes.Hard game,but I enjoyed it.Dunno why most people don't like games with loose controls.Maybe I'm one of those people who enjoy such games and just cannot undertand the players who doesn't like them.

Forgot to mention that there were some references in "Mvtfr" game about other games/movies/anime.I like small references about popular things in a game,but my mood went down when I saw...
Ahem...another Touhou reference.<_<
There were aslo loose controls in on of the Jumper games.Dunno which one was it,but I liked it a lot.
&(´ー`)& #(・A・)# (*(`Д´) (('A`)) (--)]]]
User avatar
Dollop of Mayo
Posts: 0
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Bonus Town

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Dollop of Mayo »

I like to feel in control of my characters. When I don't, I have less fun. If I die I want it to be my fault, not the controls'.
The nature of the signature is significant and natural.
http://dollopofmayo.tumblr.com/ - I put comics here because they demand it.
Kadj
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Kadj »

Forgot to check this thread... DancingMad has basically nailed it - Fake Difficulty. The reason why games with bad controls don't exist anymore is because they aren't "necessary." If a modern game were to have characters that control very poorly... It really wouldn't sell, because it simply would be bad design.
Music may be from other games,but if the author of the game can't compose music,is it better to listen to the awesome music from the old awesome games OR to listen to a awful soundtrack made by guy who can't compose?
Soundtracks give games character. Brawl got away with reusing music by having a truly massive soundtrack with hundreds of remixes thrown in. It doesn't work so well here though because, for starters, it doesn't bring anything of its own to the musical table.

It might be somewhat better to have music from elsewhere instead of making something terrible, but there is an additional option that wasn't pursued - finding unused music. There is undoubtedly a lot of sites out there with music that can pass in a video game that the musicians themselves give permission to use, and doing that would give players something unique to remember the game by while also exposing an indie musician to the world.
User avatar
Dollop of Mayo
Posts: 0
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Bonus Town

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Dollop of Mayo »

http://bandcamp.com/tag/chiptune

Bandcamp is full of awesome people doing awesome musics.
The nature of the signature is significant and natural.
http://dollopofmayo.tumblr.com/ - I put comics here because they demand it.
User avatar
FlareDarknight
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago
Location: No-Kywln

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by FlareDarknight »

The reason why games with bad controls don't exist anymore is because they aren't "necessary." If a modern game were to have characters that control very poorly... It really wouldn't sell, because it simply would be bad design.
So even if the bad controls were part of a game's gameplay,they are still going to be treated as a "Bad" design?Most of the games these days are quite easy to finish.That's because people are concern more about appearance,music,story...the gameplay remains easy.There's no challenge at all.A game should be challenging,keeping the player occupied with it for some time,instead of "Hey I beated this game in one day and I unlocked everything in it,cuz things in this game are obvious as hell."(Hell is a pretty obvious place.)Why should I give money for a game which I am going to finish quickly and then just throw it in the corner of the room?

Mvtfr needs a bit of modifications.But it kept me busy.I still need to unlock some stuff in it.The "jumper" game series are also hard,with not so easy to control duder and the grafics and the music there are not that great.(In the first jumper the music was from other games/movies)But the series are interesting and they keep the player playing them.(If the player doesn't have desire or will to play the game because it's too hard or annoying,since the controls or something else is not how he/she wanted them to be...this is his/her own opinion,but we can't say that the game is bad.)

That's of course my own personal opinion.I like difficult games,because for me the challenge to overcome that difficulty is what I enjoy.
There is undoubtedly a lot of sites out there with music that can pass in a video game that the musicians themselves give permission to use, and doing that would give players something unique to remember the game by while also exposing an indie musician to the world.
There are programs that can generate random music as well...
&(´ー`)& #(・A・)# (*(`Д´) (('A`)) (--)]]]
User avatar
Dollop of Mayo
Posts: 0
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Bonus Town

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Dollop of Mayo »

Devil May Cry series. Dante controls like a dream. Games are still hard.

There is hard and there is fake hard.

Fake difficulty is applied whenever it is not expressly the player's fault for their deaths in games. Real difficulty is when the player can only blame themselves for their failure.

You can make a game hard without bad controls. It happened in the era of the NES, it happens still to this day.

You're correct in that a lot of games nowadays are easier than NES games were back in the "good old days." But oftentimes as well, games have difficulty modifiers built into the game. Play the game on easy and it's easy, normal and it's harder than easy but not as bad as hard, ultra, nightmare, whatever.

Bad controls in games are a cop out way of inducing difficulty. It's not only less difficult to make the character control badly, it makes the job of designing difficult obstacles for the character to overcome even easier! Now even the simplest of things is made hard! Just jumping up onto the next ledge is hard! It's not fun but it's HARD and that's all that matters right?

That's just it. Hard can be fun. Or it can be frustrating and unrewarding.

Example : Grand Theft Auto. There are frequent missions that will make you want to claw your eyes out. I haven't played 4, but I did play Vice City and San Andreas. The two missions that still stick out of my mind were The Da Nang Thang in VC and the remote control plane flying mission in San Andreas. Both of those individual missions took me a couple hours apiece to complete, constantly starting over again and again and just making my blood boil. But they were intrinsically fun and when I finished them, the endorphin rush I got was more than worth it.

Let's look at the other end of the spectrum. Bunny Must Die. If you watched raocow's LP you saw him frequently struggling to get up onto the same area he had traversed many a time. I ran into the same issues. Bunny just handled awkwardly, and that made even the simplest things much harder than they needed to be.

There I think is where we find ourselves at a crossroads. Do we make simple, repetitive tasks the difficult part of the game, or do we make specific encounters in the game difficult?

In making core gameplay aspects difficult, you make the character slog through the game at the mercy of game itself. You see the task of simply getting from point A to point B as being annoying and unrewarding. If I miss a jump and it was because my character controlled like somebody who was on rollerskates for the first time, sliding around erratically, then well, I didn't really die because of something I did, I died because my character should probably take off the skates.

If the ledges are moving in a complicated pattern and my character controls precisely, then it is my job as a player to try to either memorize the pattern or use my reflexes to compensate as I navigate my way through the room. If my character is graceful that means that it's my own damn fault when I miss a jump.
The nature of the signature is significant and natural.
http://dollopofmayo.tumblr.com/ - I put comics here because they demand it.
User avatar
FlareDarknight
Posts: 0
Joined: 13 years ago
Location: No-Kywln

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by FlareDarknight »

Bunny Must Die. If you watched raocow's LP you saw him frequently struggling to get up onto the same area he had traversed many a time. I ran into the same issues. Bunny just handled awkwardly, and that made even the simplest things much harder than they needed to be.
I got used to the controls quite quickly.Dunno why most people are saying that the controls are hard in BMD.Then again,it depends on the player and the type of games he/she plays often.As we know,different games have more or less different ways of control.And it takes some time to get used to them.

No matter what we say,the facts for Mvtfr are clear.If the guy who made it,wants the game to be more popular,he should make some modifications.If not,the game will only be known by people like me,who don't mind controls,grafics and music a lot.This is a choice for him to make.
&(´ー`)& #(・A・)# (*(`Д´) (('A`)) (--)]]]
User avatar
Falky
Space Mountain, Real World's Champion, WOOOOO etc
Posts: 114
Joined: 13 years ago
Pronouns: he/him/his
Location: Workington, England

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Falky »

DancingMad wrote:The Da Nang Thang in VC
Just a slight correction, that was in San Andreas. It's one of Woozie's missions.
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
User avatar
Mandew
d'yo
Posts: 529
Joined: 14 years ago
First name: Marc
Pronouns: a person
Location: canada
https://fishingseasontraversal.talkhaus.com/

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Mandew »

Just here to say that the game was updated to make the power-ups more useful (amongst other things), although I'm kind of disappointed that the controls were pretty much left unchanged.

Anyways, thanks for giving this game a try, y'all! There's really good constructive criticism to be had here.
Image
video games
User avatar
Mandew
d'yo
Posts: 529
Joined: 14 years ago
First name: Marc
Pronouns: a person
Location: canada
https://fishingseasontraversal.talkhaus.com/

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Mandew »

Sorry for the necropost!

The game got updated, now it's a lot more playable physics-wise!
Image
video games
User avatar
Dollop of Mayo
Posts: 0
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Bonus Town

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by Dollop of Mayo »

Played it again, got to level 1-4 and gave up due to a pixel-perfect jump I didn't want to do because I hate those. Yeah I would have gotten it fine if I'd tried a few more times but if I'm dying to that sort of thing in 1-4 I can only imagine how many more of those are in the game with the precedent that's setting. I realize that in platforms you're just going to run into the occasional pixel-perfect jump so it's more a reflection on me that I don't have the patience for them anymore.

I also kind of gave up because the game has a lives system yet allows you to continue from the last stage in which you died, which makes the lives system pointless. I guess what it would do is erase your progress to the midpoint but that's just petty as far as I'm concerned. Also when I died and got my game over but no choice to continue; it just reset the game. Not really a fan of that.

The addition of joypad compatibility (which I don't think you had before or I would've used it) is very much welcome and helps in the controls. I remember having a huge issue with those bounce mushrooms in 1-2 that I didn't have this run through.

It's been long enough since I played the old version that I can't really compare the new physics to the old, but I wanna say it felt more like Mario from Mario 3, but with some less forgiving physics. It's still kind of a chore to get Mandew to hit the brick that you want him to; it often took me 3 or 4 tries to get a power up brick because I kept bumping the brick to the left for to the right even when it felt like I was standing directly underneath the brick. I don't have these issues in Mario games so it's not just me.

My assessment of the game is more or less unchanged : it's Mario with stiffer controls, nothing new brought to the table at all. If there's a plot I haven't caught wind of it other than from the title, so I can't even say the game is backed up by a good story.
The nature of the signature is significant and natural.
http://dollopofmayo.tumblr.com/ - I put comics here because they demand it.
User avatar
morsel/morceau
Posts: 401
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: exotic horse island

Re: Mandew vs. the forever rain thread.

Post by morsel/morceau »

It stars, well, Mandew -> in an adventure to stop the endless rain that has been ruining his crops.
Who is Mandew? Am I supposed to know? I am confused. Maybe you could describe who he is or something?
dont wanna jihad no more
Post Reply