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Masters Thesis Game

KieyKiey
edited July 2010 in Video Games
I'm finishing up my Masters Thesis right now. For it I'm making a game in flash that is a combination comic and videogame.

The game right now is at a stage where I want to start doing some testing (get people's opinions, find bugs, etc.) So if you are interested in giving this public alpha version a play you can find it here. It's about 4.4 MB, so based on your connection speed it might be a longish download.

I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback.
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Comments

  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    First piece of feedback: the first page shoutout to a particularly magnificent suspense manga was hilarious and totally awesome.
  • GeoGeo
    edited July 2010
    I love the "password". Otherwise, you've got a good concept going here. Keep it up.
    Post edited by Geo on
  • MrRobotoMrRoboto
    The sliding puzzle should be drag and drop to switch, the current interface for that puzzle is not really intuitive.
  • KieyKiey
    First piece of feedback: the first page shoutout to a particularly magnificent suspense manga was hilarious and totally awesome.
    Huh?.... I mean, Yes! Exactly....
    I love the "password". Otherwise, you've got a good concept going here. Keep it up.
    I tried to make all the passwords references to random things I like. There is generally no rhyme or reason for them really. Except maybe the first one.
    The sliding puzzle should be drag and drop to switch, the current interface for that puzzle is not really intuitive.
    I'll think about that.
  • sucrilhossucrilhos
    Cool concept man, I'm looking forward to playing/reading the rest of it.
  • ChurbaChurba
    Hm. I think I'll just wait for the sequel, "Thesis Defence".

    Will play later on, when I manage to get it downloaded.
  • KieyKiey
    edited July 2010
    Cool concept man, I'm looking forward to playing/reading the rest of it.
    My goal is to have it done and defended before the Scott Pilgrim movie is released. I should be getting the final art by August 1, so I hope to have a beta shortly after that.

    I wish I could have done more with this, but I don't really have the budget or the time to do it. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get paid to make more of these in some way, since I have a lot of ideas I didn't get to use.
    Post edited by Kiey on
  • Luke BurrageLuke Burrage
    The drag and drop puzzle needs to actually be drag and drop. I managed to solve it by accident before working out the real controls.
  • KieyKiey
    The drag and drop puzzle needs to actually be drag and drop. I managed to solve it by accident before working out the real controls.
    Could you elaborate? Not sure what you mean.
  • AprecheApreche
    Could you elaborate? Not sure what you mean.
    It's not obvious that you're supposed to rearrange the panels. Even when you do figure out that's what you're supposed to do, it's not obvious how you are supposed to do it.
  • KieyKiey
    It wasn't intended as a drag and drop, but since that's the way people are wanting to do it I'll go about changing it then.
  • Jain7thJain7th
    I'd work on the interface a bit more.

    as an example:
    image
  • KieyKiey
    I am not an UI person, so I just sort of did the best I could there. What's there is like the 4th iteration of the UI. I mainly didn't want to have anything too flashy that it distracted from the comic reading experience, but still looked nice. I might have to use that design Jain7th (or something like it,) since it does what I want far better then I did it.
  • KieyKiey
    Posted a new build. Changed the UI based on Jain7th's concept, although I did somethings differently based on what I thought worked better while implementing it. Although I still need to make a "new pages" announcement thing for the new UI, which I'll be doing today along with making that second puzzle click and drag.
  • KieyKiey
    Added the click and drag for the second puzzle, so let me know if that's more along the lines of what you guys suggested/expected.
  • Luke BurrageLuke Burrage
    I worked out that I had to rearrange the panels, but couldn't work out how to do it. This resulted in enough random clicking in the right order and in the right place to solve the puzzle without working how I did so. Also, I don't have to submit an answer, which the game then says "Correct!" or "Wrong!" It simply told me when I had randomly got it right. A game where "button mashing" wins isn't very satisfying.
  • KieyKiey
    Just posted the Beta version of my capstone game for play testing. It's almost the entire game, aside from a few pages. So let me know what you think/if you find any bugs/etc.
  • ShiamShiam
    On the navigation page, I don't think there's a need for a second start game, just use the regular navigation at that point (or at least have them do the same thing).
    On the panel switching page, the new page text area partially blocks releasing the right piece if it is your last. The puzzle completes before you "release" the piece. Also if you drag the initially right piece to the left where it belongs the puzzle essentially auto solves.
    On the drag panels to the top and apple pages Its not altogether clear what you need to do to move on. The hint solves this by telling you exactly what to do, but i feel like it's a bad way to go about it.
    Otherwise it's looking good, also I like the Esmenet Drusas name are the rest also supposed to be references?
  • KieyKiey
    Otherwise it's looking good, also I like the Esmenet Drusas name are the rest also supposed to be references?
    Yeah, all the other names there are references, as well as all the passwords are references to things.
  • gomidoggomidog
    edited August 2010
    Lisa Miller stuck out at me because I had just been looking at Scott Pilgrim a second before.

    Edit: Also, Photoshop distort filter is does not look so good on the text. It feels like reading a capcha. May I suggest Sir try something more smoky and ephemeral, perhaps with a touch of Gaussian blur? That should cleanse the palate nicely.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • GreatTeacherMacRossGreatTeacherMacRoss
    Things I've run into so far:
    There are few, if any, indicators on most pages as to what you are supposed to do.
    The page that has the hint that I should put frames in my inventory, but I have no idea how to do that.
  • KieyKiey
    Also, Photoshop distort filter is does not look so good on the text. It feels like reading a capcha. May I suggest Sir try something more smoky and ephemeral, perhaps with a touch of Gaussian blur? That should cleanse the palate nicely.
    I've always had some issues with the way that page looked, but I pretty much got it good enough. A more smoky/ephemeral look though would probably work better, I'll give it a try for the next update to the beta.
    There are few, if any, indicators on most pages as to what you are supposed to do.
    That was a design choice, as I did not want to be too intrusive with the game stuff. Like I didn't want there to be a flashing sign telling you when/where the puzzles were. The whole game is really an experiment to see if its possible to mix these two things, so seeing if people can just figure out what to do is sort of part of that.
    The page that has the hint that I should put frames in my inventory, but I have no idea how to do that.
    Are you scrolling down to see the bottom of the page? This seems to be a problem with people who can't see the entire game space on their computer screens because they are at a lower resolution.
  • GreatTeacherMacRossGreatTeacherMacRoss
    Yes, scrolled all the way up and down, no inventory.
    60 htz refresh rate on a laptop at 1280 x 800.
  • KieyKiey
    Yes, scrolled all the way up and down, no inventory.
    60 htz refresh rate on a laptop at 1280 x 800.
    Yeah, the problem is that the page is 850 in height, and the inventory appears at the top of the page. I've been planning to move it, I just haven't decided where. Probably next to the left side navigational controls.
  • KieyKiey
    Updated some things in the Beta. Moved the inventory bit to the bottom, which should forever solve that problem (FOREVER!)
  • GreatTeacherMacRossGreatTeacherMacRoss
    There's some wonky-ness when trying to move the drawings in the "it's time to wake up" page. They'd let me drag once, then I'd have to release the mouse button and re-click to drag them again if I went outside of the box.
  • KieyKiey
    My thesis game is finally somewhat final, and so I'm looking for people to play it and fill out a survey so I can use the data for the paper I have to write. You can find the game at http://q2nsummerdays.squarespace.com and a link to the survey shows up in the credits once you've finished the game.
  • RuffasRuffas
    edited January 2011
    Your game is really getting some major pimpage on the interwebs.
    Post edited by Ruffas on
  • RymRym
    Actually, if you'd like to talk about it publicly, I think we could put together an interesting show. Few people think about game design from an academic perspective.
  • ApsupApsup
    Few people think about game design from an academic perspective.
    I was recently on a course about digital games and one thing that was talked about was game design. We even has a group task to design a game. It was interesting course, but it didn't give too much for gaming geek like me.
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