The birthing boss thing is annoying as hell. I've been flapping here for like 10 minutes. Reflecting most shots doesn't hit anything because the boss just moves out of the way. Very few have been timed right to hit the boss in the face. It really sucks having it be totally up to luck as to whether the boss pops out a shot at the right timing to hit.
And I guess hitting the boss in the face is even the goal since it makes the expression change, but honestly I have no idea. Since there's no health bar or anything, it's hard to tell if I'm actually making progress or how much more I have to do. It's important that the game gives feedback to the player than they're even doing to right thing and not just wasting their time entirely.
The boss is made to the old school, to make the player nervous by not knowing what to do and discovering by trial and error. (but is very easy defeat her)
The trick here is that you can only kick the orbs (not the fetuses) and against the boss both the ceiling and the floor do not affect the player and you can just wait on the ground until the correct orb. I thank you for testing even the boss.
This minigame is a bonus level test for a bigger game.
I can understand that you want to hit the boss only in the face, but like the OP said, hitting the boss in the face is annoying because it's just a time waster. Even flapping around the orbs and fetuses, I only got hit like twice, so it's not difficult to just flap there and wait, it just wastes time. If there was some way to manipulate where the boss shot, even if what the shots were themselves were random, it would be better and even allow players to try and optimize speedruns of the game. Well, kinda.
I was more annoyed that hitting the ceiling in the main flapping part hurt you; it's rather difficult to control yourself when you have to go from a bare minimum hole to the maximum height hole, and I don't think I've ever managed to successfully pull that off once without hitting the ceiling. I attempted this three times. The first attempt died while flapping because I intentionally went below 9 lives for the so-called "Bad Ending" right away. The second attempt I got to the boss but also died because I was trying to keep my lives low for the bad ending, but I couldn't figure out what to do besides kick back the orbs so the fight just dragged on too long. The third one was the successful run where I noticed the face changing states. Maybe if you made the boss flash a bit, it'd be more noticeable that the orb to the face actually did something?
Not knowing what to do? - Fine. Not gonna debate that.
But spending 10+ minutes flapping around and not even being sure I'm making progress? - Yeah, that's gonna turn off a lot of people.
The point is that it feels like the player has very little agency in what's going on. Might as well be a slot machine where I can just pull a lever and hope I get the "damage boss" reward. Have you had anyone play-test this at all?
Player skill should trump randomness otherwise it just gets frustrating and people give up, like I did. In the end there are plenty of other games where people can go spend their time instead of yours, so don't give them a reason to think in those terms.
We're supposed to be able to clear 90 obstacles? I only managed 11!
A list of the issues I have with the current design: 1, Some obstacles spawn at the very bottom or top of the screen, low and high enough that there is no space to flap. 2, It is very hard to tell if the fingers of the lower obstacle are part of its hitbox or not, and if they are, the gap between obstacles is so small that the character barely fits, let alone giving enough space to flap. 3, The character will fall uncontrollably for a second after hitting an obstacle, long enough to almost guarantee that the next gap will be unreachable, and there is no indication of how long the invulnerable period is.
Anything else if common to flappy bird, so nothing new there.
I appreciate the concept, but the current version is much too difficult for me.
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The birthing boss thing is annoying as hell. I've been flapping here for like 10 minutes. Reflecting most shots doesn't hit anything because the boss just moves out of the way. Very few have been timed right to hit the boss in the face. It really sucks having it be totally up to luck as to whether the boss pops out a shot at the right timing to hit.
And I guess hitting the boss in the face is even the goal since it makes the expression change, but honestly I have no idea. Since there's no health bar or anything, it's hard to tell if I'm actually making progress or how much more I have to do. It's important that the game gives feedback to the player than they're even doing to right thing and not just wasting their time entirely.
Thank you very much for testing the game!
The boss is made to the old school, to make the player nervous by not knowing what to do and discovering by trial and error. (but is very easy defeat her)
The trick here is that you can only kick the orbs (not the fetuses) and against the boss both the ceiling and the floor do not affect the player and you can just wait on the ground until the correct orb. I thank you for testing even the boss.
This minigame is a bonus level test for a bigger game.
Thanks for visit the game!
I can understand that you want to hit the boss only in the face, but like the OP said, hitting the boss in the face is annoying because it's just a time waster. Even flapping around the orbs and fetuses, I only got hit like twice, so it's not difficult to just flap there and wait, it just wastes time. If there was some way to manipulate where the boss shot, even if what the shots were themselves were random, it would be better and even allow players to try and optimize speedruns of the game. Well, kinda.
I was more annoyed that hitting the ceiling in the main flapping part hurt you; it's rather difficult to control yourself when you have to go from a bare minimum hole to the maximum height hole, and I don't think I've ever managed to successfully pull that off once without hitting the ceiling. I attempted this three times. The first attempt died while flapping because I intentionally went below 9 lives for the so-called "Bad Ending" right away. The second attempt I got to the boss but also died because I was trying to keep my lives low for the bad ending, but I couldn't figure out what to do besides kick back the orbs so the fight just dragged on too long. The third one was the successful run where I noticed the face changing states. Maybe if you made the boss flash a bit, it'd be more noticeable that the orb to the face actually did something?
Not knowing what to do? - Fine. Not gonna debate that.
But spending 10+ minutes flapping around and not even being sure I'm making progress? - Yeah, that's gonna turn off a lot of people.
The point is that it feels like the player has very little agency in what's going on. Might as well be a slot machine where I can just pull a lever and hope I get the "damage boss" reward. Have you had anyone play-test this at all?
Player skill should trump randomness otherwise it just gets frustrating and people give up, like I did. In the end there are plenty of other games where people can go spend their time instead of yours, so don't give them a reason to think in those terms.
We're supposed to be able to clear 90 obstacles? I only managed 11!
A list of the issues I have with the current design: 1, Some obstacles spawn at the very bottom or top of the screen, low and high enough that there is no space to flap. 2, It is very hard to tell if the fingers of the lower obstacle are part of its hitbox or not, and if they are, the gap between obstacles is so small that the character barely fits, let alone giving enough space to flap. 3, The character will fall uncontrollably for a second after hitting an obstacle, long enough to almost guarantee that the next gap will be unreachable, and there is no indication of how long the invulnerable period is.
Anything else if common to flappy bird, so nothing new there.
I appreciate the concept, but the current version is much too difficult for me.
Thank you very much for the comments. It is true, it is difficult, I exceeded a little XD. I will make it easier so that it can be completed.
This game was my first test. I am happy that you have tested it
Thanks for the test. I fix it.