The Art of Dying - Platformer made in AGS (GAME IS RELEASED!)

[dkh]

The Art of Dying has been released!

Thank you for the interest during development, now go over here to download the game, play it and let me know how you liked it!

[yaomon17]

I like the fast pace of the game but the sliding into spikes on landing is a bit frustrating and the minimal aerial control makes the flying enemies a pain to deal with in conjunction with trying to avoid shots/spikes. Also a way to do the spinning slash faster after jumping off the ground rather than having to tap twice would make the controls feel less restricting. Other than that the game seems like a fun way to pour some time into. Good work 

[Ai]

Given that it's called "The Art of Dying", why isn't it a roguelike?

On a more serious note, I would have appreciated some notice that this is Windows-only, so that I could have not bothered to download it.

(it doesn't appear to work fully in WINE. When I go to start a new run, it pops up an error dialog talking about a 'scripting error', giving the following info (paraphrased since I couldn't take a screenshot):

Code: [Select]

LevelSelect.asc line 61
Room1.asc line 201
Room1.asc line 413
Room1.asc line 851

String.Truncate : invalid length.

Nice animation in the menu screen though
)

[dkh]

Thanks for playing the game and giving feedback!

I like the fast pace of the game but the sliding into spikes on landing is a bit frustrating and the minimal aerial control makes the flying enemies a pain to deal with in conjunction with trying to avoid shots/spikes. Also a way to do the spinning slash faster after jumping off the ground rather than having to tap twice would make the controls feel less restricting. Other than that the game seems like a fun way to pour some time into. Good work 

What exactly do you dislike about the spikes? They are your average run-of-the-mill platformer spikes I think. I also don't quite agree with minimal aerial control - or are you talking about the fact that I put the double jump mechanic in as opposed to the, technically, more 'controllable' hold-the-button longer to jump higher mechanic? In general, I should maybe have emphasized the fact that this is supposed to be a very tricky and challenging platformer, think Super Meat Boy and then some. It's supposed to be borderline frustrating, yet fair and ultimately very, very rewarding when you beat a stage and/or the game. The controls suggestion was made frequently and, to a certain degree I can relate. Of course it would be nice to have a simple 'macro' button assigned to just that attack! But on the same token, it would be nice to have a button you can press in Street Fighter that simply throws a Hadouken for you instead of needing to do a quartercircle forward and punch! What I'm trying to say is that sometimes it's better to have key combos in a game that a player first needs to learn a bit until they can pull them off. In this case, the spin attack is notoriously strong (and usually is in all platformers that support it, just think back to Super Star Wars on SNES or even the original Ninja Gaiden on NES) - so I want to counterbalance this strength a bit by making it slightly trickier to pull off! Thanks for playing and please do elaborate on some of your points you made, I'm glad you seemed to at least partially enjoy your time with the game!

Given that it's called "The Art of Dying", why isn't it a roguelike?

On a more serious note, I would have appreciated some notice that this is Windows-only, so that I could have not bothered to download it.

(it doesn't appear to work fully in WINE. When I go to start a new run, it pops up an error dialog talking about a 'scripting error', giving the following info (paraphrased since I couldn't take a screenshot):

Code: [Select]

LevelSelect.asc line 61
Room1.asc line 201
Room1.asc line 413
Room1.asc line 851

String.Truncate : invalid length.

Nice animation in the menu screen though
)

Ah, sorry, I guess I should have. The thing is, this is written in Adventure Game Studio, it's not my own engine so I didn't really think about cross-platform issues. But yeah, running AGS games on anything non-Windows is tricky at best! From the error you're getting, it seems that there is an issue locating a level file - no idea if that helps you!

Thanks again for trying the game out! Any further feedback is much appreciated!

[yaomon17]

The inertia just makes the controls feel a bit loose. I find myself trying to strafe left and right in the air to land between two spike strips and slide into one and die.

[dkh]

Ah now I see what you mean! Well, there's two basic kinds of platformers out there: the ones with acceleration/decelaration and those without! There are fans of the one kind and fans of the other. I tried to keep the slipperiness down to a minimum while still having acceleration and decelaration but it's a personal matter of taste!

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

I like the game! Good job.

You also got onto PCGamer: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/12/21/the-best-free-games-of-the-week-6/

[dkh]

Thanks Mr. Fahrenheit! And nice find, yay!

In the meantime, I've updated the game to 1.1 to fix a couple of level editor issues. If you're planning on making your own levels, it's highly suggested to update. Coincidentally, this update *might* also fix your error, Ai, there actually was a coding error in there causing the crash even when the level files where there!