CORFAISUS'S PROFILE

I once had a thought
It slowly died in my head
That's the end of that

What's in the chest? Are you even sure you want to find out?

author=ESBY

instead of putting a chest in a random spot, how 'bout a bodach-sneachda?

A what?
*Google*
Oh.

This just hit me.

People gave you an easy way to fix a significant problem many have been having with your game and you respond with...

author=XBuster
I have no intention on editing the monster sprites either.

You wouldn't have to introduce some other strange stomping mechanic if you just did this one thing. Graphical indications that the player can imply some sort of nature from is pretty much Game Design 101. Even if you don't speak the language, if an enemy in an RPG looks like it's using fire magic, chances are you wouldn't want to use fire magic on it once you get that initial experience of having a skill heal or not damage something based on its appearance or behavior. There's nonverbal communication here that speaks to everyone regardless of their education level with no "tutorial" menus/levels needed*.

You started up this thread wanting people to explain to you if your game is difficult to understand, but follow it up with essentially "I know what I'm doing." You've got a facade of accepting and considering critique, but almost nothing up to this point seems to be getting through without getting shot down with videos or screenshots explaining why it's not a bad idea.

I don't know how Monster World or whatever did it on the SEGA Somethingsystem (never made time for SEGA until my cousin got the Dreamcast), but Nintendo had plenty of examples of doing platforming way right that I think Monster World could've used if you've emulated them as perfectly as you appear to have.

Weapon not long enough? Castlevania used a whip. Controls don't feel quite right? Mario wrote the book on it. Too much stuff going on on the screen? Mega Man was difficult but it wasn't a clusterfuck all at once.

Take this for example: looks difficult as shit, right? Sure, but you were taught about both of these enemies earlier on in the level without pits being present, so the consequence for failure isn't so high. Also, even if you did die, this is the first screen of a level that you can choose once you fire up the game and getting a Game Over restores all your lives and costs you nothing.

The penguins move really slow and shoot out eggs if you get too close that are almost as big as they are, so if you just open fire on them, you're bound to hit at least one if not both. The flying enemies are harder only because they're sometimes out of range and they divebomb you, releasing the pillars of fire, but you get a pretty consistent idea of where exactly the pillars of fire will shoot up from when they land.

There aren't other things going on all around you to distract you from the enemies, so all of your focus is on them. Mario had slow moving enemies that rarely did anything more than move towards you (aside from the Hammer Bros.) so you had the opportunity to invest some of your time and focus into smashing blocks with your fist and getting mushrooms/lives/secrets from them. And as we all know, just about every enemy in that game (even the armored ones) were stompable, aside from Bowser (horns on head) and Piranha Plants (sharp teeth).

It's all in how your game's designed.

Going back to one of my earlier points that I feel mostly went ignored: if you just extended the graphic and hitboxes of the floating platforms that move and whatnot on Stage 1-1 (and wherever else they appear) so that the player has a greater chance of landing on it instead of falling off, that'd help significantly without making you change anything about the player's controls (would still recommend it, by the way)... but then there's this:

author=XBuster
I have no intention on editing the monster sprites either.

So I'm not holding my breath that even that will change, so instead all I can say is watch Egoraptor's Sequelitis videos on Castlevania and *Mega Man and glean some knowledge from them. They say a lot about "game feel" (something I felt Monster World Legends lacked) and teaching the player about your game through its level design (once again, lacking).

author=Kaempfer
edit: this screenshot deserves to be on this page and not lost on the last one:

author=Pancaek

Looks like it was taken straight out of Hyper Light Drifter.

author=Pancaek

author=Cazic
Are the colors changing or static, Pancaek?

Looks good, I like the art style.

The colors are static, I feel like changing colors would be a bit too much on the eyes for that big of an area. Also the art style is pretty much a ripoff of Hyper Light Drifter, but thanks!

Oops. Guess that explains it. I suppose it's comforting that the person behind the game openly admits that they take so much inspiration from another work instead of feigning ignorance or somesuch.