There's so much potential to this!! I grew up with Paper Mario and the design and gameplay give me so much nostalgia. The art is so unique and charming! I'd love to see this to completion. Keep up the good work!
This game is so cool and unique! It reminds me a lot of Paper Mario and Tomba from my childhood. The abilities are awesome and the the paper world and the colorful characters look amazing. I would love to see more in the future!
The game was nice and unique, the art style was great it reminded me of paper mario and little big planet for some reason, maybe it the 3d-esk platforming, but overall the gameplay was great but there is some bits that are frustrating to do. could you please add a tutorial next time that would be great. looking forward to the full game! keep up the good work!
Ah, this is such a wholesome game! Everything about it just oozes charm and whimsy. It's got a Paper Mario / Tomba mix going on that fits together so well!
Ahem, I guess maybe I should lay out the premise a little bit! You take on the role of an (as yet) unnamed heroine made of paper. As you journey around the nearby woodlands and countryside you pick up new items and abilities to help you traverse the landscape. A sword, a spin-dash style move and a hammer to be precise. Each one of those things helps you unlock a new piece of this very stylish demo.
You come across several other characters in this world, like a mouse (we think!), a lovable doggo shopkeeper, some angry bees and a mysterious creepy old hag that we can't seem to get close to... which may be for the best!
All in all this is a lovely little demo showcasing the possibilities this character and her world contains, and on our little mission for random fruit we can really see some great ideas coming together! I highly recommend giving this game a shot if you like old school, side-scrolling, open world adventure romps! There's a few issues with perspective (I really struggled with my depth perception when jumping across the cloud platforms late on in the demo), but aside from that it's wonderful!
Very cute game! I really enjoyed the art style of it and the cute characters. The clouds was one part that caught my eye and I liked the animation of them :D
I don't know if you've heard of Game Development World Championship before (gdwc2019) but it's a competition for indie game developers where they can submit their games and it's free! It's great if you want some more visibility for the game and it only takes a couple of minutes to join :)
This was an amazing demo! It was very fun and I can't wait for the full release and future demos. I only encountered two bugs while playing, but despite that it was a blast. One of the bugs I encountered was when pressing pause after initiating a jump, staying on the pause menu for a few seconds would build up speed and upon unpausing would cause the character to crumple up after hitting the ground. The second bug that I encountered was in the 2D background section, falling off while in the background would cause the character to respawn incredibly big.
The demo was great! Really gave me those Paper Mario vibes. The one thing I would change from this demo would be where you respawn when you fall off an edge. Perhaps it'd be better if the game placed the player on the last safe surface they where standing on, as opposed to having a few checkpoints. I'm no game designer and don't know how hard that'd be to code, but there it is.
Anywat, the demo was very fun, and I loved the art style soo much! I can't wait to play the next demo and eventually purchase this game!
Love it! I don't care if you are bad at development or good at it! Because you r a Paper Mario fan! Me Follow. Me know what it feels like to galore PM64. =O w O= MEOW!
I've been following the project for a while now so I'm glad to finally be able to play the teaser! The Scrap Story world feels so lively and just picture perfect~ I'm really digging the paper aesthetics and I'm excited to see what the combat mechanic will be like. The controls, for the most part, felt smooth and I had no quarrels with how the puzzle solving worked. Unfortunately, I did have a few gripes with some parts of the demo. I noticed you updated the teaser, so all these points are just what I experienced before this update as I'm not sure what was and wasn't fixed.
1) Falling off the map. (Example: 2:05 of the video)
To be honest, I felt like it was too punishing to fall off the map when trying to explore nooks and crannies at the far back of the screen. I actually fell off multiple times but cut it out for video's sake. I could understand falling off when nearing the front of the screen, but near the back didn't make too much sense for me when wanting to look for potential secrets.
2) Hard to see obstacles (5:09 and 9:20 )
I wasn't sure if I did it right, but I had such a hard time getting to that platform since I wasn't sure where to land due to the camera restraints. It'd be amazing if we could move the camera a bit to the left or right with the right joystick, but it's just a suggestion.
3) NPC can float (4:34)
I honestly thought this was pretty funny. A bit immersion breaking but funny.
4) Untranslated Dialogue? (8:42)
I'm assuming this is an easter egg or just untranslated dialogue. It was pretty funny, but hopefully others will be able to understand it.
5) More Save Points? (7:28)
This is just a personal preference, but I didn't like restarting all the way near the flower fields after managing to reach the bees.
Another thing I wanted to ask about was whether or not there was an 'ending' point to the demo. I was pretty lost after obtaining the paper airplane card, but I figured maybe I just couldn't figure out a puzzle I failed to notice.
Anyway, that's all I have! I hope I didn't sound rude when pointing these out. I really loved the demo and the liveliness of the paper themed world is so well done. I'm looking forward to the full game!
I absolutely adore this game! Very much reminds me of one of my favorite games Paper Mario! Please keep working on this. Judging by the amount of feedback this game has gotten, its obvious people want this game! Wish you the best and good luck!
Bug: Holding a side direction in the main menu with a sidemost option selected will make Scrapgirl freak out. Eventually, all this turning around and running from side to side makes her sketch graphics to turn completely black (like a shadow) while staying at a weird, half turned angle.
Suggested fix: disable main menu "wrap around" to make the spamming that makes this posible not available to the player anymore.
Bug: Spinning cards in their overwold form sometimes display a completely black backside, probably due to lighting.
Suggested fix: Give these cards their own light source to both overcome this and give them some "importance"
Bug: Scrapgirl might vibrate or rock slightly back and forth in some complex level geometry.
Suggested fix: Assuming you are calculating Scrapgirl's angle in realtime with some kind of normal calculation: don't. You are better off establishing simple collision maps for otherwise visually intricate objects.
Bug: The second tree (the ragdolly one) in the second room freaks out way too easily.
Suggested fix: Tone down realtime physics and give it an animation instead.
Tidbit: Mr "you fixed the bridge" mouse guy just casually floats across the gaps (snort)
Tidbit: Never though I said this, but this game needs more invisible walls,specially on the front and back edge of the stage. I find myself constantly falling even when paying attention. (The sound that plays when this happens is amazing, though)
Tidbit: Speaking off, the "you fell off" mechanics need some revision. For one, camera needs to stop following the player. Otherwise you start seeing floating level geometry and the innards of the level design. I also strongly suggest getting rid of the "blackout fade" effect and instead implement something more in the lines of Paper Mario TTYD (Where you get your but munched on by some chomp fish and fly back to the next checkpoint).
Tidbit: Speaking-speaking off, the checkpoint system is at a whack. If I'm coming from the right and fall in a hole I should spawn on the other side, not be "rewarded" and teleported to my destination.
Bug: In the paper plane room, the sign that tell you not to speak to the cat displays it's "?" horizontally flipped.
Bug: You are able to pick the plane powerup more than once, as it keeps respawning upon re-entering the room.
Tidbit: You walk SO SLOW in the 2D background section.
Tidbit: Need a "you got something while holding it up" charade for items that are cards and "important stuff" like the fruits.
Tidbit: In the rainy tornado room you could benefir from forcing the player to pick up the card. Don't be afraid to gently trap the player to force them into learning something! If you can't, remember to implement a camera pan towards the missed crucial item upon entering the room right before allowing the player to move (See Luigi's Mansion)
Tidbit: The second gap in the second room is a leap of faith. Mark down a trayectory with coins. You could also benefit from using Mr Mouse again, making him complain about a second missing bridge the player needs to reactivate and being all "Now what?". Also the guy crossing the bridge should really be a mini-cutscene where the player looses control for a couple of seconds.
Tidbit: Need to "gently force" the player to practice the tornado+jump technique in a safe place, probably design the "trap" in the rainy room so the player can get in but needs to do the special jump to get out.
Tidbit: When moving fast the camera fails to catch up. For example, if the player moves right very fast they are on the right side of the screen. What should really happen instead is that the camera looks ahead more, placing the player on the left side of the screen and allowing them to react to incoming level.
Tidbit: Careful with finicky platforming in these game style: it can get tedious FAST.
Tidbit: In the rainy room, the shallow water on the right looks inviting, like it's not deep enough to kill you and that you can probably just walk inside without fear.
This game is undoubtly gorgeous, that's clear, but, it still have some flaws:
What I struggled the most was with the controllers and the level design, at one point I literally wasn't able to get through because I coudn't jump! (At the mouse and the bridge stuff)
And also at that part it was soooo hard to get through, and not necessarly bc of the difficulty, (wich, I think it's just right for a game like this) instead for all the times that i saw myself falling off the stage, it was just so odd and felt a litle bit like artificial difficulty, it was not that i couldn't get through the level fast because i was bad at the game, instead because I was falling on an edge that i didn't even saw in the first place, there was no way to avoid some falls, and I think that is a problem, I should be aware of my surroundings in order to get better at the game.
also i got a lot of input lag, i'm not sure if that was because of my computer or the cable that I used for my xbox controller, but I got lag and the game just didn't felt all the smooth that i'll like, (ik this stills as a prototype but deffinetly something to have in mind)
To wrap up I would like to say two things:
First: Congratulations, seriously, this is an amazing job and it has a lot of potential that i deffinetly want to fully enjoy in the future
and second: This is a game. give more focus at the things that makes games fun in the first place: playability, mechanics, movement, level design, UI design, etc. I say that bc i see the visuals so pullished and not that level of care at the "gaming" stuff.
Deffinetly lovely, looks fun, I want to play more, keep going, cheers <3
Finally got around to playing this! I was considering making a video, but still have a cold and not sure if I have the right set up. ANYWAYS, good demo. I'll try to say things that haven't been said here already or are worth reiterating.
Visuals and everything are nice, great job. Obviously is an early setup so not all sfx and such will be in (Like wish the cards would make some noise when collected). Lighting is pretty good too. Only issue art wise is perhaps making things more apparent, especially in terms of depth. The clouds at the end could be hard to make out when trying to jump over them.
Menu is aesthetically pleasing but needs work in terms of representation and order. I could see myself and others confused by where certain things were, such as the clothes. Maybe also making it more obvious what section of the menu you're in. So if you're equipping weapons, highlight that area of that menu. Just better indications to really make it crystal clear what's being done.
Controls well, but one thing I noticed was a lack of Jump Buffering. Well, that might be the wrong term, since that's usually for press jump a few frames before you land so a new jump registers. What I ACTUALLY mean, is jumping off ledges. I think having a few frames after the player is "off ground" to press jump so they can make precise jumps would be REALLY helpful. Especially for players who aren't that great at platforming. This demo featured far more platforming intense obstacles than Paper Mario normally did.
I'm not a fan of the text scroll. I've yet to deal with programming text boxes, but I do have some rules for what to do/don't. And since this is an RPG, having good text boxes is crucial. But I'm 100% sure ya know that, cause this is Paper Mario! Where they use wacky text effects like wavy animated text and such. Just make sure it scrolls left, and that the words generated at the end of a line START on the next line; that stuff BUGS me when devs don't do that. Adventures of Pip doesn't do it. You'll see a word spelled out at the end of a text line but then it gets too long for the text box so it suddenly jumps to the next line all weird and stuff and eeeeewww...
Btw I played this demo without cutting any flowers so I could see if the RatBee thing would change dialogue. They didn't... 0/10
Kidding, but speaking of cutting things down, hmm. I didn't do it much cause I had seen my friends the Console Warriors play the demo so I didn't bother, but they used the Sword to cut down the grass. A lot. Now cutting it down with the sword is fine, good way of finding secrets. But there's a LOT of grass, and you're a 2D character slicing the sword in a 3D space. So it feels sort of awkward to slice all this grass for secrets. It's not like Zelda where you can quickly get around and slice multiple blades of grass. I think something you could do is add something to the sword later on to perhaps "spin attack" and slice multiple grass. That would be very convenient. Or combine it with the Spin Ability.
Speaking of which I have mixed feelings with this Spin. It's sort of like Paper Marios, but it's also not. It definitely has more platforming use, but feels far less controllable. In PM I'd use it all the time, jump to cancel out of the end lag, land and repeat using it. So I tried to see if I could find a similar technique. And I did! But even so, I think this ability needs better control, or perhaps something to outright stop you from falling off so easily. But my earlier point about the jumps might help there.
Anyways the technique I found was to spin, then immediately jump. When I landed, I could spin again just about instantly AND it cancels out the daze part if I jump/land before it happens. Perhaps if you could teach this to players or make its use more apparent and easy to control, then it would be even better for getting around. But at the same time, I'm mixed because this ability in PM wasn't something you equipped (well, there was one that made it longer). It was natural, so it makes me question if this should be a slot in the first place and not a natural ability.
Anyways Hammer feels good. Paper Airplane is good enough, but wish it crafted you at the top of the character rather than the bottom. I'm guessing you had it this way to not have to mess with changing hitboxes on the ground. So I think the feel of you becoming an airplane needs work.
That's about all I got to say. Other than perhaps the sign/menu at the beginning likely wasn't loaded properly because the game pauses for 3 seconds to load it all, then it's all good from there. I think there are a lot of things that could be done to enhance performance, but I'm certain you can figure that out. Also respawns are... not the best. If you can, trying adding something in the character object that detects where it was last on solid land, then spawn back there like PM. Certain pits you fall in can even spawn you in NEW areas you hadn't reached yet which is weird.
Good Demo to test the waters! Definitely has potential!
This game is going to be a delight when finished :D. For the most part I really enjoyed what I saw in the demo. The art style is wonderful, the music is wonderful, the animations. This game looks like it's going to be a spiritual successor to the classic Paper Mario (not the new ones, they aren't that great). The only criticism I have is that the controls are a bit clunky when it comes to the abilities. I would maybe suggest have a hot swap button? Maybe one fore melee weapon(Sword and Hammer) and one for special ability (Plane and Tornado). I found myself pressing the wrong buttons quite a bit. Other than that and what's been mentioned by others (Re-spawn checkpoints, and just a lot of falling off) I really liked it. I really look forward to the next demo. Keep up the great work :D.
Hi! Thank you so much for playing and for the video. In the future there is for sure going to be a quick menu for equips as well as an on screen UI that shows what you have equipped on what. Hope to see you for the next demo! :)
I played the demo and I think its a very fun game! The graphics are stellar and I love the artstyle. I do have some minor gripes though.
I feel that the depth perception is a little off in some areas (cloud area at the end and the bridge after the jump pad before the cloud area).
This is a personal opinion here, but I think the game may benefit from a few boundaries on some places. In the area where you first meet the mouse, I was having a bit of trouble getting the fruit as I couldn't necessarily see the bridge that lead to it all that well.
In the in-game menu, I think that different directions for some icons would be nice (pressing up to go to settings as its more up than right).
Some of the checkpoints were a little strange, as it seemed I progressed very far in an area (one before clouds), just to fall and get booted to the very beginning. It felt like I was falling a lot, and I think that more generous checkpoints or maybe just being more lenient on being on platforms/bridges would be nice.
Obviously these are all very minor things, and I think the game is really awesome and I am looking forward to more in the future! Thanks for this amazing demo :)!
Played the demo and I like what I see so far. I did end up making a bit of a list of stuff I thought was missing, though I imagine a lot of it may just be for polishing the game when everything is done. Can't wait to see more of it. (sorry if it's a mess, I was just writing stuff down as they popped into mind.)
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Kind of thought that I would be moving the character in the menu to which option.
Being able to equip an already equipped item into another slot (possibly with a confirmation)
Some similar looking fences I can jump over, some I can't.
Falling into a pit, would like to be closer to where I fell rather than way back (notably the area where you first run into jump springs or whatever.)
Wasn't really aware you could jump higher on jump springs initially by jumping as you land on it. Maybe also allow for jumping higher if you are holding the jump button when you land on it as well?
Hitting/swinging/shaking/jumping off stuff has no "impact" to it (no sounds or dust or anything.)
Adding onto the jumping on Jump pads, maybe it makes a higher pitch noise when you jump higher.
The rainy area where you find the Spin Dash, maybe make the water look deep or something (I figured I was fine walking into it since it was slightly elevated below the safe ground.)
Adding onto the rainy area, maybe make it so that when you get the Spin Dash, you have to then use it to get back (maybe the upgrade is in a hole and you have to use the upgrade to get out of the whole.) Wrote this when I missed that you use it to get the hidden Lemon.
Wish item pickups had some initial text saying what they do (didn't figure out that I could use Spin Dash to clear jumps until I inspected it in the menu.)
No idea if a UI is already in the works. Would be nice to see what upgrades I have currently equipped in the button slots (The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker's UI in the top right for example.) And of course, I guess for a way to hide UI elements.
Possibly differentiate the jump pads (Maybe the bigger one is a different color/has patterns)
"The bees don't like me killing flowers, where they watching me the whole time? Would they be chill if I didn't murder flowers prior to talking to them?"
Kind of wish Spin dashing NPCs made them twirl or something.
Wish hitting hammers against things stopped the hammer short of the ground.
Not sure if it was just me, but didn't see the safe spots in some areas unless I made a blind leap.
Wish the fall when you hit the rock roadblock wasn't so long. (Also unsure if it the block you break below the rock should look different from other blocks)
Hard to tell where the cloud platforms are.
Wish there were some invisible walls to keep me from falling off the front/back of some platforms (the first area after you leave the woods comes to mind. I fell off in front of the entrance, and also trying to get to the paper airplane part where
Wish I was moving a little faster in the background in the cloud platform section.
No idea what the progression on items is, but I feel like some may be too useful to have to keep equipping manually. Maybe have swappable equipment sets or certain items are bound to buttons outside the 3 equip buttons (just an example: Spin Dash to R2/Right Trigger, L2/Left Trigger to Paper Airplane.)
It's charming so far. Can't wait to see more of it.
Thanks for playing and taking the time to leave feedback. It is a nice list of adjustments, a lot of these are going to be implemented in the next build :)
Hello! I spent about an hour and a half playing the demo, and found the fruit and the note on the tiny island (I'm from Twitter lol)
There was a camera issue where it did not reset after falling from the area where you hit the rock with the hammer and fall to the small area below it with the cat character. Upon returning to the top part of the level the camera would still be stuck at that specific height instead of being like you were looking down slightly at the level like normal. I'm going to try and stream the demo in the near future and I will see if I can replicate this.
There was also an issue where the airplane power up would still exist even after I had collected it, so I was able to collect it a second time.
I think the biggest thing that stuck out to me though is how easy it is to fall off everything, and when I was trying out the spin dash + jump combo, and with trying the plane and would fall off the level, it became somewhat annoying that I would resume on an earlier portion of the level instead of near the platform I jumped from. This was easier to replicate with the plane in the part of the level mentioned before with the falling bridge part; I could become a plane from that area and float towards the left, fall, and then respawn waaay to the left of that area at the beginning with the rock in the middle of the fence. If falling is going to continue to be a part of this game, I would personally prefer respawning from the area you last jumped from instead of the area to where you are closest to. But I've never really made a game (yet) so I don't know if that could cause some issues. I figure that you've made things the way they are because of a process you have went through so it is difficult for me to feel like it is okay for me to criticize something like this.
One funny thing I came across during that part is the opossum guy would resume walking from A to B and would walk on thin air plus through the gate with the rock in it like it was nothing, lol.
I had no difficulty issues with the spin dash. It's supposed to be a bit hectic. But sometimes when I would jump with it I would make a collision with parts of the level like the corner of a fence which would stop me from advancing, causing me to fall and have to do it over again. That has more to do with the level layout. Getting to the green fruit was very challenging though. Maybe the spin dash could be changed to where you can stop on a dime? I had a hard time stopping sometimes.
The clouds in the last part of the area did not have the shadow underneath the character like on land which made it difficult for me to determine where I was landing as I was moving amongst them. I do not know if this is an error or on purpose. I had been using the shadow to determine difficult jumps.
I will see if I can record all of this again if I have time. Oh and it would be neat to be able to use the sword while using the spin dash, but I understand if this is an upgrade meant for later in the game :) Thank you for allowing us to play it!
Hey thanks again for playing. I do want to address these issues too. Falling off the stage was mostly a test, but it has proven pretty unpopular so I will be doing more sensible boundaries next time. Being able to combine abilities like sword+spin may become a thing... stay tuned ;)
hello! i finished playing the demo this morning and collected all of the fruit, and it was super cute and fun! most of the bigger issues have already been addressed by others here (there weren't really that many anyway,) but i have got a few things to say here if you don't mind.
first, i am a huge fan of the paper mario series, and i can definitely see the influence tied in with the originality here! i've only been following Scrap Story's development for about a month and a half, but when i found it i was super happy and instantly began looking through all the photos and previous development updates.
here i have a few comments/suggestions, and they really are mostly small little nitpicks. i'd appreciate if you read these, but please, PLEASE feel free to disregard any of these. for the most part, these are purely my opinion :p
in the very first area, if you go to the back and inspect the foliage it says "You can barley see the sky through the vast amount of trees and leaves." i am pretty sure you meant "barely" instead of "barley," and i think there was one more typo somewhere else but i forgot * ~ *
i saw that the broken pieces of the breakable rocks disappeared a few seconds after they hit the ground, but maybe it could look nicer if they faded out instead of just disappearing in a single frame? i also thought that the rock pieces could look nicer if they split into more irregular, "rocky" fragments when broken instead of into the straight "+" pattern.
many people have said this before, but the spin dash was difficult to control and was a little slippery.
the speech bubbles were a little hard to read if i tried to read them as the text was scrolling in, so maybe it could look nicer if the text was aligned to the left instead of centered?
when falling off of the stage (which i did a lot, lol) i could see the bottoms of all the polygons/geometry as the camera fell with scrap girl. this did feel a little odd, so maybe either extending the level downward, heightening the point where you die at, or making it so that the camera stops falling with scrap girl at a certain point could polish that a little more.
maybe when scrap girl is still crunched after falling, her eyes could be dizzy or slightly in pain instead of going back to the normal eyes to make her a little more expressive?
and lastly, i noticed there was a small lack of sound in some places where it seems like sound would be expected. maybe sound effects could be added for: trees/foliage moving out of the way, breaking the wooden boxes, text boxes opening and closing, bouncing, or landing from jumping/ falling? also maybe the footsteps could be a little louder? they are very cute footsteps lol
i hope these can help in some way! this demo was very polished for the stage it is at! i absolutely adore the paper aesthetic, it seems to be almost perfected. i love the way characters sort of wave around when standing still, i love the way scrap girl wobbles when she walks, and i love the little two-frame scribble animations on everything. i think that the last one in particular is a very underrated effect. the small little speech bubbles that appear as you approach characters is also a nice little touch!
overall, i absolutely love this project, this demo was amazing, and i am looking forward to the next demo and the finished game, whenever they may be! i hope i could help, i also hope i didn't write too much here... :p and good luck working on the rest of this project!
Hey :) Thanks so much for playing. Happy to have you here! Thank your for the feedback and these are all things I want to make better too... especially the silly spelling errors ;)
I've been following you on Twitter for a while now so I'm very happy that I finally get to try out your game. It was really good. The level of polish on the graphics/art/aesthetic really shows. I liked pretty much all of it but I'll go into the things that really stuck out to me below.
I really liked the two movement power-ups (i.e the spin dash and the paper airplane). The airplane animation is very good, and using it to traverse the large gaps of the island was fun (i.e. over to the lonely island with the lime).
I really liked interacting with the bridge that you hit your head off (after bouncing on the trampoline) and knock over onto the ground. When I did it the first time the bridge fell onto the trampoline blocking it so I had to bump it off the map. I always like playing with dynamic pieces of the environment.
I really like the post-processing filters as they give a new flair to the visuals that I can cycle through. I especially liked the cinematic one.
I only have two minor gripes. I think the Player/Equipment menu screen could be better laid out. I kept expecting the 'Outfit' section to be it's own part of the menu rather then a sub-part of the Equipment section (i.e. I kept pressing right when my cursor was hovering over the 'Equipment' badge expecting to the Outfit area of the menu rather then the Power Ups area).
I also felt like the jumps could be slightly more lenient/the standard jump made slightly longer. I kept falling into holes which I don't think were meant to be a challenge (e.g. the little hole before the dog that sells you the mallet).
I also found some glitches which you may or may not be aware of:
1) If you pause the game while you're in the air your downwards velocity(?) is still being updated in the background so if the game is paused for a while you slam vertically into the ground. (e.g. pause the game halfway through a jump -> sit on the menu for about 10 seconds -> unpause the game = slam fast into the ground).
2) The pause menu portrait of scrap girl only appears if you equip the scrap girl outfit in the first zone of the game (the heavily forested area) and disappears if you move into any other zone (e.g. Pick up the Scrap Girl Outfit Card -> Walk into the area with the broken bridge -> equip the Scrap Girl Outfit = Pause menu portrait is still blank.)
Took the time to play it, have been following Scrap Story's development for some time now. I don't have much to add from what I saw others talking about before, all valid complaints you've already commented on.
That being said: SCRAP STORY IS RAD! It's lived up to the internal hype I've slowly been perculating within me, I love it. Seriously. Whole demo I played with a smile. <3 Looking forward to more updates (and the finished game) in the future. Can't believe this is the first game you've made.
This game is wonderful and I'm looking forward to more demos with more to do and so excited for the final game, what consoles will it appear on?
as for minor nitpicks:
the spin feels very loose in the air resulting in lots of seemingly uncontrollable deaths
the platforming was slightly difficult to do because of shadows and textures to land on (clouds)
the boxes near the dog had strange behavior when jumping on and around them while I had the cinematic filter on. Not sure if caused by the filter or not but def. worth checking out.
FANTASTIC GAME GLAD I COULD PLAY THE DEMO GOT ALL THE FRUITS!
Hey thanks for playing. I will be taking a look into that filter bug for sure as well as fixing the cloud platforms. Right now there are only plans for PC, but if I do a kickstarter I will certainly look into stretch goals for PS4/Switch.
The game is super cute and was a lot of fun :D Most of the minor issues I wanted to mention were already mentioned, but I have a few more^^ The first time you open the character menu (Esc) ingame, it takes a bit to generate/ load. Maybe you can preload it upon starting/Loading a game? :D
Also the Depth of Field for post processing seems to only be "focused" in an area behind the character instead of 50:50 in front of and behind. (especially noticable with NPCs.)
Also noticed that the paper airplane card respawned when I reentered that room later^^
Hey thanks again! Yup there s alot of things trying to find references when you first open the pause menu. Will certainly be looking into that. I have also been trying to get a good feel for the Depth of Field, but I notice it reacts very differently depending on the resolution of the screen... Still trying to figure that out :)
Hey! I enjoyed playing the demo guys! The music is cool and the graphics are really unique haha! The fact that you're gaining equipment throughout the game is just great! Keep it up!
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Hey, me and my friend love this game a lot so far but we keep running into a glitch where after we create the first bridge, the mouse character runs across the other side in the air and we can't figure out how to create the bridge to get across, if you could either patch this or help us with this we would greatly appreciate it.
Edit: So me and my friend found the thing we needed to get across the area and we're sorry for misunderstanding it.
Hey! I liked this game so much that I created an account on this website lol. What can I say about your demo so far...
Positives:
+The style is AMAZING! It's apparent that you love Paper Mario and took fun aspects from old games to add fun mechanics to yours! The idea of spin dashing/ timing platform bounces/ breakable objects really add depth to this game.
+Characters are cute and lively. I'm sure there will be more unique characters all with stories and side quests alike. Can't wait!
+The music. Through there's really only one track, it helps set the happy go lucky mood, perfect for this game! Feels very Yoshi's world inspired.
+Equips and outfits add life to this game. I know that there will be even more costumes and weapons/skills that can really add some awesome customization into your game!
Negatives:
-Navigation of the menu. It feels super rigid right now. I'm using a controller right now and as much fun as I have moving in game, it doesn't feel good navigating to, lets say equip my item or going to settings. I think it would feel better if every input gave a direction, like say moving down makes the marker go right, or it just makes a noise for input confirmation.
-Menu noises. It doesn't fit the sound of the rest of the game IMO. It sounds like an obnoxious SPLAT as opposed to a light sound most of this game provides. A minor problem, I know.
-There's no way to close your game. You mentioned a way to get back into the main menu from the misc. section of the settings, but no way to turn off the game? cmoooonnnn.
-Vertical movement is kind of a nightmare. The camera is deadset on the character and while this usually is a good thing, it really sucks when...lets say you jump on the last trampoline pad before the paper airplane. And sometimes when I was jumping on those pads, the camera DIDN'T pan with me! It felt lame not being able to look around with the right stick.
-Jumping over most fences but not ALL fences feels like a weird restriction. Specifically with that bunny dude whos chillin out all menacingly in the middle of the stage. Just seemed unfair that I can clearly jump over it but I get invisible walled.
And that's all! This was a fun demo and i genuinely cannot wait for the release of the main game!
Hey! Thanks so much for taking the time to play and to even create an account to leave feedback. I totally agree with all the negatives and will be making a lot of adjustments for the future. :)
Hello! I very much enjoyed the demo, and as such here are some things that can be improved:
-The initial instruction on how to equip items can be permanently skipped over, leaving the player without an instruction on how to equip the sword. If they didn't completely retain this information the first time around, this can lead to a lost player on the beginning area quite easily. A temporary sign of some sort that appears after collecting the sword but before destroying the rocks (that just brings up the instruction again) would be great.
-The fruit out in the background that is intended for the paper airplane takes you a bit too far back in the level if you don't make the jump. A checkpoint closer to that jump would be great.
-Spin Dash is a bit touchy. It can be hard to stop yourself after making your intended jump, leading to overshooting your target platform a bit too easily. Perhaps the ability to jump out of the dash to cancel it or some other similar approach would feel better as well as natural to utilize.
-The twisty trees can freak out when you strike your sword at them, but that's purely a technical glitch.
-More obvious signposting that lets the player know that there's not much else to the rainy area after the fruit would be great (you kind of have to figure out as such by spin dashing to the right until nothing's there, which I think is a death that can be avoided).
-Some invisible walls preventing the player from falling into the background when looking for the two bridge switches would be welcome.
-The effects of falling are based entirely on time spent in the air, but this can result in odd 'crushing' when the player is just caught on objects. Also, the player can get caught on objects, disallowing them movement and jumping ability. The player's vertical coordinate should be recorded whenever you leave the ground and checked against the resulting coordinate when they land to judge if the player should be crushed from the fall. If the player is falling long enough, check their vertical coordinate for about a second to make sure they're not caught on geometry, and if they are, respawn them. This can prevent softlocking should the player get caught on geometry.
-Allowing the D-Pad for menus would be welcome. I know controller support is in its infancy, but official PS4 controller support would be nice. By default it binds the Xbox buttons to incorrect locations on the PS4 pad, so its not too far-fetched to figure out PS4 support.
The demo was fun! I collected all the fruits and I'm going to be looking forward to this one! I hope these notes prove useful.
Thank you for taking the time to play and leave feedback! I am glad to hear you enjoyed it! I will be sure to look into all of these for improvement, especially refactoring fall calculations from time based to distance based. That will be one of my top priorities.
Hi! Just played through the demo (assuming it's over when you've collected all the fruit) and I'm absolutely loving the potential here! Here's some notes I jotted down while playing:
Compliments: - The presentation is absolutely wonderful. The characters, the environments, the animations, and even the GUI are just downright charming. I honestly can't say enough good things about how adorable this game looks! - Equipping skill cards is intuitive and a good way to keep exploration engaging. The skills themselves are quite fun to mess around with, too, and add some depth to what would otherwise be pretty typical platforming.
Critiques: - The spin dash is REALLY hard to control. Most of my deaths were because I hit the spin button and hurled myself off the edge of a platform. It became a bit easier when I realized you could jump out of a spin, but I didn't realize that until I figured out you can Inspect the equipment. Having this info pop up when you initially collect the card would save a lot of frustration. - Depth perception was a big issue for me. More often than not, I found myself missing jumps because I was slightly too far back or forward, with the low angle of the camera making it hard to judge where I needed to be on the depth axis. This is especially problematic when trying to land a jump with the spin dash. - There seems to be a bit of an issue with misguiding the player. For example, there's a sign near the beginning that says something about turning into an airplane and gliding across, but if you come back later and try that, you just die (unless I missed something). Additionally, I tried for quite a while to get the green fruit on the island using the spin move with that jump pad (since it's located shortly after acquiring that move, and I had figured out that spinning into a jump pad makes you jump higher/further) only to give up after a while and realize later that the jump required an item acquired later. Funny enough, if the sign about turning to an airplane had been there instead, it would have solved both of these issues.
Overall, I'm very impressed with this prototype, and I can't wait to see what's next! It sounds like the way the skill cards factor into battles is going to make for a unique and varied battle system. Keep up the great work!
(Sorry for the long comment, but thank you for taking the time to read this far!)
No worries on it being a long comment, I appreciate all the feedback! Depth perception is something I struggle with too, but I become so used to the levels that I easily over look it. Thank you for pointing it out. Glad you enjoyed it and hope to see you for the next demo!
just finished playing the Scrap Story demo, it was great! The game really captures the same kind of vibe that the old Paper Mario games used to have, but also feels very fresh and original at the same time. The controls and UI felt really good and intuitive, and to say the game looks gorgeous is an understatement!
I did have a few small problems with the game though. The thing that bugged me the most was the places that I would respawn after falling off of a cliff. For example, in the second area with the hidden switches and the cool opossum friend, falling off anywhere before the bridge brings you back to the very start of the room, and walking back to where I was became a little irritating. It was also somewhat hard to see where the cliffs were in some spots due to bushes or grass blocking the view. I think putting invisible walls in these places could help, or making the objects near the cliffs transparent when the player approaches so that they can see where exactly the cliff is.
The other issues I had were just a few bugs. When walking to the platform with the orange on it, I found myself getting stuck on and having to jump over some sort of invisible object in between the bridge and the platform that the orange is on. There was also a part where I fell a long distance downwards and decided to use the paper airplane to fly around a bit, but once I landed the camera was at a weird angle that caused it to clip into the ground, and it stayed like this until I left the room. There were also a few areas with objects like trees that seemed like they should be solid but allowed me to walk through them. That's all the problems I encountered on my play through.
I should probably clue this comment up now, as it's turning into more of an essay at this point lol. Last thing I want to say is how excited I am for the full game. The visuals, music, character designs, dialogue, and controls are all spectacular and left me wanting more. This demo leaves pretty much no doubt in my mind that the final game will be stellar.
Keep up the fantastic work, I can't wait to learn more about Scrap Story :)
Hey! Thank you so much for the feedback!It really helps out alot. I will be looking into all these issues and make sure everything is solid for the next demo.
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There's so much potential to this!! I grew up with Paper Mario and the design and gameplay give me so much nostalgia. The art is so unique and charming! I'd love to see this to completion. Keep up the good work!
This game is so cool and unique! It reminds me a lot of Paper Mario and Tomba from my childhood. The abilities are awesome and the the paper world and the colorful characters look amazing. I would love to see more in the future!
The game was nice and unique, the art style was great it reminded me of paper mario and little big planet for some reason, maybe it the 3d-esk platforming, but overall the gameplay was great but there is some bits that are frustrating to do. could you please add a tutorial next time that would be great. looking forward to the full game! keep up the good work!
Ah, this is such a wholesome game! Everything about it just oozes charm and whimsy. It's got a Paper Mario / Tomba mix going on that fits together so well!
Ahem, I guess maybe I should lay out the premise a little bit! You take on the role of an (as yet) unnamed heroine made of paper. As you journey around the nearby woodlands and countryside you pick up new items and abilities to help you traverse the landscape. A sword, a spin-dash style move and a hammer to be precise. Each one of those things helps you unlock a new piece of this very stylish demo.
You come across several other characters in this world, like a mouse (we think!), a lovable doggo shopkeeper, some angry bees and a mysterious creepy old hag that we can't seem to get close to... which may be for the best!
All in all this is a lovely little demo showcasing the possibilities this character and her world contains, and on our little mission for random fruit we can really see some great ideas coming together! I highly recommend giving this game a shot if you like old school, side-scrolling, open world adventure romps! There's a few issues with perspective (I really struggled with my depth perception when jumping across the cloud platforms late on in the demo), but aside from that it's wonderful!
Keep up the awesome work dev, loved this! =)
Very cute game! I really enjoyed the art style of it and the cute characters. The clouds was one part that caught my eye and I liked the animation of them :D
I don't know if you've heard of Game Development World Championship before (gdwc2019) but it's a competition for indie game developers where they can submit their games and it's free! It's great if you want some more visibility for the game and it only takes a couple of minutes to join :)
If you add any collectible resources you should add one and call it "Fiat" as in "Fiat Currency" and make the icon look like confetti lol.
Will it be free in the full release??
This was an amazing demo! It was very fun and I can't wait for the full release and future demos. I only encountered two bugs while playing, but despite that it was a blast. One of the bugs I encountered was when pressing pause after initiating a jump, staying on the pause menu for a few seconds would build up speed and upon unpausing would cause the character to crumple up after hitting the ground. The second bug that I encountered was in the 2D background section, falling off while in the background would cause the character to respawn incredibly big.
The demo was great! Really gave me those Paper Mario vibes. The one thing I would change from this demo would be where you respawn when you fall off an edge. Perhaps it'd be better if the game placed the player on the last safe surface they where standing on, as opposed to having a few checkpoints. I'm no game designer and don't know how hard that'd be to code, but there it is.
Anywat, the demo was very fun, and I loved the art style soo much! I can't wait to play the next demo and eventually purchase this game!
Great demo! You are creating a fun and beautiful game. Can't wait to see some battles. Made a video in spanish.
Paper Mario got weird man
For my latest video in my indie game review series I decided to check this one out, had a really good time with it, thanks!!
It looks beautiful and feels Paper Mario, I wish this all the best!
Love it! I don't care if you are bad at development or good at it! Because you r a Paper Mario fan! Me Follow. Me know what it feels like to galore PM64. =O w O= MEOW!
Hi! I am pretty bad at it right now, but thanks to everyone's feedback I WILL get good :)
Don't worry I am bad 2. But it's important to 2 b glad what you have. Good luck! ;) Eventually everyone will b good at something. :)
ฅ/ᐠ｡ᆽ｡ᐟ \ Hello!
I've been following the project for a while now so I'm glad to finally be able to play the teaser! The Scrap Story world feels so lively and just picture perfect~ I'm really digging the paper aesthetics and I'm excited to see what the combat mechanic will be like. The controls, for the most part, felt smooth and I had no quarrels with how the puzzle solving worked. Unfortunately, I did have a few gripes with some parts of the demo. I noticed you updated the teaser, so all these points are just what I experienced before this update as I'm not sure what was and wasn't fixed.
1) Falling off the map. (Example: 2:05 of the video)
To be honest, I felt like it was too punishing to fall off the map when trying to explore nooks and crannies at the far back of the screen. I actually fell off multiple times but cut it out for video's sake. I could understand falling off when nearing the front of the screen, but near the back didn't make too much sense for me when wanting to look for potential secrets.
2) Hard to see obstacles (5:09 and 9:20 )
I wasn't sure if I did it right, but I had such a hard time getting to that platform since I wasn't sure where to land due to the camera restraints. It'd be amazing if we could move the camera a bit to the left or right with the right joystick, but it's just a suggestion.
3) NPC can float (4:34)
I honestly thought this was pretty funny. A bit immersion breaking but funny.
4) Untranslated Dialogue? (8:42)
I'm assuming this is an easter egg or just untranslated dialogue. It was pretty funny, but hopefully others will be able to understand it.
5) More Save Points? (7:28)
This is just a personal preference, but I didn't like restarting all the way near the flower fields after managing to reach the bees.
Another thing I wanted to ask about was whether or not there was an 'ending' point to the demo. I was pretty lost after obtaining the paper airplane card, but I figured maybe I just couldn't figure out a puzzle I failed to notice.
Anyway, that's all I have! I hope I didn't sound rude when pointing these out. I really loved the demo and the liveliness of the paper themed world is so well done. I'm looking forward to the full game!
I absolutely adore this game! Very much reminds me of one of my favorite games Paper Mario! Please keep working on this. Judging by the amount of feedback this game has gotten, its obvious people want this game! Wish you the best and good luck!
Thank you!!!
Ok so here is what I found:
Bug: Holding a side direction in the main menu with a sidemost option selected will make Scrapgirl freak out. Eventually, all this turning around and running from side to side makes her sketch graphics to turn completely black (like a shadow) while staying at a weird, half turned angle.
Suggested fix: disable main menu "wrap around" to make the spamming that makes this posible not available to the player anymore.
Bug: Spinning cards in their overwold form sometimes display a completely black backside, probably due to lighting.
Suggested fix: Give these cards their own light source to both overcome this and give them some "importance"
Bug: Scrapgirl might vibrate or rock slightly back and forth in some complex level geometry.
Suggested fix: Assuming you are calculating Scrapgirl's angle in realtime with some kind of normal calculation: don't. You are better off establishing simple collision maps for otherwise visually intricate objects.
Bug: The second tree (the ragdolly one) in the second room freaks out way too easily.
Suggested fix: Tone down realtime physics and give it an animation instead.
Tidbit: Mr "you fixed the bridge" mouse guy just casually floats across the gaps (snort)
Tidbit: Never though I said this, but this game needs more invisible walls,specially on the front and back edge of the stage. I find myself constantly falling even when paying attention. (The sound that plays when this happens is amazing, though)
Tidbit: Speaking off, the "you fell off" mechanics need some revision. For one, camera needs to stop following the player. Otherwise you start seeing floating level geometry and the innards of the level design. I also strongly suggest getting rid of the "blackout fade" effect and instead implement something more in the lines of Paper Mario TTYD (Where you get your but munched on by some chomp fish and fly back to the next checkpoint).
Tidbit: Speaking-speaking off, the checkpoint system is at a whack. If I'm coming from the right and fall in a hole I should spawn on the other side, not be "rewarded" and teleported to my destination.
Bug: In the paper plane room, the sign that tell you not to speak to the cat displays it's "?" horizontally flipped.
Bug: You are able to pick the plane powerup more than once, as it keeps respawning upon re-entering the room.
Tidbit: You walk SO SLOW in the 2D background section.
Tidbit: Need a "you got something while holding it up" charade for items that are cards and "important stuff" like the fruits.
Tidbit: In the rainy tornado room you could benefir from forcing the player to pick up the card. Don't be afraid to gently trap the player to force them into learning something! If you can't, remember to implement a camera pan towards the missed crucial item upon entering the room right before allowing the player to move (See Luigi's Mansion)
Tidbit: The second gap in the second room is a leap of faith. Mark down a trayectory with coins. You could also benefit from using Mr Mouse again, making him complain about a second missing bridge the player needs to reactivate and being all "Now what?". Also the guy crossing the bridge should really be a mini-cutscene where the player looses control for a couple of seconds.
Tidbit: Need to "gently force" the player to practice the tornado+jump technique in a safe place, probably design the "trap" in the rainy room so the player can get in but needs to do the special jump to get out.
Tidbit: When moving fast the camera fails to catch up. For example, if the player moves right very fast they are on the right side of the screen. What should really happen instead is that the camera looks ahead more, placing the player on the left side of the screen and allowing them to react to incoming level.
Tidbit: Careful with finicky platforming in these game style: it can get tedious FAST.
Tidbit: In the rainy room, the shallow water on the right looks inviting, like it's not deep enough to kill you and that you can probably just walk inside without fear.
Needless to say, I'm absolutely stoked this project exists, as I'm a big fan of the (good) Paper Marios
Hey thanks for all the feedback! I can tell you spent a lot of time looking for things to find some of these. I appreciate it!
Anytime! I did say "time to be a dick to a poor game on early development to break shit" :P
This game is undoubtly gorgeous, that's clear, but, it still have some flaws:
What I struggled the most was with the controllers and the level design, at one point I literally wasn't able to get through because I coudn't jump! (At the mouse and the bridge stuff)
And also at that part it was soooo hard to get through, and not necessarly bc of the difficulty, (wich, I think it's just right for a game like this) instead for all the times that i saw myself falling off the stage, it was just so odd and felt a litle bit like artificial difficulty, it was not that i couldn't get through the level fast because i was bad at the game, instead because I was falling on an edge that i didn't even saw in the first place, there was no way to avoid some falls, and I think that is a problem, I should be aware of my surroundings in order to get better at the game.
also i got a lot of input lag, i'm not sure if that was because of my computer or the cable that I used for my xbox controller, but I got lag and the game just didn't felt all the smooth that i'll like, (ik this stills as a prototype but deffinetly something to have in mind)
To wrap up I would like to say two things:
First: Congratulations, seriously, this is an amazing job and it has a lot of potential that i deffinetly want to fully enjoy in the future
and second: This is a game. give more focus at the things that makes games fun in the first place: playability, mechanics, movement, level design, UI design, etc. I say that bc i see the visuals so pullished and not that level of care at the "gaming" stuff.
Deffinetly lovely, looks fun, I want to play more, keep going, cheers <3
Thank you! This is very helpful feedback!
Finally got around to playing this! I was considering making a video, but still have a cold and not sure if I have the right set up. ANYWAYS, good demo. I'll try to say things that haven't been said here already or are worth reiterating.
Visuals and everything are nice, great job. Obviously is an early setup so not all sfx and such will be in (Like wish the cards would make some noise when collected). Lighting is pretty good too. Only issue art wise is perhaps making things more apparent, especially in terms of depth. The clouds at the end could be hard to make out when trying to jump over them.
Menu is aesthetically pleasing but needs work in terms of representation and order. I could see myself and others confused by where certain things were, such as the clothes. Maybe also making it more obvious what section of the menu you're in. So if you're equipping weapons, highlight that area of that menu. Just better indications to really make it crystal clear what's being done.
Controls well, but one thing I noticed was a lack of Jump Buffering. Well, that might be the wrong term, since that's usually for press jump a few frames before you land so a new jump registers. What I ACTUALLY mean, is jumping off ledges. I think having a few frames after the player is "off ground" to press jump so they can make precise jumps would be REALLY helpful. Especially for players who aren't that great at platforming. This demo featured far more platforming intense obstacles than Paper Mario normally did.
I'm not a fan of the text scroll. I've yet to deal with programming text boxes, but I do have some rules for what to do/don't. And since this is an RPG, having good text boxes is crucial. But I'm 100% sure ya know that, cause this is Paper Mario! Where they use wacky text effects like wavy animated text and such. Just make sure it scrolls left, and that the words generated at the end of a line START on the next line; that stuff BUGS me when devs don't do that. Adventures of Pip doesn't do it. You'll see a word spelled out at the end of a text line but then it gets too long for the text box so it suddenly jumps to the next line all weird and stuff and eeeeewww...
Btw I played this demo without cutting any flowers so I could see if the RatBee thing would change dialogue. They didn't... 0/10
Kidding, but speaking of cutting things down, hmm. I didn't do it much cause I had seen my friends the Console Warriors play the demo so I didn't bother, but they used the Sword to cut down the grass. A lot. Now cutting it down with the sword is fine, good way of finding secrets. But there's a LOT of grass, and you're a 2D character slicing the sword in a 3D space. So it feels sort of awkward to slice all this grass for secrets. It's not like Zelda where you can quickly get around and slice multiple blades of grass. I think something you could do is add something to the sword later on to perhaps "spin attack" and slice multiple grass. That would be very convenient. Or combine it with the Spin Ability.
Speaking of which I have mixed feelings with this Spin. It's sort of like Paper Marios, but it's also not. It definitely has more platforming use, but feels far less controllable. In PM I'd use it all the time, jump to cancel out of the end lag, land and repeat using it. So I tried to see if I could find a similar technique. And I did! But even so, I think this ability needs better control, or perhaps something to outright stop you from falling off so easily. But my earlier point about the jumps might help there.
Anyways the technique I found was to spin, then immediately jump. When I landed, I could spin again just about instantly AND it cancels out the daze part if I jump/land before it happens. Perhaps if you could teach this to players or make its use more apparent and easy to control, then it would be even better for getting around. But at the same time, I'm mixed because this ability in PM wasn't something you equipped (well, there was one that made it longer). It was natural, so it makes me question if this should be a slot in the first place and not a natural ability.
Anyways Hammer feels good. Paper Airplane is good enough, but wish it crafted you at the top of the character rather than the bottom. I'm guessing you had it this way to not have to mess with changing hitboxes on the ground. So I think the feel of you becoming an airplane needs work.
That's about all I got to say. Other than perhaps the sign/menu at the beginning likely wasn't loaded properly because the game pauses for 3 seconds to load it all, then it's all good from there. I think there are a lot of things that could be done to enhance performance, but I'm certain you can figure that out. Also respawns are... not the best. If you can, trying adding something in the character object that detects where it was last on solid land, then spawn back there like PM. Certain pits you fall in can even spawn you in NEW areas you hadn't reached yet which is weird.
Good Demo to test the waters! Definitely has potential!
Hey good to see you around and thanks for playing! Very helpful feedback, thank you for taking the time to write it up! :)
Really awesome job. Art, environment interaction, abilities and physic are neat!
Are you a solo developer or a team?
Thanks! You could consider me a solo developer as I am the only one working on the project directly.
Wow, this is insane.
Keep going and don't drop it, please
This game is going to be a delight when finished :D. For the most part I really enjoyed what I saw in the demo. The art style is wonderful, the music is wonderful, the animations. This game looks like it's going to be a spiritual successor to the classic Paper Mario (not the new ones, they aren't that great). The only criticism I have is that the controls are a bit clunky when it comes to the abilities. I would maybe suggest have a hot swap button? Maybe one fore melee weapon(Sword and Hammer) and one for special ability (Plane and Tornado). I found myself pressing the wrong buttons quite a bit. Other than that and what's been mentioned by others (Re-spawn checkpoints, and just a lot of falling off) I really liked it. I really look forward to the next demo. Keep up the great work :D.
PS The video title is a joke XD
Hi! Thank you so much for playing and for the video. In the future there is for sure going to be a quick menu for equips as well as an on screen UI that shows what you have equipped on what.
Hope to see you for the next demo! :)
Can't wait to play it! I'll get you some feedback, when I'm done =)
This looks so adorable! I cannot wait until there is a Mac version so I can play the demo ^^
Wine will help you with that!
Hey! Mac version is up and has been tested, so should be good to go. Let me know if there are any issues :)
This is a lovely teaser. I've fallen off many times while playtesting but thankfully while recording things went smoother. Can't wait to see more. :)
What a nostalgia ride; has to be inspired from a certain Mario of paper!!
looksmore to be animal crossing if you ask me.
Hmm... Paper Crossing???
I played the demo and I think its a very fun game! The graphics are stellar and I love the artstyle. I do have some minor gripes though.
I feel that the depth perception is a little off in some areas (cloud area at the end and the bridge after the jump pad before the cloud area).
This is a personal opinion here, but I think the game may benefit from a few boundaries on some places. In the area where you first meet the mouse, I was having a bit of trouble getting the fruit as I couldn't necessarily see the bridge that lead to it all that well.
In the in-game menu, I think that different directions for some icons would be nice (pressing up to go to settings as its more up than right).
Some of the checkpoints were a little strange, as it seemed I progressed very far in an area (one before clouds), just to fall and get booted to the very beginning. It felt like I was falling a lot, and I think that more generous checkpoints or maybe just being more lenient on being on platforms/bridges would be nice.
Obviously these are all very minor things, and I think the game is really awesome and I am looking forward to more in the future! Thanks for this amazing demo :)!
Thank you so much for playing and taking the time to leave feedback :)
Played the demo and I like what I see so far. I did end up making a bit of a list of stuff I thought was missing, though I imagine a lot of it may just be for polishing the game when everything is done. Can't wait to see more of it. (sorry if it's a mess, I was just writing stuff down as they popped into mind.)
---
Kind of thought that I would be moving the character in the menu to which option.
Being able to equip an already equipped item into another slot (possibly with a confirmation)
Some similar looking fences I can jump over, some I can't.
Falling into a pit, would like to be closer to where I fell rather than way back (notably the area where you first run into jump springs or whatever.)
Wasn't really aware you could jump higher on jump springs initially by jumping as you land on it. Maybe also allow for jumping higher if you are holding the jump button when you land on it as well?
Hitting/swinging/shaking/jumping off stuff has no "impact" to it (no sounds or dust or anything.)
Adding onto the jumping on Jump pads, maybe it makes a higher pitch noise when you jump higher.
The rainy area where you find the Spin Dash, maybe make the water look deep or something (I figured I was fine walking into it since it was slightly elevated below the safe ground.)
Adding onto the rainy area, maybe make it so that when you get the Spin Dash, you have to then use it to get back (maybe the upgrade is in a hole and you have to use the upgrade to get out of the whole.) Wrote this when I missed that you use it to get the hidden Lemon.
Wish item pickups had some initial text saying what they do (didn't figure out that I could use Spin Dash to clear jumps until I inspected it in the menu.)
No idea if a UI is already in the works. Would be nice to see what upgrades I have currently equipped in the button slots (The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker's UI in the top right for example.) And of course, I guess for a way to hide UI elements.
Possibly differentiate the jump pads (Maybe the bigger one is a different color/has patterns)
"The bees don't like me killing flowers, where they watching me the whole time? Would they be chill if I didn't murder flowers prior to talking to them?"
Kind of wish Spin dashing NPCs made them twirl or something.
Wish hitting hammers against things stopped the hammer short of the ground.
Not sure if it was just me, but didn't see the safe spots in some areas unless I made a blind leap.
Wish the fall when you hit the rock roadblock wasn't so long. (Also unsure if it the block you break below the rock should look different from other blocks)
Hard to tell where the cloud platforms are.
Wish there were some invisible walls to keep me from falling off the front/back of some platforms (the first area after you leave the woods comes to mind. I fell off in front of the entrance, and also trying to get to the paper airplane part where
Wish I was moving a little faster in the background in the cloud platform section.
No idea what the progression on items is, but I feel like some may be too useful to have to keep equipping manually. Maybe have swappable equipment sets or certain items are bound to buttons outside the 3 equip buttons (just an example: Spin Dash to R2/Right Trigger, L2/Left Trigger to Paper Airplane.)
It's charming so far. Can't wait to see more of it.
Thanks for playing and taking the time to leave feedback. It is a nice list of adjustments, a lot of these are going to be implemented in the next build :)
You're welcome, glad to be able to help, even if a little.
Hello! I spent about an hour and a half playing the demo, and found the fruit and the note on the tiny island (I'm from Twitter lol)
There was a camera issue where it did not reset after falling from the area where you hit the rock with the hammer and fall to the small area below it with the cat character. Upon returning to the top part of the level the camera would still be stuck at that specific height instead of being like you were looking down slightly at the level like normal. I'm going to try and stream the demo in the near future and I will see if I can replicate this.
There was also an issue where the airplane power up would still exist even after I had collected it, so I was able to collect it a second time.
I think the biggest thing that stuck out to me though is how easy it is to fall off everything, and when I was trying out the spin dash + jump combo, and with trying the plane and would fall off the level, it became somewhat annoying that I would resume on an earlier portion of the level instead of near the platform I jumped from. This was easier to replicate with the plane in the part of the level mentioned before with the falling bridge part; I could become a plane from that area and float towards the left, fall, and then respawn waaay to the left of that area at the beginning with the rock in the middle of the fence. If falling is going to continue to be a part of this game, I would personally prefer respawning from the area you last jumped from instead of the area to where you are closest to. But I've never really made a game (yet) so I don't know if that could cause some issues. I figure that you've made things the way they are because of a process you have went through so it is difficult for me to feel like it is okay for me to criticize something like this.
One funny thing I came across during that part is the opossum guy would resume walking from A to B and would walk on thin air plus through the gate with the rock in it like it was nothing, lol.
I had no difficulty issues with the spin dash. It's supposed to be a bit hectic. But sometimes when I would jump with it I would make a collision with parts of the level like the corner of a fence which would stop me from advancing, causing me to fall and have to do it over again. That has more to do with the level layout. Getting to the green fruit was very challenging though. Maybe the spin dash could be changed to where you can stop on a dime? I had a hard time stopping sometimes.
The clouds in the last part of the area did not have the shadow underneath the character like on land which made it difficult for me to determine where I was landing as I was moving amongst them. I do not know if this is an error or on purpose. I had been using the shadow to determine difficult jumps.
I will see if I can record all of this again if I have time. Oh and it would be neat to be able to use the sword while using the spin dash, but I understand if this is an upgrade meant for later in the game :) Thank you for allowing us to play it!
Hey thanks again for playing. I do want to address these issues too. Falling off the stage was mostly a test, but it has proven pretty unpopular so I will be doing more sensible boundaries next time. Being able to combine abilities like sword+spin may become a thing... stay tuned ;)
hello! i finished playing the demo this morning and collected all of the fruit, and it was super cute and fun! most of the bigger issues have already been addressed by others here (there weren't really that many anyway,) but i have got a few things to say here if you don't mind.
first, i am a huge fan of the paper mario series, and i can definitely see the influence tied in with the originality here! i've only been following Scrap Story's development for about a month and a half, but when i found it i was super happy and instantly began looking through all the photos and previous development updates.
here i have a few comments/suggestions, and they really are mostly small little nitpicks. i'd appreciate if you read these, but please, PLEASE feel free to disregard any of these. for the most part, these are purely my opinion :p
in the very first area, if you go to the back and inspect the foliage it says "You can barley see the sky through the vast amount of trees and leaves." i am pretty sure you meant "barely" instead of "barley," and i think there was one more typo somewhere else but i forgot * ~ *
i saw that the broken pieces of the breakable rocks disappeared a few seconds after they hit the ground, but maybe it could look nicer if they faded out instead of just disappearing in a single frame? i also thought that the rock pieces could look nicer if they split into more irregular, "rocky" fragments when broken instead of into the straight "+" pattern.
many people have said this before, but the spin dash was difficult to control and was a little slippery.
the speech bubbles were a little hard to read if i tried to read them as the text was scrolling in, so maybe it could look nicer if the text was aligned to the left instead of centered?
when falling off of the stage (which i did a lot, lol) i could see the bottoms of all the polygons/geometry as the camera fell with scrap girl. this did feel a little odd, so maybe either extending the level downward, heightening the point where you die at, or making it so that the camera stops falling with scrap girl at a certain point could polish that a little more.
maybe when scrap girl is still crunched after falling, her eyes could be dizzy or slightly in pain instead of going back to the normal eyes to make her a little more expressive?
and lastly, i noticed there was a small lack of sound in some places where it seems like sound would be expected. maybe sound effects could be added for: trees/foliage moving out of the way, breaking the wooden boxes, text boxes opening and closing, bouncing, or landing from jumping/ falling? also maybe the footsteps could be a little louder? they are very cute footsteps lol
i hope these can help in some way! this demo was very polished for the stage it is at! i absolutely adore the paper aesthetic, it seems to be almost perfected. i love the way characters sort of wave around when standing still, i love the way scrap girl wobbles when she walks, and i love the little two-frame scribble animations on everything. i think that the last one in particular is a very underrated effect. the small little speech bubbles that appear as you approach characters is also a nice little touch!
overall, i absolutely love this project, this demo was amazing, and i am looking forward to the next demo and the finished game, whenever they may be! i hope i could help, i also hope i didn't write too much here... :p and good luck working on the rest of this project!
Hey :) Thanks so much for playing. Happy to have you here! Thank your for the feedback and these are all things I want to make better too... especially the silly spelling errors ;)
I've been following you on Twitter for a while now so I'm very happy that I finally get to try out your game. It was really good. The level of polish on the graphics/art/aesthetic really shows. I liked pretty much all of it but I'll go into the things that really stuck out to me below.
I really liked the two movement power-ups (i.e the spin dash and the paper airplane). The airplane animation is very good, and using it to traverse the large gaps of the island was fun (i.e. over to the lonely island with the lime).
I really liked interacting with the bridge that you hit your head off (after bouncing on the trampoline) and knock over onto the ground. When I did it the first time the bridge fell onto the trampoline blocking it so I had to bump it off the map. I always like playing with dynamic pieces of the environment.
I really like the post-processing filters as they give a new flair to the visuals that I can cycle through. I especially liked the cinematic one.
I only have two minor gripes. I think the Player/Equipment menu screen could be better laid out. I kept expecting the 'Outfit' section to be it's own part of the menu rather then a sub-part of the Equipment section (i.e. I kept pressing right when my cursor was hovering over the 'Equipment' badge expecting to the Outfit area of the menu rather then the Power Ups area).
I also felt like the jumps could be slightly more lenient/the standard jump made slightly longer. I kept falling into holes which I don't think were meant to be a challenge (e.g. the little hole before the dog that sells you the mallet).
I also found some glitches which you may or may not be aware of:
1) If you pause the game while you're in the air your downwards velocity(?) is still being updated in the background so if the game is paused for a while you slam vertically into the ground. (e.g. pause the game halfway through a jump -> sit on the menu for about 10 seconds -> unpause the game = slam fast into the ground).
2) The pause menu portrait of scrap girl only appears if you equip the scrap girl outfit in the first zone of the game (the heavily forested area) and disappears if you move into any other zone (e.g. Pick up the Scrap Girl Outfit Card -> Walk into the area with the broken bridge -> equip the Scrap Girl Outfit = Pause menu portrait is still blank.)
Hope that all made sense.
Yup, and thank you so much for playing and taking the time to leave feedback.
Took the time to play it, have been following Scrap Story's development for some time now. I don't have much to add from what I saw others talking about before, all valid complaints you've already commented on.
That being said: SCRAP STORY IS RAD! It's lived up to the internal hype I've slowly been perculating within me, I love it. Seriously. Whole demo I played with a smile. <3 Looking forward to more updates (and the finished game) in the future. Can't believe this is the first game you've made.
Thanks again :)
This game is wonderful and I'm looking forward to more demos with more to do and so excited for the final game, what consoles will it appear on?
as for minor nitpicks:
the spin feels very loose in the air resulting in lots of seemingly uncontrollable deaths
the platforming was slightly difficult to do because of shadows and textures to land on (clouds)
the boxes near the dog had strange behavior when jumping on and around them while I had the cinematic filter on. Not sure if caused by the filter or not but def. worth checking out.
FANTASTIC GAME GLAD I COULD PLAY THE DEMO GOT ALL THE FRUITS!
Hey thanks for playing. I will be taking a look into that filter bug for sure as well as fixing the cloud platforms.
Right now there are only plans for PC, but if I do a kickstarter I will certainly look into stretch goals for PS4/Switch.
The game is super cute and was a lot of fun :D
Most of the minor issues I wanted to mention were already mentioned, but I have a few more^^
The first time you open the character menu (Esc) ingame, it takes a bit to generate/ load. Maybe you can preload it upon starting/Loading a game? :D
Also the Depth of Field for post processing seems to only be "focused" in an area behind the character instead of 50:50 in front of and behind. (especially noticable with NPCs.)
Also noticed that the paper airplane card respawned when I reentered that room later^^
Good luck with further development :D
Hey thanks again! Yup there s alot of things trying to find references when you first open the pause menu. Will certainly be looking into that. I have also been trying to get a good feel for the Depth of Field, but I notice it reacts very differently depending on the resolution of the screen... Still trying to figure that out :)
Hey! I enjoyed playing the demo guys! The music is cool and the graphics are really unique haha! The fact that you're gaining equipment throughout the game is just great! Keep it up!
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Hey thanks! I am going to look into it and give it some consideration ;)
Hey, me and my friend love this game a lot so far but we keep running into a glitch where after we create the first bridge, the mouse character runs across the other side in the air and we can't figure out how to create the bridge to get across, if you could either patch this or help us with this we would greatly appreciate it.
Edit: So me and my friend found the thing we needed to get across the area and we're sorry for misunderstanding it.
Thanks! Glad you could were able to figure out the puzzle. I will be making things like that alot more clear for future puzzles. :)
No problem! Also nice! Me and my friend can't wait to see more of this game in the future, it was a really fun experience!
Hey! I liked this game so much that I created an account on this website lol. What can I say about your demo so far...
Positives:
+The style is AMAZING! It's apparent that you love Paper Mario and took fun aspects from old games to add fun mechanics to yours! The idea of spin dashing/ timing platform bounces/ breakable objects really add depth to this game.
+Characters are cute and lively. I'm sure there will be more unique characters all with stories and side quests alike. Can't wait!
+The music. Through there's really only one track, it helps set the happy go lucky mood, perfect for this game! Feels very Yoshi's world inspired.
+Equips and outfits add life to this game. I know that there will be even more costumes and weapons/skills that can really add some awesome customization into your game!
Negatives:
-Navigation of the menu. It feels super rigid right now. I'm using a controller right now and as much fun as I have moving in game, it doesn't feel good navigating to, lets say equip my item or going to settings. I think it would feel better if every input gave a direction, like say moving down makes the marker go right, or it just makes a noise for input confirmation.
-Menu noises. It doesn't fit the sound of the rest of the game IMO. It sounds like an obnoxious SPLAT as opposed to a light sound most of this game provides. A minor problem, I know.
-There's no way to close your game. You mentioned a way to get back into the main menu from the misc. section of the settings, but no way to turn off the game? cmoooonnnn.
-Vertical movement is kind of a nightmare. The camera is deadset on the character and while this usually is a good thing, it really sucks when...lets say you jump on the last trampoline pad before the paper airplane. And sometimes when I was jumping on those pads, the camera DIDN'T pan with me! It felt lame not being able to look around with the right stick.
-Jumping over most fences but not ALL fences feels like a weird restriction. Specifically with that bunny dude whos chillin out all menacingly in the middle of the stage. Just seemed unfair that I can clearly jump over it but I get invisible walled.
And that's all! This was a fun demo and i genuinely cannot wait for the release of the main game!
Hey! Thanks so much for taking the time to play and to even create an account to leave feedback. I totally agree with all the negatives and will be making a lot of adjustments for the future. :)
Hello! I very much enjoyed the demo, and as such here are some things that can be improved:
-The initial instruction on how to equip items can be permanently skipped over, leaving the player without an instruction on how to equip the sword. If they didn't completely retain this information the first time around, this can lead to a lost player on the beginning area quite easily. A temporary sign of some sort that appears after collecting the sword but before destroying the rocks (that just brings up the instruction again) would be great.
-The fruit out in the background that is intended for the paper airplane takes you a bit too far back in the level if you don't make the jump. A checkpoint closer to that jump would be great.
-Spin Dash is a bit touchy. It can be hard to stop yourself after making your intended jump, leading to overshooting your target platform a bit too easily. Perhaps the ability to jump out of the dash to cancel it or some other similar approach would feel better as well as natural to utilize.
-The twisty trees can freak out when you strike your sword at them, but that's purely a technical glitch.
-More obvious signposting that lets the player know that there's not much else to the rainy area after the fruit would be great (you kind of have to figure out as such by spin dashing to the right until nothing's there, which I think is a death that can be avoided).
-Some invisible walls preventing the player from falling into the background when looking for the two bridge switches would be welcome.
-The effects of falling are based entirely on time spent in the air, but this can result in odd 'crushing' when the player is just caught on objects. Also, the player can get caught on objects, disallowing them movement and jumping ability. The player's vertical coordinate should be recorded whenever you leave the ground and checked against the resulting coordinate when they land to judge if the player should be crushed from the fall. If the player is falling long enough, check their vertical coordinate for about a second to make sure they're not caught on geometry, and if they are, respawn them. This can prevent softlocking should the player get caught on geometry.
-Allowing the D-Pad for menus would be welcome. I know controller support is in its infancy, but official PS4 controller support would be nice. By default it binds the Xbox buttons to incorrect locations on the PS4 pad, so its not too far-fetched to figure out PS4 support.
The demo was fun! I collected all the fruits and I'm going to be looking forward to this one! I hope these notes prove useful.
Thank you for taking the time to play and leave feedback! I am glad to hear you enjoyed it! I will be sure to look into all of these for improvement, especially refactoring fall calculations from time based to distance based. That will be one of my top priorities.
Hi! Just played through the demo (assuming it's over when you've collected all the fruit) and I'm absolutely loving the potential here! Here's some notes I jotted down while playing:
Compliments:
- The presentation is absolutely wonderful. The characters, the environments, the animations, and even the GUI are just downright charming. I honestly can't say enough good things about how adorable this game looks!
- Equipping skill cards is intuitive and a good way to keep exploration engaging. The skills themselves are quite fun to mess around with, too, and add some depth to what would otherwise be pretty typical platforming.
Critiques:
- The spin dash is REALLY hard to control. Most of my deaths were because I hit the spin button and hurled myself off the edge of a platform. It became a bit easier when I realized you could jump out of a spin, but I didn't realize that until I figured out you can Inspect the equipment. Having this info pop up when you initially collect the card would save a lot of frustration.
- Depth perception was a big issue for me. More often than not, I found myself missing jumps because I was slightly too far back or forward, with the low angle of the camera making it hard to judge where I needed to be on the depth axis. This is especially problematic when trying to land a jump with the spin dash.
- There seems to be a bit of an issue with misguiding the player. For example, there's a sign near the beginning that says something about turning into an airplane and gliding across, but if you come back later and try that, you just die (unless I missed something). Additionally, I tried for quite a while to get the green fruit on the island using the spin move with that jump pad (since it's located shortly after acquiring that move, and I had figured out that spinning into a jump pad makes you jump higher/further) only to give up after a while and realize later that the jump required an item acquired later. Funny enough, if the sign about turning to an airplane had been there instead, it would have solved both of these issues.
Overall, I'm very impressed with this prototype, and I can't wait to see what's next! It sounds like the way the skill cards factor into battles is going to make for a unique and varied battle system. Keep up the great work!
(Sorry for the long comment, but thank you for taking the time to read this far!)
No worries on it being a long comment, I appreciate all the feedback! Depth perception is something I struggle with too, but I become so used to the levels that I easily over look it. Thank you for pointing it out. Glad you enjoyed it and hope to see you for the next demo!
Hi,
just finished playing the Scrap Story demo, it was great! The game really captures the same kind of vibe that the old Paper Mario games used to have, but also feels very fresh and original at the same time. The controls and UI felt really good and intuitive, and to say the game looks gorgeous is an understatement!
I did have a few small problems with the game though. The thing that bugged me the most was the places that I would respawn after falling off of a cliff. For example, in the second area with the hidden switches and the cool opossum friend, falling off anywhere before the bridge brings you back to the very start of the room, and walking back to where I was became a little irritating. It was also somewhat hard to see where the cliffs were in some spots due to bushes or grass blocking the view. I think putting invisible walls in these places could help, or making the objects near the cliffs transparent when the player approaches so that they can see where exactly the cliff is.
The other issues I had were just a few bugs. When walking to the platform with the orange on it, I found myself getting stuck on and having to jump over some sort of invisible object in between the bridge and the platform that the orange is on. There was also a part where I fell a long distance downwards and decided to use the paper airplane to fly around a bit, but once I landed the camera was at a weird angle that caused it to clip into the ground, and it stayed like this until I left the room. There were also a few areas with objects like trees that seemed like they should be solid but allowed me to walk through them. That's all the problems I encountered on my play through.
I should probably clue this comment up now, as it's turning into more of an essay at this point lol. Last thing I want to say is how excited I am for the full game. The visuals, music, character designs, dialogue, and controls are all spectacular and left me wanting more. This demo leaves pretty much no doubt in my mind that the final game will be stellar.
Keep up the fantastic work, I can't wait to learn more about Scrap Story :)
~Tristan
Hey! Thank you so much for the feedback!It really helps out alot. I will be looking into all these issues and make sure everything is solid for the next demo.