after almost two years of development and testing, hard working, strikes, blood sweat and tears I can finally present you - Goose Chase!

The website is not fully operational yet (I'm waiting for Regsoft's approval & setup, domain changes) so no sales for the next few days(?) :( but feel free to download the demo and have some fun.

any comments, suggestions & rants will be happily served with a smile (after being awake for 28 hours straight, don't mind me...).

some screenshots can be found here, (http://www.gilzu.com/screen1.jpg) here, (http://www.gilzu.com/screen2.jpg)
here, (http://www.gilzu.com/screen3.jpg)
and here! (http://www.gilzu.com/screen4.jpg)

also dont forget to visit the website and play with the demo:
Goose Chase website (http://www.gilzu.com/)
Download Demo! (http://gilzu.fileburst.com/GooseChaseSetup.exe)

Requirements:
300MHZ AMD or Intel Processor
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
DirectX 8.0 or newer
Direct3D compatible video chipset.

also, refresh our window if the old site comes out, it seems that the domain change didnt pass yet through all the DNS servers.

I would also like to thank all of you forum guys for supporting me for the past year i've been here, there's no way i could of done this without you all.

I'm going to get some sleep after the most crazed 28 hours of my life. :)

"And so it begins" - Kosh

Allright! i've been waiting to play for a while!

after almost two years of development and testing
Man! 2 years!!?
And I thought that 5 months for my game weren't an acceptable time for an indie game :p

Not talking about programming skill (of course you're better than me, my programming skill really sucks, I am a unemployed game designer who HAD to learn to program!) but about the fact that to make a living with indie, I believe you need to write at least 4-5 games/year... :)

But mabye you'll prove me wrong and with a single game you'll sell 10,000 copies in the next 2 years :D

Good luck with it! :))

I believe you need to write at least 4-5 games/year...

I certainly hope not. Anyway, I can't think of anyone who does. 18 months seems to be about how long it takes me. Guess it depends on the genre though.

Okay, I tried it and err... I have to say in all honesty I didn't like it much. It was too easy, and even when it wasn't so easy, the gameplay was just too simplistic and I got bored. Also the presentation is a little rough - there are some quite nice models, and I love the walking trees, but it seems like the allover level of polish is just not quite up there in some vague, general way... for example, I was confused by the level select screen; there was nothing to indicate that I was supposed to go stand under the trees and press jump - and it just felt a little, um, patchy, presentation-wise. And the game generally felt sluggish, although I think in all fairness it was a little too much for this computer's crappy onboard graphics card; which probably explains all the ugly z-fighting I was getting too - this graphics card sucks and I won't hold that against you.

I'm really sorry to say this but hopefully someone else will come along shortly and say that they love it to bits.

Best of luck and I hope you do really well.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
I certainly hope not. Anyway, I can't think of anyone who does. 18 months seems to be about how long it takes me. Guess it depends on the genre though.

I second that. If I could develop that fast I would immidiately quit job.

First let me congratulate you on releasing a game! I've been beating myself up trying to meet my November release date and I know what you mean by blood, sweat and tears...

I tried the demo, but I noticed a few things:

1) Is there supposed to be music during the menu/intro screens? The first time I got music/sound was after the level was selected.

2) I didn't understand it was a level selection screen until I read one of the previous posts on this forum

3) Something was wrong with the rendering order or z-buffer or something. Some of the trees were occluded by the ground tiles, and the player was 'invisible' (although I believe he was also 'under' the ground in z-order). This imparticular made the game almost impossible to play as I could not see the player or where he was until he fell in a hole. This could be my video card... I never liked it much. Its a ATI 128 Rage with 32mb vid mem.

Besides the graphical glitches, it looked like it would be a fun game and I look forward to playing it on a decent vid card.

-Bruno

Well if you say that you develop 1 game/year, you also mean that you earn at least 10,000$ (minimum) from it, to be able to live from indie dev.
I think that this is really tough. It would mean, for example, that a 20$ game need to sell 500 to reach that amount (and it is really a minimum, I don't think anyone here can live with less than 1000$/month).
500 copies in 12 months mean about 41 copies/month.
Well I don't know how many ppl here sell 40 copies/month for a game :p
Consider also that if you don't make everything yourself (including graphics) you have to pay royalties or freelance work.

Maybe I am still inexperienced and I don't see clearly the "future". But I think that you MUST do at least 4 games a year to live.

I know at least one person that made quite more than 4 games/year (hmm what is his name? ah yes patrox) :p

Of course depends also on quality of games, genre, and so on...!

Gil, nice game, but I wouldn't buy it for now. Let me tell you why.

1) It's hard to play (could be surprising to you). Jumping over holes is not easy. I do not know what I can do against bad guys except escaping from them.
2) No instructions. How can a gamer know what the jumping key is? Or how can s/he know that at the level selection screen, the group of trees represent levels?

The above comments are most critical to me. Some other points I noticed:
* Better shading and light needed.
* Use a better camera chase algorithm (maybe some lag)
* During game (not at menus), I pressed windows key and the game crashed
* The swinging effect is frustrating, yes, you did make my stomach turn upside down, but that's not the way to punish the gamer
* The slow down effect slows down fps, it should only slow down the time flow
* Colors in menus are bad
* I pressed esc and the game quited immediately
* I realize that you changed the web site, but should be better

OK, don't get mad at me, there are good points:
* The controls are nice.
* Tempo is good.
* Content is satisfactory.
* Animation is excelent.
* Good price (this is subjective don't listen to me about the price)

With some additional development, I suspect the game shall sell with conversion rate 0.5% (what an expert estimation :) this has become a useless habbit of mine).

Have you checked Best Friends (Retro64)? You could benefit from what its developer has said about the game in these forums (probably you already did).

I rate the game 5/10 (am I the authority? :) ), but I see a potential of 8/10 after some changes.

Nice game Gil. :)

ergas

very nice! i haven't played very much yet (in the evening i will) but i really like it! (especially the gameplay itself, the models and most other graphics)


BUT, many problems you really have to fix (i haven't read all of the other replies here, so sorry for repeating):


like others said, the main menu needs some improvement (sounds, keyboard control for UI, custom mouse cursor). it doesn't look like you spent much time on it.

IMO the overall look is way too dark. all menu screens have this black background, as well as the holes in the levels were you can fall into; why not change it to more brighter colors, it's supposed to be a funny game?

the ingame camera system is not very professional... when you stand still and the camera moves slightly, it makes a noticable jump every few frames. Then there are major culling errors with the trees, it looks very ugly when you see these huge trees popping in and out all the time. on the other hand i like some camera effects, for example that powerup which tilts the camera, it makes me kind of motion sick and that's really cool in such a game :D

By viewing the trees and the grass tiles i bet that you don't even use texture filtering. You could at least turn bilinear on by default and add a menu option to disable it for older cards.

Finally, there's a annoying bug with pressing ESC in the game. i just wanted to quit, but the game went into some sort of endless loop and presented the loading screen 15 times until i had to kill it with Alt-F4.

-

anyway i like your game, and like every new game it needs some improvements. now that you spent 18 months on it give it another few weeks to fix all the problems.

OK,

Plus points:

Generally good character models and textures.
Controls feel OK.

-----

Minus points:

Gameplay, as far as I can tell, is too simple - move about, touching gooses, and occasionally avoiding something?

Presentation is poor. Too many instances where a plain-looking Windows font is used, which cheapens the looks of everything.

Level select screen is confusing.

Z-buffer problems.

The thing where the screen tilts is just horrible, and made me feel sick.

I got the same bug as mentioned before, pressing escape caused the game to go into an endless loop which I couldn't escape from.

-----

Overall, I think this game has the potential to be quite fun, but it need to have more challenge - I would increase the number of enemies, and allow the player to shoot at them to kill them.

And if you can improve the presentation as well, then you could have quite a winner on your hands.

Congratulations, Gil! Now you get to sit back and count the money, right? :D

Congratulations on releasing! I'm downloading the game right now and I'll try it tonight. Good luck!

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
I believe you need to write at least 4-5 games/year...

That is assuming that you only sell the game for one year... but as I've understood, many indie developers sell their games for many years.

2 Years:
Yea, I suppose it took alot of time. but its a reasonable time for a first game. I had to go first-time in absolutly everything and I bet that the next game will take me considerably less. And theres come a time when you look at your product and think that it's time for it to show its potential before continuing to work on it for another 2 years ;) those who hang around here knows that the work last even 5 years after youve released the game.

Overall level of polish:
If there was something that delayed the game, this was it - 2 monthes I spent on fixing even worse problems. And yes, I totaly agree that it should get better as any other game can. Thanks for pointing out where are its weakspots so i'll know where and how to handle them. (menus, music, UI, game selection screen)

Graphic Problems and few other issues:
Thanks for noting, I'll get right on it.

Sit back and count the money?:
Trust me that the last thing i'm thinking right now is money. the thing that drives me and make me going is the game. I want to be proud of what i'm doing before anything else, that's why I'm pre-releasing the demo for you guys here to make the changes and poish neccasary for it to be a great game.

Likings/Disliking features, easier/harder gameplay:
and they say that balancing an RTS is hard... You wont believe the amount of contradicting thoughts about absolutly EVERY feature of the game. Its not that I work to satisfy everyone, and the adjustment i do - i do only for what i believe to be right for the game, but something the contradicting thoughts simply... baaaahhhh!!!! (grrrr or any other sound, lol). And maybe, its a game for a specific type of people :-\

Many thanks for replyin to:
Dan Macdonald, Jack Norton, Anthony Flack, ergas, BrewKnowC, aspiral, simonh, kerchen & ggambett.

There are no bad comments. The good ones keeps me going, The bad ones tell me where I should get better at. So even if you didn't like it, I value your response telling me where I should get better.

Thank you all, again.

* No bg music in menus?
* Why does it change display mode between menu and game? this is jarring

My story:
I clicked start game and it told me to "select a level with the jump button". Figured out by trying many keys that ctrl was the jump button (shouldn't this be explained?) and then tried to figure out how to choose a level. Didn't see any menu or anything. After a while i went into a bunch of trees and pressed ctrl, apparently it was a level. So, it told me to scare some geese. OK? i thought, and started wandering around. After 5 seconds the screen became black, except for some trash in the top left corner, see attached screenshot. And this on an Athlon XP 1800+, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9800Pro (basically the most powerful gfx card known to man), Windows XP Pro. Pressed escape twice to get out to the main menu, again a mode switch (ouch), and finally was able to exit the game.

I also had some minor flashing in the main menu.

This is weeks away from a commercial release, I can tell you that. Also the screenshots look really uninspiring. Lightmapping or similar of the environments would do wonders.

Um, oops forgot to attach the pic. Apparently not possible to add to an already posted post? i guess i'll have to make another one...

excellent achievement.

pros:
1> it's 3d!! most indie games are 2d.
2> 3d models are exellent
3> easy controls. move with arrows, and a jump key. very simple.

cons:
1> the world looks a little dark to me. it should be a sunny but it looks cloudy weather.
2> level select screen was very confusing. you need to improve this one.
3> needs a different more colorful font. the present one is too plain and boring.
4> the game needs to be sped up. it's too slow.
5> pressing escape doesn't exit the game. a bit annoying.

overall, i'd give this 3 stars out of 5. with some polish, it could go up to a 4 star rating.

The pic (meant for my post two posts above, soda was too fast :) )

Hi Gilzu,

just played Goose Chase for a while.

Unfortunately I must agree with some of the others that there are some major gameplay issues with the game. I think it has potential, but as it is currently I could only see it be attractive to very young players.

Here are my main issues (and please accept my apologies if they sound harsh - I'm simply thinking out loud on how to improve the game):

1. The game lacks dynamics. You just wander around mazes and run into geese, but there's really not that much to do. In fact, it gets really boring really quick - so much so that by the second level already I just wanted to get to the exit to see if something new awaits in the next level (it didn't). When I died I wasn't upset that I had lost a life, I was upset that I had to re-do part of the level! It became more of a chore than a game.

How to fix it? Certainly things have to move more quickly... it's no fun slowly walking through mostly empty rooms (and hoping to god you didn't miss a goose so that you wouldn't have to retrace all your steps). Zip it up! Make the croc move faster, make the rooms smaller, put more in each room. Moving platforms, fireballs to dodge, etc. if you want a more Mario-Style experience, or puzzle-elements (blocks to move, switches, etc) if you want a more laid back Puzzle-Style experience.

2. The Menu
Already mentioned by others - I know you were going for a Super Mario World level selector here, but as it stands it (a) doesn't make sense (why am I jumping into a tree?), and (b) doesn't really add anything. Remember that the SMW level-selector was almost a game in itself - that's why it worked so well.

3. The Powerups
Or "Total-Lack-of"-Power-Ups as Dave Barry would say. They don't seem to make much sense - why give an extra life (don't call them 1ups... casual gamers don't know what that means) right at the beginning? Why slow down Croc even more? (all it does is frustrate the player - it seems to have no purpose). Why start tilting the screen? (again, no purpose - at first I though "Cool, things will start rolling around like crazy", but then I realized it's just the camera swinging around to make my stomach upset).


I would carefully re-evaluate the game-design to look for more "purpose". Why is croc doing this? Why would a player want to play a level? Why would (s)he pick up a particular power-up? And of course... why would they want to pay for more?


I guess in a sense I'm saying "keep the components, but change the game". This could obviously be just my own bias, and feel free to ignore it all (and/or nitpick my games in response!). :)


In either case, still congrats on getting it done, and best of luck with it.

Patrick

I wanted to wait to see how you responded to feedback before I posted mine. I find often people are not in the right state of mind to receive critical feedback and you can spend hours typing up a big post only to have them disregard it at the tip of their hat.

First, I want to say great job in getting this game to where it is. You have for all intents and purposes a playable game and a nice looking one at that. However I can see you are struggling with some of the same issues we have been struggling with on Katsu’s Journey. We wanted to make something different, but something achievable. It turns out our 9 month delivery plan was a joke and we’ve been plugging away for just about two years. (good thing we’re still in our 20’s eh?) One of the side effects of being different is that people assume you should be competing with the top 10 action games on Real Arcade. From our perspective we saw our game as a really neat game, but still a 1st game from novice developers. However the people who played our game saw potential in it and their feedback and criticisms of the game always seemed to be based in the assumption that we were “going all the way” or were attempting a “professional” indie title.

One of the criticisms we received over and over again was that our art was two dated, and it would be tough to sell. Now our art is quite good compared with a lot of other programmer art games, but people had the expectation that our art should look as good as the top Indie games out there. In your case you already have superb models and animations that only further set players expectations about what the polish and refinement of the game should be.

What we realized was that we were really selling ourselves short, so we decided to try and take Katsu’s all the way and realize the potential that others saw. So we scored a new artist, here’s a sample of his work.

http://www.rainfallstudios.com/kablesart/newkjart.png

We are still playing with some of the visual elements, but we are really excited about the potential here.

Basically I just wanted to relate my experience with dealing with people’s expectations. At first it feels unfair, and you feel you should be compared with other 1st time indie games. However, the sooner you can overcome that feeling and start realizing the potential that others see in your game, the better off you’ll be. I can tell that you are committed to making this the best game it can be, and that’s great. Life is too short otherwise :)

I’m sorry I was a very poor tester when playing GooseChase because I wanted to be a player not a tester. But some very weird things happened during the game that were really weird. When the game first started up, it seemed I was still controlling a window in the background and not the game. I couldn’t select any of the menu options and all the windows messages seemed to be directed at a background window, as I would see it occasionally overpaint the main gooschase window. I finally managed to get around it with an alt-tab I believe. I had the same problems, wondering where the sound and music was in the shell UI, and I had to hunt around for the jump button. It didn’t take me long, but I can guarantee you my kids wouldn’t find it.

I played the game and was very excited about chasing geese around until they blew up. I was sort of disappointed to find out my only interaction with them was to step on them. Adding some interactivity to the geese will add SO much depth to the gameplay in this game.

The models and animations in the game are great, but sometimes when the turtle dude is falling in a hole his arms intersect the terrain and it’s horridly jarring to the immersion experience. I don’t like the white arrows around the geese, they obscure view of the geese and they also seem a little heavy handed. I know I’m probably listing things you already know, but there needs to be some more variation in the ground textures :)

With regards to the overmap, for selecting levels, it really needs some indication of what level you are going to or when it’s time to press space to join a level. So say, when you run into a grove of trees (a level) it floats up the name of the level in text above the trees, or some other indication that if you press space now, you will be going into a level.

There is a law someone related to me recently called “The law of 5’s” and in essence it asks the question, “Why should I play your game after the first …5 seconds… 5 minutes… 5 hours…and 5 days”. You really want to be able to answer all these questions. I think gooschase really struggles in the first 5seconds and 5 minutes. No music/sound for the shell, the first view of the main character is his hat, you don’t really get a feel for him until you are in the game. Once in the game the polish issues that people have been bringing up really act as barriers for my enjoyment of the game.

Also I think one of the critical success factors for a game is it’s ability to be able to set the players expectations for what they are about to experience, and then deliver on it. This is a combination of so many things and something we are struggling with in KJ as well. If you are making an araknoid or bejewled clone this process is trivial. But when your gameplay is a little different, it becomes more difficult. Like how I mentioned above I was expecting to be able to chase geese, when I wasn’t able to I was disappointed. Those are some of the key experiences you want to be able to control in the first few minutes of your game.

Also, I couldn’t really see a compelling reason why this game was 3D? with how the camera controls work, it seemed like the game could have been just as easily implemented with pre-rendered sprites. The controls themselves feel good, although on occasion it’s tough to tell if turtle guy will land on the edge or the land or in the hole. (perhaps a shadow directly below him would help?)

I think you could do some really great things with the camera, a smooth chase cam of sorts that would add to the suspension of disbelief and the players experiencing themselves in the role of Turtle guy.

Anyway, I love the potential that this game has and I can’t want to see where it goes.

Hey Gil -

Ok, first off, let me make sure I understand things. You play an upright turtle guy, who is chasing geese in order to make them explode, while avoiding animated walking trees? Just say NO to drugs Gil!! :)

Seriously, it looks great. It has tremendous potential, it just needs a little tweaking. Specifically:

1) Allow menu interaction with the keyboard. It was confusing to use the mouse and then switch to the keyboard.

2) Make the pits more obviously pits. I had no idea what it was until I fell in. Since you're viewing down at a slight angle, you ought to be able to see some of the pit edge (along the side closest to the top of the screen).

3) Make the jump key obvious, like other people have said, I had to mash on the keyboard to find it.

4) Make it a little more obvious that you've lost a life. When I touched a tree monster thing, I just thought I was teleported back to the start. It was too fast, with no visual cue that anything had happened.

5) The camera pitch seems to change slightly as I played. It kind of bobbed up and down a little. It was very slight, but visible.


I think that most of my comments can be summed up as "make things more obvious". I have no idea the name of the character, or why he's after geese. I don't know that bottles are good but trees are bad. I don't know how to jump. And so on. Basic usability. The gameplay is good, the art is very nice, it just feels unfinished.

This is the kind of game that I like.

I had the same problem as Henrik with the trashing of the view. I'm also running the game on a radeon 9i800 pro.

- elias

For all those who responded so far:
Thanks for deadicating the time to test my game, and give your honest critique. I know I don't sound like other developers here and theres a reason for it. My first goal is to make a good game, earning funds from it is only the second purpose.

I keep a list of all the things I need to fix and to improve, and only by giving me an honest critique I can improve the game.

So far, the list is:
1. Game menu - Redesign, change font, add music & UI sounds, solve some technical difficulties.
2. Level Selection screen - Add level names on top of every level option, highlight in some way when youre "on" a level and can select it, make sure the user knows what is the jump key is.
3. Several Technical issues including graphics.
4. Several gameplay issues.

I'm planning to start fixing those right away, and it will help if you can point other bugs/difficulties/things-you-don't-like. Also, pointing things you DID like can help me too, both technically and mentally.

@Henrik: Its really weird since I developed it in a computer with the EXACT same configuration. Thanks alot for pointing this problem, I don't know whats the cause yet, but fixing it will save me many troubles in the future.

@sodasoft & Siebharinn: Thanks for the compliments, and for pointing out how to make things better.

@Dan MacDonald: very poor tester? man, this was the most in-depth, contibutive & honest remarks I've heard so far. Thanks for doing so.

@Siebharinn: ROFL! that was funny. thanks

Congratulations to shipping your first game! As many others, I've been looking forward to seeing this game for a while. When I heard about the game, I imagined an action-packed, hilarious game with some sick humor. It definitely has potential, and it's good to hear that you will continue to work towards making it a great game!

I agree with most of wha'ts been said so far in this thread. On top of that, I have some more comments:

* I was somewhat dissapointed in the gameplay. It wasn't as action-packed as I'd hoped for. Foremost, the geese aren't moving, which completely removes the aspect of CHASING them! If you could give them some simple movement rules (just walking around randomly and run away when the player comes near), that would make the game MUCH more fun to play!

* The levels are a bit too "tight", in lack of a better word. I you made them more spacious, you could make the gameplay faster and more interesting.

* You really should add a shadow beneath the player! That would make it easier to know exactly where you are when you jump/run. I often accidently fell down a hole when I thought I kept a good distance to them. The shadow only needs to be a dark circle/spot on the ground below the player.

* The "power-ups", as I thought, weren't power-ups at all! Instead they were "power-downs", and should be avoided. It would be nice if at least some of them gave some positive effect. Also, make it obvious which power-ups are good and which are bad, perhaps with green and red colors...

* Do you disable bi-linear filtering when playing? The graphics seem somewhat grainy compared to the menu and loading pictures. I guess you're using OpenGL/Direct3D, which gives bi-linear "for free". Why not use it?

* Have you considered having small fluctuations of color in the vertex colors for the ground? That would perhaps give a less repetitive ground with very little effort. Just a thought...

* When I ran the game from the installer I had problems with some other window interfering with the game. I couldn't select any menu items and there was some flickering of graphics. After Alt-Tabbing it seems to work. When I ran the game directly (not from the installer), I never got this problem.

I hope you take these comments as constructive feedback, because that's what it's meant to be. I would really love to see this game in it's full potential! :)

Oh, and one other thing. You need to name that turtle! :)

Gil, be proud, but start thinking about money too. Your game is not an ordinary one. Do not underestimate the market potential of the game. There is an opportunity for you that most of us haven't got yet. Technically you have done 95%. What will you do next if not make money? ;)

ergas

Congrats on finally completing Goose Chase (and finally getting around the problems you were having registering your company).

The biggest problem is that I have to agree with the others that the experience is really varied...it gets kinda bland after 5 minutes. I'm not sure what you could do to make it better (those type of design ideas don't generally come to me right away).

Other problems I noticed:

1)The game ran fine, but when I got to the continue screen I had problems. First, when the screen appeared, the menu item selection jumped up & down 3 or 4 times. In addition, there was about 1/4 to 1/2 seconds of lag between when I hit a button and when I saw the change take effect. The problem mostly reminded me of when graphics cards buffer up dozens or hundreds of frames, then your input takes a while to make it through. To remedy this (if thats what it is), make sure you wait for the frame-buffer swap to complete before moving on to the next frame.

2) As others said, key choices were odd (space would have been a better choice, but you should also mention it at first). In addition, on the menu screens you should also accept enter as a select.

3)Everytime I continued, it seemed like I started in a different level (or a different place in the level, or maybe the camera was just rotated 90 degrees). I'm not sure exactly what was going on, but it seemed a bit disorienting.

4) It was hard to tell where I was jumping. At the very least, if there was some sort of shadow on the ground (even just a round circle), that would show me where I would land. It would have stopped me from missing a lot of jump

5) I seemed to have trouble every now and then knowing exactly how close to an edge I could get without falling off. Maybe the shadow would help, or perhaps you need a little more allowance for how close you can get.

6) Confirm before exiting the game on hitting Esc

7)I had a slight bit of trouble telling the checkpoint signs from the end level signs. It might help if it were a little easier to tell them apart.

8) On the bonus stages. the timer seemed to get in my way visually.

9) The powerups seemed like punishments. None of them really seemed useful.

10) Finally, after completing all 4 levels of the demo, the game just disappeared on me and I was back at the desktop. You need to give some sort of nag screen there, and then drop back to the main menu.

Nice job Gil, sweet random level generation code btw. I bet most people didn't notice it was (I noticed only after 'continuing' a few times..) which is high praise.

Btw, my only real problem was the quit/continue menu was a bit hard to control, like it would bounce up and down a few times and then I had to click jump 2 or 3 times to select.

Gilzu, congratulations on actually finishing your first game. I must say after reading a few reviews, I was pleasantly surprised by it. I won't reiterate what everyone else said, but here are a few major things I noticed:

1) Midnight is right, you need to speed it up a lot. When I first started playing, I had absolutely zero sense of urgency. I creeped along the edges just fighting against my own coordination to stay alive. I thought to myself, "this is it?". But after a while I got the hang of it and really started flying around (flashback to the Mario/Sonic days, I think) and then I started to feel that sensation called 'fun'! Perhaps some kind of time limit or something would compel people to move faster.

2) PLEASE add some kind of goose radar. There is nothing fun about running around the map looking for one freakin' goose.

3) As svero would say, tell me how far I am! OK, I completed one level. But what have I really accomplished? There's no way of knowing.

4) Is there any way to just pause the game?

5) The idea of chasing geese is a great idea, so why can't we chase them? That would be a heck of a lot of fun! If you could perfect that single interaction, it would GREATLY improve the perceived value in my opinion. Maybe if you get close, they start looking around panickingly, then if they see you they start squawking and running in terror. That would be great fun!

6) Finally, I thought the edges were a little unforgiving. If I even got one leg off the edge my whole body would fall through. That's not fun. Maybe if you get too close, your character starts losing his balance and you need to pull back from the edge or he'll eventually fall over.

Again, definitely keep at it because there's an excellent base there. I give you huge props for actually being able to declare it 'good enough' to release. That is one characteristic I sorely need to learn myself ;)

Gilzu, first of all, I think that it will be great game if you improve it according to previous suggestions:)

To add two or three things that I think should be corrected in gameplay:
1. Make main character's shadow much bigger. It can help in much easier jumping over holes.
2. I want to continue from the same position when I fall down or die. Going through whole level from the start is just boring.
3 Hmm, I think that maybe levels shouldn't be random generated ?

Oh yes, I forgot to say, I also had that problem with pressing escape causing the game to freak out.

And I also agree about the powerups... bad powerups aren't much fun, and that screen-lurching one is just HORRIBLE.

And most of all, yes, I too was disappointed that in a game called Goose Chase, the geese don't make you chase them at all.

but this:

There are no bad comments. The good ones keeps me going, The bad ones tell me where I should get better at. So even if you didn't like it, I value your response telling me where I should get better.

Thank you all, again.

That, is great. That's the spirit!

As for the 4-5 games a year thing -


I believe you need to write at least 4-5 games/year...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is assuming that you only sell the game for one year... but as I've understood, many indie developers sell their games for many years.


That is the point exactly. If your goal is to sell 500 copies of each game, you don't need to do it all in the first year. But if it takes 5 years to sell 500 copies, then you'd need to have 5 games for sale before you'd reach sustainability.

Still, I would really *hope* to manage 500 sales a year. It's not such an impossible target I would think - I'm really trying to make sure my game is something special and I'm hoping for a fair bit of attention when it comes out... we'll just have to wait and see of course :)

Yea, i know about the Esc problems, thats why i'm going to redo the menu system.

anyway, if you'll try to read this thread from start to finish you'll be amazed from the amount of contradicting impressions on the game: too hard/easy, too fast/slow/right tempo, random generate levels are good/bad and so on and on... lol...

Actually, it led me to think about adding an option to choose difficulty level at the start of the game (and maybe speed). now who said that you can't find good things in everything? ;)

It will take me a couple of days (or maybe a few more) to do all of the changes. It wont matter much since my domain behavior is erratic (DNS changes didn't go through all of the server so it loads part from the old one and a part from the new one) and i still hadnt finished setting up my registration account.

oh, back to work.

Part of those contradictions may be a result of how people played the game. The game allows you to play really slow or really fast, personally it didn't get fun until I was running around and jumping like crazy. Playing slow and cautious just wasn't that fun.

At first I thought the slowdown power up was one of those notorious "negative powerups" but then I realized it was more like max payne bullet time. It's great when you are jumping around, because it allows you to be a lot more accurate. But if you are just running on the ground it's not that interesting. Maybe allowing the user the specify when it is used (ala max payne) would be helpful.

Woo, I too tried the game. And I really want to play more than a couple minutes but it's kinda hard cuz I keep dying! That would be a good thing (not too easy) but when I die, I get the Continue/Quit screen for a couple seconds, and then see the level select screen with an X on the level I went to, hear a Windows message-box-ish sound and it exits (I think I had to press a key for it to exit). I haven't read the thread from start-to-finish, but is this new?

Great job, can't wait to play a bugless version :D

*goes to try again*

P.S. Great perspective on criticism. You're my model for when we announce our game here (give us a few days, it's-a-comin'!)

EDIT: Well wasn't that a long sentence. Too tired to correct it; hopefully it's semi-readable ;)

I played the game and didn't experienced any excitement while playing, no emotions, incredible interactions etc. I am 100% sure you need to improve the challange for the player, the goal and the gameplay. The graphics are done very nice. You need to compare your gameplay with for instance Rayman.

Check:
Rayman 2
http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/rayman2/
Game Features:

Action: The key word is speed! You need to think and act quickly as you fly, jump, run, rodeo, climb, swim, and avoid danger from all directions. Embrace risk and never ever give up until you free your friends.
Emotion: the magical, fantastic world you love is in danger and your best friends have been kidnapped into slavery. They will do anything and everything to help you in your quest for freedom.
Beauty: Experience lights, graphics and aesthetic harmony as never before. In Rayman's world, gaming is truly an art!
20 worlds, an epic quest, fast-paced game play, over 40 different characters.

Also Check:
Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc
http://store.ubi.com/item.jsp?item=008888681038&category=PC
Game Features:

Dive into Rayman's bizarre fantasy universe and unleash wicked powers against the Hoodlum Army in this combat-crazy platform adventure!
Knock-Down, Drag-Out, Totally Chaotic Combat
Blast into battle with the fanatic Hoodlum Army, hordes of outlandish creatures, and huge transforming bosses. These villains are trained to take you out with merciless group fighting tactics -- youll need killer strategies to survive the chaos.
Wreak Havoc with the Power of Rayman
Take the universe by storm with Rayman -- the only hero with no arms, no legs, and the world's most stylin helicopter hair. With a blazing arsenal of time-based powers and Double-Fist fighting action, Raymans ready to rip the Hoodlum Army a new one.
Voyage into a Bizarre Cartoon Fantasy
Experience Rayman's world and overdose on zany comedy and eye-popping visuals. Explore hyper-stylized environments, interact with deliriously strange characters, and unravel a story of epic proportions.

I do believe you mixed the word "Dive" with the URL of that post :D

Originally posted by programmer_ted
I do believe you mixed the word "Dive" with the URL of that post :D

:D I correct it.

I r spelling/grammar/punctuation nazi!

Well, I've been waiting for a demo of this game for a long time Gil. I always wondered what you were up to, and the basic game concept sounded unique when you first announced the idea. However, I have the same issues as most people who tried it and I don't find the game fun or the least bit interesting at all the way it stands now.

I wonder if most of your development time was spent on the difficult task of creating an engine for the game, because it looks like the game is just an unfinished concept. The name Goose Chase implies that I'll actually be chasing geese, but that doesn't happen. The geese just stand there. They may as well be coins. I found that even Dan's wording made the game sound much more interactive than it is. You don't actually step on the geese like he says. They just disappear when you get close enough.

The level layouts are boring and restrictive, but I guess that's because the geese don't move. The jumping is totally canned, which takes out a ton of depth and fun when you're talking about a platformer. There's almost no sound effects in the game and the level music is terrible. The bonus level music isn't that bad though. It seemed to sound fun.

The "tilt" is useless and/or anoying. The slow down wasn't very usefull either. The geese don't move and the jumps are canned anyway. I don't think this game has any potential unless the game design gets a massive makeover from scratch. I think the geese need A.I. so they can scurry around all over the place and run away. This would most certainly require the levels to be less restrictive.

There's millions of directions you could go with the design. If you had goose A.I., perhaps you could scare them and corral them into fenced areas before they explode or perhaps you'd have to avoid chasing them close to the game's enemies or into holes. Perhaps you could be rescuing or herding them, (anyone watching you play the game would probably think you were rescuing the geese) but already these ideas are way too different because there's not enough of a game to suggest mere tweaking of things. All you have right now is an engine, some characters and a bunch of checkpoints to run to. It doesn't feel like a game yet.

Originally posted by Hydroaxe
Well, I've been waiting for a demo of this game for a long time Gil. I always wondered what you were up to, and the basic game concept sounded unique when you first announced the idea. However, I have the same issues as most people who tried it and I don't find the game fun or the least bit interesting at all the way it stands now.

I wonder if most of your development time was spent on the difficult task of creating an engine for the game, because it looks like the game is just an unfinished concept. The name Goose Chase implies that I'll actually be chasing geese, but that doesn't happen. The geese just stand there. They may as well be coins. I found that even Dan's wording made the game sound much more interactive than it is. You don't actually step on the geese like he says. They just disappear when you get close enough.

The level layouts are boring and restrictive, but I guess that's because the geese don't move. The jumping is totally canned, which takes out a ton of depth and fun when you're talking about a platformer. There's almost no sound effects in the game and the level music is terrible. The bonus level music isn't that bad though. It seemed to sound fun.

The "tilt" is useless and/or anoying. The slow down wasn't very usefull either. The geese don't move and the jumps are canned anyway. I don't think this game has any potential unless the game design gets a massive makeover from scratch. I think the geese need A.I. so they can scurry around all over the place and run away. This would most certainly require the levels to be less restrictive.

There's millions of directions you could go with the design. If you had goose A.I., perhaps you could scare them and corral them into fenced areas before they explode or perhaps you'd have to avoid chasing them close to the game's enemies or into holes. Perhaps you could be rescuing or herding them, (anyone watching you play the game would probably think you were rescuing the geese) but already these ideas are way too different because there's not enough of a game to suggest mere tweaking of things. All you have right now is an engine, some characters and a bunch of checkpoints to run to. It doesn't feel like a game yet.

I think its a bit harsh crit.

maybe its just because you didn't connect with the game style. I can completely understand people who say "I simply didn't like it", simply don't like the kind of game or even find it boring since its not the type of game for them. but I think that calling Goose Chase "nothing but a game engine" is an exaggeration.

I agree, pretty much. I enjoyed the game while I was able to play it, but I do think it could be improved (the two suggestions I liked most were making it less dark and making the chickens run, but I know that'd be a tough change to implement ;)). So, fix the bugs and add one or both of those things above and I think you're on the right track. I definitely don't think it's as bad as Hydroaxe said, but you know what they say, we all have opinions.

Originally posted by gilzu
I think its a bit harsh crit.

maybe its just because you didn't connect with the game style. I can completely understand people who say "I simply didn't like it", simply don't like the kind of game or even find it boring since its not the type of game for them. but I think that calling Goose Chase "nothing but a game engine" is an exaggeration.

That's not true. You are missquoting me. In addition to the other things I mentioned, I said: "All you have right now is an engine, some characters and a bunch of checkpoints to run to." I didn't "connect" with the game's style because it only consisted of running and jumping to checkpoints that are in the form of birds. That's the game in a nutshell.

I don't think he was referring to any quote in general, but you mentioned a few times that while the engine was worthy, there wasn't much of a game to go with it (from my perspective). Perhaps a misunderstanding or a miss-wording?

EDIT: I forgot to say that while some of the suggestions you gave did sound worth-while, your negative points sounded rather harsh. That's why I thought perhaps it was a miss-wording, that maybe you just needed to rephrase some of your sentences. Or something. :D

(the two suggestions I liked most were making it less dark and making the chickens run



This had me laughing my tail off. It made me think of the movie Chicken Run.

"I don't want to be a pie!"

They're geese, not chickens.

-About the website, the buttons on the site should look like buttons or make the background color for them different at least. The site just has way too much white on it, especially in higher resolutions (although I don't really consider my 1280x1024 high).

-On the nag screen and menu, make the buttons look like buttons.

-Need some background music on menu screen and level selection map.

-The level selection level just doesn't really work. I think there's been enough comments that I don't need to say more.

-Program wouldn't let me alt-tab back inside it. Only happened once and it was while I was in a level.

-Add some background graphics or textures to the menu and nag screens. They just look too plain.

-For some reason after losing and exiting from the bonus level (ran out of lives) it quit to the menu

-Make the end of level status screen faster. It's annoying waiting for all the stats to show up.

-Inconsistent hardness. I can walk through trees and rocks in some spots but not others.

-Clipping problems with trees, rocks, and danger signs.

-Let me use the keyboard to select the menu buttons.

-I don't like it changing resolutions on me in the middle of the game (I have one of those monitors that makes annoying "clicking" sound when it switches).

-When I enabled the joystick it disables the keyboard. I should be able to have both enabled at once.

-What's the point of beating each level? I couldn't care less about points in this game. There's not even a high score board for the points. Also, why is this character "chasing" ducks?

I do like the character graphics and music although I don't really care too much for some of the tile textures used. I do have to wonder if the character moves just a little too fast though as I was always falling off the edges and colliding with enemies. It often seemed I didn't actually touch them. Perhaps the hardboxes are being set too big for them? It would be a lot more fun if I could actually kill the enemies by jumping on some of them. Falling off the edges all the time was the most annoying thing though.

Some ideas for improving the gameplay:

1) Give the main character some kind of heart container type life gauge where the character takes damage from characters and from falling off the edge (after falling off take a container and place them back on the edge). If the player loses all of them start the level completely over.

or

2) Give the levels time limits. If the player gets hit or falls of the edge take away some time. In the case where the player falls off the edge just place them near where they fell off. This doesn't work especially well with random level generation though (I don't random level generation no matter how you do it though).

Originally posted by Siebharinn
This had me laughing my tail off. It made me think of the movie Chicken Run.

"I don't want to be a pie!"

They're geese, not chickens.

Shh! SHH! You're not supposed to point out my imperfections! Ok. Quick coverup. Um. I plead insanity. My witnesses are those that interact with me on a daily basis.

Originally posted by Nexis
...Also, why is this character "chasing" ducks?

Ah ha! I'm not the only insane one! Thank you Nexis, you saved me lots of grief ;)

Just finished some of the improvements and bug fixes you've came across. so far I've added music to the menu and level selection screen, fixed some of the controls issues (Esc bug amongst them) made some graphic improvements and fixed some technical issues.

I'm dedicating this week (or how long it may take me) to fix and improve everything that was brought up in this thread. I'm greatful for those who spent their time on testing the game and pointing the weakspost for me. Even Hydroaxe, which i disagreed with him, made a difference by making me think about new ways of improving the concept. :)

@Nexis:
Thanks for sheding a light on the menu subject. didn't knew how much a background graphics/texture can add till I tried it.

Wow. 340 posts...does anyone doubt now why Goose Chase took two years? Kidding. This is my last OT post, promise!

Interesting that some people thought the character runs too fast. Because to me, I found him quite slow. I wonder, how are you managing the game timing (frameskipping etc) ?

gilzu: I have one suggestion that I think would make the game 200% better, although it doesn't exactly fit in with the 'goose chase' name. When you touch the geese make them follow you, so after a while you have 4-5 geese following you around in a line (basically mimicing your moves delayed). Now it's your job to get a quota of geese out of the trecherous levels. Make it so you don't die from touching tree's and stuff, but it knocks you away. This would cause one of the geese to touch the tree and do that squaking thing :), which in turn causes the other geese to run in the opposite direction of the squaking goose for a second causing various amounts of chaos :D I think this would give the game a much better dynamic and feeling of acheivment and fun, since the game as is seems quite random at the moment :)

ps another suggestion would be to make the hole detection a little more leanient

pps and I think giving the turtle dude heavier physics would add alot to the feel (ie make him not instantly run at full speed and make him slide a little on stopping/landing)

pppppppppps :) is there any height to the game? ie running up hills, jumping on stuff?

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Interesting that some people thought the character runs too fast. Because to me, I found him quite slow. I wonder, how are you managing the game timing (frameskipping etc) ?

Interesting idea...I've got a geforce fx 5900 (won it at the IGC 2003 conference) so that might be why it seems the character goes so fast for me.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Interesting that some people thought the character runs too fast. Because to me, I found him quite slow. I wonder, how are you managing the game timing (frameskipping etc) ?

@Anthony Flack:I'm using GetTickCount(), counting if 10 ticks past before drawing a frame (even tried experimenting with the values). I've tested it on dozens computers, and found out that the only difference in speed was from first gen accelerators (Voodo, TNT, GF1) and those who are above - So it might be it. I still don't see any reason why there's so much difference between the two. any suggestions will be helpful (I remember a relevant thread, but after reviewing it, i used the exact lesson everybody used)

@Vectrex: I saw the exact same thing with sonic3D, you have to save 5 birds, and after you save them you have to lead them to a ring. when you're hurt, they run around the level. Thanks for the suggestion, I'm still thinking what is the right addition to the Goose Chase formula to make it better.

Hi Gilzu,

I can also give you another nice suggestion which came in my mind. Did you played the game Jazz Jack Rabbit 1 ever? In the first Jazz Jack Rabbit platformer the bonus levels were 3D. The challange and interaction was simple and nice.

Just one more comment...

I quite like the idea "chasing" or "herding" the partridges in each level.

Have you ever played "Sheep"? It's probably 2-3 years old, and had a simply flocking/herding algorithm. Its demo might give you some ideas on where to take Quail Chase next.

BTW, your artist's site shows a pic of the Boss Monster - how do you interact with it / how does it fit into the game?

Originally posted by johnson
Hi Gilzu,

I can also give you another nice suggestion which came in my mind. Did you played the game Jazz Jack Rabbit 1 ever? In the first Jazz Jack Rabbit platformer the bonus levels were 3D. The challange and interaction was simple and nice.

funny, i actually thought about making 2D bonus levels (Crash Bandicoot had those.

@Midnight: Lets just say that in the boss level, you wont be the only one chasing... ;)

Hm, I tried goose chase yesterday. The mouse pointer was dead slow and blinking like hell, and when I tried to start the game I got a black screen and nothing more.
ahtlon 850, savage 4 32MB, 480MB ram, windows 98 se, directx 8.
I think I had set the resolution to 640x480 before starting the game.

I'm using GetTickCount(), counting if 10 ticks past before drawing a frame (even tried experimenting with the values). I've tested it on dozens computers, and found out that the only difference in speed was from first gen accelerators (Voodo, TNT, GF1) and those who are above - So it might be it. I still don't see any reason why there's so much difference between the two. any suggestions will be helpful (I remember a relevant thread, but after reviewing it, i used the exact lesson everybody used)

GetTickCount is not a very accurate timer, try using timeGetTime instead (it's in the winmm library).

Originally posted by dreeze
GetTickCount is not a very accurate timer, try using timeGetTime instead (it's in the winmm library).

Or you can use QueryPerformanceCounter, which is even more accurate! The PerformanceCounter isn't guaranteed to exist though, so it's best to fall back on timeGetTime if it's not present. Does anybody know when it's present or not? In MSDN it says that it's available on Win95 and up, which makes it more or less standard.. (Unless you make Linux/Mac games of course)

What happens if 20 ticks have passed before you get a chance to draw that frame?

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
What happens if 20 ticks have passed before you get a chance to draw that frame?

thats it. thanks!

I've just uploaded a new version that should solve many of the technical issues that were brought up here including Z-buffering, controls, blinking and others.

Also, the level selection screen is easier to understand now since you just need to go to a level representation to go into it.

I'll appriciate any further bug-report, or reporting whethersuch has been fixed.

-Gil.

nice one!

It's more fun than your last version. I'm still a bit sick(you bastard) ;)

Doesn't crash my computer now either. Was going to mention something about that, but you fixed/avoided it anyway.

A few observations/suggestions below.

An animation(and sound fx) like in sonic when your main character is near the edge would be a nice visual que/clue. Maybe also let them go a little over the edge.

When I get two tilts power downs it jumps around a bit unexpectedly. Is there any advantage to these power downs? I just began avoiding them. Maybe if you place them in such a way that they are near some sort of reward? Like really close to a couple of brews on a small island. Or maybe invinsibility whilst you are making the player sick.

Perhaps you could make the geese quickly fly away off the screen. That should be fairly easy to implement, and maybe only require one more animation.

If the shadow is the same size as the character then it can be used to judge jumps. At the moment it is harder because the perspective changes, and it is harder to judge depth without shadows. The player watches the shadow move along the ground as they jump along. A good example of this is the game mage bros.

The version still says 1.0.0, should that be incremented?

Your blue rocky texture has a few noticable jpeg artifacts.


Have fun!
http://www.holepit.com/

Originally posted by illume
The version still says 1.0.0, should that be incremented?

I'll do that once i'll decide most of the bugs were found and cured (in about a week). but you are right.

i didn't have any z-buffer errors in the last version, but i have them now :(

i think the timing is not perfect yet. the gameplay is faster now which is good but some animations are too fast (bottle, geese). it's a pity because you have very nice animations but it's hard to recognize them.

the menus are better now but the main menu music loop is a bit short.

Things are definatly improving, but now i'm getting a lot of zbuffer depth sorting problems, where I wasn't before.

It's almost if the resolution of your zbuffer isn't fine enough, are you using a 32bit zbuffer?

Originally posted by Dan MacDonald
Things are definatly improving, but now i'm getting a lot of zbuffer depth sorting problems, where I wasn't before.

It's almost if the resolution of your zbuffer isn't fine enough, are you using a 32bit zbuffer?


Thanks to aspiral i've fixed that bug, so if you've dl-ed your demo version before noon today (which by my records you did), then the newer version fixed that bug (and the one ill upload tomorrow will even choose the best available depth buffer).

anyway, all that's left now is to solve that annoying Radeon 9800 bug. it would have been alot easier if someone who has it will be able to contact me via gil@gilzu.com and help test things out.

Zbuffer works great for me now. Nice fix

Ok, I tried it again. I see a few improvements but now the game is going a lot faster than before. The character just flies across the screen and is rather difficult to control.

Still lots of problems with being able to walk through mushrooms, rocks, etc.

Haven't tried the very very latest version, but now instead of just a black screen when I click on "play" I get the loading pic... and nothing more. Mouse is still hidden/blinking.

Gil,

Just thought you might like to know you are getting a little exposure. I happened to go to download.com today, and there on the front page, in the "Just In" column, was Goose Chase 1.0. Even if I wasn't already aware of your game, the name would have caught my attention enough to get a click-through from me.

--marty

The game is screaming out for a gamma correction. On my computer, I just cannot see the holes in the ground. I've got a NVIDIA Geforce 4 4600, and an AMD Athlon 1 GHz. My monitor is set at full brightness. I know I can fiddle around with my card settings, till it is bright, but I'd rather do it in game.

Originally posted by Martoon
Gil,

Just thought you might like to know you are getting a little exposure. I happened to go to download.com today, and there on the front page, in the "Just In" column, was Goose Chase 1.0. Even if I wasn't already aware of your game, the name would have caught my attention enough to get a click-through from me.

--marty

this should explain the 2GB downloads...

Originally posted by Martoon
The game is screaming out for a gamma correction. On my computer, I just cannot see the holes in the ground. I've got a NVIDIA Geforce 4 4600, and an AMD Athlon 1 GHz. My monitor is set at full brightness. I know I can fiddle around with my card settings, till it is bright, but I'd rather do it in game.

Quite right. It will be uploaded with the next batch of fixes.

@Nexis: already working on it...