Comments on: Fear Less! (Anna Oliver, Greg Lane)

By: caxxse

caxxse — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:04:33 +0000

haha me too

By: Phack

Phack — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:23:28 +0000

I think the way the sword works is one of the highlights of the game!

By: dukope

dukope — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:28:05 +0000

I played this so much that my eyes broke. The whole screen was scrolling in the opposite direction when I stopped.

By: Terry

Terry — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:12:49 +0000

I dunno, I get the sword mechanic criticism, but it worked pretty well for me – I’m not sure why that’s a big deal for other people.

I really liked this one – I think it has a certain personality that’s rare in this genre.

By: 23

23 — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:41:51 +0000

The music and graphics are a lot of fun, but the gameplay is pointlessly weird and punishing.

The sword mechanic is really bad. It’s not at all obvious that landing in the middle is what you’re supposed to do – especially at the beginning when most of the sword is red. I aimed for the tip repeatedly and didn’t understand why it failed. Disconnecting it from the time you actually run into the fox is even more confusing. There’s nothing wrong with novel mechanics, but if they don’t provide anything extra then being confusing is just a point against them.

The sword could be improved by keeping the power bar but requiring the player to start the swing – that would force them to be aware of foxes coming up rather than being informed by the sword icon. It would also make more sense to anchor the power bar to one end as in many golf games or the Kirby Superstar Megaton Punch minigame, which had several variations on timing bars.

Having upgrades is one thing, but the game is structured so that upgrades make more of a difference than any change in player skill due to repeat play. Compared to other endless-hall-of-death games like Canabalt or Nanaca Crash this can stretch out the play experience if you get bored easily, but it basically makes paying attention or trying to work on your timing pointless – if you play better you’ll get more coins per run, but you can just lose a few times and level up anyway.

All that said, I look forward to more from the devs. I didn’t see a link to the programmer’s site, but I found the artist’s DeviantArt.

By: arrogant.gamer

arrogant.gamer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 05:00:01 +0000

I totally agree: these mechanics stress multitasking and concentration, rather than just timing and reflexes.

Also: I won! Woo!

By: Tilapia

Tilapia — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:39:19 +0000

Whoever did the music for this game has been playing a lot of Binding of Isaac

By: nobody

nobody — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 01:03:15 +0000

I have mixed feeling about this sort of progression structure — against my better judgement I tend to get sucked in by the upgrade tree and then feel sort of gross when such a large amount of time has passed and reaching a final milestone has failed to satisfy (and how could it, weighed against all that wasted time!) — but this was charming in a way that surprised me.

I think the sword mechanic has a lot to do with it, the way it activates space in a different way: the mushrooms and graves scroll along and tell you you must be in the air *now*, but the sword pop-up tells you you must deal with this before *then*, forcing you to split your focus, to handle some tricky pressing jumps, perhaps, and focus on the sword timer during a brief moment of respite.

Even better, once you get the double-jump you can pay attention to whether you’ve failed a sword prompt and choose to rectify the situation. I particularly like how the indicators of that failure are fairly subtle: you need to choose to take your attention away from the obstacles for a moment to see clearly that your sword isn’t flashing, that the sword indicator ended up just outside the target region. It’s with that final added complication that the game really hits its stride.

By: kiwasabi

kiwasabi — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:07:28 +0000

Unintuitive mechanics don’t necessarily mean bad design. However, they have to add something to the game to justify their inclusion. In this case I think it takes away from the timing based gameplay. I’m so focused on the annoying sword meter that I lose track of the stuff I’m jumping over. To each his own, though.

By: arrogant.gamer

arrogant.gamer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:31:07 +0000

I find this game is exciting and fun to play. I like the tech tree and general aesthetic, and I love how the mechanics are essentially independent. One could totally add a third or fourth button to this with future releases (shield with A to deflect incoming skull birds, or maybe tap-dancing with S to dodge flames on the ground). I think they could play up the rhythm game angle with no trouble.

I sped right up the jump ladder, since I love to jump. This also nets you the most coins early on.

@kiwasabi, I’m not sure if unintuitive mechanics are the same as bad design choices (also: “the normal way”). I like the weird golf-style swordplay, precisely because it is tricky (although, if you climb the jump ladder the foxes quickly become a non-issue).