Outstanding game.
Reviews for "Escape3"
I like it.
I like the art for the game, the clay animations, and the premise, but I'm finding problems with the gameplay:
- The game requires that you split up into three separate characters and, at times, jump on another one to move both of them at the same time (you can only switch between characters by touching them, making this necessary when you come to an area where all three must reach the same location). However, the jumping is unpredictable when two of them are stacked up together. Sometimes when you jump with two stacked, the top part will jump without the bottom or it will try to jump and only vibrate in place and sometimes it works fine. The only time it doesn't work at all is when I use the spacebar. Am I missing a mechanic? Why can't the combined character jump?
- It's often times difficult to recombine them. I've stacked them on top of each other many times with nothing happening. And then, other times, it works. I even rearranged them so they were in the right order to recombine and it still doesn't work.
- I also ran into a problem with the character glitching through platforms, causing them to either fall to their deaths or get separated from the others and make it impossible to get all three together again.
- When pressing the R button to restart, it won't restart. I even went to the pause screen and pressed it and all it does is make the screen shake a little.
- Whenever a character dies, the screen goes to black. It doesn't restart.
- Going back to the main menu in game takes me back to the logo with the white background, but it won't progress any farther, forcing me to refresh the page.
- I ran into a problem where they are all touching each other and none of them will move. Observe:
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/593fa68e975c593d1dfa6fff77cea78d
I was able to replicate it with even worse results; this time, they're not all touching.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/e07e1f990dedbba4efa674e7c763e814
- Why does the spacebar work as a jump and an action button? In a game where jumping is the primary method of solving puzzles, it would be a good idea to have those two separated so that players aren't jumping when they simply want to use an ability or activate something.
- Why don't their powers stay with them when they recombine? The only way to lower one of the platforms is for the middle section to step into the water and get heavier. However, once the platform goes down, there's no way for him to come back up while he's heavy and the others can't follow since you can only switch between them by touching. I even tried to keep the other two character on the platform, but the middle section would just jump on top of the others.
- It's too easy to get permanently separated from one of the characters, making the rest of the game impossible.
I'm not sure why I seem to be the only person experiencing these problems. I'm using a Mac, but I tried this game on both Google Chrome and Safari. In any case, here is my advice for the game:
- Make it so you can switch between characters by pressing a button, like 1, 2, and 3.
- Make it so the combine sequence activate easily or perhaps only activates when all of them are touching and a button on the keyboard is pressed.
- Make activation button and jump button two separate things.
- Make it so you can jump in the big.
I'd really like to see more of the game, but I can't progress any farther because of the problems I mentioned. I still wish you luck in your creative endeavors.
Great work! One of the best things I've seen from this jam. Quite a few people did the "control three characters in a platformer" concept, but this game has, by far, the most unique mechanics out of any of them. Would love to see this expanded upon!
I love the art! Stop motion's hard enough, but doing it all within two weeks and making it look this smooth is particularly impressive. Music's nice, too!
A few minor bugs - animations stop if you tap space while moving as the combined character, and two of the characters disappeared once (I'm really not sure why, but they returned when I died), but nothing too bad considering the time constraint.
Swapping between characters by just bumping into them feels a little weird, but not too bad - you get used to it quick enough.
Overall, great work!
this is genius game!