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MakeGamesHappen
IS OUR INBOX FULL !?!?!?! Leaving feedback in comments: 1. Helps me save memory in my inbox. 2. Helps us get new testers interested in testing for us.

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Posted by MakeGamesHappen - December 15th, 2014


Atomic Alice Vs Prozak


Comments

Note to self: This person has a pretty cool game:
http://pcpr0gramer.newgrounds.com/

Note to self:
RDirectoryCopy_AIR_TEST.as
Currently in use to create level encryption.

This game is amazing! Here you'll find cool levels, bombs, gadgets, and more stuff you won't know about unless you're 200x nerd! Atomic Alice is one of the best retro platformers I know with an awesome backstory, cool level design, and fluent controls! And explosions. Oh yeah. EXPLOSIONS.
Get it once it's out!!! YOU MUST!!!!!

Thankyou for your kind words. :3
-John Mark

I've been coming back to play "Atomic Alice" every few weeks, and it is always really nice to see the improvements. This last one is the best one yet. It's the first time I manage to play to the end without any problems, and everything is coming together nicely. Congrats.
One thing that I would really like to see would be that when you arrive at the door in each level, you have a few seconds to see how the levels unfolds. For example you ran like hell and everything is exploding behind you, it would be nice if you could see the explosions to the end instead of abruptly going to the next level.
The game is challenging and well thought, and the difficulty curve is much improved. "Rush Mode" I still haven't managed all the levels. XP
small things
Level 07HCC is unsolvable, isn't it?
Thanks, and keep up the good work!

I really like the resolution idea you have!
-John Mark

Note To Self:
This helped with preloader stuff:
http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3365

Takeaways:
1. In additional compiler options, command: -frame main Main
2. Set the pre-loader == "Always Compile" in flash develop to make the PRELOADER the main
file.
3. Preloader needs to use reflection in order to construct main class when everything is done loading.

Your inbox is full.
Here what I wrote.

I usually play retro type games because they on the front page they not my favorite type of games. My favorites are adventure games like the ones http://deathtiger0.newgrounds.com/games/ makes.
Its this the game you wanted me to beta test?
http://makegameshappen.deviantart.com/art/ATOMIC-ALICE-Beta-10-467167875

Well my view is that the game has no story at all and not motive why exactly I am passing levels?
Who is Atomic Alice?
Maybe a nice intro like
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/651892
It does not have to be as good but just some text to read to motivate me to play. That is something that Pixel Staff lacked.
Gaming for me is about the experience and even a basic story helps you enter the game world more.
Maybe an upgrade system would be nice people like that.That is why the http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/567439 was so good.
Giving something to improve the experience each time you pass a level instead of just passing a level adds to the experience and interest in the game.

This is good stuff. So you like games kinda like adventure of monkey island?
(Not sure if that reference is too old for you.)

http://makegameshappen.deviantart.com/art/ATOMIC-ALICE-Beta-10-467167875
Is correct. That version is pretty old now. We haven't posted a public/open beta in a long time.

I think you hit the nail of the head on the two most important things we are lacking.
1. Story & Motivation to progress.
2. A sense of progression via powerups or, just something.

I'll add you to the tester list in case you'd like to check out our most current version.
-John Mark

So yeah your inbox is full lol.

But yes I'd be happy to beta test your game and give feedback

ARGH!!! This always happens.
I was wondering why no one was messaging me all of the sudden!
I will add you to the tester list.
Just leave feedback in the comments section here.
-John Mark

You've made some nice progress since the last version I played, and it's looking like a great game.
Is Beta 10 at Deviantart still the most recent one?
As far as things I could recommend at this point:

I'm occasionally getting significant lag on a laptop that's about 1 year old and was mediocre for the time, and I imagine it's probably comparable to what a lot of people have. You could see if other people are noticing lag sometimes getting to where it affects gameplay; if so, then maybe have a graphics quality selector or options to turn off some effects. (Right-clicking and changing graphics to low didn't seem to help much.)

I was going to say to make it show which level you're on while you're playing, but based on the screenshots above it looks like you've already done that since beta 10 was posted. There were some levels where I made it through using an approach that seemed kinda cheap, and it'd be nice to say what happened where and how a level could be changed to prevent it, but now I can't remember the details.

After the player finishes the intro levels once, have it save the fact that they're finished and not make you go through them again if you reload the game. Right now, any time you refresh the page (like after finishing a level set) it forces you to go through the intro levels again. Maybe have an option to replay the intro levels on the level pack select screen. It might also be nice to let people continue at the last unbeaten level of each pack if they leave and come back, or go to a level select screen for that level pack.

Once everything else is wrapped up, maybe make a cutscene after the last level of each levelpack with an ending sequence (Nitrome's "Ditto" comes to mind as something simple that would help make the game memorable). Or a special final level with something that could give a similar sort of feel of giving a little plot to the game... like make an evil lair of bad guys plotting to nuke the world, and you need to set of bombs in such a way to destroy their lair and wipe them out before you leave the level in order to get a good ending screen. Or anything sort of artistic that you like. It'd be a nice bit of icing on the cake that seems warranted for a game of this quality.

Nitrome makes excellent games. And I would like to hit their level of quality.
Beta10 is pretty old by now. I am pretty sure you are on our beta testers list?
I'll make sure after this...

Checked. You were not. But you are now.
I think this happened because when I first messaged you, you immediately checked out the version on deviant art. And at that time, the newgrounds version was identical to it.

After accepting my invite, you will have access.
This link should bring you there:
http://www.newgrounds.com/projects/games/727640/preview

The lag issue you are having is a concern for me.
When does lag usually happen? I am working off a tablet right now.
I notice lag when there are a lot of bombs going off.
I have some ideas on how to make the bomb system run more efficiently.

-John Mark

Ok, I've been playing the beta and I have to say that there aren't (almost) any negative things I have to say about it. I liked the music, the controls are very responsive even though at first I thought that they might cause problems due to the speed of the character, it's happened to me before in other games. The level editor is really neat, I tried it by building some small and pretty simple levels, as to see if there was bugs or anything.
One of the issues I found was with the sprites which, by the way, look and behave most excellently but I found them to be pretty small. I often found my face inches away from the screen because otherwise I wouldn't be able to see what was what clearly, but it doesn't affect the overall experience too much. Gameplay is otherwise good, I like how the learning curve is fairly simple as it used to be in the games of old, the sort of "if you touch this, you die. End of story" It doesn't require anymore than that to learn how to play. I don't quite understand what the elements (Neon, Hidrogen and such) have to do with the game, and the other moving entities are a bit odd too, since i've played a couple of levels that included them and some killed me when I touched them, others simply shoved me inside the walls (which by the way wasn't much of a bug because it doesn't break the game, you can jump right out of the wall without any problem), but as I understood it, they were only there to provide those spinning thingies that act as keys for some doors.
The menus could use some work, sure, I guess the ones in the title are placeholders and I shouldn't bother about them, but the menu that appears in the actual levels could be cleared away so as to leave more space for the game. Maybe it could be tucked away inside a nifty, good-looking button? I don't know.
The last thing I could adress here is that every time I play the game I go through the same set of levels before reaching the actual menu, but surely is another of those things that are present only in the beta, they could become the "begginer" levels when the game is released.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I tried to be as thorough as I possibly could with this since I hadn't beta-tested any flash games in newgrounds before. I'll make sure to play the next version as soon as it comes out.

Hey there! Sorry! I thought I had responded to this a few days ago because I had read it a few days ago. I might have done it while I was on my phone though and forgotten to type something up when I got back to my computer.

Yeah, the save data isn't quite complete for the game.
Having people play the intro levels every time must be super annoying.

I implemented full screen to try and help with everything being so small.
But it still is kind of a problem. The next game we made I think I want to use tiles 3X the size of the current size. So.. 48x48 tiles. Or have the pixels zoomed in 3X.

There are some technical things preventing me from doing that in this game.

The neon,hydrogen, elements etc. Was experimenting with a way to display score as an element.
Haven't really tied all of that together yet either.

But yeah, I am really worried that the dense level of detail and everything being very small may highly impact the success of this game.

-John Mark

Your inbox is full again :p If you MP your e-mail adress to me, I just might have some new things you'd be interested in :3

What is "MP".. wait. "PM" typo?
I'll just put it here. I'll message you as well.
HeavyMetalCookies [ a t ] G M A I L . c o m
Typed such way to prevent bots from finding it.
-John Mark

Hi your Inbox is full again!
Keep it clean man!

Hey it has been a month since I replied...
Sorry for that, still don't really have a lot of time to get on here!
I still have a internship and besides that I make videos on youtube!
No idea if I already have shared it with you...
But here is my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/MarcsUniverse
I'm way more active on there!

BUT!
I'm planning to work on a new animation and a game!
So when its finnaly that far, I'll be on here more often!
Also when I have school again its the same story, i'll be here a bit to much maybe haha.

I know! I am horrible with this inbox thing!
Checked out your 2014 Recap. I see a lot of... after effects?
Making videos, animations, and games, that's quite a lot of stuff.
Keep collaborating on stuff. Getting decent teams together is a huge part of
making something great.
-John Mark

The character has no legs how does she jumps?
I zoom and she does has feet but maybe It would be better if feet were another color so that it looks like she does have feet also maybe make the character a little bigger.
A double jump upgrade you can buy from a shop would be nice or speed upgrade or float.
Maybe have npc appear in some levels and tell you a message, it would make the game more alive.
The shop could be in a town in a custom map you can buy upgrades and maybe items your character can wear It would be a nice reward too those items could give the skills too.Like boots,sunglasses,hats,suits.

Boss battle another npc compete with you on completing a level and you have to do it faster than boss to win.

These just ideas they not really need to be in the game but little extras are always nice and people love them.

The size of the character, and the relative smallness of everything in general has been a problem.
I've been thinking about doing another game very similar to this one where the character is 3X bigger on screen and the game scrolls rather than being one screen.

Really I wanted to release two games at the same time, one being a side scroller so I could compare which one became more popular. But it is looking like that is a bit out of scope. As finishing one game is enough work.

1. Upgrades. I want this. Will we have time? I don't know.
2. NPCs appear to give messages. Yes. I have an idea for a specific character and interesting
sequences where he pops out of nowhere. But I would need to code some event-regions.
Coding event regions would mean:
A. Creating an event region data type.
B. Supporting the edit/creation of event regions in the editor.
C. Proper Export and embedding of event region data from editor into game.
D. Proper "Rendering/Execution" of event regions in game that triger dialog sequences
with NPCs that pop up. And probably some other cool stuff.
3. Shopping town as custom map. Also like this idea.
4. Boss battle an NPC to complete the level. I like this. Like an NPC could activate a trap as it passes through. But you are the one that actually gets blown up by all the bombs that NPC walked through.

Hopefully I will be able to implement at least one of these great ideas you have hear.
But, if I don't definitely the next game.
-John Mark

Hey John, I wanted to send you a glitch report yesturday but for some reason a error saying I"m not the owner of the PM shows up. I don't know what it means. This time however your inbox seems full so I can't send any reports...or maybe I can show it here and that's fine.

Yep. My inbox is full. I need to get on that.
I guess I'll start archiving messages today and listening to educational talks.
-John Mark

Who are you idiot?
Fuck you motherfucker.

Oh no! I am an idiot! It's all over! My life is ruined!
I need to call my mom and tell her the bad news.
-John Mark

Hello John Mark,

I've been spending about... *checks clock* Uh, wow, about two hours now, playing the Atomic Alice beta, and I have to say, this is a magnificent peace of work right here. Lots of the courses seem very challenging, but once you've actually taken the time to look at the layout before just running randomly into the minefields, you really WILL be able to finish a run in under ten seconds, like you said before. That's not for all runs, of course, some are just plain old running as fast as you can. However, you know all of that already, after all, you made the game. All I can say, as a tester, is that it's a very good game. I haven't encountered any bugs or things of the sort, but then again, I haven't been through all levels yet. My only issue, being the grammar Nazi that I am, would be that at the beginning screen, where you're prompted to click the third, fourth and ninth button, it says nineth. That is literally the only mistake I've found in the game thus far.
I enjoy the music very much, it's lively without getting tiring, which is a must for a game like this, definitely. My eyes are hurting a bit from all the psychedelic going on in my previous tab, so I'm glad you put up that epilepsy warning. I'm sure I'd be rolling over the floor like a maniac now if I was an epileptic. The colors do make it look really nice, though. It has, at least to me, a unique kind of look, with the bright neon colors and the mechanics and such. I don't recall myself playing a game with that kind of look before.
The fullscreen option, which I thought was such a must for Kram Keep, has also really proven its worth in this game. I'd forgotten about the option, and playing it on small screen for the first five minutes, I wasn't sure I was going to continue. There's just too much you need to look at at the same time to play it on such a small screen. The fullscreen option really helped me.
A personal issue, of course not something you'd be able to do about, I'm sure others are better at it, but I am terrible at those "free fall" kind of levels. You know, the ones where you have to jump and maneuver through the deadly skulls as you fall down. I just think Alice is going too atomically fast for me to move her in time. Then again, my reaction speed isn't exactly the highest. I've managed to go through a few, but as the levels become higher, I start encountering them a lot more, which is why I called it quits for now. I will definitely check it out again tomorrow, though, to check, of course, but also to play. It's just that kind of addicting game that you'll keep coming back to. Definitely worth those two years of work that you've put into it.

Very cool! Thanks for posting this so the rest of my team can see it!
-John Mark

I've been away for quite some time, and I see a lot has changed. The game got
even more of that special atmosphere that I liked and I am sure a lot of other
fans will like. Some feedback:
1. As others mentioned, story is lacking, but we already see some seeds to it.
2. levelmap02HCB - possible to pass with less effort than intended - just go all
the way right and jump up just the right moment, and you're at the exit, no
need to rush.
3. I love the addition of the little guys who get out of the cubes.
4. Some levels (HC_ABC for example) have multiple exits - it's confusing and
I can't understand where I go. Explaining or hinting might be good.

DEAR JOHN MARK
It is I your humble tester broomcast, and I really don't know where to put my input on testing the game so I'll just leave it here.
THIS GAME IS GOOD. It is so tight in controls, audio, visuals, and I have literally played through all the levels, and I got to say that the platforming is just solid. very solid product my friend. I applaud you and your teams dedication to making a very tight game. BRAVO.
The only real problems I have with the game is "story" or "conflict".
What I mean by that is, If I were to see this game in my travels around the internet, how far would I want to play it? How much would I want to play it?, and as I took my view a little more objectively I realized that aside from being a solid game what is my reward for playing it? I won the game sure, but is there anything else that I can do like maybe get an award for splattering my blood all over the walls? or maybe an award for going through some sort of time trial mode or something. I feel like this games controls are good, but its "presentation" still needs work. maybe its a bit too straight forward, in a sense, and needs something else, what that something else is I don't know, but hey thats just a personal problem that I have, and it doesn't really take a way from your game in any way. I was testing for bugs, and I couldn't find any.
so thank you for letting me be a part of this. I'll still test through whatever you may come up with, and I hope this game is a big success for you
P.S. The only question I have to ask you is, whats up with the "periodic table meter" thingy in the right, the thing that goes from hydrogen to flourine and all that? whats the deal with that?

So those are my thoughts, thanks again for letting me play

More feedback:

LevelMap04T - the map is from 'Rush', so it's logical that you have to be
quick, but I can actually explode some bombs and hide in the upper right
socket until all the bars go down. In the spirit of 'Rush' it would be better
so that I couldn't do that and the path would be blocked if I do that, or
something like that.