Bounce! has been a really fun experience for us over the past 8 - 9 months. It's really made us more aware of the indie side of game development. We have worked so many hours on the project coding tons of features for the game. We have almost twice the amount of original features we planned on adding to the game.
We are in the final stages now but have decided to delay the project slightly but are still planning to release sometime the end of this year.
You can download the demo now and see what you think: Click Here
So stay tuned for more details.
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Copyright @ Race-Away 2009 - 2010
Eh... this game looks like it needs more work before I consider downloading. It looks like it has potential but so far I'm not very interested... I'll be watching this one though.
Eeeek.
I think you're not going to earn anything...
It's no good just slagging off games. If you want to critize the game say what you think looks bad then we can work on it and improve it instead of just saying looks bad etc.
Sometimes you need to take risks, this was a big risk as it's never been done before. Alot of people seem to enjoy had quiet a few nice comments from people. You either like or it you don't but the gameplay is innovative and something different then the same generic shooting games which keep poping up all the time.
"Innovative" alone is not enough. I'd rather have a good, generic shooter than a bad, innovative game. Besides, if your main argument is to compare it with "generic shooters" and basically calling it relatively good, then my expectations aren't exactly high.
Just saying.
This game could be a lot of fun, though. I haven't played it myself, as it doesn't look like my type of game, but I believe that I can pinpoint a few gripes that people probably have regarding the game. Based on the videos and presentations that I've seen, it comes off as kind of amateur-ish. The graphics look way too simple, and not simple in the "hey that's pretty cute"-stylistic kind of way. I remember seeing some earlier videos about this, where it seemed like you just stood there and watched the ball bounce off in the distance, without much interaction besides just aiming and shooting. I'll stress that I could be dead wrong, though, as this is basically guesswork with a fairly tiny basis. Also, using two quotation marks ("??") or two exclamation marks ("!!") just screams "amateur", to me. That has nothing to do with the quality of the game, of course, but this is the presentation that is supposed to get me interested in it, and a few people might feel the same. Hopefully they're not as nitpicky as I am, though.
I played one of the beta releases and fore-knew that it still had a lot of work coming, so I didn't have huge expectations. I liked the physics and collusion detection capabilities. Bounce is kinda like a golf game with a gun. After seeing the new video it looks like there are some new levels with interesting puzzles and visuals. I didn't realize there would be environmental conditions as part of the puzzles... lava? cool!
Here's my [rather] comprehensive list of things wrong with the game at this point and why this feels more like a beta than a finished product (no offense intended):
1) Several textures aren't tile-able and don't create smooth flow. For example, the rock floor you stand on in the first area. You can clearly see where the texture starts again.
2) On the few models in the game, several of them have texture overlaps. The front of the couch for instance. Seriously, you don't have many models in the game, and the models are really basic. You shouldn't be having this issue.
3) You can get stuck on the teleporter box. I did three times and had to spam the jump button to unstick myself.
4) The gun model can go through walls. Go right up to the teleporter box and your gun will go through it.
5) You gun model is static. Give it an animation. Make the balls in the noticeable barrel drop down when one shoots (and the gun then moves off screen to replenish it). Make it not so static.
6) The difficulty of the challenges varies a lot. I found level 3 to be incredibly easy, why level 1 was just a point and guess where you messup a lot.
7) Get rid of the point and guess gameplay. One thing that doesn't make the gameplay incredibly interesting is that it takes very little skill. You just aim, shoot and hope it hits somewhere you want it to. Why not draw a basic projection, so you know at least where the ball will initially hit? I'd also aim to have more levels involving the acid and such. I thought those were the most interesting parts.
8) Improve the model quality. Not much I can say here. I see the style you were going for, but you don't need to make the models worse than Quake 2 models to achieve the look. Increase the poly counts, add specular, etc.
I should really be criticizing you. You've achieved more than I have for game development, but before selling the game, I'd really work on the polish.
Well, i'm gonna track, but you still need LOTS of work on it, you said that to us to "criticize" what we think that isn't good, so here goes:
Make more detailed graphics and props, I think that more Cartoonish graphics would fit well the idea of this game.
Make more animations for the Ball Gun (idk the name, will use this), like this, when we shoot a ball, the others could fall and the first one could be loaded, then just grabbing more balls and putting there to add "ammo", like a paintball gun.
I don't know you, but I think that I saw some texture errors...
Make the game with REALLY challenging puzzles, I really love challenging puzzles :)
I also saw that the second game-mode has an error on it's name, you typed "Challeng", it's Challenge.
Well, the other things that I didn't mention can stay as they are, they already look Ok!
I wish you luck with this game, if needing ideas/testers, feel free to ask me.
Looks funny, but is also like an uncut crystal, it means, there is need for work, but, it's just a demo, so, you know that there are many things that can be optimized.
Yah that is perfect in comments. We really need some constructive critizm for game as we been looking for testers for awhile but no one seemed to apply so it's all done via the internal team.
We are thinking of delaying game anyway and fixing these problems.
I'd happily test for you.
We have decided to delay the project and release whenever we are ready we are trying to push it out to fast. We need some beta testers which get free early access to game and we need you to produce detailed results for us such as average FPS, bugs and constructive criticize.
If you wanna apply: the_green_machine@msn.com
Give us a email.
Doesn't work on my Windows 7 64 bit :(. I tried compatibility mode also.
I ran the demo on Vista 64 bit, So I'd thought that Windows 7 Would have been fine.
I ran it in Windows 7 64-bit just fine. No issues.
Hmm, weird. I'll check into it and see if I can figure it out.
Nope, im not getting it to work on Windows 7 64-bit either. Strange. Says the fault module is Movie.dll which makes me think im missing something...
OK so theres a Movies.dll file in the plugins folder... i tried re-downloading and everything. I have no idea why it isn't working. Especially since one guy said he ran it just fine... hmmm some program i'm missing here?
Make sure that you have the newest updated DirectX. See the extra folder. You have to update your graphic to the newest driver for it.
We know that there still are some issues and we are working on it.
I think it looks quite good actually..
I don't think the quality is good enough for me to buy a full version, compared to some of the professional level commercial indie games out there, but you definitely have a SOLID base to build from with this.
Just wanted to throw a positive comment in there (:
Yah thanks guys :P. Everyone loves game but we decided to not release as there is some obvious areas we need to fix. It should work on all versions of Windows. All depends what graphics card you got & sound card.