This is my first game SpeedCopter

Hello everyone !

Let me introduce my first game inspired of Project boost, SpeedCopter made with Unity.

You will control a helicopter where I did my best to make fluid movements.
Among some levels, you will meet enemies that you have to avoid.
This game include autosave system and you can also play the levels unlocked again when you wish.

There is several differents levels having various challenges.

If you tried it and have time, could you tell me what do you thought about this game to help me for improve my skill in this field (: .

This is the link of this game : https://sharemygame.com/@Guillestre41/speedcopter

And this is a small video presentation

https://youtu.be/sIMifqaZ0S8

Thank you for reading this message and have a nice day !

4 Likes

noicee

A helicopter is perfect for the up down mechanic of boost. Very interesting level and sound design. The tracked canon level was my fav. I got till the slow zone and then gave up. Excellent job overall.

Welcome to the community! Code wise I think you did an amazing job, I didn’t encounter bugs and the game works perfectly.

If you want feedback on game design, well, this might get a little tough, if you can take criticism then keep reading, if you don’t then don’t read the next paragraph, I’m warning you because taking criticism after spending so much time working on a particular project can be hard.

First of all, the more you put into a game the more “negative feedback” you’ll get, that’s perfectly fine and actually pretty normal, it’s also better for your learning experience, so keep at it.

There are several issues with your game from game a design perspective, if you aren’t interested in this topic then don’t read this. I’ll point out all the flaws first, then I’ll make some suggestions one how to make your game even better:

  • The level design is bold, you obviously took a lot of risks and make things quite beyond what I’ve seen in many, many, boost projects, the issue with that, is that you obviously got way too excited too quickly. The game starts with extremely simple levels, then the makes a HUGE jump to a big level with a turret trying to takes us down and then another HUGE jump to an exploration level. You are introducing and taking away mechanics just for the sake of it. Nothing wrong with experimenting, but introducing new threats in huge levels is unfair for the player, it also makes the game feel inconsistent.

  • The exploration level with the street is amazing, but it’s design is pretty poor, I’m not talking about the layout, but how there are so many places that can kill the player without giving a heads up, I’m talking about those invisible walls that are all over the place, I know why you placed them, but, again, it’s unfair for the player, the same goes for the randomness of the cars, the player can’t know when it’s safe to pass, it’s a full speed bet, not fun, just frustrating.

  • The gears level is pretty boring, it’s just going from one gear to the other, but it also makes the same mistake as the street level, it’s hard to tell where to go, I kept going in circles trying to find the exit, again, not fun, just repetitive, I spent like 5 minutes in that level without dying once.

  • The next level, the one with all the fans makes one of the most common mistakes most project boost do, perspective and speed, the second and third fans move way too fast and it’s hard to tell when it’s safe to move due to camera perspective. I actually got pretty frustrated after that, I died like 30 times, I didn’t finish your game, which is also feddback.

Now onto some suggestions;

  • Make more simple, introductory levels, before taking the player to this huge challenges that feel like boss battles. I highly recommend this videos that talk about level design and mechanics, how to introduce them and how to reuse them properly. He talks about platform games, but you can easily translate it into your game.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea6XJRqHUU4
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqHcE6B4OP4

  • I really get why you put those invisible walls instead of visible ones, it breaks the look and atmosphere, the cars would be passing through walls making everything look weird. There’s a simple and elegant solution for this without making everything look like a cheap game. Add a stop sign, big red stop sign, the player might die a first time, but not a second time, the player will connect the dots on it’s own. Also add a ceiling or something to those huge gaps that also kill the player.

  • Random cars. This issue can be very complex to fix depending on what you want. If you want randomness then make sure that there’s still a pattern, for instance, if a red car passed by then a Van will follow. If you don’t want randomness then a green, yellow, red car followed by a van can work too. Basically, make the red cars a warning for the player, again, the player might die once, even twice, but the idea will get through eventually.

  • The gears level is tiring and boring, add a little variety to it, I highly recommend looking into how Nintendo design levels for Mario, it’s usually a patter that I called CRRR, Challenge - Reward - Rest- Repeat. After going through some gears add a little extra, something fun for the player to enjoy before going to the next set of gears, so it doesn’t feel like a grind (hehe…), it also makes the path the player should follow more obvious without the need of using arrows or hand-holding mechanisms.

  • Last but not least, the level with the fans. Separate the sphere just a tiny bit, I mean like 0.1 floats, it’s sounds ridiculous but believe me, it would make a HUGE difference. Then unto the fans, that’s actually absurdly hard to fix because it depends on the camera’s perspective and cannot be easily fixed and slowing down the fans doesn’t actually help, it probably will make it even more frustrating. My suggestion would be to add some sort of animation or object that tells the player when is safe to pass, like a light that changes it’s color when it’s safe or unsafe to pass or something like that.

Thank you !

Alright, maybe the level 6 was a little difficult. I updated the game and reduced a little the difficulty of level 6 if you want to retry (; . Thank you for your comment

Thank you a lot to be honest and have took time to describe your though. I understand and agreed completely with what you think.

I wanted experiment what we could do in a game engine and especially make this the most different of project boost. But I didn’t noticed the issues about relief and the traffic and the unbalanced difficulty.

For the moment, I tried to fix simple things like relief where you noticed, I reduced the traffic, reduced difficulty of level 6 and I placed invisible walls to avoid to die from nowhere.

I’ll see when I will have time to add or modify levels to increase inch by inch difficulty and to make it proportional.

Thank you a lot really !! I will inform you of the next if tried to fix what you noticed.

1 Like

I finished that slow down level already and finally gave up on I guess the last one - the one with the attack helicopter. In those last few levels you think the game will end after every level but the horrors just keep coming… lol. That attack helicopter appears to immune to things falling on it and the pink ping pong ball type fire from the rail gun type things. you have trolled the player to the fullest in this hehehe… The guided rockets and auto tracking railguns are so cool .I hope I can replicate something like this down the road . lots to be inspired from. Once again congrats on making an excellent little game - a bit too tough maybe but I enjoyed the challenge.

1 Like

Glad the feedback was useful! I’ll track this thread if you update your game to play it again.

1 Like

Great job getting your game out there! Now here comes the fun part! Time to listen to feedback. Our first game is never going to be the best game but what that means is it’s a huge learning opportunity that you can take into the next game you make or by polishing this game. All of Yee’s points are spot on and I think if you spend the next few weeks really reviewing her points and your game you will be on your way to a better game. Game Design is not easy but this is how you get there by making games, taking feedback and moving forward. I can’t wait to see the next updated version of your game.

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Glad you reached the last level (: . Thank you to be persistent. Yes it was difficult to make the enemy helicopter. I put like 8 ray casts as collision detection to make it a little clever (x

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Hello, thank you for your answer. I am glad you liked the game. Yes, what Yee talked about is very interesting. I am gonna work on it and see what I can do. Thank you again.

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