What I would like to see in this game

[MagiusdelCotto]

I know that there's probably a ton of threads in this vein already (and I have read a few of them, but my suggestions haven't come up yet, so...), but here's my feedback for what I think would make for a funner game:

1) Levels that vary between vertical and horizontal: Right now, the biggest issue with the game is that all levels feel the same (particularly on Tough - Genome tends to give a bigger variety in pieces, but it doesn't do much to change the base gameplay). One way to correct this would be to match the slope of the level (how far forward one needs to travel to keep up with the level over a given vertical distance) to the speed/beat/whatever of the song, so that the faster the song is, the more straight down you'll be traveling, and the slower the song, the more horizontal you'll cover. Combined with later points, this will give us levels that feel unique to each song, instead of flying along avoiding obstacles (and yes, it's not much of a stretch to go from feeling like you're falling to feeling like you're playing an old flight sim).

2) Move away from a fixed camera: If you move your mouse toward one of the screen edges, the camera should tilt in that direction. You move faster in that direction, you lose relative Vertical speed, and you fly along with the obstacles flashing past below you. This would make some of the obstacles (the triple-helix blocks in particular) much more enjoyable to interact with - and with option 1 would make the different levels (and even replays through the same level) feel like a different experience.

3) Slope Levels: The levels my brother and I loved most from AAAaaAAaAA!!! were the ones you were plummeting down a mountainside. If you could automatically generate levels like that (or even a reasonable facsimile), it would be awesome, and rate pretty highly on my recommended games list.

Hm... That's all I can think of at the moment, I'll probably have more later. Loving the game, but looking forward to seeing the finished product - it promises to be quite spectacular!
Magius out.

[Rhylos]

I just want wasd movement!

[oogabex]

I would mind just seeing the abilty to change the controls so people that want good ol wasd controls can have it:)

[MahBrouhous]

Oh, well my three biggest complaints are songs ending prematurely (which they will fix), 'selecting' songs while clicking on the "Okay" button (I click once and it clicks twice; turns out that's fixed by hitting the right half of the button), and the rhythm of the point disks or whatever the technical term is. Of course, fixing that is problematic to the extreme, especially on songs with 'dirty' synthesized drums, which I am a huge fan of. But it got me thinking about one simple thing: giving the 10-point disks a more distinctive sound.
I have trouble consistently getting the the 100-point ones, so I can't consistently get the hi-hat... which is troubling when attempting to judge whether they fit the beats. Also, it seems to me that you can get both disks you get the points for both, but I can't tell for sure soundwise if I get them because all I hear is the hi-hat.

So, uh, awfully long post an such an old topic, but starting thread topics is against my religion, so this'll have to do.

[LeoDejobaan]

I decided to make this Sticky to start collecting suggestions on one place. We already know about WASD/Control options, the time limit and browser requirements. Things like screen sizes/resolution options will also be looked at before final launch. So with all those standard logistical type things set aside, go crazy and tell us what you think would make the game awesome!

[The Wuggly Ump]

I've been collecting random thoughts for a while. Here's a list of some of the stuff I'd like to see:

1. A pause menu! With options for changing the controls (sorely needed), changing the volume of the music and SFX, starting the current song over, and quitting to the menu.

2. More cities! I get bored with only three every time. Bring back the old ones or add more or something.

3. More visual feedback! I want my multiplier to pop dramatically on the screen when it goes up. I want the score plates to shatter when I hit them, temporarily leaving behind a number telling me the points I got. I want to be able to distinguish between shootable stuff and un-shootable stuff on sight, even I'm playing Genome City and have everything the same color. I want the stuff I do shoot to explode spectacularly with boatloads of particles instead of the boring fall-away-fade-out effect we have now.

4. More psychedelic visuals! One of the best things about this game is the crazy visuals. Make them wilder, more reactive to the music, and less repetitive. If you can't give me a seizure I will consider this aspect a failure. :P

5. Song browser with advanced features! Shuffle, playlists, tag reading, search... I want it to be easy to play the stuff I want in the order I want. Also, finishing or selecting a song should allow me to rate how the song plays (a five star system would work fine), so I can easily find my favorite tracks. Finally, it would be great to be able to preview a track without starting a level, since sometimes I'm not entirely sure which song I'm looking at.

6. A fix for the 5-minute limit, or at least a less jarring end until the fix arrives. The song could fade out or something.

7. An in-game reward for points and/or combos. The game doesn't feel very game-y right now.

8. A fix for the game opening in windowed mode.

9. A bit of optimization would be nice. This latest update seems to have introduced occasional stuttering, which is sometimes a bit frustrating. System specs: Win 7 x64 laptop with a discrete Nvidia Quantro FX 880M, i7 920 CPU @ 2GHz, 8GB RAM.

10. When/if leaderboards are added, I'd prefer separate boards for different cities, a comments section for songs (like Audiosurf), and full tag information on the song the player used (i.e. if they played a live recording rather than the album version, it'd show that).

11. I just started using Media Monkey and it would be super awesome if the song browser supported extra tags like Mood, Occasion, Lyrics (LRC files, naturally), and custom tags.

12. It would be SO COOL if the game embedded media related to the track, album, and/or artist in the actual level. Imagine shooting the song's lyrics instead of enemies, or starting a level by bursting through a song's album art! This should be possible using embedded album art and tags, or files that sit in the song's directory. Of course, the player would need their songs to be well organized for this to work.

13. Multiple monitor support would be wonderfully neat. I'm imagining playing the game on one monitor while a visualization or stats screen or music video plays on the other. Because I have ADD and like to see a zillion things going on at once.

14. More frequent updates! :(

EDIT: Oh, and about that rating thing: in addition to how much fun a track is, a separate rating for how hard I think the track is would be cool. Then if those ratings were shared on the leaderboard, people could brag about how easy they thing a track is or whatever. Is that a thing people do on leaderboards? I suck at games so I don't look at them much.

[The Wuggly Ump]

More thoughts! (I'm probably gonna be posting a lot of these... I tend to obsess about this game. :P)

I'd love for the game to do a better job figuring out how to construct levels based on a song's tempo/BPM/genre tags/whatever. When I'm playing a fast-paced song I like having a ton of stuff on-screen at once, and I like shooting stuff. With a slow-paced, ambient song, I prefer delicate, controlled movement. Of course, this might be too personal for the game to reflect different people's preferences well. Some people might like shooting baddies while they listen to ambient stuff, I dunno.

I really want to see more mixing of different level elements. It's boring when I only ever get one or two things going on at once.

I want to kiss bullets. In the game, too.

In-game equalizer and/or replaygain support would be wonderful.

Is it just me, or does the music get quieter while certain sound effects (destroying an object with bullets, for instance) play? It's annoying.

[The Wuggly Ump]

Been playing a lot of Beat Hazard, so of course I have more ideas:

1. Beat Hazard's ranks and perks system is a brilliant way of implementing rewards for high scores and a feeling of progression. If y'all had something like that (or, come to think of it, like the purchase system in Aaaa!!) it'd go a long way in making things feel more like a game and less like a visualizer.

2. Beat Hazard just added these play modes: random, now playing ('cause in song browser and menu it plays the player's music), list, not played yet. Great ideas all! Also, it'd be cool to have a list of the most recently played songs, which is something Beat Hazard doesn't have.

3. I keep wanting a game that's relaxing, easy, and explore...y. It'd be so great if there was an "ambient" mode for Kick It, where I could feed the game a playlist and it would create some slow-paced, relaxing areas to fly through.

4. There should also be a mode where everything is crazy hard and terrifyingly fast, because sometimes I want to give myself a seizure.

[danlock]

4. There should also be a mode where everything is crazy hard and terrifyingly fast, because sometimes I want to give myself a seizure.

You're probably just exaggerating, but:

1. What you might think a seizure feels like and what a seizure is actually like are two very different things. A seizure--no matter how mild--causes literal damage to your brain. Scar tissue remains where once there were functioning brain cells. Not cool. When you regain consciousness, you typically don't remember anything, feel :confused: confused, and if you've lost bladder or bowel control in the meantime, well, I'll let you imagine what that might leave for a seizure-confused brain to clean up when it regains the ability to think clearly and has recalled enough memories from its long-term memory to realize what has happened. Less-severe seizures might not even cause loss of consciousness, but enough of them will eventually cause enough scar tissue buildup that more severe seizures will become the norm.

Also, seizures caused by photosensitivity (the kind about which you're probably thinking) are not necessarily the same as what I've described (I've never been photosensitive). They probably damage the brain's visual cortex. Now, having a damaged visual cortex wouldn't make playing visually-exciting games very much fun, would it?

[joelyay]

MP3 browser to support folders of added organization.
it gets a bit messy when you have volume one and two of portal 2 OST and the valve arg 2011 OST

[Exportforce]

Since the game is just Aaaaaaaa with music, let the stages be again with houses to drop by and such. Also maybe levels where it looks like you would fly over a landscape instead of just down.

[noibn]

I like Dejobaan's games, in general. But I really don't get why none of them have any customization options! PC gamers need to be able to choose resolutions, windowed/fullscreen modes, and customize their controls.

Last time I played this game (I think it was during the potato sack promotion), I had a really hard time because you have forcefully mapped the rotate controls to middle mouse and right mouse. Well, on my mouse, it is very uncomfortable and awkward to hit the middle button cleanly. And what about the poor people who might not even have a middle mouse button??? It would work so much better if the rotate controls were simply LMB and RMB (everyone has those, and it's much more intuitive!). Then, whatever you had mapped to LMB (shooting something I think?) should just be changed to a key like SPACEBAR. Such a simple fix as that would make this game infinitely more playable instantly... I just don't get why it's set up like it is and why it can't be customized. Further, it would also be fantastic if you added both WASD alternate controls as well as a mouse sensitivity option that would allow us to change how quickly we can move on the screen. On some levels, I find it way too hard to hit all of the score plates because my mouse simply doesn't move fast enough to do it.

Anyways, despite these complaints, I do want to thank you for making the summer achievement easily achievable. That is much appreciated.

[arkiandruski]

Biggest thing for me: Add a file browser instead of forcing players to copy music into the music folder. I already have a music folder. It's huge. I use it for other things. I am not copying that thing over. Copying over a few songs whenever I want to play just to delete them afterwards also seems pointless.

Second biggest thing: Have level ends be more definite. Not to compare your game to other products, but those are your competition. Audiosurf has that gate/spiral thing at the end of the track. Beat Hazard has the final explosion. Here the levels just kind of stop. I can still see level beyond me when it just kicks me out and says "you're done".

[The Wuggly Ump]

You're probably just exaggerating, but:

1. What you might think a seizure feels like and what a seizure is actually like are two very different things. A seizure--no matter how mild--causes literal damage to your brain. Scar tissue remains where once there were functioning brain cells. Not cool. When you regain consciousness, you typically don't remember anything, feel :confused: confused, and if you've lost bladder or bowel control in the meantime, well, I'll let you imagine what that might leave for a seizure-confused brain to clean up when it regains the ability to think clearly and has recalled enough memories from its long-term memory to realize what has happened. Less-severe seizures might not even cause loss of consciousness, but enough of them will eventually cause enough scar tissue buildup that more severe seizures will become the norm.

Also, seizures caused by photosensitivity (the kind about which you're probably thinking) are not necessarily the same as what I've described (I've never been photosensitive). They probably damage the brain's visual cortex. Now, having a damaged visual cortex wouldn't make playing visually-exciting games very much fun, would it?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperbole

I like Dejobaan's games, in general. But I really don't get why none of them have any customization options! PC gamers need to be able to choose resolutions, windowed/fullscreen modes, and customize their controls.

...
You can also rotate using the E and Q keys (if I remember correctly). You're right though, an options menu is sorely needed.

[The Wuggly Ump]

New update... This is ridiculous. Add a ♥♥♥♥ing options menu! Let us remap the controls! ♥♥♥♥ is ♥♥♥♥ing unplayable.

ANYWAY. Additional comments, because I just know everyone loves hearing my opinions interspersed with pretty pink hearts:

1. Despite the nice new "pop" effect when blocks appear, this new level is visually dull and lifeless. The only movement is in the blocks that appear, and the only visualization of the music is in the white "borders".
2. The gameplay is boring, and also bad. I am only doing one thing, and that thing is really difficult. And it is difficult entirely because of the poor controls.
3. Since the new level completely relies on the beat detection for its gameplay, whenever the beat detection fails (and it does, a lot) the entire level fails.

Okay, that's all. I'll be back with more complaining when the next update comes.

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot. There's this weird black rectangle showing up around my cursor while in a level. It seems to be responding to my mouse movement, but in a strange way that doesn't correspond with the crosshairs.

[dementedlullaby]

I'd like WASD controls because even after the update my mouse is still not working in game. Or I'd at least like help from a dev to get it to work >_>.

[hat]

last.fm integration, similar to Audiosurf's. It's a minor feature, for sure, but it is a nice one.

[lavacano201014]

Implement subfolder support, regardless of whether we have to use your Music folder or not. With this my symlink to my actual music folder will be useful.