I just recently played
Marathon Freedom version .47 for Windows.
>>> I feel compelled to compare your game to official commercially released games and critique you as a professional in the industry, rather than just giving you the more easy going critique that would be appropriate for a game that looks amateur or fan-made.
Why thank you, since I am only ONE PERSON with no education in the field, nor any professional tools save one.
Surely I deserve to be likened to 30 men strong workgroups of paid professionals who do this as a full time job.
Yes indeed.
I like the dodge idea, I've thought about it. I'll see what I can do. A quick dodge is not the same as strafing. I've said this before and I'll say it for the last time:
If I included strafing in Freedom, I might as well stop enemies attacking altogether. There is no chance in hell any one of my AI characters could hit the player and they wouldn't be able to handle the player running behind cover constantly. The gameplay would be tedious, repetitive and ultimately pointless. Peeking out from behind cover would be cool, but it's fiendishly hard to construct and it wouldn't work with AI either. But a quick, one-shot side step with a cool down I could probably make. I think I would more likely turn out weird.
>>>
Menu Navigation
If people would stop telling me what's wrong with it and offer some sort of solution, I'd be more than happy to comply. Right now, I can't think of a better way to do it.
>>>Also, the button used to start a new game and continue is not very obvious. Rather than having a button that says "Credits Left: 10", why not have it say "Start", or "New Game"? Or how about "Continue" instead of "Credits Left: 9"? Those are universal phrases understood by all gamers. Why not speak to your users in a language they can all understand? The number of credits left could always be displayed under the "Start" or "Continue" button.
Yes, I understand. However, where is it to say how many credits you have left then? "Start (Credits left: 10)" could work.
>>>
Graphics
There are running animation guides out there that you could use as reference to enhance your work.
The running animation is based on A) the running animation from Marathon and
the old concept art of the player running with the MA-75, somewhat leaning. To my eye, people in Marathon always seemed to run on-a-line, meaning they put their feet down on the same position on the Z-axis. This looked a little weird, so I lessened the effect to what you see today. A lot of the animations are far from final, however, it's just that every time I tweak an animation I risk corrupting the file and losing the character from the game. I can circumvent this by doing backups etc. but it's tedious and stressful (stressful because you don't like seeing all your BoBs and Marine disappearing and a red warning text popping up saying "Postprocessing failed". You really don't.
>>>
Camera View
You can't see behind you in Marathon, and you can't in real life. I didn't want to make a run and gun game where you mow down hordes of enemies until your mind was numb. I wanted more of an emotional journey, of anger, fear and desperation.
>>
Concept/Gameplay
I love the concept of playing as either human, Pfhor, or S'pht. That is fantastic! And I love all the visual customization that is possible with each character type. That is a really nice touch.
I love it too. It was the point of the whole project. To give an RPG dimension to it.
>>>I like how much damage the enemies do to the player. We all know what it's like to play as the omnipotent security officer from the Bungie games. So I like the idea of playing as the fragile and hapless Bob. He's the ultimate underdog. Underdogs are appealing, and so are challenges in gameplay. And you've also tried to keep it from getting too challenging by giving the player more than one life. I like how instead of playing as a single, strong character with a large life bar and one life, you play as multiple Bobs that are expendable with little or no life bar. Good stuff!
You will get both, eventually. Everyone does a lot of damage.
>>>What I don't like is how getting stunned works. Usually after the first hit from a Pfhor fighter connects with our human player character, the successive hits are guaranteed. So the length of the stun seems a bit long. I also think there should be a stun animation indicating when the player is free to move again. Perhaps the player character could stumble and regain his footing? Look at the animation that happens when a character is stunned in the
Tekken series if you want to know what I mean.
Animation = pain in the ass. More animations = more pain in same. I'm getting a lot of angry voices about the stunning. It annoys me too, but try to remember this golden rule:
"Dont. Get. Hit."
It's not a game where you take getting wounded lightly. If you're hit and you live, you're lucky! You should never, ever, allow an enemy to score a hit on you. As little as you'd let them in real life.
>>>
Action Oriented Gameplay Idea
Right now, the control over movement is comparable to the original
Resident Evil: it's a locomotion style of movement ? sort of like driving a car. You either travel forward or in reverse, with the option of turning and redirecting which direction you want to "drive" towards. But you can't change directions instantly.
I always like games controlled like that. Where you have to think through your position. However, here you can shoot and move at the same time, which is a huge difference.
>>>I have an idea that would be a ton of work, so I'm not sure if this will appeal to you at all.
That is the kind of game I'm trying hard not to be associated with. It's actually not that much work, but I will never do it.
Originally, Marathon : Freedom was supposed to be top-down. But then none of the trademark Marathon textures would show, unless the camera wasn't orthographic. And then the player would have to be dead centre, or he would appear to be leaning.
Hope this answers everything.
![[MGrin]](./images/smilies/11.png "marathon"){kind=small}
