Smash Ringtail Cat: The Ultimate Glitch Annihilator

Before I begin, I'd like to state that I do not mean to discourage the creator by posting this. I more or less would like to help push this game in the right direction, since I have some knowledge with Gamemaker. My critiques will mostly be on the technical side, as I mostly do programming for games I'm involved with.

At the time I am writing this, the latest release is v1.1.5b, and I have a few gripes with how the game plays.

To start, there are a lot of unnecessary load times. Knowing gamemaker, saving/loading to/from a file usually only takes under a second, and rooms take almost no time to load into.

A few visual issues I've come across include Smash growing slightly during his punching animation, Ava spinning continuously during one of her fights with Dr. Glitcher, and Smash staying crouched when releasing down on another one of the Glitcher fights.

Collision seems to have a few major issues that hinder the gameplay, including being able to fall through platforms if punching while on a ledge, Bash getting stuck in walls a lot and making wall running a lot harder (which is especially bad on the Hoseki stages), Ava being unable to land a hit on the 3-hit enemies, even when standing right up next to them, and Smash in the final stages getting stuck in the floor when spawning into a room. I feel like this could easily be fixed by having a constant collision mask for the player objects (Create Event > mask_index = sprite_name) and having a separate object for punching collision that spawns when the button is pressed.

I have also noticed a few things missing from the original, being title cards and an epilogue, but I assume they'll be added in the full release.

Regardless, I still can't wait to see where this goes. It has a lot of potential, and I hope this critique doesn't discourage you from continuing creating.

TL;DR: The game is rough around the edges in many departments, but has a lot of potential.

Edit 10/2/2020 : This is a review for an old version of the game, I've played the updated version and am in the process of writing the review for the level beta that came out the same day of the edit.

Alright, so I played the demo all the way through, which for a demo is a pretty decent length!

Anyways, so one thing I love about this game so far is the wall running. It can be a big issue with the direction of Smash, but it is still just so neat seeing it. It's like a reverse sonic loop that you can use anywhere.

The running animation is a bit slow when moving normally but way too fast when it's playing in other angles for some reason.

The graphics are a good deal better than the original, which can especially be seen with the crystals, obviously some are unfinished, but it works pretty well.

The end goal can be somewhat confusing at times, sometimes you have to collect a blue treat(I think it's a treat) at the end, and sometimes it's a glitch. the problem is that while some of the glitches you have to avoid, some of them you have to touch and they aren't different enough to really tell a difference.

The new soldiers that don't let you past without killing them is a nice touch.

My main issue with this game though is the hit boxes, those could seriously use some work. I was nowhere near a glitch on one of the vines and it still managed to kill me.

Never the less it is a neat little sneak into what could be a very good game! I'll comment more as it finished. I'd still say it's too early to rate though.

some feedback about the game:

graphics: sprites doesn't look very pleasing to the eye, pixel size is not consistent through the game. some sprites look very blocky and then the background look very smooth, not consistent.

the art style is not consistent too, some sprites have light colored outlines(which should be dark colored by the way), some have black outlines, and some don't have outlines at all.

ava looks more detailed than smash, and it looks like smash sprite was scaled up to look the same size as ava,looking more blocky

in some levels the clouds are pixel art, and on others the clouds are high resolution, also the sky color doesn't look like it matches the clouds.

the ground tiles clearly are more high resolution than the characters sprites.

the cave background is not tiled properly, seams are visible.

all sprites/tiles should be the same scale, that means no scaled up or down.

in the first cutscene, the floor is clearly scaled up compared to the characters, and when smash and ava are hited in the cutscene, they rotate slowly making it look like a amateur adobe flash animation. rotating sprites look very bad.

and then in the next scene, when the bad guys are putting smash into the cannon they look squashed.

sprites animations don't look quite right, specially the jumping animations, they just rotate their sprites really fast, looks lazy. I mean, the way you did it wasn't fully wrong, but you need to use a sprite with a diferent pose than the idle to express the jump. take this image from metroid fusion as an example.

in metroid fusion, samus does a similar jumping animation, but executed better, samus actually gets into a position that conveys the feeling of jumping.

bug: if you jump while walking the player will look like its walking in the air instead of doing the jumping animation, its seems like a bug.

some interactable objects like the spring doesn't animate at all when bouncing.

slopes don't look like they are connected to the rest of the ground. they have a gap

the plot: is vague sometimes, the motivation of the villain to glitch the world is not told, does it want to conquer it?, doesn't glitching the world affect the villain too since he lives there?.

the logo: looks a bit amateur, there are some stray white pixels everywhere and the lines of the tail are squigly, i think it would look better if it was made in pixel art, or vector art.

gameplay: enemys are annoying, they keep respawning after they fall to pits. making the gameplay very frustating, and having to fight like 20 or more enemys at the same time in some stages makes it more annoying.

they dont have an AI, they just keep falling into pits and respawning. The gun enemies don't face to you when you pass them by.

the "wall walking" looks odd, wouldn't be more convenient to have the characters actually climb up the walls instead of making it look like its defying physics?

needs more mechanics, like falling platforms, one-way platforms, combos, variable jump height.

the game lacks some simple transitions like fade in or fade out when switching levels.

music: the music is good.

if you want to take inspiration from a fun platformer game that its similar to yours, go play https://arcadespot.com/game/dragonball-advanced-adventure/.

note: A slogan like "the next level of entertainment" seems a bit pretentious, Plus i never seen one gamedev use a slogan, its unnecessary.

long story short:

-learn the basics rules of making sprites

-keep consistency

-learn how to make better animations.

-learn how to make your game more "juicy"

-learn how to use your drawing software better, so you dont leave white pixels when removing the white background.

-dont mix handdrawn art with pixel art in the same scene, nor high res art with pixel art.

-use references when drawing, look after games that you like and take inspiration from them

https://www.spriters-resource.com/ is a good site for looking how your favorite's games sprite animations are done.

I hope this feedback is useful to you

Now that the game has released and I have played through it once more, I would like to give another critique of the game, from what I remember.

The game is much more sound this time around, although it continues to suffer from a few issues. The biggest one I can name is that Ava gets stuck sometimes when attempting to wall jump, and I believe it is entirely due to how the collision masks are set up. As ava turns around on a wall, her tail gets stuck in it. Normally tails and such don't have any collision over it.

The level intros, while slightly more interesting this time around, are partially above the screen. It's a minor issue I feel could easily be fixed.

Overall, the improvement I've seen over time for this project has been tremendous, and I look forward to your future projects.

And seeing the end of the game and how Binary makes an appearance, it seems as though the second game will be remade in the future, too. I look forward to that.

And then another silly question, between the original SRC and SRC:TUGA, which one is canon? They seem to have quite a few differences between them, especially the endings and how a few characters from SRC don't appear in TUGA.

That aside, keep going, man. Can't wait to see what else you make.

Just finished playing the latest release(on 10/2/2020 currently). This is genuinely shaping up to one of my favorite games of all time. It's still in development, so obviously a lot will change, but still this was great! The beta I played didn't implement the story yet, but since this is a remaster, I'm assuming it will be similar to SRC1(which I probably should have replayed first before trying this one out, but oh well). The wall running mechanic added for this game is very fun, the graphics here are massively updated from the original(much for the better), the collision detection is a little weird but I think it helps the plot, considering the game focuses heavily on Smash beating "glitches". The bosses are really cool, and I love Dr. Glitcher, Smash and Bash's new design. Ava Ringtail Cat's new design is great too other than the eyes(which are kind of creepy) maybe add a little bit of a brown too them. The save screens are a nice addition too. The end credits were very hard to read(they were white with grey outline on a white background). Overall though, I think this might end up my favorite game once it gets finished. 10/10.