Stranded Stanley

Fun game, infinite jumps are silly.

The Intro: The story in the start is nice way to give context for the game but, the font is  hard to read and the story is to long, I had skipped it the first time I played it. I would put the story in different parts of the map for players to find and read on their own.

Art: I don’t mind the pixel art style for a game like this but, feel that the background and the stage sprites don’t work well together. IMO, I would go with a blockier style for all the art in the game.

Gameplay: I don’t think having Infinite jumps is good for the game, it causes bugs like clipping. I saw that stairs in the game not made to fit the sprite. The camera makes it hard to see the upcoming hazards, I feel that the camera should be focused on the stage rather than the character. To give an example, NES Mario's  camera would be my suggestion of how to do the camera.

Items: The ships parts in the game don’t seem to have any purpose right now, but I think it would be cool to have it so that you complete all the levels without getting any or some of the ship parts but get a bad ending, but getting all the parts gets the layer a good ending. The food is fine to have in the game, but I feel that there should be more of  it  placed in the level or they should give back more bar. 

I like the story in the beginning but the font is hard to read. I love the music in the menu and level (reminds me of Final Fantasy). You might want to make a quick note before the game about how to move and jump (I had to ask around to other testers to find out how to jump).

I noticed I could jump as much as I wanted, but then got stuck in the sky.  I would have loved to see more below the character since dropping off platforms is a risk (you cannot tell if there are spikes below you at any point). Sometimes on the top of the wood, I would get stuck (invisible barrier). I would love to see just a bit more variety to the level, seems to loop the same layout over and over. 

I like the resource and food gathering (maybe have a note about how much you need to gather) to beat the level, but when the food and health bars emptied nothing happened (no game over). 

Not sure what happened but I fell through the ground right before the end goal and then beat the level. 

All in all it's a great start to a good game. I enjoyed testing it and can't wait till it's more polished. I hope to see more levels as the game progresses. 

The font used for the majority of text, especially the massive text blob at the start, is a terrible choice. As for the actual game, there is a lot of obvious things lacking, like an animation or other levels. Invisible walls are never fun, it probably should have some indication for a wall there. Centering the camera on the character, especially in the air, would be helpful to the player. Progression is lacking considerably, would be better if the items needed to be collected or just did something in general beyond a couple points. I would like to see more connection to the story and would be amazing for the player to feel the familiarity rather than just saying that's what the character feels. I recommend all the art to have the same same style and resolution as well. Collisions with walls need to be cleaned up and the brick pyramid has awful hitboxes, including hidden spikes underneath the bricks. I don't like some of the item placement either, feels annoyingly random. It'd be better if they weren't in spikes or behind other objects. Maybe even have them stand out against the background more as well.

Have a perm power up at the end of a level and you can stack em. For example go and make it after you beat the first level you get a double jump. then you can get left and right lunge after you beat the beach level. then it would also be cool to get a "float" effect after you beat the third level and the main idea is that after you get all of these you can use em in tandem with the extra movement speed to "skate" through a level faster and make it more rewarding to replay content. this is kind of reminiscent of mega man x and also destiny 2 skating as it is kind of a similar concept.

This was an interesting game and I enjoyed playing it. However, I think you could make it more interesting by making the map/trail more various as it got a bit repetitive. I am not sure what the materials do, they seemed to be irrelevant. And when both my health and food reached zero, nothing notable happened. I personally don't like how the screen stays center on the character when jumping, it makes it difficult to see anything below. I would recommend a setup similar to Terraria: where you can see more below. I think they accomplished this with wider screen dimensions. But maybe that's what makes the game more challenging and it was a choice. Overall good game, and I'd like to see where it goes with both the storyline and challenges!

Not being able to see more below the player when they are higher in the air makes it really hard to find some things and makes it really scary when dropping from a height (assuming you aren't taking advantage of the infinite jumps). 

The font of the text at the beginning telling the story was incredibly hard to read as well and didn't make me wanna continue past the 3rd sentence. It might be fine if there was far less to read, but that could just be a personally thing. However, because it was difficult to read, the objective of the game isn't clear in the beginning. It is easy to figure out what you need to do but as the game gets more complicated, it will be harder to figure out.

Some of the sprites such as the health and food look very blurry. While it gets the point across, it isn't very nice to look at. The food also doesn't seem to have a purpose as far as I see because I was able to continue going for a while after it was clear depleted.

Great job! Cool idea, especially as a side scroller. Bellow are some suggestions and bugs.

Things I would add:

-Player animations.

-Enemies.

-More food throughout the level.

Things I would improve:

-Add a narrated auto-scrolling intro with more legible font.

-Matching sprites (ex: the background is *very* pixelated while the player and obstacles are less so, and all the textures are generally mismatched.)

-Add story elements (signs or NPCs).

-Make the screen follow the player. (The player is locked at the bottom of the camera's view which makes it hard to see the ground when jumping.)

-The health and food bars are "blurry" and look stretched.  Maybe made a custom sprite for it that is made at the right size.

-Maybe add a visible barrier above the "wooden tunnels" instead of an invisible collider.

Bugs:

-Jumping is infinite which results in being able to jump very high.

-Colliders on the grey brick pyramids are wonky.

-Part way through the level, the background has a black line through it and it is mirrored after that.

The story at the beginning is too long and in a font that is hard to read. It would be more helpful to have the story shortened, and explain the goals of the game. While the game is easy to pick up for someone who has played computer games before, it would be easier to have a small control list at the beginning of the first level.

While playing, I was able to jump so high, I couldn't get back down. I also fell through the level a couple times after jumping so high. Invisible walls don't always match the item it's attached to and in some area, it is easy to jump over or impedes the flow of the level. For example, where the "wood tunnel" bits are, there is an invisible wall that seemingly stops the player from getting on top of it, but there are items to get on there.  You can also float over the stairs on some steps

The mismatch of art styles is a bit odd. It would be more cohesive if the pixel size of everything was the same. the color pallet is nice and easy to read. 

The level was pretty long without much diversity in puzzles or obstacles. Many of us thought it was looping. Perhaps, shorten it or change the obstacles a bit. 

Lastly, the "congrats" screen had moving buttons, making them hard to click 

wish it had less repetition 

The text at the start is somewhat difficult to read due to the font, and some of the sprites on the "Island Map" don't fit with each other. The object at The beach is extremely lacking in pixel count, and the cave is too detailed. If you move under a cloud platform it can push you under the ground (to some degree). The amount of coyote time you have is a little bit too much. You can double jump infinitely, regardless of how many times you've jumped mid-air.

You can sit over the ledge on the bricks without falling. I think the hitbox is off

As I previously mentioned, you can jump infinitely, allowing you to go high enough into the sky to build enough velocity to clip through the ground and fall below.

You should also add checkpoints and enemies, otherwise it's a very nice game with lots of potential.

the game was fun but I didn't know if it was going to repeat forever or if there was an end. one other thing is that the infinite jumps made it too easy you could play the entire game without touching the ground, but it is fun to send him into space. the camera is too low to the ground so it is hard to see if there is ground below or not before it is too late. all in all it is a good start.

The pixel art-style makes the game fun to look at, but some of the art is in a different art-style and sticks out like a sore thumb. As a platformer, the game play is pretty straight-forward and it isn't too difficult to get to any of the items. The text at the beginning was a little too much reading, but the story is fun. The camera is a little too high up, so it is hard to see what is a pit-fall and where it is safe to drop. The first level could use a little more variety instead of looping the same obstacles. All-in-all, good stuff so far! Keep on keepin' on!

For some of the areas of the game, when you can jump underneath or on top of the path, the front end of the path seems to be blocked but you can jump on to the top on the back side of the path.

Character animations would make it more appealing. Make the level design less repetitive as well so it doesn't get boring fast.

fun game, good movement, I found the text at the beginning to be very hard to read and I jumped so high that when I fell back to the ground I clipped through it.

Infinite jump