New topic for Bombing Quest can be found at: https://www.bombermanboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=2222


Hi folks - Here is the demo  

http://team-puh.com/Demo

And the short trailer for it:
https://www.facebook.com/313279159269296/videos/1550160625127619/

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Hi guys,

We have always enjoyed Bomberman games and wanted to go into Game Development. Finally after months of work on our first project "Bombing Quest", we are have something to show for it. Hope you like it :)

Site: http://team-puh.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Team-Puh-313279159269296
Discord Server: https://discord.gg/Q26VqA7
Youtube: https://youtu.be/wM-N7S8iOxo

So it looks like a 3D Bomberman game at first but it's quite apparent that it's focused on being a 2D Bomberman game, using more rigid limitations and all that, open exploration elements added on top instead of a room to room method of going around. It does have this sort of, Dark Souls kind of vibe / inspiration in the aesthetics for lack of a better term.

With that though, I think there's an immediate problem. Classic Bomberman always emphasized clarity, and for good reason as you only have one life to live and your own attacks can kill you. I don't feel a strong sense of awareness when looking at this. Part of that has to do with the aesthetic look, everything being so incredibly dark with the brightest area just surrounding the main character.

I think the other part is the camera. The camera seems better focused for exploration elements with how it centers around the player, but that completely falls apart in a combat situation, which is backwards as that's when you need camera support the most. If you stand in the corner or any edge in one of these "combat rooms", half of the camera becomes useless, more if you're in a corner. The camera moving around like that also makes it harder to keep track of Bombs. As you move around, suddenly Bombs are changing position relative to where they are on the screen. Compare this to classic Bomberman, where if you place a Bomb, that Bomb remains in the exact position relative to the screen, unless interacted with.

It's not the biggest problem to have but it is a deficiency nevertheless, and will cause players additional needless struggle. You'll find there's more of a limit as to how intense you can make a situation because the player will feel less awareness, and therefore less control, as a result of both the camera and darker aesthetic. The camera needs to be centered on a battlefield, refrain from moving as much as possible, and / or perhaps the game needs to follow classic Bomberman's example and have a flatter look to it. More of an overhead approach to the camera. Unless I'm mistaken, I didn't see any use of varying height in terms of gameplay. Therefore, there's not really an advantage to this 3D look, whereas there is an advantage to the classic Bomberman look.

This darker aesthetic can look pretty in its own way but when you need the clarity that Bomberman's gameplay demands, it can feel like being in mud. It takes much longer to take in a scene and understand what is happening in actual gameplay compared to aesthetics. That's the kind of deficiency I'm referring to.

I'll leave it at that for now, just focusing on the bigger picture problems I see. Lack of clarity / awareness which is a key element to classic Bomberman.

Thank you BlueFire4101 for the detailed analysis! It is a real treasure to have someone who understands the core mechanics and can give quick accurate feedback.

Here are my thoughts on what can be done:

-Camera angle - this is something easy to experiment with - can add 5-30degrees and see how it feels.
-Camera position over the battlefield - this one would require more consideration as some arenas are with irregular shapes, or larger than the screen. Also - we have to check how it feels if camera jumps from following you, to center on the arena, when you enter it. We will play with that.
-Clarity of the details - yeah - this is a constant struggle - making the arena objects look cool in 3d as well as still having the blocky shape. Gameplay is always a priority, but while designing it, you kind of get used to the objects and can't spot some lack of clarity which can be unpleasant for the players. More playtesting is needed to clean the stuff - hope you guys can help with that  
-Clarity of the colors, textures, shaders - this is something we generally experiment with and continue improving.
-Darkness - Except for the atmospheric choice, I guess this has something to do with the brightness/contrast settings of the screen - for example on my screen (I do the coding, so I work with the lowest brightness possible) everything is pretty dark and only the area immediate to the player is bright enough while on Anna's screen (the girl who does the design and uses the GPU/screens factory settings) everything is far brighter, even to the point that the environment looks like a daytime, instead of twilight. We will add brightness/contrast configuration setting for sure.
-Information and arena awareness - Not having the whole arena well visible was actually a design choice - making the far reaches of the arena kind of hidden, even planning to have a dark biome, where you see only a few blocks around, until you find an artefact which gives you light and increases your light radius with a few blocks. What do you thing about that?

Thank you again BlueFire4101 for the valuable feedback. Also - if any of you guys want to help - at some point I can send you a demo with configurable settings to test and say what works best for you.

Hi guys!

We are excited to release a free Demo:

http://team-puh.com/Demo

Many changes were implemented, and it really handles way better. BlueFire4101 feedback was really beneficial. Hope you enjoy it and give some more good advices ;)

Btw - here is a short video from the update:

https://www.facebook.com/313279159269296/videos/1550160625127619/