The Difference Between Fun and Frustrating Games 

You can play the playtest right now by going to the steam page here: store.steampowered.com/app/2533600/Bloodthief/ If you like the game don't forget to wishlist on Steam and sub to the channel for updates 🙂

Currently my favorite devlog series because you can tell how much you care about making a fun and challenging game instead of just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sorta sticks. Its clear that you deeply care about this game and i cant wait to see the finished project!

when you got to the part with the archers on the platform my first reaction was "surely theres a parry." and then i learned you added one. very cool. game looks fun

When you deflect an arrow, the white flash seems too intense to me. And the time slow-down may be too.

I think if you want to add back some of the skill ceiling with sliding that was removed when you removed the timing aspect, you could add a feature that gives you a larger boost of speed when you time your slide perfectly. The game would still be accessible and possible for new players, but provide incentive for skilled players to intentionally make the game harder for themselves in order to potentially shave off some time (and maybe if you wanted too, you could incorporate this into level design by adding some skips or shortcuts that are only possible with perfect slides)

All this tells me is that most modern gamers are horrifically disconnected from movement shooters. Like, if you didn't tell me that nearly everyone struggled this much I would've been making game journalist jokes.

For the checkpoints - look at shovel knight. Less skilled players can use checkpoints like normal but more skilled players can risk destroying it for greater reward

What you're trying to make is clearly a speed game, meaning that people will want to go fast and not get bogged down for too long on one level/section. So I think making checkpoints reasonably generous will keep player retention high. After all, the replayability of such a game is in improving your time and achieving mastery. I suggest implementing a ranking system, and making deaths reduce said ranking. Death is punishing for those who are trying to get a high ranking, but not punishing for those who are playing for the first time and just want to get to the end. After all, celeste was extremely generous with its checkpoints, and nobody ever complained about it.

I think the way you improved the wall jump is very nice, having to hold into the wall when you want to go the other direction is very annoying, though i would like to add that some people may prefer not being magnetized to a wall when they go near it, so it could perhaps be a toggle you can disable in the options. And on the topic of the slide jump slide, you could heighten the skill ceiling by making sliding in the air make you lose some speed over time, so pressing it as close to the ground as possible lets you preserve more speed. Additionally, i personally prefer high air control over less air control as well, and especially if the air control influences the direction of the momentum instead of just temporarily adding speed in a direction. Good job with that. There is an easy solution to the checkpoint problem. It could be how to add additional difficulties, be that easier or harder. Easier difficulties have more checkpoints, so a player needs to execute less of the level at once, with the highest difficulty not having any for example.

I feel like this video made me a better game designer

this looks rad, right on homie! My thought about checkpoints. I understand what you're getting at with overcoming a challenge and feeling that satisfaction, but I think you're applying that end-game vice to a section where players will barely have had the time to get their land legs yet. A thing that makes me put a game down before I normally would (like Forgive Me Father, for example) is when I keep dying to a section that I want to practice and figure out, but I have to replay 15 minutes of level before I can even get to that section again, only to die right away because I'm still learning about it. That doesn't make me feel like I earned it more - it feels like I'm being artificially prevented from gathering data and improving my strategy. If there's 3 level sections of progress on the line, I'm less likely to experiment and try difficult mechanics because that behavior is more likely to be punished. So I would learn that you're teaching me to play safe, but eventually I'd just feel frustrated. Like, I can already do parts A and B, and I never fail those sections. I'm ONLY struggling on part C, but in order to learn more about C, I need to do A and B ooovvveeerr and oovveerrr again. No thanks, that's inconsiderate of my time and will have me begging for the autonomy of a quick save so I could just override your checkpoints and start where I want to.

with regards to the slide jump, I think adding what amounts to "input buffering" in the form of allowing the player to hold slide and have it activate when you land is a really solid idea. When you first mentioned it I was thinking to myself, wouldn't a more traditional input buffer be better but the justification that it's a fundamental mechanic and *needs* to be easy to learn really convinced me that an "infinite" input buffer is better for it, even if it's probably not the case for some hypothetical other game. I think you could add another layer of mastery by having a small window right before you land where hitting the slide input will you get some little boon, like the slide deals damage as you pass through enemies or you get a small speed boost that you can chain into an even faster/higher jump. Some additional mechanic that gives you further incentive to master the timing. All that said, you're the game dev, you have the analytics to back up your development decisions, and I haven't even playtested your game. I don't want to "back seat gamedev". Instant subscribe. This one is going in the "Game Dev" playlist for reference when I finally get off my arse.

One small animation/player feedback thing I think you might consider is making the parry animation more like a sword block. I paused and looked at the parry and it seems like the player counterintuitively parries with their left arm. I just think it would add a cool badass feeling to watch the sword block the arrows and send them back to where they came from. The parry effects and sounds are pretty spot-on though, good job there

judging from the footage, the freezing during the parry feels like it interrupts the flow to the point that I thought it was lag

Feels like playtesting is everything! It was cool to see your process how you fixed it. Cheers!

Parry arrow animation is something I would suggest. As for checkpoints, it could just be tied to a difficulty option, like how I Want to Be the Guy just adds more checkpoints on the easier difficulty. Or you could make the checkpoint system like in Shovel Knight where you can destroy them for a reward, but can't use it anymore.

your devlog series is really fun to watch, especially because you seem so genuine and excited yourself and i am really thrilled to see were youre going with this game

Hey Blargis. I've never made a game before and don't have time to learn now.... so I'm sort of living vicariously through your videos! I always thought making it fun to traverse the game world was essential to making a fun game, and it seems like you're really nailing that! Not sure if you'll read this or even take youtube comments from "idea guys" into consideration, but It doesn't cost much more than a few calories and time to type, so I'll share anyway: I think another good hook for a game is unique boss mechanics. Games like Doom or quake where bosses are bullet sponges that just do more than average damage always left me wanting for more. Games like Halo that force you to escape as the world falls apart, or portal where you have to accomplish a number of steps to win are far more challenging, fair, and have more substance. I also always loved the pattern recognition of mega man or bullet hell games. These types of mechanics make for tough and memorable gaming experiences. I look forward to more of your content and your game on final release!

I knew you had played Ultrakill when you were explaining the slide. The mechanic seems to be aiming to replicate how bunny jumping works there by sliding right as you hit the ground and jumping the next frame. Anyway, this video was very insightful, I liked it.

6:43 That was the most genius bullet-pointed list I've ever seen. Just one second prior, walljumping felt like TF2 Soldier Rocket Jumping maps, a kind of "hack". The moment I saw the screenshot of the _tilted camera_, it instantly clicked that this was a real mechanic and not just a hack.

Its nice to see someone embracing the "prototype and playtesting" as fully and openly as you do. Keep it up :D

You've earned a new sub, a wishlist, and a lot of good karma! One of my many aspirations in life is to make my dream FPS game, your videos are so insightful and entertaining, and I can't wait to try out Bloodthief!

An important factor in deciding how much you want to punish the player for failure is how many mistakes it takes for the player to fail. If the player can die from a single mistake, it's going to feel frustrating if they lose a lot of progress, whereas the player having the opportunity to recover from an initial mistake will make punishment feel more deserved. You can fairly easily double-dip on this, though. Having a rank or badge for beating a level without dying pushes challenge-driven players to perfect a level without forcing that limitation on more casual players.

one of the few recent game dev to actually look like they prioritise gameplay over art, ill watch your career with great interest...

Cool video I wish you success! I am a modder and you do over all pretty cool stuff. I also love quake games and especially RtCW

While I may or may not ever play the game, I'm just impressed with your devlogs. You go into some details without it getting too techy, you still keep it fresh and entertaining without devolving into those "Dani" style, where there's a ton of memes and funny stuff or "I just remade Halo in 24 hours" type of videos. You also tend to have a narrative in your videos, which is what all the YT gurus claim you need in your videos "storytelling". I'm working on a completely different type of game, but I think I would want to shoot for a devlog that's like yours, more than some others.

Great informative video, love the updates and transparency. Can't wait to play some more when I find time!

Awesome video, really helpful! I'm also working on a small game right now and used a similar wall-running implementation. Getting feedback like this early on is really valuable and I'll definitely keep this in mind for the future development. Thank you so much!

Interesting watch. Maybe for sliding, what you could do is have the slide activate as it is now, but if the player gets the timing spot-on, they get a bigger boost? Mechanics like that which add onto previous mechanics are pretty interesting imo.

I think you made some really wonderful changes to the playtest! As I know I played the first vs second and it was so much more intuitive (to me). I hope you keep up the good work :)

Downloaded your demo and left some feedback! Can't wait to see how your project turns out :D

I was part of the early playtest and it was great to put in my feedback, it's great to see the progress. (especially for that fov)

Love seeing the process of you improving the game. Can't wait to see more

I wanna say, Good on the checkpoint idea. Im no game dev but for fast games like Hotline Miami and Ultrakill dying feels bad but since the games are so fast and let me jump right back in it doesnt feel bad at all, Im back in that rewarding gameplay loop, just earlier in the level. I think what you have on this part looks good. also the game looks rad as hell. keep it up

I think the most important thing to consider when deciding how checkpoints are is "Is the part they're sent back to relevant to where/why they died? For example, I quickly quit playing Pizza Tower because I died during the escape sequence at the end of a level (the only part where you can die) & got sent back to the beginning of the level (where you can't die). It didn't add to the challenge. It just made me bored & made me instantly stop caring about the game. If it's impossible to die on the way back to the checkpoint, you may as well be making me rewatch a custscenes or stare at a wall. I've done it, I've seen it, & its interesting exactly one consecutive time at best. It's like if you died in a Sonic game & had to run a few hundred loop-de-loops to try again. What's the point? Similarly, I quit Little Witch Nobeta during its early access days because the only hard boss was after a series of long uneventful hallways with no checkpoint in between. I'm not gonna try to git gud if I have to get through long filler between attempts. It's not much different from that thing in A Hat in Time's Death Wish mode where you die too much in a rift collapse & then you just have to wait for literally no reason. I despise the finales of Dead Center & Dark Carnival in Left 4 Dead 2 for that very reason. Too much retreading & waiting to get back to the part where the challenge is. There's a good reason why Paper Mario 2 has a save point after its intro. Because in the off chance that someone dies to Crump, it would make no sense to send them back to Mario's house. That's also why I don't like when I die in one level of a game & get sent back to a different level. I already beat that one. I'm not interested in doing it again. I'm willing to restart True Arena in an old Kirby game if I die near the end but I'm not willing to replay the level I beat to unlock True Arena in the first place. If Half-Life 2 were made by the average modern indie roguelike or soulslike dev, you'd get sent back to the beginning of the lab scene in A Red Letter Day for dying at the end of Route Kanal & fans would literally pretend it somehow makes the game harder & better. If none of what I just said sounds like your checkpoints, you're probably doing fine. Not that it's impossible for checkpoint starvation to get excessive even when it does send you somewhere relevant. Being forced to restart an hour-long fight against a single boss with three moves will make the fight harder & is therefore relevant to the challenge but it'll also be boring beyond words.

You could add a speed boost to the slide depending on how close they were to the ground when they hit space. That way skilled players can still express their skill and get rewarded. And if you’re just holding space before you’re close enough to the ground you’d just get normal slide speed which would still build up speed but not as quickly.

This game looks great, looking forward to trying it out when it's in a more complete state. Another suggestion could be to enable maps made by other players with something like Qodot or some sort of level editor. Quake 3 Defrag or Quake 1's jam packs has some amazing maps made by talented map makers, which could also benefit a game like this and give it an infinitely scalable experience.

my girlfriend insisted on watching this with me and we both lost it during the rocket (arrow?) jumping segment at the end. Looking forward to getting to try this game out!

Not really sure how I could incorporate these things into my game. In an RPG, there's only really battles that you have to worry about. However in my game, there's a bunch of different options as to how you go about battles. You can take a party, or you could go solo. You can upgrade your weapon, or you can give it a special ability. You can equip a weapon with a different element than its wielder, sacrificing damage but allowing spells to deal level 2 effects. These are all great things you can do. I feel like having that open-ended feeling to my game is fun in an RPG setting. I'm proud of how weapon abilities work, since they sort of override the damage formula for their own, allowing for custom damage values or even leaving out element checks. Spells in their own right, will have a special input that increases damage based on how many correct inputs you got. This was initially meant for dodging attacks but felt out of place. I'm not quite sure of how to go about dodging attacks yet since I could simply add a button that does that, but that sacrifices the player's ability to attack, and also makes defending obsolete. I'm sure I'll figure something out at some point. Either way thanks for reading.

Oops. Looks like RU-vid decided to eat my comment? Ug, not gonna type out everything out again, but this video oddly came into my feed at the right time. Been trying to find ways to encourage players of my side-scroller to take advantage of the game’s mechanics to overcome the challenges, like tougher mobs. The issue is that people get frustrated and drop the game. The people who I did watch don’t even experiment with the mechanics to figure out how to overcome a tougher enemy. I like the statistic approach you’ve implemented. I’m on itch right now but this has motivated me to get the game on Steam sooner

1a suggestion. I don't know how hard it is to implement, but here it goes. When wall-running on the left side wall, make appear the left hand, open palm like just hold the superfice, but just after 0,3 second of running until end. Almost the same can be done with the right side, but just putting the sword inclinated to the left side (15 degrees might be enough). I think the this visual effect will be very diegesis to the wall-running. 2a suggestion: put a little timer on display, and, on the end of the run, a ranking. Competition motivates a lot of people. 3a suggestion: create a secret area. Some people love exploration. 4a suggestion: allow players to choose a different swords (or who knows, a axe or spear). Some customization might spice things up. Your game has potential, man! I will buy it for sure.

It's those quality of life parts that make great design. Forgiving but punishing. Forgiving is coyote time for example. Have a little extra time to jump right after you stop being grounded. It doesn't make the obstacle any easier. It just means you can focus on actually passing the obstacle rather than focusing on yourself and not being clunky. Imagine if in Overwatch, if you hit the shoot button but you're deploying an ability, reloading, running or anything. Then you won't shoot. And suddenly in a stressful situation now you're not shooting and dies. You'd have to focus more on your own controls than the actual enemy. So the gun instead fires immediately after your skill or activity is done. Get an expected reaction from your action. Don't be picky. My favorite is not using a button being pressed down or held down. Instead when I press the jump button. I run a timer of .2 second and in that time. I'm always jumping. This means even if I'm too early with my jump, I will still jump as soon as I touch the ground. This feels *SOOOOO GOOD* and really responsive. Responsive controls are perhaps the most important part of a good game to master first.

My thoughts about punishment: In more linear games checkpoints should put the player against a certain challenge. Like for example there's a difficult parkour section that might require a lot of effort to get through. The player will most likely need several tries to get it right so the checkpoint shouldn't be very far away, as running for several minutes only to die on a hard section and having to do it all over again really sucks. But once the player completes that section, they effectively get all the "entertainment value" out of it. Like the actual fun in encounters like this comes from trying and failing until you finally master the stage and are able to go further. But once you've completed this trial, there's no more learning and mastering so if you have to replay it again because you've died somewhere later, this would quickly get old.

Your game had me comparing to ULTRAKILL constantly in my head, which is a good thing, I feel. If you can get me to think of my all-time favorite game it's good. And this game really does look and feel a lot like 'ULTRAKILL with swords!' Part 5 really stood out to me. When you said, "Yeah, I mean - it makes it easier, sure. But I can just make the game harder other ways?" It made so much sense. Like if it's a genuinely hard game, there's no reason the players should be fighting themselves, too. Just make the game properly difficult - not a pain in the ass. You should add a ground pound >:) I like this a lot. I'll keep an eye on Blood Thief!

That moment in FTL was also amazing because the game is built around dying, so all the work that lead up to that wasn't debilitating.

This single devlog was so informative that it made me want to try a game that is in a genre I wouldn't otherwise be interested in. Great work!

when I clicked the video, and saw the game, I was like: what is this shit game, but wow.. this is amazing, I love it. I also like that you listen to player feedback, it's pretty uncommon nowadays. Keep up the great work! Subbed + Wishlisted!

Thank you for sharing! Every developer sharing experience of their game in RU-vid is very inspiring, because of the lessons the viewers can take from videos. For example, here the lesson seems to be about the reviews, which may not be great and be discouraging, but on the other hand, to throw away the product because of this is way too much. Instead, a better alternative is to find out what is wrong and trying to fix it.

This stuffs dope man, keep working at it. Your thought process is excellent and informative

I applaud your way of thinking about game design, you really seem to put a lot of thought and care into the project. Awesome video! 👍

Well, this is basically my perfect game I've always wanted... So excited to help playtest! :D

Cool that you taking some inspiration from Ultrakill, I interested to see how some mechanics can look in a fast paced melee game

You could add more check points, but give the option to skip a checkpoint and take extra points, collectibles, or powerups with them. Reward good players with clout points or bonuses, and still allow worse players to eke by if they want.

About the punishing and checkpoints: If you take an example from Dark Souls, often when you get beaten by a boss the checkpoint is not immediately next to the boss room, but it is placed such as when you get frustrated and walk off for a while, then the space between the boss and the checkpoint acts as a kind of a warm up, you have a place to exercise before getting back into the challenging part. And often the player still has the option to skip or run through the enemies if they are just trying to get to the next thing. So this affects the level design as well.

just found you and your game. i installed it directly! i am a playtester for years, and i love to see indie games evolve over time. if you have anything particular that you want to have tested, feel free to let me know. edit: quick feedback while playing. took me only 3 tries to get over that one gap you showed. the wall-run mechanic works like a charm, and as i would expect it in a game like this. so far so good... i actually survived the lava area by wall-running after i slipped off a pillar. continuing with the tutorial. i like the Thief style and vibes it gives.

I love how you mention that "unituitive does not equal challenging." It's so true, and it's the worst part of so many games. I don't want to fight the controls, or the camera--I want to fight the enemies!

For teaching anything in games it is best to go with the show-teach-test method. For the slide jump, as an example, you can do this by having a low entrance to an area to slide under, then another low obstacle with a small obstacle afterwards that players will instinctively jump over. Those paying attention will notice how that combination of a jump while sliding launched them further. This result could even send them onto an alternative route where they'd realise it wasn't possible to reach this spot had they not performed a slide jump. Only later do you then test the player with an obstacle that requires a slide jump to progress.

This looks amazing!! I could not imagine how cool custom maps would be for this game. Keep up the great work!

I think something less-talked about that can make a huge difference is not so much how much progress you lose when dying, or frequency of checkpoints, but how long it takes to get back into the game after dying. celeste and ULTRAKILL are among the few games that get this right. I don't get mad at ULTRAKILL even when I've just died to Sisyphus Prime for the literal 200th time, because im instantly back to try again with nothing more than a single key press. i get mad at a souls game because going through even a 10 second long loading screen(its even worse if there's a lengthy runback to the boss, like with most of Lies of P's bosses) in between every single death becomes tiring and extremely frustrating after even just 15 times, and I end up wanting to just cheese the boss or brute force it or whatever just to get it over with rather than properly master it. if a game EXPECTS the player to die a lot, then it shouldn't waste their time in between each death and letting them back into the game.

Bro this game looks amazing! So much potential for new areas, enemies, weapons and potentially lore. Really looking forward how you will develop this game :)

I love your game so much, it looks awesome I can’t wait to see more progress on it

I thought of Super Metroid's walljump, which has a completely different focus from your game's walljump. You can literally complete the entire game, beat Mother Brain, save the animals, and safely escape without a single walljump (unless you fall in the specific room that includes the walljump tutorial creatures.) so it is very cool for it to be extremely difficult. It requires fairly complex timing and spacing requirements, unlike any other walljump mechanic I've seen. If the devs of Super Metroid wanted walljumping to be a fundamental mechanic, they'd need to make it much much simpler. The consideration of difficulty and how the mechanic fits into the level design is the greatest difference.

Hey, Blargis, nice work. I don't design games or even play that many, but I really enjoyed this video. Seeing the stages of deciding how to assess the playtests, getting the assessment tools together, analyzing the results, and solving the problems that turned up was satisfyingly scientific. For my two cents on the checkpoint/punishment dilemma, Super Mario World's solution holds up. The amount of punishment one checkpoint can spare you, roughly halfway through a SMW-sized level, feels just right. Not only that, but snapping the ribbon on a miniature version of the end-of-level goal posts is very satisfying. Keep up the good work! Bloodthief looks like a lot of fun!

just submitted my review, was able to beat the whole thing in 20 minutes, and there is certainly a lot to work on! hope this game launches well

Your game looks amazing im glad i clicked, my biggest critique for the way it feels would be the sounds, theyre super important for the feeling, and they could be way better.

Super glad this devlog showed up in my recommended cause this game looks sick. Looks like everything I wanted Ghostrunner to be. Wishlisted and am gonna try the playtest in a bit!

Hello Mr. Blargis, Firstly, your project is fantastic! I have a few suggestions that might enhance it further: Enhanced Alert System for Archers: I noticed the presence of archers in the game. It could be beneficial to introduce an auditory alert when they are targeting the player, especially if within a certain range. Additionally, a visual cue, such as a brief flash emanating from the bow, paired with the audio alert, would assist players in recognizing and responding to this specific enemy type more effectively. Guidance for Movement Mechanics: In your video, you mentioned players were unsure about wall jumping and sliding to gain speed. To encourage the correct usage of these mechanics, you could incorporate distinct sounds, add effects (like speed lines), maybe IK with one leg, this will associate positive reinforcement with these actions. For example, designing a section of the game that's only accessible via a wall kick could serve as a practical lesson, teaching players the necessity and utility of these moves.

This definitely reminds me of Ghostrunner's mechanics. Nice to see.

this is so much better than 90% of gamedev videos.

On the point about checkpoints, a simple fix would be to have the level reset by default but also have checkpoints as a form of difficulty option

Just finished the playtest and wanna say, great work on everything it was a ton of fun! Cannot wait to see this development process continue :) Also just had an idea, I'm sure this is already on the list, but some menu music/ effects might be a nice touch. Definitely a *finishing* touch tho

as someone who is starting to make a little game for myself, this was a cute and interesting watch. hope your game takes off, it seems original

Лучшее, что может случиться с игрой - это когда разработчик вкладывает в неё душу и старается сделать ВЕСЁЛОЙ и УДОБНОЙ для игроков. Один из моих любимых девлогов. Успехов! The best thing that can happen to a game is when the developer puts their heart and soul into it and tries to make it FUN and CONVENIENT for players. One of my favorite developers. Good luck!

Looking forward to more - I found your channel right as I started playing around with Godot, really enjoying watching the devlogs and seeing the project grow.

The game looks great! One thing about the difficulty level is that not everyone thinks about gaming in the same way that you do. Different people like different aspects of games. Some players really enjoy high risk high reward type games while others find it infuriating. I think the simplest solution to the checkpoint problem in your case is a difficulty slider of some sort with optional checkpoints for those who want them. A smarter approach would be to iterate on the feedback from the playtests and add/move/remove checkpoints accordingly. Something really important is that any punishment in-game should feel “fair” and part of that “fairness” comes from gradual introduction of various mechanics with subtle hints which allow the player to learn how something works before you as a developer test them on the mechanic. The great thing is that you can combine both approaches! Focus most of your attention on some default difficulty that might be a little too easy for you personally and work from there. You can provide a challenge for those who seek it and an easier experience for someone who struggles or just simply doesn’t have the patience to work as hard. Really hope to see more devlogs from you, keep up the great work!

I feel like you got everything wrong at first, but you were able to fix it afterwards! Nice demonstration. Oh and I love this transition! 9:50

And one more thing that I just remembered. Maybe the key could be bigger. I say this because as levels get more complex, the keys may not be visible enough, even more when seeing how fast the game can be. Given its art style, I think it wouldn't hurt to make them as big as an enemy and make them shine. Just some things to consider, feel free to completely ignore them. Best of luck in the development of the game.

I believe the two biggest elements of frustration in a game come down to two, maybe three key things about what happens when you fail in a game: 1. Failing without even knowing why you failed or how to succeed. 2. Failing while knowing that the reason was completely out of your control, and there was nothing you could do about it. 3. Failing and being massively set back because of it. How much each of these should be addressed depends on the type of game (I'd say you did a good job addressing them here) but if you get all these right then players will be willing to fail hundreds of times in order to succeed, because they know for a fact that every time they choke or fall they're making real, meaningful progress towards that win in the end. Coincidentally, this is also why league of legends is the most toxic game ever lol. Winning is completely out of your hands because you need all 4 other players to carry their weight no matter how good you are, and losing is excruciating because when it happens that's an hour of your life just down the drain.

I love what you did with deflect, i never heard about your game but it looks like a something similar to "ghostrunner" in which i played like half an hour because it wasn't fun when i was getting hit mid-air and couldn't really do anything about it, despite loving the theme i just couldn't play it... It was way too frustrating. Again, great job with deflect mechanic!

Great video! gives me alot to think about for when I do playtests on my game

"Always assume the player only knows wasd when designing and teaching movements" - me

Getting friends/family to play isn't always so bad and it's not just them being nice that makes their feedback almost useless. But the fact their friend/family is making a videogame is a novelty in itself. Imagine your friend is building a car from scratch, it could be the most rubbish car in existence but the fact they built it themselves makes it cool and exciting.

For your game, you should have a series of challenges that each have one skill, jump pattern, etc... and a checkpoint after each, followed by a harder series of challenges without a checkpoint, that combines everything they just did in a slightly different way. This way you can build player confidence before they hit the really hard part, and they know how to do it at that point.

One thing I see a LOT of people get wrong is not starting the game with a super small setpiece that instantly makes you feel like you're making progress, if the first thing you do in the game is go on a hunt for 5 colored keys in a maze for 30 minutes most players will quit (especially if the end goal isn't explained properly). Having the game split up into distinct indoors spaces like you're doing in Bloodthief is really good from that perspective, it's very clear what to do to progress at any given point (go to the door at the other side of the room) and that makes the player more resistant to adversity - sometimes it's hard to tell if you're doing the right thing poorly or a completely wrong thing and that's one of the most frustrating situations you can be in as a player.

Nice video, maybe this comment wont be that useful but I thought I should mention a thing I noticed in fast paced games. I bought clustertruck (the game where you jump from one truck to another avoiding obstacles) the other day and I loved some levels while hating some other levels, I noticed that the levels I hated were once that limited how quickly I can complete them (timed flame throwers, timed pistons, waiting for laser wall to toggle off and standing on the first truck waiting for it to get closer to the goal) while the levels I loved were the once with more static obstacles that do not limit how quickly you can complete a level. So, I don't know how useful that might be to you, but I personally think that fast paced games should avoid obstacles that somehow limit your speed having you wait for something to toggle off (imho)

Amazing, so good to understand the full loop, stuff to improve, how you discover that and how you improve it :D

One of the coolest game projects I've seen on RU-vid, joined the playtest immediately, keep up the great work!

Okay 6 months old, one thing. Keep the lean in, give a slightly larger speed boost. Encourages further mechanical mastery. Emphasize it by larger lean animation. You should also Lean into having the bigger boost

Very nice! Great job on the improvements you found for your game.

This game is now a mix of intuitive controls and an HD retro aesthetic! Good work 👍

I thought of a cool detail you could make The blood bar leak blood when to signal the fact that it’s losing blood

Great video, I really appreciate the detailed explanation of both dev's and players perspective on the discussed matter. It really helps me understand my own reception of a game, which leads to either giving a better feedback on it, easier solving my own problems with the game, or both. Sometimes it IS a skill issue. Sometimes it's devs being way better at their game than me and not really realizing it. Regarding the punishment for a failure in a game, I always look at it as a balance between game testing me on a resource management and my mastery of the combat or platforming. Like, If the game is somewhat about resource management, It's okay to have multiple challenges (combat or otherwise) that do not have checkpoints in between. In Bloodthief that resource seems to be blood (I haven't found any other during my time with the test version). Thus, I do not see much point in checkpoints being far from (or separated at all) from those blood pools that give you said resource. At the same time, I believe that adding optional hard gauntlets with rare or no checkpoints for those that seek said challenge would be really cool. Overall, I love both the game and vids and can't wait to see more of both!

I see that technically you changed a little for a big impact. This video has valuable info, thank you!

Checkpoint idea: Implement a "practice mode" for each level, so you can go in and place checkpoints as you go, allowing full player control to practice and get better at what they want, but only allow in-game progress to be made when completing the level in it's full normal mode

Me speedrunning your game while watching you talk about the game :D

Oh man, New Blood is gonna be all over this! Definitely seeing this with Dusk and Ultrakill

6:41 you might want to consider adding a second hand to brace against the wall to help indicate the "wallrunning state," too.

In Aliens vs Predator 2010, there's four difficulties. Easy: self-explanatory Normal: self-explanatory Hard: self-explanatory Nightmare: EXACTLY like hard, except there are NO checkpoints in missions. You could have difficulty options like that for pñayer who want a tougher challenge in your game

Throwing an idea in regards to checkpoints. What if the player can make their own? Maybe something similar to Sombra's teleport from Overwatch. The player can mark a location and return to it once on command within a limited time frame. So the player has a way to "save progress" on a level, but doing so has its own learning curve in regards to when and where the player can mark and return without completely losing momentum.

Amazing video! I'll be sure to recommend this to as many friends as I can, keep up the great work!!