Last Pipe Standing
As this is my first published project, I had to learn a lot—not just about working with Godot, but about game development in general (and I've barely scratched the surface). The game was created for Gom's FLAPPY JAM, hosted by Andrei Zi Zhen. It’s my first Game Jam and my first "finished" project. Please feel free to play it on Twitch and share any feedback or suggestions for improvement. I hope you enjoy it!
The three most important things I learned are:
- How to work with signals.
- How to create different screens (start game, gameplay, and game over).
- How to synchronize a sound with an event.
All assets used in this game are for educational purposes only. This game will not be used commercially.
Assets:
Heart sprite by xXAshuraXx: https://xxashuraxx.itch.io/heart
Smoke sprite: https://bdragon1727.itch.io/free-smoke-fx-pixel-2
DeathSoundEffect by Brett Trader: https://freesound.org/people/brettrader/sounds/683044/
OST by Tallbeard: https://tallbeard.itch.io/three-red-hearts-prepare-to-dev
GameOver sound: https://freesound.org/people/davidbain/sounds/135831/
lost life effect: https://freesound.org/people/Timbre/sounds/101354/
Flappy Bird Font: https://www.dafont.com/flappybirdy.font
Comments
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For your first game jam, I have to say this is pretty d4mn good. I'm going to give my feedback in a little sandwich, in a (Good | Bad | Good) so I can write everything I can down but also spread it out properly.
Starting with the positives: great idea. Imagining a sentient pipe knocking down birds is pretty funny. It's also clever how you subtly incorporated the theme: [Trade Offs]. Birds come at you quickly, so you build up points quickly, but it's also hard to get to them all and to stop them.
Moving on to some of the negative feedback (remember that none of this is intended to target you nor hurt your feelings). The problems I encountered amount to glitches or maybe a connection error (probably from my laptop because I'm in Florida during one of the worst rainstorms I've seen this year). For me, your main song gets choppy/glitchy, and so does the sound effects while playing. What's strange is that your game over theme is completely fine. Also, I don't know why but the resolution became really small, and some text was shrunk as a result.
One more thing I should mention is about the natural course of infinite side scrollers. Due to the fact that they're infinite, they really suffer from repetitive gameplay. That's why most mobile games (including the original Flappy Bird) are really fun to play for the first time but lose their charm over time due to the same action happening again, and again, and again. I don't blame you for this, because I admit I have no idea how to solve this problem. My best guess as to how to solve the problem of infinity is to maintain unique engagement for a long time. Maybe a story could help, or more mechanics to change how the game is played. Still, infinity is infinity, and nothing can last forever.
Back to the good things, you gave this game a really great feel. The pixel art is super consistent with the chiptune music and the UI. There's no crazy juxtaposition nor contrast between a pixel art game over screen and a painted start screen. Through and through, this game is definitely arcade, from the high skill ceiling to the score counter being in hundreds to the timer. It's as if you turned Flappy Bird into Pong, especially with how you control the pipe and stop 'balls' (birds) from entering your zone.
Keep up the great work. I believe in you.
I really appreciate this feedback, as it is my first one too, lol.
I tried to make it less "boring" by increasing the speed of the birds every time you kill one. I thought about adding some powers and even some different enemies and a boss battle, but it would have been too much for me to meet the deadline.
I had some problems with the resolution on my wife's notebook too, but I don't even know how to begin to fix that, lmao.
Thank you so much for such detailed feedback. It made my day!