Oh Well...
Developer's Note: There is a door you will unlock. Pressing Space after unlocking causes a crash. Please refrain from doing that. XD Thank you!
March 31st, 2025 - This crash has seemingly been fixed. Please check the Devlog #2 update for more info.
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A stranger awakens in a strange land, with even stranger goings-on. What secrets, if any, lie ahead? Just who are the individuals that live here? And what exactly is this stranger's role? Delve deeper and unravel just a small portion of a greater mystery...
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Controls:
Movement - WASD/Arrow Keys
Pause/Unpause - P
A Button (Use A Item) - Enter
Equip to A (While Paused - Equipment) - Enter
B Button (Use B Item) - B
Equip to B (While Paused - Quest Items) - B
Interact/Talk - Spacebar
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Hi!
SpoiledPuppy here. Thank you for viewing my game prototype, "Oh Well..."! Being a prototype, any feedback is welcome and appreciated. I would call this my first real attempt at a game, and I'm proud of it. This is just a small slice of what I would like to create. I have many more ideas and mechanics I would like to implement, and am full of inspiration! Please take note of the following:
1) The "art" is bad, yes. I have no skill here, but am looking forward to developing my pixel art skills.
2) There is a door you will unlock. Pressing Space after unlocking causes a crash. Please refrain from doing that. Fixed!....?
3) An occasional Text error occurs towards the end of the playthrough. I'm not sure what causes this. Please overlook this for now if you encounter it.
4) Regarding any other bugs you may find: I would greatly appreciate the feedback! Please refresh the game if any game breaking occurs. My apologies in advance.
5) Leave a comment if you played the game, I will add your username to the 'Playtesters' credit at the end!
Thank again for coming to my page, I hope you enjoy your playthrough of 'Oh Well'! More to come once I have a job again <(O.o)>
- SpoiledPuppy
Development log
- Update #4 - May 31st 2025:6 days ago
- Update #3 - Apr. 30th 2025:37 days ago
- Update #2 - Mar. 31st 2025:67 days ago
- Update #1 - Feb. 1st 2025:Feb 01, 2025
Comments
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It would be nice to have some kind of clue as to where the demo/prototype ends. I got stuck and couldn't tell if I was missing something or if that was the end of the content. (I got the ... "megaphone"?)
After reading your updates, I feel like you're on a fine trajectory. I have also experienced the struggle of NOT being a natural at pixel art, and I like the Godot engine, although I only worked with it briefly. Congrats on your progress with the art. That is a big improvement! As for grass, let me tell ya, I've struggled with that at several different levels of graphic size, and it always feels like a struggle to make grass look like grass and not some sort of messy argyle sweater. In an 8-bit format, what you have there is perfectly acceptable: mostly just green with a few flowers, shoots of taller grass, etc. here and there. My guess is, the map feels bare because you're thinking of Zelda 1, which was very full of bushes and other things leaving the player less room to move about. I don't see any reason to feel like you have to fill every screen to the brim with objects, as long as there's enough there to give it some aesthetic character. I am curious how exactly you do most of the art and tiling. For the record, Paint.net is slightly more useful than the basic Microsoft Paint, but not as complicated as more advanced tools, and it's still free. I know there's better stuff out there for pixel art, and I think some of them have a proper tiling feature.
I recognize that, not being sure what you have already changed or have plans to change, some of my advice/suggestions may be superfluous. That said...
Making the hit detection on the corners of walls slightly rounded would make it easier to walk through single space gaps/exits. It was a slight struggle to get out of the graveyard, because the character really has to be facing that exit very straight.
Having the A and B buttons be Enter and the actual B button felt very weird and makes it equally awkward to play with either the arrows or WASD. I found it odd that the key was a "Quest Item" but also equippable. I'm used to the term "Quest Item" implying a thing is mostly representative, but I suppose that's not a hard and fast rule.
I'm looking forward to seeing more in the future. You're off to a fine start. There's certainly nothing wrong with getting all your art laid out ahead of time, but if you start to feel burned out, I recommend you take that as a subconscious que to switch to another aspect of the game's design. Best of luck!
Hello! First off, thank you so much for the feedback, it is incredibly valuable!
There is quite a bit more content after obtaining the 'megaphone' item; I've got a final cutscene and credits that roll when you finish, so that would be your cue for the ending. With that said, YES, I definitely agree that this demo/prototype can use some more clues or a guide NPC at least. I battled with wanting to be cryptic/obscure with solutions versus having some more obvious clues as to what to do next. I will definitely take this into consideration as I polish this up, so thanks! A quick clue - the megaphone shoots a projectile that may unlock some blocked off areas for you. The way the projectile looks is supposed to tip you off, but it is incredibly obscure and I recognize that now!
As for the art, I must thank you again! I'm typically quite hard on myself when working with my creative outlets; I think most creatives are in the sense that nothing will ever seem good enough (at least for me). So its always very nice when people come out and say, "Hey, that's not as bad as you think" or "Good job!". And while making the grass that's in my mind still eludes me, I thank you for the comments about it. Its so dang hard to NOT make it look like a messy pattern! Flowers and taller shoots do seem exactly like what it should be for this style.
Currently I use Aseperite for asset creation (the MS Paint thing was a jab at myself, heh!), but a majority of what you see in the current demo was made in Piskel. As I have continued making my screens, I have definitely started seeing that in many cases, less is more and indeed, I do not need to fill each to the brim to make it feel alive, especially for an 8-bit game!
Regarding the additional feedback - these are all aspects I struggled with initially and am in the process of correcting them, particularly the collisions getting stuck on each other! For button layout, I'm sure my brain just thought, "Well B button should be 'B' because of...well 'B'!" Haha! I do plan on changing this as well, likely to space bar, so I'll need to work with state-machines I suppose. Quest items and the inventory system is a big one that will be completely revamped as well. It is currently a tad unnecessary for the game, but I wanted to make sure I could get a Zelda-like scrolling menu for future implementation. I did absolutely forgot to add a key counter, so I think I'll move the key you get there out of the Quest Item section.
Anyway, sorry for the ramble, and thank you again for the incredible feedback! I am hoping to power through the pixel art, but yes, I will likely switch to the coding aspect if I burn out!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!
SpoiledPuppy