Rescue: The Beagles - beta testers wanted
but if you like old school arcades you definitely should xyz If you're on Linux,
I use Win and am just contemplating a switch to Linux… in no hurry.
but if you like old school arcades you definitely should
Freedom in our country costs too much and is given for a very short period of time to voluntarily register with the FSB… F.B.I… an organization that collects and trades in personal data. Even for the sake of a beautiful game. 
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Hi,
I've just ask to join the guinea pigs group 
I'm a bit colorblind as for the record, I have hard time with the thing to collect in Dirt (crap) Showdown from code"masters" (green and yellow were more likely yellow-green and light-green, thanks guys for making them such a way, morons !), although that one of the few games I remember having such issue.
xyz How do you check out games that interest you?
Very simple, just like when there was no Steam yet. All technical sites on computers (hardware, programming), which I regularly browse, have a "Games" section. Sometimes they present their own developments there, like on this site. I didn't learn about your game from Steam either. 
The games I'm inspired by often don't even have a page in Steam. Steam isn't necessary to learn about games.
Tomcat Steam isn't necessary to learn about games
Sure. It's just the most convenient way to buy them, at least for windows. And possibly the cheapest if we exclude piracy. But if you don't play a lot of games then, of course, no need to mess with this rather invasive platform. I just think that it is a must for a game designer, to regularly have firsthand experience with new games.
JusTiCe8 Thanks! I'd greatly appreciate if you could make screenshots of levels you had difficulty navigating due to insufficient contrast between layers. Just beware, at first it may not be easy even with good contrasts because the game is somewhat on the hardcore side, so give it a couple of runs. Any other feedback is welcome too, of course.
xyz so far so good, it took some time to get use to it but no pb at all with all three layers, even when there are overlapping.
The game is a bit tough on height maybe, it's not immediate to figure out height character can deal with or not. Controls are good, at least one game with not the evil brit WASD default . I can only manage it with Nuclear Throne !
A little tutorial/gentle first run may help with some info bubbles, kind of "beware, this time it's ok because beagles are nice but later, you'll be on your own and if you fall such height, you'll die..."
You may also be more verbose with your changelogs, as if you believe to have fix an issue whereas it's not, some users like me would be able to browse it and see when it was supposed to be fixed for instance.
Other than that, it's a nice little game which remind me a lot 8 bits era and less nice game like Green Beret on Asmtrad CPC (but my memory of these games is a bit... twisted as I tried Chiller recently and it's quite a super tough game already on the very first screen).
Looks really cool! Love the art!
xyz Sadly it was not made with our beloved Godot.
Making games is hard, making great games is even harder and I think it should be celebrated no matter what tools you use . With that said. One question that might be worth exploring, would it be interesting to have some kind of "non Godot" kind of tag?
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JusTiCe8 so far so good, it took some time to get use to it but no pb at all with all three layers
Thanks! Glad to hear you had no perceptions problems
JusTiCe8 The game is a bit tough on height maybe, it's not immediate to figure out height character can deal with or not
Oh, it's super tough in that department This is a key mechanic that needs to be learned through trial and error. In general, one ledge/tile falls are safe. Anything higher than that - use a parachute or find a safe roundabout route. The game's short loop is all about deciding fast on the best path to take at any given moment and whether to use resources (parachute/rope) to make the traversal safer/faster.
If you hadn't noticed the game has a training height indicator that can help with judging safe heights. It's off by default and can be turned on in Settings -> Deadly Height Indicator
JusTiCe8 A little tutorial/gentle first run may help with some info bubbles, kind of "beware, this time it's ok because beagles are nice but later, you'll be on your own and if you fall such height, you'll die..."
I may add a tutorial later but it's really not a type of game in which having some introductory instructions on the first level would be fitting. It's rather simple; you can move, jump, fire and use rope/parachute. That's it. The whole thing is meant to be played over and over in short sessions until one gets good. Casual gamers won't like it anyway, gentle introduction or not.
JusTiCe8 You may also be more verbose with your changelogs, as if you believe to have fix an issue whereas it's not, some users like me would be able to browse it and see when it was supposed to be fixed for instance.
Noted, although there was really no major reported issues to fix so far. The game entered the beta in quite a stable state, most of the fixes were just minor polishes and finetunes. I'm generally explicit in reporting relevant fixes.
JusTiCe8 Other than that, it's a nice little game which remind me a lot 8 bits era and less nice game like Green Beret on Asmtrad CPC
Yeah it's totally a nod to the ancient games.
As a kid I played Green Beret to no end on the ZX Spectrum. It was hard as hell. The difficulty was probably due to clunkiness because Spectrum's hardware couldn't handle a proper arcade port. Most of those 8 bit games were like that - 70% of their hardness was caused by low framerates and unresponsive controls 
MikeCL Thanks!
You should definitely add some type of off-topic tag.
I was very close to rebuilding this in Godot but in the end pragmatically decided to use the bulk of existing C++ code simply as a less time consuming option, although having to work without shaders almost drove me insane
If it ever comes to doing some sort of a sequel, I won't think twice about picking Godot.
A bit more update on testing: the game is actually pretty fun to play, but on level 5 it start to become quite crazy. The main concern I have is height and parachute especially, it's not so high considering character size and it's pretty short to activate the chute, perhaps increasing the three planes distance may be something to consider.
Also, quite related, I don't think it's good to have "items" interacting with the player regardless of their own plane, I mean it's unfortunate to be killed by an evil human sitting below us because he/she is tall enough to go over his/her own plane, same apply to beagle we might be able to rescue from above.
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JusTiCe8 Glad you had some fun with it
For short jumps down you should decide in advance if you're gonna go with a parachute and activate it immediately (like a double tap down). On long falls you can wait until the last moment to open a chute so you get down faster if need be.
Game's spatial relations are kept from the original prototype which had very tiny sprites. The new ones are about x2 bigger. It doesn't look realistic but imho still works well from gameplay standpoint. I didn't want to touch the original "geometry" of the map because the play rhythm you get from it was quite satisfying.
The initial version I released back in the day was somewhat of a minor underground hit, especially loved by people who do game design, but the indie climate was different back then. There was quite a bit of discussion on things you mentioned (auto parachutes, cross-layer collisions...) and I tried many of suggested alternatives but none worked for the better so I kept the initial design for the most part.
For example, limiting collisions with enemies only to the same layer sounds reasonable in theory but in practice, due to very fast pace, it can result in many confusing situations where you die "suddenly" because it's wasn't apparent that a layer transition took place during a jump. Bringing all collisions into a single plane regardless of the layer, proved to work best from player's perspective. Also, distancing the layers vertically so that enemies don't "stick" above would impede the perception of obvious safe roundabout paths.
Most interventions that novice players tend to suggest would actually dilute the main three-option choice in the short term gameplay loop:
- do I go via safe roundabout path (spending more time, and more mental effort to "calculate" the path)
- do I go on direct but more dangerous path
- should I use resources to make the path safer/faster
Game's design intentionally breaks some of the common platformer tropes. If you jump into it expecting a standard platformer behavior, you'll immediately want to issue an objection But stick with it some more until those expectations evaporate and you may enter a very pleasant zone. Some people find it quite addictive.
Btw, level 5 is still in the beginner ballpark. My wife who doesn't know what WASD means and only plays match 3 and hidden object games could reach level 10 after some practice
I would be honored to test your game! I requested access on steam (user ID Squad Leader) with a flashing skull icon. Going to avoid reading posts on this thread till I can give it a thorough play through. I could also stream it to you (personally I find it very insightful to see people trying to figure out something I’ve put together).
Just got access. Do you have to give access manually? Just curious. Will try it this weekend.