i haven't finished the demo yet (far from it) but i think you need to optimize your code... the demo uses almost 3 gigabytes of ram for me and makes my laptop super slow and laggy (also has way more frequent screen freezes in comparison to waddle knight 1), which feels a bit too much for a 2d game ;_;
Hi, finished the game up to like 70+ medals and loved the demo so far!
Just wanted to report a bug I'm experiencing, where I receive this error on startup:
Before this error started showing up, I had to restart my PC while in a boss fight. After restarting, I'm unable to start the game.
I found that deleting WKPsave.sv from the Users folder seems to resolve the issue, but I'm wondering if there's an alternate fix for this (of course, I do not want to lose save data if possible).
Thank you! I'll probably put my thoughts on gameplay related stuff later as well
Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far! Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to get your save data back by normal means, but if you can tell me which bosses you've gotten the medals on, I'd be happy to recreate your save file and send it to you!
Thanks for the kind offer, but I'll just take this as an opportunity to play through the game again! (also i dont remember which ones i got silver/gold on already so)
That said, I already share some sentiments of other commenters, so I'd like to share my thoughts on more specific aspects of the game:
Companions - I find it weird that there's a separate button for shooting. Maybe its a carry over from the Cuphead inspiration. So far, there's almost no situation where you want to stop shooting, so maybe you could add auto-fire/toggle for it? Just to reduce scenarios where players are pressing too many buttons (e.g. charging normal attack, shooting, and gliding at the same time).
Spear Shot/Special Shot - It feels clunky since it stops your aerial momentum and causes you to fall straight down, more so for Spear Shot with worse endlag. This might be by design but there are situations I forget this and use it while jumping, only to fall into a pit (curse you Fire Dyna Blade). Just sorta disrupts the high action when you have to find a safe place to land before using it.
Big Bronto Burt (Elfilin) - The laser being solid sometimes blocks smaller projectiles from view. This is also a common problem in some shmups I play so it's understandable. Maybe a bit of transparency could work, or it should be behind the enemy projectiles.
Big Bronto Burt (Ribbon) - Feels like the damage difference from the other forms is too low for the way higher risk of staying close range in shmup battles.
Silver Medal Timer - It turns red the moment you hit the displayed time limit, but clearing the stage at that exact time still gives you the medal. I almost quit a boss when I saw it turn red but it still gave me the medal. Inconsistent with the Gold medal, where getting hit the number of times displayed turns the text red and no longer gives you the medal. Small detail but could be fixed.
Marx Soul - Visibility with the bouncing eyeballs. They flicker white, but are black for most of the time against a dark background, making them harder to aim at and play around. All of Marx' other attacks are very bright and colorful so this stands out.
The bosses do a very good job at teaching you to use new moves. This does make me wonder which ones are beatable without certain upgrades.
My favorite bosses include: Holo Defense API 2.0, Dark Nebula, Galactic Nova, Galacta Knight, Shadow Kirby, and Magolor. Shoutouts to Dark Matter's Revenge for being really fun and well designed but its one of those "glad its over, never doing this again" type of bosses (imma have to do it again for medals anyway)
Overall, a solid game so far and can't wait to see it completed! There's already so much content in this demo, it could already be treated as a full game in and of itself.
I haven't finished this demo, but here are a few thoughts.
Negative first:
Look into texture groups. If you only take one thing away from this comment, please make it this. The long bouts of freezing that mostly stop after you've been playing for long enough are almost certainly because the game is constantly loading new texture groups. You can tell because they tend to happen whenever a new sprite appears for the first time. They're fairly easy to wrap your head around and will do a lot to make the experience feel 100x smoother.
Hitboxes and hurtboxes could have a lot more player leniency. There were many, many times when I felt as though my attacks should have connected when they didn't, and many, many times when I felt as though an enemy's attacks shouldn't have connected when they did
The bullet hell sections are really awkward to control. I've played 2 or 3 of these and haven't found a reason that I would ever need to fire in a direction other than right yet, so having to constantly hold down a trigger button just to face the enemy was cumbersome. Holding down a face button to fire while pressing the opposite face button to dash (while also still holding down the trigger to lock my direction) also felt really unnatural. Besides the fact that I was just awkwardly moving my thumb over so many buttons, I have problems with my wrist that were exacerbated a lot by constantly holding down a trigger and a face button while also managing dashing. If turning needs to be a feature for a later boss, it should be a toggle. If it doesn't, just force Bronto Burt to face right. I'd also say shooting should just be mapped to a trigger button so it's less awkward to move around while doing it.
It is hard to tell sometimes when I can heal. Changing the color of the meter so it's visible at a glance when you can heal once would be really helpful.
The second phase of the Moley fight is frustrating. Having a character that attacks low and a character that attacks high and/or in arches means you'll inevitably find yourself in a position where you have to take damage.
Resetting a boss and dying take an annoying amount of time. This is really noticeable if you're going for the bonuses and will have to leave and return if you get hit more than a few times.
Positives:
I like that you didn't just go with a lot of traditional boss fights. Even though the gimmicks didn't always land for me, I appreciated the effort to make each fight different.
It's always fun to get new upgrades and increase your move pool in a game like this.
It's impressive how many different moves you managed to telegraph in a unique way with very limited sprite sheets.
It's just generally fun. Pogoing off of a boss feels nice, even if the hitboxes don't always match what you would expect.
Hey! Enjoyed Waddle Knight 1, and liking Waddle Knight 2 as well. I played WK1 with the benefit of it being just a couple months back, at the end of the patch cycle, so I sort of figured going into this one playing the demo there'd be some balance things. Figured I'd share some feedback from what I've played thus far, having reached Fire Dyna Blade.
The Good
The new healing system is much better. Getting hit in WK1 was double punishing because it halved(?) your healing gauge, whereas the new Focus meter allows more comebacks from the brink.
Likewise, some of the new abilities and the partners are great. The spear twirl and Waddle Doo shot feel great, and I like the new buddies' different niches, and how they carry into the shmup sections.
Graphically the bump-up in polish is noticeable, and the animation work and tells are generally quite good.
Great soundtrack selections.
The Bad
I'm getting occasional stutters and frame stops on a fairly strong gaming laptop, mostly at game launch. They seem to go away the more I play in a given session.
Charge attack's prep time and damage feels reasonable, but the visual effect/sound effect/range all feel a bit lacking. Visually, its tough to see if its a charge slash or not. Some more "oomph" here would go very much appreciated.
Yellow stars left over after attacks feel... a bit vestigial in the context of this game. It adds to the Kirby vibe of it all, but I'm always hoping the RNG roll makes them pink stars and not yellow, because yellow stars linger and close off openings. I feel like pink/yellow stars should be non-random, OR have some ways to clear/deflect yellow stars; maybe shoot them with Bronto Burt or something? This came to a head in the Masked Dedede fight, where his puff-up move to launch you back would routinely rocket me into lingering yellow stars for what felt like guaranteed damage.
I'm left wishing my horizontal attacks just had a biiiit more range very often, due to collision damage being such a thing in this game, especially pre-Shade Dash.
Jump through platforms feel buggy. Very often in fights involving them heavily, I feel like they're "eating" my jump and I end up just walking off the side. If the game doesn't have coyote time, I think adding it would improve game feel a lot.
I can't seem to get my secondary attacks to work in SHMUP sections?
The Bosses
Standouts thus far are Kabula, Storo, Skullseer, Mega Titan, Fire Lion, Kracko EX, and Doc. Of those, Mega Titan felt the most ingenious with its health-regen gimmick, Kracko had the best tells by far, and Fire Lion is an exceptionally well done gank boss when you learn how the Lion's moveset and openings work. It synergizes impressively well with Batafire.
Wiz misses the above list by a hair, due to what I assume is a glitch; the spotlight tell for the spotlight zoom attack doesn't match where the screen eventually zooms in on, which led to me getting misled and hit.
Moley's first phase is benign enough, but the addition of Boxer feels like too much going on, especially pre-Shade Dash. If you're trying to evade Boxer and Moley does the triple bolt throw at a distance, the screen is clogged and you're basically forced to take a hit. Plus, the addition of added minions after blitzing one down feels a bit out of place for the first double boss; not even Fire Lion, the post-shade dash duo fight, does that.
The purple clouds feel finicky in the Whispy EX fight; I wish they'd give a bit more height.
Boh boh falls victim to the jump through platform thing...
...which is doubled down on even more in Fire Dyna Blade, where I got walled and tapped out for the session. The openings feel so sparse (all of her attacks come from her head, which you have to be hugging dangerously close to hit), the middle platforms feel sticky, the middle phase is absurdly punishing if you fall off the debris, and the remix the first phase for what I assume is the final phase is even more punishing. With how quickly you can die from falling in Phase 2, I almost think that there shouldn't be platform gaps in Phase 3. The addition of lingering flames on the ground is oppressive enough, along with the longer attack chains. Also; how the heck do you avoid taking damage from the charge up animation of her big beam attack?
Thanks, I'm glad you've enjoyed it thus far! I'm about to go to sleep so I can't respond to everything here, but the Masked Dedede belly bounce into stars has been fixed in tomorrow's patch, along with a few other bugs, and the jump through platforms aren't programmed the best, and I will likely replace their code eventually. Fire Dyna Blade's big attack can also be dodged by hugging the opposite wall of the arena, then either Shade Dashing or Blocking the laser. The fire will still hurt you while it's fading away, so I think that's why it seems undodgable at first, but I could be wrong there. Thanks for the review, and I'll start working on making it better starting with tomorrow's patch!
Oof, honestly forgot that Block was a thing. I often played with it disabled because I was conflating side dashes with blocks. Adjusting the deadzones with my controller helped reduce misinputs, but I wonder if another/alternate input method would be good for that technique.
Ended up playing the rest to 100% completion on patch 1.1.
As you may have guessed, since I was willing to play to full completion: I liked this, a lot, and I'll be keeping a close eye on the full game. What you've put together for a demo has a boss roster that already puts a lot of full games, of any price range or studio, to shame - in quantity, and in quality.
I think the front half suffers from a certain lack of hitbox leniency and not having your tools yet, but when you get all the mobility upgrades and the range/damage buffs from Buddy 4 - that's when it all clicks, and things feel like they reach their peak. I would point out that bosses like Phan Phan are definitely more challenging in terms of moveset and patterns than Traitor Lord or Hive Knight (or really any non-Pantheon HK boss), and you have Monarch Wings and Shade Dash for those guys!
That being said, on top of the standouts I mentioned before, every boss from 21 onwards was fantastic. They were all just really fun, frenetic, and conceptually sound. Shoutouts to Daroach for being not too hard but really frantic and Dark Nebula for being totally redeemed.
28-30 are all particularly tough. I loved 28 and 30; I would echo CrankyTemplar's thoughts on the latter, as his video helped me find additional openings and get the Silver. 29 is fun too, but I would argue is actually the single most demanding fight in the game, even compared to the fights after. The 5-sword spin and the big petal pulse-in-and-out in phase 2, paired with the gaps in the bottom floor and lingering projectiles, is just a TON to juggle. If that's where you want him in the difficulty curve compared to the rest, I can't suggest you change much, though.
The bonus content behind the medals was the most fun I had with the game, which was the cherry on top to 100%ing.
Overall, this is great. I think design-wise these fights are very, very sound. I think it's a matter of shoring up the controls and hitboxes (coyote time, please!) and aligning the earlier bosses more with the upgrade curve at the start for the full release.
Thanks, and good job getting 100%! This was my first game I've made in Game Maker, so I'll likely remake the player's code and most if not all of these bosses code's from scratch for the full game, so there will be plenty of nerfs and buffs, and fixes to early hitboxes. I maaaay have made Boss 29 a bit too hard... But I can't bring myself to nerf him, I like the flow of that guy's fight.
still havent finished my lengthy comment, and that's probably a good thing since the patch im playing on is so broken lmao (i kid you not i beat one of the bosses in 18 seconds with pre-overhaul roboburt)
edit: wow pre patch robo burt is BROKEN im so mad i did all the bosses before [boss that grants you robo-burt when defeated] legit and died so much lmao
(yes im gonna download the patch later, but first im gonna have some fun with cracked roboburt)
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i haven't finished the demo yet (far from it) but i think you need to optimize your code... the demo uses almost 3 gigabytes of ram for me and makes my laptop super slow and laggy (also has way more frequent screen freezes in comparison to waddle knight 1), which feels a bit too much for a 2d game ;_;
Hi, finished the game up to like 70+ medals and loved the demo so far!
Just wanted to report a bug I'm experiencing, where I receive this error on startup:
Before this error started showing up, I had to restart my PC while in a boss fight. After restarting, I'm unable to start the game.
I found that deleting WKPsave.sv from the Users folder seems to resolve the issue, but I'm wondering if there's an alternate fix for this (of course, I do not want to lose save data if possible).
Thank you! I'll probably put my thoughts on gameplay related stuff later as well
Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far!
Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to get your save data back by normal means, but if you can tell me which bosses you've gotten the medals on, I'd be happy to recreate your save file and send it to you!
I see, that's too bad.
Thanks for the kind offer, but I'll just take this as an opportunity to play through the game again! (also i dont remember which ones i got silver/gold on already so)
That said, I already share some sentiments of other commenters, so I'd like to share my thoughts on more specific aspects of the game:
The bosses do a very good job at teaching you to use new moves. This does make me wonder which ones are beatable without certain upgrades.
My favorite bosses include: Holo Defense API 2.0, Dark Nebula, Galactic Nova, Galacta Knight, Shadow Kirby, and Magolor. Shoutouts to Dark Matter's Revenge for being really fun and well designed but its one of those "glad its over, never doing this again" type of bosses (imma have to do it again for medals anyway)
Overall, a solid game so far and can't wait to see it completed! There's already so much content in this demo, it could already be treated as a full game in and of itself.
ive accidentally beaten moley to death before box boxer could join the battle and my game crashed
Wow, I didn't even know that was possible. I'll get that fixed, thanks!
I haven't finished this demo, but here are a few thoughts.
Negative first:
Positives:
Hey! Enjoyed Waddle Knight 1, and liking Waddle Knight 2 as well. I played WK1 with the benefit of it being just a couple months back, at the end of the patch cycle, so I sort of figured going into this one playing the demo there'd be some balance things. Figured I'd share some feedback from what I've played thus far, having reached Fire Dyna Blade.
The Good
The Bad
The Bosses
Thanks, I'm glad you've enjoyed it thus far! I'm about to go to sleep so I can't respond to everything here, but the Masked Dedede belly bounce into stars has been fixed in tomorrow's patch, along with a few other bugs, and the jump through platforms aren't programmed the best, and I will likely replace their code eventually. Fire Dyna Blade's big attack can also be dodged by hugging the opposite wall of the arena, then either Shade Dashing or Blocking the laser. The fire will still hurt you while it's fading away, so I think that's why it seems undodgable at first, but I could be wrong there. Thanks for the review, and I'll start working on making it better starting with tomorrow's patch!
Oof, honestly forgot that Block was a thing. I often played with it disabled because I was conflating side dashes with blocks. Adjusting the deadzones with my controller helped reduce misinputs, but I wonder if another/alternate input method would be good for that technique.
Ended up playing the rest to 100% completion on patch 1.1.
As you may have guessed, since I was willing to play to full completion: I liked this, a lot, and I'll be keeping a close eye on the full game. What you've put together for a demo has a boss roster that already puts a lot of full games, of any price range or studio, to shame - in quantity, and in quality.
I think the front half suffers from a certain lack of hitbox leniency and not having your tools yet, but when you get all the mobility upgrades and the range/damage buffs from Buddy 4 - that's when it all clicks, and things feel like they reach their peak. I would point out that bosses like Phan Phan are definitely more challenging in terms of moveset and patterns than Traitor Lord or Hive Knight (or really any non-Pantheon HK boss), and you have Monarch Wings and Shade Dash for those guys!
That being said, on top of the standouts I mentioned before, every boss from 21 onwards was fantastic. They were all just really fun, frenetic, and conceptually sound. Shoutouts to Daroach for being not too hard but really frantic and Dark Nebula for being totally redeemed.
28-30 are all particularly tough. I loved 28 and 30; I would echo CrankyTemplar's thoughts on the latter, as his video helped me find additional openings and get the Silver. 29 is fun too, but I would argue is actually the single most demanding fight in the game, even compared to the fights after. The 5-sword spin and the big petal pulse-in-and-out in phase 2, paired with the gaps in the bottom floor and lingering projectiles, is just a TON to juggle. If that's where you want him in the difficulty curve compared to the rest, I can't suggest you change much, though.
The bonus content behind the medals was the most fun I had with the game, which was the cherry on top to 100%ing.
Overall, this is great. I think design-wise these fights are very, very sound. I think it's a matter of shoring up the controls and hitboxes (coyote time, please!) and aligning the earlier bosses more with the upgrade curve at the start for the full release.
Impressive stuff.
Thanks, and good job getting 100%!
This was my first game I've made in Game Maker, so I'll likely remake the player's code and most if not all of these bosses code's from scratch for the full game, so there will be plenty of nerfs and buffs, and fixes to early hitboxes.
I maaaay have made Boss 29 a bit too hard... But I can't bring myself to nerf him, I like the flow of that guy's fight.
Low and high-key been looking forward to this demo every time you posted the WIPs!
epic! ill try it out, then give my thoughts later
still havent finished my lengthy comment, and that's probably a good thing since the patch im playing on is so broken lmao (i kid you not i beat one of the bosses in 18 seconds with pre-overhaul roboburt)
edit: wow pre patch robo burt is BROKEN im so mad i did all the bosses before [boss that grants you robo-burt when defeated] legit and died so much lmao
(yes im gonna download the patch later, but first im gonna have some fun with cracked roboburt)