ClonesGame.com Forums

[Balthier]

Hi,

So I finally took my time to finish the entire first "world" of clones. So here's some early feedback (If this is okay, I will post more as I progress through the game). I must say that, overall, the game kept me surprising all the time as I progressing through these levels. I'm super excited at the moment to play more levels (and a bit scared at the depth of this game too).

Starting up by the graphics, this game looks great and I must thank to the developers that it runs on this old PC here. The overall art style is really good, with a great variation and charismatic characters. The 'clones' themselves looks and animates greatly! They have great variation of colors, and they also looks like they have shaders on them (which I believe they don't), which makes them shine! Wonderful job! Some of these other creatures looks great too, but pale a little bit in comparison to the clones (like the slug, it doesn't animate as fluid as the clones). The backgrounds are stunning and full of detail. Sometimes, some of the things in the background are not smooth as the rest of the game (like the platform that the tutorial character shows up), and I don't know if it's the limitation of the engine or maybe it's my computer. Other than that, everything looks amazing!

Sound and music are also perfectly fine. The sound effects itself are very ear pleasant and don't get repetitive (which happens on a LOT of games out there), and this alone is great! The music is also very charming too, the level select music is stuck on my head right now! The UI is surprisingly good (I'm very nitpicky about UI!), but it lacks some tooltips. Took me quite some time to figure out what those counters meant at the top of the screen. Other than that, everything looks very sleek and clean, and I specially like the text balloons (these look very good!).

The 3D world and the level select screen also looks really good. It gives me some slowdowns now and then (specially when the screen is "closing" to load a level), but everything looks really good. You might want to be careful though on some of those level buttons, as the left 'preview' window on the first world almost hid one of those later levels button (rock) , so you probably want to check this out.

The videos are great!!! Amazing! They give me some slowdown when they're starting, but their quality are really good! Very impressive! I'm just not that fond of the voice introducing the masters, but I'll probably get used to that.

Now about the gameplay, which is where this game shines: at first, I though that this was 'just' a superbly executed lemmings clone (funny name for the game, by the way. Will inspire many jokes!), but as I progressed, the amount of new elements and stuff really surprised me. There's so many things, so many elements, that if they are present in the editor too, then this game can have a HUGE amount of possibilities for creating levels (much much more than I ever expected!). I liked how you can get a 'radial' menu when you click on the clones, but I found easier to just click the buttons on the bottom of the screen. The transparency effect is quite useful, but it made me accidentally miss some clones due to them being invisible next to my selected clone. The check point thingy is very useful (maybe too useful?), but why pre-made checkpoints when I can create them all the time? I loved how you can get stickers and such, you know. It reminds me of little big planet, and it's one of those touches that really makes the game charming.

I have yet to 'properly' play the multiplayer aspect, since when I tried it in the demo there was only me in the server, and today when I tried it again (in the full 1.03 beta) it said that my version is different that the server one.

On the level-side, the game has been continually surprising me. Great job on those level (at least of the two first worlds). The tutorial level, where the clones can get bigger or smaller made me open a big wide smile when I figured out how to pass the level. So did the level where the screen turns itself (I forgot the name of that). Amazing!

Overall, as I play, this game just keeps getting better and better. I mean, when I first heard about this game, the game made a lot of 'promises' (with all it's features and stuff) but I had my doubts about it. Now that I properly played, I must say that it's much BETTER than I thought it could ever be. Really! I'm a big Lemmings fan, and I've been disappointed with the lack of similar games (only Chu Chu Rocket came out since the last proper Lemmings game (not counting the PSP one, since I don't own a PSP) and now "Clones" not only fulfilled my hunger for Lemmings games, but it surpassed all my lemmings wishes.
The only thing I miss from the lemmings games is the ability to put a morph into the cursor, so I would just have to click on the clones which I want to morph (instead of selecting one by one all the time).

Can't wait to play more (and probably will later today)
Once again, congratulations to the entire team behind "Clones". An amazing game so far!

[rt]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and it's very satisfying to hear that all of the little touches we've worked on are appreciated.

The UI is surprisingly good (I'm very nitpicky about UI!), but it lacks some tooltips. Took me quite some time to figure out what those counters meant at the top of the screen.

Good point. I'll test out some tooltips for those counters to see how they work up there. We also plan to create a helpful screen overlay that will be enabled when you click on "Help" in the menu to better explain the HUD.

You might want to be careful though on some of those level buttons, as the left 'preview' window on the first world almost hid one of those later levels button (rock) , so you probably want to check this out.

Yes this is a known problem in some of the CloneMaster maps. We worked around it in the later CM maps but the first few have some overlap. Sorry

The videos are great!!! Amazing! They give me some slowdown when they're starting, but their quality are really good! Very impressive!

There is an intro and an outro video for each CloneMaster. We plan to add effects to the voice and if it still doesn't fit then drop it.

Now about the gameplay, which is where this game shines: at first, I though that this was 'just' a superbly executed lemmings clone (funny name for the game, by the way. Will inspire many jokes!), but as I progressed, the amount of new elements and stuff really surprised me. There's so many things, so many elements, that if they are present in the editor too, then this game can have a HUGE amount of possibilities for creating levels

Yes the editor is fully featured and contains all of the elements you see in the levels. Some of the objects are a little complex to use, but we plan to release guides to help with this, as well as sample levels illustrating proper use.

The transparency effect is quite useful, but it made me accidentally miss some clones due to them being invisible next to my selected clone. The check point thingy is very useful (maybe too useful?), but why pre-made checkpoints when I can create them all the time?

We've updated the transparency in the next version. We added system checkpoints to some levels in case you forget to create one just before a difficult part in the level. They also act as a "half way" marker in most cases.

I have yet to 'properly' play the multiplayer aspect, since when I tried it in the demo there was only me in the server

You MUST play some multiplayer That was the main concept of Clones all along!

The only thing I miss from the lemmings games is the ability to put a morph into the cursor, so I would just have to click on the clones which I want to morph (instead of selecting one by one all the time).

Hmm, yes we supported this method at first but then dropped support for it to make things simpler. The main reason we use the "Clones" method is because we are focused on multiplayer gameplay and during a match it's likely you will be giving many morphs in quick succession to the same clone (for sabotage, for example) and so it's less button clicks if you can select the clone first. But perhaps we could update the logic to allow you to hold down a morph key on the keyboard and then click a clone to both select and issue the morph. That would allow you to give the same morph to many clones quickly.

[Balthier]

Thank you for reply!

I've been playing clones some more, and after being stuck on a level for more than 1 hour (the Ice Hotel Battle level), I decided to skip it (thank goodness for that feature in beta!) and played some more levels. Some of those level are really fun, but that particular level for me (Ice Hotel Battle) was really hard even comparing to levels after this one. Maybe I'm playing it wrong though (which is totally possible since the game does offer a multitude of ways to play levels!).

One thing had me wondering, though? Why, when pausing the game in Single Player, the screen darken up a little bit? If it didn't, it would be much better for us to play ahead. And since it only darken a little (and don't really block your view from anything), I do wonder why is it there.
By the way, when I click on Pause, then unpause, and then pause again, it takes some more clicks for it to actually pause again that it would need to, something like 2 or 3 clicks for me to be able to pause again.

And tonight, after quite some time, I saw one person on the server (you, I guess), and tried playing it online, but I seemed to be alone there. Also, after finishing the beach level, I chose to start a new level (the multiverse one) and it seemed to cause some bug, as the game kept loading and loading over and over until I pressed alt+F4 to exit the game.

[tom]

I've been playing clones some more, and after being stuck on a level for more than 1 hour (the Ice Hotel Battle level)

Yes, that is a more difficult level (I had the same comment) and we will try to make it easier. Did you first watch the solution the other clonemaster performed before attempting your solution? For the clonemaster battles, it comes down to being able to perform the puzzle better than the clonemaster. The solution is provided for you!

One thing had me wondering, though? Why, when pausing the game in Single Player, the screen darken up a little bit?

The screen darkens to make it obvious that the game is paused. This was done more so for multiplayer, but the screen dimming feature in singleplayer can be removed. I had this in mind, but your comment justifies it!

By the way, when I click on Pause, then unpause, and then pause again, it takes some more clicks for it to actually pause again that it would need to, something like 2 or 3 clicks for me to be able to pause again.

This is by design. This is to prevent "pause" hacking the solution (performing very quick actions by pausing in between). Before you can pause again, you must wait a couple of seconds. However, other people reported the same "problem", so I think I need to have some visual/audio feedback indicating that you can't pause during that brief period.

I chose to start a new level (the multiverse one) and it seemed to cause some bug, as the game kept loading and loading over and over until I pressed alt+F4 to exit the game.

We added a dedicated server mode to Clones so that we can run a server 24/7 and have others join. In this case you need to arrange with a friend to join the server and play. You can message me and arrange a time for a match. I'll try to be online on Sunday. I verified the constant loading problem with "Split" level - it will be fixed.

Thanks for all those comments!