Tower of God - Final Release and Contest

Dear sir,

A friend of mine had me pause my regular gaming routine to try your game. I have quite some complaints to express, so please bear with me.

I'm going to offer some visual aid if I can, because I'm not sure if you're the gaming type yourself.

First, foremost and absolutely above all:
I strongly dislike your controls. To say that they are beyond unconventional is an understatement. Have you ever played a platformer for any console like SNES, NES, Sega, etc.?

Let me show you why I bring that up:

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This is an old-school SNES gamepad. Notice the placement of the button categories; the directional keypad is on the left and the four buttons are on the right.

The SNES had a good competitor at the time. The Sega Genesis.

One such gamepad looked a bit like this:
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Notice once more the placement of the button categories even though they are in opposition to Nintendo.

That was, however, quite a long time ago. Let's see how things began to change in the mid-nineties.

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Here is a Sony Playstation controller. It's got analog sticks and all kinds of things! Still, the directional input is featured on the left and functional input is featured on the right.

Let's go a wee bit closer to the present now with the mighty Microsoft's XBox.

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It's ridiculously huge. It actually had a warning label saying that young children shouldn't play it without adult supervision because it could crush them. They didn't deviate a whole lot from what seems to be traditional or conventional. Movement is based on the left part of the module and function is based on the right.


Let's examine your layout.

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Here's a screenshot of a keyboard. It's a standard keyboard (obviously made in China, as appropriate). I've analyzed the location of your unchangable button setup for simple observation.

As a longtime gamer and phlebotomist (who is quite aware that certain things are not quite the same if in the non-dominant hand), this is a terribly huge pet peeve of mine. People program the arrow keys for movement and then letter keys for functions because they're aiming for simplicity amongst the general populace rather than finding something consistent with people who've been playing video games more than just casually (i.e., not solitaire or hearts).

I would not have taken the trouble to fish up images of controllers and superimpose text onto them had you implemented a feature in your game to modify controller input. I've never coded a game, so I don't know how much trouble it is. This is just my honest feedback.



My other beef with your game:
The traps.
Call me whiney, but I grow furious when I struggle through your clumsy, unconventional button configuration to get almost to the end of a level and a block springs a trap that kills me and there was no other possible way of discovering it and saving myself unnecessary frustration. It does not add any ounce of challenge to the whole experience. It is akin to someone using hacks in a first person shooter game to defeat you. Know what I mean?

Add a savestate function if you're going to be unfair about the traps, fix the button input and I will be able to enjoy it.

Negative things aside, it's quite interesting and easy to get into and has great potential.