Hello there!

I'm doing computer stuff, including own releases for quite a while.

I want to make some games, and as a start, I've chosen a genre that is simple and I liked in the past: Nibbly. It's a variant of the snake game where you have to eat all the gems without biting yourself. A subkind of a puzzle game. You may visit it here: https://www.gamedev.net/projects/5788-nibbly2025/​.​ The itch.io project is located here: https://dkrajzew.itch.io/nibbly2025​.

I put much effort in making it a “complete” game - you have high scores, as the game has 100 levels, you may as well save your progress and restart from saved states, some settings can be changed, etc. The graphics are not great and the music and sound fx are the first ones I've done…

I have two questions:

• I would like to receive critics - mainly technical ones, so that I can improve when writing more complex games.
• I would like to know how to gain visibility :-)

Sincerely,

Daniel

dkrajzew said:
I would like to receive critics - mainly technical ones, so that I can improve when writing more complex games.

Watching the YT video, i'm impressed. Well done in almost every way, including artwork.

But the single sound effect is bad. There should be some more, and probably some variations of the cookie eating sound. Background music would be nice too, if there is a way.

The graphics feel very static.
Ideally you would animate the snake, so it's head moves gradually but does not teleport from tile to tile.
Maybe there are other things to animate - particle systems, scrolling backgrounds, or personally i had used some cheap colored fluid effect in a similar situation. Though - it's not really necessary ofc. It's just too static to be a typical computer game, somehow.

A subtle shadow effect for the tiles and the snake might improve it.

Using saturated color backgrounds and flashing hue transitions in the menu screens is a bit harsh.
People have huge screens these days, and this way you stress their eyes eventually.
I do not propose to change this, but i would avoid it in future projects.

@JoeJ Hello JoeJ,

Watching the YT video, i'm impressed. Well done in almost every way, including artwork.

Thank you!

But the single sound effect is bad. There should be some more, and probably some variations of the cookie eating sound. Background music would be nice too, if there is a way.

Hmm, well, there is a background “music” in the game - a different one than in the intro. I suppose it's not loud enough. Hmm, maybe one note: yes, there are many simplifications or things that could've been done better. I have seen most of the issues you report, but look below.

The graphics feel very static.
Ideally you would animate the snake, so it's head moves gradually but does not teleport from tile to tile.
Maybe there are other things to animate - particle systems, scrolling backgrounds, or personally i had used some cheap colored fluid effect in a similar situation. Though - it's not really necessary ofc. It's just too static to be a typical computer game, somehow.

Yes, the lack of an animation between the cells is definitely missing. Even the 8bit variants from the 90ies animate the body.

No, it does not make sense to put more effort into animating the environment. Yep, besides plain smooth transition between the cells, the head of the snake could move. I think some color animation when the snake dies - some kind of collapse/desintegration - or when it finishes the level - rainbow color cycling - may be nice.

A subtle shadow effect for the tiles and the snake might improve it.

Yep, thought about it. Maybe.

Using saturated color backgrounds and flashing hue transitions in the menu screens is a bit harsh.
People have huge screens these days, and this way you stress their eyes eventually.

Well, yes. This is my first try to make a Windows game from scratch. I do have a bit of experience in making games, but this is a first complete product that includes everything that's needed. So there are some things I did not want to spend time on. Over-designing the game is one of them.

So, yes, I wanted it to be colorful as my earlier games and demos used a black background. Screen backgrounds were chosen manually, and I used a tool I wrote named PaletteWB for blending them. And the main logo as well as the titles in the other screens and the in-game texts use a plain HSV-circle. Just because it was the fastest thing to implement.

I do not propose to change this, but i would avoid it in future projects.

Regarding Nibbly2025 and its genre, the current colorfulness is ok, I think. But the complete thing is maybe too naive and one has to put more effort on all components to separate from other games from this genre. It does not make much sense for this game, I think as there are many old variants for 8bit and 16bit computers, and no one seems to be interested in a Windows version currently. So, yes, thank you for this very valuable comment, Yes, I think a “theming” is necessary when designing a game.

As said, thank you very much for your comments, JoeJ.