Hey people!

I do marketing with indie games and we decide to make a contest around the speedrun community. Our game is called Stay Safe, it's basically the forbidden child between Wipeout and Super Meat Boy.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/818140/Stay_Safe/

The game is out on May 22, but meanwhile you can try to beat the demo and win a console (switch, ps4, you name it) or a S&M kit for the best times.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/818140/announcements/detail/1671275910698442419

Let me know what you think of this, we're preparing an even bigger tournament for the release so we need to know if you like or hate it

is this worldwide or just US?

/edit:
After an hour of playing, I'm proudly retreating from this.
cheap level design + clunky controls = "challenge"

the only thing it got in common with wipeout is the "flying" vehicle,
maybe the on-screen timer (already a stretch).
I see no resemblence to SMB whatsoever - if anything, the comparison is insulting to SMB.
There is no "skill" involved in evading things that come from behind the camera with no audio-cue.

if you need a more fitting comparison for what this game is:
imagine beatmania (or osu!), but without the beat-prompts on screen + instadeath.
that's what it feels like playing this.

/edit 2:
3rd Level, holding gas & boost (not saying lack of explanation is good/bad, but yeah... the flight mechanic isn't exactly mine)

"Let's put some arrows there to mislead players!"

"saggy controls that make even Dark Souls look like Unreal Tournament? let's make extremely tight stuff!"

Tracking Walls, alternating Walls, tiny rails, even more alternating walls.
Did I mention the vehicle steers like a drunk fat guy?
no? well, it does.

/edit3:
I forgot the "death from behind" one.
as I said, with no sight & no audio there's nothing to go off of for these blocks.
not exactly good if you want to keep your players interested.
TRIAL AND ERROR IS NOT GOOD GAME DESIGN - JUST NO - STOP

hello there,

Thanks for playing the demo !
I watched your stream, and I saw that you quitted
on the last level (level 13), which is a super hard secret level in the full game (like level 12).
The demo just shows a 13 levels out of the 75 contained in the final game.
There are obviously a lot of levels between that explaining mechanics.
I feel now that the level choices for the demo were probably poor.

But anyway we all agree that super hard should not mean poor level design.

So I would like to engage a dialogue here because :
- this is our first game and we want to learn
- the final release is on may 22 and we still can improve a few things

Let me start with a few comments on your post :
- 3rd level : we are planning on making a level to explain the stick down mechanic
- arrows misleading : Not intentional, the building should be placed differently
- death from behind : there is an audio cue, but it is way too low and the bloc is going very fast
- lvl 13 : You should not try to pass the small tracking walls with dashes,
but again there is no way for you to know that. So that's on us ...

And now some open questions for you :
- Which other things frustrated you ?
- What did you like in the game (what should we keep) ?
- How would you improve the controls ?
- Do you feel that level design is the main problem or the controls ? or both 🙂 ?
- Would you like to be a beta tester for the full game ?
- What do you think about frustration being part of a game ?

Feel free to be brutally honest !

Anyway thanks again, we really appreciate the feedback.

/edit
Sorry for the french Discord, we just launched it and we have a mostly french community. It will be more open in a few days.

"Sorry for the french Discord"

Tout le plaisir est pour nous 🙂

(wall of text incoming)

- Which other things frustrated you ?
the "charge"-doors shut & open too fast - you give the player a giant field to open it, but if you step off for a second the door's already closed again,
basically promoting players to not be on the field for the most part, then slow down at the end to open the door, then boost through.
it's unintuitive - if you give players such a large area to open the door, make it all count, not just the last 2 seconds.

some cheap shots like placing a switch-wall (the ones that go _._[--] -> [--]_._ -> _._[--]) directly behind a door were a bit rage-inducing,
the door prevents any sight behind it, so the first time you go through you're sure to die.

you said I'm not supposed to evade the moving walls with the dash, yet that's the only thing that works to avoid them up to that point,
steering is in no way allowing the player to turn fast enough to get to either side.

- What did you like in the game (what should we keep) ?
the ideas are all great - keep 'em!
opening a door by "charging" it with the floor-panels is a great concept - it's probably what "sticked" in my memory the most.

- How would you improve the controls ?
make them tighter and more responsive - turning without dashing feels like, as I said above, a fat drunk guy.
when you press left/right, it takes half a second to even start moving, and then it has some drag to it so even if you let go it still turns for a bit.
see games like "Race the Sun", which has similar controls to your game, but definitely tighter.
if that's not a possibility for you, maybe allow the player to lean in,
like in redout & f-zero, to allow them to control the steering more in their favour.
Alternative Video showcasing Race the Sun

TL;DR: If the player presses left, make the vehicle go left instantly, not after half a second.

- Do you feel that level design is the main problem or the controls ? or both ? ?
they go hand in hand,
if controls were tighter, the level design wouldn't be as impacting in my view,
in my stream you can see how often I died a tiny bit away from landing on a rail, or anything below me really.
it's a fight against the controls to get the vehicle to go where you want/need it to go.
If you look at cough games like Super Meat Boy, if a player dies, it's because they didn't react right,
not because the controls didn't let him.

Telegraphing when something happens is important as well,
(see the alternate video for race the sun, moving blocks have arrows on them indicating where they go,
stuff only triggers on proximity to the player, so a player can use that information.)
I feel the players are mostly left to guessing when they're supposed to be on wich side of the "road".
it's essentially a 50% chance if they get through.

- Would you like to be a beta tester for the full game ?
I'd rather not, thanks. Last beta test I did was for the game Dauntless and ho' boi, I'd like to avoid going through such a mess again.
(the guys over at PHXLabs are great and innovative, but boi I can't stand them anymore :D)

- What do you think about frustration being part of a game ?
frustration shouldn't be part of your game, you should try to go for lighting a flame of self-improvement in the player.
make them thing "If I had reacted better, I could've gotten this" instead of "If I do this another 50 times I'll get this tight thing."
I've done the switch-evade-flight-land-on-rails-switch-evade level ~211 times - about 100 of those died to the first few walls hammering in the muscle-memory for the dash.
dash left, dash right-left, right, left, boost, about half a second after press down, hope the wall doesn't kill.

Quote

- 3rd level : we are planning on making a level to explain the stick down mechanic
- arrows misleading : Not intentional, the building should be placed differently
- death from behind : there is an audio cue, but it is way too low and the bloc is going very fast
- lvl 13 : You should not try to pass the small tracking walls with dashes,
but again there is no way for you to know that. So that's on us ...

1.dw, as I said, it's not a bad thing to let the player learn by doing - it's just that the first hurdle in the demo using flight doesn't let the player experiment much.
2.I admit it was more of an overdramatization, simply making the arrows point right would already fix it, indicating to the player that they need to turn right or die.
3.I'd rather say the bgm is drowning it out, maybe more visual indicators would erase this issue.
-suggestion: make the blocks change the line they travel on in a gradient around them, so when the block's close, the player can see it on the ground.
(for example, since the colours are so popping, make it darken the area around it, or the other way around, make the line black and let the block illuminate it)
4.I have no idea how it would be possible to get by without lining up & dashing through...

Well then,

Thanks for the block of text. We actually used some of your feedback to improve the game.
- We worked both on controls (especially when flying) and level design to make the progression of the player less frustrating.
- We made the obstacles patterns more obvious and more forgiving,
doors are farther from each other
the tracking panel is less reactive in early levels
rails are waaaay easier to land on
sliding blocks go slower

To keep high level difficulty :
- we made the green caps very hard to get in advenced levels. They unlock secret levels.
- you unlock SUPER hard levels (like the 2 last of the demo) by finishing enough level with full boost or without dashing (not both).

We launched the Beta Yesterday. If you wanna join (not necessarly to give feed back but just to enjoy) I can give you a key.
Or if anyone else is interested.

Thanks again.

FYI we just launched the full game on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/818140/Stay_Safe/

A new contest might be organized in the next few days!