SackDroid - Part 1: A Train Crash

http://lbp.me/v/h3qtcq
[IF YOU'RE GOING TO PLAY THIS THEN YOU MUST RESTART LBP FIRST. I'M SERIOUS. THIS COULD CRASH YOUR GAME I'M NOT JUST TRYING TO MAKE THIS LEVEL SEEM COMPLEX AND COOL]
This is the fruit of a six month long labor, and the first part in my new series SackDroid (the intro to SackDroid: http://lbp.me/v/bzk2ms, you should watch it if you are planning to play this and haven't already):

http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/c95614921308...def9717d47.jpg
The waterproof sackbot doesn't want to be a spy. He certainly doesn't want to explode and kill everybody. He just wants to go through his first day of school, make some new friends, learn a thing or two, and just have a normal life. Luckily, that isn't going to happen.

This will be an adventure level, with an emphasis on exploration, story, and puzzle solving rather than platforming or combat. It is quite long (four levels long)-a playthrough may be upwards of an hour. It can be pretty difficult or pretty easy, depending on how good you are at these kinds of things.
It continues the story on from the introduction, so if you haven't played the introduction yet it won't make much sense.
Here are some pictures:

http://ic.lbp.me/img/ft/35c351c1f33a...51049329be.jpg
http://i6.lbp.me/img/ft/31689f7f94f8...513536d378.jpg
http://i8.lbp.me/img/ft/6e8216fbe794...0c53bf5833.jpg
http://i1.lbp.me/img/ft/9a13f33c074f...c63d9e3278.jpg
http://i4.lbp.me/img/ft/8140c4e9ab6d...a7ce7d85e2.jpg
http://i8.lbp.me/img/ft/e085af178a5d...7f706aa830.jpg
http://i8.lbp.me/img/ft/108cb19f27fd...526a8f0f6b.jpg
http://i6.lbp.me/img/ft/3e6affcc751d...eeba149933.jpg
http://ib.lbp.me/img/ft/0ab2281bfb04...7d928b9b38.jpg

As said before, I sunk six months into this so it would be really appreciated if you could try it.

http://lbp.me/v/h3qtcq

Should add something extremely important-so important it deserves its own post.
This level spans across THREE LEVEL LINKS. Chances are (since SackDroid is super complex), one of them WILL FAIL. If that happens, then just use the "For those who wish to continue their progress..." part of the main menu to go to the level you should have gone to.

This looks amazing! It worries me when people say how long that they have worked on something, I spent a long time making a stage and there is a feeling of worry that all that time may have not been worth it. It's also hard to give feedback in some cases.

It always concerns is when people say it may crash my PS3 (I may not want to even play it), or that level links may not work... or that the thermo is full or that it may lag due to decos.

Firstly I'd hate to be short changed as a creator if a link didn't work and it kicked out a player halfway through my masterwork, so I can understand warning people, level links should work but it is a little out of our control. And adding the level jump/skip in the first room is a great idea.

But I also think that sometimes ambitions can be greater than what can be achieved within LBP. Pushing boundaries is a great thing, but care also needs to be taken not to damage the experience of the player, because the creator didn't think of economical ways to make their creation fit with in the confines of the game engine.

You have in most parts taken this into consideration though, nothing really hiccups, you use simple shapes and decos to keep thermo down and make huge sets in a very economical way, but it does take a very long time to get going, and there is very little that hints at what the game is going to actually be like while you watch the intro, and then watch the second intro in the playable level. The set design, while interesting, also lends nothing to what I think I will be doing. So you are also relying a lot on the players attention span and desire to play this level.

Anyways starting at the first puzzle/room/thing I worked it out pretty quickly (although there was a bit of random grabbing because it was rather dark), and the little tasks and response to the other characters is a nice way to show the game style without major hand holding, but I do wish that it all came sooner and moved a little faster.

But then after very limited control and 10-15 minutes of loading, intro, loading, second cutscene, light switch, cutscene, short flipping test, elevator I hit the level link... and its another loading time.

So, as a player I am wondering if it's worth continuing. You have an interesting story setup but I'm not sure if it's worth my time, I also don't fully understand what I am doing with the triangle icon and flip/time slowing. But I cant go back to work it out because the discussion about it is so deep into the first stage, I have to sit through a lot of cutscene just to see if I missed anything. Anyway... I wandered around and sort of worked stuff out, ended up looking for a super conductor. Started to understand the flip thing, and then thought it would have been nice to see a teleport pad, because you can only flip in specific areas, and would have made more sense me as a player to see a game device like that.

Anyways you have a interesting premise and the story builds nicely, but I do thing that it felt a bit too long especially with getting going. Lots of story without understanding motivations resulted in me passively watching it not knowing who I should be going for. I ended up watching the train thing, wandering about level 7 and then my PS3 crashed. But without being negative about your game (because I haven't really done much gameplay) I don't know my motivations that well and its a question if it's worth continuing, because, although interesting, I still was not at the point of being totally grabbed by the style. More game play upfront and then story unfolding may help this though.

I took the time to write this because I was impressed and do see and understand what you are going for, and it is a game style that I do like, so please don't take this as a negative review, but more of a 'unfiltered thoughts' as I played the level.

First of all, thank you for the most comprehensive review of SackDroid I have received yet. I see you got stuck in the school district. Since that's not even the halfway point, I should tell you some things...

The structure of SackDroid is in four parts (a mercy, it takes up at least seven thermometers). You have played the first part and about half of the second part, so you haven't experienced half of it yet. You already know what the first part's like, and the second part ends when you beat the Station 7 puzzle. Now, here's the good part-SackDroid gets better.

Since it was created over a span of six months, my creation skills improved a LOT since I was making it. If you compare parts 3 and 4 to parts 1 and 2 you'll find that they are generally more detailed, better designed, funnier (or less excruciatingly wooden), and just generally better in all aspects. I know I should have gone back to parts one and two and improved them, but I found them good enough as it is, and six months was already a really long time for some people to wait.

Anyway, just because parts 3 and 4 are better doesn't mean they might be more enjoyable for you. They cutscenes don't let up-in fact, there are more cutscenes, but they are balanced out by more gameplay. The structure of part 3 is long cutscene, then long gameplay. Part 4 is just a really long cutscene. However, the gameplay in part three is exponentially more difficult, involved, and much longer than any gameplay in the previous parts. It takes part in a school (not the school district, the actual school), and it is a sort of "test". Unlike the previous gameplay sections, where the objective is revealed as you go along, this one has the objective revealed at the start. Also, the puzzle is not just "do this and you win", like the previous ones. You have to do a very involved thing, which you will only know how to do by finding information, which is found by doing this, by doing that, etc. The conversations you have with people get a lot more complex as well. It's more like an actual adventure game.

However, the stage is a lot larger too. There are tons of rooms you can go into, and beating the puzzle will require a large amount of exploration. Time consuming is an understatement, and it is quite easy to give up on the whole thing. The set design will not help you-the only thing that will assist you is the information you find, and that won't tell you how to find the other information-that you can only find through lots and lots of exploration. When you beat the segment, I'm not sure how "rewarding it feels". Part 4 contains a lot of cutscenes (the best cutscenes I have ever made, quality-wise) with a lot of story that will make things make more sense, and I thought that would be a nice reward, but now I have doubts.

Anyway, about your criticisms. First, I thought that the player wanting to learn more about the story would drive him through SackDroid, but I guess I am testing people's patience with this. Secondly, I do understand how the lack of motivations or "goals" in the early puzzles would leave the player confused and without a sense of purpose. I thought that having the player just explore around a bit and having the goal be revealed as the player explored would be better, but now I see how it isn't. To be honest, I created the gameplay sections to fit the story, not the other way round. The only reason why the school puzzle in part 3 has its objective revealed at the start is because the story commands it. Did I focus way too much on story? I think so. But then again, I am at heart a movie creator, and maybe I was just trying to make a movie all along.

But still, I really recommend you finish SackDroid. Really, it's all uphill from there on. Everything, as I've said before, just gets better. The cutscenes are better in every way, and the gameplay is more motivated, involved, open, and difficult. I don't really think you can have a full opinion on SackDroid till you've went through all of it. Plus, you'll be the first spotlight crew member to finish this thing-I guess that's a plus.

It's your choice, though.

I got stuck after the first "Flip". I jumped into the boxes on the left and got stuck in between them. I tried to wiggle my way out but the sackbot got crushed and wouldn't respawn. I stopped playing after that because I didn't want to watch the cutscenes again right now.

I will definitely come back again though. I'm really liking what I'm seeing so far. Hoping that the gameplay is good.

Yeah, I really should have bug tested this better. Actually, I should have bug tested this myself instead of asking my friends to do it because I'm a lazy butt.

I'll have a fix up soon.

EDIT: Fixed.

I will probably add a system that will let you skip cutscenes soon, though this will be hard to make so I don't know when it will come on.

Yes, I know I am double posting, but I just added a MAJOR improvement.
Due to SackDroid's stupidly long length, people haven't been able to go to where they left off without having to redo a lot of things. Even with SackDroid split into three parts you can continue off, people still had to go through a ton of stuff before they got to where they left off.
That's why, now I've let you continue off from EIGHT parts. This lets you start off precisely on the section you left off on. Every specific cutscene or gameplay segment can now be accessed from the main menu.
Now, instead of the "For those who wish to continue their progress..." sub-menu looking like this:
http://i2.lbp.me/img/ft/272309f8be6f...964fe56c10.jpg
It now looks like this:
http://ic.lbp.me/img/ft/b8c93f6371b7...15c841285f.jpg
Gone are the days of having to watch a bunch of cutscenes or beat a bunch of puzzles to get to where you were before in SackDroid.
(Note: Just because you can now continue from eight parts does not mean SackDroid spans across eight levels. It still spans across four. I used scoring systems to tell the sub-levels where to put you.)

That sounds like a great addition! I really want to get to the end of this, so I'll be giving it another go.

I did enjoy the story and dialogue - the writing was good and I liked PJ and Bit a lot. :)