Universal Return of the Zombie King (by Chris Zukowski)

Good point about including them in the App Description. That definitely made me smile when I heard it.

 

I'm having the exact same issue. After three days stuck, Level 717 has been unpassable for me so far. I've maxed everything and now have 150.000 in the bank from all my attempts. I know it is supposed to be randomly generated but I'm having the same exact problem as Cole Daddy describes above. On my best runs, waiting out or jumping the flame pits and sacrificing all armor to the fire balls, I'm still coming up 3-5 energy points short of the goal. I have updated and still no luck.

 

Ok the contagion is spreading... Just as I feared. I will see what I can do for the next update.

 

W7l7

So I feel so bad about how long you all have been stuck on this level I went back to try it again and was able to beat it fairly consistently. I made a very long animated gif of my run.

Does this look like the level you have been struggling with? Note the levels are randomly generated but each one is sourced from 30 common "chunks" so most of it should look familiar.

My general tip for this level is stay on the ground and just let the fireballs hit you. I even set myself on fire a couple times (in other runs, not the one pictured) and still made it to the end.

 

The elements are the same but the ordering is different on my game.

In mine the first obstacle is a stone platform with a a pair of flame grates at the end. This is followed by a stone to jump over leading to two sets of double flame grates. It can be a brutal start. Following your above advice I'm still under half health by the time I'm halfway through the level unless I get extremely lucky with the flame pattern and don't have to jump over any of them.

 

This is my favorite indie game in the last week. It's so simple at first. But then I catch myself playing it for a cool hour plus each day. Highly recommended if you like runners with a cool hint of mixed genre.

 

Thanks man! That really means a lot to me. Let me know if you have any other suggestions or what you want more of.

 

"Yes! I finally completed the infamous level 717 and have moved on to 8xx!
" - Glad to hear. You probably have a ton of cash and nothing to spend it on.... Keep your game around, there might be an update soon where that money will be super valuable. So don't delete your save or anything ....

 

Hi

Nice game! Classic Nintendo platforming on the go without the senseless need to hold down right on the d-pad.

A few issues you might want to address -

1. If you finish a level you get your first hit bonus at the point you were hit, but if you die in a level you get the bonus awarded at your point of death. This makes for easy cash if you just keep dying over and over 100-200m into a level.

The fix for this is obvious, however I don't think it's completely broken and personally prefer it this way. I think instead of a "first hit" bonus you should just make it into a "distance traveled" bonus and just hike up the cost for each level of advancement. The reason I say this is because I felt like this cheaty method of making $$ kept the upgrades flowing at a comfortable rate, whereas if I had made income much slower I don't know if I would have bothered progressing so far in the game.

2. A pause button would be great but isn't really necessary.... I would much prefer just a death button at the top of the screen, something you can tap like twice in the space of a second to insta-kill yourself and go back to the menu. There's too many times where i get stuck bouncing along or mess up my run too early where I would just like to start over immediately, not wait for the stuck detection to trigger or energy to run out.

3. Speaking of menus, a back button would be awesome. It sucks to get stuck doing a level I didn't really mean to select.

4. Level 9-4.
OMG. It's probably doable as I once died within half an inch of the finish mark but 40 attempts later and I'm still at it. Even minimising my jumping by utilizing my shields and boots to preserve my energy isn't enough. Unless there's another way and I'm doing it wrong, it's those under-spiked concrete blocks that lead into a dirt wall that drain my energy in jumps and ruin all my hard work dodging purple plant spit. Also, collision on purple plant spit seems to be off.

I did just read that your levels are generated in chunks though so maybe if it's possible a scramble button could appear on the store screen that lets you generate a new level after a dozen failed attempts? I think that would be a good solution because not only might it generate a passable level BUT it would also feel like you're getting a new/free level to play. I'm sure 95% of people aren't going to replay the game again from the beginning so the random generation isn't really getting as utilized as much as it could be anyways. Even making the scramble cost gold would be good, as it could make use of a failed player's endlessly growing wealth.

5. More cosmetic tiles!

The graphics are great but it does feel kind of repetitive when it's 30 levels of the same look in a row, especially because I'm repeating those 30 levels an average of 5 times a piece. Even slight re-colors would go a long way to help with the feeling of progression.

6. Upgrade progression feels pretty good right up unto the point it stops. I know you never meant for the player to make so much money so quick through the exploitation of the first-hit upgrade, but honestly just increasing your coin collection rate is not exciting enough when compared to the earlier upgrades that either do cool things or grant new abilities. Perhaps some cosmetic chests that add a new look via masks or particle effects later in the game would keep things fun.


Anyways as lengthy as this message has been I have had a good, 5-star experience with your title as is. Everything comes together well to make a solid experience where the joy of playing far outweighs the few frustrating moments and lack of simple features. Thanks for the game!

 

What great feedback I really appreciate it and I will be taking this into consideration (and I am not just saying that.)

Wish you were on my beta test.

 

I don't know which level this is, part of the words are hidden behind a hill when I start, but it's 2 levels before the last treasure chest. The one where you're going uphill and getting hit with fireballs. I've been trying this for days and no matter what I do, run out of energy about 3/4 through. There's a place where you have to jump up the walls pretty far to get out, which is what's using my energy, is there a trick to this level I'm missing??? I've tried to go around this part, but that doesn't always work either!

 

Hey no problem! For the most part, I feel like the growth of the gaming industry has seen what was once a imaginative, fun and challenging form of entertainment become twisted into an ugly beast of little value. It was a nice surprise to take a risk on your title to find it both charming and enjoyable to play. It's titles like this that keep me checking back on the medium every now and then rather than just forsake it completely, so I hope you find continued success!

Also I scraped my way through 9-4 after another 3 dozen attempts and have been making reasonable progress since! It does become very challenging in the later part of the game, with almost as much relying on the right conditions (as far as enemy/obstacle timing and placement goes) as it does the player being 95% on point with their actions. I've come this far now so I'm determined to see it through, but I wonder if others would feel the same... so I totally still think a scramble feature would do a lot to alleviate the extreme difficulty of some of the layouts.

 

Yeah that would be the 9|4 level I was stuck on for ages. To finally complete it after like 50+ attempts I had to limit my jumping to the bare minimum, use the half-jump to boost off the mushrooms under the railings, bounce off certain plant heads but not others, choose when to take hits and use up my shields instead of dodging fireballs and rely on the boots instead of ever jumping over spikes... and even then it took a lot of luck to finish with 1 heart. I found that if I ever got to halfway with less than 22 hearts (1 row +4) and no shields then I would just get stuck on purpose and restart.

Oh also in that wall jumping part I tried to do big jumps so I would jump on and off the top of the concrete walls (1 normal jump, 1 wall jump and 1 normal jump off the brick ledge) in an attempt to use less energy than doing 1 normal jump and 2 wall jumps. Not sure if that even actually helped conserve energy but that's what I did lol.

 

I am working on an update now where you can buy a temporary invulnerability. It basically is a mario star at the start of the level. It is going to be quite expensive so you cant use it for every level. Best used for the really hard ones.

 

Cool, that should definitely help... but I bet you're really underestimating how much gold I've accumulated #

 

I went the low road, used my armour to run through most of the imps and used ground spikes as a boost to get up ledges rather than jump them. Other than that I just minimised my jumping and hopes the fires gave me a good run. If I get burnt once I can finish it but twice and it's over.

The next level I can't get through... so many slimes. Even if their weren't any slimes I'm still not sure I can finish it, it's such a long level!!