Sorry it took me so long to reply, but between my
PC needing a new mobo and Windows reinstall and being busy in real life I didn't have much time to look into it. So...
chevkoch: Downloaded it today planning to just take a brief look, then got hooked and finished it in one go. I really like the game. A well-balanced challenge, a fun blend of platforming and unique budget-based puzzle mechanics.
Thanks. Happy you enjoyed it. Budget-based puzzles is what I initially mainly went for, and those levels that use them are my favourite ones, though as the game developed, I included some platforming/skill based puzzles too.
chevkoch: The last tutorial stage had the difficulty curve abruptly going up a bit too high I found.
I know, and this was the only level-design issue where I think I failed. Or at least wasn't happy with the result. LiefLayer touched upon that too.
Initially the last 2 levels of the tutorial were part of a separate world, preceeded by 2 or 3 easy levels. But then, testers found the initial levels of that world too easy, especially since they followed the tutorial.
Anyway, I moved those last 2 levels a lot, trying them out on different worlds. In the end though I just couldn't find a 100% satisfactory solution for them. I couldn't put them in a separate world; there were just 2 of them. I couldn't think of any good levels to add to them, and I didn't want to just remove them from the game; I liked them: they were very simple but clever; just a tiny change to the second one and you have to solve in a completely different way.
In the end they ended up where they did, and I added more levels in the tutorial before them to try and impress into the player the trick needed to solve them.
After releasing the game, we actually had one reviewer stuck at the tutorial, so that's why we created the tutorial walkthrough video.
Incidentally, ther are some levels that were cut from the game. Initially the tutorial consisted of 4 levels that were identical (a hole in the ground), but in each one you get a different ability so you had to solve the same problem using different abilities. Once we expanded the tutorial we removed those levels, because the testers found they made the tutorial too long. Also there is a final "level" that we used as a placeholder before we had the boss level and the final cutscene done. Those hidden levels are still there, but you have to use the level skip cheat code to reach them. If you're interested I could dig those up.
chevkoch: Also dig what you did for the final level
Thanks. Given that the game was more puzzle based, and you had no weapons, I wasn't sure if I could do a boss level properly. But I liked what we ended up with. It was just hard enough and fitted nicely with the previous levels.
chevkoch: What was used in the development of The Adventures of King Croc, as far as language, tools, etc.?
Gamemaker studio. We chose it because it made it easy to create installers for different platforms, though in the end we only released it for Windows. Though if you're looking for game-development tools, I cannot recommend it with a clear conscience.
I used only the gml language, not the drag-and-drop options it gives. Back then, the language was like a poor man's version of a OO language with C-like syntax. Really limited when it came to data types for example. From what I know though, it was improved lately.
I don't know how it looks from a non-programmer's point of view: they might find the drag-and-drop easier, but I really, really, really wouldn't recommend doing that. Better use the language.
Also, what Gamemaker
is good for is game-jams, where you have a day or 2 to complete a game.
Anyway, this brings me to the next point...
ZFR: Wait a bit for the fixed version then. Maybe on itch.io.
Ghorpm: Fair enough. Let me know when it's released
Seeing how we created that in a 5+ years old of Gamemaker, there are some obsolete functions. It will take some time to update the source code, and since I'm unfortunately a bit busy at the moment if I do it, it won't be in the near future.
So if you want to play it go ahead and download one of the two versions I posted.