- pressing up when start is selected doesnt go to quit (it does wrap around fine in options)
- the white zig zag in menu looks choppy as if the game is running at 30fps (not a good first impression !!), it should probably be as smooth as the background (it also doesnt loop properly and "snaps" into position eventually)
- boosting into a group of enemies creates a giant white circle? it feels like a bug, since id assume thats the intended way of handling the enemies, but its really easy to get hit once youre out of boost and cant see anything (seeing in code that its not a bug, is the third wave with 8 enemies spawning next to eachother meant to be like "see what happens when you kill too many dudes? dont do that"? if yes then i learned that lesson only now)
- boosting hitbox for killing enemies being centered on the exhaust is unintuitive and makes me wonder why do i get hit when i release boost right as i passed over an enemy
- after realizing the hitbox is centered on the exhaust and being disgruntled with taking damage when shmooving i found the Secret Strategy of just staying still and rotating to tap boost into enemies (including the big guy, dies in 2? boost ticks), other enemies requiring either simple mag dumping (the guy with a laser pointer) or just charging straight (the guy with a circle). clearly unintentional, but with no incentive to keep moving then its going to be the optimal strategy (its still fun tho)
- no idea what the guy with a circle does even after intentionally letting him live and just trying to figure him out. the laser pointer guy i can easily assume does bad stuff to me if he holds the laser on me long enough
- the boss warning screen is way too noisy and makes me squint even when i know its coming, definitely should be toned down (at least as an accesibility feature)
- no idea what the boss does when its in the phase that looks like a spore cell stage creature. theres no feedback on it being shot or being boosted through, something like the guy squirming or squinting his eye when youre doing the right thing would be nice (or just a health bar) (the other phase is very clear on what has to be done)
- since theres no incentive to kill all enemies, boosting into a lot of them (0:19 in second vid) leads to an equal lot of effects and slowdown, might be nice to tone it down when theres too many kills in a short amount of time
---
all in all game is fun, looks good (boss looks really good), sounds good, the way the level circles change size is fun, even if its the same way every time. if you play as intended (boosting and trying to clear the room) its kinda hard to not get hit, with the Secret Strategy its pretty easy. both approaches result in the giant white circles and running out of boost, but if you wait until more enemies spawn theres just less chances to get hit, and you dont lose out on anything by waiting (other than time...). i saw in the code that the next wave of enemies spawns both after some time has passed or enough enemies have been killed, so honestly even just visualizing that might be enough prevent player from just waiting.
obv theres plenty of other ways to encourage more active playstyle (unkillable projectiles, enemies dropping stuff, random stuff just appearing, death zones you have to move out of, more currency to spend in a shop between stages, etc) so im sure hoping theres gonna be something more to it eventually.
also consider making the trail circles that appear behind player have slightly randomized size and lifetime, can look much better when its not just a constant snake behind you
That's just a bug with the UI atm, it's because the big rectangle with text to the right is also a UI element in the hud. It's supposed to skip to the next selectable element (quit) but it doesn't. It'll be fixed by the last release of the demo.
Not sure why that's happening, the menu in general seems choppy and I'm not sure why. Once again I'll try to fix it.
The giant white circle isn't a bug - It's a deliberate feature. Boosting into 5 enemies within the same boost creates an explosion that kills all enemies within it. Really it should also make the player invincible or something, and have better effects.
Shouldn't be centered, that's weird. Thanks for letting me know.
I'm still not sure how much of a problem this is, because there are enemies that home in on the player and there'll be more enemies later on that do more complex things. If I was to dump a lot of enemies that get up in your face at the beginning of the first level, then the already niche asteroids style controls coupled with it not giving you chance to learn will make it a pain, and may turn people off. I'm gonna have to think about it.
Argh, more forgetful things... The enemy with a circle shields enemies within it and can only be killed by boosting (boost killable enemies signaled by the white outline, like the boss-orbs). There *WAS* an effect for this, but clearly it's somehow broken. The laser pointer guy shoots a laser that instantly overheats your ship. At first it was way too aggressive, so I made it stop charging the laser when you boost. That clearly doesn't work though because it just dies before it can do anything.
Yup sound effects are all kind of crap right now... I'm likely going to replace them all. It makes me squint too.
The spore creature phase is just "shoot it until it shields itself again", there's no health bar yet, I probably should have added it before pushing this demo build really, I'll make it a priority.
This has been mentioned before, it looks like slowdown but it's a deliberate freeze frame. I'm starting to think it just doesn't look that good if people interpret it at slowdown.
This is all super helpful, thanks for the in depth feedback! There's lots of little things I need to write down so I don't keep forgetting to look into them. I think there's probably better ways to incentivise movement other than lobbing lots of enemies at the player, pickups and things sound cool or death zones... I'll have to think about it. There'll definitely be more eventually - the plan is to have 3-5 levels and some extra content (and stuff to incentivize replaying those levels). I'm also really glad the boss seems fun and somewhat intuitive, I was worried it didn't look very good visually too lol
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https://litter.catbox.moe/3fxsce.mp4 - first run that got to the boss
https://litter.catbox.moe/15xu30.mp4 - second boss encounter (with a lil help of getting to it)
general notes in order of noticing the thing:
- pressing up when start is selected doesnt go to quit (it does wrap around fine in options)
- the white zig zag in menu looks choppy as if the game is running at 30fps (not a good first impression !!), it should probably be as smooth as the background (it also doesnt loop properly and "snaps" into position eventually)
- boosting into a group of enemies creates a giant white circle? it feels like a bug, since id assume thats the intended way of handling the enemies, but its really easy to get hit once youre out of boost and cant see anything (seeing in code that its not a bug, is the third wave with 8 enemies spawning next to eachother meant to be like "see what happens when you kill too many dudes? dont do that"? if yes then i learned that lesson only now)
- boosting hitbox for killing enemies being centered on the exhaust is unintuitive and makes me wonder why do i get hit when i release boost right as i passed over an enemy
- after realizing the hitbox is centered on the exhaust and being disgruntled with taking damage when shmooving i found the Secret Strategy of just staying still and rotating to tap boost into enemies (including the big guy, dies in 2? boost ticks), other enemies requiring either simple mag dumping (the guy with a laser pointer) or just charging straight (the guy with a circle). clearly unintentional, but with no incentive to keep moving then its going to be the optimal strategy (its still fun tho)
- no idea what the guy with a circle does even after intentionally letting him live and just trying to figure him out. the laser pointer guy i can easily assume does bad stuff to me if he holds the laser on me long enough
- the boss warning screen is way too noisy and makes me squint even when i know its coming, definitely should be toned down (at least as an accesibility feature)
- no idea what the boss does when its in the phase that looks like a spore cell stage creature. theres no feedback on it being shot or being boosted through, something like the guy squirming or squinting his eye when youre doing the right thing would be nice (or just a health bar) (the other phase is very clear on what has to be done)
- since theres no incentive to kill all enemies, boosting into a lot of them (0:19 in second vid) leads to an equal lot of effects and slowdown, might be nice to tone it down when theres too many kills in a short amount of time
---
all in all game is fun, looks good (boss looks really good), sounds good, the way the level circles change size is fun, even if its the same way every time. if you play as intended (boosting and trying to clear the room) its kinda hard to not get hit, with the Secret Strategy its pretty easy. both approaches result in the giant white circles and running out of boost, but if you wait until more enemies spawn theres just less chances to get hit, and you dont lose out on anything by waiting (other than time...). i saw in the code that the next wave of enemies spawns both after some time has passed or enough enemies have been killed, so honestly even just visualizing that might be enough prevent player from just waiting.
obv theres plenty of other ways to encourage more active playstyle (unkillable projectiles, enemies dropping stuff, random stuff just appearing, death zones you have to move out of,
more currency to spend in a shop between stages, etc) so im sure hoping theres gonna be something more to it eventually.also consider making the trail circles that appear behind player have slightly randomized size and lifetime, can look much better when its not just a constant snake behind you
This is all helpful, thanks!
to go through each point 1 by 1:
This is all super helpful, thanks for the in depth feedback! There's lots of little things I need to write down so I don't keep forgetting to look into them. I think there's probably better ways to incentivise movement other than lobbing lots of enemies at the player, pickups and things sound cool or death zones... I'll have to think about it. There'll definitely be more eventually - the plan is to have 3-5 levels and some extra content (and stuff to incentivize replaying those levels). I'm also really glad the boss seems fun and somewhat intuitive, I was worried it didn't look very good visually too lol