Play game
PANDORA: Legion of Two's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #13 | 3.525 | 3.525 |
| Made Me Think | #16 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Compelling Gameplay | #16 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Stylish Visuals | #16 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Appealing Theme | #21 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Satisfying Interactions | #21 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I went back and played again because I think this is a cool project and it has a lot of potential. I'm a big Gears of War and Company of Heroes fan and PANDORA feels like it fits right in the middle.
Gameplay:
I already mentioned the controls in my other comment and I still feel the same way. Sprinting always shows the throw grenade cursor which is kind of odd from a gameplay standpoint. Right clicking directly on a cover should make the second character go to that cover (right now you have to click behind it).
Give me some indication of which character I'm controlling. Both on the character and by the health bar would be nice. I wasn't getting confused while playing but it would make the gameplay more clear. It would also benefit streamers/content creators who have viewers that aren't playing the game themselves.
A lot of the maps aren't very fun. Maybe I just don't have the skillset yet but they seemed like they were set up to be challenging instead of rewarding. One of my previous games had the same problem and all of my playtesters said the tutorial was more fun than the main map.
The enemy AI is just an obstacle to the player. They take cover between the player and the objective and mostly sit there. They often take very dangerous routes to their end position instead of moving cover to cover. I think this is good for some enemies but I would like to see something more as the game progresses.
I would like to see more depth added to the cover gameplay but I don't know exactly what this game needs. In Gears of War every player starts with a rifle and a shotgun. Players try to out angle each other with their rifles while also trying to get close enough to use their shotguns. The close range combat is surprisingly technical and the cover is used for player movement instead of protection.
More bugs:
The red cursor is often wrong. I also never saw the out of range specific red cursor.
There seems to be a reload bug with the heavy machine guns. I think there are some actions that cancel the reload but I couldn't figure out exactly what I was doing wrong. This needs to read better in general but it should also cancel the reload sound effects. I've also had completed reloads not refill my ammo and I've ended up in states where I can't reload my gun at all. Spamming left mouse and R to reload seems to maybe cause issues. The friendly AI also doesn't seem to know how to fire HMGs. These are the best weapons in the game for virtually every encounter right now but they don't work consistently.
Telling my buddy to hold caused the game to crash on 2 different occasions. In both cases it was when he was holding a HMG but wasn't firing.
Switching characters back and forth while one of them is auto-moving seems to have some weird behavior at least some of the time. Having your controlled character die and then auto-switching to the second character while they were auto-moving felt bad most of the time.
The enemy can sometimes stand off the edge of the screen when zoomed out. Zooming in seems to show more of the map around the edges.
Moving my character along the edges of environmental objects feels bad for me but it's probably just a skill issue.
I got my character stuck in the trees one time. I don't know if it was a bug with the game or if there's a part of the level that needs a little bit of adjustment.
There were a few maps where I couldn't find the end. I wasn't sure if I had to capture the flag or run off the edge of the screen like the other missions. There were no prompts that I could see.
Holding left mouse to precision aim and then canceling the aim with sprint causes a few bugs. Your precision continues to increase during the sprint and then after the sprint is complete it makes the shooting behave strangely.
Character footsteps cause a little dust cloud or something but it's always an unnatural color.
Video:
This was my third time playing the game and I'm just testing mechanics and looking for bugs. This was the furthest I've gotten so all the levels were new to me.
Gears of War close range shotgun fights.
Hey mate
Thank you so much for the detailed post and the recording, this helps a lot.
I have a lot of things in my list and finally some time to fix a few things or try them differently.
For the maps: which one was "fun"/rewarding?
Maybe i can use that as an example to add more similar ones. Right now all are meant to have a tactical way of finishing them (there are usually combinations if environmental features and specific enemy placements that allow for a step by step approach. But maybe that's not clear enough.
The mg bug with he companion is really odd, j must have introduced this while fixing something else, as it worked before.
I will let you know once a new version is up and would love to get your input for that again and hopeful made the experience more fun.
I think the first handful of levels were very fun. I had a lot of opportunity to make my own decisions and find a playstyle that worked for me. The later levels started to feel like I was forced to play a certain way (again, I may just not have the skillset to see my options).
Here are a few videos that reshaped my thinking on level design. Maybe there's something in there that you find useful too.
Tips for open level design:
Your levels are essentially puzzles for the player to solve:
Awesome
I went and fixed the major bugs, so with the companion now being able to use all weapons properly, the levels should be easier.
I will study the gdc talk you sent and rework some levels and add many more.
Thanks so much again!
Very cool experience and great concept. The gunplay is very punishing but I think there's absolutely a market for this type of game. The visuals are great and the combat feels extremely intense and rewarding. I think the early game might be a bit too difficult for new players overall but that's something you can continue to balance over time.
Input:
The controls were kind of strange and some actions required bizarre combos. Let me right click to aim, g for grenade, v for melee, etc. C to pick up grenades is weird and shift plus double left click to throw is really cumbersome. Shooting while sprinting would also be nice.
Audio:
The directional audio seemed too extreme. I like the effect but something just off center sounded really far to the side. Character footsteps have a weird echo even in open areas. No footstep audio while sprinting in the early game but it seemed to work later on. Solider footstep sounds are overwhelming. Music stopped in some areas but there were no atmospheric sound effects to make the environments feel alive.
Camera:
The manual camera zoom felt kind of unnecessary and zoomed in/out too slowly to be that useful for me. Different zoom levels also seem to have different image clarity. The camera panning also needs some work. I didn't use it very often except by accident.
Gameplay:
I think the cover mechanic is great but it still felt a little clunky. I don't really know how to improve it but I sometimes felt like I should be in cover but still got hit. Maybe it's just a readability thing. Enemy cover usage also felt just a little off and suppressed enemies could sometimes still shoot me. The AI in general needs a little more attention. They never tried to flush me out of cover and trading shots back and forth felt a bit random. Maybe I'm missing something though. Ranged shooting is trivially easy compared to close range.
Getting a second character to control was kind of awesome. I didn't think it would work but after a few tries I could see why you added it. I never won a level if my buddy died so I don't know if there's revive or any kind of combo abilities but I think those would both be cool features. Multiplayer would be truly amazing but I don't know how much effort that would take.
Bugs:
I'm on an ultrawide and the first time I played the game was all screwed up. It seemed to resolve itself after I reloaded the first checkpoint. I had a few cases where multiple prompts covered each other up. The game crashed to desktop twice when I told my teammate to hold. My teammate entered a state where he couldn't shoot (not related to hold fire). I had a reload bug that wouldn't let me complete the reload. I also experienced some input bugs with holding left mouse to shoot sometimes not firing on release or staying precise after releasing the button.
The Things I Really Liked
Wow...this is actually pretty neat. I love the art style and visuals, the theme you have going here is rather intriguing. The sound design is also really good for this kind of game, it is right in line with how I would expect the sound design to be but somehow better in some places even. I like that right away you are given the run down on the basics, and for a game like this I would expect some level of mini-tutorials if you will that direct you on things as you go along. Your game does it well, and not in a way that I would consider annoying. It took me a minute to figure out that not everything could be picked up with a button, and you actually just had to run over some things to pick them up. The shooting is impactful and combat is satisfying, I like the hold left mouse feature to shoot more powerful shots for guns. The combat itself is actually pretty challenging in some aspects where if you decide to run in a group of enemies like an idiot you will die instantly, which I like. It emphasizes on the tactical aspect well (finding cover, outmaneuvering enemies, etc). AI is great by the way, they absolutely want you dead and make no distinction otherwise. The auto crouching is a really neat feature and I quite enjoyed that aspect of the tactical side of things. I especially enjoy the explosions, blood, and gore effects you got going here for your style of game.
The Things I Did Not Like
At first I did not know you could zoom in and out with your camera view, but man, it's pretty jarring when zoomed in anywhere close to the player. I feel like the zooming levels should take into account the sensitivity of the camera movement to make it smooth, but right now that is just not there at all. I've seen some other games that have this issue with this sort of camera perspective or a similar one, but here it is pretty jarring if I am being honest. The part where I got to pick up the molotov (the camp area I guess it was) I was genuinely confused with how the camera was behaving. Maybe start with it more zoomed out at least so I can see where my player is at? There were even some instances like when I came across the propaganda tower that I actually didn't even know where I was on the screen because my camera was centered on my cursor off in the middle of the level. Something like arrows showing where your player is actually at on the screen would be nice. The main problem is it just moves too quick and is all over the place between the zoom levels, the following the cursor location, and figuring out where your player is at on the level when manipulating the camera at times. The interaction text above some objects that ended up being in the way of my camera view of player was a bit annoying, but something I could look past for my first play session. I can't help but think there's gotta be something less obstructive that you could do for that though. Lastly, I had a hard time pausing your game - it worked but only if I spammed the P key I think it was? And it was very delayed to show up when I did that, so not sure what was going on there.
Other Random Thoughts
I thought it was odd you could not destroy the propaganda tower with grenades and instead go to walk over it to get rid of it. Unless I was missing something there. I really want to blow those things up.
Final Verdict
Overall, it's really fun and I quite enjoyed it. I was actually surprised by the quality you have here, and it's something I genuinely want more of in a final game version. I would pay for a finished version of something like this for sure. Excited to see the updates.
Hey, I will drop my feedback below:
Unfortunately it seems you need a 16:9 ratio like 1080p to enjoy it in the intended experience.
Thanks so much again for feedback on my game. I made a first-impressions video for you as well. Hope it's useful for you and keep up the good work!
Hey I played your game! I already had a bias for it because it kinda reminds me of a old online pc game called Soldat haha.
Very fun, especially when I got both characters. Multiple moments where I successfully flanked groups and used cover fire deliberately to approach and that felt great. And using the partner was easy which I think is impressive. I think there was only one time I had trouble with the partner AI/path finding, and it might've been just me trying to move him urgently out of a narrow path cause a group was closing in and mortars were raining down haha.
The only real frustration I had was using the WASD controls, mostly with how important and constant running was and holding Shift didn't feel intuitive to use to me. Could definitely be a personal/skill issue, and also easily fixed with button remapping.
There's a few minor thoughts I have, and if you want to hear them I'll post them on your project thread in the discord. But I think overall this game hits the notes it needs to if you are going for a small scoped feel.
Weirdly didn't have a lot of the issues some of the other comments mention, maybe the game just likes my laptop lol.
Thanks so much for playing!
I remember soldat as well, was hilariously fun when playing with friends.
I would really love to hear any thoughts that might help improving the game.
Especially regarding controls.
I played a lot of Counterstrike when i was younger, so holding Shift feels naturally for a sprint (i think CoD and other FPS also still do this).
Which other Button would you map it to, out of curiousity?
I think the graphical issues are a result of me still using Gamemaker 8.1 for this project :D (started it over 16 years ago and then abondened it for 12 years just to come back to it last year).
The "engine" (all the different mechanics and functions i have programmed in over the time) allows for much more stuff, like making it more RTS like (Dawn of War, CoH, Men at War like) where you could control a group of mercenaries, etc.
So this project is small scoped to get all the bugs and friction out.
Thanks again for playing.
Hey everyone, thanks so much for playing.
I do have an important request to help fix the display:
IF YOU PLAY, please leave a comment of your Screen Resolution and tell me if the levels are "one screen" or if you can move around with the mouse and the level feels zoomed in (except the resistance camp, which is zoomed in intentionally).
It should also all look super crisp (on my laptop at 1920x1080 it looks pixel perfect, but i have seen in the video of someone playing that it looked a bit messed up). If not, please definitely leave you resolution here.
i played the game and left my feedback on the discord!
Cool idea and nice art! I found it very difficult to control the aiming, and had a sense it was a bit buggy; sometimes it would be really slow to respond, sometimes faster. I think with a little bit more juice on that (some extra sound + clear animation) I think it would help a lot. In the level with the radio tower, I was helpless, until I had cover behind a barrel; for some reason I could snipe all the dudes while in cover, and they couldn't hit me; maybe this is a bug? I thought in cover I can't hit anyone. Lastly, I thought, maybe it could make sense to cover but still throw nades/molotov, but I think that's impossible? Nice job and good luck!!
Thanks Mate for playing.
Love the concept of STEEB as well :)
It woudl eb so good to see a recording to judge whether its buggy or my major lack of communicating mechanics (Tutorial). I am saying this, as i can literally speed run the game without dying until level 10 or so. So for me i felt it was too easy. So any recommendations of better "teaching" would be great.
I think the aiming sound/animation is a good idea, havent thought about that yet, but sounds like a good idea.
When you crouch behind a barrel and dont move/dont press the mouse to aim, you are actually invincible towards that direction. Similar to an enemy.
You can throw Grenades at any time and it actually doesnt even count as "standing up", so you will stay invincible behind cover when tossing a grenade out.
When you shoot or "aim/focus" (hold down the mouse to increase accuracy) you stand up behind cover and become vulnerable, but the cover still has a chance of blocking the incoming shots (or actually the enemy has a chance to hit the cover instead of you). So timing the enemy reload down time to stand up and focus is key.
Thanks for playing, and if you ever feel like recording a 10 minute session i am sure i can learn a lot more.
I am travelling for business currently, so can´t record playsessions, but will do the same for STEEB, when i get the occassion.
Awesome idea, but the execution seems too messy and takes a lot out the of enjoyment. There's a ton of audio clips triggering and stacking multiple times. Audio source somehow seems to be 3d but the game is 2d, so there's a ton of noise jumping from one ear to another but you don't need 3d environmental awareness is a 2d game so is super distracting. The UI is all over the place and the tutorials constantly pausing the game are not ideal. The camera follow the cursor so you tend to lose the player character, is better of it just follows the character. The zooming in at the camp is way to harsh and unnecessary. Somehow you can end with negative grenades. The crosshair changing color is no clear enough to know if I can hit an enemy, so most of the time I just depend on grenades but once I run out all that is left is just suicide attempts against a bunch of enemies that quickly overwhelm you. There's a lot of polishing needed but I think the overall idea works really well. Try to look for other game references with this style to get the proper game feel. With proper tuning this could be a great game.
Thanks so much for playing and your comment.
Would love to have a recording of your playthrough to see the issues first hand.
If you still have 5 mins, check the gameplay video here:
And let me know if the combat "makes more sense" after watching it, or if situations you struggled in were solved differently.
I know the biggest problem is getting the tutorial and difficulty curve right, so any extra comment would be great.