- lightly pushing the analog stick can remove in a very goofy slow-mo walk cycle and extreme foot-sliding. nothing major but funny
- testing out those slopes, you might want to have a dedicated "sliding off" (or just the falling state) for when the slope is too extreme
- saving and loading is great, good job. but enemies doing their death animation again is obviously funny. my guess is you can avoid that by just despawning already-dead enemies. or spawning them into a state where they're already on their fully dead keyframe, instead of doing their death anim again.
- i think enemies should have a clear tell when they die. Either a distinct (universal) sound effect or an animation. i always find myself shooting enemies once or twice after they already died because i wasnt sure yet
- do headshots matter?
- game seems mostly designed for controllers. I believe the current aiming speed curve is linear? it feels that way. Anyway it's uncomfortable, because the minimum speed is too fast and the maximum speed (pushing the stick against the edge) is not fast enough. should be more like an exponential curve or something
- i LOVE the little particle effects that only show up with your flashlight
- crouching seems to mostly make robots miss their shots, probably unintended
- you might want to have some kind of damace fall-off range for the gun, to make cheesing enemies from far away less reliable
- great vibe as always. you should add reverb zones in big interiors. would give your laser shots even more intensity
Not much survival horror gameplay yet to comment on, tons of good looking assets though. At some point I realized there's no point in running around, but I kept going because I wanted to see everything.
It's not clear that "Esc" button in pet evolution tree screen is a button. To me it seemed like a prompt to press Escape on keyboard, and when that didn't work I didn't know what to do.
the main menu button don't really have enough contrast. light green text over aqua or yellow buttons just doesn't pop up enough, making them hard to read. i like the samurai attack pattern, but right now they just basically land every hit against you. to avoid taking damage every single time you face one, they should have a chance to miss you imho. i really like the idea of an arcade cabinet save station! yeah i also noticed that there is no way to heal yourself, maybe enemy drops? the boss at the end isn't very threatening at all, you can just shoot him from afar and he can't do anything about it
-On the main menu, the keyboard button focus is independent of the mouse, so two options can be highlighted simultaneously.
-You can toggle right/left shoulder even while not aiming, I don't think that's good. It is fine when the flashlight is up, since it changes sides you can tell you did it, but without it there's no way to tell, which may cause confusion when you aim.
-Dust particles from flashlight could use some alpha so they fade out. Looks bad when it just pops out of existence randomly even when aiming still. Or so I'd think it'd look better.
-Went out by the Exit sign. You could really cord off some dead level area. Spent 5+ minutes walking in the outer darkness because the hallways kept going. Restarting. Oh look at that, there was another path with some enemies inside the starter room.
-Figured out that feeding the guy bigger food meant more energy to shoot, which is neat. Though I wonder, since you can feed him so much food as it's infinite, how the added challenge of waiting for energy regen over spamming food will feel in the real game, and whether that would be less fun.
-I found a save point, but I died and I guess it was fake. Also what's up with the HP, where is it? Doesn't feel great to not know my health.
-Ran past enemies and I made it up a ramp with cation tape at the top, but I can't do anything? Guess that's the end. I run back down and then I see there's another arcade thing I could enter, so I guess got tricked by the outer darkness walking again. Regardless, I die right after walking inside it.
-Oh I see the glowy collar is health I guess? It's light blue after respawning and was pink before. Think it may be more obvious if it starts to turn off the panels as health goes down(so it looks more like a health bar). Also as far as I can tell there's no way to heal in the demo.
-The fact you can't walk through dead samurais is maybe a problem, they could say block the way through a mandatory doorway.
-Got back to the arcade, nvm it's a deadend. I go back up the ramp and all I find are a few samurai. Guess that's it for real.
Thank you for all the comments on things you noticed. Really appreciate it.
In the final version of the game you won't have infinite food to feed your pet. I should probably make it more obvious that the DD builds I'm pushing are basically just my testing area.
There is no way to heal in the demo. And I did consider modifying the health bar to kind of go down to the left instead of just change colors. I definitely will add this.
Every other critique you made I can't really say anything to other than I will be working on that lol. Thanks again for playing; this feedback is invaluable.
Comments
video:
tl;dw there is just too much going on and it all feels disconnected
enemy bum rushed me before i could even finish reading the controls
on screen prompts for ui/interactions maybe
the tomogatchi stuff feels too esoteric, like i need a third eye to understand it, i had no idea how to upgrade the pet or what it even did
couldn't heal but i liked her jacket showing hp that's actually cool
i know its early indev but everything just felt too strung out
Yeah. These demos all so far have been extremely early and basically just my test area for making sure things I coded work.
Next DD I think I'll finally have something cohesive for people to play (and potentially get a taste of the narrative as well).
Thank you for playing!
I like the colors and the shooting controls, and feeding my tomagochi pizza and cleaning up his shit.
This vod will disappear soon but in case you want to see a retard play your game:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2718294505?t=1h38m23s
Thank you ninja game dev. I hope your game sells a bajillion.
- lightly pushing the analog stick can remove in a very goofy slow-mo walk cycle and extreme foot-sliding. nothing major but funny
- testing out those slopes, you might want to have a dedicated "sliding off" (or just the falling state) for when the slope is too extreme
- saving and loading is great, good job. but enemies doing their death animation again is obviously funny. my guess is you can avoid that by just despawning already-dead enemies. or spawning them into a state where they're already on their fully dead keyframe, instead of doing their death anim again.
- i think enemies should have a clear tell when they die. Either a distinct (universal) sound effect or an animation. i always find myself shooting enemies once or twice after they already died because i wasnt sure yet
- do headshots matter?
- game seems mostly designed for controllers. I believe the current aiming speed curve is linear? it feels that way. Anyway it's uncomfortable, because the minimum speed is too fast and the maximum speed (pushing the stick against the edge) is not fast enough. should be more like an exponential curve or something
- i LOVE the little particle effects that only show up with your flashlight
- crouching seems to mostly make robots miss their shots, probably unintended
- you might want to have some kind of damace fall-off range for the gun, to make cheesing enemies from far away less reliable
- great vibe as always. you should add reverb zones in big interiors. would give your laser shots even more intensity
Not much survival horror gameplay yet to comment on, tons of good looking assets though. At some point I realized there's no point in running around, but I kept going because I wanted to see everything.
It's not clear that "Esc" button in pet evolution tree screen is a button. To me it seemed like a prompt to press Escape on keyboard, and when that didn't work I didn't know what to do.
the main menu button don't really have enough contrast. light green text over aqua or yellow buttons just doesn't pop up enough, making them hard to read.
i like the samurai attack pattern, but right now they just basically land every hit against you. to avoid taking damage every single time you face one, they should have a chance to miss you imho.
i really like the idea of an arcade cabinet save station!
yeah i also noticed that there is no way to heal yourself, maybe enemy drops?
the boss at the end isn't very threatening at all, you can just shoot him from afar and he can't do anything about it
Very nice overall atmosphere and graphics.
Personally, I don't like it when there's smoothness to the camera movement, especially in games where you use it to aim.
-On the main menu, the keyboard button focus is independent of the mouse, so two options can be highlighted simultaneously.
-You can toggle right/left shoulder even while not aiming, I don't think that's good. It is fine when the flashlight is up, since it changes sides you can tell you did it, but without it there's no way to tell, which may cause confusion when you aim.
-Dust particles from flashlight could use some alpha so they fade out. Looks bad when it just pops out of existence randomly even when aiming still. Or so I'd think it'd look better.
-Went out by the Exit sign. You could really cord off some dead level area. Spent 5+ minutes walking in the outer darkness because the hallways kept going. Restarting. Oh look at that, there was another path with some enemies inside the starter room.
-Figured out that feeding the guy bigger food meant more energy to shoot, which is neat. Though I wonder, since you can feed him so much food as it's infinite, how the added challenge of waiting for energy regen over spamming food will feel in the real game, and whether that would be less fun.
-I found a save point, but I died and I guess it was fake. Also what's up with the HP, where is it? Doesn't feel great to not know my health.
-Ran past enemies and I made it up a ramp with cation tape at the top, but I can't do anything? Guess that's the end. I run back down and then I see there's another arcade thing I could enter, so I guess got tricked by the outer darkness walking again. Regardless, I die right after walking inside it.
-Oh I see the glowy collar is health I guess? It's light blue after respawning and was pink before. Think it may be more obvious if it starts to turn off the panels as health goes down(so it looks more like a health bar). Also as far as I can tell there's no way to heal in the demo.
-The fact you can't walk through dead samurais is maybe a problem, they could say block the way through a mandatory doorway.
-Got back to the arcade, nvm it's a deadend. I go back up the ramp and all I find are a few samurai. Guess that's it for real.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you for all the comments on things you noticed. Really appreciate it.
In the final version of the game you won't have infinite food to feed your pet. I should probably make it more obvious that the DD builds I'm pushing are basically just my testing area.
There is no way to heal in the demo. And I did consider modifying the health bar to kind of go down to the left instead of just change colors. I definitely will add this.
Every other critique you made I can't really say anything to other than I will be working on that lol. Thanks again for playing; this feedback is invaluable.