Cool experience. I understand what you're going for and this is a good start. There are multiple things you could lean into going forwards and some directions would probably work better than others. To start, the game is at its most interesting when you're up against a situation where the tools you have aren't quite perfect for the situation, but get you most of the way there, making you have to improvise to get along. The Laser Cutter, in spite of being maybe too strong overall, is a good example of this, because large hoards make every misclick with it count, and it's a lot harder to kite around the nearly-defenseless legless enemies when they're in big groups. The delimb system is a pretty great one because it adds nuance to just straight-up killing fellas. There are now multiple axes you have to think across in order to assess a situation correctly. The fact that the enemies are bottomless adds to this a bit as well, but there's room for improvement here. The dilemma of whether to stick around and kill guys or barrel on to the next room might be more clearly brought to the player's attention if there was a timer as well as better advantages to killing enemies. Another big thing is that the game would be substantially more interesting if there were better synergies between weapons, and it was smoother & easier to swap between them constantly. This is hard to do when the dilemma is whether to use a normal ass shotgun or a normal ass AR, but some of the more off-the-wall gun ideas can fill in the gap here. I think one thing to consider is giving weapons more nuanced utility rather than "kills fast & costs more ammo vs kills slow & costs less ammo." This is where the laser cutter stands out again. More possible enemy states, (maybe unarmed enemies can pick up weapons from their fallen comrades? Maybe certain weapons will stun opponents for long enough to slip by as per Doom Eternal?) and less overlap in weapon properties would go a long way to making this the best it could be
A game with a relatively good concept and style, it still has a lot of room for improvement. Personally, I miss the lack of an indication of the currently selected weapon through the gun's design (for example, a bullet on the barrel, a designation on a display attached to the gun, or some other modifications). While I like the game's style, I lack variety in enemies and rooms, especially visually. I also often confuse dead ends with corridors leading further. Perhaps this was intended, but it's frustrating. As a player, I also like to understand at least a rough direction toward any overarching goal, so I think a good solution would be if each level had not only signs indicating the exit but also a compass interface that points in the right direction and indicates when you're near the end of the level. Overall, the game feels like it lacks synergies between the various weapons used and the ability to quickly switch between them. A good reference would be my favorite shooter, Ultrakill, where you can, for example, throw a deadly coin with one weapon and activate it by switching to a shot with another. Similar connections would be well-featured in a game with your concept, along with a large variety of wild and wondrous weapons. Also, since the game feels like a roguelike, passive buffs for the player would clearly be appropriate, both to make them stronger overall and to create new synergies.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! A lot of what you're saying echoes some of my thoughts with things like increasing room, enemy, and weapon variety and it is my next focus as the overall game feel is getting into a decent place. You're right to focus on interesting interactions rather than just adding more for the sake of more. The original concept had a much more maze like intent for the maps, but as the game is more built out a more linear flow seems to feel better overall. As far as upgrades go I'm looking at mutator system that "evolves" ammo into new sub types leaning more into an exploration and alchemy approach rather than stat bumps/mods.
Comments
Cool experience. I understand what you're going for and this is a good start. There are multiple things you could lean into going forwards and some directions would probably work better than others. To start, the game is at its most interesting when you're up against a situation where the tools you have aren't quite perfect for the situation, but get you most of the way there, making you have to improvise to get along. The Laser Cutter, in spite of being maybe too strong overall, is a good example of this, because large hoards make every misclick with it count, and it's a lot harder to kite around the nearly-defenseless legless enemies when they're in big groups. The delimb system is a pretty great one because it adds nuance to just straight-up killing fellas. There are now multiple axes you have to think across in order to assess a situation correctly. The fact that the enemies are bottomless adds to this a bit as well, but there's room for improvement here. The dilemma of whether to stick around and kill guys or barrel on to the next room might be more clearly brought to the player's attention if there was a timer as well as better advantages to killing enemies. Another big thing is that the game would be substantially more interesting if there were better synergies between weapons, and it was smoother & easier to swap between them constantly. This is hard to do when the dilemma is whether to use a normal ass shotgun or a normal ass AR, but some of the more off-the-wall gun ideas can fill in the gap here. I think one thing to consider is giving weapons more nuanced utility rather than "kills fast & costs more ammo vs kills slow & costs less ammo." This is where the laser cutter stands out again. More possible enemy states, (maybe unarmed enemies can pick up weapons from their fallen comrades? Maybe certain weapons will stun opponents for long enough to slip by as per Doom Eternal?) and less overlap in weapon properties would go a long way to making this the best it could be
A game with a relatively good concept and style, it still has a lot of room for improvement. Personally, I miss the lack of an indication of the currently selected weapon through the gun's design (for example, a bullet on the barrel, a designation on a display attached to the gun, or some other modifications). While I like the game's style, I lack variety in enemies and rooms, especially visually. I also often confuse dead ends with corridors leading further. Perhaps this was intended, but it's frustrating. As a player, I also like to understand at least a rough direction toward any overarching goal, so I think a good solution would be if each level had not only signs indicating the exit but also a compass interface that points in the right direction and indicates when you're near the end of the level. Overall, the game feels like it lacks synergies between the various weapons used and the ability to quickly switch between them. A good reference would be my favorite shooter, Ultrakill, where you can, for example, throw a deadly coin with one weapon and activate it by switching to a shot with another. Similar connections would be well-featured in a game with your concept, along with a large variety of wild and wondrous weapons. Also, since the game feels like a roguelike, passive buffs for the player would clearly be appropriate, both to make them stronger overall and to create new synergies.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! A lot of what you're saying echoes some of my thoughts with things like increasing room, enemy, and weapon variety and it is my next focus as the overall game feel is getting into a decent place. You're right to focus on interesting interactions rather than just adding more for the sake of more. The original concept had a much more maze like intent for the maps, but as the game is more built out a more linear flow seems to feel better overall. As far as upgrades go I'm looking at mutator system that "evolves" ammo into new sub types leaning more into an exploration and alchemy approach rather than stat bumps/mods.