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[happy to swap feedback] A space ship action game with puzzle elements needs feedback

A topic by Laurie Hardman created 29 days ago Views: 195 Replies: 11
Viewing posts 1 to 9

Game Page Here
Hi, my playtest has got to the point with a full game loop with boss and a good amount of weapons and ships added to the game and I am looking to start to get as much feedback as I can. Out A Space is a 2d space ship roguelike with grid based limit on how many ships can be deployed as part of you fleet in each battle, currently play test runs only take 20-30 minutes but it is a downloadable (sorry). full support for mouse and keyboard and controller included.

if you are working on a game and also want some feedback just ping me and I am happy to take a look at yours !  

(+1)

Hello!

I tested the game for around 25–30 minutes, and these are my first impressions.

- I liked the fleet building and being able to adjust different parts of the ships.

- In the fleet layout screen, I wanted to rearrange the unlocked empty slots. I accidentally bought some useless squares because I did not realize one click would buy them.

- I also have a few ideas about the in-game visuals. The shields look a bit too thick to me. Maybe they could be thinner, with a little more detail. The missiles also feel too big and too slow. I think they could be slightly smaller and faster.

- When controlling my fleet, it would be nice to have clearer visual feedback for where I am accelerating or drifting.

- The hit feedback and sounds felt good overall.

- On the level map, there are some unreachable or unfinished areas, but I guess this is because it is still a playtest. I also could not clearly see the details of the selected level. Maybe I missed it, but I think the game should answer “what happens in this level?” in a simple and visible way.

Overall, I think this is a good project.

I also developed a mobile Android space game. I was planning to improve it long term, but as a solo dev, I think the current state is enough for now. I still have not received enough feedback for it. If you can check the questions on my feedback page, I would really appreciate it.

Good luck with your project!

(+1)

Hay Thanks, for the feedback, you are supposed to progress left to right across the node map, if that was unclear I will try nd make it a bit more obvious.

I agree on the cell unlocking I am planning a rework of that before launch to make it a bit more engaging 

I will have a look at the  visuals

I will try and gab a go on your game in the next couple days and send you my thoughts! 

Hey I will test your game, feel free to check out mine. will post a reply with my test thoughts

I like the store page before I even try it!

thoughts:

-upon just loading in and going right to start a new game, I am little confused about fleet selection and what these choices do(a lot of thinking and reading already for a numb brain like me)

-I did notice now there is a brief description for the fleet below the larger text paragraph this makes more sense.

-deployed a civilin fleet and I was slightly confused at the map.

-there is a delay on the mouse hover(at least for me on tv) so at first I thought there was nothing when you hover your mouse...

-loading into the map sections without doing the tutorial made me give up. 

I think for a new player you might need to use some texts and arrows to explain the basics of starting a new run to reduce the thinking for a new player. I would be happy to comeback and try again soon maybe when I can read the tutorial and learn. thanks :)

Played through the easy, medium, and hard tutorials, and then a couple levels with the civilian fleet, on version 3.5.  I liked being able to configure the ships with different options, and choosing ships with different predispositions to start with (power vs speed, etc).  I also thought the styling and art were good.

I was playing on a laptop (and thus a smallish display with a little less brightness than typical desktop displays) in a brightly-lit area, would have appreciated a little more contrast.  I think the main menus were fine, but once I started the tutorial, things were harder to read.  My display was already set as bright as it would go; I didn't see options in-game for contrast adjustments in the settings menu, but something like that might have helped.

The easy tutorial let me choose different weapon types, but it wasn't clear to me what the tradeoffs of the different weapons were.  I went with the laser for this one, and it didn't feel especially effective; fortunately, the missiles helped with that.  The ship speed felt a bit slow, but I figured that might be a purposeful function of the large ship size as compared to my opponents.  It took me some time to get used to the "tank controls" (movement keys working with respect to the ship orientation rather than camera orientation); I know some players prefer the tank controls, but maybe there could be an option to choose between the two?

On the medium tutorial, I skipped placing the smaller ships.  I was unable to drag them out when the tutorial popup text explained about their positioning, and then the tutorial went right into outfitting the flagship after that.  Then it seemed like it was time to launch the flagship, so I did, with no smaller ships.  I still won, but it seemed like I missed part of what I was supposed to have done.  It felt like the projectile weapon had a more noticeable impact on enemy health than the laser did.

On the hard tutorial, for the first time, I tried ramming the enemy ships, to see if my superior size and and shielding would be another way to deal damage.  This time around I'd placed the allied ships, though, so even when I stopped shooting to try to see if ramming was doing anything, the allied ships were still firing, so I couldn't tell if I was actually doing any damage this way.

I had a hard time keeping an eye on the indicator bars (shields, energy, hull) while playing.  I was mostly focused on the ship and projectile movements, and without focusing on the bars instead, it was a little hard to see the levels.  I didn't really want to take my focus off the combat, though, so mostly I wound up ignoring those indicators.

I couldn't tell if there was a way to repair the hulls of existing ships at the shipyard, or whether permanent hull damage was intentionally part of the difficulty.  I've played games that handle it different ways, but the tutorial hadn't dealt with existing hull damage, so I was a bit surprised.

The civilian map I got at first had a shipyard after the first level, and I was a little surprised that I couldn't go back to the shipyard after the second level.  I'm in space, and I'd cleared out the enemies, so it didn't seem like there would be anything to stop me from going back.  I was even more surprised to find that when I left the civilian region and re-entered, the map changed, which meant I was able to just repeatedly leave and re-enter until I got a map with an available shipyard.  Maybe that's an intentional way to let players reset their level progress if they're low on resources?

Thanks for playing ! 

I think some of this should already be fixed in the next update (all text is bigger, Ramming is in the game but needs a raming engine ect.)
one I am interested in getting some more info on is you having a hard time with the shield and health indicators in game, I just want to check was that the on ship indicators (the red squares for hull and aura for shield) or was it the bars in the hud display ? just so I can better understand what needs improvment

(+1)

The indicators on the ships were visible enough, it was the bars in the HUD that I had a hard time watching.

Hi! I tested version 3.5 on Windows.

The home/menu screen felt noticeably laggy for me. My main difficulty was understanding the beginning of the game. I gradually understood a few parts, but the fleet choices, map and immediate objective were not explained clearly enough for me to feel confident about what to do next. Unfortunately, I became confused and did not feel motivated to play again.

I noticed another tester reported a similar onboarding problem. I think a short compulsory first-run tutorial would help—using clear arrows, highlighting only one button at a time and explaining each action in simple language. Allowing a new player to start with a preset fleet and one guided battle before introducing full customization might also make the game easier to learn.

The visual concept is interesting, but I feel the player receives too much information before understanding the basic gameplay loop.

Since this topic mentions swapping feedback, I would really appreciate it if you could also try my free browser mystery game, CluePop:

https://rahulsinhaapps.itch.io/cluepop-mini-mysteries

I particularly need feedback about the first-time instructions and whether clues are easy to see on smaller screens. Thank you!

Hello, I played for about 20-30 minutes. The visual presentation of your game is outstanding. Here are some issues or thoughts:

  1. I first tried the game on Ubuntu, but it got stuck on the telemetry popup at the start. I couldn’t close it at all (tried every keyboard and mouse button). Very strange, and I switched to Windows after that.
  2. There are too many choices before the real gameplay begins. With zero knowledge of the game, players can only pick randomly. I’d suggest streamlining the first playthrough—fewer choices, but jump straight into an engaging yet simple combat sequence as the tutorial.
  3. I’m not sure if WASD does anything. I pressed the keys but my ship didn’t seem to move.
  4. The ship assembly mechanic, similar to inventory management, is quite interesting. I think focusing more on this system and cutting some of the unnecessary mechanics could yield better results.

If you’re interested, you can try my game: https://gamefang.itch.io/tramp-become-president

Your game description sounds very similar to the game I am developing.

My alpha is still in draft but if you want to have a play and give me some feedback I will do the same for you.

Mine: https://mercstudios.itch.io/startalon?secret=m8ATWJJ9ZRNzxJTPUtq6Dy9ncs