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Feedback for my aim-and-launch merge game

A topic by Flertal created 39 days ago Views: 147 Replies: 6
Viewing posts 1 to 4

Hi all, I would appreciate your feedback on my game prototype 'Evolve or Die' (working title)!

Playable Link: https://flertal.itch.io/evolveordie

Platform: Web/browser

Description: A prototype of a physics-based merge game I've been building. You aim and launch creatures onto a board, and when two of the same kind collide they merge into the next creature up the evolutionary ladder — starting from a single cell and climbing through fish, reptiles, mammals, and eventually toward something post-human. The board fills up as you play, so you're balancing merging efficiently against not letting it overflow. It's meant to be quick, tactile, and satisfying rather than complex.

The core difference from Suika-style drop games is that you aim and launch rather than drop, which adds trajectory and skill to each placement. I'm not looking for polish feedback — the art and UI are a bit rough on purpose.

What I actually want to know is two things: did you feel like playing it more than once, and how did the aiming and launching feel — floaty, satisfying, awkward, imprecise? That feel is the whole thing I'm trying to get right, so blunt reactions are more useful to me than encouragement. If you would drop a comment about the graphics and assets that'd be appreciated as well.

Plays in-browser; portrait on mobile, landscape on desktop.

It's free to play, I hope you'll try it. Thanks!

The game is coded using AI, all assets are AI-generated (depending on the feedback I might replace them with my own creations). The mechanics, theme, and feel are my own.

(+1)

Hey there - tbh, I haven't played anything like this so far - just pointing that out of the gate. I did 1 run, it was pretty chill, relaxing even  - until I decided to throw something off to the bottom right of the board(which resulted in the endgame screen)

What I'm missing is some sort of pressure for this to click and make me want to do consecutive runs(just my personal take, if your idea is to have a chill experience in-game, don't think too much of it). I think this answers question 1; about question 2 - honestly, aiming and launching felt satisfying and precise - I had to switch to fullscreen for this to apply though. I hope this helps you in any way - good luck with the project and most importantly - have fun building it

(+1)

Thanks a lot! I agree that it's very chillaxing and could do with a little bit of nudging to get players interested in playing again. I'm glad to hear that you find the gameplay satisfying!

(1 edit) (+1)

I played it once. I got up to caveman. The little dotted line should change colour more noticeably when it is doing something, spent ages before I noticed it changed colour. 

If you give me feedback on my game I will go over yours  in more depth.

https://mercstudios.com/play/startalon332

Sure, just tried it. First, I really love the tutorial song - haven't experienced that before being guided by hard rock music. Both fun and useful.

I like the general gameplay. It's satisfying to shoot things and get more weapons etc. which is the most important and fundamental thing here.

It does say 'click and hold down to move and fire', though it fires automatically.

Now, this is just my taste, but for a game like this I just want to get going without too many barriers. You've made a quite comprehensive system and the guide is a bit overwhelming - at least before you've played the game a couple of times. Instead you might consider (like another comment told me with my game) to make a playable tutorial that pauses and explain when the player encounters new stuff and mechanics - like you did with the song, but more gradual and with small text boxes popping up, for example when you encounter a new enemy or get a new weapon or shield.

It's nice that you can get different ships and upgrades, but again it gets quite complex for a game like this. I'd start with just one type available so you need to achieve to upgrade. The weapons options also add complexity, maybe unnecessarily?

As I said, I really like the feel of the game which is the most important thing. I would ease the player into it to not scare off more casual players :-)

Hello Flertal!

I've just played your game for the first time. Congrats! It definitely got my attention and I had fun. I got to Human on the first go ;-) Second time I also got to Human but close to the next stage that I would like to reach. Here's some of the things I liked and what I thought could be maybe improved:

I liked:

  • The intro dialog with Darwin/God got my attention, I thought it was funny and made me want to know more.
  • The mechanics. I'm a big fan of the original suika game, so I'm biased but adding the skill for trajectory and strength is a good idea to make it more interesting.
  • It was easy to play straight away, even if there are a couple of things I didn't get at first.
  • The throwing felt right
  • Darwin's comments during the game

What could be improved in my humble opinion:

  • A bit of music could be nice, but I understand this asset will come at a later stage.
  • I think you could add a "pointy bit" to the segment showing the direction of the throw, like an arrow. And maybe increase the width of the line as the "load" of the throw increases, not just the color.
  • I wasn't sure what would the bomb would do. I think the first time I used it it killed everything on the board so I thought that it should never touched anything and when the next one appeared, I threw it slowly to the side and tried to avoid afterwards. Then I got another bomb and destroyed the first one with it. Later I realised that it didn't necessarily kill everything, but might actually be useful to get rid of some items... I think you could easily add some Darwin comments on the first game as a kind of intro/tutorial so that when the bomb appears for the first time, Darwin tells you what you can do with it.
  • More Darwin's comments please! I think this could be developed to comment the game live as you go, it does provide a little more interest to it. It's something I added to my game if you try it (see below) and it's qui cool, though it requires quite a lot of writing time to have plenty of messages to avoid repetition.
  • Like mentioned before there could be several incentives to want to finish the game. Chill mode would be what you have, but other modes like time attack, or trophies when you reach certain points... but I guess this could come later.

I played twice, on a web browser on Mac, Google chrome, not going into full screen. I'd happily play again to see what's after Human.

I hope these remarks were useful. And if you want to give it a go on my game, it's called "Bouncenoid", it's a kind of revered brick-breaker game with story-telling, inspired by classic 80s arcade games: https://jerkyhips.itch.io/bouncenoid If you play, you'll notice what I called the "Intercom" where the main character, the Spark, is telling the story as you progress and comment on your playing. Let met know what you think ;-)

JerkyHips

Thank you so much, it's very useful!

I agree with everything and I'm very glad you like the basics. I'll take a look at your game the coming days and give some feedback.