It's decent. Enemy placement has a nice variety, although some just don't work, like the hedgehogs always being on flat ground and getting cucked by slopes. That said the enemies are almost never attacking in groups from what I've seen so encounters might get stale quickly. I feel the dodge takes away from the gameplay a little, but considering it's an exploration game, it's a necessity. Snail is the best enemy so far - it forces you into correct spacing even with dodge, and when that's impossible there's actually a hidden way to dispatch it safely that you learn from experimenting.
Regular attacks might be too fast, but without it charged attacks would dominate, so that's surprisingly a decent balance.
I don't like the exploration aspect. Everything looks the same. When I warp between points I can't tell what changed, much less where am I. Announcing level names to differentiate between paths would be a good start.
PS: I died to flower projectile + gravity combo more than anything else combined, fuck flowers
EDIT: Wait, you can stomp? And I was playing without it all this time!?
Seemed a bit difficult right from the start, the snail in particular is a sneaky little bastard. I like how the player controls but I often found myself dashing into bottomless pits lol. I kind of gave up fighting enemies towards the end and just ran and dodged for my life. It looks and sounds good, maybe some sort of tutorial area would be beneficial to ease players in.
I feel like you made a simple game exactly how you wanted it, so I don't know what to say, but (playing on hard) it initially feels like the enemies have more going on that you'd expect for the simple presentation, the way they mix up a challenging moveset, so I'm like, "huh?" But when I learned everything I could do it felt a lot better to play. Some enemies like the knight and red bird are hard to kill with slashes but fairly easy but stomping on them, but I didn't know I could do that until I checked the controls, which I didn't expect I'd need to do for a game that looks like this. In the end I killed the pale dragon by using the jump spell to get on her head after facing her into the corner, staying on the right side so she'd be stuck there. She did a swooping move into the side of the screen and glitched out and got stuck -I don't even think that's a bad thing in any way, it was hilarious and rewarding.
I hate to suggest tutorialization, but maybe you should add some way to get people into stomping, and make sure they know how to cast magic. Or not, the difficulty option is there for a reason. I'm also not sure on the charge-slash in how you can cancel it by moving. Usually when a game has a charge move like that I want to step forward and throw it out while buffering a movement, but needing to make sure im not pressing any keys when I want to use it makes it feel clunky to time. It seems like rapid slashes are better for damage anyways, so I never used it against snails.
Something about it feels very rough and unsatisfying. For starters there's no jump buffer or coyote time, which makes the movement instantly feel meh. Some enemies (the flower) and some projectiles (the bee/wasp laser) blend into the background way too much. The first area would probably be better if it's half as long so I get to see the top-down part earlier, also I don't particularly get metroidvania feels from it since there's largely horizontal movement. And I'm not sure if instant-death pits are a good idea in a metroidvania?
Comments
It's decent. Enemy placement has a nice variety, although some just don't work, like the hedgehogs always being on flat ground and getting cucked by slopes. That said the enemies are almost never attacking in groups from what I've seen so encounters might get stale quickly. I feel the dodge takes away from the gameplay a little, but considering it's an exploration game, it's a necessity. Snail is the best enemy so far - it forces you into correct spacing even with dodge, and when that's impossible there's actually a hidden way to dispatch it safely that you learn from experimenting.
Regular attacks might be too fast, but without it charged attacks would dominate, so that's surprisingly a decent balance.
I don't like the exploration aspect. Everything looks the same. When I warp between points I can't tell what changed, much less where am I. Announcing level names to differentiate between paths would be a good start.
PS: I died to flower projectile + gravity combo more than anything else combined, fuck flowers
EDIT: Wait, you can stomp? And I was playing without it all this time!?
Seemed a bit difficult right from the start, the snail in particular is a sneaky little bastard. I like how the player controls but I often found myself dashing into bottomless pits lol. I kind of gave up fighting enemies towards the end and just ran and dodged for my life. It looks and sounds good, maybe some sort of tutorial area would be beneficial to ease players in.
I feel like you made a simple game exactly how you wanted it, so I don't know what to say, but (playing on hard) it initially feels like the enemies have more going on that you'd expect for the simple presentation, the way they mix up a challenging moveset, so I'm like, "huh?" But when I learned everything I could do it felt a lot better to play. Some enemies like the knight and red bird are hard to kill with slashes but fairly easy but stomping on them, but I didn't know I could do that until I checked the controls, which I didn't expect I'd need to do for a game that looks like this. In the end I killed the pale dragon by using the jump spell to get on her head after facing her into the corner, staying on the right side so she'd be stuck there. She did a swooping move into the side of the screen and glitched out and got stuck -I don't even think that's a bad thing in any way, it was hilarious and rewarding.
I hate to suggest tutorialization, but maybe you should add some way to get people into stomping, and make sure they know how to cast magic. Or not, the difficulty option is there for a reason. I'm also not sure on the charge-slash in how you can cancel it by moving. Usually when a game has a charge move like that I want to step forward and throw it out while buffering a movement, but needing to make sure im not pressing any keys when I want to use it makes it feel clunky to time. It seems like rapid slashes are better for damage anyways, so I never used it against snails.
Cute concept, though I agree with the others that the game feels a bit rough and simplistic
Something about it feels very rough and unsatisfying. For starters there's no jump buffer or coyote time, which makes the movement instantly feel meh. Some enemies (the flower) and some projectiles (the bee/wasp laser) blend into the background way too much. The first area would probably be better if it's half as long so I get to see the top-down part earlier, also I don't particularly get metroidvania feels from it since there's largely horizontal movement. And I'm not sure if instant-death pits are a good idea in a metroidvania?
accidentally skipped the cutscene, restarted made sure to wait and click nothing, it got stuck on the portrait…
my suggestion - hold to skip with a visual indicator so people can back off, text prompt to start game when the cutscene is over.
I don’t find interacting with the enemies very fun. I don’t know if their attack patterns fit the player’s speed and input limitation.
snail attack comes instantly. can’t wait for him to pop. if I jump at him afterwards I have to 2 cycle him. bothersome.
groundbound rolling enemy seems to not be able to overcome slopes. player speed affected by slopes massively, bad gamefeel.
I cannot see with the CRT filter. The blend mode is probably wrong.
Lowering resolution crops the UI out.
I just held right arrow key for the most part.