Hey Cody!
Tons of updates straight out of the gate, with even more fun than last year!
First thing I noticed was that you managed to make changes to a lot of the pain points of the game from last year among other things. You streamlined what you saw as fun and cut out a lot of what you felt took away from the fun, even if you didn't need to.
Starting with sound and music, I think the music and ambience were more or less the same, especially with the boss rooms. I remember last year the sfx were overlapping a bunch to the point where it got too loud and while I noticed you tackled this a bit, there was a little bit that still hit me as a bit harsh, I think with the spiders where the high frequencies kind of hurt to listen to. Otherwise, the fun was still there, and the audio cues were great for the experience.
Visually, I didn't have any trouble with the gameplay with the exception of some really dark spots and well... that dark map. I know we already discussed solutions for that area so I just wanted to leave a note here for you to reference some suggestions. We discussed possible lighting around picking up torches, and a cooldown variation of the torch gun so as to not completely run out of flares. But overall that area was intense so I wouldn't really want to lose it.
Gameplay wise, the game was really fun, at first I thought the summons were a little OP on the earlier stages but having them appear when they do, allowed me to understand how they function more. That said, I found them really fun to use on that last stage with all the enemies around corners and doors. The sniper was so much fun, and the slow-motion shot was a nice touch! I think the only thing you might need it an indicator telling the player they killed themselves with the grenade launcher since at the end of my stream we weren't very sure. But yeah, somehow determining a self-kill and telling the player would help them realize what happened so they could avoid it after.
I hope to play more of this next time, I would have liked to resume game but there was so many great changes to the start that it made plenty of sense to restart.
Thank you for the fun game and for participating in the Jam!
Regards,
- Glim
GlimMusic.com