Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• The game throws you straight into the fight making it a little confusing, but it was quite easy to figure out what I had to do to progress. It's quite difficult to make a 3d fps horde shooter work, the game may have benefited from top-down view, even if it was still made in 3D, to help give the player a better picture of the environment and the situation, it would also make controlling the weapon a little easier as mouse sensitivity would be a less of an issue. The theme isn't too well portrayed in the game although in sure much thought went into how it plays a role in the story, the posters on the walls of the levels could've been a nice way to try to tie in the theme into the game to allow the player to understand the connection. The game worked at its core but the difficulty curve was a little strong, introducing enemies one by one and slowly increasing the number would help the player get used to the controls and what they are up against. It's a good start for a horde shooter, all the foundations are there, it just needs a little more guidance and feedback to make it pop.
• The game was fun and had a nice loop and gave me a chuckle with the rick roll at the end. I feel a little more could have been done to hit the theme more by introducing something into the core mechanics instead of it just being the setting. The game is very playable and really appreciate there being 3 set levels with an end with a solid gameplay to keep you entertained this was the games strongest point for me. With it just being a fps and little more could have been done to make the game stand out, 1 key unique mechanic with the theme would really have elevated this for me. Really appreciate that there was a custom 3D model for the enemies, the enviorment was nice and effort was put into post processing which gave the game a little bit more polish which was nice. Although maybe a bit over the top with the bloom but we've all been there at some point in game dev where maing things glow is fun as hell.
• I like the visual effects and the lighting in this game, and the post-processing effects, however some of them are too strong (like the bloom effects for example). I do really like the lighting and the enemies' faces glowing, I think it was a nice touch. Some of the models were good and time had been put into them, like the pumpkin model for example, but I think that there was some clashing of styles - the enemies are boxy and cube-like so why not lean into that theme and make all of the models low poly and boxy? Gameplay feels very janky to me - looking around with the mouse felt overly sensitive even when changing DPI of my mouse. The bullets also come out of the gun. While this looks nice visually and makes sense, it makes the bullets offset from the crosshair and sometimes (especially when far away) the bullets won't hit the enemies even when you're pointing the crosshair on them. When jumping, the player seems to accelerate upwards very quickly, come to an immediate stop, then start to fall very slowly - I'm not sure if this was intentional, but it did feel a bit unnatural. I like the inclusion of a pause menu but without any way to quit the game from it or control any settings, it feels a bit out of place. It also does not work on level 1, strangely. Level 2 seems to have collider issues with the walls - I was able to pass through, and fell out of the world as a result. A kill layer would have been really helpful here to account for this happening. I do like the UI and HUD, but I feel like they could have been bigger and a more contrast-y colour to make it stand out more, as I found it often got lost in the background a bit. Your Itch page is very good and I like the way you have incorporated the theme into it. I just wish that more of this was carried over to the game itself - I couldn't really see much of the Glitch theme in the game, other than perhaps the chromatic aberration post-processing effects. Thank you for including the controls on the Itch page - this was very helpful. Overall I think this game has potential - it needs just a bit more time spent on playtesting, polishing, and fixing those little nigles outlined above. Good job team!
• Good idea to have the setting be the theme, I had a few issues with the playability, it seemed the shooting was a bit off from the crosshair, so shots wouldn't register, and the reloading didn't seem to work entirely, but bar that this was a good idea, and the presentation was top notch.
• I really like how this game looks with all the neon lighting, it has the inside a computer feel. The glitched robots match the environment really well too. The game would have benefited greatly from some variation in the levels. A corner or two would stop the player from sniping the bots before they get close. I think more could have been done to match the jam theme, what if the gun glitched and gained a random ability each time it was reloaded. The ending made me laugh.
• Disclaimer - Weapons are what I do on a daily basis, and have been doing for my entire time in industry. These critiques are not meant to sound overly harsh, I just have a lot more background to pull from for this game! Your Jam page had the best presentation, it is simple and effective. The bloom in your game is too much, everything looked blurry as a result. Less is more with bloom. The audio didn't loop, and would turn off and on at random. More SFX would've been nice, however the ones that were there were appreciated. …A Rick Roll isn't as effective when you get YouTube ads. Whilst funny now, it might result in a recruiter dismissing you due to a lack of professionalism. There was always some form of camera shake, this should not be the case. Its distracting and makes aiming less precise. This is not a realistic first person motion game, you do not need a breathing motion. Instead, put your camera shake on each gun emission. This adds a layer of feedback to improve your game feel. Decrease the acceleration on your mouse movement. Some is more than acceptable, but at its current level it makes aiming feel less precise. There isn't enough feedback on your weapon. Things that you can look to include: crosshair motion, crosshair feedback (hit markers), muzzle flash, hit impact effects, adjustments in FOV, hit reactions from enemies, weapon animations. Obviously not all of these are possible in a game jam, but these are things that modern games include to make weapon firing more impactful. Your crosshair is a bit too thick and needs to be offset from the centre more. Either have a full cross or include a dot in the centre of the one you currently have. The dodge only really allows you to move in two directions where it should be omnidirectional. It feels fun to use, but feels pointless in its current state. The levels you have don't suit a dodge, as they're too claustrophobic. Dodge and fast movement games really thrive in arena environments. Your movement feels nice! Big props on having accelerated/decelerated movement. The jump doesn't feel good. Often felt like my head was hitting an invisible ceiling. A quick physics impulse would have been better. Your projectiles are too slow and have too long of a trail. Against AI you want projectiles to be snappy. The slower the projectile the less effective the weapon feels unless it deals higher damage. Slow weapons are a trade off for accuracy.
• The game looks and feels very artistically complete and is very clean and well done from this perspective. The visuals and SFX fit the theme incredibly well and are very complimentary to the game. Unfortunately the game seems to have suffered from what i’d like to call ‘we spent 90% of the time limit on art and kind of left the programming and everything else until the last 10%’. Due to this you see basic things missing like correct gravity and jump scaling. The game also fails to have a kill layer and has missing colliders scattered everywhere around the world ;so exiting the play area and falling off the map is surprisingly easy. Furthermore the game also just feels ‘off’ to play. This may come from my personal experience with shooters where the bullets are basically never spawned or traced from the barrel of the gun but instead from the player's head / face. This is so that the reticle and trajectories of the projectiles are actually lined up correctly, You can see this by trying to shoot enemies from far away. If your reticle is placed on the enemies you will consistently miss and thus have to aim slightly left of the enemy to ensure the bullets hit.
• Box too small for my Feedback! Feedback Doc link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vzY0Qv56yru_4N8LkYlhdUNjHAN6cxGIS5pODSV4IiU/edit?usp=sharing