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A jam submission

ThesmotheteView game page

Fast-paced shooting and SSH action
Submitted by Enygmatic — 32 seconds before the deadline
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Play opus

Thesmothete's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun#14.0254.500
Overall#63.3543.750
User Interface (UI/UX)#92.9073.250
Audio#102.9073.250
Graphics#102.9073.250

Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

DevLog Link
https://enygmatic.itch.io/thesmothete/devlog/480416/v15-improve-my-game-jam

Developer Feedback Questions
How do you like the game as a "So Bad It's Good" game?

Do the quality of life features help?

Any specific suggestions for improvements to AI, combat or movement?

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

I really enjoyed a lot of the weapon options and the crazy enemy combinations! That was freaking funny in some parts, the controls were a bit wonky at times but I think it all added to the experience. The sound also accompanied the experience well, I was impressed with the cut scenes they left me wanting even more! great job overall! 

Developer

Thanks for playing!

Yeah a big goal when I intially made this game was to improve the combat, because all my previous games had quite boring or just "functional" gameplay. So I tried to make the weapon selection a bit unconventional and put as much variety into the enemies as time and my skills allowed.

Would you be able to elaborate which controls were a bit wonky? Or at what times? If the games janky but fun I'm happy with that, I just want to avoid this game being frustrating.

Thanks, I got a lot of compliments for my stupid voice acting and cutscenes in past So Bad Its Good jam submissions so I made sure I added a bunch with this entry. The cutscenes were actually largely inspired by Pathologic 2, with how theatrical and alien all the dialogue and cutscenes are, but then later they kinda make some sense in a weird way.

And if you're curious for more I am making an expansion pack for Thesmothete, I was actually hoping to release the first level for this jam but ran out of time so I just put out a version with the QOL features implemented.

Thanks again for playing and the feedback!

(+1)

"Doom Infinite"

Good enough for Fun. 

Slam is IMBA.

Texture is mirrored - most certainly because of it is at other side of two-sided material.

Mobs in the first room are dodge masters. Hard to aim overall, but maybe I'm just bad at FPS-games.

Unity. Not Unreal.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and for the straight to the point feedback!

Genuinely can't tell if complement, complaint or just funny comment but thanks.

Fun is what I was aiming for, all my past games had frankly boring or just "functional" gameplay and combat. So for all this games flaws it avoided my past work's pitfalls.

I have to admit I don't know what IMBA means, but I will say that the slam was added because I thought it was something fun that kinda differentiated the game from otehr boomer shooters. I mentioned in one of the other comments that I thought about changing it to be more balanced or impactful, but with my abilities that may run the risk of making it less fun.

Yeah some of the textures are misaligned because I didn't have time to properly line up some of the hidden door textures during the initial jam. Other textures are just screwed up due to a mixture of crunch, laziness, and sometimes intentional ugliness because I wanted the game to look weird like Cruelty Squad (like the meat tunnel or the windows 95-esque marble tiles).

Those enemies (which I just called Knife Guys in the game files) are admittedly a bit too much of a pain to hit with the starting revolver without practice. I intended them to be a less lethal but more nimble enemy like the Imps in Doom, hence why they dodge after every two attacks. But yeah they did turn out a bit too hard to hit, the hitboxes probably need to be sized up a bit and I should probably increase the stagger chance when hit. In any case I can say it's not just you, I've seen twitch streams and youtube videos of people having a hard time hitting the Knife Guys. Also I've been thinking of implementing some form of auto-aim in future projects, maybe I'll  try it in the next release of Thesmothete, maybe not. If anything maybe it proves my feedback on enemy and animation speed should be ignored lol.

Yes. Have debated both, will see in future.

Submitted(+1)

It's back and as zany as ever! I haven't played this since the initial SBIG Jam version, so I guess my feedback will be for all the gradual improvements and not just the ones specific to the very latest version.

The menu UI is pretty rough, but it's an SBIG game, so that's kinda to be expected. It did all seem to work, though.

One thing I noticed is that my chosen weapon seemed to reset to the strongest when loading the next level.

The hit indicator is nice, not sure if that was in the initial version. I found the crosshair too big and opaque which sometimes made shooting enemies at a distance difficult.

I did actually use the slam this time, and found it pretty useful though still finicky and lacking in impact.

I didn't find the big room as fun the second time around. I could tell that there was some bugfixes and the enemies actually went active when they were supposed to this time and couldn't be cheesed around. But I found jumping finicky especially on the trampolines which only sometimes seemed to work properly, and I found it hard to tell when I was being hit by enemies and where from.

Hit indicators would be nice. Yes, I know I need to implement those someday too...

I almost got stuck on the level bosses when they died in the doorway. Not sure if it's possible for them to die in a way 

The end boss is an anti-climax boss, which worked well for SBIG Jam, but outside of that context, well, I kind of wish there was a real boss.

To be honest I didn't really use any of the new quality of life features, though I think all of them are good additions.

All in all I think it's a decent update to a very weird but solid game.

Developer

Thanks for playing and for all the feedback! I have a wall of text in response, so if you prefer to respond over discord or something feel free.

Yeah the pause menu was kinda intentionally ugly (along with a lot of the game, which is partly the Cruelty Squad influence, partly the SBIG theme, and partly my lack of time/ability), but I'm not happy with how "default Unity" it feels at the moment. If anything it'll probably end up looking uglier as time goes on, but I plan to update it eventually.

I think the weapon reset might be tied into a change I made where the scrollwheel only cycles through found weapons and not empty slots. So it might be just cycling directly to the last weapon found in the list. I'll look into it in the next version, because I can see that being annoying.

The hit marker has been there since the initial release because it was the cheapest way of providing feedback to the player. It's pretty much the Stalewater hit marker but now it turns red when you land the killing shot on an enemy. I did struggle with scaling the crosshair, too big and its in the way, too small and its not noticeable. I might just make it an adjustable option in the future.

When you say the slam was finicky do you mean it was difficult to deal damage to enemies with it? And by lacked impact do you mean it didn't seem like it was doing any damage to enemies? Or just the act of slamming with the dust cloud and little camera shake seem kinda unimpressive? I did think about adding a bit more motion to the slam but was worried about making it too disorienting.

Ok this is I'd like to hear more about, is there anything specifically weird/frustrating about the jumping/platforming? Like platforms being placed awkwardly, ledge-grabbing not working when it seems like it should, jump speed/height too fast/slow? Or is it just kinda the whole thing has too much of the trademark Enygmatic jank?

Regarding the trampolines when you say they only sometimes worked do you mean like you would land/slam on them and the player controller wouldn't bounce? I do know that they don't launch you if you just step onto them, or walk onto them and then jump. Which is something I should probably change, its just that in my head I always think of how on actual trampolines I find I only seem to get any extra height after already jumping. Then again I may just not understand how physics work.

Ok the next couple lines I think kinda confuse me, are you suggesting hit indicator for the player shooting or the player being hit? Because both are already implemented and have been since the initial release. Do you think the current hit indicators (the little red half/quarter circles around the center of the screen) are too vague or is the combat in general is too much of a clusterfuck to tell where anything is?

Ah, actually that is an oversight I never got around to fixing. The Quadropod's (what they're called in the game files, also fun fact those two were intended to be sorta like the first two barons of hell encountered as bosses in Doom and would later be encountered as regular enemies, sorta like the enemy at the end of the first level) legs are treated less like legs and more like a separate "mount" in the code. So the collider for the legs doesn't disappear unless the quadropod is gibbed which effectively deletes the entire enemy object, and the legs don't ragdoll because I was lazy and didn't have time to set them up for that. But yeah its actually totally possible for them to softlock the player if they're killed in the wrong spot now that you mention it, I should fix that.

I don't intend to change the final boss in the SBIG campaign, but the expansion pack will have actual boss fights. Frankly if I had to guess the first version of those boss fights will probably need to be nerfed lol.

Ok ngl I added the camera tilt option only because you mentioned it was annoying lol, but I'm glad you agree they're good additions.

Thanks again for all the detailed feedback, I hope to make it even weirder in the future!

Submitted(+1)

I feel you on the "damn it still looks default Unity" thing. I managed to make a set of UI graphics that wasn't actually stock, but was so similar it was confused for stock on multiple occasions. That was my UI basically from when I started what would become CommonCore up to when I implemented theme support in 2020.

I had a suspicion that the weapon reset was a new bug introduced with the new functionality.

Getting the crosshair right is hard. Most of my games have ADS so it's somewhat less critical.

I think I found the slam finicky because it's not clear how wide the damage radius is. The lack of impact doesn't help either; it's hard to tell when I'm not doing damage because I was too far away and when I'm not doing damage because I'm not triggering the slam.

It's the audio/visual effect of the slam that lacks impact. I think it's better than the initial version, but it's still not there. While there is an effect, it gets lost a bit in the frantic action, and it doesn't really have the weight that it should. I can't really nail down why that is. Maybe it needs a different sound effect, or more particles.

I get that the trampolines are only supposed to trigger under certain conditions, but during frantic gameplay I just found it way too finicky to actually make it happen consistently. I'm not really paying that much attention to how I'm getting onto a trampoline, just trying to get up to the next level before I'm completely shot full of bullet holes. Usually I basically just mashed buttons until it worked.

I'm talking about player-being-hit indicators. I don't think they're prominent enough; I honestly did not notice that they were even in the game. They got lost in the noise.