Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Hotline Dungeon presents a competed implementation of a top down shooter with an engaging challenge level. Due to its similarity with known titles like Hotline Miami, its easy to pick up and have an entertaining session. The technical side of this project is clearly it's strength. The most notable nice to have feature I missed was improved collision of the player with the wall around corners. And minor issue like flipped sprites for some wall corners. The project does not demonstrate much creativity in terms of novel features added to the game. Additionally the UI and art is minimal (same sprite for player and enemies, text poorly aligned, no background for popups,...). However this barely stands in the way of proofing that the core gameplay is fun. So project does a good job as a prototype proofing its core.
• I don't think it quite hits the original spec goal of a "a basic rotational puzzle/lock game" but on it's own merits, great job on this neat little vertical slice! It plays quite nicely, and it's clear how this could be expanded upon to make a more complete game. One area to look at is the interaction between player input and what happens when your character is touching a wall. As it is, if your character's bounding box is touching any surface, any attempt to move in that direction will block any other inputs. This doesn't feel great because you're unable to move along a different axis even when unblocked in that direction. Another thing to consider would be the size of your character's bounding box. The character sprite is rectangular, but the bounding box appears to be a square, meaning a lot of "empty" space is still counted as a collidable area. This can feel especially awkward when combined with the previous input locking issue, where it feels like you should be able to move but become locked on the corner of walls. A few things to look into for improving this, in increasing levels of difficulty, would be: Circular collision detection, 2D Axis-aligned bounding boxes, or Implementing pixel-perfect collisions. Pixel-perfect collisions would take the most effort to implement, but they are really beneficial for a game like Hotline Miami, where precision without arbitrary hidden walls matters. The UI is dead simple, and it doesn't really need to be more complex for a game like this. Extending the base engine to have Mouse + Keyboard support is very much appreciated and helps recreate the feeling of Hotline Miami. Feature-wise, what you have is a solid foundation! I'd already mentioned the Mouse and Keyboard support, which is appreciated. Basic AI and pathfinding are great additions, needed to sell that Hotline Miami feeling. One thing I'd like to see if you're developing this further is the addition of different weapon types, as well as enemies who are able to fire back. All in all, a great submission. Your write-up is especially good, and I like how you have delved into the implementation of your core features.
• Gameplay The gameplay loop is simple but the shooting, aiming and movement mechanics work very well. The objective and ruleset are clear but quite hard to achieve - I believe a bit of difficulty balancing is needed as finishing the level can be quite challenging. Unfortunately apart from those, the rest game seems quite simple with not a lot of depth. I can definitely see the potential though of adding more features and turning it into a good portfolio piece. UI/UX There is a basic UI implementation to display the bullet count and an option to restart, but except from those the project performed poorly in this category. I believe this could be due to the lack of certain features (e.g. health, points, different power ups) that would need additional UI elements to be displayed. I wouldn't say that the game needs a tutorial as the objective is straightforward, but some enemy indicators and/or a mini map would be useful. Also, offsetting the camera towards the aiming point would be a nice feature to add, as it would allow the player to "peek" through the different areas. Features As discussed above, there is a lack of features that could be implemented to enhance the overall experience. Apart from that the absence of audio and SFX was apparent but the controls felt solid and responsive. The AI is challenging and although functional it felt quite overpowered as sometimes enemies would be able to see my player from far away without me realizing. It would be interesting to see enemies shoot at you as well (or at least have different types of attack) and try to work together to tackle you. It would also be nice to have a patrol loop to add some variation too. Creativity, Design & Originality The documentation/dev diary was well put together, with a lot of information and the game page was well presented with supporting GIFs, videos and images. Good use of 3rd party assets and tools where needed. Jason Tzaidas (Rocksteady)
• Thanks for your application. The game had quite a few features added in a very short amount of time. I would have suggested to add one feature instead and spend a bit more time polishing it. The game scope and ambition was quite big for 80hours of work and that would be true even for the professional. The game has movement/camera/shooting/AI/collision handling/game loop/path finding/weaponry/UI and other small systems - this is a lot of work to get it right. I'd recommend to select one part of the system and make it feel amazing. Choose the system you like the most and make sure it pops :) All the best! Amazing work in just under 80hours.
• Messy release ZIP Complete game loop Controls are unusual - would've worked better on controller Game elements work, collision is perhaps a little loose, but that may just be the controls. Detailed documentation, mostly on the technical detail, but good to see nonetheless