Isolated- Interestellar Gamejam 6

Hello sousadiego11! I’m DataPotato and this is my review of your game. Your game is great and any criticism in this review isn’t meant to be personal or rude or to even to say that your game is awful, this is just one perspective on your glorious game and I just want to give some advice where I can. Always remember Hanlon’s Razor, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” and yes this introduction is copy-pasted, now let’s get into it by relevant categories!

Graphics

3D Games can be harder to create graphics for and especially hard to define a unique feeling for but you did a nice job with the lights and glows and settings!

There are some graphical bugs like light glitching but you mentioned that those are probably fixed with the windows build. I also had some control problems, did you code the first person from scratch?

Did you make the robot yourself? He’s a cute lil guy.

Laser graphics are really cool!

Otherwise I might recommend experimenting with different fonts and UIs, one of the smallest things that can immerse or pull you into the game.

Also graphics that tell a story typically are more immersive. In your case you have a city overrun with robots, but you’re a small little guy that’s trying to hack them. So I guess you’re a robot too…. Anyway nice job with all that!

Sounds, and also feel ig i kinda got disorganized

I know you didn’t make any of the sounds, you linked them in your description, so these are just some tips for when choosing sounds.

 I literally jump every time an enemy laser is fired. It’s a scary sound effect. Kind of contrasts the music.

The music is very dynamic, from solemn to epic, but I feel like that doesn’t reflect the gameplay.

The music and sounds should fit the game’s feel, you market this as a more chill game (which is pretty cool for a robot laser game thingy and also the remote hacking is super cool) so maybe the jarring lasers aren’t the best option.

Speaking of feel, for a chill game maybe it should focus more on hiding in shadows and disabling from a distance. As of now the enemy lasers hurt the actual player more than the character lol! Which brings us to gameplay and mechanics

Gameplay and Mechanics!

I love walking. I love shooting lasers out of my skull. However I think one main think this game lacks is dynamic platforms! It’s 3D but currently plays as kind of 2D. I want to jump on ledges and climb slopes! Get up on a building and disable bots from further away! 

Speaking of disabling bots, it honestly feels like it doesn’t matter and there’s no benefit to doing it. The bots don’t even die, they just temporarily stop shooting their pathetic bullets. I kinda just ran to the end and did nothing. Which brings us to our more general feedback in the fun category!

Funness

Funness is created by…

Impact on the game - The player literally can’t do anything meaningful. Anything they do is undone by time. Yes it’s very meta and emo, but I just want to kill those darn bots! 

Variety - The game currently doesn’t have much variety, which can be ok for a game jam, but variety is very fun-inducing.

Fantasy - Yes, the game tells it’s own story, but couldn’t it just be a bit more obvious? The player could look at a tissue box to imagine a world where people live in a tissue, but they come to your video game, to get your experience, your ideas, your story. 

My Favorite Things

I love the little things, like the player dismantling when he dies, and the laser coming out of the head! You have great potential for making video games, and never give up!

Main Takeaways

Cohesive gameplay and sounds can make a game feel more put together!

It’s okay to imply a story; the players love that!

Making a game with a challenging goal makes the game more fun! (This is why my game isn’t fun…)

And lastly, if you start the game with a camera pointed at two stretched out balls levitating on each other, the player gets a feeling that this might be your first game… But we love first games! This is awesome! I love that you made this!  I look forward to seeing what you make next!