I’ve played the game up to the end of the second boss and unlocking the Air elemental, and I’m unsure what to do next, but I’m of the belief that I’ve played enough of what is there (the game page does say “explore 2 carefully handcrafted zones”, after all) to give my two cents:
I think the game sets itself up for an unfairly bad first impression, between the zoomed-out camera and awkward combat. I know that these are things you mentioned will be addressed in future updates, so I’ll try to approach both points in ways that other people haven’t mentioned yet:
- You may want to think carefully about your level design and its scale in relation to a smaller field of view. Compare how New Super Mario Bros. Wii has longer levels with objects spaced out farther from one another to account for its widescreen display, compared to New Super Mario Bros. on DS, for example. I feel that similarly, there’s a lot of empty space in your level design currently, and zooming in on that level design as-is might make navigation much harder.
- Currently, I think the biggest issue with combat (and actions in general, like healing or shooting fire) is that it completely locks player movement, horizontally, vertically and on moving platforms. This means that trying to do any of these actions while on a horizontally moving platform can lead to the platform moving out from under the player’s feet! That being said, this has helped a little in stalling mid-air when waiting for platforms to come closer, and some other kind of mechanic that lets players do this might be interesting, like a spot-dodge action.
- Also, note that you can only attack once in the air before landing as of now. That should definitely be revised as well.
Once the dash and fire shot is unlocked, I think the game opens up and displays more of its potential. I like that opened doors persist after death; I think the boss battles are interesting and engaging, although they could be a bit better telegraphed for first-time players; I like that the signs around the maps start incorporating more gameplay advice; and I think that generally, the level design is able to make more clever use of players’ abilities now that there’s more to work with.
There are definitely a few things I’d suggest still, though:
- I think your player controller needs a bit of acceleration and inertia. Without this, platforming feels actually too loose and imprecise in my opinion.
- You may want to think about how to map all your different actions onto a controller; I noticed that there is no way to open the map, or switch to the Null/Air elementals on controller, and had to use my keyboard for those functions specifically. (Additionally, right/left on the D-pad currently does nothing, and up/down makes the player move right and left for some reason.)
- Making the fire shot and wall breaking abilities cost energy is a bad idea the way it’s currently implemented. If they’re required for progression and puzzle-solving (which they should be), I think they should either not cost energy, or restoring energy should be easier, besides using a new checkpoint or landing hit combos on enemies.
- On a similar topic, I think letting checkpoints restore energy (and maybe health) whenever they’re touched might be player-friendly, no matter whether the checkpoint has been activated already or not.
- Is there a reason why the Fire elemental has to dash through vertical fire pillars to not be harmed, but it can stand in horizontal ones just fine?
- You may want to think about how your gravity and momentum works as a whole. Moving platforms in particular seem to apply vertical movement velocity onto players and objects placed on them; this leads to jumps being unusually high or low depending on whether the platform you’re standing on is moving up or down, and crates will bounce at the peak of a platform’s movement (and are generally way too affected by momentum, ironically).
I know I’ve outlined mostly ways that I think the game can improve, and I hope it doesn’t come across as an attempt to be overly critical. There’s a lot of areas in which I think the game already demonstrates potential and competence, and as long as you’re looking to continue development, I figure that it’s important that I mention these points, rather than to brush them under the rug and assume that you’re already aware of these things.
Though, I should say: that song for The Ashen Forest is quite good! In general, I think Area 2 does a much better job setting up atmosphere through its music and visuals than Area 1.
I wish your team all the best throughout the rest of the rating process, and onwards as you continue working on this game.