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Nayr Odyssey

Journey across the cosmos to Planet Nayr! 路 By Daniel Savage

Great concept but I felt a bit lost

A topic by SeelenGeier created Mar 08, 2020 Views: 203 Replies: 1
Viewing posts 1 to 2
(+1)

The game looks nice (very arcadey) and the gameplay feels ok...until you run out of ideas on what to do. I am sad to say, I never made it to any kind of combat :(

The Cards and sprite textures look a bit washed which makes things like "active" or "sleep" very hard to read even on fullscreen.

My biggest concern was that I was totally lost and didn't know what to do. I just flew around and my crew kept pestering me about changing speed or direction. I think a tutorial or some introductory handholding would benefit the game a lot. Even a short todo list might be nice to have instead of being dropped into a game without any explanation of what the objective is or what the player is supposed to do. What are those allocation values used for? What should I do first? Is there any urgency to do anything?

Leaving the player to explore a sandbox (if it is one), is great, but only after introducing the sandbox to the player.

Developer

Hey! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to give such informative feedback. It's not uncommon to try a game on itch for a few minutes and move on, so I really appreciate your input. 馃槉

At the start of the jam I decided to myself that I wanted to have the style be a bit like a mid-90s game (eg: simple shading, lower resolution/polycount, etc.) I think think you're right about the Awake/Sleep icons being an accessibility issue and I should have prioritized that higher! Games like Metal Gear Solid did a better job with a lower PS1 resolution by sticking to white on black for smaller text:

I agree with you that a tutorial or some ramp-up would help a lot too. Sadly, I felt as though I was juggling a variety of factors (eg: programming, art, music, etc.) throughout the 7 days of the jam. Even a few dialogue boxes or popups explaining things would have helped a lot. Otherwise the player seems a bit aimless (but not in a good way like Star Control II!). The difficulty curve is a bit intentional though; the weaker enemies at the beginning are meant to help you get the basics of combat down. If I have time later, a "post-jam" update might be a good idea.

To help with the learning curve, I've updated the page description with an overview on how to play as well as a few tips. Please let me know if that makes a few things more clear, and thanks again!