Skip to main content

Browse GamesGame JamsUpload GameDeveloper LogsCommunity
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
MaddoScientisto24 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Thank you for trying the game out!

I'm still trying to strike a balance between dialogue and tutorial, you are right that it feels a bit annoying to be interrupted all the time, I get annoyed in testing too, I still haven't found a good solution to that, in fact I cut out quite a bit of dialogue already, perhaps I should just make the tutorial longer, add more play time between tutorial sections so that the player can play around more with the tools they are given.

About the enemy sprites, there's currently a bug in the animator code that makes them be stuck in the wrong frame, I haven't had the time to fix it, usually they turn the way they walk.

Good to know about the art palette clash, I'll what I can do in the future aobut it.

You are right that the tutorial end is a bit abrupt, looks like the intermission between tutorial and level 1 would be a good time to add a little bit of story and exposition, maybe split the initial briefing so that the actual objective of the mission is talked about when the mission starts.

Reloading is kind of messy right now, there's a little glitch in the weapon display that makes the HUD not show the default equipped weapon until it's manually equipped, that's going to be fixed when I overhaul the HUD, along with adding a display for the current keycards and important items like points, P, medikit and shield recharges, so that opening the inventory is not required every time.
I'm also going to add force reload on R and a visual display of the weapon reloading.

Gun(and other) SFX could be better. I don't see why you can't base most of it off of sounds from touhou. 
There are legal issues to that, according to Zun's official guidelines for fangames I'm not allowed to use assets directly extracted from the games, for some sounds like death and graze I was able to get away with it because ZUN made them from preexisting sounds and I'm using versions of them that were made from the same original sounds but have free licensing, for other sounds I'll have to either commission somebody to make knockoff or find alternatives.

Hard to read interactables has been a common complaint, I'll eventually try to do something about it, perhaps play with color coding more, I've been using a limited 64 colors palette but it's been extremely limiting, it doesn't look like the best choice.

I'm aware there is an ammo balancing issue I'm still trying to solve, weapons even used to come with an extra ammo pack but I had to change it when doing roguelite mode, perhaps I should bring that back and fill the ammo storage when a new gun is obtained, like enter the gungeon does. I'm also planning better way to equip  guns, I tried to implement weapon switching through mouse wheel and gamepad buttons but some bug prevents it from working and I haven't gone back to fix it properly, but I will

Yes, the weapon ammo display is wonky because when the weapon is autoequipped and the event is fired the HUD is not listening yet, it's a thing I have to solve through better queuing.

I didn't really want the teleporters to be jarringly fast, you could say the animation is for "flavor" rather than any other gameplay reasons, enemies are supposed to come out of the teleporters when alarms sound and the animation will be helpful in being able to react as they come

Yes that's a graphics Y sorting issue I still haven't got around to fix, I've been giving it a very low priority since so many other things are currently on fire, but the intention is to have characters and items properly hide behind tall objects eventually.

I've been noticing the dullness myself lately even while playtesting, I have things in mind to spice it up like enemies spawning out of screen as reinforcements, more traps, puzzles, etc. In the roguelite mode I noticed it gets more interesting when there are more than two enemies shooting at you, going through a map definitely shouldn't feel like an empty walk through a park.

You fell victim to me not properly pointing out that the fridges could be used to set checkpoints, that's another thing I plan to improve in the future.

I actually had optional info points in the tutorial at a certain point but decided to scrap them when I added the in-world labels, I'm thinking it might be worth it to reintroduce them so that the player has choice on whether to engage into clarifying dialogue or not, important things should definitely be signaled in more obvious ways.

Also I don't think you found any secrets, perhaps I hid them way too well, I'm thinking I should have the AI companion at least try to point out the first one for free in order to train the player to look for them.

Thank you for all the feedback! It helping me refining my ideas a lot!

Reply
Wierdox24 days ago(+1)

Cool, sounds like you got a good idea of what progress to make. Here's a couple clarifications and thoughts on things you said:

Hard to read interactables has been a common complaint, I'll eventually try to do something about it, perhaps play with color coding more, I've been using a limited 64 colors palette

Maybe use a toggleable outline shader for all interactables?  Or some other finder thing. Though that may look messy given the pixel art. Guess that's a bit of a bandaid fix. 

I'm aware there is an ammo balancing issue

You probably wrote this as you read, but to be clear, this statement of low ammo was spurred by the confusion of the ammo display. After I figured it out, it seemed fine. Though, I did use the pistol for most of the way to Rumia.

I didn't really want the teleporters to be jarringly fast, you could say the animation is for "flavor" rather than any other gameplay reasons, enemies are supposed to come out of the teleporters when alarms sound and the animation will be helpful in being able to react as they come

I think the animation is fine, it's just a little long when you want to quickly go between rooms. Or, one time I accidentally got sucked into the walking-towards-telepad animation when walking near. As for enemies, you can just have the walk-to animation be for them in all instances. And, the player only for cinematic parts like the start and end of the level. But, it isn't that bad as is. I just have a certain taste for minimizing cutscenes(no control) in gameplay.

I've been noticing the dullness myself lately even while playtesting, I have things in mind to spice it up like enemies spawning out of screen as reinforcements, more traps, puzzles, etc. In the roguelite mode I noticed it gets more interesting when there are more than two enemies shooting at you, going through a map definitely shouldn't feel like an empty walk through a park.

Some other ideas could be, locking the room behind you until you kill all the enemies; so you don't take pot shots from the hallway, or enemies that spot you will notify other enemies in their own line of sight. Though, idk how hard that would be when you have the alarm system. But I don't think I ever saw an enemy cause it, only cameras.

You fell victim to me not properly pointing out that the fridges could be used to set checkpoints, that's another thing I plan to improve in the future.

I did find that out, and I was a bit surprised. So that wasn't the problem, I died once to Rumia, I think once more in the 2nd half, then a 3rd when walking into that acid. idk if me having to restart the level at that point was intended.

Also I don't think you found any secrets, perhaps I hid them way too well, I'm thinking I should have the AI companion at least try to point out the first one for free in order to train the player to look for them.

I did find a duct behind a crate near the (first?)blue keycard locked area. I went back there after getting the key, and it had some goodies and a shotgun I think, but its spread was so big that I opted not to use it.

Also a bug I forgot to mention. I got to the yellow keycard area, and I tried to open the door without the key several times. Later I returned with the key, but surprisingly the door was already opened. Did it remember me trying to open earlier, and auto open after collecting the key? Kind of odd.

Thank you for all the feedback! It helping me refining my ideas a lot!

Glad it's of use.

Reply
MaddoScientisto24 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

> Maybe use a toggleable outline shader for all interactables?  Or some other finder thing. Though that may look messy given the pixel art. Guess that's a bit of a bandaid fix. 

I do have an outline shader available, I'll definitely try to play around with it, maybe I can have the outline be more evident as the cursor goes over it.

> Though, I did use the pistol for most of the way to Rumia.

Another commenter made me realize that the main gun works better if it fires really fast but is really weak, the way the main weapons in touhou games work, I've been testing it out and it seems a bit more interesting, for now I calibrated it so that killing an enemy with the base gun is still slower than using the repeater rifle.

> Or, one time I accidentally got sucked into the walking-towards-telepad animation when walking near.

That's definitely annoying and happened to me a bunch of times too in testing, I'll definitely want to reduce the collider size, maybe even make the teleporters manually activable so they won't trigger automatically, the walk animation could also be faster. I don't think I can make the actual dematerialization/rematerialization animation shorter without glitching it out 

>Some other ideas could be, locking the room behind you until you kill all the enemies; so you don't take pot shots from the hallway, or enemies that spot you will notify other enemies in their own line of sight. Though, idk how hard that would be when you have the alarm system. But I don't think I ever saw an enemy cause it, only cameras.

I actually do that in roguelite mode, I can do it in story mode if I place the appropriate triggers but I still think I should allow potshots from the hallway, the colliders on the higher edges of walls prevents angling the shots too much and I think the player should be punished with a harder room only if they trigger the alarm, something I haven't really capitalized on in the current demo but it's something I really want to do eventually

> Also a bug I forgot to mention. I got to the yellow keycard area, and I tried to open the door without the key several times. Later I returned with the key, but surprisingly the door was already opened. Did it remember me trying to open earlier, and auto open after collecting the key? Kind of odd.

That was a failed attempt at giving the player two different ways to clear the forcefield, I linked a capacitor in the southern branch to the forcefield but since I haven't implemented camera terminals yet the player would have no idea that they just opened the passage, plus if you visit both branches then it becomes redundant, there's still a lot I have to learn in making the maps, killing the capacitor as an alternative should have its own challenges other than just two or three enemies in a hallway.


Anyway thank you a lot for the ideas and feedback, it's been invaluable to me

Reply
AboutFAQBlogContact us
Copyright © 2025 itch corp · Directory · Terms · Privacy · Cookies