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Before I dive into my critiques, just know that it's because I think this game works well that I spent a while playing it and thinking about what could have been even better!  I especially liked how enemies have different speeds, and some "enemies" (the golden ones) should be dodged rather than intercepted.  It gave a lot more depth than just "turn towards whatever's closest to you"!  I also appreciate the shop polish where text would zoom in instead of just appearing when you mouse over.  Everything else is clean and fun in general, too!

The first thing that felt a little off to me, was that you had to unlock the enemy that "you should really upgrade your damage for these" as a requirement to actually upgrade your damage at all.  It felt a bit like I was being forced to point the proverbial gun at my foot, and made me feel like I needed to save up a lot to unlock the enemy and those upgrades in one go.  The same was true for the spikey enemy, although there was a set of HP upgrades in front, so this is slightly better.  I think these should have been reversed, perhaps--gate the damage upgrades behind the spikers and gate the bigger HP upgrades behind the tanks.  There could be some initial HP upgrades (as there already are) to encourage the HP -> spiker -> DMG -> tank path, but still allow for players to unlock enemies quickly if they just want to SEND IT.

The Tank needs a little balancing, I think--with no damage upgrades, it felt like it had as much health as the boss? I expected 2-3 hits to kill them initially, not 4-5, and 1 after fully upgrading damage as requested.

Regen is a great idea for an upgrade, but it feels a bit OP currently.  It might need a bit of tuning to continue (as it effectively does now) to make mistakes feel less punishing, but not start being used as a mechanic to just ignore many of the little triangles.  I started doing that closer to the end and it felt bad letting things hit me, but my HP was staying full still.

Knockback is also a fun mechanic, but too extreme in my opinion.  Especially after the knockback increase upgrade, which i shouldn't have purchased, I kept wondering why bosses kept spawning... but then I realized it was just the same boss coming back after like 15 seconds!  I wondered why I had 1-shot a boss, and then realized it was the one I had been hitting for a while.

The economy also probably needs some tuning--I bought all of the first set of money upgrades (before the "self" enemy) after buying the cheap (sub-$50) enemy types and hp/damage upgrades.  At that point I could basically just farm money until the $1000 threshold to buy the "WIN" upgrade.

Major nitpick: The BUY text in the shop can also probably go away once you've followed the instruction!  And the prices increasing after buying the last one doesn't make a lot of sense--they could just say MAX or something to make it clear that they're not for purchase anymore.

Again, amazing game though.  I don't play many of the games I look at for very long, or spend time thinking about feedback unless I enjoyed it, so great work!

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Thanks for the fully thought out review, tons of great feedback! I think the for the starting enemies (Spiker & Tanker) those ideas are great, and for the tanker I will try to put the first damage upgrade infront of the enemy instead of after it. This which would most likely solve them from being overpowered with no damage upgrades as you said.

For the economy, I wanted to make all of the enemy upgrades MUCH cheaper so it was easier to progress (And faster), I'll do this in a later update after the jam. The knockback is kind of weird, sometimes the enemies seem like they instantly teleport, so I'll definitely do some changes to it (Also might lower boss hp or find a workaround).

For regen I also find in lategame it can be op, since you regen 4% (I think) of your max health a second, but I think its good so it's harder to die late game which can be really punishing. But like you said, it might be a little bit TOO op and I might think about lowering the max regen amount, or maybe making the upgrades more expensive, or having a special, optional branching upgrade that isn't necessary to buy.

Also about your major nitpicks, I definitely found that to be a bit of an issue (Mainly the maxed upgrades). I'm pretty sure I was almost going to add this, but ran out of time. I did kind of have a way of communicating that the upgrade was maxed via the outline, but adding the "MAX" Text would not be very hard to implement and a great addition! Also about the "<- BUY" text in the tutorial, I will add a thing so it gets removed after buying the first upgrade.

Again, thanks for the great feedback and some things I will definitely implement once the jam is over! Here's a little post I have for future plans: https://mydimons.itch.io/spin-blade/devlog/1001546/future-plans (Just updated it from these awesome suggestions)

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Amazing!

As for putting damage upgrades in front of the Tanker--I'd suggest at least doing it in parallel rather than as a requirement to unlock them.  Otherwise you're essentially lowering their health, which kind of negates their special property!

I think giving the player CHOICES on how they want to progress is the fun bit.  Even something like exposing enemy stats instead of suggesting a strategy might put more power into the players' hands to make their own choice and live with the consequences.  If there's a big number in the HP stat, with maybe a description like "defensive shapes" or something rather than "go buy damage before buying this!", it will make the player feel more clever when they decide to prioritize the damage upgrade first!

I think making enemy upgrades cheap to encourage progression is a great idea.  I didn't notice that, but I think I enjoyed the game more because of it!

Check out the game Nodebuster if you haven't  -- it has a unique "combat" system and a nice progression.  The shop has a good system to represent the bazillion states an upgrade item can be in.

I have tried Nodebuster (And finished it), and after a day of working on this game I realized how similar it was and then started to take inspiration from it (This is why I added a skill tree, but put my own twist on it with the enemies).

For the damage upgrade in from of the tankers, I think doing it in parallel would be a good idea, but for the upgrades after the damage & enemy, you would either need to have both upgrades to unlock the next upgrades, or have the enemy unlock a new branch of cool upgrades. 

Also implementing more choices with completely optional upgrades would be very cool, I've had some people suggest paths that will lock another one (Someone gave the example of giving the saw a fire or ice upgrade, but you can only choose one)

Thanks for EVEN MORE amazing feedback!

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Mutually exclusive branches sounds so fun!! I want to play it :)