Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!
So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.
So that was... something. I can't genuinely say if I thought it was good or bad, because I feel like my perception of it is based on a flawed version of it. At its perfected state, it could be a very good game. Let me explain...The targeting system in this game is very bizarre. On multiple occasions, I would be running far, sometimes even about to reach my objective, and either there'd be an enemy in front of me or I would be trying to fix something going on with the controls (as I did sometimes get stuck in a loop of only doing one specific attack) or just that my brain was being weird and decided "CLICK MOUSE NOW!" Whatever the case, I'd use a left mouse click... and find myself teleported all the way back to the temple, targeting an enemy that was there. I'd also have times where there'd be an enemy IN the temple while I was there, and I'd be trying to attack it and then I get zipped outside to a completely different enemy that's now stuck in a corner for some reason.
Both enemies and players can get stuck on walls if their target is on the other side. They'll never hurt each other, though, so neither can get free. But you can get beaten up by OTHER enemies and the game won't prioritize them. Instead, it keeps your active target unless you do something to change it. On one hand, requiring the player to make the change is nice because it keeps them in control. The problem is that sometimes it should be no nonsense. If something's hitting you, it's likely to keep hitting you and quickly become your target.
In short, the targeting system desperately needs work. I know are some commands shown in the bottom for how to affect it, but I found only tab worked and that it didn't always change targets.
If you want the game to at least keep doing an auto target when something is nearby, I'd say sure. But there should also be an auto de-target once you're far enough away. I would say that the max target range is just above whatever the max distance for the dash is. After that, shouldn't even be considered for a target and should be dropped. Obviously, this should also apply to NPCs so that they can't get themselves stuck because they're targeting something specific and they can't navigate around a wall for some reason. If the target then moves away, they would break target and should be free again.
I also think that there needs to be improvements regarding the dash activating. It should have a smaller minimum distance. I've targeted enemies that felt like they were far enough away that I felt the dash should work. Typically, these distances were more than 3 times the player's melee distance away. Yet it didn't dash. Thus would an enemy get to dash on me and interrupt my attack and then proceed to keep attacking relentlessly. I had a moment where I was stuck on 5 knifehands because one of them was ALWAYS not within my initial attack range. As such, I would be hitting four of them and the fifth one would be able to begin its attack combo. It'd hit me and I would be trapped as each other monster began attacking me. If I was lucky to get out, it then repeated as one was not being hit.
With that, I can also I believe the windows for the NPC attacks and the windows for PCs not being able to act should be changed. NPCs should have a small window between each attack before they begin the next combo, while PCs should have shorter windows than they currently of being in a hurt animation. I know there's a block, but the block I found wasn't always reliable, because it didn't affect enemies behind you and thus who you were targeting mattered. I also genuinely feel that it shouldn't be incumbent on the player to need to use block at all in this sort of game. I personally feel that block should be a use more as a tool to create windows to attack against enemies. So instead of making block be the means to escape that loop, shorten the window for PCs so that so long as they don't take another hit from a different enemy, they will be able to strike back before the enemy that hit them can continue its combo.
That then leaves block. First, make block affect all around the character. That way, it affects everyone. Now when the player is hit while blocking, the enemies take a recoil. If the player happens to let go of the block button after they block someone, there's a brief period where they'll still be blocking. If another enemy hits them before this period ends, they also get blocked and the period gets reset. The reason for this is so that if against multiple enemies, should a player block one thing, an enemy can't then hit it should it then start preparing to attack. Instead, the enemy gets blocked and the period resets again. During this period, the player wouldn't be able to attack, though. Thus you would set the recoil time to being longer than the window of a certain number of blocks in a row. So say up to achieving two blocks; the initial one and one after. The recoil would be longer than that, and now the player is in a position to begin a combo and possibly get multiple enemies caught in it. Thus does block provide an active counter rather than a passive one that really only works for 1v1.
This is how I would see to take this concept and improve. With just the targeting, I can see this as a type of game I'd love to play with friends. Maybe one where you have to complete multiple objectives that change.... mmm, maybe in a roguelike fashion? Even sometimes throw in random events during the game? Yea, I could see this being a great game for that.