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Takoyaki126 days ago(+1)

I was wondering how some UI changes could help with that? I think your UI looks really good, but what I think supported that feeling of being overwhelmed was that you had your arrow keys on the left side and on the right side of the screen the attacks. So you kind of try to focus on the left, but your eyes are somewhat drawn to the right to the attack menu - all while trying to stay in rhythm. Not sure if it would help to have the UI a bit more condensed or make it worse. I ask this out of curiosity, because i wonder if there was a thought process concerning this. Making a good UI for this game seems tough.

Have you considered to do it as in other rhythm games so you can see the inputs way ahead? As in guitar hero, where you see the inputs as a chain and you need to time them right? Here, they just pop up one after another and it makes it feel like a reaction check rather then a rhythm game. I think this might have further helped.

But just to be clear, I think this is a very great entry. Those things might definately worth exploring if you want to keep working on the game, but for a Jam entry, this is really great stuff! But I also think this might actually worth pushing further after the Jam.

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PebbleWheat126 days ago(+1)

Hey! Thanks for the feedback.

I have mainly designed systems for this game, so here's my two cents. I was also concerned with the game feeling overwhelming, and i'm honestly surprised you're the first one to point it out. The main thing I didnt communicate well enough is that the blocking was way more important than attacking, hence this is why the right side is way smaller. So just looking at the arrows and reacting to them was more than enough to clear the game. How the attack works is that if you do it correctly you get a +20% boost in damage, so if you only focus on the arrows you're not missing much (except the combos). UI definetly could use some experimentation with the layout, so i agree with you maybe a more condesed version could be better. Maybe something like a small pulse on the right side might have been better than dropping circles.


As for the arrows coming in advace - originally this game was more of a reaction test, but i've found clicking on the beat was way more fun, so i added that. So maybe you now see why it kinda has this weird inbetween of reaction and rhythm. Most of the mechanics were mid game decided on and implemented, and considering we submitted this game 10 mins before deadline, this is the best we could do :D

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Takoyaki126 days ago(+2)

thanks for clarifying that, always great to use gamejams to talk about our games and learn what was the reasons behind decisions.

A lot of what you explained makes sense and I can see where your coming from. I actually did not even realize that you do most of the damage through blocking (but, it makes sense in retrospective) because I was so focused on pressing the right buttons. Blocking really suggests that it is defensive skill only, so I guess that was what reinforced my idea here. But I should have realized that I did damage if I only blocked, but just wording it differently would definately help the player.

That it was primarly made as a reaction test also explains a lot and I can totally see that it was hard to fully turn it into a rhythm game during the Jam. From a player perspective, it makes sense that it is a rhythm game I think, because you block on the full beat and attack on the half beat. With combos, you then get intro triplet rhythms, so that is pretty cool. And therefore, I think it makes sense to see the commands beforehand, because you can plan ahead what you gonna do in your head and execute on the beat. But if this was not how it was originally intended and developed, I totally understand why the game is not fully designed around that mechanic.

But overall, again, really cool game. I probably gonna give it another go on the weekend with a bit more time and the knowledge I gained from our conversation. I really think this has potential and it is rare for me that a Jam game has enough of a lasting impact on me that I want to come back to it after testing it out! so you did definately a great job here!

also, would be super cool if you could check out our game, I would really appreciate a feedback if that is anything that interests you at all.

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