Hello! This is Ikiru from oldflowergames with some comments on your game. Overall it was a neat experience - I see below that this is your first game, and I agree with Luna that it's impressive for a first project! I really only ran into a few bugs, which is a true accomplishment. That said, I had a few notes, which are broken into categories here:
Gameplay:
⢠I like the idea of a shared movement pool across all units â it promotes a lot of turn-by-turn strategic thinking. But making the amount of movement per turn random feels arbitrary and frustrating to me. Rolling a 2 then watching an enemy roll a 12 and steamroll past was no fun. If it were somehow tied into an in-game mechanic or resource it could work, but just having dice appear is not convincing, imo.
⢠It feels kinda silly that attacks are all melee, since the characters are clearly holding guns... I would get it if the maps looked like they were representing a larger space, but the size feels inconsistent (HQ vs. the Rocks tile, for example).
⢠Only having one unit type also feels very limiting. I started the third demo battle and saw that there werenât any new units on the map so I went ahead and stopped playing. I donât know if you have more planned for the future, but if theyâre in the game, definitely introduce them sooner!
⢠I had a huge âinevitable victoryâ problem while playing. It was most apparent on the second map, where I rolled huge movement and secured two bases before the enemy. At that point I had already won â it was just a matter of waiting for the victory, with no tension. I think there needs to be some kind of comeback mechanic or it just becomes an exercise in tedium.
⢠Itâs a weird limitation that you canât deploy troops at the Outposts unless your HQ slots are filled up. On the second map I ended up with tons of units just hanging out at the HQ and Outposts purely for the purpose of letting me deploy more at the most forward Outpost... which only left me with a few units to work with on the front lines.
⢠A small thing, but repeating the tutorial steps in the demo missions is not ideal. I know you have to account for players potentially skipping the tutorial, but itâs tedious to see these things repeated once you start the demo missions. Consider tracking the tutorials that the player has already seen to prevent the repetition.
Bugs:
⢠Changing the resolution does not actually change anything in Fullscreen or Borderless Fullscreen mode.
⢠Typo: âLuckily, if the enemy is inside an adyacent âSMALL BUILDINGââ
⢠In the second Demo mission, I was unable to attack from the Tall Buildings at any range, maybe because they hadnât been explained yet in the mission? But the enemies were able to use them to their advantage, and they were never explained here.
Polish:
⢠Typewriter text does a weird wraparound thing, where words start on one line then jump down to the next. Not a big deal, but does not feel polished. (I got around this in my game (using Unity + TextMeshPro) by populating the full text but incrementing âmaxVisibleCharsâ to make it appear over time instead. Not sure what engine youâre using, but hopefully that can help!)
Music (Iâm being more specific here since I saw that the developer also made the music!):
⢠Overall, the music is fun but too same-y. Iâm glad that youâre not just looping the same song over and over, but all the songs use the same instruments and are maybe even in the same key? Some variety across tracks would be great to hear. An example of a game that does a really great job of this is Loop Hero â the playlist of songs is cohesive, but varied.
⢠The main menu music doesnât make a great impression - The big 80âs drums are cool but the repetitive synths that come in are pretty grating. The B section is really neat, though! Since people arenât going to spend much time on this screen, I recommend getting to the good stuff more quickly.
⢠Victory song is way too quiet compared to the rest.
Overall, I enjoyed the stripped down tactics of the game, and think the presentation has potential. However I felt there were some pretty fundamental flaws in the gameplay that would keep me from playing past the first couple missions. With some more variety and less RNG in the gameplay this could be a neat game, though!