The following are stream of consciousness notes that I'm writing as I play.
- The game boots in a tiny window, I can't see why you'd want this.
- Intro cutscene is nice, more sounds would be nice but I can't dock you for something that's clearly WIP. The plot setup is pretty neat. Are those Houndeyes, by the way?
- The tutorial is ok, nothing to write home about but it does its job. It doesn't overstay its welcome, which is nice.
- I'm not sure I like the VN-style dialogue boxes, it's never good to take control away for the player (even if just for a few moments). I think you should follow in Half-Life's footsteps here and just let the character move around while a VA speaks.
- I think the text centering breaks if you try to fast forward through dialogue.
- From what I gather, the game is mission-based with persistent progression. I'm wondering if missions are replayable, guess I'll find out soon.
- Having a bunch of enemies in the very first combat encounter feels like a bit much. It might not phase players generally more experienced in shooters, but could be overwhelming for a novice. If your game is meant to be hardcore, I guess it's fine.
- You can chop the grass up! Cool detail.
- The jump you make to get out of water is comically high. Maybe a shorter jump and a tight mounting mechanic would be better.
- The VFX on the slug's slam attack is very underwhelming: not only is the shockwave tiny, it's almost the same brown as the ground. Make it whiter, bigger, and maybe even add a tiny bit of screen shake to give it some oomph.
- I have 4 nades, but pressing 5 does nothing..? I tried pressing random buttons, nothing worked. The inventory description makes it sound like they're for a noob tube or something, guess I'll keep playing and see if I get that.
- The water ripple effect can proc through solid ground, maybe add a raycast.
- Questionable choice to mark a checkpoint exactly when you enter the fortress and like 20 dudes start trying to kill you. I was on low health, so I kept reloading and instantly dying. I had to eventually reload an earlier autosave
- Shield enemies got stuck trying to pathfind around this edge.
- Interesting, you can't replay missions. So the game is purely linear, no level select? I'm not sure that's the best idea for replayability, especially if you're going for a boomer shooter where people want to play every level again and again to optimize their strategies.
- I got the two health regen upgrades and wow, they really seem to trivialize a lot of combat. I haven't had to use a health kit all level (The Lair), and I haven't been particularly good at dodging. 10hp per melee hit feels kind of absurd right now.
- I'm not sure how one is supposed to avoid the elephant's ground slam attack. I tried being in the air while it performed it, didn't help. Maybe I timed it wrong, but it felt like BS.
- Why is there a distinction between available and consumed mutagens? Why would I want to not consume them?
- There is a lot of free sniping you can do in the Chieftain's Camp, most of my kills were from just circling the structure and using the mounted gun and the harpoon.
- The chieftain fight was underwhelming. The boss is tiny and doesn't feel particularly unique, it's just a dude who jumps sometimes. I melted through him with the trench gun.
The game felt like it would be pretty tough at first, but again, those health upgrades made things so much easier. I didn't die once after getting them. The boat still feels divorced from the core gameplay, it's often just a tool to get in and out of the level. The only time it made a real difference was in the level where I could just circle the map and kill stuff for free. You could make a level where you have to stay on the boat and keep moving on the boat--maybe there's a tsunami behind you or something. The floaty controls don't allow for any sort of crazy obstacle dodging, but still, you could have more boat than land for sure.
I liked the animal enemies much more than the humans. The animals are more varied and serve clear roles, whereas the humans all look really similar. There is a general lack of movement in the enemies, they all either stand there and shoot at you or just walk towards you. Even the floating squid dudes, which you would assume stay at a range and pelt at you, hone right on top of you and just insta-die.
Overall, the game was decently fun, but it didn't really feel exciting. There were moments where I thought "oh, cool", and that's about it. I'll play it again next time you submit.