itch.io

Hello! This is Ikiru from oldflowergames with some comments on your game. Overall there's a ton of potential here, and it already feels very polished. However, as others have said, it's tough to really give feedback because of the missing core mechanics. That said, here are some chronological notes from the time I spent with it:

    • Right from the start, the intro music feels very high quality, and sets the mood effectively.

    • The voice effects felt too loud compared to the music at the start, and the starts and ends are too abrupt. Whenever I’m dealing with a looping sound effect, I always do a very quick fadeout so you don’t hear the audio clip when it ends.

    • The blood effects look really good, especially the death animations.

    • The first enemies felt a bit too tanky to me. Especially without being able to see health bars or damage numbers, it just becomes a waiting game that doesn’t invite experimentation.

    • The floating hand animations + smoke looks so goooood! Since it’s the core of the game, it really feels great to be in control of something polished.

    • It would be great if your units were highlighted when you hovered over them, so you could tell what you’re going to select.

    • The writing feels solid and evocative, but right off the bat the encounters feel a bit too same-y (either “We’re attacking”, “give us money”, or “give us units”). And “Give us units” doesn’t really feel like an option, since it would leave you less equipped to deal with the next enemies. (Although the ability to recruit/build more units would alleviate this problem, and could make it an interesting conundrum.)

    • The periodic, seemingly random explosion in the background is a really intriguing touch that I liked a lot. Variety!

    • Not sure if this is intended or just a demo limitation, but once all my units were dead the enemies did not do anything once they reached the center. I assume this is the game over state, and I just had to restart, but actually seeing game over would be a big improvement.

    • Small Things:

        ◦ The pitch variation when you pick up multiples of the same unit type is pretty distracting. Our ears are REALLY good at picking out when a sound has just been pitch shifted (especially voice-like sounds). If you could have a few variations to cycle through with reduced pitch variation I think it would be much more effective.

        ◦ For demo purposes, it would be ideal if you didn’t have to click through the opening dialogue every time you restart.

        ◦ Tooltips for your unit types would be very helpful. I couldn’t figure out what the functional difference was between the two melee units.

        ◦ The tooltips following the mouse position on the dialogue options that cost money feels a bit odd. Personally, I’d rather see them pop up at a fixed offset.

        ◦ On the pause menu, “Double Tap – Acceleration” is a bit unclear. I think if you just add the [A][D] after double tap it would make more sense. (“Double Tap [A][D] – Acceleration”)

        ◦ Also on the pause menu, I would recommend adding a confirmation window to the Exit Game button.

    • Overall, the aesthetic presentation here is really solid. It already feels quite polished and satisfying to spend time in. However, I feel that the goal of a demo is to create excitement for the possibilities that the full game has to offer, and in this respect I don’t think it succeeds just yet. Your plans to add base building and more varied encounters are promising, but I think this demo is too barebones in it’s current state to hook the audience. I saw your post talking about a lack of engagement, and I definitely understand how frustrating that feeling is – I can tell you’ve put a lot of work into this already. But without more of the core mechanics in place, I don’t think there’s enough here to find an audience. Absolutely keep working on it though! There’s a ton of potential here.