Post by Graysongdl in Net. Sweeper comments

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This is a fun and promising game! I think it could be really great with some updates and tweaks! If you do plan on updating this game further, I have some feedback:

1. Switching between ammo types is a liiitle bit annoying to have to do between every shot. Could be nice if there was a way to auto-attack all flagged spaces. How would it know which tier of ammo to use? Maybe right clicking multiple times could cycle the tile through different "tiers" of flag, based on the floor and what types of enemies are on it.

2. The lack of a way to reveal tiles in bulk slows down the game considerably. In minesweeper, you're usually supposed to be able to click the numbers to reveal all adjacent tiles IF the number of adjacent flags is equal to the number on the tile. I can see how that would be a bit complicated here, but maybe my earlier tiered flags suggestion could help with that. Maybe even make it so clicking the numbers auto-attacks the enemies if you have the right tiered ammo? Could be an optional toggle, at least.

3. It would be nice if the number of enemies on the right decreased with each one defeated, so I wouldn't need to count all the v1.0s just to make sure they all add up to 10.

4. Level ups don't really feel impactful. More health is nice, but I tried my best to conserve level ammo because of how it scales with your level, making it by far the most valuable ammo type. I never even used any before reaching the ending, which makes me feel like I hoarded it for no reason. Maybe you could gain new abilities with level-ups, making it easier to clear boards quickly. Then, you could make the game harder by either ramping up the number of enemies, or reducing the amount of ammo, making said abilities feel more necessary, and make it so skillful usage of them is critical to success.

5. The fact that you can misclick on an already-revealed tile, and yet it still wastes ammo, feels bad. Ammo should only be used when revealing new tiles, because there's no situation where shooting a revealed tile is useful or desired. ...I mean, it could be if you got really creative with new, special types of ammo, but all of the ammo in the game is pretty basic, so...

6. I'm not sure why the scroll wheel spams the shoot sound effect, especially because it doesn't actually use ammo or reveal tiles.

All in all, this game has some great potential, and I'd love to see it develop further! I also just wanna say I love the "old Windows" aesthetic, and the midi music adds to it so perfectly!

F-i-nn91 days ago

Wow, thank you so much for the thoughtful suggestions! All your points are absolutely right. 2, 3, 5, 6 are quality of life improvements that are definitely needed and could be done. 1 and 4 (convenient way of switching reveal method and meaningful progression) have also been on my mind.

For 1, I've been thinking of using a Minecraft inventory like way of scrolling with middle mouse button. Right click also works, probably will implement both and let player decide. Or I might save right click to flag.

For 4, it needs a combination of adding new enemies and new item. I've also been thinking of removing the player level all together, and solely rely on items to progress.

Thanks again for the great feedback!

Graysongdl77 days ago

I'm glad you appreciated my feedback! :D

I feel like, if you're going to have a dedicated flag button, right click should be reserved for that, as changing it to some other button would mess with muscle memory too much. Alternatively, if you wanted to change how flags work (for example, the "tiered" flags concept), you could try using the scroll wheel for the flag mechanic? Right click a space to select it for flagging, scroll up or down to increment/decrement the number?

Then maybe left clicking a tiered flag auto-uses the lowest tier of regular ammo required, which could be disabled with a checkbox if you want the normal behavior of it using your selected ammo? Or maybe the ammo selection menu simply has a "smart select" option, and using that "ammo" automatically picks the correct ammo based on what number is on the flag? In that case, it would be worth deciding whether to have it use better or worse ammo if you don't have that exact tier, or if it should just pop up a message saying "no ammo" to tell the player they have to choose their desired ammo manually?

Could give the feeling that you right click and scroll to "aim" your weapon, and left click to "fire". For anyone without scroll wheels, they could just type the number with the keyboard. Number keys could also be used for the "Minecraft hotbar" idea, and a good way to prevent overlap would be to have the numbers enter numbers onto the selected flag tile, and you can hit enter to "confirm" the number, returning the number keys to their hotbar functionality while no "text field" is selected? Same for scroll wheel potentially being used for hotbar. Of course, you could add an option that disables the number typing entirely, for those who don't want to bother hitting enter before selecting their ammo, especially in cases where they actually have a scroll wheel. And a reverse option that enables number typing, but dedicates the scroll wheel to hotbar selection.

Or maybe you could also make it so right clicking to flag a tile, and then clicking one of the enemy "profiles" on the right, uses the selected enemy to determine the flag used? So if there's a 1 on a corner, you can right click the tile, click the level 1 enemy, and then a "1" flag appears? Would be slower than the other ideas, but very convenient for touchscreens, or people who prefer "intuitive" over "quick".

There's lots of ways you could go about making a new control scheme, but I'm a game design nerd, so I figured I'd give you some of my ideas. :P

itch.io

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