Woah! This is the first feedback that addresses something negative about the game design part and fortunately for us, it's very constructive! The design philosophy we stood by, is the fact that we can't make something that will appease everyone and this is one of that case. That doesn't mean we just throw valuable feedbacks such as these into the trash bin right away, especially the ones that doesn't sugarcoat it.
The fact that you bring up the topic about player agency aligns well with some contents that didn't make it to the release. That includes manual global reroll button that reroll your powerup with the risk of rerolling enemy too, and powerups being able to hit multiple target and powerup crates more consistently to allow the player "rig the rng" and that means fixing the bug where if we shoot a powerup crate, another powerup should be the one that's next in the queue instead of the current one being constantly spammed.
But those only fixes a relatively small margin of the inherent problem that our game's core mechanic has, since our target audience are the one who take a joy in gambling which in its root nature has their risk/reward value determined completely by rng. Another problem is that the challenge we provide to our player are those of adaptibility skill, which really not engaging at all for players that highly value the freedom of choice from the varied pool of ways to play the game.
That said, we're not giving up on enhancing the player agency element from our game! We're trying our best to add more content in the future that addresses this constraining feeling of not being able to play the game the way you want. More powerups that you put in a loadout before you get into the game, some buildcrafting system that greatly expands player's agency in "Skillfuly cheat your luck", the list goes on! Of course without removing the design pillar of what makes this game well... this game.
We already highly appreciate the feedback you give without sugarcoating the main game design issue. But if you would so kindly fulfill our selfish wish… Is it okay if you give us more suggestions on the things we should add/fix/etc? This will go a long way on improving our game without removing the design pillar of the game itself, This one is totally optional, zero pressure given!
Viewing post in MskJaw "John" Dice jam comments
I'll say this. You're speaking as if you're already very committed to this particular game conceived in this particular way, and I would just ask why?
It's a three day game jam. What you're proposing is like getting married after one date.
You tried this out. Certain parts of it didn't work. You've still got the assets, the animation rigging, the sets, the engine, all of that. You're not married to it. You can scrap the whole thing if you want, and you're still totally fine. You can give it to ten different playtesters, see what they think, and if they say the same things I said, you can just kill the thing with no longterm harm done.
The only time you really commit to producing a game is when it starts to get traction from players, when playtesters consistently play it for more than a few hours at a time, when a few of them get all the way through the game and ask you for more of where that came from. Until then, you're just trying stuff out. You're not married to it.
To answer out motives behind this, is probably because of the condition of our studio. All of us are in different colleges and our daily responsibilities keep dragging us away from gamedev, our dream. Our studio is one that's made from long-built friendship, once everyone finishes university we will have our own lives and We'll expect things are gonna be hard for us to get back together like this again. Not to mention that our game designer is studying far from the rest of the group. This game is the one that put us back together again in a very long while, and we're also suprised that we can make a game that reach this far despite the fact that our teamwork weren't what it used to be.
Basically this game is a rare opportunity for us, and we won't let this momentum fade just yet. About playtester part, actually as you can see about other comments there are not much, but satisfactory amount of people that enjoys our game. Of course we'll still look the overall final rating as our final benchmark and taking in your suggestion, we'll act accordingly. Another thing that motivates us even further is the amount of smiles we can see from our playtesters (this is what my studio members tell me on my personal experience in my university) when each of our member share the game in our corresponding universities. Those smiles are really what matters the most to us and a really damn good motivator.
But that's all the answer for the question on your first sentence. The advice you gave us about commitment to a game production is really damn good advice. We are deeply grateful for the valuable lesson you shared for us.
It's definitely a 3 days project. It's just that the voting period, inputs, and feedbacks so far really make us contemplate a lot of things for us moving forward from here. Honestly a lot of things happen since Tuesday that reminds us of our dream once again. In addition to that, all of your comments today really opened our eyes a lot of things that we can learn. We just realized that if we could've done more in the past, things would be different. But there's no use looking at the past now, we will carry these momentum, lesson, and experience we just get to the future and gallop on.
The deep connection comes from our rebuilt solidarity, valuable lessons from the community, and most importantly, the smile of those who played our game.