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Mist73 days ago(+2)

I like it! Reminds me a lot of one finger death punch. A couple "notes" (music joke, get it?) 

1. While I can pick up the beat from the music, it takes a little more effort for this game than with other games I've played. Rhythm games like this typically do better with an extremely distinct separation of beats. See Crypt of the Necrodancer for an example: 

The bass in this song makes it extremely easy to pick out the beat, which dramatically increases the ease of play. Finding the beat should not be the part you want your player focusing on

2. The beat counter you have works fine for a prototype, but if you want to improve the player's ability to read the beat, consider adding a visual cue that gives lead up. Again we can reference necrodancer for this (I've played more rhythm games than this I swear it just has good examples :P)

Note the heartbeat meter at the bottom of the screen. Allowing the player to anticipate the incoming beat visually is super helpful, particularly after they make a mistake and need to quickly get back on beat


3. Having the player only do partial damage when they get "ok and good" hits feels terrible. Make it so the hit either connects or it doesn't, and rankings can be for points if anything. It just doesn't feel good to play with, and the game would be significantly improved without it.


Like I mentioned before, check out one finger death punch if you haven't already! Very similar in premise, there might be something there you could take from it if you choose to continue this!


Congrats on finishing the jam! I know I mostly critiqued with this comment so I'll reiterate: I enjoyed this game quite a bit! Rhythm games are great and the world needs more of them, so get on it!

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Herodegon71 days ago (1 edit)

Thanks so much for your reply! I'm actually a huge fan of One Finger Death Punch and Crypt of the Necrodancer myself! Both were pivotal inspirations for several of the ideas used here (enemies spawning from two sides of the player, the spotlights alternating colors on beat, etc.). 


I do really appreciate your feedback. The beat visualization was something I really struggled with because I wanted to step away from the standard metronome of rhythm games and try something more creative, but I wasn't really able to find what that was by the time the game jam ended. Instead, I left in a debug feature where the word "beat" appears on-beat, and it definitely feels like a debug feature lol. I did leave in a debug metronome that you can turn on by pressing the 'M' key during gameplay, but that is also just a debug feature.


The hit scoring system was also something I struggled to fine tune. The idea is that when the player does okay they do normal damage, but when they get a perfect they do extra damage, and when they do poorly they do less damage. This was to act as a reward mechanism for the player so that even if they weren't doing perfectly all the time they would want to get better at the game to do more damage consistently. Obviously this mechanic didn't translate well in gameplay, and I'll definitely take a step back to reevaluate how to better execute this idea or just scrap it altogether and attach it purely to your final score as per your suggestion.


P.S. Honestly, some of your gripes with my score/damage system could probably have been remedied if I gave more feedback to the player about how much health an enemy has, and how much damage you're actually doing to them on hit.


I thank you so much for your feedback, and thanks for trying my game! ^u^

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