This game is not cozy in the slightest...
... But I loved this game to pieces. I had a big smile on my face the entire time. The chaos of everything is so funny to me, and despite the actual sprites being kinda meh, the way that they are animated is super fun and incredibly charming. I love how all of the ducks will display around you one by one in the game over screen. I also love how most of the ducks just use rockets as an attack. It all just adds to create a "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!" sort of vibe.
If there is one cozy thing about this game it would be the music. I really like it! It's a great contrast to everything else going on, making it that much funnier.
(This next section is going to be a lot of criticism, and I just want to be super clear: I love this game and it's concept to pieces. The reason I have so much to say about it is precisely because I enjoyed it so much.)
Now the enemies... They are super fast, precise, are bulky as heck, and grow in numbers at insane speeds. While I enjoy them growing super quickly in numbers, their other attributes are a little bit more annoying than chaotic. Because they have so much health, it feels as if my ducklings are doing nothing against them. When playing this game I went all in on the soda because that was the strategy that gave me the most obvious success. While upgrading the attacks might've helped, the fact that I never even saw a enemy die made me not even really consider the viability of attacking.
There are multiple ways I would fix that. (Obviously these are just random ideas):
- Add randomness to the angle the projectiles
- Slow down the enemies
- Give the enemies more predictable AI (Ex. Walk up to the player, do a little wiggle animation, jump, wait a few seconds, continue)
- Lower health (If you do anything I would strongly suggest doing this). I'm fairly certain you could make the snowflakes die in one hit and the game would still maintain a feeling of chaos.
Then there is the gambling. It's a super funny concept. I really love the slot machine aesthetic with the sounds and all. Problem is it feels more like getting an item in Mario Kart than it does like gambling. While you do pay your currency to activate the slots, I feel like there is more that could be done in order to really sell the gambling effect. Here are some ideas in that regard:
- It'd be so funny if whenever you interact with a bush, instead of rolling for a duck, you play a casino-type mini-game although I don't know fully how that would work.
- You could be able to bet more money to have a higher change of getting a good duck?
- Make the bushes have literal slot machines baked into them
- Have a walking bass while the you roll
- Have the strip that the ducks are on be an alternating red and black pattern rather than green.
I think that's all I really have to say? I hope I made sense. I am pretty tired so sorry if anything I say doesn't make much sense. But if I haven't made it clear enough already, this game is peak lol.