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(1 edit)

This is a bit of a confusingly designed game. Not that the game mechanics felt underexplained or that the world felt too easy to get lost in (that part honestly felt a bit too straightforward), but the implementation of movement, combat and level design into the premise of it all felt so puzzling.

We are informed that the main character is a pacifist who doesn't kill. How do we implement that into the game? Give her infinite ammo and no repercussions for killing. We are informed that the main character is a spy. How do we implement that into the game? Make stealth the most ineffective way of playing. With how slow and weak the enemies are running past them is barely an inconvenience. Besides there is not a SINGLE power-up that improves stealth. As a matter of fact the Phase power-up is the opposite of stealth, allowing you to trip every alarm and just ignore the consequences.

Here's my feedback: make the enemies invincible, with your attacks only stunning them. Alternatively make the enemies explode on death to discourage killing. Make the Phase power-up give you invisibility, not invincibility. Invincibility completely trivializes the late game.

(+1)

I think your feedback is spot on. Have you tried the first version? Repercussions for getting caught are a bit harsher in it. I think all your critiques still stand, but the first version feels like it's pushing you to be stealthy a bit more.

(+2)

And now I'm even more confused. This is an improvement in essentially every way. The level design is tighter, there is more enemy variety and I felt inclined to utilize stealth the whole way. The Phase ability is still overpowered and there is no boss music, but this is pretty great.

(+1)

First of all, thank you for the feedback. This game is definitely not how I wanted it to be, as it was made amidst other work I was doing (and I did it ALL by myself). From the first to the second version, I thought about expanding the mechanics, enemies, and other things, but I only had a week and everything was left half-finished. The solution to deliver something within the jam deadline was to cut and simplify elements to make the game playable, even if not in the ideal way. There would be power-ups, a greater variety of enemies, and other things that I will implement in the future if I have time.

Regarding the character being a pacifist, no enemy explodes, they just go off-screen. As you can see in the first version, the stage enemies would be deactivated, but there is a bug in this programming that I couldn't fix in time, the solution was to make enemies simpler in every way, but they don't die, they are just deactivated and thrown off-screen. Finally, remember that this is a game jam game, which I made with the little free time I have, and that to make it a minimally viable product, I had to remove many things I wanted (like a map, for example). Even so, the game placed well in the two game jams I participated in, but I intend to make occasional updates and bring it closer to the version I originally conceived.