Post by OverBern in Feudalkeen Death Commando jam comments

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This is generally a neat idea well executed.

I finished one run. I didn't let the egg hatch, or encounter any secrets.

Bugs:

I died out of nowhere to a fanatic when revealing a dark room. I'm aware that the trigger for revealing rooms is 1 step further away (it triggers when you're adjacent to the invisible thing that the weapon detects as a target?) I may have pressed forward one time too many, not sure. Or maybe the fanatic exploded early because they were stuck, and that detonated an explosive barrel or killed me directly somehow????

Sometimes the dark room revealing wave doesn't spread to certain places? Like it's blocked by objects or enemies or something.

Criticism:

The water level is a bit unpleasant to look for loot on. Might be intentional that it's hard, since it's cluttered and similar color to loot. But it wasn't really hard, just unpleasant.

The floaty guy boss seems pretty cheeseable, I easily stayed in the first phase long enough to get a decent amount of ammo.

I didn't really find much use for the syringe.

I think the new buried laser enemy mostly makes the game easier since you can run them out of ammo and you can bait them into shooting each other for loot.

I only encountered like one witch and maybe three flamethrowers. I like the idea of the witch pulling you into difficult situations, could be neat to have an enemy type or object that does something similar in a more predictable way. Like consumable booster arrows that launch you in a direction when you step on them, that are often positioned to launch you into a room. Or a weaker enemy similar to the witch that just has the pull ability and maybe a melee attack that it can't use immediately after pulling. Or an object that causes you to spawn fire behind you when you walk as long as you're within a certain range of it.

I encountered the witch in a room that didn't have very many enemies, and I initially got pulled up against a wall. So it was a tense encounter because I didn't know what to expect, but ultimately it didn't amount to much. I don't think I took damage. They might be cooler usually.

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hawkwork20 days ago(+1)

Hello OverBern,

thanks for really getting in to the game and having the patience for completing a run. You are probably one of the few people who have played it and defeated the "floating boss". It really means a lot to me to have someone play in such detail and give detailed feedback.

I must apologize for the fanatic killing you like that. The game should have a certain difficulty, but it should always be fair, never unfair towards the player.

The syringe or stim is currently not useful. It gives you 5 extra HP that deteriorate each turn. If you only get to take it after you have dealt with the enemies in a chamber then the benefit deteriorates on the way to the next door. I will deal with this by making the stim spawn near the entrance of chambers. This way you can take it and then have the benefit of the additional HP during the fight.

The witch has multiple spells. The pulling which you encountered, making a ring of fire around the player with only one escape direction, spawning ghosts of the player that face in the same direction and shoot when the player shoots. The way to deal with a witches is to kill them off quickly prior to pandemonium breaking loose. This is especially true if there are other enemies in the same chamber.

I will partially rework the tilesets for better contrast, variation, and visibility. The difficulty shouldn't stem from things not being clear.

Thanks for the ideas regarding the interactive terrain like boost arrows or flame towers. I am looking for more static obstacles instead of enemies. Currently there are only the spikes and the vulcan-turrets.

The way you beat the vulcan-turrets and the baron boss sounds as though you had a good strategy down. Gaging the difficulty is really getting out of hand. There are many things which can chaotically interact. The main thing is at least being able to predict what will happen do a certain extent.

Once again, thanks for playing and completing so much of the game!

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OverBern20 days ago

I had a few more thoughts after posting:

I ended up with quite a lot of ammo as I got further in. Like 80ish pistol shots and 60ish laser shots, 12ish grenades before they got reset for the boss. Maybe it could be interesting to have some hazard that's hard to avoid and reduces your ammo based on how much ammo you have. e.g. Tesla coil: if you damage this with a weapon, lose all ammo on that weapon.
Though, that kinda encourages people to leave ammo and pick it up later, which I don't think would be fun. Hm. Maybe it mostly appears on a specific map that has an anti-backtracking feature. E.g. a barricaded map where there's no ammo pickups lying around before the end, and all crates and stuff specifically spawn in 1-wide hallways so you can't walk around their pickups. That might be a bit much to add for just this idea, though.

Creating occasional situations where the player has to engage enemies from multiple directions rather than baiting from a hallway

A very simple idea is just. Hallways are sometimes 2 spaces wide. Might be hard to program for the generation, though.

Level with an anti-backtracking enemy??? An enemy that spawns in the same room as you, can't be killed, but is stunned for several turns when you shoot it. Might work together with tesla coil.

Mimic explosive creates? Look like explosive crates, but when the player goes to the next room after them, they grow legs and start following after a few turns. They still function like explosive crates, before and after they start moving.

Animations
The pistol feels feels much less snappy than everything else, particularly when you use it from a distance. I got used to it, but it stood out at the beginning.
Revealing a room animation is slightly delayed, if feels like players are supposed to walk 1 step further than they have to, then eventually figure out they don't need to. If it's intentional, that's fine.
Player damage animation is maybe a little too easy to miss.

Played one more run to be sure of these feelings.
I experienced another off-screen explosion, but this one didn't kill me and happened when I was a few steps away from the hallway to that room.

Bug: I got a water level where the key is unavailable. There's just a closed door. Not sure if I actually moved up to the door or not. But yeah I didn't notice any key even though I killed everything. And the mushroom exit was really close to the entrance.

Bug: if you're standing in the area a spike can move into, and you shoot, you hit something in your own position?? Which is probably the spike's hitbox which doesn't retract with its hurtbox?

Bug: floaty boss was shown behind an explosive crate he'd dropped. (during phase 1)

Triggered a few eggs and let them hatch. Didn't let the spawned enemy get close to me, though. I like that they can trigger both from damage and walking close.

Didn't encounter any witches or flamers.

Ended up dying to second phase of the boss because I was playing too fast and lost count of how long it was since the last attack. But it was looking easy up until then, that's why I was playing fast.

Potential bug: I feel like I saw the boss spawning 2 troopers in the same corner and they ended up inside each other. May have been part of why it felt easy, they never really came near me.

Maybe the boss would be more interesting with a smaller room, so the troopers spawn closer to the player.

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