- My expectation as a player is that unlocking new weapons will make it easier to handle the number of enemies the game is throwing at me. The problem is that each new weapon slowed down my movement and in some cases made it harder to deal with the horde. The weapon accuracy felt very punishing and only seemed to get worse with the heavier weapons. It's not really a game that will let me sit and defend one position but the weapons punished me for trying to move around too much. A lot of your mechanics seem like they were made for a slower and more strategic shooter but the gameplay fits a faster run-n-gun playstyle.
- I don't recall what wave I made it to but I had unlocked all of the weapons and doors. I think the interiors felt about right but the exteriors were oddly claustrophobic. I played a few more times with selecting higher starting waves (50 and 100). The enemy count seemed suitably overwhelming and they came at me from all directions due to their spawn points.
- If I got surrounded it was only because of the spawns and the constrictive environment. With ReDead we made a system that tries to predict where the player is going. The zombies became much more fun to fight because they're more reactive and try to cut off the player's movement. It also meant that open spaces suddenly became dangerous to the player and we didn't need to rely on other environmental constraints. I'm not trying to claim that our way is best, it's just something that worked for our project.
Viewing post in Call of the Horde jam comments
thanks for all that wonderful feedback! Will hopefully get to test your game tomorrow and compare and leave feedback!
- All valid points and obvious in hindsight! Will definitely be fixed in the next version.
- I think the redesign may help then. I agree it takes too long to get “difficult” once you get used to the game.
- My zombie AI did have heavy flanking in the beginning, but they felt too smart. Combine with them being hard to kill, it felt punishing to do anything but camp. Will definitely compare your choice. Maybe I just didn’t balance it right.
I checked out your game and it was fun!
In terms of difficulty, I'm thinking of giving players custom settings for the match. Ideally I would love for this game to encourage playing with friends. So having different game modes (just twist on the match rules) and having custom settings will hopefully allow some really casual almost friend slop fun.