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(1 edit) (+1)

The premise is intriguing. The B&W aesthetic is neat. and works well with the hand drawn art. Some of the text could use a bit more contrast, such as on the Pause screen, when it is over a lot of white. It looks like you have a slight blur effect, but you may want to add a darker semi-transparent Panel Container behind the text to give a bit more contrast when the text is over a lot of white.

When I started I noticed the "0" after "Remaining:" was clipped on the left side, though later, after getting upgrades it looked fine.

It would be nice if your current XP/currency was shown when you hit the upgrade shop. I had not noticed the gained XP on the Pause screen, so was not sure how many I had when talking to the shop and just bought something, then went back and bought the other. Trying again I was told I didn't have enough. After that I went to the Pause screen and saw the upgrades. Knowing it is there, I can now go check it before a shop, but it is generally good to show the currency available in a shop. Similarly, I'd prefer being able to see the current amount of something when able to purchase more.  It wasn't hard to guess the upgrades provided by each item, but it also would be nice if the first time you visited the shop they told you what each was for.

After a while the music stopped. You may want to check your import settings for the file and make sure "Loop" is checked.

I saw a note in your devlog about controller issues with web browsers on Linux. I am playing using Vivaldi (Chromium based) on Linux. My controller (8BitDo Pro2) worked fine. I played a bit like that, but found the R3 to Slice messing with my aim and switched to keyboard and mouse. I like that you support many input options. With mouse it really started to stand out that holding space to be able to act was really odd. It didn't feel quite so awkward on joypad, but trying to hold Shift, Space, and use WASD to move was getting unpleasant after a while. I remembered seeing Toggle Hold in the options, and tried it out. That feels much better. With so much of what you are doing needing that aiming, it seem odd that you have the requirement to be in that mode to do things. It might make more sense to allow toggling the display of the cone, but allow use of abilities at all times. For mouse it is obviously easy to see where you are aiming without the display, while I can see that other inputs may need the display to know for sure. Still, I think that action mode being the default seems to be preferred, at least with what I have played so far. If the display of the action cone is problematic, perhaps add an option to adjust its alpha with a slider so players can have it show, but only as faintly as they want.

Finally, the biggest thing that stood out to me was the combat. The description on the web page had me intrigued by the potential options of how to play, seeming to promise the ability to play peacefully or be violent. Asside from the 1 shop I ran into, Everything was trying to kill me, and nothing other than Slice seemed to do anything useful. The trees moved for Shout. But no matter how many times I shouted at enemies, and I did try it a fair number of times, it did not seem to do anything. I tried Shock as well, but that puts you in greater danger and was much harder to do, so was tried less. Still, I did not see any effect from it. After a fair amount of redoing the first part from dying many times trying to find the non-combat options the description implied were available, I went ahead and used Slice. I tried a few more times on different enemies, but always fell back to Slice. I did try running for a while, until I thought I hit a dead end, and may have needed to kill the enemies to proceed. After killing those I could find I did find a path around the top that I had not seen before. I do not know if it was there and I had missed it, or if the killing had opened it up. I had been trying to get through from the left side where there were 2 destructable rocks, and several I could not destroy or pass, and those were what I thought might be tied to killing.

I think it could use with a tutorial, including a bit more info on how and when to use the abilities other than Slice. It could also use with a bit of rewording to better prepare the player for the need to do a lot of fighting, if it is indeed needed. If there are ways to not fight, then a bit more guidance on how would be good.

(2 edits) (+1)

Thanks for the wonderful feedback!

For the combat, I will look into ways to make it more clearer. The idea was for the icons on the Action HUD beside the buttons matching the icons on the Beings would show what Action you needed to do to befriend them. I initially thought that would be enough. I also forgot that I didn’t explain that making 3 mistakes of choosing the wrong action will lead to them being angered, and only allowing Slice. I think I’ll look into adding some text to quickly explain those as you go out of the starting forest. There’s a lot of space before getting to the first Being anyway.

(EDIT) I’m also gonna add some more effects when one does get it wrong and make it more apparent one got it wrong. Like a scaled angry version pulses quickly, sound effects, and all that.

The indestructible rocks needs a nearby Boss Being to be befriended or slain at least once. The first one in Dead Clearing has a very different sprite, and are north of those rocks. I think I will keep this implied for now, but maybe I can think of an easier way for players to know. Maybe some particles leading to the boss or I don’t know.

I think I will remove the Toggle Hold setting entirely and make it where toggling instead of holding is the default. I honestly find myself defaulting once I implemented it too, and see other feedback also struggling with the amount of inputs needing to be held to press.

I’ve added some more information when shopping, adding the experience needed to the side of the item (like Plate (2)), as well as showing the remaining XP available once the shop options appear during dialogue. I think I had that thought at the back of my mind, but I kept forgetting to write it down and actually trying to rectify it so thanks for catching that. I’ve also added some more translucent panels to make the text read better in the Pause Upgrades screen.

Thanks for letting me know on the sound issues and clipping issues on the Remaining Text. Clip Content is enabled by default and the outline went over the boundary of the box so it was a quick fix.

(1 edit) (+1)

After reading your reply I opened the game in a Private Window to try it fresh, as I did not see a reset/start new game option, and didn't feel like clearing the files manually. You may want to add a new game or reset somewhere for testing like this.

Looking for it, I did see the symbol and was able to befriend the first being. I think the issue is that there is a lot going on with the being's art, and everything overhead. The icon blends in with everything else, and is hard to notice when it appears on screen, especially since you are suddenly being attacked before it is clearly visible. With the B&W art style you have created a limit for yourself. You don't have as large of a pallet to work with to differentiate the icons from the beings. I don't work in B&W myself, so don't know what to suggest, but I think that for the system to work, you will need to find a way to make the icons stand out more as something separate.

I went to the next one and befriended them as well. Again, knowing how it works I was able to do it, but even knowing what to look for, it took time to process what the symbol was and what it meant. Over time I could see getting used to it and it will be easier, but for new players, they just blend into the rest of the being too much for the fast paced attacks coming at you. I died once and was close to death a second time when I befriended it. Thinking on it, the thing that most stands out to me is the exclamation marks above the head, the symbol to befriend, and the head/hat are all close together and slightly detached from the main body. They all kind of blend together as part of the being. I think if the head/hat was more attached to the body, that would help. The double exclamation marks could be reduced to a single one, and possibly moved a bit further away. The other option would be to make all of the befriending/action symbols have something about them that really sets them apart from everything else. They need to be recognizable at a glance, both as different from anything else on the screen, and from each other.

I like the art style, and think it works well for the game. Now that I know how the befriending works I really like it, and that you created such a system. I think it just needs a bit of tweaking  of the display a bit to make it easier for new players.