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psychotoke18 days ago (2 edits)

Ok. I'll read the description and try again, but I should let you know, I tried all the typical buttons (E, LMB, RMB, ESC, TAB, SHIFT, SPACE) and nothing happened. I even pressed every letter on the keyboard. If I read it and see that the controls are buttons I already tried, I probably won't bother trying again. If you don't include in game instructions, at least make the controls what you would expect them to be.

Edit: just read the description. Arrow keys to shoot? That's the very last thing you'd expect controls to be. Extremely unconventional. It's really simple to type some text into a UI in your game. Takes like 2 minutes. You should know, people are going to rush through playing submissions so most people won't read your description.

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zleze18 days ago (1 edit)

Arrow keys to shoot is pretty standard for arcade-like shooters. It was popularized in top-down rogue-likes by the Binding of Isaac, an incredibly influential game in the genre that set a lot of conventions and inspired other rogue-likes, including this one. We started the jam late and barely submitted in time, we were too busy implementing our final changes before the jam ended. We can't add controls in a patch as it would go against the spirit of the jam, since the 48 hour file unlock period is only for bug fixes. I understand that most people are going to rush through submissions, this is not our first game jam. To put this kindly, this game is not for those people, we made something we're proud on a technical level and wanted to put it out for our friends and like-minded people to try, if this is too unconventional or weird for you you're welcome to leave a negative rating.

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psychotoke18 days ago

Well, like I said it wouldn't be fair to just leave a negative review without actually playing your game. I'll give it another chance in a bit. Nothing personal. But maybe next time you do a jam, keep in mind that most players haven't played every genre and almost no one reads the description. I personally have never played the binding of Isaac or any games like it. I think the control scheme is very unusual. I have played enter the gungeon which is similar but I used a controller. But like I said, it takes like 2 minutes to make a UI with text explaining controls. I didn't even join the jam myself until there was only 3 days left, and I have all that in my game. Including a settings menu. And I'm a solo dev. It doesn't take that long.

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zleze17 days ago(+1)

No problem! Thanks. It was an oversight on our part to not include a control scheme in-game, so thank you. We were overworked with art, level design, sound design, and programming. We submitted our final additions only a few minutes before the deadline and by then we were so sleep deprived that we just wanted to go to bed. If we weren't so tired, we would have remembered to implement one. The answer as to why we didn't is really that simple, we were sleepy and forgot, since our team usually prioritizes other things. Thank you for your criticism, hope you can still find some enjoyment in it!

 Lastly: We did know the fact that a lot of people haven't played this genre, we weren't blind to that fact, it simply wasn't something we cared about. For this jam, we decided to primarily focus on developing our programming skills with the whole procedural world thing, but I appreciate your concern. We knew what we were getting into, but to avoid causing confusion we should probably prioritize the experience of unfamiliar players in the future.

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psychotoke17 days ago

No worries.

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