I have no idea who or what this "frog" is or what level the staff spawns in. This is why, when it comes to the core mechanics of the game, they should be made so painfully apparent and idiot-proof that there's no way you can physically miss them. Put up some glowing red arrows next to the staff if you have to. But that's just one problem with the progression. Who are you meant to beat/defeat and why? Where do you go (in general by the way, what is the streamlined progression of this game, open-endedly)?
I now see what the staff is meant to be. Why is it so big and long?!!? I genuinely didn't even notice it on my first playthrough, and now on the attempt that I made while typing this specific comment I thought it was a lamp-post until I went near it. You people really didn't think this one through didya? Not trying to be mean over here, but its size literally makes no sense. And when you spawn into this world, the frog or whatever it is should pop up and start up a dialogue "Hey, don't forget to pick up the staff. Did you pick up the staff? Please pick up the staff, do so immediately!!!" And if the player would still try to circumvent getting the staff, the frog would say "you want to do this the hard way then eh?" or something like that, and a cutscene plays where you're physically forced into the ownership of the staff. Is it 'bElItTlInG tHe PlAyEr'S iNtElLiGeNcE", yeah sure but sometimes you have to do that. Some processes should be automated like acquiring one of the core mechanics of the game.
Of course, never go to the point of yellow-tape in a modern Resident Evil game, but it is only normal to nudge players towards key features and basically every single game on planet earth does so in one way, shape or form, that's just game design 101. Core gameplay mechanics should not be optional and missable, even by accident. No matter how unintentional it may have been from your team's behalf, that's what acquiring this staff ended up being: optional.
And it seemingly literally breaks the game. Because a lot of the other events and mechanics, apparently and I can only imagine (even admitted by you: "But this only works when you grabbed the staff ofcourse"), are all programmed around you having the staff. This is a massive oversight that should not happen under any circumstances, game design 101. Trust me, as if it shouldn't already be common sense but I went to school to study game design. I can tell
9 days ago(+1)
Thank you for this long explanation. Originally it was planned to have the door not open if you did not grab it but the game is missing a couple things because the people that made the visuals suddenly had to fix a bunch of code the last day. but this is no excuse i know that. we clearly ran out of time for a couple mechanics. It was in no way meant as 'bElItTlInG tHe PlAyEr'S iNtElLiGeNcE". I hope I did not offend you. I just tried making it obvious enough to grab because at this point it indeed breaks the game XD. This is our first game jam so still a lot to learn. It was meant a bit as Look through the level and look where you have to go and what to do but that backfired for a lot of people. Thank you so much for playing and thank you for the great advice it really helps. We will fix these issues in another build. make the staff not look like a lamp post, make it break proof from the beginning, make paths and puzzles way more obvious is added to the list. Got it :))
And what I meant, as I tried conveying in that text, is that sometimes you have to not be afraid to seem like you're belittling people's intelligence and really hold their hand through the essentials of the game when warranted, and let's be real people are kinda dumb. I'd like to say that I'm a pretty smart fella and I had no idea what to do in the game
But there's no point in beating you over the head with the topic anymore, especially since your comment already shed light on why the safetyrails were missing. Just wanted to clarify