Really REALLY solid baseline for an incremental browser game. This reminds me a lot of those old flash games like Learn to Fly where you REALLY suck at what you're doing in the beginning and then skyrocket in ability as the game goes on. You really captured that vibe for me.
Feedback:
- I feel like it takes too long to "come online" as a player. Runs feel almost identical until you get your first major upgrade like dash, which in my case was maybe 10 runs in because the tooltip doesn't mention the ink spray ;-;
- Incremental upgrades to the core mechanics like ink-cooldown might serve better to be found earlier in the skill tree if for nothing else, to make the game feel less sluggish a little earlier on. I LOVE that I start off feeling incapable of reaching the end goal, not even measuring 1% after a few runs. But what I didn't love is how long it took to get to a point where I felt like I was progressing.
- Adding time to the rounds being an upgrade really exacerbates this feeling of taking too long to come online. Something I think really helped in Learn to Fly was that the round time was entirely dependent on how far you flew, which meant the rounds would get dynamically longer in line with player progress and higher rewards so it never felt like "man I wish this round would be over so I can buy an upgrade"
- I'm not sure what a change in this vein would look like for Inkker. I think a time limited round makes this more difficult to consider.
- Halving the required amount of the map to be inked to win also feels pretty redundant in this regard.
- Incremental upgrades to the core mechanics like ink-cooldown might serve better to be found earlier in the skill tree if for nothing else, to make the game feel less sluggish a little earlier on. I LOVE that I start off feeling incapable of reaching the end goal, not even measuring 1% after a few runs. But what I didn't love is how long it took to get to a point where I felt like I was progressing.
- Certain major upgrades - the ones that fundamentally change how you play or alter a core mechanic - would maybe feel better if they were more evenly dispersed in the skill tree, or if the weak baseline versions were available earlier.
- For example I put off dash for so long for two reasons: One being that I didn't know it had an ink-trail, if I knew I would have saved up very early on. Two being that it was very expensive for how many points I was making on a run, so it always felt like I would get better value out of other options.
- Similarly the ink trail seems like it would serve well as an early upgrade when players can't shoot very often, it has a high value proposition and feels really good to buy. Maybe it could be comparatively expensive to incremental upgrades like ink-fire-rate but available to reward players for choosing to save up for something big like that.
- Even during the endgame (every inking ability maxed, not running out of ink) the game felt really slow.
- Some music would REALLY help the vibes. Doesn't have to be anything crazy, but something lo-fi and vibey would slap.
- The abilities felt really good once I had them. It makes me wonder how this game would feel you doubled down on how quick and explosive Inkker's movement and abilities would be. Basically scaling him to the moon and back until he's just mega-multi dashing around the level and machinegun inking the ocean.
- I understand this could be TOTALLY contrary to your vision, just wanted to share a fun thought I had.
- Minor stuff
- I never ran out of ink once I had 5 points in snow amount, 2 points in more ink, and 1 point in better food. This was even without the dash.
- Having collision with ink balls felt rough
- even at max rank the ink cooldown reduction felt like not enough.
TL;DR Feedback:
Inkker felt like a slow start (good thing) that scaled up a bit too slowly, mechanic addition/augment upgrades felt misplaced in the skill tree or too weak overall, and the game felt a bit too slow even when completely scaled up. I'll dm a screenshot of my skill tree after my final run on discord bc it won't let me attach it here.
I know I wrote a LOT there and that it might feel a bit overwhelming or like I didn't like the game, but I did really like the game. To be quite honest I don't usually write this much feedback because I usually don't have a whole lot, but you genuinely made a game that I can see being something super engaging with a bit of work, and it's not even in a genre that I typically enjoy! Beyond that it's just a really solid 1 week jam entry. I encountered no bugs during gameplay (I was cautious about the dash bug you mentioned), everything worked as expected, and it was a complete experience. I hope you're proud of this, because I think you should be.
Good stuff :D