Post by WarpZone in Do I continue development or start new one? (read first line pls)

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WarpZone4 days ago

Interesting concept.

Here's how my play-through went, as a new player:

Where is the goat? Where is the wolf? What do I so?
Oh, I can move a light with the arrow keys.
Where are the animals?
There's an orange dot. Looks like a bullet. I should stay away.
Or... should I collect the bullet?
Ugh. The game reset! Why?
Maybe this is easier in fullscreen?
Oh, I enlarged it, and now I can actually see the world. The bullets are in a circle, and there's a timer!
Ah, I see, I need to collect all the bullets.
I failed? I must need to collect the bullets faster!
I got all the bullets! Oh, hello Mr. Goat! Hello Mr. Wolf! And you brought a friend!
"Something" needs to die? What was it again? Oh, right. The goat!
Apparently bite attacks come from the light if I put it on the goat. Is the light a wolf? Am I a wolf or a hunter with a gun?
I guess I won? Now to minimize the screen...
The victory text doesn't fit in the screen.

I guess it took me ~3-5 minutes?

I only beat the game once. It was very difficult. The gameplay was too confusing.

As for the question in the title, ("Do I continue development or start new one? (read first line pls)") :

I think the graphics are good, but I don't think there is an audience for a game this confusing.

Have you considered just letting the player control a wolf? you could move with the arrow keys and press Z to bite. Or you could move with W-A-S-D keys and bite by clicking the mouse button.

Standard controls became the standard for a reason: they work, and everybody already understands them.

Thank you for sharing your game! Whether you decide to continue or not, I wish you the best of luck in your game dev journey. 💖

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halfdevpasha3 days ago

Hey! Thank you for the review, coz what you've pointed out is actual problems. Now they are all fixed, game is much less confusing now.

Could you please play again? I'm asking that because you didn't see the main idea. + What you've played through was half of the tutorial. There's at least 5 times as much content as you've seen. (content, not time. I didn't mean game is half an hour long)

(I have no idea how you achived arrow key movement, theres WASD in code)

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WarpZone3 days ago

What am I and why do I have a health bar?

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halfdevpasha3 days ago

You are placeholder circle

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WarpZone2 days ago

Ah.

My apologies. I thought since the animals looked final, the player was meant to be final, too.

So I'm not a ray of light, or a targeting reticle of a gun? I'm a person? A shepherd or hunter or villager or something?

If the goal is to kill the goat, shouldn't I just avoid the wolves and let them eat the goat? 🤔

Right now, the game has an abstract reasoning puzzle (figure out how to kill the goat) with important information poorly communicated to the player (you are a human, the goat is a decoy.)

Or, it's possible that I could be confused, in saying that. I might still be not understanding the premise of the game entirely.

Whatever explanation you're about to type to me, that text needs to be on the screen in the game.

Or if the premise is testing the player's abstract reasoning, to teach them to sacrifice the goat without telling them to do so, then the player needs to at least look like something that could take damage from a wolf. Maybe try one of these free villager assets from itch: https://itch.io/search?type=games&classification=assets&q=villager

Important: if the player can't attack, then don't use a sprite holding a tool or weapon. If the player CAN attack, teach them how to attack in the game in a safe place (maybe they have to attack a box or something to break it open) before there's a life-or-death situation that requires them to attack.

Good luck!

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