itch.io

My pleasure, man!

I use godot - but not to worry, half the fun for me is working it out. Heck, if I get it implemented I'll let you know haha.

Initially I wasn't aware you can dash over water, so I was for a moment a bit lost on where to go, but I sort of realised that might be a thing due to the length of the dash, hence I tried it, and it worked - I realise that's the intention now, but that kind of thing requires the player having played a game before that has that "dash over gaps" mechanic. I've played Hyper Light Drifter, so I got that, but for someone who's played, say, only 3D roguelikes, or roguelikes where that mechanic isn't present, or even just a usual player of "another genre" might not realise.

Beyond that, the "clues" system had me thinking I was looking for something, over just advancing through the level, but even then I wasn't completely sure what I was supposed to be doing with it, other than it being a level progression mark.

Bottom line is it would just really just benefit from a vertical slice tutorial of "this is what this means, this is what this means" and so on - I agree hand-holding isn't great, you shouldn't have to type stuff like "walk around with WASD, this is your health" and so on, as these things tend to be quite obvious, but mechanics that aren't present elsewhere, or of your own making, will need explaining.

I'm a perpetrator of this too! PSYCHE, my current project, has literally no tutorial to it, and features a method of shooting enemies for extra damage by shooting the replicated platforms that surround the arena - I should really make at least a note that says that somewhere, because not everyone's going to read the whole itch page, but that game is more something special to me over something I'm looking for mass downloads on, so I'm sort of alright with that being something a player might "find out" - I get the impression, especially with a steam release, that you're looking for that player count and eventual sale, so that might matter a lot more for you!

Either way, I definitely think you've got something cooking, visually it's a very pleasing game, and it feels pretty good! It just needs clarity imo.

Best of luck with your project!