Cool to finally get a chance to play this after seeing all the progress you've posted in the threads. I really like the art. I played for about 20 minutes but couldn't figure out how to reach the top of the tower.
Some thoughts while playing:
- You might want to get keyboard controls working asap. Controller-only support is enough friction to turn people away from trying the game.
- Does the dash button work? If I press and hold the right bumper, she does a little dodge/spin animation, but I didn't notice any speed increase.
- Ladder collision seems a little off. I have to climb a good tile above where the ladder sprite ends before I can get off it, so it looks like the mc is floating above it.
- The mc has a really slow initial run speed. You might want to increase that a bit so movement feels less slippery.
- When you throw items, the throw arc starts from the player's head instead of their front, which makes it really hard to hit enemies.
- It's very easy to miss what's interactable. I discovered the gun containers completely by accident while fighting an enemy. Similarly, it took me a while to realize you could punch the vase that you can jump on. I thought it was just level dressing.
- Enemies need to telegraph their attacks a lot more. The plant enemy basically insta-attacks as soon as you're in range.
- Sometimes I'd drop through platforms when I meant to do a crouch jump. Having those two actions mapped the way they are could become a problem.
- Okay, so I realized the idea with the crouch jump is to enter the crouch state and then jump. You're not expected to press both at the same time, and I guess dropping through platforms is what happens when you do. The biggest problem is that you're currently unable to crouch jump while moving in the crouch state, so every crouch jump kills all of your momentum unless you want to risk dropping through the platform instead.
- The previous point leans into a broader observation. I'm not really sure what kind of mechanical vibe the game is going for. The slow run acceleration and slide mechanic suggest a more Sonic-esque platformer where you're meant to build and maintain momentum, but a lot of common actions abruptly kill it. Punching, grabbing ledges, and crouching all bring you to a screeching halt. On the other hand, if you're aiming for a more precision-platformer feel, I wouldn't expect the running physics to behave like they do, and the regular jump height feels extremely short.
I liked what I played. I think the movement and combat could use some tuning, but the animation work is already very expressive. I'm looking forward to checking it out again once more of the art and assets are finalized.