Post by Denny'sGuy in Beyond The Roots BETA TEST comments

Viewing post in Beyond The Roots BETA TEST comments

a couple things.

- You need to fix the windowed mode scaling. The game does not scale with the window instead, only the camera view port size would change. This can be easily fixed in the Godot window settings. I could only play the game reliably in full screen.

- tying dash direction to mouse orientation was a bit jarring and confusing at first. There was no indication, so I was a bit confused by why the dash direction didn't work half the time for me. Usually, in side-scrollers, dashing works by moving in the direction you're character is facing.

- Hits from the boss's projectiles seemed inconsistent. Sometimes, it felt like my health would melt from a couple hits, sometimes it didn't seem to damage me at all.

- The game is lacking in sound effects and music. The boss never felt very threatening - although I did like the angel design - I never felt tension before attacks, I never felt a "wind up".. it was just me sitting there watching the boss spawn projectiles and waiting for them to release before I'd fail to dodge them

- I did not beat the boss, I kept dying and I did not have the motivation to keep going. It would be cool if there was a better way to deal with projectiles, maybe you could use your attack to knock back at the boss.

- with that, I think part of the what made it too difficult was the player's attack. It was extremely short ranged while the boss had a projectile with seemingly infinite range. The Dash was also not very reliable since I had to be conscious about the mouse position on screen. It did not feel good.

- Since the boss is primarily airborne, it would have been cool if there were platforms to jump in the air.

- I noticed you added variable jump height. I know this is what many people say should be done with your character controller, but I don't particularly find it meaningfully used here. What reason do I have to jump 2cm off the ground? Most of the time, I wanted the maximum - or close to max jump height to be able to hit the boss.

game_dev_lvl_up15 days ago

your feedback is very usefull! for the dahs direction, i wanted something different, so i did this, but sure, i will try to change the dash orientation for the character's direction.

for the hits of the boss, it's a colision bug, I didn't know about it, so of course it will be fix.

for the sounds effect and music part, did you downloaded the game? because sometime, the music don't play on the web, but yes i need to add so much sound effect, but i thought it was enough for a beta test, mainly focused on the gameplay.

I'm thinking about adding a one or two second immunity period after being hit by a projectile, to avoid getting hit four times in a row.

for the player attack, it's a good point, i will make it larger.

the platforms idea is actually good, i will try it!

variable height is actually usefull for the third boss, i think?

anyway thanks for the feedback again, you re amazing!

Denny'sGuy15 days ago

Glad it could be of use.

I did not download the game, unfortunately. Maybe I'll give it a try later.

Immunity would be a good move. My game has it, and it allows for a much fairer experience.. although the problem could be that it could nullify the use for multiple projectiles - which I think is a good effect already. Maybe some of them can just be there for decoration - some of them can damage the player. This does come at the cost of slight readability issue - which would be another issue you'd have to solve.

I didn't realize there were multiple bosses since I couldn't get past the first boss. Variable jump height can work, but I think the minimum threshold could probably be brought up a bit.. the lowest point might as well still be grounded.

I understand that it is a little play test, so lack of sounds in some areas could be forgiving - however, I think audio design should be part of the play test at some point.

A video game, I think, should be treated much more like a cohesive experience than a set of mechanics working together.

Personally, I wouldn't release a public build until I had something more representative of the full experience. I'd leave more mechanical testing to private builds you share with friends or family, although, I do understand that mechanics is something you'll still be constantly working out even after you go into public beta.

You don't need all of the polish there, but I think there is a point where the player can get the gist of what the full experience should be - a boss battle, for instance, is certainly mechanics - but it is also much more intensive emotionally compared to other enemies in the game. If you're game is a boss rush, then you'll have to figure out how to make each boss distinctive, not just visually or mechanically, but emotionally as well - I'd assume that each boss you encounter should be bigger and more intense than the previous one.

The real question I think you should be looking to answer in a public beta "is this game delivering the intended experience or not?" Outside of bug fixes or working out general clunky-ness, I think you'll be able to come away with a much clearer direction of where to go with your project. This is just my take away on the matter and how I'd go about it, though.

itch.io

Viewing post in Beyond The Roots BETA TEST comments