Post by Studio 3b48 in End of Winter comments

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Nice job, I had fun playing through!

Glad I waited until 1.2, the HUD is a nice, and the levelup heal probably saved my life at some point.

The bow/movement/run mechanic is tight, I ended up using QWE quite a bit but never worked in R or shift.

The werewolves are vicious, so fast and they force you to stick and move and burn stamina a lot. Fighting them is a rush especially the first few.

I enjoyed the story and vibe too, and the trip down the river was an artful end. I liked how warm the shop interiors feel compared to the cold town streets.

The menu cancel SE was intense compared to the lovely chill town music, and Morana could make you work for it a little.

It would be nice to have more chill BGM in the Cursed Forest once that zone is cleared.

Thanks for the game :)

Beregon4 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Glad you enjoyed the game!

HUD is honestly something that makes this a hundred times better, I should have added it sooner, but for the game jam I had the self-imposed restriction of not using any plugins made by other people and I never really got around to updating this game until now.

Really glad you enjoyed the core mechanics, I wanted to make sure that the basic mechanic is fun on its own and very polished. I think the arrow hit detection worked out the best of all in this game, I'm actually proud of that one. It seems near pixel perfect, or atleast close enough to feel pretty good. You can hit the gap between two zombie events and the arrow will fly right through it. Worked out much better than I expected :D

What did you think of the controls? Did you find them good enough or were they clunky? Anything you would change about them?

I find myself using Shift fairly often to turn around without moving when drawing the bow. It's pretty useful when there's a zombie or a werewolf running at you from behind. But I guess you had no problems even without it?

How difficult did you find the game btw? I feel like I made it a bit too easy, but I also made it and played it a lot of times, so I don't think I'm the best judge of that. How about the tutorial section, do you think it could use some improvement?

Yeah, the Werewolves are the biggest threat in the game. They are still a bit slower than the player, but fast enough to catch you offguard if you are distracted. Black Knights were meant to be the biggest threat, but they are easy to kite.

Diagonal movement with R was a later addition and I'm not really happy with it. Diagonal movement was supposed to be active at all times, but when I tested it out, I remember that it didn't feel that good to have it on all the time, atleast with how the controls for it worked. So I just added it as an optional mode, because it was useful in some places. Still not sure about it.

The zones aren't actually able to be "cleared", each enemy respawns after a minute or so, but in the case of Cursed Forest, the level is small enough that you probably won't trigger the respawn before leaving. The respawning is actually something I think I need to improve in futures games.

There was actually supposed to be a boss battle with Morana, but I made it in 4 days and ran out of time, so I did it the lazy way instead to have the game completed before the Game Jam ended. I know, it feels disappointing. Glad you liked the ending cutscene though :)

I'm making a sort of "sequel" to this game (a very early demo version that's gonna see significant changes is currently an entry to the RMN's Seasons 4 event), and in that one I will definitely have atleast one boss fight :)

Thanks a lot for playing and for your feedback!

Studio 3b484 years ago(+1)

For sure, the arrow mechanic felt polished, and the hit detection was tight.

Regarding the controls, I had the best success with the QW combo, mainly backing away from approaching enemies while facing them and continuous firing, and running to add some distance if I got overwhelmed or a werewolf appeared. If it were a longer game I'd eventually try to work in R too. The one key that seemed problematic was Shift, because I'd lose my place on QWER with my lefthand, or arrow keys with my right, when I tried to use it. In the heat of fights it had painful results :) So, I just stuck with the QW/ back away and fire approach.

I thought the difficulty was great, I almost died a few times early on as I got used to the controls but always managed to just get away. Later on deeper in the dungeon I had a few close calls too, but there is plenty of money within so I had ample heals and stamina potions to survive on, and the best gear by the end. I was bummed when I realized I'd capped out at level 5, but that just means I was enjoying the game :)

The tutorial was great too, it did a good job of teaching you how to use the bow and abilities.

Yeah the Black Knights were easy to kite, the werewolves were definitely the biggest threat. The first time one sprinted over and got it's claws on me I was like 'Oh shit ruuuuuuuun' hah.

Ahhh, OK...toward the end I always sprinted through the Forest, so that makes sense. It wasn't cleared, I just wasn't there long enough to get in a fight.

It was a little anticlimactic to not have a proper fight with her, but with the cutscene it still felt like a proper ending to the story. I know how jams go, time flies and there's always a missing piece or two.

Beregon4 years ago

Yeah, I can see how that can cause issues. In the next game, I thought about switching Shift and E, but not sure how that will work out. Or have R or D be the key that turns you in place. Or I could maybe try switching to pixel movement for the player. Might be the best solution.

Glad you thought the difficulty was fine, when I play it these days, I get hit like, once during the entire game and it makes i seem way easier than it would be for someone who never played this before. It's hard to judge this as a developer :D

Thanks again for your feedback, it was really helpful! Feel free to give the game the rating you think it deserves :)

And most importantly, thank you for playing the game :)

Studio 3b484 years ago(+1)

Sure thing!

I liked having E/run in the main row since it gets used so much, to me if Shift was run I would have had a real hard time surviving :) Moving it up to D would be cool, but I'd definitely vote to keep run in the main row since it's such a critical survival function.

Beregon4 years ago

Yeah, there's a bunch of things I need to think about when trying to improve the control scheme for the sequel, especially since I also added a melee attack. I will definitely keep the sprint thing in mind though :)

Thanks again!

itch.io

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