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ThubyDev5 years ago (1 edit)

I haven't bothered writing a full review of this game, so I'm just gonna post all the notes I took while playing. Ask me to elaborate if you're confused about a point or something.

First Impression

    1. Shooting noise sounds a bit like farting.
    2. "Ding!" text is a nice touch.
    3. Couldn't initially figure out how to buy ammo from the buy menu.

    Notes:

    1. Bow & arrow is more expensive than a shotgun and an assault rifle.
    2. Main menu looks very amateur, with several aesthetic styles being thrown around.
    3. Music is nice sounding and simplistic. Has forward momentum that suits the style of the gameplay.
    4. Enemies lack audio.
    5. Enemies are hard to see in the dark. Likely intentional, however this needs to be compensated for by audio cues. (If so, please use directional audio, and reserver the higher parts of the spectrum to the more dangerous enemies.)
    6. Music could potentially make enemy audio harder to discern however.
    7. Like the idea of a dark level and not being able to see your enemies at all times, mimics a first person view.
    8. Flashlight helps out a lot in regards to seeing where you're aiming at any moment.
    9. Flashlight is far too short.
    10. Bullets themselves are a too small and hard to see. (Generally unsatisfying gunplay)
    11. Waves are generally unnecessary considering you can pause in the middle of gameplay, and resume at any moment without penalty.
    12. That said, the time between waves are an opportune time to set up claymores and gun turrets.
    13. It's not very clear if you're taking damage, could be signaled better.
    14. Game is basically a big positive feedback loop, making the game easier as it progresses, or at the very least not getting harder.
    15. You start out with a liberal amount of health and lives, game is too easy over all.
    16. Shooting sound is far too loud, and drowns out almost any other audio.
    17. No difference between turret shooting noise and your own, becomes confusing at times. (At least when using the assault rifle)
    18. Enemies can hurt you from off-screen.
    19. Night Vision drops far too often, and last for way too long, causing the entire premise of the flashlight and night-theme to be for naught.
    20. Only takes a few waves for money to become meaningless and abundant.
    21. Enemy variety is alright, though it's not clear what certain enemies will do. Luckily only a problem once.
    22. Strategy of buying turrets and sticking to the assault rifle seems to be far too reliable.
    23. Made it to wave 38 on the second try, around the time it also started to get quite boring.
    24. The game is easy, and only gets easier the longer you play due to how much money you eventually earn.
    Reply
    packetpirate5 years ago

    Yeah, I'm aware of the balancing issues, and that's the primary goal of the next release, besides some juice here and there.

    I haven't had anyone tell me the shooting sounds like farting, but that made me laugh way too hard. I thought the "Ding" would be funny, but I take it you didn't find the easter egg associated with it. As for alerting the player how to buy ammo, the next release will contain icons at the bottom-right showing the key to press to open those windows. I only hope the icons are obvious enough. I also have text now when you level up saying "Press T to Level Up!".

    As for your notes...

    1. Everything is a balancing game at the moment. But the feedback definitely helps. It's hard figuring out which weapons should be unlockable first. I figured having an automatic would be nice early on, so I think I'll make the Assault Rifle more expensive and add an SMG or something. I'm also planning to add level restrictions to certain weapons.

    2. All the artwork is either from the original game or placeholder artwork until I get around to remaking everything. Girlfriend is working on the concept art so I have an actual art direction to work with this time around.

    3.  Unfortunately the music isn't there to stay since it's not mine and is just a placeholder. Eventually, I plan to write a genetic algorithm to sample the songs I like that follow the art direction and evolve new, original music.

    4. They use to moan, but I couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous it sounded because I recorded all their noises from my mouth.

    5. Yes, it's intentional, but I'm thinking of making it brighter by default. You can adjust the darkness in the Settings -> Display menu.

    6. Audio levels can be adjusted in Settings -> Audio. I need to add a way to access these settings from gameplay though.

    9. The size of the flashlight has changed like 5 fucking times. It's likely going to change another 5 times before the game is done.

    10. That I haven't heard before, but I'll look into making them more obvious. My particle system is very basic at the moment, so there's only so much I can do to make them interesting. Do you think making them thicker would help? Or is the long rectangle shape what's wrong with it?

    11. Yeah, this and being able to access the shop and training screen at any time are being considered. I'm thinking of changing it so those menus and pause can only be used between waves, but I'll have to make ammo more common so the player doesn't run out. That or add melee weapons, which is planned.

    13. Are the grunting noises not loud enough? I'm trying to think of a visual effect that could work.

    14. There is no difficulty progression at the moment. I need to think of a good way to scale enemy stats and make it harder. I do have more enemies planned for future releases though.

    15. I figured 3 was pretty standard, but maybe health should be lowered.

    16. Is it mostly the AK-47? Or all of them? Because I'm aware that the AK-47's sound is obnoxious.

    17. That will be changed.

    18. What do you mean by this? That they can still damage you while YOU'RE off-screen, or while they're off-screen?

    19. All the powerups have arbitrary drop rates. I'm just using user feedback to adjust accordingly.

    22. I'm hoping the level restrictions and increased price will mitigate that somewhat. Not sure how else I could fix it.

    23. That's expected with the amount of content it currently has.


    Thanks for the feedback! Hopefully the next release will be less boring.

    Reply
    ThubyDev5 years ago

    5. and 6. The problem with having settings like that is that they have a substantial effect on gameplay. That means, that there's an optimal setting for this game, and that any other setting is now useless to people who want to play the best they can. If you can adjust darkness levels in a game that's partly difficult because of the limited visibility of darkness, why wouldn't you just set it to be as bright as possible? Similar problem with audio. If there's music that can make hearing the enemies harder, every player who wants to play the best will just turn off the music, but there's people out there who would feel like that's "wrong", and not the intended way to play the game. You would then have people playing in a sub-optimal way, and potentially not enjoying the game to its fullest, just because they have the option to.

    10. Having huge big chunky bullets that are clearly visible on the screen is generally very satisfying, have a look at any game by vlambeer to know what I'm talking about.

    This game is quite similar to Devil Daggers, if you've ever heard of it. If not then I suggest you check it out when you get the chance, it's available on Steam and GOG. Another thing I think you should look at is the video Matthewmatosis did on Devil Daggers, that I have linked in this post. I think you could learn a lot from this amazing review (and the entire channel in general) and Devil Daggers.

    Reply
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