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The13thWickie3 years ago (1 edit)

So after playing both the origonal demo, and now the Halloween demo about a hundred times. I would have to say this is the greatest retro shooter I have ever played. It feels like the perfect homage to Blood and Hexen. The concept alone using the Salem Witch Trials as a place for this shooter is just perfect. Most replica shooters still feel modern in some ways that can sometimes either hinder the experience or make it more akin to modern shooters. This feels fluid and congruent with every old school shooter with its own modernizations. 

I think my only comments would be that I kinda miss the vomit I am not gonna lie, but I kinda feel like stylistically its better without it, the green bile on the floor did tend to be distracting when you were trying to just look at the mess you made of five or so villagers.  But it was an incredibly fun and inventive attack from the origional demo. If there were like cannibal runs or no eating runs or even a morality system of sorts it would have been cool to see how the health benefit and vomit attack played into that mentality. But I dont know if that would overcomplicate the very streamlined experience as it is. 

I like all the weapon models a lot, but I feel like the look of the standard shotgun just feels slightly out of place I am not sure why. But I still love it nonethless. Also I have not found every secret in this new demo yet I am still struggling with a few, so I assume the sword is tied to one of them and I just have to get there. But the only other melee weapon I have not seen yet is the pitchfork. Again that could be tied to a secret and I just need to find it, but I just wanted to say it was nice seeing multiple options in the origional demo.

I also wanted to say I love all the new little details added to this demo, (the blood dripping off the axe in the origional is probally one of the greatest details I have seen in a game in years) opening chests with the axe or a gun, shooting off the knights armor, beheading enemies, or taking out their legs and watching them crawl away from the fight. All of those are absolutley amazing it feels just like in the origional Duke Nukem when you would find those details like being able to flush the toilet. Just another litle thing to make the game feel immersive. Even being able to change your hud and gun postion is huge to me, more games need that kind of choice and its kinda skipped out on. 

But the new enemies alone are amazing, I love the knights they are so great. But I kinda also miss the zombies, but again that whole green vs red splatter effect thing kinda made sense style wise. But they really reminded me of Thief where you could find the zombies in the mines it was a cool little touch. I tried getting the zombies to attack the villagers and even though it did not work it was nice being able to try and think creativley in a game and not feel like you would get punished for it. 

All in all I have rambled way to long but if you read this I hope you understand you have made a fantastic game and it has so much potetional and has been so much fun to play. I wasant around for big titles like Doom and Blood so being able to play this was very excting. I cant wait to see more.

(Also if theres any typos I am sorry in advance.)

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gatorShins3 years ago

Hey, thank you so much for the detailed feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the demo's so much, it really makes all this work feel worth it. 

So I removed the vomit as it wasn't really used by many people who I watched play the original demo. I was in the process of adding a parry when using the shield which would serve the same purpose to stagger enemies but it wasn't done in time to get the demo out for halloween. I'm going to revist the whole vomit mechanic though and see if I can find a good use for it, since it does make eating enemies more worthwhile when above full health. Maybe some kind of one shot big ol' vomit when the gut meter is full, so it's more like a special attack that just melts all enemies.

Yeah the normal shotgun is a bit out there, seems a bit out of place. I was just trying to make something a little different, the revolver shotgun. As it's not really seen much in any game. 

In the latest demo I removed the sword + pitchfork as I made some changes to the way picking up interactables worked, again due to time constraints I didn't add them back in. They will be back though, with their own animations. As previously they used the same animations as the axe. 

I'm glad you enjoyed all the little details. I feel it's what makes a game, I loved all those small details in old games myself so I get a lot of enjoyment out of adding them. There will be plenty more as well as I progress further with the game. So keep an eye out!

The zombies may make a return in the early access version of the game, they just felt a bit out of place in this first level I think. Also yeah, they don't fight with the villager enemies which I felt kinda limited them. It will be something I explore in the coming months to see if I can get infighting working in a fun way. I'm also currently adding a bunch of new villager enemy types. A pikeman who wields a pike + a shield, an axe throwing villager who will circle the player at a certain distance, as well as making armored villagers more like captains, so when they're killed there's a chance some of the weaker enemies may try to flee/hide. Just a bit of variation to make the combat more engaging and varied. Also going to add npc's who aren't violent, so you can choose to kill them or spare them depending who you feel. Maybe some livestock as well, for extra health and to stick it to the villagers who wronged.

Again, thank you so much for the feedback and praise. It really does mean a lot to me. It keeps me going! <3

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