Hey Guys. Great Job, I like what you're cooking there. Seems like a really good idea for a final project. You are bringing together a lot of the skills and ideas we talked about over the year.
The game is instantly understandable. The feedback is nice and ... wait for it ... JUICY🥝
The celebration animation is a particularly awesome detail.
Here is some random issues I see:
- There is no way to change the resolution and no obvious way to change from windowed mode to fullscreeen. In Windowed mode you can't resize the window. I'm running a high resolution on an older machine. Game launched into a a resolution my machine couldn't handle and it required some fumbling to get it running correctly.
- It may be me but I feel some input lag. And I'm usually very lenient when it comes to such things. But here, if I flick the analogue stick it almost feels like the fist starts moving by the time I let go of the stick.
- Smashing the ground and missing the guys should still have some effect on them. If only cosmetic. A huge stone fist came down just next to them. I expect them to get at least startled.
- The Rage ability is fun but seems to solve a problem I never have. When I lose control of the game it's because guys are running away in different directions and I can't follow them all. The Rage ability seems to do a lot of damage in a very limited area. My normal attacks already do that. I wish I head something that kills far away enemies or wipes the screen no matter where they are.
- The gameplay is quite repetetive. I would strongly consider adding enemies that require different strategies. See this video to explain what I mean.
- I think it would be also fun if you can interact with the environment. Perhaps there is a dam that you can smash which will flood the screen and destroy all enemies. But you can do it only once. Or a rock you can dislodge. Or a hornet's nest. Or a volcano.- Now here's a big one - the game looks drab and almost depressing. It doesn't look like the fun, cartoony game it wants to be. Just because your game is about rocks doesn't mean that you have to restrict your palette to neutral greys. Add color tints to the rocks. Add colorful lighting, shadows and post-processing. Look for some references. Pick a look and try to replicate it. I would strongly suggest experimenting with the colors and lighting now. It will be difficult to change that later.
- Here is the second big one - the enemies are a bit boring. They are just rando dudes. If the game is about smashing things it would be cool if the things you smash were extra fun to smash. The fruits in Fruit Ninja are fun to slice because fruit makes a juicy (in both ways) mess when you slice it. You need an enemy design that plays into the idea of smashing things. So maybe the enemies are especially round and blobby so they burst into huge slime explosions when you smash them. Or they are some kind of bird creature that explodes into a cloud of feathers. Or they cary a lot of equipment that shatters on the ground if you smash them. Or they burst into flames. Or they are made of glass. You name it.
This would be also a good opportunity to re-think how the game presents your enemies. It's weird that the enemies are these neutral looking dudes. It feels awkward to just blindly slaughter them one by one with your bare hands. It's a bit unclear if this is supposed to be funny or shocking or poignant. I think you are going for a funny game in a it's-fun-to-be-evil-kinda way - because the celebration animations fit that idea. But I think the game needs to lean a lot more into that. Again, there is a lot different directions you can push this into. You can make the enemies mischievious and greedy. Maybe they move on the ground like Gollum or laugh mischieviously like Gremlins when they manage to claim the power so you feel good about killing them. Or maybe they are proud, pretentious shining knights in golden armor that get rekt by your awesome powers of evil. Maybe they're over-the-top diabetes-inducing sweet, cute little creatures so it's extra ridiculous and evil that your goal is to kill them all. Try to push the idea to the extreme. Sketch a few different design and show them to classmates. Ask them what is instantly more appealing.
This is all I have. I love this. Keep up the great work!