Hi I was part of the Feedback Quest. I also have a VOD of me playing your game on my Stream.
For starters, the big issue I see is a lack of intuitive gameplay. I love the concept, the art was amazing but the gameplay didn't feel natural. The upgrades presented didn't feel worth, nor did I feel it make any difference. The game also felt like it needed more optimization to play.
However I STILL love the concept, it was fun and has potential. A bit more polish and this game could be great. Please keep up the good work.
Play game
Crab Raid Tactics's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Art | #7 | 3.900 | 3.900 |
| UI | #11 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Overall Fun | #15 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Sound/Music | #18 | 3.100 | 3.100 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Thanks for your feedback!
I recently uploaded a build that has graphics settings that might help with the performance, and I did correct some of the issues with controls.
I already noted to myself that I need to explain the game better to new players, and it will definitely be one of my priorities going forward.
Hello! I was one of the streamers who took part in Feedback Quest, and I'm here to leave some comments I had while playing.
First, I do want to say that I love the idea. It's fun and silly, making it pleasant.
That said, there are a few things that should be done with it. For starters, there should be explanations of what different rewards do (especially on screens where you're choosing where to go). It should also automatically give you the reward upon clearing an area, because right now it's possible that if you don't know to click on the reward you can leave the area and lose the reward.
I also feel that music is necessary. The game felt very quiet and a bit awkward without music playing.
Thanks for giving it a go on your stream! I watched you play and it was really helpful!
In the recent update I introduced a hint to collect the reward and fixed the issue with it being unclickable while a crab stands behind it, but for the next one I am considering blocking doors until the reward is collected.
As for the music - 100% agree with you. I have a track in production, but it didn't make it into this demo, unfortunately.
What I like:
- The awesome crab names
- The fact that I'm a crab collecting relics on a beach
- The art is very colorful and bright
- The combat system was very fun and sort of reminds me of League
- The depth of abilities and run customization
What I disliked:
- I have an older computer so this may just be my hardware limitations but it ran very slowly for me
- I was confused on what some of the upgrades did as the difference was sometimes hard to tell
- I'm sure the enemy blocks are placeholder but it would cool if they had more character
Overall I think this idea has a lot of potential. If it was polished I could see this being extremely fun to play especially on mobile and I would love to experiment more with the different crab combinations to try to make something unstoppable.
Submitted
AlkahestOverall:
- The game was pretty fun, I really liked the graphics of the crabs
- I played pretty far (level 7 I think?) before my crabs died
Pros:
- Cute crab graphics!
- The sound effects were pleasant
- Leveling up felt nice
Cons:
- After a few levels (maybe 4?), the gameplay started to feel repetitive. I couldn't quite tell the differences between skills I picked
- It took me a while to figure out how to get to the next level (by clicking on the portal twice)
- I randomly selected 3 crabs at the beginning, and I'm not sure what impact that would have had
Suggestions:
- A way to select all the crabs at once would be great. I mainly just got all my crabs to go to the same place each time, so it was 1, left-click, 2, left-click, 3, left-click. Maybe a single right click for all of them would be nice
- I didn't really know what the icons on each door was when choosing the next level. Maybe having some tooltip would help
- More varied graphics for the mobs would be a nice-to-have :)
Submitted
Feisty FaunaHey, thanks for playing and sharing your feedback!
I see the suggestion of controlling all crabs in one go is a recurring one. I didn't want to implement that initially, since I want to emphasize on control of crab's positions against each other, and also convey this feeling of actually issuing commands. I have some UI planned specifically for that, and I even though of introducing a cooldown for commands - to require player to be more strategic with commands and avoid click-spamming micro. But, if that approach fails, I'll definitely consider adding group control! The feedback is invaluable in any case to better understand this issue and move the game in the right direction.
What I liked:
- The art is very nice and professional looking (besides the enemies, and I would consider making the crabs 3d as well)
- The concept is unique and I could see it having some pretty in depth strategy
What I thought could be improved:
- Honestly I just don't think this is a type of game I see myself choosing to play. I think it's in a weird place in terms of genre and game objectives. I could see these mechanics being addictive and fun in a pvp game, or if there was maybe some overarching goal/narrative, maybe exploration of areas, or if progress was saved and you could keep grinding to level up or something (idk, just some ideas of objectives. Not saying any of these ideas are specifically what you should do)
- That's really my main critique. Besides that I think some other ppl mentioned improvements to controls that I generally agree with (I will say I used the hotkeys and that was quite a bit easier)
Submitted
Platformer Ā²Thanks for you feedback! I really appreciate it!
Square enemies are totally a placeholder, I wasn't able to replace them befor the quest. I'll let the artist I work with know that everyone likes the crabs!
I do have an intention of making the game deeper and more strategic, and I'm not quite happy with what is there yet. My main inspiration came from raiding in WoW, so I would like to implement more boss-like mechanics and patterns in the future. There is also a plan to add "roguelite" progression on top of it between the runs - I just wanted to polish core gameplay a little bit more before I got to that. I was also thinking about adding narrative to support the whole thing (probably not much, just some basic worldbuilding to set the tone and set a goal, as you mentioned)
Anyway, all good points and suggestions, it confirmes to me the importance of certain things I'm planning to do and gives something to think about!
Thanks for sharing your game. I think this game is fairly cute, I like the crab names, I feel like there are a lot of improved to be had.
Namely the game seems to chug even an i9 computer so it has room to be optimized a lot. I think if the enemies didn't look like cubes, I would care more about what I was attacking. Game needs music and some kind of stringent objectives, I got to encounter 5 before I quit playing because there wasn't anything that feed the addiction to keep playing, maybe the encounters need something more interesting going on. The way to move the crabs felt kind of weird, I was expect more league or age of empires styled movement but it had a more cumbersome control scheme that I didn't enjoy as much - it felt like I was taking a lot of needless steps to move.
Great work so far, keep it up :)
Hey! Thanks for giving this game a go on your stream!
As for performance - I'll definitely explore optimization options. I'm on i7, and have no issues recording the game footage with OBS, but there is a slight possibility of me not turning off some of the RTX features that might strain certain GPUs and CPUs, or I could potentialy set up one or two performance landmines for myself :) I haven't done any profiling yet, seems like the time has come
What I got from all this is that I really need to be explaining controls better and give more guidance to players who touch the game for the first time. I've been brewing in it a lot and I've grown to ignore some of the critical issues the game has. One thing I noticed is you stopped collecting the room reward after couple of levels (that big orb in the center once arena is complete) because of a bug I haven't fixed (can't colect when a crab is standing beneath it), and those actually contain a big chunk of content the game has to offer right now. That being said, there is indeed a need to focus on improving the first 10-15 minutes of the game, since a lot of people seem to quit before getting to the part where encounters actually become more challenging, demanding and somewhat more fun. Seeing you play the game gave me a lot of useful information to process!
Other devs before me pretty much summed up how I felt, they mentioned all the stuff I'd mention. This one's really, really cool. Keep it up!!
Submitted
Crazy KitchenHello there ! I tried Crab Raid Tactics yesterday and I liked it !!
I like the deck building part there is already a large variety of spells, cleaves, healing, melee, ranged skills so that you can mix for several games.
I liked the design of the crabs and the clarity of your UI too.
Now, I wasn't able to select my crabs using 1 - 3 numpad, I don't know why but it simply did not select my units. So I drag and drop them and it's sometimes confusing. Since it's a bit slow to move your 3 crabs using drag and drop.
I'm not entirely sure of which crab I am moving with that technique either. I saw you circled the "box" of the selected crab though, but I think I'd make it twinkle a little maybe.
Now concerning the difficulty, I think it's a bit too easy. The game is an auto battler with a strategic side. And most of time the "brute force way" works. I think it would emphasize the strategic side if the mobs with telegraphed attacks came a bit sooner ! Maybe the squad "morale" should start at one and could be gained at the end of the waves ? Don't know !
Maybe the range spells ( ours ) should be faster. They often miss their target.
This is an awesome work for now ! It could be very very cool with some other arenas, maybe one music or two in the background, maybe some little animations when crabs are moving... But I really enjoyed playing it !! Keep rocking !!
Submitted
KritterThanks for the feedback, all good ideas!
Controls: they are supposed to be on number keys, not on numpad. I do need to have a proper intro that would present all control options.
Updated enemy art and a music track are both in the works! And I completely agree with the point about telegraphed attacks - that is indeed my plan, along with adding more random events and explaining the existing ones properly.
As for the difficulty - this information is very valuable right now, I've been tuning and re-tuning it back and forth recently, will be sure to take all that into consideration while working on next updates!
I was finally able to play your game. I like it a lot and think there is tons and tons of potential here!
About the UI (raid preparation) :
- I feel like being able to select crabs for a raid by clicking or double clicking them, and remove them also by clicking would be faster and more intuitive.
- The remove button is a bit clunky, you can select a crab that's not in your team, and click Remove but it doesn't do anything
About the UI (gameplay phases) :
- A Menu button that pause the game would be nice, I discovered I could technically pause the game by right clicking on a crab but a more obvious option would be nice
- The menu could also allow the player to quit the game other than by pressing Alt+F4
- The menu could also allow you to create a quick save and return to the menu. Raids can be long, it would be a nice feature.
Moving your units :
- Movement (clicking on the crab info at the bottom then on the crab's destination) doesn't feel very intuitive, clicking on the crab then the destination would save a lot of mouse back and forth,
- Enemies that move too much are a pain to chase due to the way moving works, being able to lock on them and chase them automatically would be trully awesome
- Selecting and moving several crabs at once would be nice
What I really like
- I love the diversity of playable crabs, diversity of skills, upgradability of skills
- It plays easier than it looks, there doesn't seem to be any skill micromanagement during battle, which I love
It may be a bit on the easy side, I never felt like I was in any danger (I did 6 battles before having to go and quit the game).
I don't play multiplayer games much but I feel like it would play really well as a multiplayer game. Maybe some versus arena mode, or a ranked mode that allows you to craft a team and send it in passive battles versus other players, with persistent progression š¤
I tried to give as constructive feedback as I could, but to sum it up, I like your game a lot! This is awesome work š
Submitted
Money grows on treesThanks you very much for honest feedback! This confirms some of my suspicions and gives me several things to double check.
Regarding Controls: have you tried using hotkeys (1-3) to select crabs? This is an option one of my friends proposed, and I feel like it makes controls much better, but it's not explained enough in the game and is easy to miss. I initially only had drag'n'drop on crabs themselves. Judging by what you mentioned, you happend to use the least comfortable control method there is (using info widgets to start a command) :) I should really work on making other options move obvious.
Regarding difficulty: have you happened upon an encounter with big sand-colored dudes? I'm curious because several people mentioned to me they are a significant damage spike, and since you found the game easy and lacking danger - it would be useful for me to rebalance things
I played some more after reading your comment, and I realized I missed the controls explanation on the title screen, so I hadn't used the 1-3 hotkeys either. I like drag n drop, it's way more convenient for movement. I was able to experience more fluid gameplay š
To help communicate the controls, you could maybe show a message box explaining them at the start of the player's first raid when their crabs enter the arena, and maybe an option in a pause menu to display them and choose their preferred scheme.
This time I encountered the yellow guys and my party was slowly defeated in a matter of 3 or 4 more rooms. I'd say they are the only real threat and they do pack a punch š
It took me some time to figure out the icons on the paths you chose after winning are the reward you'll get for clearing that room, and it may not be obvious enough that you have to click on the reward to claim it, maybe a floating or glowing effect would help to make it stand out more.
Also, I preferred some upgrades over others and felt like I had to memorize all the symbols to make an informed choice. There was also some trial and error as I tried new icons without knowing if I would have liked something else better. Short tooltips on the icons could help here.
And finally, some battles seemed to end while there were enemies remaining on screen. All the enemies die at once and the reward appears, but it doesn't occur every time and it's unclear why it does.
I hope that helps!
Thanks for even more feedback! Once again, everything's on point and will definitely help me make the game better!
Reward icons - I do rely on the player to memorize some of it, but I agree hints won't hurt. I might have to rethink my approach on Attunement conditions, too: the idea initially was to require certain trinket for Attunement to be offered. This part might change, and I'll definitely keep an eye on this one in further playtests.
What you experienced with monsters suddenly dying could be a different room objective - in some rooms, you have to survive for the duration. In those rooms mosters tend to spawn outside the screen and walk into the arena. Also, there is a small widget at the edge of the screen telling you to either defeat several monster squads or survive. Thanks for bringing it up, I kinda forgot about this thing not being explained properly, it's just a tiny widget in the corner that is probably very hard to notice.
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