Character controller doesn't have modular jumping or grace jump. The combat is difficult deal with. I have clicked to attack several times and the attack didn't execute. Sometimes it would execute when I didn't click. The sword swing animation is very slow, which doesn't help with my understanding as to whether an attack has played or not.
There is no knockback on either the player or the enemy during combat. This leads to situations where the enemy clips into you and damages you several times in a row. Combat therefore turns into a repetitive poke and dash affair. I never bothered killing the first Skull enemy, because I wasn't going to accept this type of combat on enemies with high HP, like the Skull is.
Art is misleading. You are using snowy topping on platforms that are both walkable and not. You are using a slightly lighter tone of purple for the BG tiles vs a slightly darker one for the FG ones that have collision. That makes navigation needlessly filled with guesswork.
Generally speaking, you are using a very limited colour palette, all made of cold colours. This fits the theme of the game (meaning the wintery icy area), but it does get pretty dull to look at, especially when all enemies and the protagonist are greyscale.
I like the ambiance sound, it fits the game. The sound for jumping is far too lighthearted for the game's depressive and cold environment.
Theme: I didn't get far enough to know if the theme is hit or not.
Viewing post in The Quest: Trapped in a Lie jam comments
Thanks for the feedback! I will add knock back to my study list. This was my first time doing melee, so it was tough to make the animation work. If I did full exit time it looks nice, but if you spam attacks their can feel like a delay. If I took out exit time things like the walking animation or jump stop the swing. (I was actually going for Hollow Knights poke and run play style, I felt like i code code that.)I will play with it some more~ Would you suggest adding more contrast between the players foreground and the first BG layer? Did you like anything? haha
Hey there,
Yes, more contrast will be very helpful. I'm not sure what would work well, as art is not my specialty.
I haven't played Hollow Knights, so I can't draw a comparison. Might be a good thing I don't know. As mentioned before, I'm not prepared to deal with it. It may be the case that other people are. Keep playtesting and find out.
"Did you like anything?" Hard to say, would have to replay it. I thought the character walking anim was cute, but I'm not sure it fit the style. It's my type of game. I like metroidvanias and the souls games, but there was a lot I had a problem with as a player. Hopefully I've conveyed that in my description before. I think I liked the ambient sound. But I played too little of it to properly evaluate more of your design.
Based on what you said about the combat aspect, I think you bit more than you can chew at this time. As you can see from my previous description, I had problems with multiple areas of your design, chief among them combat and level design. Not just artistically, but placement of things as well. If we analyse your intended design you have the following mechanics in it:
1. Locomotion
2. Combat
3. Puzzles
4. Platforming
There may be more, but for this discussion these 4 are sufficient. Metroidvania games, in order to be good to play, must excel at all these simultaneously. For a jam game, it's like trying to make 4 games at the same time, all pretty decent, all in a short amount of time. If we cast our minds at your game, quickly:
1. Your locomotion has problems with the jumping, which is a pretty important interaction. If you'd removed one of the other aspects, you could have focused on this more. You also seem to be having difficulties with the animation system, as animations don't seem to interrupt one another or flow into one another elegantly (which reflects on combat).
2. Your combat, at the beginning, has many design issues. Combat is an umbrella term for all aggressive interaction. It includes dealing and taking damage, animation, physics effects, balancing... A whole new world of pain. :) Again, the more effort you put into any category, the least you put into the other.
Anyway, I think you understand what I'm saying. Point is, if you enjoyed yourself making what you did, you feel like you've progressed, and you understand the criticism received and you use it as inspiration for future development, you're doing the right thing.
I'll leave you with one important thing that has served me well, both in AAA and indie (though my indie career so far has been a string of failures, so put as much stock in these words as you are willing):
1. All feedback is better than no feedback.
2. All destructive feedback is better than false feedback.
3. Some constructive feedback is better than destructive feedback, but it's tainted by biases and preferences.
4. Destructive feedback is the most realistic one, as it's the kind of feedback players have when the dev is not around. It is up to the dev to understand what that destructive feedback means. How you do that, is up to you.
Good luck.