Hey there. I know your game is in early development, but I definitely think there is stuff you should improve upon. Here’s my feedback. I hope you can make it useful.
Pros
Your Itch page looks great and inviting. I like the picture frame around the thumbnails. That's a really nice touch. So thumbs up! However, I'm not a fan of the flashy background.
The Game Menu visuals look great and unique. Same goes for the chapter and loading screens.
The intro video is well made.
The overall game performance seems good.
Cons
Sound
The overall audio volume is really loud compared to other games.
Voice acting sounds like an AI. I suppose it’s just placeholder audio.
Mechanics
The FPS controller is acting weird when walking and stopping. It feels like it takes another step after I’ve stopped.
The mouse (MLook) is rubberbanding. Like there’s mouse acceleration or something. It doesn’t stop when I stop moving.
No mouse sensitivity setting in the Game Menu.
Jumpscare galore - There are way too many jumpscares, Most of them don't even make any sense, and they’re not even scary. I would say that you could remove half of them and you would still have too many.
Finding keys isn’t fun all alone. You need to come up with various methods to progress into new areas, so it doesn't feel tedious.
Even though finding the puzzle pieces for the picture was a good touch, it didn’t feel challenging at all.
You have so much environment, but there isn't much for the player to do. I felt like I rushed through the outside area.
Why is there a cemetery outside the house? And why isn’t the player curious about that?
I think you should also make the levels more like an open environment, so the player can open the main entrance from the inside and walk around freely. Games like Resident Evil do this pretty well.
The player keeps telling me what to do next. “Now the monster comes, then we need to hide”. “Now he comes again, we need to hide again”. It’s alright to receive some guidelines, but not all the time. Let the player learn how to figure things out on his own from time to time. Figuring out stuff on my own is a satisfying feeling as a player.
Lore
I don’t see any resemblance from the story from your itch page/intro within the actual gameplay. There’s no lore to be found in the house either even though there are tons of non-interactive books and documents everywhere.
Apart from the flag, I don’t know anything about Guatemala. The game didn't teach me anything new about Guatemala.
Three chapters just in this short demo is way too much. Leave it as just a single chapter.
I finished the teaser, but not as I was supposed to, I don't think.
Unfortunately, I never got the chance to fire a single gun shot. I accidently dropped my gun because the lower area was completely dark so I had to use the flashlight. I think you should be able to use both the gun & flashlight at the same time as a player.
Only major downside was the weird sprint acceleration thing which blocked the strafe functionality. It just felt awkward. I've never seen that in any other first person game. The melee combat felt awesome and the environment too. I'm looking forward to see the final game.
Finished your demo. As others mentioned, I also had stuttering issues. Even the music in the dialogue sequence seemed to stutter. Furthermore I really struggled opening that box even though I removed the padlock. And in addition, the default mouse sensitivity seems insanely high.
The atmosphere & the ghosts were really creepy, so you did a good job there. I wish you good luck with your project.
I appreciate that you liked my feedback and I'm glad to hear you found some of it useful too.
I've added the video in my original comment. I’ve edited the video a little bit, since I played in two sessions, mainly because I forgot the password in the first session. Hopefully it can give you an idea what I'm talking about.
Hey there. Congratulations on the release of your demo!
Feedback:
First of all, there’s no journal. I quickly forgot the password Adam gave me, so I had to restart. You should either add the password within the quest log label or make a journal to store these things. Some people just forget fast, so some quality of life would be nice.
The FPSController just feels jittery, but I can’t exactly pinpoint what’s wrong.
The questlog doesn’t always show the exact ongoing quest. It sometimes displays the previous one even though the quest is done
No option to change the mouse sensitivity. The default setting is very high.
The laptop with all the password fields was buggy. It has two UI panels stacked on top of eachother. You should make a smooth transition into the UI.
The player doesn’t have voice acting even though the cinematic/dialogue has voice acting.
The HUD shouldn’t be shown whenever there’s a cinematic/dialogue ongoing.
Picking up the landline phone makes the player stuck in a weird way.
Some object sizes like the house doors and furniture seem huge compared to the player’s view height.
Hitting the TAB key opens up the game options. TAB is usually used for toggling an inventory.
Interaction with doors feels weird and sometimes don’t respond. You should consider using raycasts.
The key box outside was empty. What’s the purpose then?
The phone in the player’s hand sometimes flickers / glitches.
I never found the power source. I tried to look for it outside, but ran into invisible colliders everywhere.
Be careful that the whole game isn’t going to be all about passing in missing passwords here and there. That isn't very challenging and it quickly becomes a bore too. Instead, add more variety for the player to do.
These were the main things that I could think of. I hope you find it useful. Happy developing!
Finished your game. The concept of the game is cool, but it felt a little too repetitive doing the same over and over again with no new events happing. You game starts at 19:10 in the video.
Yeah I must admit that the movement speed was pretty fast, compared to the first game I played, where it was way too slow. Nice game for one week's work!
It was a neat little horror experience, but I do admit that I finished your game with a little struggle.
Although I do have a few things on my mind.
Pros
The story is well written.
The jumpscares got me big time.
The overall usage of audio was great. It definitely got under my skin.
No bugs.
Cons
The way instant death mechanics work is unfair for the player. For instance when that giant skull first popped through the window, I didn’t have any chance whatsoever to avoid it. It works really fine as a jumpscare, but I think you should at least give the player a chance to get away.
The interactions with the items seem a little too obvious. Not a challenge for the player.
Using only one SFX for footsteps sounds a bit too dull.
Overall I did enjoy it and I did get jumpscared from time to time. I’m looking forward to seeing how your next project is coming up.
Yeah, I've been there myself when I released my first game on Steam. I was kinda excited at first when they reached out to me, but I quickly began to see a pattern. Everytime I visited their channel, I noticed that in some cases, they hadn't been online for months. They also usually copycat the original email address of the creator.
I told them, they could record one of my free games here on itch, then I would convincingly grant them a free key, but they never responded to that.
And FYI, you can actually block Steam keys on Steam. Just be careful you don't accidently block keys from though.
Hey there and thank you so much for playing! Thank you for your kind words and yeah, I do remember the issue you were facing with the resolution aspect.
Unfortunately, this was a very old version you were playing. I think it’s almost 2 years old. Either way, I still watched your video to the end. It was nice to revisit the past.
Since then, the game has been updated gradually. There has been added so much more content like: voice acting, the last companion (NPC), puzzles, multiple endings, multiple choices, more scares and more. About a year ago I released Athemore on Steam as well and now, I’m pretty much done working on the game. I’m only missing a few things.
No worries, I just want to give you my honest opinion. I get it that you want a dark atmosphere. It’s all about finding the right balance, so it doesn’t ruin the experience for the player.
The lighter works fine, if you increase the light radius and the intensity a little bit.
Thanks for playing and thank you for recommending my other games as well. It really means a lot!
You did some nice shooting there!
I don’t wanna take the credit away from you, but I’m fully aware that the zombies in their current state, are way too easy to be around. Obviously that’s a task for me to solve within the next pipeline by making the zombie behavior more unpredicted. Furthermore, there will be more various zombie types added later on with different abilities.
I’ll also make sure that zombies don’t get stuck in the walls like you experienced.
A complete storyline will also be written later and added to the game in which will be explained with the help of NPC’s, notes and terminals who describe the whole situation.
Crafting will also be added later on, so you can craft explosives, molotovs & health kits etc.
I’ve actually seen that weird flying zombie glitch before, and I dunno why it happens. It’s only a single zombie that does it. I guess something it’s messing up the physics in the Unity engine.
Answering your feedback - The full game will definitely have game menu music. Also a better looking UI.
Obviously in the full version the amount of ammo you find will be significantly reduced, but you’ll be able to craft special ammo and minor health kits. Likewise you’ll be able to craft explosives and molotovs. Objects like cars and such will become lootable.
You’ll also be able to interact with sinks and toilets etc. Destroying stuff too.
Furthermore there will be a larger variety of zombie types. Including bosses. The goal is to make their AI better, so the player won't be able to predict their movement. Likewise the zombies can be blown to pieces.
Finally, Drained is also going to have a storyline and other survivors and added voice acting for the characters.
Thank you for trying out the newer version of Drained.
Yeah, I wanted to make sure that ammo wasn’t an issue in this version. Obviously the appearance of both ammo and first aid kits will be significantly reduced in the future. Instead you’ll be able to craft special ammo and minor health kits. Likewise you’ll be able to craft explosives and molotovs.
Furthermore there will be a larger variety of zombie types. Including bosses. The goal is to make their AI better, so the player won't be able to predict their movement.
Finally, Drained is also going to have a storyline and other survivors and added voice acting for the characters.
Thank you for playing and I appreciate your video!
You did some nice nice shooting there!
The invisible zombies are definitely a glitch and I'm aware of this issue. I also do hear your thoughts about backtracking and repetitiveness. They’re definitely some elements I want to avoid in my games.
