"To me it felt like it was just telling me about the item I just scanned and did not know what the timer was for." This is great! Because this points out a couple of things. 1. the skill is the first thing you see so I can see that it looked like the scan result (maybe if it was more hidden it'd been more obvious if you scanned a really different item) 2. It highlights the initial idea to have players look around for items is misleading to the player, what we were going for was to have players look around to get a feel for item locations but a lot of people just went to pick up items and now that I know that flow it makes a lot more sense to me why people were getting confused. Even though the dialogue says to check the scanner pc again that's taken in a different perspective.
Your idea would have been perfect! However, since game jam is completed, I'm now going to look at reworking the way the game is presented to be better because I have time. The main change entails removing the timer and focusing more on self exploration with voice audio so it becomes more immersive. :)
Thanks a lot for clarifying what was bugging me with the confusion haha, it really does make sense now though. :D
Audhumbla
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Sorry for the delay, not sure why but I didn't get notified of the response.
If others have the same perceptive issues, then it's not you being silly but rather it not being 100% clear :) - At least the dialog make sense. Since the game jam has just concluded I'm not looking more closely at the design flow to provide clarity so hopefully it's more fluid to understand what is expected.
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks for the feedback!
I am working on performance, unfortunately I was informed about the performance not long ago and due to working full time so it's hard to get quick fixes. But, I know the part of the problem is to do with the lighting originally being set to moveable, and correcting this hasn't just straight up worked, so I've been trying to understand what to do (since we haven't really learnt about lighting before this)
Also away things might not being as clear, are you able to elaborate on what was confusing? We're in the process of solidifying the dialogue and such since we're change it for voice. But having a better understanding of what people are struggling with will help shape the rework.
Thanks for the feedback. We're aware of game feedback sounds which I have added for the next update, however, I've wanted to fix performance before updating.
Regarding item indication, we are going to have the cursor indicate what *can* be picked up. But not which item to get because the player is supposed to find the right items based on history (hence the clues to give player some direction)
We are going to improve the dialogue in some areas to make it *clearer* but do you still not understand the goal of the game? Or did it become clearer as you played? since he do have dialogue that walks you through what is going on, did it not make sense to you? (Just trying to understand what was confusing)
Thanks for playing and the feedback :D.
- The plan is to have some voice audio instead of text dialogue, so we've been holding off until then since audio mixing will be a big factor, but you're right. Need to think about what ambient sounds would suit best. I'm conscious of the immersion in regards to the theme of the storm, so perhaps I can try find something to fit in with that?
- I had noticed on my old laptop it had performance issues with the areas that had quite a few lights so I was going to target these first. My laptop is fairly old so I was hoping anything relatively new wouldn't have had an issue since our desktop pc's are quite strong and test results so far haven't commented on it. Are you able to tell me your specs just so I know what hardware it's dipping with? I've already put performance as a to do because I wanted to learn how to do this to get my laptop running smoothly. When I have my laptop running it smoother, would it be alright if I let you know to retry and test the performance?
You're welcome, and yeah you can tell the effort put in!
- Red spikes: Yeah I could tell part of it was to have good timing. In my mind what would be optimal is there being a very slim chance of being able to do things in really smooth movements, you don't want it to go down too quick but the feeling I had when things felt fluid was awesome. If that can be achieved it's subtle but for really good players it's adrenaline inducing :P haha. (I would consider it a low priority if 1s doesn't do it)
- Level design: I can agree, you've done an awesome job at making it linear yet feel very open. I guess this just ties really closely with the timer making it hard to make the right decisions when on the clock. Which with easier difficulties and tweaks to timer this shouldn't be an issue. (Shouldn't be an issue with timer tweaks)
- Visual Indicator: The indicator you have is to point to the exit when you have the key. I was meaning like a tile graphic that you pass on your manouvre's around before getting the key. Upon reflection, I released the reason I want this was also because of the timer problem so I could know where to go. (Shouldn't be an issue with timer tweaks)
- Timer: You could have a toggleable setting like "hardcore" where it has the timer. I kinda like that idea as it comes back to user tailored experience. Another thought is tweaking the amount of time the timer has between difficulties. Step at a time I think, since I know having different difficulties is a lot of development work. So having a toggle could be a simple first step. Then see user feedback regarding timer lengths. :)
I'm really looking forward to seeing the updates! :D
Thank you for the feedback overall :D - helped drive the improvements!
The perspective might have been slightly misleading. What kind of polish do you feel is lacking? Just so we know how it can be improved.
That dialogue message you are seeing is the task you have to complete in the time frame. If you run out of time you have to redo that task. Each item has a description you have to find the right one per scan :)
Soo, after playing it last night and for like 3hrs today this game easily consumes focus and losing track of time! The learning curve is really fun, the areas I had to repeat a lot due to dying/running out of time I managed to get really fluid at completing; which was an awesome feeling.
The game's visuals are amazing! I love the animations (particularly when you move around as the ghost). I think the traps have been well designed and you can tell the levels have been thoughtfully constructed and play tested. Plus the audio is great, it's subtle but does a lot for setting the atmosphere of the game. You can feel the effort put in to this!
I haven't managed to beat the game yet, just because I had to take a break. But after getting to stage 6 (I think?) I have the following comments :
- Save and continue: This would be really nice/important, since when I had to get off it was a debate about whether I wanted to go through the previous 5 levels again [I know you've listed this on the whats coming, just flagging as a priority in my eyes]
- Red Spike Up Time: Because of the pace of the game there were times where I felt the red spikes, after I passed them, stayed up slightly too long. It was particularly noticeable with the square motions where you have to go over the same spike you land on to start the movement. The spikes stage up so long that if you try to do a full "circle" you hit the first spike. And given pace of the game I found it had to look ahead, so it took me ages to realise corners are a safe spot, and I only found that out because I miss press and didn't die. (Could just be my opinion but I kept wanting spikes to drop quicker breaking the fluidity/vibe a little)
- Checkpoints + difficulty: I think as I mentioned last night still stands. I enjoy playing it is right now, which i think I'd called it "hard" mode. Just needs the save option. But, would definitely benefit players overall.
- The timer: There is something about this mechanic I like and don't like. I thought about and what I've come up with is:
- The timer mechanic is fun to challenge the user when they know what to do, but it makes it really hard to learn what to do. Stage 5 emphasized this to me where I ended up getting to the last manouvre and took a screenshot so I could learn what to do, since I didnt have enough time for proper look-ahead due to the timer.
- The timer I think should be placed in the difficulties/y above hard I feel or give players the ability to analyse the level prior (refer to next point) - Stage 5 & 6 made me want a way to see the whole level to answer things like "how big is the level?" "how long will this take me?" "where is the key?" "what path am I meant to take?" etc. Particularly where the key is and to see where I have to go with the key. Some ideas I thought of, a) a way to toggle to see the whole map, or b) at the start of a map you do a cinematic wave over the level (Which also helps highlight the importance of the keys to players early). Combine either of those with a visual spot on the map which players can know is the goal location (disabled until you get the key). I think b would look nice, you could possibly do both - just some ideas.
Very well crafted! I've added it to my list of favourites from the jam and will make sure I finish the final level. I'm looking forward to the QoL updates, difficulties and more levels ^.^
Soo... I may... have done a thing. A big thing. But let me start of by saying the first few nights/days were incredibly fun! So far this game has been the most *fun* out of the games that I have played. It's hilarious.
The graphics, sound, gameplay all worked well and was pretty simple in design. I did start to wonder if it got harder or not because I figured out a strategy that allowed me to fend off the wolves fairly well... And then the thing happened... What thing you ask?
Well... let me show you...
Also - I noticed around night 5 when I had like 50+ chickens and they were huddled the wolves lost accuracy on their ability to pick up a chicken. It was like they were going for a chicken in the middle of the group and hence they kept walking around chickens that are closer, into the middle of them all. And then they got stuck (like Wolfy).
BUT! Did that stop me? NO SIR! I kept going, till I got 150 chickens. Because nobody be taking my chickens away from me, ya hear me? NOBODY! xD hahaha
Seriously though, I was dying of laughter! This was awesome.
My suggestion would be to have the player not collide with chickens so I can pick up the eggs (helps with performance) and then have wolves find the chicken closest to them... And, possibly tweak the gameplay to scale up the wolf count each night.
Awesome job! :D
I found this game amusing, and kinda made me think of sims if you're character was a grim reaper! :P
I got to the end of it, but as others have said I was starting to wonder how long that was going to take due to repetition.
Also, I'm not going to lie, I didn't pay attention to the stories. Not intentionally, it was more, there was a bit of information overload text wise that I subconsciously filtered out what was needed to beat the game and moved onto the next person -> This left "are they good or bad? How many years do I need reserved? And what is their current death to event death?"
I have to appreciate the effort that went in though, especially regarding developing the randomness, I liked having the upgrades and the UI aesthetic was good!
Good job :)
I have to say, this was an incredibly unique and original idea. The art style was really interesting. I got to one stage where all my pieces where the same colour as the board and it was a really really dark blue. So it made it hard to see,. And I rushed reading the instructions at the start and since there wasn't a menu I could check I had to restart so I knew how to play the game.... But apart from that, I loved it!
I got ending 3/5. I have put it in my list to return too!
I loved the connection to a clock and how it's like checkers with a twist. I was surprised you implemented alternate endings too that was nice!
Good job! :D
Was able to escape. It was fun :)
The only couple of constructive criticisms I have is that the meteor sounded more like zombie growls/breathing than the sound of a flaming meteor (at least to me, I kept thinking I was getting chased which broke the atmospheric vibe for me). And example of what might work better: https://freesound.org/people/humanoide9000/sounds/329029/ you could trim it with audacity to just after it gets really loud, then have your current explosion. I think it'd fit a bit better.
And have the quest text change from "not done" to "Not started", then have "started" then "done" (or "complete").
Otherwise, good job, was a nice little game! ^.^
I enjoyed the game, I got to the end. The recall mechanic was nice, I'm interested to see how you did it to be honest, so might check the code out.
Feedback:
- I had no issues solving the puzzles, they were well laid out and pretty self explanatory. Wish there was more though ^.^
- When I first started playing I didn't know what was expected, I pressed esc and noticed a "recall" thing I pressed it because I didnt know what it was, and then caught on to the game. I think you should either: have a how to on the main menu since this is the first entry point to the game that mentions what recall *does* (as well as in game)
- On the last puzzle when you press the trigger, the paids that come out don't come out smoothly they kind of jitter, which looks adnormal and throws out time causing me to fall even when I tried to anticipate it. I eventually got to the end but those 4 floating squares need movement smoothing.
All in all, great game idea! :D
- See, I thought the size was meant to represent different "classes". Also from a distance and in the middle of looking around it's hard to notice the size difference. Perhaps you could change the colours of the characters? My first thought was, more for future or if you could actually model yourself, but use different footy jumpers. Definitely something to think about.
- Ohhhhhhh, that's whats been happening! Well first step is understanding the problem ;p haha. I think what would be good is to add a win pop up and a death pop up because I thought I was dying and kept playing like "I gotta get all the cups! I GOTTA" haha
- Ahh, yeah, will be good to have the clarification.
Good job on the updates! A big list of minor issues *has flashbacks to my 3 day cram* haha.
I really enjoyed the game overall. I think the rhythm based shooter was a really good/unique concept. It's like crypt of the necrodancer but for fps! :D
Feedback:
Likes:
- I liked the boss fight, you put a lot of effort into that one! "BREAK IT DOWN!" :P haha
- The mechanic of clicking to the lines was done well
- Gave me doom + crpyt + red faction vibes
- That you had a sound volume since I had to turn the default down
Dislikes:
- I found the sync between music and beat didn't really line up properly. Like if I focused on the lines, I could get the lines. But if I listened and reacted to the music then it threw me off.
- How I was spending ages attacking the boss thinking he would get destroyed at % hp... to find out I had to shoot his parts directly. That was a bit confusing
Improvements/Ideas:
- Have the music play (have volume) when you hit the lines. It encourages focusing more on the lines than the music.
- Debating about it, but perhaps not firing a bullet if you miss the beat might feel nicer. Because I spent a lot of time reloading which wasn't fun. But not firing would have the same effect; maybe playing a gun click/fail sound instead?
- Would be cool if we could choose our own music in the future :D (but that might be more difficult depending on how you actually generate the beats right now)
- A dodge mechanic to avoid the boss when you dont have pillars.
Great game! Good job ^.^
At the moment, I enjoy the game and the concept. But I got stuck on the station.
I tried interacting with everything (E, left and right mouse) and nothing worked for me, so it really confused me what I was supposed to do. The intro dialogue didn't give any clues either, so left me stumped honestly.
Small feedback is when I restart the level it keeps the cursor visible, I had to press esc to hide it. Should just hide cursor for me. And for me the sound balancing needs to be tweak a little.
Great game though! :D
I really liked this game. The aesthetics were great, you did a good job with practically everything. I was impressed by generally how polished it felt.
However, the game at the moment felt *very* hard for me. And I tried the different weapons too which the only one that felt practical was the pistol. It allowed me to actually progress properly. The shotgun was okay but too unreliable to kill anything without being super close which everytime I tried to position I'd die. Even having used Q to get close to kill things really left me vulnerable when it ran out. I hated the bow because it felt so underwhelming given it has a charge time to shoot it proper, it wasn't worth using because it had higher charge and not that much reward given you're constantly getting shot at from multiple directions without being able to kill them; I kind of expected it to one shot as the reward for the higher shoot time.
Apart from that I loved it! This reminded me a bit of PS2's Red Faction! Great job team :D
Hi, I tried to play the game on my laptop. And I couldn't do anything in the first area because when I moved the camera it would spaz so fast and turn me around whenever I looked into the room with the text. It felt like it was dropping frames/unperformant.
I will try on my desktop to see if it's better. But at this point I couldn't play it since I couldnt move the camera to face the door.
You're welcome!
I'm looking forward to seeing the improvements :D
...Actually, moving the cinematic to the start will suite nicely I think! Good idea!
With the weapons, I'd like to propose the idea of storing a reference to the weapon and just simply allowing the players to toggle between them with an key press (after they have picked them up)? At least, able to have 2 weapon slots you switch between (in case you add more weapons). There were times I wanted to switch to a sword mid fight for example. It also means you aren't using a bunch of resources spawning stuff unnecessarily.
The sword in the tree is actually a really nice way for the player to get their first weapon by the way, I forgot to mention that!
Edit:
Okay so I just tried the update. And here is the feedback I have :)
- The intro scene is a lot better! It's more fluid, although I would change the end where the camera faces the character (I keep thinking I can move) to just transitioning to the start camera position.
- The camera is a lot better to work with, I was able to progress more smoothly! Feedback: The rotation when I move my mouse is too fast, I would slow it down a bit. And I would still like to be able to use a-d OR right mouse to turn the camera
- It would be nice to have a text stating the player level above the enemies.
- Random death seems to be triggered *randomly* when interacting with cups. Definitely the cups at the moment, as I kill everyone else. The player character does a roll forward if that helps pin point the location of the code that is causing the fault.
- Are there supposed to be duplicate years? It has duplicate 1890, 1910, 1913 and 1914 listed?
- There is still a bit of a wall hack if the player is in range I can click on something and attack it, it ignores the walls if I'm close to them.
- The logs with the swords don't have collision (I could walk through them)
I can respect that decision, since it doesn't change the premise of the game. (I should note it didn't detract from the game at all)
Another idea you could do, or at least could improve it until the hammer swing impacts are figured out: Have the collision box reach before the first hammer swing so the players can't walk passed the hammers, and then have an overlap trigger *slightly* before the collision box that gives the caption "Those are going far too fast to attempt to walk through!". :)
All I all though, I found the game a rather amusing concept! I love the shaders that was neat! 10mins+ of that music was starting to annoying me with its repetition, plus I had a lot of issues with collision boxes getting stuck. Caused for some high velocity amounts throwing me into a wall which was really amusing, but when I wanted to actually try get items it made it unnecessarily hard.
The human glitched out a lot and hardly put me in my catch.
I also found out i can get items into the cage from the bottom of the cage not requiring me to climb up (which Im not sure if that was intended or not).
Love the idea though, if you happen to update it let me know! :)
I was able to hear creepy wind sounds. I also saw the trees moving in the breeze. I went around this beach area, not sure if you hear it more there or not. But was really atmospheric the way I went.
Subtle background music could add to the suspense!!
What would make the getting caught really scary is if they have the one growl, but then you hear like a hoard roar for that extra 'Ohhhh nooo' xD haha!
I enjoyed playing this game, and I thank you for saving my ears and my heart with the "getting caught" sound being a tolerable level <3 haha. I tooked the time to learn my limits with this one, and there was a lot of effort put in! Timing sequences and such. The audio and general atmosphere was what I enjoyed most about the game though, really got me immersed!
Only feedback I want to give is I was able to avoid most of the *fun* aka puzzles/timing based things by just right up the far right wall. Practically avoids everything. When I first did it I expected there to be a trap, but wasn't. So I was just thinking to secure it a bit more to force players to go through the areas you put a lot of effort into. :)
Good job!
This game was great fun to play. I enjoyed it a lot and was surprised by how much was accomplished with things such as settings, the skin store, the art. The team has done well!
Couple of feedback points:
- The grass has collision which can save the player from falling since the leaves overhang. Not sure if this is intentional, feels a little weird, but it saved me a couple of times haha.
- Is the crab/beetle collision a lot bigger than the mesh? Because I would like it to be closer matched to the body. I tried to slow down time and go around it to get a blue gem but died without touching him. Makes it hard to know where I can go.
I enjoyed the main premace of this game. Unfortunately I couldn't actively play it. I didn't know what I am supposed to do, nor what I was doing wrong. I think having a start sequence to the game to allow players to understand the basic mechanics, then let them have free reign. To put it into perspective, I took a phone call accidentally leaving it running and had more guests than when I actively played it.
I found a few of bugs:
- The time goes to 11:60 instead of ticking over to 12:00am
- When I walked over some bottles it'd teleport me to a different location and the bottle gone. I'd left click and be holding the bottle.
- Sometimes I have had multiple UI widgets overlap
- (already mentioned) bottles dropped can't be moved
- My esc key didnt pause the game
I really hope you can update it to get it into a playable state, since i want to be the best host of 2019! *Yo! Pump up the jam, Pump it up,While your feet are stomping* :P
Also, if at all possible, a fun idea would be to allow players to play their own music.
Good job non-the-less! :D
So I just played your game. I really liked the creepy atmosphere it gave. The choice of music was really good, although I kinda wish there was either a corelation between volume / speed of the music or possible some other sound effect to hint towards how far away you are from the monster.
I *really* loved how you did the credits with literal links to the product, that was cool!
One time I rewound into the monster, not sure how that happened. Does the monster not rewind? Or?
I liked obarroso's comment about having an event to help demonstrate when would be good times to use rewind. I tended to use it to try gain more time. But it also confused me even more when I did so since it took me back to a spot in the maze that has no references. Which leads me to my suggestion -> Have a minimap for the walls. Don't need to show the gems or the monster. But at least if there is some context as to where I am it feels a bit more fun, and a little less brutal.
Does the monster ever lose track of you? I was just wondering since how the music comes on. Not sure if you he just always knows where you are or not. I did find that I was able to run straight past him though which felt a little weird, I was expecting him to lunge and not allow me past.
Granted, I lost track of the main objective because of trying to avoid him, so I haven't actually gotten to collect them all yet haha!
Was a good experience overall though to be honest! Nice job! Also so far haven't seen others on the horror/scary theme so that was different.
Hey, I enjoyed the game. It was short and sweet.
The rift mechanic was well done with the black and white theme to reflect old (at least that's what I interpreted).
The only thing that confused me was the hammers at first, because I could walk into the hammers and they were swinging but I was blocked by a cube (I assume collision mesh) which took me a second to realise what was going on. I'd suggest making the player be forced off the edge which I dont tihnk happens when the player is running forward in that particular state. (I hope that makes sense?)
Well done!
Hey, so I played the game for quite a bit. You've covered a few of the issues I had in "the future". The idea is an interesting concept, however, I'm struggling to see, what is the corelation of an AFL history vs shooting arrows?
In saying that I have a few things for feedback and ideas:
Liked:
I was able to get to lv 5 took me a bit because the game needs refining, but the vibe of the game felt like a stealth rogue. I had fun when I was able to live and work my way around, however, it was a bit frustrating right now in the raw stage because I died a lot. A lot was bug related.
I liked the scenary, overall animations and sounds. I didn't expect a cutscene that was nice! (Although you should try give context or story since i wasnt sure what it was trying to tell me).
Disliked:
- Camera turning definitely was an issue because having to turn and try attack was hard.
- I didnt like being spawned in and instantly losing HP. I think you did it to like teach the player about the cups healing or something. But there was times I actually died before getting to move properly.
- The guards run and attack too fast. You can't kite them around which means its basically instant death.
Bugs:
- I have spawned in and literally takes me to the thanks for playing screen
- I have died randomly. Not sure what kills me, because I'd collect a cup and instant death (not sure if some HP calculation is wrong or what is happening but killed me a lot)
- Items constantly respawn (not sure if this is by design or not)
- Major issue: I was able to be killed whilst in the cutscene
Ideas:
- Have guards get alerted when an ally next to them get attacked.
- Depending on the direction of the game (I'm still not sure how it relates to history): I had a thought behind a left field kind of game... but what if you instead of arrows handballed or kicked a footy into people + tackle them? You could also have something quirky where the enemies are like players carrying the cups around passing them between each other or something. Its a bit weird but I dunno, it's footy related :P
- Also, your church might not have a collision attached hence arrows are going through? Just a thought.Or perhaps its missing something the other buildings have.
Overall, I had fun getting to lv 5, didn't get all the cups but I'm interested to see how you progress with this concept!
Thank you so much mate!
I can respect why you thought that and agree honestly. The title screenshot being bland is attested to one of our weaknesses in terms of eye catching/marketing presentation since we're both programmers. I wasn't sure what to put for it since I hadn't prepared for it when I uploaded the game initially, and I didn't just want to put the main menu, so I tried to use the main menu backdrop but obviously without playing the game you wouldn't know what it was haha!
It's why I added some extra screenshots when I updated in hopes if people see the dashboard it's got more references.
We're still not sure 100% what would make the title image be more appealing. I might have to look at reference game title images. Do you have any ideas about what images are good references? OR possibly ideas to improve the image/dashboard overall?
And I sincerely appreciate your feedback, it means our effort in the past couple of days has been worthwhile. Part of me just hopes people that might have tried before and had it be a lack luster experience see it's updated and retry it. :)
Awesome!! I'm glad to hear it!
Got to have a good challenge in there somewhere ;P haha - When we have more items to pick up we are planning on having items both laying around and integrated into the scene just to make it interesting and hence it helps encapsulate our vision a bit more.
An improvement we are considering for a future update might be for the cursor/crosshair changing icon to indicate something can be interact and can be picked up as a QoL but will see how we go after adding more content and how it all fits together to be the most fun!
Thank you for playing!!