I can't say anything bad about this game at all lol. I loved it. Perfect use of theme, super well balanced boss fights, satisfying visuals and sfx, and rockin music. Nice work!
I love your implementation of the spin theme in this one. Using speed as both an energy resource and a life source is genius. Music and sound might've been a little lacking, but your controls were simple, great boss design, and enjoyable mechanics. Great job!
I'm noticing with each comment that these two issues are brought up the most. We'll definitely be looking into balancing the fights and making the wall collisions more accurate. Thank you for your feedback!
Thank you for the input. I've noticed a lot of issues with the wall collisions. Definitely something we'd need to focus more on to make a more immersive and feel-good experience for the players.
Thank you for your input! It's the best way to improve our project. I have plans to learn FMOD implementation to make the programmers' jobs a little easier and hopefully balance the music and sfx together. And we'll be working on balancing and nerfing that darn overpowered punch haha.
Thank you for the sincere comment! Much appreciated.
There's definitely some work to do both with balancing difficulty and balancing sound heheh. There's plenty more lore created, but it has yet to be added into the game. Right now, it's all just sitting in a google doc. Also yes! We'll need to figure out a way to prevent the lag during the marionette's attack. The lag at that part is very disorienting.
My team member recommended I check this one out and he was absolutely right. This game is amazing! I love how simple it is too. Just point and click, and move around. But it's crazy to me how well you guys were able to make such a simple mechanic so interesting. I could replay this game multiple times and still enjoy it.
The soundtrack was perfect too. The epic guitar and electronic synths perfectly fit the vibe of this game's aesthetic as well. I also loved the boss design.
The only criticisms I have are: -Button to reveal full dialogue for people who want to read through quicker, but not skip it entirely. -Spamming the attack on the boss at the end and face-tanking made the final boss fight end before they even had a chance to start attacking me between their phases. I'd spam hit them right when they opened their mouth and they'd change phases again before even having a chance to do some real damage to me. -Also I love the fast pace of this game, but for some reason there's a several second wait for the pre-fight dialogue to appear on the blank computer-looking screens. Which really doesn't sound like much, but having that fast loading time would've made a big difference. At least for me personally.
Again, fantastic game! Easily one of my favs this jam.
I appreciate the amount of detail in this feedback.
There's definitely still lots to work on when it comes to balancing the fights, especially when it comes to the op melee attack. And funny enough, we had plans to use certain things you mentioned such as the conveyor belts in fights, but the time crunch hit us pretty suddenly. Also the little coins are supposed to heal you, so I understand why you were confused after seeing them in the beginning area with no bosses or ways to lose hp. There's still lots to explore and work on, but either way I'm glad you enjoyed the game! Thank you!
Thank you for the comment! We unfortunately ran out of time for the FMOD implementation, but there were plans for making loop points in the songs as well as sound variation for SFX. And the organ was a synth, one of the FL Studio built in ones.
Oh yeah it happens haha. The programmers would know better than me, but It's hard to balance, especially when you've become so good at something and you know all of the moves. Kind of like making a puzzle, but since you know all the solutions, it's hard to determine if the puzzle is too hard without someone playtesting it first.
Thank you for the comment! Definitely some balancing we'll need to do with that melee attack. Maybe making it weaker or giving it a CD to encourage other moves. Or adding a boss mechanic where that attack doesn't work etc. Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
We'll be doing a lot of balancing work in the near future to make the fights more fair and enjoyable.
As for the story, (SPOILER AHEAD): TLDR: Player was born and accidentally given free will, which gives you this desire to escape the workshop, but The Great Creator who made you, doesn't want to allow this because you hold something important. As for the bosses that attack you, they all see you as defective and need to be taken care of. (SPOILER OVER)
We ran out of time to implement all of the dialogue into the game. There were supposed to be dialogue during and after combat, not just before. There was also a misplaced dialogue at the beginning which is an easy fix. And then there's much more secret lore that's been written out, but has yet to be added. And thank you for reminding me about environmental story telling!!! That's something I need to spend more time thinking about so I can add more story through objects in the environment, rather than just telling the player straight up. Very important stuff.
Also I'm noticing a couple bugs for the final boss as well. Did you try stepping onto the clock in the center of the room? That's supposed to act as a teleporter to bring you to the next part (The Title screen for that one lol)
And thank you for the nice comment on the music. I plan on uploading all of the music from this game to all the main music platforms very soon, (Spotify, Apple Music etc.). I wanted to spend a little more time mixing them first, however. Once I'm done with all that, they'll be up. ^_^
To match that theme, we added mechanics that had to do with spinning, such as player attacks and boss attacks. We also went with the steampunk vibe because the whole place would be filled with gears which are heavily associated with spinning.
There was still more that would've been nice to add, such as rotating boss stages or attacks where the player has to hit a "spin" button to escape, but we were running low on time. Thank you for the feedback though!
I will admit, I need to work a little on my mixing, some of my songs can sound a bit muddy. It's probably a matter of phase shifting or EQ'ing the low mids so its not too boomy.
And I use a ton of Spitfire LABS for the synths and BBC Symphony Orchestra for the strings. Then a few more synths built into FL Studio.
I also had a ton more SFX developed for the game, but we only got to put like 20% of them in. Programming sound can be difficult for programmers, I'm now learning, and I need to learn to make banks in FMOD to make the programmer's jobs easier.
I actually forgot to use the second weapon haha. I also forgot what key it was supposed to be to use it. Still fantastic game though. Did you develop the whole thing by yourself? I couldn't tell if you and Thaddeus OTT were the same person
10's across the board. I can't believe how much you were able to put out in only a month. The sound design and music is peak. The level and boss design is fantastic. Enjoyable story and dialogue. beautiful art. And I'm most amazed by your implementation of the spin theme. Alternating abilities on a wheel, which is ALSO switching in sync with the music. AND the map changes based off the music. As a musician, this game brings me so much joy. I'll definitely be saving it to my collection to play again later. Great job!
Easily one of my favorites. There's so much Replayability with all the other weapons and power ups. Loved the visuals and unique boss designs and abilities, as well as the player's abilities and controls.
Love the music and art style. I liked your clever use of the spin theme too. My only issue was the difficulty in terms of certain attacks coming out so fast, you have no time to predict and dodge them.
I loved the visual aesthetic! I think it would've been nice to implement a little more of the spin theme into the game, instead it just being the wheel you spin. But I still had a lot of fun playing!
