itch.io

Looks like you skipped the concept phase and went straight to prototype?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Navigation. I found the path forward confusing, from the narrow view you have of your immediate surroundings in the play area to the collectables that appear to be on paths you cannot reach and cannot suck up with a vortex. I ultimately died to a spiked ball that descended from offscreen and hit me before I knew what was happening.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Movement and making vortexes to suck up groups of collectables was enjoyable.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to know where the high and low boundaries where so I could get a better idea of the area within which I should explore for pickups, but it seemed like I could travel completely out of the range of collectables without much effort.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

The long travel times prevented me from wanting to replay the game after the water rose.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I really like that I didn't have to guide the cattle all back home. The music was also a nice touch.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I was hoping to finish the game, but once the water rose it was impossible to get wood in the forest and the game was instantly over.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

I'm glad my feedback has been helpful! If you wanted to keep the movement as-is, I could see it working with bigger environmental objects. Wider platforms, that kind of thing. Some change that would make it easier to avoid issues like falling off the pillars while attempting to execute basic movement.

Keep tinkering, and you might just find a better solution! That's what I'm telling myself while tinkering on my own project, anyway.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Waiting around without the ability to speed up time can get a little samey, but I get it's part of the design.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I just enjoy the whole central loop now. Waiting around for trains, flipping switches, and oh hi demon! I think the up|down piece of paper at the top of the window actually helped, but my opinion is affected by playing previous versions.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

Accelerate time.

Looks like the odd cutscene pauses were fixed, and that was pretty much all that was holding the game back. Nice!

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Maneuvering bones, especially the skull.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Finally getting past the place I got stuck in the previous build. The addition of a restart key was nice.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I'm never going to have the patience to finish the game, and that's ok.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

The choice of the E key is clunky when the movement keys are so close to it. Another key would definitely be preferred, maybe space.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Manically running around and trying to collect things was engaging.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to be building towards something, which I assume will be added later.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

When I reached 1500 points, I encountered an enemy(s?) that I couldn't seem to nail down no matter how hard I tried.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

There's alot of interruptions in the tutorial, but it's still quite effective in setting a baseline. It gave me more than enough confidence to feel like I understood what was happening until I hit 1500 points.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I constantly found myself wanting to be able to visualize the size of the arena, but I never got a handle on when I was at the borders.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

The momentum-fueled movement is hard for me to get a handle on.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

The new characters and glasses are fun.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to use the glasses to apply some limiters to the character, but it seems like only movement buffs were available.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

The jumping.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

The force move power is nicely done.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

I found myself wanting to trash most of my cards most of the time, generally felt like I just needed the ability to move forward more than ever, and didn't get movement cards in my card drops that I wanted.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I like the new icons alot.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to either do more attacking or movement, but never seemed to have the right cards.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

I would simplify the starting deck down to a barebones version and worry about adding interesting movement through drops. That, or add different tank characters that each have a special ability and different starting deck. I would also consider taking out the slide right and left or jump cards as those are kinda weird given the theme.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Didn't find huge point targets very interesting.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

When I realized the prey animals react to the presence of the predator. Really made me feel like I should worry about more than just immediate points, which of course turned out to be true when I started making collections of animal spots.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to see a bit more strategy than is currently in the game.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

Either more frequent animal placement or another layer of strategy. The progress is just slow enough, and the points grow high enough, that I find myself losing track of any immediate goal as I play.

I think the removal of the explicit timer does actually make it feel easier to me, but I got a thing about timers stressing me out.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

When I realized the slimes don't seem to do any damage to you.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Countering the whole shmup boss at the end.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

There were moments initially where I thought I had to balance killing slimes and defending from air attacks. Finding out the slimes don't really damage you ruined the compelling nature of finding that balance. I wanted that aspect in the game as soon as I realized it wasn't actually there.

I had a much easier time finding a flow in this version. I'm not sure if this is as a result of changes you made or my own previous play experience though. I feel like you have a solid puzzle foundation you could easily start extending for longer play, or leave as is depending on your end goal.

I keep dying and I don't know why or how to prevent it. The first time I started a game, I was still reading over all of the instructions on the big board when my character suddenly started panting for seemingly no reason. I tried interacting with things around the office and died.

The second time, I left the office right away and started searching around with my flashlight to see if there was something to pick up. I wasn't able to find any notebooks or anything, and when my character started panting again I went and turned my back to a wall to see if I could catch sight of whatever was killing me. I was again killed without seeing or finding a way to avoid my pursuer.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Walking around the museum is nice.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I don't understand what I need to do to avoid getting killed.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

The switch between mouse control in everything else to keyboard in collector is a little jarring. The lack of an automatic refresh or return to the main menu in collector and finder just feels weird.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I enjoyed making multiple matches of 4-stacks in the matching game.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted a way to play endlessly in the collector. Otherwise, you only have a reason to play it maybe once, twice max. I don't really get the finder experience so not sure if infinite finding would be a good or bad thing.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

The tutorial was a little disruptive to figuring things out, and I never seemed to heal back up in vampire mode. Decent demo, I'd be curious to see how the mechanics feel with more room to play.

I like the improvements made to enemies and the upgrades! I couldn't locate the second safe point, assuming there is one, and got frustrated from dying in a few choke points it didn't feel like I had a way out of. I missed being able to climb walls, not sure if you have to find that ability now or not. Looking good, keep it going.

I like the way this project has come together. Still feels like work is needed, of course, but locking the mouse to the game window and adding objective markers has cleared up alot in the gameplay. The music and sound works well together. Nice job.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

The AI is still very defensive, leading to alot of defensive maneuvering or game crashes from the AI trying to resolve what I assume to be large attack sequences.
>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

The new piece selection menu is interesting.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted either the opportunity to experiment or the AI to take risks. As it was, I was left discouraged by the AI.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

Either AI difficulty options or an AI more willing to take chances.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Technically the bouncing made things hard to control, but it felt like part of the game vs a painful frustration.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Bouncing is still great.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

Not really.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

This game seems very ambitious, and at the same time still very random. Without a way to counteract the randomness, I have trouble getting very far. It also seems like there might be a rotation to follow in attacking, but with the added apparent randomness it's hard to tell if the rotation is a pattern I should follow or something I'm making up.

Interesting, hope you keep working on it.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

I can't seem to survive 2 rooms in a row.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I enjoy that the sparks and effects were turned down for hits.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I couldn't seem to vibe with the current skill ceiling.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?
The inability to re-set the difficulty from in-game.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Blowing up the boss.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted the ability to either return to the main menu or return to difficulty select specifically. Having to quit out of the program and relaunch it was a big tedious.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Whenever I had a good weapon collection together I'd find myself trying to avoid combat, making the levels more tedious than engaging at points, but that might be down to my play-style.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I enjoyed using and learning the various weapon types, and juggling the collection under stress.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted more of an incentive to engage with combat aside from gathering weapons.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

I wasn't sure what to do after getting the knife and fork back. I get to the noose and everything resets, and getting milk got tedious. I tried a few combinations without luck.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Error 2317 was a cute surprise.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I couldn't figure out how to finish the game.
>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Still not sure what to do about the big guys. I got sandwiched between 2 of them of different colors a few times, and since they don't seem to react to the light the result was death.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

There's a good horror atmosphere.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to find a way past the 3 (or 4?) big guys near the current starting position.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Dying at the edge of the screen for seemingly no reason.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I enjoyed blowing up enemy ships.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to do more with the charge shot. It was nice for the enemies attacking from the side, but didn't find it too useful for general combat.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be? I would speed up the enemy encounters when flying. It felt like there was alot of downtime waiting for the next wave.

The game is definitely much harder than it was before, thanks to tweeks like the mines having tracking shots or the possibility of facing combinations of difficult enemies. I found myself wanting more firing options more than ever, but I wasn't to make it through too many screens. I think the game fits the target design, and I think there's an audience for it.

I'm convinced this game will just never be for me, and that's ok. By which I mean, I find the central gameplay loop to be frustrating in itself for reasons I think I mentioned last phase (ball stops doing damage after touching a wall, feels finicky to control in tight situations, etc). It's a combination of little things that, combined with escalating difficulty (and my own memories of how similar weapons, like the disk in Tron 2.0, typically work), absolutely drives me insane from the options I want to have available and don't. I'm skipping most of my other feedback then and only mentioning what I liked, cause everything else I've seen seems perfectly fine for the existing design.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I like the added color changing for when the orb is active as a weapon, and the push-your-luck aspect communicated by leaving the orb out without recalling it and letting the color change further. Not sure if the push your luck element was in earlier builds, but I can definitely tell now.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

Just figuring out how to getting started is very frustrating, but I assume that's the point? I'm assuming this is a rage-game of flappy bird with a gun.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

Getting partially through the first level was nice.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to finish the first level.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?
Finding the available paths forward can be tricky despite the allowances buildings make for the camera.

I will also say I encountered a few bugs. In the WebGL version, I encountered a bug where I lost movement control when I was shot. I switched to the Desktop version, and encountered a bug where I was frozen still after respawning from dying in level 2.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I like the feedback that's be added for enemy deaths. It makes landing shots alot more satisfying.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I found the bullet dodge system clunky. It was nice every now and again as a surprise from enemies wandering into the area, but every time a mob just appeared it was like "oh, here we go again". I guess I'm saying it felt contrived, and it made me want more control over when the dodge is triggered so I could sometimes go without the forced sequence. I was fine when the bullet dodge felt more organic though, so this might just relate to the big mobs.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

I got better at the noticing the differences between shapes the more I played. I didn't have any trouble grokking the orange vs the purple shapes, it was only the 3rd shape type that faded into the background for me and most especially at the start.

I'm a fan of allowing the player to see where the boss is, as in other roguelikes like Returnal, because it allows the player a choice: push on now or try and power up before facing a boss. There's still a chance of it being a non-choice, as when a player is struggling and therefore must take extra time to power-up or when an advanced or impatient player is in a rush and so must face the boss as soon as possible. However, taking the choice away removes control for the struggling player, the advanced player, and for all other forms of player. It makes the game a bit less interesting and a bit more tedious.

If ambush bosses are part of your design intention for the game that's fine. I feel like it's a missed opportunity though, especially with shops also being hidden to the extent I've yet to see them.

I like what you're trying to do, and I like the idea behind the game. However, I'd need some significant hand-holding, training, or a visual component to even start to understand what is happening. Something like a short intro with an audio track that provides instructions and explains what's happening while an enemy ship follows a preset pattern around your ship.

I second the idea of training the player. Something to provide audio context, even if there ends up being no visual component.

>What was the most frustrating moment or aspect?

I found the map confusing. I thought the direction I started facing was the oncoming for the top track and the direction to face the phone was the oncoming direction of the down track. I eventually did pick up that the caller says whether a train is coming up or down, but then there was a train I was supposed to stop to let a count's train pass, and I couldn't stop it. I was also unclear on when to let go the first train you're asked to stop.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

I liked whenever I felt like I had a handle on the train situation. The whole setup is made complicated enough that, whenever I had the right trains stopped and was managing paths correctly, I felt like I was actually accomplishing something.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I hoped that lighting the candles would make the demon go away long enough for me to figure out what was going on with the trains, but I'm honestly unclear on what the candles do exactly. They didn't seem to change much.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?

There were several places I would attempt to select with my mouse, only the selection circle would jump between multiple points and result in my clicking the wrong thing instead.

>What was your favorite moment or aspect?

There's a solid adventure game foundation here.

>Was there anything you wanted to do, but couldn't?

I wanted to read the text in the spider shop place, but the black text on dark-gray background made doing so difficult.

>If you could change, add, or remove any 1 thing, what would it be?