itch.io

Ahh, okay. Thanks! I didn't realize that was clickable.

The enemies are quite fast and hard to deal with. I ended up dying the first few seconds after starting. I did find a way to kind of cheese the game by hovering the cursor over the player and repeatedly clicking. It seems this took out most of the enemies without too much issue. This helped me survive longer, but I still wasn't able to beat it. I wasn't really sure what my goal was and found myself getting lost and then losing all my health before figuring out where to go.

The fact that this is labeled as a "therapist beater" has me morbidly intrigued, but it seems you may have forgot to upload the game files...

Who knew something like Simon Says could be taken in such an eerie direction? Very cool. I especially appreciate the inclusion of the voice acting which really helped sell the creepiness of the doctor. The pixel art and the design of the doctor is well-done. The doctor has that creepy, judging stare down pat, for sure.

Like others had mentioned, it seems the hand-switching isn't always responsive. I thought it was my laptop buttons being messed up until I saw the other comments.

I also noticed a small bug where dialogue would start but the doctor still does a gesture and the meter still drains. Fortunately, it didn't cause any gameplay issues.

Having the doctor testing you to see if you were faking it was a neat twist on the mechanic. I agree with Cosmeeto that having to do it based on sound cues would be a cool idea for another round.

Very interesting and clever take on the theme. The premise managed to intrigue me despite how short the game was. Great job!

When I first played the mirror game, I, for some reason, thought the game wanted me to paint a picture so I just drew a silly smiley face. I was half-expecting a gag where the drawing would appear on the finished mirror, lol.  I forgot to mention that in my original comment. As for making the painting game more engaging, maybe you could make it where you can accidently color outside the edges, but you get more coins if you don't do that. That would add some tension as you try to fill the edges in time but you don't want to lose coins by going over the edges. Maybe it could be justified story-wise as wasting the reflective material and having to spend gold to replace what you wasted. 

If I were to offer a suggestion for the Runes minigame, perhaps you could add sounds when the last few ticks of the timer are happening? During the last five seconds, each second makes a "tick" sound to signal that time is almost out. Maybe the number could turn red and grow bigger as the timer runs out to really emphasize it.  If you implement a cooldown in-between, maybe you could include some sort of animation, such as one rune sliding off screen as another slides on-screen, for example, and this could act as the cooldown period in a way that would feel natural. Maybe that could work?

Good luck on your project!

I managed to win the game! I wasn't exactly sure how the solar gun was supposed to work. I tried aiming it at the vampires and it didn't seem to do anything. It also seems like the beam isn't aiming where its supposed to be. It aims to the right rather than towards the center of the player's view. I then aimed it at the mirrors and defeated enemies that way. I guess reflecting the light killed them? Though I wasn't sure exactly how I got it to work. I managed to beat it regardless. Though they weren't animated, I thought the models for the vampires were well made. Did you make them yourself? 

Overall, nice job on the game!

Cool idea for a game! Having a clone "mirror" your movements is a clever way to reflect the theme. I also liked the detailed pixel art.

I would suggest making the pressure plates more noticeable.  I think the mirrors help but I didn't realize that mirrors show where the pressure plates are at first. Some background elements, like the light blue ball things, I thought looked like elements I could interact with but couldn't.

I do feel like the clone mirroring your inputs doesn't seem to actually benefit the player. It seems like I always just used them like this: Oh, a pressure plate? I'm gonna spawn the clone in my position and then pause him in place so I can get through the door. The clone could have easily been a statue that you summoned and the game would have been pretty much the same. I think the mechanic would be more interesting if you reworked or limited the pause mechanic. That could add a timing layer to the puzzle solving.

Parrying enemy attacks was cool at first, but felt repetitive after a while. I think it would be cool if the clone helped you deal with enemies, tying the two mechanics together. There was a section where you dropped down to a pressure plate and there were two enemies on both sides facing you. My first thought was, cool, I need to take out both enemies by having both the player and the clone parry the arrows at the same time. The clone mechanic gave me the impression that could be a possibility. I thought that was a neat puzzle concept until I realized that wasn't actually a solution. The clone doesn't actually interact with enemies or their attacks. In the end, the solution was the same as the other scenarios, summon the clone and pause them.

Overall, I enjoyed the game and think the mechanics have potential if you decide to expand on this idea. Nice job!

I got the same error Double System Game did when I tried the browser version. I tried the desktop version and I can't seem to progress past this screen.

I can move the little windows around but WASD keys and clicking the buttons on the window on the right doesn't seem to be doing anything. I'm on a Windows 11 laptop and my GPU is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU. I installed the Visual C++ Redistributable 2022 like the Install instructions said.

Finding health is a good suggestion. One of my plans was to add different power-ups and upgrades like faster bullets, element resistance, health upgrades, dashing effects, etc. Unfortunately I had run out of time to implement that kind of system. I originally planned for there to be ~30 rooms for the player to go through, but the lack of items had me reduce it to ~10 so it wouldn't be too difficult to survive. 

The way the aiming works is that the mirror shoots relative to the direction it is in away from Clover. For example, if the mirror is directly above her, it'll shoot straight up. If directly below her, it'll shoot straight down. I could probably add a reticle or a line to show how the mirror shoots to make it more clear.

I'm glad you like the grass burning! That was one of my favorite mechanics as well. I get what you mean about not being familiar with the genre. I typically play and make platformers, so this submission overall was a challenge for me to design.

Thanks for your additional feedback! I tried your team's game as well and left feedback and it seems very promising so far!

What immediately drew me in was the art style. It has a monochrome, almost children's book-like style with an eerie edge to it. It has those little "imperfections" that give it a handmade feel that I also really liked. I also enjoyed the music, especially the tune playing during the mini-games. It almost sounds like a song being played in reverse and that, alongside the occasional evil laughter, really adds to that eerie atmosphere. The presentation overall is coming along great so far with a cozy, yet eerie aesthetic. Very unique!

I saw that this project is being expanded on. One question I had is does how you perform in each mini-game affect how much gold you are given? If so, maybe some kind of indicator at the end of each mini-game to let me know how I performed would be a good addition. That way the player can figure out which places they need to improve to maximize how much gold they are given. And, of course, something to spend with the gold would be ideal as well.

I also wasn't sure what the goal of the painting game was. Am I supposed to just draw whatever I want or is there something specific I'm supposed to paint? Am I supposed to just fill in all the white space?

I think the runes and cutting mini-games were the best ones. Sometimes I had extra time left over on the runes one. Maybe there could be a "Right Click to Erase" mechanic so the player can reattempt part of the retracing if they have time? There was also a small issue where I was retracing one of the swirly symbols and the time ended before I realized and I accidently drew on the next rune where I didn't want to.

Overall, this project seems very promising and I really like the character designs and overall aesthetic. Nice job to everyone involved!

I downloaded your game, but unfortunately there seems to be a visual bug that distorts everything. I'm not sure what could be causing it. I did extract the folder. I'm using Windows 11.

EDIT: I managed to figure it out. If anyone else has this issue, what I did was go to Windows Settings > System > Display > Graphics. I added the game's exe file to the list of programs and then changed the GPU Preference to High Performance.

As for the game itself, I managed to win my second playthrough! I read the description. I wasn't sure if the eyes were the ones I were supposed to avoid or look at, until I died by looking at them. Once I figured that out, I realized the Bloody Mary appears later with the sound cue and the candles appearing. Once I figured out how both the enemies worked, it became pretty easy. My strategy was if I saw the eyes, flip between the other three mirrors until I see the eyes again, and then avoid that mirror. If I heard the music, I would quickly turn to and stare mirror with the candles until Mary appeared. I was able to survive the 6 hours pretty easily after that.

I like the concept of using mirrors for a horror game. I think the issue is once I realized how the mechanics worked, it became too easy and the tension was lost.  Since the game is based on reacting to visual and sound cues, maybe you could play with that. Like visuals flickering in the mirror, or you hear the Bloody Mary sound cue, but Mary doesn't actually appear. Basically trying to psych out the player to keep them on edge and guessing.  Maybe other sound cues that are unrelated to either enemy but make you question if something is about to happen.

Since you mentioned Five Nights at Freddy's in another comment, you could also introduce some tradeoff mechanic like that game had.  In that game, doors and lights drain power. Maybe this game could have something similar with lighting/unlighting candles and limited matches? Just some ideas. 

I hope my suggestions were helpful! Nice job!

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I feel pretty proud of the burning grass. I found myself doing it just for fun when testing.

I see what you mean about the bullets. My intention was to have each bullet have a strength and a drawback. The ice bullets can make enemies slow and are the strongest damage-wise so I made them slow as a drawback. Though I may have made them too slow, so I should look into rebalancing some of the stats.

Thanks for trying it out!

Thanks for trying the game! Im glad to hear you like the visuals. Could you elaborate on what you mean about the scale? Is the mirror too small?

Thanks for trying the game! I'm glad you enjoyed it and that you are fond of the main character. I did all the art myself, so that feels great to hear. I'm not the best artist, but I feel like I'm getting better with each game. The music I got from OpenGameArt, 

You mentioned you didn't get too far. Was there anything you felt was too unfair? Anything in particular that gave you the most trouble?

If you decide to try it again and have any additional thoughts, I would love to hear them! 

Cool idea for a puzzle game. I really like the movement of the ghost. I wish there was more room for him to move because it feels good to fly around with him. Very smooth with a pleasing amount of acceleration and speed to his movement. Did you make the music? I enjoyed the background track.

Sometimes, I would die from something I didn't see coming and have to restart the whole level which was a bit frustrating. I think it was the 5th or 6th level (the one where you are introduced to the spinning platforms) and, near the end, the button I pressed killed me and I don't know what caused it. Apparently, I'm supposed to ignore it? Because I saw I could just go in the mirror with the ghost without having to press the switch. There was also one on the (I think) 7th level where your press a switch to make the wall come out so you can reach another switch. But the wall came out so fast and unexpectantly that I had to restart the whole level over because it killed me. It was one of the longer levels, too.

Overall, I liked the game. Telegraphing the hazards would be helpful. The puzzles weren't too difficult, but were decently designed and were mostly intuitive besides the few surprise hazards I mentioned. Nice job!

Really cool game! I like the concept of the controls being reverse in the lower region. It definitely makes for some mind-bending platforming as you have to work against your muscle memory. I mean that in a good way.

I ended up getting stuck in the level with the four columns of spikes. It did seem like the hitboxes for the spikes might have been bigger than they should have been? When I died and the game paused, the player wasn't overlapping with the spikes, so I'm not sure if it's a hitbox issue or the screen pausing slightly late.

Overall, nice job! The neon visuals alongside the ethereal music choice made for a very calming atmosphere, even when I kept dying on that one level, lol.

Thanks for trying the game out! I can see the mirror being too small being an issue

That red screen effect is not at all intentional. I have no idea what could be causing that as I have never seen that before even during testing. Are you playing the browser or desktop version? I tested the game in the Chrome browser so if you are using a different browser, that could be doing something?

I most likely won't remove the self-damage as I don't want the bombs to be spammable, but I might include more checkpoints to prevent frustration. Thanks for trying the game!

The controls do seem to be a sticking point for some people. I'll need to look into custom bindings for my next version. Thanks for trying it out! I'm glad you like the concept.

Gave it another shot. I'm glad to see that enemies now drop items and that there is a clear goal.  I like that you moved dash to space and added a way to sprint. Enemies also seem more challenging now. Looks like you also added a tutorial as well.

I found the exit (I think? There was what looks liked a spotlight on it) but there was a door in the way. I assumed I needed to defeat all the enemies in the room to open the door, but I ended up running out of bullets. Are item drops from shooting enemies the only way to get bullets? If so, that means there is no way to get more ammo if you run out. I would suggest having ammo containers scattered throughout the map or adding an alternate way to attack enemies (melee attacks?)  to prevent the player getting stuck.

Good amount of improvements here. However, like mentioned before, I would still suggest thinking about what could make your game stand out from others in the genre and implement mechanics to support that.

Also, I would love feedback on my own game if you get the chance!

Pretty solid arena game! The tutorial was efficient in teaching me how to play. There was a good variety of upgrades as well. The sounds and visual effects made taking out swarms of enemies pretty satisfying.

Do you wish the game was bigger?

I think that depends. As a free game, it was a fun mini-game. If you decide to later charge for it, I think the game would need more content. Perhaps more upgrades, enemy types, traps, arenas, etc. But as-is, I got my fill of the game. More content would also encourage me to come back to it.

Did you launch the game a second time? Did you want to play more?

I only tried the arcade mode. I'm considering trying the endless mode another time. I could see myself playing the game again for a short session,  though I feel like I saw everything there is to see and completed it in one try. Because of that, there isn't a strong desire to revisit it. Leaderboards don't motivate me at all to replay it.

Suggestions

When trying to place the signal, the upgrade menu popped up and I clicked an upgrade by accident. Maybe you could prevent this by allowing the player to activate the upgrade menu once the meter is full instead of it appearing automatically.

Also, the game is pretty easy. I managed to beat the arcade mode in one try without losing much health. I think this hurts the replay value. Adding harder enemy types could help with that. Maybe some that can set their own traps or shoot projectiles?

Overall, this was a pretty fun game. I liked the variety of upgrades and luring enemies into traps was a lot of fun.

I was referring to the tutorial popups in the inventory menu. Good to hear there is a way to transfer items faster. The training hall is also a good idea, though maybe there should be a way to access it even if not in town?

I would suggest tutorializing mechanics as they are relevant. For example, I didn't collect any key items during my playthrough, so you might include a tutorial for reaching that menu after the player has received their first key item, rather than at the very beginning. I think people also learn better by doing, so you might have the game explain what something does, and then having the player do it afterwards. That way they may retain the information better.

Good luck with your project.

Story-wise, having the game be from the perspective of slimes, a common enemy type, is an interesting premise. Having them be otherwise friendly but misunderstood by humans has potential to be a compelling story of prejudice and empathy. It makes me wonder if there is a deeper lore reason for humans to mistrust the slimes.

Despite the good premise, I don't think the characterization and dialogue takes good advantage of this. Most characters feel interchangeable from one another because of their shared friendly tone to their banter. I noticed in your devlog that you want to later add accessories to make the slime characters more distinct. I think that's a good way to differentiate them design wise, but I would encourage figuring out what their unique personality traits are and have the dialogue reflect that. Their accessories could also reflect those personalities as well. Also, having NPCs with unique personalities would encourage me to want to interact with them and would further develop your world.

More of an idea than a critique but with if you made each party member different common enemy types? Instead of four slimes, you could, for example, have a party of a slime, a skeleton, a bat, and an orc. Something to think about and would easily make each party member stand out from each other. Just an idea to consider.

Having tutorials is good, but I feel the game tries to explain too much at once. It tries to cram too much information to the player and I find that I retained very little of it. I think it'd be better to introduce one or two mechanics at a time. I did gather that certain slimes have affinities, so certain items will work better being used by certain characters. It took me a few battles before I realized you had to drag and drop from the inventory to equip items. I think the tutorials probably mentioned it, but again, the information overload meant that got lost in the noise.

With that said, I will say that the UI during battle is very intuitive. I found that it didn't take me much effort to figure out how to use it. It was very second nature. Handling different menus and states can be complex but I didn't notice anything break during my playthrough and I managed to learn to navigate the battle system without much issue.

Is there a way to equip items to characters faster? Dragging and dropping items to each character one-by-one in between battles got tedious after a bit.

I think I did 8 or so battles before I lost interest. I never did reach a boss that another commenter mentioned. I eventually found the battles repetitive and the story hadn't progressed enough to keep me engaged.

Overall, I think your team has a solid story premise and a good grasp on designing a functional battle system. My suggestions would be on adjusting pacing, characters and dialogue, and rebalancing how tutorials are handled. 

Thank you for your detailed feedback.

Input mapping is a good suggestion. I've never tried implementing that in my games before, but I imagine it can't be too difficult.

Also, the P and R keys were used by me for testing purposes. The pause was for me to take screenshots easier and I forgot to disable that. Oops! Nice find, though.

Like other suggested, I should really include a tutorial to explain things better. The way to reach the secret areas is by finding hidden triggers  that spawn new doors. The first one is right above the door that leads to the second area. You have to bomb the vertical green blocks, but leave the one touching the ground intact. You should then be able to jump from that single block onto the horizontal green blocks and reach a hidden door on the wall. The second hidden door is in the second section and is at the top right of the area with orange blocks above the spikes.

The fact that you chose to ran past the shooting enemies made me realize that I need to give players more of a reason to engage with enemies. Maybe item drops or some kind of ranking system.

Thank you for your suggestions. They gave me improvements to consider for when I make my next revision.

I looked over your devlog and it seems like this is still pretty early in development still, but there's a solid foundation to build on. Your main character seems to be a duck with an eyepatch. This is a fun design. Perhaps you could lean into the duck design a bit more? Assuming that is what they are supposed to be. It could help give the game a stronger identity.

What is the blue meter for? I wasn't sure if I was missing something or it just hasn't been programmed in yet. Like Kwarven said, I, too, didn't encounter any chests in my playthrough like the description mentioned. I also wasn't sure what I needed to do or how I could get more ammo once I was out. There wasn't a clear objective.

I think the player's move speed could be increased a bit. They feel too slow, even with the dash. Speaking of which, I think dash being bound to Space key would be more comfortable than having it on C key. Improving the movement could help with responding to enemies easier and make navigating the dungeon more engaging.

You mentioned you changed the title from Maze Shooter to Dungeon Shooter. I imagine these are prototype titles. I would suggest a name change as these don't stand out too well. They seem more like genre tags than game titles. Overall, I would encourage you to think about what would make your game stand out from others in your genre. Based on what I saw in your devlog, it seems you have a pretty good idea of what elements you need to implement to get a functional game loop, but there wasn't anything in the prototype or devlog that made me think "Oh, I want to play this over other dungeon-based shooters."

With that said, nice work so far. I hope my feedback is helpful to you. I think focusing on clarity and a solid identity/hook for your game will really help this project stand out.

Nice! I'm glad you liked the game. Happy to hear you like the knights throwing spears because I was worried players would find them annoying, lol.

I managed to finish the game. I think the darkness concept has potential. With the ability to unlock more jumps to reach new areas, the game almost has a Metroidvania quality to it, so you could lean into that more.

At the beginning I was confused because I kept dying in a pit (I think) at the entrance of the dark cave, causing me to restart. Navigating in the dark isn't quite engaging yet so some adjustments are necessary.  Like maybe you could have a system where you turn on a flashlight when you want, but it has limited battery, so you have to preserve the energy, giving the player agency and challenging them to strategize. That's just an example. Basically, I think the game needs some kind of mechanic to make exploring the darkness more interesting.

Like Overbern said, I feel like the music doesn't fit. Maybe something more atmospheric could be used to fit the vibe of exploring a dark cave?

As for new names, Google tells me that your current name is the French term meaning "depths" which is fitting given the theme of the game. "Profunda" is the Latin word meaning "deep." Maybe that could work for you? Especially since the "-unda" part sounds like "under" as in underground like your game takes place in. Profunda could be the name of the planet or something.

Overall, nice job! I hope my feedback is helpful to you. 

The retro art is really nice with a pleasing color palette. Everything is detailed enough yet still readable. I think this can be tricky to pull off with a limited color palette, so nice job! Also, did you make the music? It's catchy and fits well with this type of game.

Using the ship to navigate the menu is a cute and fun idea. Really lean into this! Like maybe you can toggle options in a menu by shooting them or something. I feel like you could do a lot of neat things with this menu concept.

I like the variety of enemies and objects to shoot. I also like how they have physics and can bump into each other which makes the game more dynamic.

Encountering the random events is fun. There is a bit of a risk in triggering them since some of them take your health which is an interesting mechanic. Does encountering the bonsai planet do anything?

I would like to see more feedback on your bullets hitting enemies. Some sound effects or having the enemies shake or flash upon being hit. Maybe some particle effects. Something to make hitting enemies more impactful and satisfying.

Overall, nice job. This is a cute game! 

If I could make a special planet to vacation on, I picture something like a low gravity water park. I think that would be a lot of fun.

Learning how to play is straightforward. You move. You attack. It's simple but it works. Let's you get right into the action with no friction.

More feedback on hitting enemies would be good. They bounce back and flash red which is a good start. Maybe they could play an animation, or some particle effects could trigger, or a satisfying sound effect could play. Something to make killing enemies more satisfying. Right now, hits don't feel impactful enough.

I like how the yoyo lingers longer as you move away from it. I think it would be cool to lean into this. Like maybe if you run away from the yoyo as its coming back and you don't bump into any enemies, it can hit multiple enemies on its way back to you or something, encouraging good movement and positioning from the player. Just an idea :)

Which gets me to my next point. I agree with VSI Games that enemies are too hard to kill right now. You could make them initially weaker and stronger later, or you could give the player more options on how to defeat them. You could implement something like the lingering yoyo mechanic like I mentioned before, maybe a way to charge the yoyo by holding the button for a stronger attack?

Overall, nice job on the game! Adjusting the difficulty and player options would make it even better.

1. Does the game feel fun to play

Yes. The ship controls well.  It's snappy and responsive. The sounds and flashing of the enemies gives good feedback for hitting them.

2. What did you like about the game

I thought it was a good design choice to have the ! symbols to show where enemies were about to spawn. Also, there does seem to be a good amount of enemy types so far. Including the scoreboard was a good decision to encourage repeat play. I managed to get a score of 490.

3. What did you dislike about the game

I think the main thing the game is lacking is options in how to approach enemies, limiting player agency. Once you get overwhelmed with enemies, there is little you can do to combat them. Maybe you could set a limited number of mines? Some kind of dash or dodge mechanic? Power-ups to upgrade firing rate? Something to give the player more tools and decisions on how to tackle enemies. Once overwhelmed, the player has practically no recovery options.

4. Is the game too hard or too easy

I do think the game gets too hard too quickly, especially when the bombs and slow enemies that show up in the first 30 seconds of the game. I think the spawn rate needs to be adjusted so the player doesn't get overwhelmed so quickly with enemies. I would suggest a more gradual increase in difficulty. This would give the player a good feel for the game first before they are really tested.

5. bugs

Only bug I noticed is that sometimes, after getting a game over and restarting the game, the ship would get stuck moving left and I was unable to move at all. I had to refresh the page to get it working again. I'm not sure what was causing it, but it happened several times. I wasn't able to intentionally reproduce it.

Overall, this is a decent arcade shooter that's fun to play for a few minutes at a time. Nice job!

Thanks for trying the game. Since it seems players are tempted to jump on enemies, I'm considering implementing that as a way to stun enemies. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for playtesting the game. Based on your comment and another, it does seem common for players to try and jump on the enemies, so I might try to incorporate that into the game. Maybe as a way to stun foes to make them easier to bomb. Using the environment to take out enemies is an intriguing idea. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for trying it out. I'm glad to hear you'd like to see the game released which I definitely plan on doing later. A tutorial level is a good idea. Thanks for the feedback!

Cute game! Fairly challenging! I managed to beat all three levels, but I didn't find all the coins. The player character controls well and I like that the levels seem to have multiple paths. Nice job!

Nice score! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. Thanks for the suggestion!

I did get to a few levels that had the explosion! I dont remember which level but there was a few levels after that is introduced that I got stuck.

Nice game! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get passed the level with the four rotating platforms aligned like a staircase. The game definitely gets pretty tough! I do wonder if the temperature mechanic is necessary since all my deaths were from flicking the cube wrong rather than the temperature, but maybe the later levels would've changed that. I also liked the backgrounds and the music. Nice job on the game and all the original assets!

Awesome! I'm glad you enjoyed it! The randomness of the enemy spawns does seem to be a sticking point for people so far. Thanks for the kind words!

Nice little game. I was able to defeat the flames when they got caught on one of the edges, allowing me to keep shooting them without them being able to get to me. Nice job making all the assets yourself!

This is a cool puzzle-platformer. The main mechanic of making the ice blocks fall is intuitive and was used in interesting ways. I also liked the pixel art. It's simple but works great for a  puzzle game like this where visual clarity is important. I also like the ambience the snow effect and wind adds to the game. Nice job making this in under 18 hours!

I can see how the enemies spawning randomly could be frustrating. I did consider having a mechanic where a warning shows up where an enemy is about to spawn. Maybe that would've helped alleviate that issue. Thanks for playing and for the feedback!