hythrain

I feel torn on this one. I love the visual aesthetics going on and found the style of it really creepy, and the music you have is pretty good too. However, I think the game design itself is flawed and needs work.

First, I think there should be more sounds. Right now you have the (admittedly good) music and the water spraying. There's no sound effects for getting hurt, though, nor any for when monsters spawn or perform certain attacks. I think both of these need to be rectified.

I also found the hitboxes for enemies to be massive. There were many times where I took damage while the monster was separated by a few pixels, which in turn makes it feel like I'm taking a lot of cheap shots. I had more than one death where it did not look or even feel like the enemy hit me.

Next was just how difficult it felt to even make progress due to an insanely high enemy spawn count. It felt like I barely ever had time to do damage to flowers or the infection because of enemies spawning. In the end, I had to cheese it a little by kiting the enemies around in a huge circle, starting on the outer walls of the room while letting the enemies keep building up and being stuck in the middle. It got repetitive and boring as a result.

Lastly was health, which just felt insanely unfair. The only means of healing is from taking a 30% heal between levels, but at default levels even the weakest enemy deals 20% of your max health. Thus I was better off never bothering with healing and instead just trying to use cheese kiting strategies to hopefully not get hit.

However, there are ways to fix ALL of this and make the game more engaging.

First, there should be cap for how many enemies can be up at a time. There should also be limitations on where enemies can spawn and how many can spawn: enemies should only spawn on infected areas, and the number that spawns should be based on the number of remaining flowers, with the number decreasing as flowers are destroyed. Once you've destroyed all flowers, no enemies should spawn.

Next, it should be possible to get experience from the infection that flowers spread should you clean around them but not kill them. While this sounds like it could lead to an infinite XP exploit, there's a way around this: a timer. Each level has a timer for how long you get to take to kill the flowers. If you don't have the flowers killed in time, an unkillable enemy spawns that just tears the player apart. Why only the flowers? Because monster spawns are tied to them. Destroy the flowers and nothing can spawn the monsters, meaning it's only a matter of time before you clear the level.

And third, there should be a way to check out what your stats are. Right now, the player can get upgrades but has no idea how many they've collected for each one. I'd suggest that there should be a stats screen so the player can check their full stats. This screen could also better clarify what each upgrade does (for example, stream cleaning vs. splash cleaning, as to me it feels like I'm only cleaning with splash cleaning).

These three things would improve the player experience while also preventing excessive cheesing. From here, you can introduce new monsters to deal with cheese strategies like kiting everything in the middle and force players to engage with the game properly.

And that's all I got. Good luck with the game!

Tessel Run jam comments · Posted in Tessel Run jam comments

I find myself challenged to write an introduction to this. I've played similar styles of games in the past in Feedback Quest and have generally had a good time, but aspects of this one just... left me confused. The first level that this happened in was... ugh, my memory is bad... Developmental Something. It's where the moment you spawn, there's a gravity block right on you. The gravity block then will make you automatically fall down and to the right, where you hit a green block to unlock something. If you don't do anything, though, the ball will roll and die the moment it reaches the red block below the green one (even though technically it shouldn't as you should be sent away from it. This level I struggled to figure out the solution, instead janking my way through this first part by hitting the orange block that sends you rightward, then nudging myself down to hit another orange block that fixes gravity to go down. I'd then jump the moment i hit it and use the momentum in the air to let me get up and over the ice blocks. What made this weird, though, is that there's clearly another key block I can't reach if I do this, making me feel like I didn't do the solution right.

Then I got to the level after, called... Glorbbz's Revenge? Huh? Who the heck is Glorbbz? This level just stumped me because it feels like you can't do it. When you hit the key blocks, it causes gravity blocks to fall in your path. Not a big deal on the first one as you can jump the gap with ease. The same cannot be said for the second one, though, where jumping the gap is impossible. So I thought maybe I need to land on the gravity blocks and jump, but that didn't work either. In the end, I gave up here in frustration because I legitimately don't see how it's possible unless there's something in the gameplay that I've not discovered yet that you, as the developer, would know about.

When it comes to feedback to improve the game, I'm honestly unsure what to say. I'd like to see if that catching the corner of a red block while rolling along other, more prominent blocks didn't kill me, but that's about it. I also think it'd be better if the player was taught about each block organically instead of having to read a "how to play" to have an idea of what each one does. Lastly... I'll be honest I hate the sounds of a guy when I jump. I'm a marble, not a person. Why do I sound like a person?

This is all I can give you, unfortunately. I don't really have much without being able to experience more of the game.

The Gun is Good - DEMO jam comments · Posted in The Gun is Good - DEMO jam comments

While there have been a few vampire survivors during this event, this is the best one I've played so far. It has amazing music and a lot of weapons feel great to use, making it a lot of fun to mow down monsters. It also gives me some slight DOOM vibes, but this is more in the aesthetic I see than in the gameplay.

However, I'm not a fan of starting levels where you simply cannot win, especially when it happens when I'm still trying to figure out the controls (more no the controls in a bit). I'd rather see a first level that helps the player get used to the game, THEN give them the impossible level so they reset and begin a proper run. Otherwise, you're beginning the game with an instant death which can turn some people off.

Okay, brief note on the controls. Before I started, I decided to see what the controls were supposed to be (instead of just jumping in and seeing how well the game teaches me on its own). For some reason, when I went to see the controls, the game somehow jumped me direct to the gamepad controls. I thought this was a controller only game, until I noticed the game display using keyboard to interact when I bumped my mouse. I'm not sure why it went to the gamepad controls on its own, but there could be something going on there.

Onto other stuff, I want to recommend changing how you display text in the game. More specifically, you should remove the gradient you use on the font. Gradients on a bitmap font can be hard to read, especially if said gradients go towards whatever colour you're using for backgrounds. In this case, your tooltips have a dark, slightly transparent background, which makes the text harder to read (especially if you're moving fast). I'd say either you should remove the gradients and keep everything to single colours, or you keep the colours you choose for each gradient at a higher colour than what they are now.

I'll also say that I'm not a fan of money despawning in these sorts of games. Due to the sheer volume of enemies you deal with, vampire survivors often see the player moving away from whatever they're shooting. The end result is they're now moving AWAY from the money and have to jump into enemies and get harmed to collect it. While this can be seen as part of the challenge, it can also be really annoying to some. If you're going to make money despawn, I would say the base time should be a lot longer or that the default pick-up range is bigger (maybe even both) to make it easier for players to get their deserved rewards.

One thing I found myself wishing I could do was to organize the order of my weapons. You can do this when you have a spare weapon around, but it's time consuming and a little cumbersome. I'd love to see a way to organize one's weapons more easily.

Lastly, while some of the guns are really fun, others are just... dull. The Explosive Pistol. the Laser, the Grenade Launcher and the Faust all come to mind. The Faust would feel more fun if it was faster. The Grenade Launcher would be more fun if it had both more firing range and a bigger explosion radius. The Laser would be cooler if it could pass through enemies while firing, allow you to sweep through an army of enemies at once. Aaaaaand I got nothing for the Explosive Pistol. I just wasn't a fan of using it.

These were the main things I could think of bringing up. I hope they help you out!

Bastion Heart (Demo) jam comments · Posted in Bastion Heart (Demo) jam comments

This is probably one of the most unique tower defense games I've seen, employing actual characters instead of actual towers and adding in RPG elements. It was a lot of fun to try out! I was also really impressed with some parts of foresight I saw, specifically how you thought about menu switching between the shop and the character screen while on the map (I found I could hit the two buttons on the bottom back and forth and it never broke anything).

Since this is also part visual novel, I did keep a mental note while playing to try and catch things that I normally do with other visual novels. There was one line where I thought it could use a rewrite (the line in the opening about an elven man, which I felt should remove the second use of the word "cave" to make it not feel as repetitive), and there was one general thing I wish the story had done: I wish character names weren't given to the player automatically until the name was said out loud. That way, players have to be introduced to characters. What could help facilitate this is a tweak to the beginning where it's the guildmaster's first day and they're first introduced to Yuki, then to Ragnar and Luna as needed. Once a character's name is said, whether from someone properly introducing themselves (as Aelwyn does later on) or from their name coming up in the conversation (much like how Yuki invokes Luna's name very early on, which could then act as the "introduction"), then it can be shown in narration dialogue. That way, names aren't revealed by narration before the player knows them.

In terms of the gameplay, one thing I found rather frustrating was how the only character I was ever able to start with was Yuki. While this makes sense and is fine in the first few levels, you eventually get to a point where, unless you specifically are giving all of the gear and talent points you get specifically to Yuki, she starts getting her ass kicked before you can really build your group up. In some fights, you really need two or even three characters to prevent someone from dying from the first enemies. I think the best way to resolve this would be to either given the player higher starting deployment points or to reduce the amount of deployment points needed for each character before you begin the level. It could even be done where specific fights encourage deploying specific characters first. As an example, the first fight with Valessia could be set up where she and Aelwyn take less points than other characters, making it a smart move to start with them. The logic behind it could be that because you're in the heart of elven territory, they know the land better and can thus be deployed faster.

I also found that the rate of gold feels really slow. I don't know if you plan to add more equipment down the road or if what the shop has will be everything it ever has, but it was taking 3-4 fights for me to buy anything. While I know I can get money from losses, I'd much rather just have it I get more money from winning and to have a better pace of gear. A higher money rate could also allow you to weaken starting items and to add more powerful stuff later in the game, fitting better with the RPG elements.

Lastly, I feel the design for the talent trees is a little awkward. They're based on weapons, but there's no visual consistency on where you start. You just have to find the one small icon that's glowing. While doing the weapon thing is a cool visual concept, I think it should be designed in such a way to remain visually consistent. For example, where the early talents start on the left or bottom and work their way right or up regardless of the weapon. That way, the player doesn't need to fumble around to figure out where the starting talent is for each character.

That's all I have! I hope to see more of this!

Haul My Home jam comments · Posted in Haul My Home jam comments

I'm always down for a good vampire survivor game, and this one was surprisingly well done. What I really liked was how it has a built-in autoaim for the player, meaning all the player has to focus on is moving around (and building defences, but we'll get to that). I would've loved to see more animation from the zombos and the player, but for what it is now it's pretty good. Of course, there's room to make it better and I hope to cover the major areas of improvement right now.

First, I found it generally annoying that there wasn't the ability to visit shops between levels. I particularly felt this during the second level, when enemies were coming in so fast that I just didn't have time to do anything but fight. Part of this is due to the level structure, where the spawns are very close to home, and part of it is just how fast they appear compared to the levels before and after. I almost felt like it should've been the setting of the last level rather than the second.

I also felt like it should possible for the player to set up their defences before zombies start coming at them. I like the idea of some zombies roaming around that the player can kill to earn some starting cash, but I feel like the round shouldn't stop properly until they hit some sort of confirmation. That way, the player can take their time to learn the map and plan their defences. As a fun trade-off, this then makes it easier for you to give larger waves because now the player should feel more prepared for them.

Speaking of defences, it should be possible to pick up any placed defence item and to move them around. That way the player isn't screwed by a misclick.

I liked the randomly spawning chests that give the player more money. However, the player shouldn't have to wait for the money to spread out on the ground before it can be picked up. Instead, money from chests should just go straight to the player. I also don't think that money should despawn.

When it comes to shops, in particular the store that lets you get more defences, I'd say that instead of making it that what the player can get is completely random every time they buy something, make it that everything is accessible but the costs for each specific type of upgrade rises as you buy more of it. When I was playing, I just put my focus into grabbing any upgrade that affected my nail gun or my barricades, and typically I was always getting at least one of these. I had something like 8 nailguns that had huge range and did tons of damage, trivializing the third stage. Making it that you can buy everything but each time you buy that upgrade ups the cost of the next one means focusing on specific upgrades will eventually become too costly to be worth it, which in turn will encourage them to grab other upgrades.

Lastly... I'd say drop the voiceovers of "Begin!" When you hear it once, it's not a big deal. When you hear it several times in a single level, it can get really annoying.

Overall, fun experience! Hope you do more with it!

MUTARIUM: Mutant Aquarium Defense jam comments · Posted in MUTARIUM: Mutant Aquarium Defense jam comments

hythrain1 day ago (1 edit)

This was pretty fun to play! I kept going from "OMG EAT EAT EAT" to "OMG KILL KILL KILL" over and over and just had a smile on my face the whole time. However, twice I accidentally fat fingered hitting R while trying to press other buttons (E, 4, etc) and reset my game. Instead of putting the reset on a key, make it just an option in the menu?

So originally, my feedback was going to primarily be about how to have some control over what fish eat. However, as I was writing in and thinking of other things I thought could be useful, I realized this wasn't going to be adequate. So I'm going to just keep the food stuff as it is, but after it I'm going to dive into the new stuff.

Overall, the one thing I wish I had was control over what each fish would eat so that it could be easier to get specific mutations. I really felt this in the second level when I wanted to get one fish to upgrade with tank food, but everything else kept eating it. Of course, as fish it wouldn't entirely make sense to control what they eat. Instead, what I think should happen is two-fold:

1. Over time, fish should prefer food that relates to how they're evolving. So after evolving a few stages, a pure DPS fish should only want Meat, while a pure Tank fish should only want Ore.

2. There should be a way to feed a specific fish more directly. For example, perhaps you can click on a fish and directly feed it with a cooldown for using the ability on a per-fish basis (Something like the Chum, but more direct and singular).

With these, it would be a lot easier to maintain your fish. In addition, neither method would make it easy to get food to the extra fish that give you stuff (like the turtle and relic fish).

Actually, speaking of those extra fish... I didn't quite understand what relics did. For the most part, I was just dropping them in and letting the fish have at them. I'd love it if I could save up relics in an inventory and look them over to see what effects they have. Then if you incorporate the ideas above, you could make it that you can just give relics to specific fish (not on a cooldown, though, so it's more like you're "equipping" a fish with a relic). That way, the player can ensure relics go to the fish they want to have them. You'd also then be able to make more types of relics!

Okay, onto the new stuff.

As I was writing about wanting to know how much damage the player could do with left click, it occurred to me how I also wanted to know the stats of my individual fish. As far as I can tell, there's no system in game for doing this. You can't even click on a fish, as doing so just drops food. This leads me to realize that to do some of the things I suggested above would take some changes to how the game plays. So rather than let you have to figure that out on your own, I want to provide it as a suggestion.

Right now, the player chooses which food they want to drop and then left clicks to do so. However, I think there should be an option to not drop food at all. This could then be the mode you have to use when you want to attack an enemy fish (so if you're in food mode, you won't be attacking fish). You can also click on individual fish to bring up a menu about that specific fish. This menu could not only give stats and let you directly feed a fish or assign a relic, but you could even NAME the fish. That would then make it all the more devastating if you lose the fish, as the ghost fish would then carry that name in the background. I would say that while in this menu, gameplay should pause so the player doesn't feel rushed.

One thing I almost forgot to bring up.... when a fish gets an upgrade, I recommend having a confirmation for the upgrade chosen. I had times where I was spamming food, only for an upgrade screen to pop up and I hit something I may not have wanted. Having a confirmation screen that intentionally puts the buttons in a place where the player is just unlikely to be spam clicking. I would say along the very top of the screen. This would be normally be a weird place to put them, but it would also avoid confirming a wrong upgrade.

Alright, I think that covers it! Good luck with the game and I hope to see more of it!

Rockblaze Playtest jam comments · Posted in Rockblaze Playtest jam comments

I need to start this by making a confession: I generally don't like these types of games. I refer to them as "momentum" games, where the objective is you have to navigate around using controls that not responsive and where if you overdo things you'll likely just screw it up. They also tend to use what I call "tank" controls, where you use A and D to turn the character and use W to move forward, which I'm also generally not a fan of. Despite all of this, I wanted to play it and give it a chance because I HAVE seen some of these games that I do like. It's all about the game's design and how it treats it.

For the first couple of levels, I didn't feel there were any real problems. Then I got to the first level where you have a wall of floating spikes in the way, where you need to use an ability to push them out of the way. Now up front, I like the concept of this idea. Having a tool to let you force certain types of obstacles out of your way can be fun. What I wasn't as big of a fan of was how using the tool didn't just push the spikes: it also pushed ME in the opposite direction with quite a bit of force, making it that I then had to overcome that force to regain the careful momentum I had been using. Now maybe if this power could be used for other things - like, say, for pushing blocks quickly or for pushing buttons without need to get too close - I could see this as being okay. Sadly, it doesn't seem to impart a lot of force on blocks (moving them about the same or just a little less than how much it would move me if both myself and the block were sitting on the ground), meaning I was better off just using my body to do so, and it had no impact on buttons.

One thing I DID like, however, was how blocks I had to move would retain the progress I had made on them. Thus if I had gotten a block where I needed it to open a path, that path would stay open. I like this. You also had checkpoints, which made this even better! Nothing annoys me more in these games than getting so far through a level only to die right near the end and having to redo everything. These two things made this not the case and I do appreciate it.

But then I came to the part that... Look, I'll be honest; it just turned me off to this and I quit part way into the second level with them: enemies. There are blocks that, if you come within a certain range of them, will come at you and instantly destroy you. Not push you around, not block your path. They just outright destroy you. More than once, I ended up having these things attack me on a spawn point where I just repeatedly died until the enemy would self destruct (as a consequence of this, it would make it that I could no longer sit straight up on the spawn point and had to now navigate back into play at an angle that was disadvantageous to me).

There are honestly several problems with these enemies. For starters, between the size of the player character, the size of the enemies and the general amount of space you usually have for navigating around, these enemies have attack ranges that are just too big. There's just no way around them. Another problem is how quickly they can move. Where players have to work with the momentum gameplay and can have a hard time navigating around if they're going really fast, these things can go from 0 to 100 about as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog. It's outright impossible to get away from them without absolutely max speed, and even then I don't know. I never got the opportunity to try because they were ALWAYS perfectly in my way to prevent me from attempting. Essentially, this means that unless an enemy is far off your normal path, the only choice you have is to keep beating your head against these machines until they blow themselves up and clear the way.

Maybe these enemies could work if that tool that can push spikes away could also push them away or even destroy them, but this doesn't seem to be the case either.

Overall, right now this is a frustrating experience unless you're REALLY good at tank controls and know perfectly how to play these games to maximize speed. It's just not fun to play. You have some cool ideas here, but there would need to be some major changes before I even think about considering to try this again.

The Billy Midnight Show jam comments · Posted in The Billy Midnight Show jam comments

Holy crap, a top down pixel art horror game... NOT MADE IN RPG MAKER! This already caught my interest because I NEVER see top down pixel art horror games made in an engine outside of RPG Maker. From what the demo contains, it's decently spooky. Gives some really good vibes at parts. I love the use of a television show being the staging for what we're experiencing. That said, I can see room for improvement.

I'll start with some translation hiccups I caught. The Game Over screen and the text saying to interact when near a button all remain in Spanish if you set them to another language. There's also the signs meant to say "On Air" and "Applause," which were obviously made in Spanish first. Changing these could be more difficult, but this is one of those things that I think gives a game good polish when they make it also change with language changes.

Next, I want to move into some general gameplay aspects before moving into specific parts and the horror elements. First, I suggest either keeping the character perfectly centred while they're moving around. The way the game works (which I see in a lot of Unity games) is that when the player begins moving in a direction, the camera seems to lag behind them. What this results in is the player having less view of what's ahead of them and thus having less time to react. While this is a horror game and your vision is limited by the flashlight, I would argue this should still be done as it keeps things looking better instead of making the player feel like they have less vision. The only time I feel that the player should be taken out of the centre of the camera is when they're at a point where the game's boundary exists, where then the camera stops moving. Here it makes sense for the player to fall out of the centre. If you really want to make the screen shift with the player, then you should reverse how it's done and give the player more vision in front of them instead of less. Yes, even with the flashlight.

I also think you should make the flashlight wider such that you can easily see both walls on either side of you in certain hallways so long as you're roughly in the middle. The way it is now, you need to be perfectly in the middle of these hallways to just barely see either wall. What this can create is a scenario where a player is constantly switching to look to their sides to ensure they're not missing anything. Making the beam wider would make it so these hallways can just be walked down without a second thought. Obviously, this doesn't matter in larger rooms. It's just for certain halls. If you feel this makes it too wide, then give it some length as well to combine with the camera adjustments from above.

Speaking of the flashlight, it felt impossible to keep the light on enemies chasing me in certain places. First off, the flashlight doesn't outright stop them from moving. This means that the enemy will keep slowly getting closer to me and will eventually kill me. I tested this out pretty early on. I had assumed that putting the light on an enemy would eventually cause it to drop chase, but that never happened. Meanwhile, in some parts it's downright impossible to even hit them with it due to significantly reduced space created by other enemies. Essentially, these two things mean that if an enemy starts chasing you... that's it. You're done. Better off letting it catch you and starting over. This can just be frustrating.

And now... for more focus into the horror. So right as you start the game, you can go either left or right. Ultimately you end up going left while going right offers some fun horror flavour. Since you already incorporate elements where falls will open and close with certain actions, I feel like this should be set up where the player can't even go left until they've gone right to see the trail of blood splatters. This then makes it more scary when you finally come across the dog and notice the weird effects on it. I also think you shouldn't be able to miss the telephone (again, using closed paths that open up once you interact with the phone). These bits of flavour help ratchet the tension up.

I also think that the game should either make use of the dog sooner or should show us the dog later. Right now, seeing the dog is one of the first things you'll do in the game yet it doesn't show again in the demo. I'd rather either see it be used sooner (perhaps used during the big chase at the end of the demo instead of the mannequins) or should be revealed to the player later (like just before the mannequins).

Another thing I'd like to see is special music whenever the player is stuck seeing parts of the show. I think having a song that's meant to represent the show could be really good, especially because as the game progresses you could subvert its use and also use it for scary moments (like using a distorted version of the song that gets louder right before the player enters a certain section). Similarly, there are times where I think using atmospheric sounds or even silence would work better. Something that puts the player on edge for what's coming. Sometimes you pay it off, sometimes you don't. All of this just to keep the player guessing. Lastly in terms of sound, get some sound effects to represent things going. For example, when a you want to close the path behind the player off or open a path ahead of them, put in a sound of something scraping along. Then when they see the path behind them is closed off or a new path has opened, they can recognize what that sound means. Now you can throw that sound effect at them whenever you either want them to know something's change... or you want them to THINK something's changed.

When it comes to the death scenes, I think these would be done better if they're made with a first-person view in mind, giving them a bit of a jump scare element. So instead of us watching a monster come up beside the player character and killing him, create some cool looking images to make the monsters jump out at the player a bit. Make them feel like THEY are the ones in danger, not just the character they play as.

Overall, I like what you have and I want to see it be made scarier.

Starfire Skies jam comments · Posted in Starfire Skies jam comments

hythrain2 days ago (2 edits)

This is such a cute game! It's also such a great idea for a deck building game. Honestly, while playing it I found myself too enraptured to think about what I was going to say here for feedback!

The only thing I could think of was in regards how the cards just work and the gems. As I made my way through the levels in the demo, I continually found it more and more difficult to play the cards I wanted due to a lack of gems. This really came to a head when I got to the final stage and found myself just unable to get a maxed score for the audience. It made me wish I had more gems per round, especially once I started getting the cards that would do two colours at once. Since they only use one gem each, you just don't have the means to play another card with one of those colours unless it ALSO happens to have the same colour.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding part of the game, too. While playing, I kept aiming to never use a colour that wouldn't increase the audience or finale gauge in that round and it could be that this was the core problem I was having. In my mind, it felt like playing a colour I shouldn't play was somehow punishing. Yet when I went back for another round, that didn't seem to be the case. Speaking of, I wish instead of returning to the title screen and seeming like the demo was done that it went into a proper round of the game. I only realized this when I went back into the game to check something out for this write-up and realized I could play more.

Now that I've done that second round, I think there's something else I have an issue with: the fact that what the audience wants is always the opposite of what will increase the finale launcher. I had a card that, when played, duplicated that card into the other launcher. This would be all well and good if things ever lined up to let me use it and increase both gauges but I never saw this happen once.

With this all said, I think I can see a few ways to improve the game and make it more interesting.

1. There should be times that what the audience wants in a round is the same thing that the finale launcher wants. That way, any card that has this duplication effect will actually be useful.

2. Unused gems should be carried over to the next round. You already have an animal who makes it harder if you don't use all of your gems. I feel like the best way to balance this out is if not using a gem allowed it to be in the next round, giving the player more options.

3. There should be more standard cards that only use one gem. When you start the game, every card you have takes two gems, and once you start getting cards that use one gem of two different colours it can be hard to use those gems up.

4. The player shouldn't completely discard their hand between rounds. While I wouldn't say they should keep all of their cards, I do think letting the player keep some would be a good idea. That way, if a player uses one card that draws another card and it ends up being something they can't use (because, say, it needs gems they don't have due to spending a gem to even draw the card), it's not a complete waste because they can hold onto it for the next round. There could be different ways to do this, from keeping all cards in hand and just filling the hand up with new cards to letting the player choose a certain number of cards they retain.

Otherwise, this game is adorable and fun and I plan to play more on my own. <3

P.S. I love the music. Could I get a copy of it? <3 I collect tracks from FQ events to use in my streams.

Edit: I'm playing the game on my own and I'm realizing that some of the things I brought up ARE in the game (such as getting more gems). I'm also realizing I didn't understand how the Locked function works. I didn't realize locking a colour meant you didn't need to have that gem anymore to use it.

nuit_flight_game jam comments · Posted in nuit_flight_game jam comments

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 9! I'm Hythrain, a host and streamer. I'm currently playing your game live. If you want to see the video, let me know and I can link it to you afterwards. こんにちは！フィードバッククエスト9へようこそ！司会兼配信者のHythrainです。現在、皆さんのゲームプレイをライブ配信中です。動画をご覧になりたい方はお知らせください。後ほどリンクをお送りします。

I'm going to provide a Japanese translation for you of my feedback. I'll be using Google Translate for it, so it may have some writing issues. 私のフィードバックを日本語に翻訳してお送りします。Google翻訳を使用するため、多少の不自然な表現があるかもしれません。

The random placement of obstacles by the code can sometimes make it impossible to make progress. It would be better if it was always possible to make progress. That way, it would always be the player's responsibility if they lose. コードによる障害物のランダムな配置によって、ゲームを進めることが不可能になる場合がある。常にゲームを進められるようにした方が良いだろう。そうすれば、ゲームオーバーになった場合、それは常にプレイヤー自身の責任となる。

More animation when going up and down would be a great idea. Make it that the balloon inflates when going up and deflates when going down. Just don't change the size of its hit box. 上下動時のアニメーションをもっと増やすと良いアイデアですね。上昇時には風船が膨らみ、下降時にはしぼむようにすれば良いでしょう。ただし、当たり判定のサイズは変更しないでください。

Allow the player to go past the dimensions of the screen. When at the top of the screen, make it that the balloon can go off screen. Keep the rabbit on screen. When at the bottom of the screen, allow the rabbit to go below the screen. If the rabbit goes completely off screen, it counts as a loss. プレイヤーが画面の境界を超えて移動できるようにします。画面上部に到達したときは、風船が画面外に出られるようにします。ウサギは画面内に留まるようにします。画面下部に到達したときは、ウサギが画面下に移動できるようにします。ウサギが完全に画面外に出た場合は、敗北とみなします。

I like the song you have playing for this. If it's not made by AI, can I have a copy of it? 今流れている曲、気に入りました。もしAIが作った曲でないなら、コピーをいただけますか？

Thank you for joining Feedback Quest! I hope you enjoy the event! Good luck with your game. フィードバッククエストにご参加いただきありがとうございます！イベントを楽しんでいただければ幸いです！ゲームでの成功をお祈りしています。

Martial Soul Arena | Stylish Action Roguelite jam comments · Posted in Martial Soul Arena | Stylish Action Roguelite jam comments

This game gave me some League of Legends vibes, and I wasn't alone in this as others in my chat brought up. This isn't a bad thing, just an interesting observation. Are you taking inspiration from LoL by chance?

I want to start with some minor things, which also happened to be the first things I noticed. For starters, when asked to choose which control scheme I wanted, the buttons labelled on the WASD controls were instead WAWD. Not a big deal, but figured I'd catch that for you now. I also noticed that when the tutorial asked me to do a dash, I actually couldn't do one until I did an attack. I also wish that pressing ESC brought up a menu rather than the "Exit Game?" screen as it does, especially since the most prominent buttons on it are "Confirm" and 'Wishlist" instead of "Confirm" and "Back." Going to a menu where the player can choose to go to Settings, the Title Screen, to Wishlist the game or the Exit Game would work better (And obviously, keep the confirmation screen when choosing Exit Game).

Now onto the actual gameplay. The first thing I took notice to was how moving around felt really sluggish. I was slow to start moving and slow to turn, and even my primary attack felt slow going out. While this can be nice for some players, even the folks in my chat who would prefer slower gameplay said it felt too slow.

Next, I feel that the left mouse click skill should continue working when holding the button rather than forcing the player to spam it to keep attacking. Not only does this wear a mouse down faster, but it can become painful for people who have issues with their hands like I do (I'm 41 years old and have had bouts of carpal tunnel in the past year and a half, so stuff like this can really cause me pain if I'm playing too long).

This next one is more personal preference but I think this would be better for presentation: I'd recommend reordering the skills you show on the bottom. Right now, they're shown in this order: Space, Q, Right Click, E, F, Left Click. Instead, make it this: Left Click, Right Click, Space, Q, E, F. This way, you're putting the primary skill first, followed by the secondary skill (right click), then dash, then other skills in order on the keyboard.

I have two more things regarding skill usage, but since I feel the strongest about them I want to make them last. Instead, I have some notes on the upgrades screen.

First, values aren't showing on the upgrade screen. As such, I don't know how strong of an effect each upgrade has, nor do I know how much they increase in rank. I also don't know if Vampirism is supposed to affect all skills or just some as whenever I thought to see if it was healing me, I couldn't see a difference (Showing numbers on the player's health bar could help this).

Next, I caught a bug where if you're moving when the upgrade screen comes up and then let go of whatever buttons you were pushing, you'll still be running once you get off the upgrade screen. I assume you're using a key up function to stop movement, so you may need to change this to reset movement once the upgrade screen appears (or even change the functions you're using).

Last on the upgrade screen, I suggest removing the timer when choosing an upgrade. That way, the player has time to read through everything and can make an informed and well thought choice.

Okay, onto the last parts. Both of these relate to how skills are used. I took note that when using all skills, the character will always use the skill in the direction of wherever the mouse cursor is. For the most part, this is fine. However, I don't think this is a good idea for the dash skill. Dashing it usually used to either get into a group or out of a group quickly. If you're running away but have your mouse pointed towards enemies behind you, dash will send you in. Similarly, if you're running into a group but you've not moved the mouse in yet, it'll send you out. Instead of how dashing works now, simply make it send the player whichever way they're facing. That way, they can control it by facing the way they want to go.

Next, I noticed that all skills besides left click and dash cause a slowdown in the game while you're holding the button for them. Personally I like this effect for the right click skill since you can then move the mouse to quickly change how you're using it, but this doesn't feel good with the Q, E and F skills. The reason for this is, at least for the starting character, the Right Click skill has a movement component to it, meaning it can be used as a tool to escape danger as much as to get into the fight. The cursor is also controlled by the mouse as well, so it's easy to hold it and then move the mouse with the same hand. However, holding Q, E or F require you to take a finger off of WASD to use. Holding any of them doesn't feel natural and it's more likely the player would be pressing these buttons quickly before returning to WASD. Because of this, I think these skills should just be used the moment they're pressed and not have this "hold to slow the action down" mechanic.

I think that's everything I got. Good luck with the game! :)

Malefatum jam comments · Posted in Malefatum jam comments

So I want to like this game. I do. It looks like it could be a lot of fun. However, as it is right now I find it's just... not fun at all. I'm going to structure my notes in a relative order of smaller things to bigger ones.

To start off, I find the audio balancing to be just awful. I use a GoXLR to manage my sound meters and have some pretty good default levels to ensure most things should be audible but not too loud. The in-game music is incredibly loud, though. Like, excessively loud. Even in other games where they have volume controls set to max, nothing makes my OBS audio meters read higher than -30 dB unless I have it turned up. Normally, I aim for -36 dB for game audio. The music in this game sits at -24 dB as a standard level. On top of this, there are voice overs that, even when the music is completely off, I can barely hear. If the voice overs were making it hit -24 dB and the music was on the quiet side, that'd be more acceptable because voice overs are not constant.

Next, several times I was trying to read boxes you would pop up for tutorial purposes but they would go away on their own rather than when I told them to do so. As a streamer, I'm constantly looking at chat and talking with my audience, so missing this sort of information can be crucial. These sorts of things should never go away on their own. You'll be able to see in the VOD where this happened, but I recommend checking everything to see where it happens.

One thing I found weird was how the enemies talk in a way that doesn't make sense. I noticed this when one enemy said to me "Stop your little dice games and face me." I mean... what? The dice is a representation of combat, not what my character is actually doing in world. Why is the enemy talking about the gameplay as if it's an actual thing? This would make more sense if you were trying to break the fourth wall, but this makes more sense if the game was more comedic in nature rather than the serious design you have going on. This should be fixed.

I recommend making it that if the player gets a piece of gear for a slot that's currently empty, that new piece of gear should be automatically equipped. In addition, if they get additional gear for that slot then they should be prompted if they wish to equip it right away. This isn't like a normal RPG where upgrading your gear right away isn't going to harm you so negatively. In this sort of game, changing gear right away is integral and the game should constantly be ensuring the player isn't forgetting this. In my first run, it wasn't until I got my second piece of gear that I realized that the first piece didn't equip automatically.

Now we're starting to get into the more serious stuff. I'll be starting with talking about the dice and rings. I found the speed of which these all start to be incredibly fast. Also, despite reading the text talking about how to do dice rolls, I found it wasn't clear the first few times I rolled. It took me a few rolls (plus paying attention to what the computer was doing) before I started making sense of it. Because of this, I would suggest making this slower and to make it more clear in the text on what the player has to do. In fact, I would say that for the player's first time ever doing a dice roll, the game should guide them more specifically by preventing them from being able to miss. By this what I mean is that instead of being told how the dice roll works entirely upfront and then throwing the player into it, the player should just be told that when they go to roll the dice, a ring will appear and start shrinking. Then during the dice roll, the game specifically pauses when the ring is in position for a 5 or 6 and tells the player to press space right then to get a higher roll. That way, they press Space and get that 5 or 6. After this, they then do the second die and it repeats again. Afterwards, they can be told how the smaller the ring is, the higher their roll will be and that if they don't hit it in time, they'll fail to seal the roll and it'll be a 1. Finally, I think the ring speed should be slowed down a little... at least early into a run. I could see it getting slightly faster as you get further in, but to start off it should be slower to help the player out.

Speaking of rolls, I feel like the rolls of enemies aren't all that random. In fact, it almost feels like the computer will often roll at similar strength to me. While I utterly failed my first few rolls, so too did the computer. Yet several times when I would get 5-6 rolls, the computer followed up with 6-6 rolls. It also felt even worse when this happened multiple times when I would hit the Bet button on my winning, get a high roll and of course the computer beat me with a perfect roll. I know it's the nature of the game, but when it happens as often as I saw it for how short a time I played it feels pretty garbage and makes me suspect that there's coding in the game to let the computer cheat. Even if not true, this can negatively impact my enjoyment of the game and even drive me away from playing.

My next issue sits in a similar vein to the speed of the rings but is something I see on a higher level. After some (but not all attacks) there are suddenly additional things that the player has to do in a limited time. These equally go fast as well. However, I find the issue with these isn't the speed they go but rather the suddenness in which they appear. While the one that appears if I take a killing blow is at least consistent, the other one I encountered was not. Yet even when they were consistent, I found the speed of which they appear and start to just throw me off. I would like to suggest that these things take a moment before they start up, so the player has time to recognize "oh, I have to do this now" and is more mentally prepared. It doesn't need to be a long period of time; even one second before things start moving would work. It just needs to be long enough for the player to recognize what's going on and be prepared for what they have to do. Then if they miss, it feels more like their own fault for messing the timing up rather than feeling like it was thrown at them so suddenly.

And the last and most important issue I had... there's too much information being thrown at the player in a short period of time. One thing I pay close attention to when playing any game is how well the game teaches me how to play it. I look to see if things are taught in an organic manner, aka through the gameplay. When I booted this up and the first thing I saw was it telling me to read the Codex, which was just filled with so much text, I was worried this wouldn't have any organic teaching. This concern was heightened when I chose to immediately exit the Codex (Because I'm not going to sit here and do 30+ minutes of reading when I'm only giving a maximum of 45 minutes to play the game to write this feedback) only to find the game say something along the lines of "Did you read it all? If not, don't get mad at the dice because you didn't know how to play." As an aside, this is also a dumb thing to do. If I wasn't dedicated to playing as many games as I could in Feedback Quest, I would've closed your game right then and advised others to not play it either. Players are allowed to get mad at your game if you don't do a good job teaching them how to play.

Anyway, I was happy to find that the game DID make the attempt to teach more organically as I got playing. Yet my relief was quickly washed away when I realized I was being thrown tons of information very quickly. First I was trying to learn the different primary stats and how each affected gameplay, then I was learning about the classes and how each plays, then there's the instrument and its effects, then there's Reliquaries and Mastery, then Sigil Hunts and all of that information, then there's the Map and all of the information about that, then there's the actual combat and me being fed TONS of information about specific things. All in all, it got to be so much that I retained basically nothing. Instead, I had to just do things one step at a time to figure out on my own, only looking at something new once I figured out the previous thing through playing the game.

All of this is to say that you should take more time to teach the player. Don't give them access to everything from the start and then dump it all. Instead, only give them a few things at a time and use subsequent runs to teach more. I'll describe what I would do if I was making your game and hopefully this'll make sense.

First and foremost, I would start by not letting the player do stat allocation right away. Instead, I would give them a specific class to start their first run. I'd make it someone whose focus is on health, physical damage and physical defence, then make it that the only enemies the player would encounter in the first few parts of the first run would all be enemies that deal physical damage as well. From here, I would only let them do rolls. The first roll would be rigged to always be a good roll, while the enemy would always do a worse roll. That way, they start with an immediate success. In their second roll, I would let them try to do a roll on their own. After they roll, I'd tell them about rerolling (but not about the punishment, which doesn't happen in this first fight) and would advise them to do a reroll if they rolled below 6. Why 6? Because again I would force the enemy to do a low roll that can't exceed 5, so a 6 would ensure they also win that second roll. If they reroll and still get a low roll, the computer could beat them but it does low damage. I would then only progress the tutorial when they get another decent roll (which I would view as 6+). No matter how they roll, the fight can't end until they've done the next primary part of the tutorial. So if the enemy reaches 1 HP, it will stay there until after they've done the next primary part of the tutorial. If the player's health gets too low (below 50%), I can throw the item healing tutorial at them but make it that any items they have are free to use.

Once they've had two decent rolls, I'd then use their next roll to teach them about that additional mechanic with the dial that spins around. Like the first time they rolled the dice, this would be rigged to ensure they have a great success. AFTER doing the dial would they be told about the different results they can get. At this point, the enemy can now be killed and the player can move onto the next fight.

To start this fight, I'd tell the player about betting and tell them to do a Win bet. When they roll, the computer always does worse to ensure the player wins the bet. After this, I'd tell them to do a Lose bet. When they roll, I'd make it impossible for them to roll 12 and ensure that the computer always wins by 1. However, since they did a Lose bet they'll gain +2 and win overall. After this, I would reveal the consequences of failing a bet. I'd then let them proceed through this fight on their own, throwing in the item tutorial whenever they drop below 50% health.

At the third fight, now I'd teach the player about the limit break thing. First, I'd have them take a negative effect in the first turn that will last for a few turns. In the second turn, I'd have them use the limit break so that in the third turn they remove the negative effects. Finally, I'd teach them about Dark Seal skills - again, making them use it so they see how it works - and then let them finish the fight. From here, they continue the run until they die.

Once they've died and they start their next run, NOW I give them stat allocation and tell them about classes. I would also unlock instruments for them and let them take the Lute, but I wouldn't do the other stuff. Instead, from each one function will be unlocked for each new run they do. So their third run would give them the Reliquary/Mastery page (and they would have their first mastery already waiting for them), and their fourth run would give them Sigil Hunt. Thanks to this, they've had a few runs at the game before they've been given access to everything. With everything gated in such a way, the player is able to focus on each part on their own.

And now, to cap it all off... If the player has no existing save data when they start the game, they'll be asked if they'd like their first runs to have tutorials. If they say yes, cool. If they say no, you warn the player that if they're new then it's recommended they do the tutorial. If they still say no, I'd then let them start the game as normal and not give them any tutorials. This way, it's 100% the player's fault if they say no.

Now obviously I wouldn't expect you to do things the way I described. Again, this is just how I'd do it. However, I do recommend having some sort of guided experience to make learning the game easier and to get away from massive info dumping. It'll make the game far more approachable.

And that's all I got! Let me know if you update the game, as I'd like to see how it improves. :)

RopeSwinger Demo jam comments · Posted in RopeSwinger Demo jam comments

Normally when I play a game, I write notes down for when I get to the feedback part. However, I was having so much fun that I just didn't write anything I was thinking about down. This isn't to say there isn't feedback, just that the gameplay is so enjoyable that I didn't want to stop going.

The first thing that came to mind, which was first mentioned in my chat and which I agreed with, was the look of the lava. To me, it just looks like red water with a yellow surface. I'd love for the lava to have a more lava look. I also felt that overall the visuals were lacking. I'd love to see that improved as the game gets polished.

I noted how when you're moving through the air and grab a block from above, it can stop your momentum. I don't think this is a bad thing. I'm really glad it does this, especially when I did Falling. However, I'm unsure if this is your intent so I figured I'd mention it in case it wasn't. Again, I think it's fine and should stay!

Based on the game's design, I can't refer to any of the jumps in this as "blind jumps" since most of the time they require you to be swinging anyway. However, I did feel like some jumps were too difficult for when they're presented. For example, the long jump in... well, Long Jump. I found it required me to be going a specific speed and to jump at a very specific angle. Since it seems that jumping during a swing can lose some momentum, I kept feeling like I needed to start my swinging from a very specific point in the block. I'd love to see it that when doing any jump, you can have your grapple on any part of the block you're using and that there's some more leeway in your angle for launching. With regards to momentum, I think needing specific speeds is fine.

I noted that with some blocks, you would only get a certain amount of room to extend out due to either other blocks or terrain. While this is fine when you have a series of blocks in a short distance, as seen in Falling, I feel like in some place it's more problematic as you need bigger swings and more momentum to make progress. Since I didn't write things down, I can't recall which levels had this. I'd overall say that unless doing a series of blocks in a short distance, it should always be possible to get max distance on the rope even if it isn't needed.

I'll also admit, I got to Rising but I just found it really hard, especially compared to Endless. Maybe it's because I didn't understand how much vertical momentum I actually needed and kept assuming I needed more, but I struggled to get to the 350m mark you set as the first (chaos) emerald. I think what would be more interesting is if the blocks (which should also be in set positions rather than random each run) went further out more but not as high, then have the lava just rise slower (and not gain speed). That way, you can make the jumps with less vertical momentum. This could also then be fun for people who are more skilled at the game as they could skip some blocks by making more use of the vertical momentum. Lastly, as you progress higher up the jumps would become harder and harder, each block being higher but getting closer in terms of horizontal distance so you were relying more on vertical momentum.

Speaking of emeralds, I'd like to suggest that the emeralds you have to find be saved once you find them, even if you fail the level. Many levels have speed requirements to get all emeralds, and taking the time to find those emeralds means you'll likely not make the time. If you want to make it that you have to get these emeralds and make it to the goal in time to save all emeralds, I'd then also suggest giving more leeway to the timed aspect. For context, I felt this particularly in Falling where I didn't even bother going for the hidden emerald and it took me over 60 seconds to reach the end because of that one part of the level where you have to go relatively straight down but you can't see where you're going unless you extend out. If I had to get that hidden emerald first and THEN beat the level in (I think) 47 seconds, I'd never manage it.

All of this said, there was one major problem I felt I had: trying to grab some blocks. There was an instance where I was fairly confident I had hit the block with the grapple, but it just didn't grab and instead I fell to my death. There were also times, particularly during Falling, where I would attempt to grapple something and the grapple would overshoot a block but the rope would pass through it. I'd like to see it that the grapple has more leeway to ensure that so long as the graphic for the grapple touches a block (even if the main hit detection part doesn't), it's able to grab in a forced grab way. I'd also like to suggest a special Easy Mode function where, if your rope passes through a block, the grapple will then grab that block as well based on the closest point of the rope to the player that touches the block. You could even add an extra emerald in very specific stages (like Falling) for not using Easy Mode, but only display these emeralds if the player completes the level without using Easy Mode. That way, players who use Easy Mode won't even know these exist and won't feel punished for using it.

In terms of suggestions to expand the gameplay, I have a few ideas. First I think moving platforms and blocks could be interesting. This would, of course, really necessitate the idea above of making the grapple have an easier time grabbing blocks since grabbing a moving block could be challenging if the block is moving away from the player.

Another thing that I think could be helpful, which may be challenging to put in, are blocks that change in dimensions once you grab them. Right now, all of the blocks you can grab are just that: square blocks. However, one thing that could be useful for the player (and which could help with some of those sizing things I mentioned before) would be if some blocks (not all) would shift their dimensions when you grab them in certain spots. For example, if a block wants you to stand on it or grab from the bottom, perhaps once you're doing this it can shrink the sides to make it that the top and bottom are the more accessible parts. In this way, you can even indicate to the player what's the ideal way to grab the block as they're learning the levels. Again, this could be challenging to put in. It'd have to be done very careful to prevent hit detection problems. However, it could also be a useful learning tool for new players. Heck, this could even be part of that Easy Mode idea, meant to help teach the player how the levels work better so that they can more easily tackle them outside of Easy Mode.

I think that's all I can think of! This is honestly really fun, and if I get the chance I'm going to try and get better at it to get all them (chaos) emeralds.

vengeance of the vegetables jam comments · Replied to lina in vengeance of the vegetables jam comments

I'm making this reply with the context of what happened after playing your game... Baby Corn has now become so much more important. When the VOD comes out (which I'll be releasing some time next week), I recommend not only watching your game but the game after. It'll all make sense. :D

Stickman escape 2 playtest2 jam comments · Replied to blaze in Stickman escape 2 playtest2 jam comments

Auto save per level might be there and I just didn't notice, but I was thinking more in regards to the save function and how it works.

As for the limited colour... what I think would be interesting then is to make open spaces black instead of white. That way, the player can quickly recognize that white = solid while black = empty.

For the "bugs," hopefully the VOD will make these more clear. However, to summarize them... I found I couldn't exit the tutorial level unless I jumped first. I otherwise got caught on something. For the weird line, I noticed this at some point later in my playthrough but I would see a black vertical line that sat ABOVE the cross that acts as the player's targeting reticle. And for the third one, the second stage has platforms that shoot the player in a direction indicated by an arrow on them. However, the arrows looked slightly off. This one in particular should be more clear with the VOD, which will likely take me another few days to get up (I'm getting my first VODs set up now and setting up release days).

Finally, there are 3D games that have these platforms too. In fact, the first thing that comes to mind is another Mario game: Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World!

Engineering Marvels From Hell jam comments · Replied to Doma in Engineering Marvels From Hell jam comments

Hearing that you contacted Szymanski and had his approval to include does make me far less concerned. I always try to keep legal stuff in mind since it's something most developers don't think of. Over the years with this event, we've had quite a few entries where I've brought up potential legal ramifications as I want to ensure those who take part in the event don't cause trouble for themselves.

I'm also glad to hear that some of my logical concerns were a matter of wording choices. For the one regarding skills needed, I think that could use some re-writing to ensure the objective you have gets across. I'm also glad to hear that more characters will have stuff to do.

One thing I didn't include in my post, which some in my stream felt to point out, was the fact that despite us being in a school meant to teach us how to torture people... we didn't get to do anything like that. I think it'd be great if, before you get to the part of the final assignment, we get to spend some time as students and... well, get to torture people. This could help add more gameplay while keeping the linear progression.

The wall I could walk on was in Szymanski's room.

As for the device I felt could be made better, I'm referring to the hydraulic press. Instead of only five pieces, it could be dozens of them with each being able to be done on their own. Just to explain what went through my head (before you can see the VOD), I'll use just one part of the body. Assuming the person is strapped down, you could make a small press for each part of a finger, which alone makes it at least 15 pieces per hand (one for each jointed section and then one for the main part of the hand), then repeat this idea on every limb with joints acting as separations. This could absolutely ratchet its ability to torture up as now instead of doing a single limb, you're doing just small pieces of it... writing this out, I now worry I actually may have been a serial killer in another life. XD

Core !1! jam comments · Replied to sillyWunkus in Core !1! jam comments

That's an interesting concept for the reason behind the game. I really like it. :)

Pollo Diavolo jam comments · Replied to Red-Squirg in Pollo Diavolo jam comments

I appreciate your honestly regarding how the game is designed.

Personally, I think it'd be more interesting if your classes were more balanced but each offered a different way to play the game, which would naturally make ranged classes have an easier time in the early game thanks to keeping out of harm's way more easily but would balance out more later on. However, that's just me. As for music, I appreciate you want to avoid using AI music. That said, there are many resources out there to find non-AI made music that could be temporarily used. I'll admit, I only brought up the music because the game honestly felt like it was a lot later in development than it seems it may be.

Vault Of The Sun : Cycles of Rebellion jam comments · Posted in Vault Of The Sun : Cycles of Rebellion jam comments

hythrain5 days ago (2 edits)

Hi there! I wanted to make a quick post to just give you some information. Feedback Quest is an event intended for in-development games to get feedback in order to improve their gameplay or other elements that can affect the player's experience. It's important for me to establish this first so that the next part makes sense... nobody, whether developers or streamers, is going to be willing to pay for the game during this event (even if you put it at a discounted rate, which I noticed you had done). Because of this, it's unlikely that you're going to get any coverage from people connected with Feedback Quest.

If you're looking for genuine feedback to improve the game, then you need to make this available to players. The best way to do this is with a demo that provides up to an hour of gameplay so people can have enough game to experience what they'd need to in order to give feedback, but not enough that you're giving the game away entirely. However, if your intent is to promote your game and get some sales.., well, this isn't the place to do that as this event is NOT intended to help people make sales happen during it.

Engineering Marvels From Hell jam comments · Posted in Engineering Marvels From Hell jam comments

Being that this game is primarily a visual novel, I chose to do what I normally do for visual novels: focus on the writing to ensure lines are well written and that the logic of the story makes sense. However, I opted to not go about writing down every line I felt had a writing problem and instead just brought those things up while playing. You'll be able to see them in the VOD. Instead, I chose to focus on the story's logic and... honestly, there are some huge problems with it.

First and foremost, one of the things we learn early on is that students have to be both doctors and engineers to "work in this field." Since they'll be in this school for 10 years, I assume this means that after graduation they would then be able to "work in this field" and that the requirements given have to be obtained before you can start in this school. This would mean having a doctorate and a diploma. I also assume that when you refer to "being a doctor" you specifically mean to be a physician, as otherwise there are a myriad of fields of study that produce doctorates (which is what you need to become a doctor) where you're not a physician.

Except there are two problems here. First and foremost, it typically takes 7 years to get a doctorate to be a physician. If the characters are 28 when in their last year, this means they were 18 or 19 at the start. This means that to have a doctorate just to get into the school, they would've had to have spent years already studying both medicine AND engineering. In short, they would literally have to all be child geniuses to be where they are which is just so unlikely. So that's already a huge fail in logic.

Another problem is that when you become a physician, you have to take an oath known as the Hippocratic Oath. To boil it down, the Hippocratic Oath demands that physicians will not do anything unethical. This would include doing things that would intentionally cause harm to their patients. or even to people in general. What this story suggests is that all of these people, after becoming physicians, abandoned their Hippocratic Oath. Besides the fact that doing so would see their doctorates revoked, meaning they'd no longer be physicians and thus would no longer have the qualifications to "work in this field," this is just something that feels insulting to physicians in general. Even in the context of this story, I have a difficult time believing that these people (who, again, have to be child geniuses) would all abandon that oath. It doesn't make sense. I would recommend dropping the idea that you need to be a physician and even an engineer, and rather change it to be that you have to show an aptitude in these fields instead.

I also would argue that literally including a currently living person in the game under the idea that they also went to this school is a bad idea. Why? Because it's so easy for someone to talk about this game's story then for someone else to take that out of context and then spread misinformation about that person. Now you suddenly have a potential libel issue going on. While I appreciate and love the call back to this person's work, you would be far better off changing both the person and the things they made to something made up. You can still do things in a way to make the call back, but don't use their actual name.

Next, I would argue that a deli slicer (what you called a meat slicer) is more well known than a dough roller machine. Deli slicers are far more common and are typically seen more by the public eye. Heck, you wouldn't even use a typical dough roller for donuts but rather a donut cutter roller. Dough rollers are more for bread, pie and pastries. Also, donuts are typically fried instead of baked (they can be baked, but it's less common). Given all this, you would be better off changing it from donuts to something like tarts.

With this all covered, there are some other things I wish to give thoughts on. First, why is it that Harry is the only person in the main group who has artwork? Why don't the others? Heck, why do Marcus and the currently living person have artwork before them? Why was I asked to save early on, given a single line of text and then asked to save again?

Lastly, I know this is intended as a type of visual novel but I feel like there's no gameplay for the player. The only time we get to move around is when we visit people (speaking of, I broke the first visit room. You can walk into the wall and climb all over it. Even more confusing is that doing this is the only way to reach the water cooler), and it doesn't provide anything. You'd be better off making this game in something like Renpy, where all you'd need is the text and the artwork. At least there, there's no expectation of having some sort of control.

Finally, I'd argue that the very first idea suggested is actually a really good one. It just needs more iteration on it (No joke, I told my stream how to make that idea work way better. I won't repeat it here, but legit I had people ask me if I was a serial killer because of how quickly I improved the idea)

And that's all I got. Good luck with your game!

Bounce Back! jam comments · Posted in Bounce Back! jam comments

This is a great way to reinvent Breakout (it wouldn't be Pong as Pong would have you play horizontally rather than vertically)! I honestly found this a lot of fun to play! I could see myself getting addicted to this. There isn't even a lot of feedback I feel I could give for this, but I'll try anyway.

So first, I think everything should start smaller and balls should move slightly slower. The reason why is because otherwise this game can get very crowded very quickly as new enemies and effects and projectiles are added in. Doing this you make the arena "bigger" and leave yourself more room to prevent clutter. If you want, you could do boss fights zoomed back in to make them more engaging and challenging.

Other than this, I have two recommendations for changes to relics. My first recommendation is that you should remove relics that increase your main ball speed. To me, these feel like nerfs instead of buffs as a faster ball makes it more likely you're going to miss the ball and thus take damage. Instead, any relics that increase speed to balls should only do so for extra balls as you can't get hurt for not bouncing those back with the paddle (which I'm very glad for. Otherwise, extra balls would ALSO be a huge nerf).

The other recommendation is that you should make it that relics that only affect other relics should require having at least one of the relics they affect before they can show up. For example, any relics that specifically affect extra balls should only show up once you have a relic that gives you extra balls, whether these are fragile balls or solid extra balls. That way, the player can't get relics that they can't make use of until they have the required relics.

The last thing I can suggest is to have a means for the player to heal themselves without needing to get just the right relics to do so. Right now, you either have to get a relic that heals you every 3 levels or just get one that restores your health. While I think you should still keep the heal every 3 levels relic, I would say you should instead put in a currency system (either enemies can sometimes drop the currency and you have to try and catch them much like the power-ups in Breakout, or you get a set amount of currency for each level cleared that increases by a small amount up to a certain level) and a shop where the player can purchase temporary upgrades that last for a set number of waves and the ability to heal themselves. You could even make it that the player can purchase permanent upgrades to increase their max health while that the cost of healing increases with the player's max health.

I hope this helps you out!

Sketching Fish jam comments · Posted in Sketching Fish jam comments

So fun fact: I hate fishing mini games in other games. The reason why is because these games are typically a lot more fast paced, and the fishing mini games slow that right down. I don't have this problem when it's just a fishing game, though, because then I'm set to take my time. That said, the design and speed of this would be perfect as a mini game for some larger game.

So here are the things I noted while playing that I felt could be adjusted...

First, I feel like the environment shouldn't reset and freeze every time you start to catch a fish. I noticed this a lot, where I'd see something cute in the background then the moment I had to do the ring timing it would disappear and the rest of the game would just stop. I'd say just let things keep going.

Second, despite what I said a moment ago about how I view fishing mini games, there's one thing that other games do that this one doesn't: the moment the player is informed of a bite, the action to catch it begins. In your game, there's a pause before you begin. This feels awkward, as I'm always primed to start right away and have to remind myself to wait. I think it would be better if the moment you get the notification of the fish bite, the ring starts up.

I also felt like if I messed up and reeled in too early, it should pull the reel out so I only need to click twice: once to prepare for the next cast and then another to do the cast. Right now, you have to do three clicks which isn't how the rest of the game works. Even being late to reel in has you only need to click twice to go again.

When I noticed the "Next page" button, I began exploring the other pages to see what variety it had. When I went to go back, though, I noticed that the button to do so says "First page" instead of "Previous page," which is what it should say as it goes back one page at a time.

Lastly, I noticed some rather big lag spikes at time in the game. While this could be because of playing on browser, it could also be a problem in the code. I would suspect it's more code related as I only ever noticed it when I was trying to catch a fish with the Slippery ring.

While this is the end of my notes... I need to ask a question. You have this game listed as "Mostly AI." Looking at what there is in the game, I feel like this could've easily been made without any AI. I've not programmed in a long time, but I know that this is some pretty basic stuff here. I don't mean to judge but I feel like you should try to remake this game without the use of AI. It would be a great way to learn how to program!

Project VS jam comments · Posted in Project VS jam comments

More survivor action! Huzzah! So for the most part, I was enjoying what was here. I did a run with each class to get a feel for how they played and see which ones worked and which had problems.

First in my feedback, I'd recommend naming them by classes rather than by colour. People won't necessarily know what Blue, Red and White mean but they WILL know what Knight, Warrior and Mage are. This would help players identify what the gameplay for each could be like. That said, let's talk more about the classes, starting with the job I felt the easiest to play: Red/Warrior.

Red has a short range AOE attack and its additional skill, the Chain Ball, is a rather large attack they can throw out that moves very fast and even bounces off the wall. It was very easy for me to kill enemies because I just needed to outpace them and keep within a certain range to ensure my attacks hit. As such, this was the only class where I got all the way to the boss before I died. If anything, I think this job might be too powerful and may need to be nerfed. I would say the Chain Ball should be made smaller, more to the size of what White's Comet is, to help balance it.

Next is White. With a long range high damage attack, White is able to continually pick targets off. Its additional skill to drop a Comet is nice, but I found it was far weaker than the Chain Ball because it both has a smaller radius and often seems to target on enemies that are in the back of a pack instead of on the front. If it went for the closest enemy like the basic attack did, it would be more effective because it'd be dropping on the majority of enemies and result in a quick clear of a swarm. I would also argue that Comet should be much larger given how once it strikes it's gone from the field. Comet should be about the size of what Chain Ball is now. I would also say that the standard attack should be faster.

Last is Blue, and this was by far the worst to play. I couldn't even get through the first level. The nature of its directional swing makes it very hard to play. I often found I had to get close to enemies and stand still in order to ensure they even got hit. I even had a lot of times where I felt like I was close enough to hit an enemy over for my attack to do nothing. Enemies build up way too fast with this class. To make matters worse, when I got the Katana I found that it too was very weak. While it's fast and has great range, its not wide enough to really be effective. To make this effective, a lot would need to change. First, the range for the slash attack needs to be longer. Second, everything about the slash attack needs to be faster: faster cooldown, faster swing speed, etc. Third, it needs a little something else to give it more power. My suggestion would be that when it swings, it also produces a short range wave like what the Katana does. However, it doesn't even need to fire out. It can just be a thing where being hit with the short range wave does less damage than the normal sword. Finally, the Katana needs a huge buff. Either it needs a wider area of effect or it needs to fire more often.

It's otherwise a good start for a prototype. I hope we'll see it some more in future FBQ events!

Sinful Testament (Demo) jam comments · Posted in Sinful Testament (Demo) jam comments