FWI This is going to be a big ass comment so strap in
Ive been following this game for a while now and i have to say im really impressed with what you guys have managed to do. The overall atmosphere and world you guys have made is amazing.
After playing through and completing both the first memorial tower demo and the current June demo, gathering my thoughts and scrolling through the comments to make sure I didn't saying anything redundant, I have a few bugs to report/critiques I thought would be good to share. Ill try to start light and finish heavy, but ive never been particularly good at organization
(mild spoilers to those who care)
- Running sound effect plays in the air when just walking off a ledge instead of jumping
- The ending train scene where your time / kills are displayed would benefit from having the speed of the counter scale with the time taken. With my final time of 13706 seconds (oof) i was sitting there for a while.
- Also the background of the train doesnt loop very seamlessly
- Some elevators seem buggier than others with Marie's dress and firearm spazzing out. Not really important but still mention worthy
- The saving system could benefit from:
- having the latest save at the top of the list
- having a timestamp of when the save was made/last overwritten
- Grenades could benefit from a counter to let you know how many you have
- Similarly, the grenade launcher could use a separate counter for gas grenades, i had a similar experience to Quietly Perverse
- The hurtbox for the windmill extends way further than expected
- You mentioned in other comments how because you can mantle ladders theres no need to program a 'typical FPS ladder'. I understand, but would suggest letting the player hold space to jump up instead of having to mash it
- Furthermore some ladders end up being rather slow to climb with marie jumping up ~1.5 rungs, then falling down to 1 rung (hope that makes sense)
- Elevator buttons seem to be randomly assigned as to whether or not the first floor means up or down, etc
- The glowing purple computers in the reactor change their state to armed regardless of whether or not you have the charges (or at least change their text)
- 3rd person camera clipping through objects when in tight spaces such as vents or elevators (perhaps force 1st person here?)
- The flashlight is locked in the 'safety' position, meaning unless youre aiming down sights you cant see whats in front of you (intentional?)
- Occasionally pressing left mouse while in your inventory causes you to fire your gun, fixed with reloading a save
- I really like what you guys did for the hacking minigame, its a fresh idea and really fun to mash away at your keyboard, but:
- i feel like there are instances where youre a bit stingy with the time (i cant be the only one who struggles to type 'roadsidepicnic' in 5 seconds even when I know its the answer)
- The permanent lockout after 2 tries is a bit harsh and only serves to promote save scumming
- Adding a 2 second cooldown between tries would be appreciated. as currently stands, by the time ive realized the attempt has ended, ive already mashed the f button and started the second attempt
- The lowerable bridge was particularly buggy, at least for me, including:
- An invisible walkway above the bridge on the control platform
- Falling onto the bridge from any height not causing any falling damage
- The door leading from the windmill to the controls would occasionally not open for me, fixed with reloading saves
- attempting to step off the bridge causing you to plummet downwards (i assume your velocity is still increasing while on the platform)
- attempting to walk across the platform while lowered causes you to glide and you cannot jump (which was otherwise used to cancel out the plummeting)
- Reloading a save would revert the bridge back to the raised position
- The tank battle at the end could have been handled a bit better
- The first time the player ever comes into contact with one, they are pitted against a whole squad of them, without any experience or knowledge on how to take them down
- The phrase "Introduce, Demonstrate, Complicate" comes to mind
- Running to the end of each side of the railway leading to an abrupt dead end with nothing there was a tad disappointing
- also showed the inside of geometry on the tunnel side, and let the player walk on the floor outside of the wall
- Perhaps to avoid the player seeing the abrupt stop the train track could steeply dip up or down at the end
- have some magic Jesus wizard hobo at both ends that teleports you back to the station if you ask him to
- Using the communist orders to continue could have been made more apparent (perhaps adding 'press use to contact the polish general' or something similar in the item inspect?)
- The polish general in the train station that gives you orders to see what the communist orders are is given the same 'polish officer' description and blends in with the other officers
- Moving the mouse while aiming down sights leads to the gun jittering, further compounded with some guns (particularly the silenced pistol) not having the shots line up with the top of the gun model, rendering aiming down sights to feel less accurate than hip firing
- Spaces in the game with no way out requiring a save to be loaded (eg: dip in hospital roof with 2 air conditioning units and slopes you cant walk up)
- The overwhelming majority of tracks in this game are excellent and fit the mood perfectly, however:
- The tracks that start playing when in some combat heavy areas are a bit too intense while you arent detected imo
- The trap beat that plays in the windmill is the only song that I would say feels 'out of place' for the setting
- The lighting and visibility system seems so inconsistent to the point that im genuinely curious about how your visibility is actually calculated
- being fully visible in darkness, being invisible while in light, etc
- lighting coming through walls
- and finally:
[ SIGNPOSTING, GETTING LOST AND MAP SIZE]
This is probably the major issue that is preventing me from recommending my friends to try out the demo.
Firstly I just want to say that while i was really lost at the start, by the end of the level, i had come to know the map fairly well, and more or less managed to map out the area in my head through trial and error. While the lack of visual variety did make some of my time playing a bit dull, the overall atmosphere kept pulling me back in and kept me going
While getting lost and exploring did eventually become enjoyable, it really took a lot of effort for me to push through that initial phase of not knowing what to do, which id imagine is one of the main things that causes players to decide to not continue
While the lack of a journal/log was also present in the previous demo, its absence is felt even more in the current demo due to its size and lack of always visible weenies (particularly at the default draw distance).
I can absolutely respect wanting to give snake creative freedom, so if you are totally against the idea on making the maps smaller, I would suggest the following (scaling again from lightest to heaviest):
- Journal and Objective list(which im aware youre already working on), complete with a simple 'you did it' sound effect for completed objectives because theres nothing that keeps a player going like pavlovian conditioning.
- Add literal signposts everywhere. I only knew about the elevator going to the street level coming back up because there was no marker leading me to it. Furthermore the signs that are in the game are too blown out with light to make out half the time
- Since a 2d map would most likely cause frustration given how vertical the world is, perhaps a scaled down 3d model with the players position and objective position marked (a la doom eternals map system) and/or:
- Adding a waypoint system to the compass. Either one of these would lower the bar for entry (of course have the option to turn it off for the hardcore crowd)
I am probably one of the last people to be advocating for waypoints in a video game, but considering how large and open the map is, I feel like it would be appropriate (if cruelty squad can have an indicator of exactly where your target is on screen, anything goes)
I bring all this up because i can see how much love and effort went into bringing all these areas to life , and it would completely break my heart to see all that time and effort spent only for the reception percentage to be lowered and refunds to be given because of players who got lost, didnt know what to do, and just gave up and concluded the game wasnt worth their time
I hope what I've said hasnt been too redundant, or given the impression that I didnt enjoy my time with the game. I wouldnt have spent the time to write all this up if I didnt care. Im really excited to see where this thing goes, good luck and godspeed