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Magmastyr

2
Posts
A member registered 27 days ago

Recent community posts

That may be the current design choice, which makes sense for a reasonably simple game made in a few days, but in terms of a grander design, making the main loss condition of your game completely out of the control of the player isn't a great idea. It makes the game less skill-focused and more like a pachinko machine with flippers at the bottom.


Pinball, as a game, has actual skill elements. At the moment, Cata-bomb is lacking those elements, so it just becomes flip and hope.

Overall, fun little game with potential for more. The Good

  • Art and sound design are both strong, despite the obvious time limitations. Still, very impressive for a small team and quick turn over.
  • There's a lot of potential here: more complex boards, different bosses and a bit more tweaking and I could really see this being a fun game with its own niche.

The Bad These are more nitpicks than major complaints. I don't want it to come across that these are huge critiques of the game.

  • The first few hits to 'unlock' the actual boss are good the first time round, introducing the mechanics, but on repeat plays, it really slows down the start.
  • Speaking of which, multiple of my attempts failed because I destroyed the dumpster, only for the explosions taking up half the screen to hide my balls and cause me to lose instantly.
  • While I didn't have any problems running it, the game does seem very intensive for what it is.

The Ugly These are the harsher critiques I have.

  • The game doesn't feel hard as much as unwieldy. The only mechanic you really have on your side is spawning more cats to replace the ones you're losing and there's so much RNG that you can almost instantly go from a great run to a complete loss without really doing anything wrong.
  • On this note, the Bouncers are... well, they're just not fun. Getting stuck and just having to wait for them to move while your bombs time out is not a fun feeling. A possible solution would be to give them health so you can knock them off the board if they're causing problems. They will eventually be replaced, but it gives the player more agency to deal with them.
  • Another thing that would help give the player more agency would be some sort of power up system. Obviously, this is a larger investment of dev time, but for the future, I think it would add a lot to the game to be able to collect power-ups with your cats to help with the fight. Not only does it create a greater sense of progression (and loss if you lose a powered-up cat) but it also feels less punishing to miss the boss if you're picking up power-ups instead.

With these issues aside, I can see this becoming a fun zone out game, with a lot of charm and character to it. Continued development could really allow it to flourish and grow into its own.