itch.io

Its a fun little game. Countering the shapes and element types made sense, the effect types less so. Facing unfamiliar (not to say bad, just new to me) mechanics, I would have liked to see more symmetry in the game. I already understand the rock-paper-scissors mechanic where one thing beats the next in a cycle, matching where one thing aligns with another thing. The effect just wasn't clear which one to use. The symmetry issue I had also applied to combat. Attack had a nice animation from left to right. The defense stage nothing happened, just screen just flashed and shook for a sec. Same goes for the hitpoints, hearts for the pc and a bar for the enemy. This hitpoint illustration might just be nitpick, like I can get over that, but the defense animation seems like low-hanging fruit. Ok that's it for symmetry.

Can we talk about controls? As a mouse and keyboard guy right now, i would feel more empowered to be able to peck the keyboard letter instead of steering my heavy mouse. Probably though the target audience is phone users so I get if this isn't a priority. 

The tutorial was helpful, and even though a correct response caused the tutorial to continue, a "great job" would have been helpful to let me know i am now looking at this screen because I guessed correctly

All in all it was fun, I want to see more monster types and if I knew when to use the Effect card type. That's it! Let me know if you have any more questions for me and good luck!

* What genre do you think the game is?

puzzle

* How fun is the game on a scale of 1-5?

5, its a lot of fun

* How balanced is the difficulty on a scale of 1-5?

4 meaning almost perfectly balanced difficulty

* Is power-up collection clear and enjoyable?

Yes and aggravatingly just out of reach

* Would you replay the level to improve your time score?

Yes a few times I did

* What one change would improve the game most?

I got as far as wall rainbow and the game stopped responding to x and all other keys. Only the sound was playing and the idle animation for the character was playing then, the screenshot at that point is below. I honestly thought the story was the game, the only agency I had was pressing X. But the story is good and engaging, and the translation is really good, it was very clear in English what everyone was saying and her inner monologue. If you advanced the story faster (the converation, you and the scientist is a long convo) it might be ok. The pc sprite is cute, the eye blinking falling asleep was a nice touch. 

The controls are really particular and interesting, with the 6 keys being just the right amount. The 2d levels were difficult for me and I never made it to the 3d levels. The purple hashtag blocks came in so early before I even had the basics. The chill sound design was one of the best parts, I feel like not having sounds when the player "makes a mistake" is a missed opportunity maybe its like that for asthetics.

1000% I don't know what I want it to be. Thanks for going high level and honestly pointing that out. Thanks also following my format and answering the questions I have.

Thanks for all the detailed points. I have some answers here we go

1. Yes the ui is surreal and janky. The surreal is just my abstract view of it, intentionally bare, sometimes broken until I can fix it the right way instead of covering it up. The janky parts are not by design (problems with overflow, positioning offscreen, etc, bad icons)

2. Not sure if its you or me. I have to take these case by case. In general I get this one alot and right off the bat i think small hitbox player was not expecting, but I think there may be broken cases like melee: click, run over, enemy has moved so char just stands there. Its not an auto battler so I want the engagement. The camera I have also taken flack for. I did put an option for the camera to center on the room, but its buried in a menu. The overthe shoulder camera I hope it reminds people of any perspective fighting game, even though it looks like its trying to be isometric view and stationary camera. I really have to bring out the option to change the camera or isometric it by default. I probably will end with both isometric/ orthographic view and perspective over-the-shoulder view, maybe even camera zoom into head for fps perspective.

3. Ammo is def coming! The cooldown is correlated to weapon power. I figured it would stay, and stay independent from ammo. I see what your saying about playing ranged. Its just the best way right now, but I hope to code up the melee options for gamers that want to play as a fighter, bringing in dash, kick, punch and jumping attacks as well.

4. Sorry yes it be like that. Need to keep a counter per player of how many enemies have spawned per room, especiialy for the drop zones where the player can't destroy the spanwer. Once the limit is reached the player wont be harassed and can move on. Also I want to cut back on the number of drop zones, maybe hold them back for boss spawns or something special.

5. There are more items than fits in the slots you can see, so even though they stack, its possible to run out of room. There's a bug where items end up in the spellbook which is weird. The game hasn't been fantasy for a while so I'll get that fixed up. Your right about the keycard and locked door. Def going to need to fix this if I stay the roguelite route.

6. Going with #3 more melee fighter stuff is coming promise!

7. That could be fun, I am going to make some area type levels and we will def have symmetric

Thanks for everything you could tell me, its much preciated and I got alot of work to do!

You can get an indication of where the shot will go from the white outline. Without the outline, the click is treated as a move. I think thats working. What's broken is clicking an enemy with a white outline, pc runs over and swings (melee example here) but the mob has moved on and the pc misses. If you can confirm that's what your seeing? That needs to be coded. Thanks for the fb!

Thanks for the fb on the camera snap. I put a option for that under "camera" so it can just focus on the room without snapping behind the player. I need to code up more logic for zooming the view but its a start. Also I'm glad someone had fun with the sword and shield!

All fixed, thanks again

1000% that makes sense. I'm glad the mouse is good and gamepad should be good too. The "big step" with the keyboard is a bonus for gamers without anything fancier to control the pc. That's what I've been saying to me but it keeps coming up in testing. Give me a day or too and I'm sure I can get it in as an option

I fixed the phasing through walls problem. Turns out the checking for that was not firing as fast as the W key when held down. Any key binding for that should work now too. Did you see anything else with the movement? Thanks thanks

I liked how the music changed for bullet time and a good selection of tunes overall that just seemed to fit with the game. The twin stick feeling is real. Fun little arcade game right here!

The movement and move confirmation with the mouse was nice. I could not change my name from "David". I could not find my job where i worked!

Thank you! Like how is it janky?

Made with no engine at all and I should not be bragging about that

i don't always have the energy to make something after struggling to think about it. i will do a design jam and go to bed

Really well put together aesthetic. Was unclear if the game was teaching me something or just turn off my brain and play the rhythm game