You won't find better gameplay :)
Obstruction Games
Creator of
Recent community posts
I played and reviewed your game which you can check out here which you will find useful if you want to improve the game overall if you continue to work on it.
Findings:
1. Camera system needs a rework, bind the camera to the head bone of the character, set visibility of the head/face mesh to hidden and allow hidden shadows in its settings, that way you aren't seeing the characters face sometimes in the camera and it's not viewing from the player chest.
2. The interaction system needs to be applied to the bunker entry and exit doors that you use for notes, doors and keys inside the bunker.
3. Reduce the size of the locker the player hides in or adjust the player camera, so the player vision aligns with the grate to see if the wolf is outside the locker.
4. The first level with trees and shrubs absorbs a lot of frames per second as they aren't optimized, I would recommend just starting from inside the bunker with a short cinematic if you can manage it.
5. The creature needs some fine tuning in terms of its sound and forget timing. Its footsteps should be heard from a certain distance away from the player, so they know it's close. It shouldn't give up looking for the player as soon as it's out of sight, I would look at Alien Isolation gameplay for a reference of what you could do a version of when it comes to being hunted and locker interactions.
6. There is no information about controls, this is most effective when in context. For example, if you just pick up a flashlight, it should tell you how to activate and deactivate it.
7. The main menu has no music at all, it made me think there was something wrong with my output sound but there is just no music, even an atmospheric sound on a loop would do.
8. I would actually remove the multiple hit health system in favour of a single hit health system, but you must consider level design more before doing so because if you are in a dead-end hallway, no gameplay mechanic, skill or otherwise will save you which doesn't give the player any sense of agency, if the sound of the wolf were optimal then this would be less of an issue, so you could make a risk choice to go down a potentially dead end hallway if you don't hear the wolf nearby.
9. When you press Start Game you can actually move and interact with your character during the black screen, you need to implement a disable input for this and enable input when the call is over.
10. If you are using a line trace for interaction, I would change it to overlap instead as it requires less specific reticle focused interactions which can feel finicky.
11. The plumbing room platforming area for the green key is a nightmare, dying to this more than the wolf is an issue, most of it is because of the collisions in this very cramped area which is not tuned for jumping in.
12. I mentioned some finer tuning with door sounds, attenuation, footstep sfx of the character changing based on what you walk on like water, metal, concrete, grass, snow, mud etc.
13. The story needs more effort; an idea would be to include a phone or communication device that connects to someone in 'head office' for the rescue effort or even be connected to the survivor you are trying to reach as an idea which can also tie in with using sound to trigger/alert the wolf.
For more details I've included it in the video below, great job so far, do not give up, please keep going.
P.S I watched the gameplay by FabioDracul and I had no idea I missed a note at the very start which helped paint the story a little bit more.
For those that might question the file size at 400+ MB, it's because it was developed as a 3D game, all the assets are 3D, you are playing in 3D with an orthographic camera view to make it look 2D, Unreal Engine is not built for 2D games, but it is the engine I know most about and the challenge was exciting, the drawback being the file-size.
