Nice idea, Katamari in space. I think you could have some UI or shader effect to show how close you are to objects, in Reizen I made "bullets" turn red the closer you get to them. It was just hard to judge distance and I'd often graze things I was trying to get. Maybe you could be a magnetic asteroid.
This points to an issue with how your camera is set up. Because the asteroid is in the center of the screen, it obstructs the objects you're trying to hit. So if you keep the camera angled so you can see what you want you end up going under it oftentimes.
I think this game could benefit from two views, a first person view, and a third person view. Could be a neat like, lowres space camera effect in first person. I dunno, maybe just try offsetting the camera. You should try 6DOF too, though players don't usually like that (see Egogia).
Tapping to move got a little better as I went on but I think it could be either less sensitive, or maybe just allow tapping forward to move camera-forward instead of on a flat plan, and space and ctrl won't be needed then.
I like the ending idea, I think it'll be really funny when you get an end screen saying how much damage you've done based on your size, how many people you've killed based on location, etc.
Maybe even, have the game be time-limited, so you gotta get big fast before NASA blows you out of the sky, maybe you can even go overtime and start dodging missiles while you get bigger, then you have to crash on missile launch sites, and a tiny part of you detaches to get big again. Could be a fun game-loop.
Your stars flicker like a motherfucker, I don't envy you, star shaders are cursed. I'd also play with the sense of scale a bit, the Earth shouldn't feel so small, but I get it needs to be arcade-y enough to be fun to collect stuff.
Hey, I redesigned how explosions work and I think they're a lot easier to figure out now. I also rewrote the difficulty curve to introduce new tiles in a slower way so players will hopefully be less overwhelmed.
For sure, I think now that the base gameplay works it would be interesting to add on some resource management, maybe even hand-design puzzles have have "days" you have to win. I uploaded a new build that adds UI for showing how close you are to losing, and a money counter that you can cheese and incrementally increase if you want. Not much difference, but helps a bit I think.
Thank you for playing. I just uploaded a new build that makes introduction of new tiles much slower, I'd be interested if you find it any easier. I also completely revamped the combustion rules, so be sure to check the manual again.
Thank you for playing and leaving feedback, the capsule art and name definitely need work.
I agree that the game needs more space for immersion, I got too worried that players would be bored floating around with nothing to do, but perhaps setting up the goals more clearly would alleviate that. I was going for a Metroid: Prime feel but ended up closer to Banjo-Kazooie.
I'm glad you're so interested in the game, I was wondering if I should develop it further or not as the response hasn't been very vocal, but maybe the capsule art and poor writing is to blame for discoverability.
I thought this game was genius. I've been trying to do a 6DOF dungeon crawler forever and you nailed it.
It's on par with Portal as a puzzle game imo, but this is kind of the Narbacular Drop phase.
My main critiques are that I found the camera disorienting at first, I think it'd be nicer if it was centered on a point when rotating rather than being on an arm. Once I stopped using the mouse though I was fine with it, I had a better time with the keyboard anyways. Maybe adding a keyboard button to fire would be good too so the user can forgo the mouse altogether.
I also found the collision of where I could and could not rotate/walk to be rather opaque at times. Particularly the metal didn't seem intuitive that it was unwalkable, I think they had this same issue in Portal which is why they made the contrast between metal and concrete basically black and white. I also found the grey edge pieces didn't always connect every wall I could walk on, sometimes there'd be none and I could still go up it. This was exacerbated once the moving cubes were added as I couldn't tell what edges I could walk on, it seemed like maybe only the surfaces with the arrows could be.
I thought the floor lights/glowing cubes were lava at first so I avoided them for awhile.
Levels 8 and 11 filtered me, but it was alright because you allowed alternate levels to let you progress. Really good idea there.
I had a really comfy time with this, I think it's the best I've played so far this DD and I can't wait to see more mechanics and levels. I think you have a really good one on your hands.
It would be interesting to see if shooting an arrow straight above you could unlock even more puzzle designs; really take advantage of the 6DOF.
Couldn't tell any difference between the classes besides starting equipment.
The charge up to attack is annoying, delayed animation doesn't feel good, jerky. It's also not intuitive and forces players to peek in combat.
Hitbox on thrown weapons is way too big, my throw would miss most of the time because it'd clip a wall that it clearly shouldn't have. Make throws more directed at least instead of randomly rotating the weapon.
The fog looks kinda bad imo, dithering doesn't match the rest of the aesthetic. Would like to see more color variation throughout the dungeon between rooms as it all looks the same.
I didn't know if doors were locked, never had any indication a key was used if I picked it up from an enemy.
Walk speed is way too slow, dashing way too quick. Sprinting always took a good half second or more before I'd start sprinting, felt like an input delay issue rather than designed as such. FOV increase on sprinting and dashing is gigantic and made me not want to use them.
Not enough weapons to complete a dungeon and they break far too fast. Punch range is pitifully low too.
This is an incredibly well polished game, you'll make a lot of money.
Maybe it plays better with a controller, but I found it a little annoying I couldn't select stuff in the menus with A or D. It broke the game flow for me every time.
I can see it being really fun once you master it, but it's really fast to start with and hard to precisely jump like I want to, would be interesting if you implemented a slowed time mode just to relax it a bit. Would be an easy difficulty implementation imo.
Footstep sounds got a little annoying, maybe different sounds per level could be fun, it'd be easy to make each level feel a little more distinct with color and texture changes, don't be afraid to evolve the style a bit and stretch it in new directions.
I found the level endings opaque; why do they seem to end randomly? I want to fill in the entire board, let me do it, my OCD is begging you.
I was also never able to clear a stage without an enemy getting me once. Probably just a skill issue because I've never played it, but I found them very aggressive in the first few stages. It'd be nice to have a chill mode without enemies too because I'd legit just try to fill the board without repeat tiles as a challenge puzzle. You also don't make it clear in the tutorial that stepping on already cleared tiles will lower your stats, you only mention it in regards to the bonus mode.
For a game called Godfist the fists do not feel good. They're not a viable way of killing anything, their hit range is super low, I'd suggest a big spherecast instead of a raycast. I also hate the hit pause but that's a personal subjective preference. I did find it odd that punching certain objects would have a hit pause, like the ladders or boxes or trees, but then the world geo wouldn't. Very confusing. It makes me think there's a point to hitting those objects, that they may break or do something. Overall the sense of feedback needs a bit of work, hitting stuff with anything doesn't feel great and I often don't know how much damage I'm doing. They just glow the more I punch them with seemingly no end, I know I have to knock them off but still.
I don't think I got hit a single time, very easy game, not much enemy variety as they just walk in a straight line towards you. I'd say the levels are too big, there's no dashing or anything, seems like a lot of empty space. Also why am I at the enemy chest height? Being short feels weak.
The viewmodel clips with the world, you know this but Unreal makes it difficult I know. It makes the game world lose a sense of solidity.
I'll repeat the spherecast for the kick, my kicks almost always missed and the range seemed even lower than the fists.
I like the idea of the rolling dice for abilities, maybe a wipe timer visual would be better than just slot machine flicking through them, I often didn't know how long it would take to recharge.
I'd suggest moving the money, level, and pain stuff to the bottom of the screen so all info is together, and adding a color value differentiation to the numbers vs the titles, maybe even visual feedback of growing the numbers and changing color when each changes.
Couldn't tell if the bar at the bottom the screen was my health, I never got hit so, where is the health?
I never went to the shop because I didn't want to have to climb all the way back up.
What's the point of jumping and throwing? I never had to use either.
You may have made the worst video game ladders, it's like swimming in molasses. Just copy HL2 or MGS3.
I can't condone the enemy's loot despawning, especially without warning (blinking, etc.). It'd also be cool to auto suck them in like Devil Daggers.
Weak SFXs but I'm sure it's just early, the jump and punch are particularly disappointing, and quiet music.
I turned on vsync but the screen still tore, this seems to be a common Unreal thing. Speaking of settings, please make the pause menu actually pause in-game, this isn't Dark Souls. I also had no idea when I was ready to level up, it seemed like I always could? Being able to change settings in-game would be nice too, and separating the opaque Low, Good, Best into actual options, like turning off AA, or vignette, etc. would be super nice.
Also, like my game, your game asked for internet access, not sure why.
I made it pretty far I think but got bored of the enemies and quit. You've got a good base here, I think you should polish up the core gameplay loop before doing any more art though.
EDIT: Thought of something else: None of the upgrades are interesting as far as I played, 10% more jump? It's imperceptible. "Double it or halve it" is a good mantra to live by when it comes to upgrades on stats. I'm sure you have more abilities planned. Having the option to swap out your three slot machine ability choices would be neat. I like the strategy of wasting them between rounds to queue them up for what you want.
I couldn't kill anything. The mouse controls are a good idea but the implementation needs work; I'd often move my mouse in a direction and click to charge, but it wouldn't take affect, and by the time I clicked again the direction prompt usually faded and I had to try again. You should implement input queuing for this and it'd feel a lot better.
Input queuing would also be good for after attacks, I often wanted to charge again but had to wait until the animation is done, which is annoying because I have enough in the world to think about than looking at the viewmodel animation.
The metroid prime map ui is amazing, placing markers is a cool idea too, I'm sure it will be more useful in the future.
I'd change the health from numbers to a bar, I thought the blue bar would be my health and didn't even notice the numbers until my third try after dying.
Everything is too hard and fast, maybe it'd be better with a proper introduction and level design, but traditionally skeletons are supposed to be the easiest enemy in these games.
I really like the aesthetic you're going for so far, keep working on it.
Thanks for playing. Sorry about that prompt, it's apparently built into newer version of Unity and I couldn't find a way to disable it even though all the analysis and connection stuff is disabled. I will look into it again.
This game is bursting with soul. I had a lot of fun with all the weapons and platforming, felt like I was always getting better.
I think the game could use a big art pass however; the camera is really close, would be nice to have more view of the surroundings to see where you're going and plan enemy encounters, it becomes very run-and-gun right now. The ui is hard to navigate and read, you throw it all at the player immediately and the names for each shop menu are pretty opaque about what it does; "Paintery" for example. Of course you can open them and grok it decently fast, though I'm still not sure where my points/money was displayed.
I also couldn't scroll the weapons menu, or any menu for that matter.
I'm sure you've got a plan for all this though. The base gameplay is super fun. Reminded me of Risk of Rain a bit, but if cactus had made it.
I didn't get a chance to try the multiplayer so you may be putting more effort towards that.
It's a fun game, I like the procedural levels and the progression on upgrades is pretty nice.
Small improvements I'd make:
UI could be more readable, the font is weird and you're thrown into the game without much time to look at things or figure out what's what.
Some screenshake would go a long way, though I understand if you're going more for Vampire Survivors-like with minimal juice to distract from the progression.
The directional audio feels very weird, it always sounded off so as not to be useful. I think the power of the guns would feel better if it was removed altogether.
Perhaps a pause screen when you walk over a gun so you can decide what to swap it with. You could even compare stats, fire rate, ammo type, etc. I suggest this because the only two times I died was when I tried to pick up a gun but couldn't determine when to press F and also was trying to switch to a gun I didn't want.
Reloading takes way too long. I think you're trying to encourage the player to switch weapons, but the arenas are so big and it's so easy to strafe around enemies that I'd rather wait on the reload than change my concentration to which weapon would be better.
I enjoyed this one a lot, it was fun to mix and match the upgrades.
I found the idea of multiple guns confusing, do they all fire at the same time? Or were there more buttons I was missing. I couldn't tell if there was a balance to the amount of guns I should have vs having fewer, other than dispersing upgrades.
The wireframe art is excellent and I appreciate the accurate Bresenham lines that most people miss.
As a final note: The arenas always felt too tight to me, maybe shrink the enemies or give a bigger play area.
I wanted the 'Plant' theme to be planting packages at different way stations, but didn't have time to complete that aspect. I also used some CC0 sprites from OpenGameArt, hopefully that's okay.
I've played this demo many times, one of my favourite games here. That said, I really think the game would sing if you overhauled the level scale and movement speed; it's extremely slow to walk anywhere, lots of dead air. Rooms are chunky and empty and often take up the entire screen, feels weird and like I'd never need to look over into other rooms to plan.
I'd also like terminal shortcuts, maybe binding commands to function keys like an MMO could be useful. Or writing your own batch scripts.
It's kind of between the accessibility of Quadrilateral Cowboy and Hotline Miami, but trying to have the depth of Cogmind and NetHack. But the gameloop is always the same in every level; hack stuff, get thing, go back. Hacking stuff has a cost sure, but if you do it wrong then you basically soft fail the level until you're dead and start over. I don't feel like I can find any crazy roguelike/simulation exploits.
I think you have a ton of potential for more because the aesthetic and ideas are genius, it just shouldn't take 6-10 seconds to walk across a room.
I like the premise a lot, I think more enemies sooner would be a lot of fun, also increasing the movement speed and making the camera less floaty. Audio was mixed super loud. Perhaps a tower-defense of some sort could be fun and make the four entrances a little more engaging. Attacking ghosts felt really good.
Really great idea, good prototype. I found the repetitive slow and fast alternating of the paint a bit boring, mouse controls were a little hard too, but much more interesting than the space bar flip mechanic. Some non-random progression in difficulty on the bullet patterns and fire rate would go a long way, the stage differences are really good mechanically already.
Super fun, love that your bullets kill enemy bullets. Like with most games, the shotgun is the best weapon in the game; can't beat the ricochet. I wished the player area was a bit bigger, felt super easy to never get hit. Ran great though.
Thank you so much for playing! Really detailed and useful insights. I am going to be trying out different control schemes, it's interesting that you had so much difficulty the whole way through. I find long, sweeping movements make the game much easier rather than trying to do little alignments, but I know that, as the developer, there's a line cast from the camera to the character, so you can glide over triangles rather than hitting them perfectly. I think ironing out visuals and giving more feedback to better let players perceive the environment will go a long way. Having some sort of static background or skybox may help with orientation too.
I really enjoyed this one. You nailed the aesthetic.
All the little nooks and secrets were well placed and paced. Environments are varied and interesting to look at. I do wish there were more sound effects, particularly footsteps, right now there are not enough noises for it to feel finished and living, but there's just enough that it doesn't feel silent and unnerving either.
In the opening I think a mouse sensitivity slider in the pause menu and making the crosshair highlight when over usable objects would go a long way. Everything once the game starts is great though.
Small thing, but it'd be cool if the username you enter showed in the chat box when you typed, my chatbox just had a colon and what I typed with no name before the colon.
This tool is really cool, almost like a simpler HyperCard. The export without javascript is great as well. I hope you keep developing it, I could see a Bitsy-like community making cool stuff with this.
Thank you so much for checking this out and providing this info. I didn't get a chance to test it on a Mac or Linux system.
The issue was path creation using Windows-style backslashes, an amateur mistake on my part. I've fixed it to be system-agnostic now and it's available in the newest build.
