*graphical update + bug fixes*
asset layers are no longer loaded statically, but instead run through an object that manages them, allowing them to be passed through shaders and avoid any ugly pixel bleeding. in the future this will allow for all kinds of effects on foreground/background objects with very little effort.
If you make a board for reviews on here, I can post it there too, it helps build user engagement.
I played about 3 waves, until it seemed like things were going to loop
very clean visuals, very snappy, quick to open up to player engagement,
sprites are well animated, animations are great, however I am a little lost as to how to play the game as things progress.
perhaps a tutorial appearing on the side, maybe some visual queues on a first run would be good? I accidentally attacked my own guy. The frog's lick only seems to do damage, including to friendlies.
Combo system with characters based on D&D classes/monsters is a great setup, and for many I suspect wouldn't take much learning to figure out, still I think a few more clues/hints along the way would be good. I do wish I had known what my character's movesets were going to be before I picked them.
"strength" is spelled "strenght" on the card for the monk
Maybe an alternative key for ending the turn would be good? some games use a space bar, you could put a checkbox next to the End Turn button to allow for spacebar to end a turn incase some players don't want that on by default.
I was a little confused about how to switch character moves? the menu that pops up when you double click a character is great, but I think a simplified version showing their moves in a corner on the screen might inform the player that they have a specific move set, or that they can even change character moves in the first place. When I took the healing perk for healing from movement, it seemed to instead heal every time any of my characters made an action. When I mouse over a character, the perk displays, but the text is small and unreadable
I like the idea that the perk you don't take is the one the monsters get. I love the design overall, I think this is a great premise for a game. I think the sprites are incredibly charming and the overall aesthetic is wonderful, great for either cozy game material, casual mobile game material, or possible a unique epic RPG depending on how you want to take this game.
(as an aside, you have a frog bard, you could make a joke about "its not easy being green")
Graphics are straightforward, the UI is intuitive, sound effects simple, audio balance level good
There seems to be some confusion between the tutorial and ship coordination? The UI seems to contradict the Tutorial:
A/B for primary secondary fire is reasonable on a controller, however when selecting keyboard/mouse controls the controls shown remain as A/B. updating the controls to show a mouse icon with the appropriate keys being clicked would help avoid confusion. Its good that later on when you start the tutorial battle it shows the appropriate keys based on what you selected at least.
the tutorial says to press Launch, but the only key I see is Start Battle?
friend/foe? the outline around my ship shows what looks to be like several red silhouettes, it threw me off a little as to who was an ally and who was hostile. I realized later on that it represented shields, it might be more helpful to the player to give enemies and allies different colored shields and use some other variable to show that a shield is weak(opacity?)
Game seems a little harsh at the start, some wiggle room to figure out mechanics would be very helpful, the tutorial was alright but it can take time for players to get used to mechanics as they play, I don't think you'd need to make the game easier early on necessarily, but maybe providing a way to do on-the-fly hull repairs early on would be beneficial.
Delay after clearing out a wave of enemies can be quite a while sometimes, leaving the player with 20 seconds or more of just waiting for enemy reinforcements, an option to fast forward at moments like this help with the game's pace. Sometimes the number on the countdown and the 's' overlap. An indication of where enemies will be arriving from would also be great, even if its just a general vascinity.
I'm unclear on what recycling does, I can recycle money? assuming that's what credits are.
The store page could use some more visual indications on what each product does, for example, in the image below
you could put a cropped screencap of the ship in action, or what it would look like at the deployment phase. the same goes for weapons, a single screenshot of how that weapon behaves would go a long way in communicating its use to the player.
Core gameplay loop is solid, though fairly simplistic in its current form, reminds me of games like FTL and StarSector.
I was able to quickly figure out how to navigate the game after a couple tries, though I don't quite feel like I'm very good at it, the core design seems, for the most part at least, to be fairly intuitive.
If you could, I'm trying to get feedback on my own game, I recently did an update for the demo, both available as a download on here and on Steam, the GX build is outdated:
itch download: https://silvercricket.itch.io/maryanneette
steam store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963130/MaryAnneEtte/
forum for feedback (please post here, it improves engagement): https://itch.io/t/6490435/willing-to-exchange-feedbackreviews-maryanneette-an-ac...
bonus levels are now live, along with the new sorrow mechanics, on the Demo build. Some things are still unfinished or unpolished, but everything should be functional on a mechanical level at least, I was eager to share what I've been working on with everyone, so you can check it now on Steam or Itch!
one requested feature was to have character names appear beneath their portraits. For characters without portraits, the names will still appear to clarify whose talking.
some basic coloring for platforms/obstacles in bonus levels as well
2 bonus stages made so far, one's based on the new sorrow/confusion combo, the other's a race focusing on rage/joy. these levels are focused on mechanics, and thus their backgrounds are minimalistic, and based on the mask combination set for them, the actual platforms will be getting some treatment though, so they won't just be basic white blocks.
