The absolute madman! He finally did it! Notguts is (mostly) animated and not a cube!
I really like the guard point system for the heavy attacks (I'm pretty sure that's new?) and the new upgrades here and there. Now that notguts is actualy resmebling a human some better animations for the enemies would be nice, like some sort of reaction if they get hit but don't go into hitstun or even just more weight behind the big choreographed attacks (like the scythe dude) to better indicate to get out of dodge.
Heh, guard points have been in there for a while, I wasn't messing around when I said "there are many hidden mechanics and techniques." Just recently I realized you can (dash->jump cancel->dash cancel) to move fast as fuck. I don't even remember if I did that on purpose.
Flinch animations would feel nice, but probably make it a lot harder to tell what state they're in. If I was working on a 3D game that shit would have been in there on day 1. I agree the scythe guy's attack animation is pretty awful, I'll probably touch that up soon. I'm also going to be adding distinct attack telegraph cries, so that should also help a bit.
Thanks a lot for the gameplay video! I overhauled the difficulty this time around, so watching someone play for the first time is great. How did you feel about the difficulty? I tried to make it unforgiving early, to really force you to see how I want you to play. Was that frustrating? Or did you enjoy the challenge?
It was hard, I did enjoy it but I usually have a high tolerance for difficulty in general.
Maybe it's too much for the very beginning of the game and I don't like how I was forced to not buy items just to keep my health full, you could try difficulty options or a roguelite system that starts off the game simple and keeps increasing the complexity by introducing new moves, enemies, items and such.
Yeah, I kind of forgot I did a bunch of things to make the game harder recently. I added the healing from upgrade areas, reduced healing from other sources, buffed the cube heads, and halved the player's max health all a few days before this demo. So, now I know I made it way too fucking hard, heh.
Since watching that gameplay I already increased the healing received from spent souls a bit, added a flat 15 free healing there, slowed the cube head's attacks down a bit, and lowered the number of enemies spawning in the first room.
The game gets plenty hard down the line, it doesn't need to be stupid that early.
Thanks a whole bunch for the video and feedback, I'd be pretty lost without the lovely boys in these Demo Days.
This game feels great in the hands! Every attack hits good and hard, and I think the ways to go forward from here and improve are really straight forward. Your core gameplay is already really good!
Enemies should have a more distinct spawn animation, whenever I died or for that matter even took damage it was because something spawned behind me. If there was a longer wind up and warning to them appearing I feel like I could react better and reposition myself, like flames erupting from the floor where they appear or something.
I think the small mooks with the cube heads could use some work. I can't actually tell what their attack is and it feels like it hits me from quite a distance.
Playing in multiplayer was actually a blast because it fixed the issue of me getting wrecked from behind. Unfortunately, it was extremely easy to mix up me and my friend because the character is exactly the same. A palette swap for other players would be really appreciated here. Also my friend died falling in acid and I couldn't jump in to save him because I was at one health which was a bummer.
Finally please let me use the stick on my controller. D-pads are really not my thing, and I'd definitely roll more often if I could just push the stick down instead of using the d-pad.
Man, those are some nice, quick ideas! Joystick support is in, and I added a nice little spawn animation that should be noticeable without cluttering the field even more. I also increased their spawn wakeup period so you have more time to react to it. (22 frames to 32.) That new build's up if you want to give the old joystick a whirl. Glad to hear you enjoyed it, thanks for the feedback.
I really like the weight the attacks have, and knocking the enemies about feels really fun! I sort of wish that the enemies would commit to the direction they are facing when they initiate an attack, a few times I'd see an enemy about to attack, I'd dodge or jump over them and they would switch to face me just as the attack comes out. Sounds are great too! Nice job!
Glad you enjoyed it. The enemies' ability to switch direction when attacking is actually tightly controlled on a per-enemy basis. If they can't do that to some degree, it becomes extremely easy to control them by running through repeatedly. I'm extra glad you like the sounds, too! I just whipped a lot of those up after dreading sound design for several months, so it's a relief to hear they're passable. Thanks for the feedback.
I love how you have given a 2d game so much weight, it feels great to swing that sword even if it hits nothing
cool enemy variety
A big moveset which is great, almost everything i tried did something new.
improvements
Nitpick but i wish the jump when running would be more instant, in general i would love to have more control of the character. Right now it's hard to gauge how far im rolling, hitting or jumping because there is small inertia here and there.
in the same vein, it was a bit hard to gauge enemy hit distance
Here are some personal thoughts: I feel like the game is in between wanting to be a cool fighting game with focus on style (e.g. Nier) and a more punishing precise fighting game. I think it would benefit greatly if you decided which direction you want and went all the way with it. It has a lot of style but right now it's too punishing to encourage me to really try things. The punishment combined with the visibility not being 100% creates situations where I'm not really sure if I'm taking damage or what killed me. On the other hand I feel it's not precise enough to be the second style.
Also small things like giving the player bigger arenas would do wonders for the moment to moment gameplay (small arenas with lots of enemies work if they are more squishy). I would also like controls to be more streamlined, e.g. do you really need a roll and a dash?
Sorry for the long post, but this really has a lot of potential so i hope you take it the right way. GG!
Comments
The absolute madman! He finally did it! Notguts is (mostly) animated and not a cube!
I really like the guard point system for the heavy attacks (I'm pretty sure that's new?) and the new upgrades here and there. Now that notguts is actualy resmebling a human some better animations for the enemies would be nice, like some sort of reaction if they get hit but don't go into hitstun or even just more weight behind the big choreographed attacks (like the scythe dude) to better indicate to get out of dodge.
Heh, guard points have been in there for a while, I wasn't messing around when I said "there are many hidden mechanics and techniques." Just recently I realized you can (dash->jump cancel->dash cancel) to move fast as fuck. I don't even remember if I did that on purpose.
Flinch animations would feel nice, but probably make it a lot harder to tell what state they're in. If I was working on a 3D game that shit would have been in there on day 1. I agree the scythe guy's attack animation is pretty awful, I'll probably touch that up soon. I'm also going to be adding distinct attack telegraph cries, so that should also help a bit.
Thanks for the feedback
Gameplay video:
Thanks a lot for the gameplay video! I overhauled the difficulty this time around, so watching someone play for the first time is great. How did you feel about the difficulty? I tried to make it unforgiving early, to really force you to see how I want you to play. Was that frustrating? Or did you enjoy the challenge?
It was hard, I did enjoy it but I usually have a high tolerance for difficulty in general.
Maybe it's too much for the very beginning of the game and I don't like how I was forced to not buy items just to keep my health full, you could try difficulty options or a roguelite system that starts off the game simple and keeps increasing the complexity by introducing new moves, enemies, items and such.
Yeah, I kind of forgot I did a bunch of things to make the game harder recently. I added the healing from upgrade areas, reduced healing from other sources, buffed the cube heads, and halved the player's max health all a few days before this demo. So, now I know I made it way too fucking hard, heh.
Since watching that gameplay I already increased the healing received from spent souls a bit, added a flat 15 free healing there, slowed the cube head's attacks down a bit, and lowered the number of enemies spawning in the first room.
The game gets plenty hard down the line, it doesn't need to be stupid that early.
Thanks a whole bunch for the video and feedback, I'd be pretty lost without the lovely boys in these Demo Days.
This game feels great in the hands! Every attack hits good and hard, and I think the ways to go forward from here and improve are really straight forward. Your core gameplay is already really good!
Enemies should have a more distinct spawn animation, whenever I died or for that matter even took damage it was because something spawned behind me. If there was a longer wind up and warning to them appearing I feel like I could react better and reposition myself, like flames erupting from the floor where they appear or something.
I think the small mooks with the cube heads could use some work. I can't actually tell what their attack is and it feels like it hits me from quite a distance.
Playing in multiplayer was actually a blast because it fixed the issue of me getting wrecked from behind. Unfortunately, it was extremely easy to mix up me and my friend because the character is exactly the same. A palette swap for other players would be really appreciated here. Also my friend died falling in acid and I couldn't jump in to save him because I was at one health which was a bummer.
Finally please let me use the stick on my controller. D-pads are really not my thing, and I'd definitely roll more often if I could just push the stick down instead of using the d-pad.
Man, those are some nice, quick ideas! Joystick support is in, and I added a nice little spawn animation that should be noticeable without cluttering the field even more. I also increased their spawn wakeup period so you have more time to react to it. (22 frames to 32.) That new build's up if you want to give the old joystick a whirl. Glad to hear you enjoyed it, thanks for the feedback.
I really like the weight the attacks have, and knocking the enemies about feels really fun! I sort of wish that the enemies would commit to the direction they are facing when they initiate an attack, a few times I'd see an enemy about to attack, I'd dodge or jump over them and they would switch to face me just as the attack comes out. Sounds are great too! Nice job!
Glad you enjoyed it. The enemies' ability to switch direction when attacking is actually tightly controlled on a per-enemy basis. If they can't do that to some degree, it becomes extremely easy to control them by running through repeatedly. I'm extra glad you like the sounds, too! I just whipped a lot of those up after dreading sound design for several months, so it's a relief to hear they're passable. Thanks for the feedback.
I love this thing. it has so much potential!
pros:
improvements
Here are some personal thoughts:
I feel like the game is in between wanting to be a cool fighting game with focus on style (e.g. Nier) and a more punishing precise fighting game. I think it would benefit greatly if you decided which direction you want and went all the way with it. It has a lot of style but right now it's too punishing to encourage me to really try things. The punishment combined with the visibility not being 100% creates situations where I'm not really sure if I'm taking damage or what killed me. On the other hand I feel it's not precise enough to be the second style.
Also small things like giving the player bigger arenas would do wonders for the moment to moment gameplay (small arenas with lots of enemies work if they are more squishy). I would also like controls to be more streamlined, e.g. do you really need a roll and a dash?
Sorry for the long post, but this really has a lot of potential so i hope you take it the right way. GG!
Thanks a bunch for all the feedback and kind words! I never would taken the game this far without detailed posts like these, so I appreciate it a lot.