Definetely my fav of this DD. This dashing is sexy, because it makes it play like Doom on steroids. It might be a bit OP but in the end it comes down to enemy design. The game is easy to pick up and it feels responsive, without input delay especially on mouse. I love how you can deflect grenades or open safes by shooting. Each encounter can be brutal if you don't pay attention, but even with so little health you can't see your bar, you can still keep going. It needs something more to mix things up in level design, like weapons to pick up, so you can improvise along the way.
Oh wow thank you so much! I really appreciate you playing it! I will work on the hud to be more clear. Thx for the feedback on the levels, i've been toying with the idea of finding temporary weapons or upgrades with limited ammo to give some variation. I will try some stuff for the next build and hopefully you will try it again :)
I didn't mean to complain about the health bar, I just wanted to mention that it's a good design that you can avoid all damage, so you can keep playing even with ~1hp.
I opened a debug menu and couldn't figure out how to close it.
Spamming bouncing bullet makes the sound glitch uncomfortably when all the sounds are played at the same time.
Maybe more of a demo thing, but going back to the title after winning/losing the wave makes it seem like the game is completely over, even though cash/weapons/etc. carries over.
The baby mode bar reloaded even when shooting people in baby mode, which - the way I understood it from the tutorial - should only happen when shooting people as an adult. I made a video of it too, so you know what I mean: https://streamable.com/59qiz
It has a very cool and unique aesthetic with the baby theme, it contrasts well with the murderous rampage through hundreds of kidnappers. My favorite is still the music and audio design in general, I'd say you have a good thing going there. Since the tutorial is new, I'd also like to note that I managed to win my first wave after it, so I'd say it did a good job (especially with that focus on ABUSE THE BABY MODE, which really DID come in handy). All in all, a very fun game.
Now this only leaves me with one question: if babies are so powerful how did they get caught in the first place?
Very strange with the lightning and debugg menu, but i think i know why they happened so i will fix for next build. By next build i will also loop you back into the hub and have a proper pause menu with Escape-button so you can exit if you want.
Baby energy in baby mode is communicated so bad so it's my fault. If you hit 10 in the combo bar you get a chunk of energy, since most weapons have fast rate of fire it hits that often, i havent really balanced it after i remade the weapons 2 months ago. I will have to figure something out.
Would you prefer to not get the energy and be forced back into adult mode or is the way it is now good?
(Also babies get kidnapped because there arent enough toddler sized weapons in the world :( )
It depends, I guess forcing the player back into adult mode makes it more strategic (like the tutorial said, it opens up the whole when-do-I-change-back-to-adult line of thought), while the current version is more action-oriented. From my gut feeling, I'd say keep it as it is, since I think the action focus is more important and it is already difficult for a scrub like me, don't take away my baby time.
Combat feels nice so far. The stuff outside of combat is kinda confusing, though.
Had one of the knife enemies slide out of bounds after death
Some of the enemies seem to still fire while their death animation plays. This is especially dangerous for the shotgun enemies, since their corpse will usually slide super close to you.
Took me a while to figure out that I have to shoot safes to open them. Only figured it out since I remember you posting about it once.
So much juice! I'm getting Hotline Miami vibes. Good work with the overall polish.
I have mixed feelings about slow motion as a core mechanic. Sometimes it feels like the optimal way to play (go slow) isn't the fun way to play (go fast). You can probably work around this by tweaking how the baby bar works, or how many enemies appear at once in later waves. I found that most of my deaths came from careless mistakes where I just wanted to go fast and shoot things.
But, I can see why slow-mo makes sense if the game turns into bullet hell later on with huge rooms of enemies. It's just a matter of balance.
It's a thing i've struggled with, how to make players really use the slow motion. To me it looks cool but I understand the frustration. I've been toying with the idea of making getting kills reset the bar or making your firerate quicker. Do you think features like that would make it more useable?
Resetting the bar is a cool idea, or at least making each kill deplete the bar significantly. So you'd have to hop back and forth between getting kills in baby mode and human mode. Actually, there's a shmup called Espgaluda that works like that. There was a lot going on so I didn't fully understand how the bar works, but I felt like I could stay in baby mode for quite a while, as long as I was hitting enemies.
I will check out Espgaluda, sounds interesting. The bar right now depletes every tick but gets a chunk back when you combo 10 hits and since most guns have quick fire rate (or for instance the shotgun that shoots 4 pellets) it will trigger quite often. Shooting enemies while in normal mode refills the bar normally.
In your opinion you actually want the opposite? The bar should empty out quicker so you're forced to be out of slow motion?
That's what I was thinking, though take it with a grain of salt. Now that I know how the combo system works, I can see how it might get more difficult when the screen is filled with enemies and you're trying to shoot fast to stay in slow-mo. I can give the game another run to see how this plays out in later waves, because I only took a casual look at first.
Your game really shows the hard work spent on making it. Nice job!
I agree with Swannicus, all the little moving objects and the color choices make the game hard to read.
During the intro level, I tried to pick up guns hanging on the wall by walking up to them. I think it would be more intuitive if you could that instead of selecting them on the screen after entering the car.
I have a lot of work to do with the graphics, the details and things add to the juice of it but it's hard to know when I've gone too far but I will tweak. If you have any more feedback on what parts you didnt like feel free to share.
I will make it so you can select guns on the wall, I've seen other people try to do this and it's something I've personally never thought about haha.
I suggest removing this effect on the upgrade or gun buying screens
Maybe do a brief spazzing out effect when you "boot up" the menu.
The red interlocked circle effect when enemies are hit is a bit too much.
The amount of blood, shells and general mayhem sometimes make it hard to understand what's what and its difficult to understand when an enemy is dead or not so I keep shooting at them.
The camera moves too fast with the mouse.
Overall I really enjoyed the game. The silly premise and the apartment vibe is pretty cool. I also REALLY enjoy the music. Well done. Keep on trucking, dude.
The CTR filter was a last min add but you're right it's too much. I'll tone it down or remove it for the next build. Thank you for the feedback, i have a lot of work to do with the general readability, not my strongest forte but I'll do my best. Maybe make shells a much darker color to make them fade out, think that will help?
Making the enemies a tad brighter while making the shells a bit darker+alpha fade out would already help immensely. Try it out. Maybe try adding outlines to enemies? Might make it look worse though. Would need to see it in motion.
Comments
Definetely my fav of this DD. This dashing is sexy, because it makes it play like Doom on steroids. It might be a bit OP but in the end it comes down to enemy design. The game is easy to pick up and it feels responsive, without input delay especially on mouse. I love how you can deflect grenades or open safes by shooting. Each encounter can be brutal if you don't pay attention, but even with so little health you can't see your bar, you can still keep going. It needs something more to mix things up in level design, like weapons to pick up, so you can improvise along the way.
Oh wow thank you so much! I really appreciate you playing it! I will work on the hud to be more clear. Thx for the feedback on the levels, i've been toying with the idea of finding temporary weapons or upgrades with limited ammo to give some variation. I will try some stuff for the next build and hopefully you will try it again :)
I didn't mean to complain about the health bar, I just wanted to mention that it's a good design that you can avoid all damage, so you can keep playing even with ~1hp.
Got you! haha, thank you once again for playing and the feedback!
I encountered these problems:
It has a very cool and unique aesthetic with the baby theme, it contrasts well with the murderous rampage through hundreds of kidnappers. My favorite is still the music and audio design in general, I'd say you have a good thing going there. Since the tutorial is new, I'd also like to note that I managed to win my first wave after it, so I'd say it did a good job (especially with that focus on ABUSE THE BABY MODE, which really DID come in handy). All in all, a very fun game.
Now this only leaves me with one question: if babies are so powerful how did they get caught in the first place?
Thank you so much for the feedback!
Very strange with the lightning and debugg menu, but i think i know why they happened so i will fix for next build. By next build i will also loop you back into the hub and have a proper pause menu with Escape-button so you can exit if you want.
Baby energy in baby mode is communicated so bad so it's my fault. If you hit 10 in the combo bar you get a chunk of energy, since most weapons have fast rate of fire it hits that often, i havent really balanced it after i remade the weapons 2 months ago. I will have to figure something out.
Would you prefer to not get the energy and be forced back into adult mode or is the way it is now good?
(Also babies get kidnapped because there arent enough toddler sized weapons in the world :( )
It depends, I guess forcing the player back into adult mode makes it more strategic (like the tutorial said, it opens up the whole when-do-I-change-back-to-adult line of thought), while the current version is more action-oriented. From my gut feeling, I'd say keep it as it is, since I think the action focus is more important
and it is already difficult for a scrub like me, don't take away my baby time.Combat feels nice so far. The stuff outside of combat is kinda confusing, though.
Thank you for playing and the feedback.
I'm being stubborn on the safe opening, might change or it might just keep it since i like the surprise when people figure it out.
I will look into the enemy death/shooting, thank you for pointing it out!
So much juice! I'm getting Hotline Miami vibes. Good work with the overall polish.
I have mixed feelings about slow motion as a core mechanic. Sometimes it feels like the optimal way to play (go slow) isn't the fun way to play (go fast). You can probably work around this by tweaking how the baby bar works, or how many enemies appear at once in later waves. I found that most of my deaths came from careless mistakes where I just wanted to go fast and shoot things.
But, I can see why slow-mo makes sense if the game turns into bullet hell later on with huge rooms of enemies. It's just a matter of balance.
Thank you for playing :)!
It's a thing i've struggled with, how to make players really use the slow motion. To me it looks cool but I understand the frustration. I've been toying with the idea of making getting kills reset the bar or making your firerate quicker. Do you think features like that would make it more useable?
Resetting the bar is a cool idea, or at least making each kill deplete the bar significantly. So you'd have to hop back and forth between getting kills in baby mode and human mode. Actually, there's a shmup called Espgaluda that works like that. There was a lot going on so I didn't fully understand how the bar works, but I felt like I could stay in baby mode for quite a while, as long as I was hitting enemies.
I will check out Espgaluda, sounds interesting. The bar right now depletes every tick but gets a chunk back when you combo 10 hits and since most guns have quick fire rate (or for instance the shotgun that shoots 4 pellets) it will trigger quite often. Shooting enemies while in normal mode refills the bar normally.
In your opinion you actually want the opposite? The bar should empty out quicker so you're forced to be out of slow motion?
That's what I was thinking, though take it with a grain of salt. Now that I know how the combo system works, I can see how it might get more difficult when the screen is filled with enemies and you're trying to shoot fast to stay in slow-mo. I can give the game another run to see how this plays out in later waves, because I only took a casual look at first.
Thank you for the feedback! if you find anything feel free to hit me up.
Your game really shows the hard work spent on making it. Nice job!
I agree with Swannicus, all the little moving objects and the color choices make the game hard to read.
During the intro level, I tried to pick up guns hanging on the wall by walking up to them. I think it would be more intuitive if you could that instead of selecting them on the screen after entering the car.
Thank you friend!
I have a lot of work to do with the graphics, the details and things add to the juice of it but it's hard to know when I've gone too far but I will tweak. If you have any more feedback on what parts you didnt like feel free to share.
I will make it so you can select guns on the wall, I've seen other people try to do this and it's something I've personally never thought about haha.
I suggest removing this effect on the upgrade or gun buying screens
Maybe do a brief spazzing out effect when you "boot up" the menu.
The red interlocked circle effect when enemies are hit is a bit too much.
The amount of blood, shells and general mayhem sometimes make it hard to understand what's what and its difficult to understand when an enemy is dead or not so I keep shooting at them.
The camera moves too fast with the mouse.
Overall I really enjoyed the game. The silly premise and the apartment vibe is pretty cool. I also REALLY enjoy the music. Well done. Keep on trucking, dude.
Thank you for playing!
The CTR filter was a last min add but you're right it's too much. I'll tone it down or remove it for the next build. Thank you for the feedback, i have a lot of work to do with the general readability, not my strongest forte but I'll do my best. Maybe make shells a much darker color to make them fade out, think that will help?
Making the enemies a tad brighter while making the shells a bit darker+alpha fade out would already help immensely. Try it out. Maybe try adding outlines to enemies? Might make it look worse though. Would need to see it in motion.
Cool game, some of the level assets don't read well though.
Thank you for playing! Do you mean some stuff are too hard to make out?
Yes, thats exactly what I mean.