Overall I thought it was pretty fun but man there's a lot of weird things good and bad and maybe good or bad idk. Sorry if I repeat what others have already said.
Firstly there's a weird sluggish feeling to the attacks. I normally like slower attacks but here it felt off sometimes and I think it's the animations. It's most obvious with the hammer where even if you double tap B, the knight still has a pause between lifting and slamming the hammer. The speed is fine but I think you should look at how Smash Bros and Bloodborne handle the slowness of their charge attacks with a flowing animation where if you just tap your Smash/Heavy attack, the character will simply play a slow attack animation without the charge. I think the same can be done for the witch's attacks. They're a little slow even without a charge and that's great, but the lack of movement between pressing B and her shooting the spell makes it feel like she's just lagging or doing nothing for that split second if that makes sense. Also is there a reason the hammer uses a double press for it's basic attack instead of a press and hold like the witch?
I think you run just a little bit too fast for how slow everything else is in the game. Enemies have no time to get you before you zoom past them even if they're already locked on to you. The high walking kinda trivialises the dodge mechanics. I also think you go slightly too far with the knight's roll.
Sometimes it can be hard to aim your attacks. I think it's a combination of the fast movement speed and the fact that both characters lock their aim in place once the attack begins. It makes the timing very strict for turning around to hit an enemy right next to you if you don't want to walk into them like the slimes, so you have to walk away then walk back just to aim your attacks. I think it'd feel much nicer if during the windup of of your attacks, your character would slow down/stop walking like normal but would maintain the ability to turn around until the attack comes out.
Bugs! Lock door sometimes doesn't close if you roll through it. Rolls and teleports don't cancel charge attacks. It's cool and pretty fun but idk if it's intentional. I think you should keep it for the witch. Teleporting between rooms as witch will have her stay invisible. KOed witch doesn't revive after reloading. I got stuck when the Witch got KOed in the locked room, wouldn't teleport between rooms and would stay there even after loading.
Good luck, man. I can't imagine level designing will be easy for this game.
Main menu: -You have controller support, but only let me use the analog for moving through the menu. Why? Why? Is it a Unity default thing? Bought an asset for it? DPAD my nigga -At this point I switch to a keyboard and what a surprise: WASD doesn't work. Why? Buy more assets if you need them or hire someone pls. It's the current year, pls. -You're delaying my selection until the key animates, what are you even doing with this UI? nothing about it is good. Please let me move through the buttons as fast as I can. -No Enter or Space for selecting menus. Can't say I'm surprised, seems deliberately garbage at this point. And what do you know, it's fucking X. Nope, that's BACK. It's actually C, how did I not realize that.
Game: -Letters appear 1 per 1 second, I'll kill myself before I read it like that, thanks -Game looks fantastic and moves smoothly -I'm switching to a controller and it's not any better with the UI -The menu smoothing is too jarring -Why can't I quit the menu with B, why start only? That's it I'm not gonna spend more time saying the UI is trash, because I've not seen worse UI implementation even in Jam games. I hope the UI is a literal asset you have not put any thought into it. Drop UI entirely if you have to, don't expose people to this cancer. Fucking "Read B". B is {{{{{B}}}}}ACK -Music is nice and relaxing -If you leave a character in the previous room (you shouln't be able to) and come back, then the screen transition trigger messes up. -pls don't do damage if I run into spikes -killing one character feels liberating -- I want them dead -- not good -the area exits aren't clear, highlight or signpost them somehow -those dark rock textures are the most pleasing shit -on the other hand the cave one is too saturated and makes the player hard to see -managed to press retry in the amazing UI, now the game window is black and my GPU is screaming -that's enough for me
Your game looks, plays and sounds amazing. FUCK YOU and your UI.
Edit: upon closer inspection, I realized that I set up some of the controls wrong on the gamepad. I'm sorry about that, and I'm uploading a patch that fixes this issue.
Seems like you put some of your comments in the wrong section...
Main menu:
-You have controller support, but only let me use the analog for moving through the menu. Why? Why? Is it a Unity default thing? Bought an asset for it? DPAD my nigga
Seems stupid to have D-pad control only for menus, and I'm planning to use the D-pad to assign different weapons to it anyway.
-At this point I switch to a keyboard and what a surprise: WASD doesn't work. Why? Buy more assets if you need them or hire someone pls. It's the current year, pls.
You can blame liq for this. I had both WASD and arrow keys for movement but he suggested I move the main controls to ASDZXC. (That said I'm sure you would have hated whatever control scheme I came up with so...)
-You're delaying my selection until the key animates, what are you even doing with this UI? nothing about it is good. Please let me move through the buttons as fast as I can.
See the first sentence.
-No Enter or Space for selecting menus. Can't say I'm surprised, seems deliberately garbage at this point. And what do you know, it's fucking X. Nope, that's BACK. It's actually C, how did I not realize that.
Yes this is a legit complaint and I'm fixing it. I should have had the option of using 'obvious' keys at lest in the main menu. My bad.
Game:
-Letters appear 1 per 1 second, I'll kill myself before I read it like that, thanks
Yes I went back and checked. Turns out the value I put had been reset when I lost my prefabs some time ago, and I never realized. My bad. That said you can mash the {{{{{{{{{{{{{C}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}ONFIRM BUTTON to fill the line instantly.
-Game looks fantastic and moves smoothly
Thank you. Finally a good thing.
-I'm switching to a controller and it's not any better with the UI
-The menu smoothing is too jarring
-Why can't I quit the menu with B, why start only? That's it I'm not gonna spend more time saying the UI is trash, because I've not seen worse UI implementation even in Jam games. I hope the UI is a literal asset you have not put any thought into it. Drop UI entirely if you have to, don't expose people to this cancer.
-Fucking "Read B". B is {{{{{B}}}}}ACK
See the first sentence.
-Music is nice and relaxing
You're the first to say this...
-If you leave a character in the previous room (you shouln't be able to)
Yesyou should. It's intended behavior and you need to do this further on.
and come back, then the screen transition trigger messes up.
Yeah that's true, I forgot to fix it. Will address asap.
-pls don't do damage if I run into spikes
Why not? They're spikes.
-killing one character feels liberating -- I want them dead -- not good
You spent several paragraphs sperging about UI and you just drop this line and nothing else? please elaborate.
-the area exits aren't clear, highlight or signpost them somehow
I think they're clear enough but I see what you mean.
-those dark rock textures are the most pleasing shit
Thank you.
-on the other hand the cave one is too saturated and makes the player hard to see
True, I kind of rushed the cave room, should have spent more time on the lighting and post process and tweaking the colors.
-managed to press retry in the amazing UI, now the game window is black and my GPU is screaming
Can you elaborate? I've tested that plenty and never had issues with it.
I'm sorry my UI triggered you to the point of making you unable to enjoy or finish my demo.
Cute and fun. We need more Zelda puzzlers. I was able to soft-lock myself by having one of the pair die when they split up but nothing a quick reset wouldn't fix. Is there a way to revive if one of them dies?
Thanks for playing! I was afraid of something like this happening ahah
You can revive your companion by going next to them to 'Rescue' them but if you're separated in different rooms you're screwed. I'm not sure if such a condition should just trigger a game over or what other options I have at the moment. But anyway, I will have to find a solution.
This was fun. Maybe the most fun game I've played at this demo day. I enjoyed swapping between the two to solve puzzles, and I liked having an AI witch or AI knight to fight with me pairwise. It's a bit like a co-op game, but without the added duress of socializing.
Actually I quite like the colors. The green is a bit rich but it works well. You don't get to get a close look at the models, which might be your intention, but I would like to zoom in and see who the characters are.
I thought the demo intro message was charming and lovely.
It took me entirely too long realize that it is C to accept a menu option: nothing worked! not Z, X, Enter, Space, nothing! In the end I discovered it was C by just mashing my keyboard and hitting C by accident. You may want to allow Enter to let people open the Controls menu button.
I the menu animation and the level design. The monsters are cute and well thought out, but seem rather benign in that if you just run a bit they'll lose all interest in pursuit. So there isn't much suspense generated.
The music was not outstanding but it was not troublesome either.
Overall, I quite liked it. It seems quite far along, and I anticipate your imminent success.
Pretty neat idea overall. 2 player co op would suit this game well (obviously) if time allows. i look forward to see how this develops :) I understand this is in rough demo stage but here's just a few notes I jotted down while playing if you would like some feedback:
friendly ai stopped moving after a couple of 'retry's. couldnt replicate it
retrying spawns extra bunnies in starting area
camera doesnt reset on retry
navigating item menu glitched out, moving the stick in certain directions wouldnt move the item selection
flower petal enemy should rotate so it shoots one petal towards target
when right next to evil bunnies, they do not rotate to make an accurate attack swing they just keep swinging in whatever direction they were in when they closed in
when exiting the 5 crystal room to the bottom left, and then exitting that room back into the crystal room, I got teleported to another part of the game entirely
could sequence break the nail section with either character by running through a 'hole' at the left of the nails
one button that shows all controls at once in a neat list, maybe select, would be nice
after getting hammer, i skipped through the dialogue (xd), so im not really sure how to use it. i tried different buttons but could not find anything
the knight feels pretty good to play but the witch feels a bit clunky witch blink could use a telegraph of where she will end up i would prefer no charge time for witch ranged attack a short direction indicator coming forward out of the witch for her attack would be nice i would prefer passive mana gain for witch, and replacing the mana gain ability with an aoe bubble/repulse spell that pushes enemies away. could also be used as a puzzle/environment mechanic to push boulders and the like into slots similar to breath of the wild
Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback. Let me respond to each point:
>friendly ai stopped moving after a couple of 'retry's. couldnt replicate it
odd. will test tomorrow. I admit I didn't run many tests regarding retrying, only as far as checking if everything runs correctly (which I guess it doesn't but still)
>retrying spawns extra bunnies in starting area
a bug I noticed when it was too late to look into, but now I can take it easy and find a solution.
>camera doesnt reset on retry
Noted. I thought I fixed this but I guess I didn't.
>navigating item menu glitched out, moving the stick in certain directions wouldnt move
the item selection
I did notice this bug (you were using a controller right?) and fixed it on some menus but not all of them it seems. Will fix.
>flower petal enemy should rotate so it shoots one petal towards target
The current attack and movement is 'as intended' but your idea sounds good too. I might make a variation on the same enemy with a different behavior.
>when right next to evil bunnies, they do not rotate to make an accurate attack swing
they just keep swinging in whatever direction they were in when they closed in
True. I forgot to fix that. Will address asap.
>when exiting the 5 crystal room to the bottom left, and then exitting that room back into the crystal room, I got teleported to another part of the game entirely
Fixed, thanks for reporting it.
>could sequence break the nail section with either character by running through a 'hole' at the left of the nails
Same as above (even though it was totally intended haha)
>one button that shows all controls at once in a neat list, maybe select, would be nice
I wanted to add a list o controls in one of the menus but didn't have time. There is a 'controls' page on the main menu.
>after getting hammer, i skipped through the dialogue (xd), so im not really sure how to use it. i tried different buttons but could not find anything
That'll teach you! Jokes aside, press once to lift hammer, press again to pound. Same button as the sword, you just press Select (<) to swap weapons.
>witch blink could use a telegraph of where she will end up
good idea
>i would prefer no charge time for witch ranged attack
there is no charge time! the charged spell is only the more powerful one. the standard attack can be performed instantly, with a quick tap of the attack button.
> a short direction indicator coming forward out of the witch for her attack would be nice
I actually had this, then lost it when I messed with prefabs, and forgot to re-add it. Will fix.
> i would prefer passive mana gain for witch, and replacing the mana gain ability [...]
I've been thinking about that for a while, and you may be right.
Thanks again for the feedback. Oh and yes, co-op is definitely something I would love to add eventually.
* Not sure if it's part of the music or an error, but there's a sound like a single piano key being mashed over and over unceasingly * Game got stuck loading while trying to do the second pressure plate split (the one after the save point) * Combat still has no real flow to it
Comments
Overall I thought it was pretty fun but man there's a lot of weird things good and bad and maybe good or bad idk. Sorry if I repeat what others have already said.
Firstly there's a weird sluggish feeling to the attacks. I normally like slower attacks but here it felt off sometimes and I think it's the animations. It's most obvious with the hammer where even if you double tap B, the knight still has a pause between lifting and slamming the hammer. The speed is fine but I think you should look at how Smash Bros and Bloodborne handle the slowness of their charge attacks with a flowing animation where if you just tap your Smash/Heavy attack, the character will simply play a slow attack animation without the charge.
I think the same can be done for the witch's attacks. They're a little slow even without a charge and that's great, but the lack of movement between pressing B and her shooting the spell makes it feel like she's just lagging or doing nothing for that split second if that makes sense.
Also is there a reason the hammer uses a double press for it's basic attack instead of a press and hold like the witch?
I think you run just a little bit too fast for how slow everything else is in the game. Enemies have no time to get you before you zoom past them even if they're already locked on to you. The high walking kinda trivialises the dodge mechanics. I also think you go slightly too far with the knight's roll.
Sometimes it can be hard to aim your attacks. I think it's a combination of the fast movement speed and the fact that both characters lock their aim in place once the attack begins. It makes the timing very strict for turning around to hit an enemy right next to you if you don't want to walk into them like the slimes, so you have to walk away then walk back just to aim your attacks.
I think it'd feel much nicer if during the windup of of your attacks, your character would slow down/stop walking like normal but would maintain the ability to turn around until the attack comes out.
Bugs!
Lock door sometimes doesn't close if you roll through it.
Rolls and teleports don't cancel charge attacks. It's cool and pretty fun but idk if it's intentional. I think you should keep it for the witch.
Teleporting between rooms as witch will have her stay invisible.
KOed witch doesn't revive after reloading.
I got stuck when the Witch got KOed in the locked room, wouldn't teleport between rooms and would stay there even after loading.
Good luck, man. I can't imagine level designing will be easy for this game.
such a soulful game
beautiful synth soundtrack ( or juno??)
one can't help but compare it to wind waker!
i absolutely LOVE the different weapons!! the fire staff and the NORSE HAMMER makes you feel so POWERFUL!!
cant wait to see more of death mountain!
Autism:
-Name your folder with your game name pls
Main menu:
-You have controller support, but only let me use the analog for moving through the menu. Why? Why? Is it a Unity default thing? Bought an asset for it? DPAD my nigga
-At this point I switch to a keyboard and what a surprise: WASD doesn't work. Why? Buy more assets if you need them or hire someone pls. It's the current year, pls.
-You're delaying my selection until the key animates, what are you even doing with this UI? nothing about it is good. Please let me move through the buttons as fast as I can.
-No Enter or Space for selecting menus. Can't say I'm surprised, seems deliberately garbage at this point. And what do you know, it's fucking X. Nope, that's BACK. It's actually C, how did I not realize that.
Game:
-Letters appear 1 per 1 second, I'll kill myself before I read it like that, thanks
-Game looks fantastic and moves smoothly
-I'm switching to a controller and it's not any better with the UI
-The menu smoothing is too jarring
-Why can't I quit the menu with B, why start only? That's it I'm not gonna spend more time saying the UI is trash, because I've not seen worse UI implementation even in Jam games. I hope the UI is a literal asset you have not put any thought into it. Drop UI entirely if you have to, don't expose people to this cancer. Fucking "Read B". B is {{{{{B}}}}}ACK
-Music is nice and relaxing
-If you leave a character in the previous room (you shouln't be able to) and come back, then the screen transition trigger messes up.
-pls don't do damage if I run into spikes
-killing one character feels liberating -- I want them dead -- not good
-the area exits aren't clear, highlight or signpost them somehow
-those dark rock textures are the most pleasing shit
-on the other hand the cave one is too saturated and makes the player hard to see
-managed to press retry in the amazing UI, now the game window is black and my GPU is screaming
-that's enough for me
Your game looks, plays and sounds amazing. FUCK YOU and your UI.
Edit: upon closer inspection, I realized that I set up some of the controls wrong on the gamepad. I'm sorry about that, and I'm uploading a patch that fixes this issue.
Seems like you put some of your comments in the wrong section...
Main menu:
-You have controller support, but only let me use the analog for moving through the menu. Why? Why? Is it a Unity default thing? Bought an asset for it? DPAD my nigga
Seems stupid to have D-pad control only for menus, and I'm planning to use the D-pad to assign different weapons to it anyway.
-At this point I switch to a keyboard and what a surprise: WASD doesn't work. Why? Buy more assets if you need them or hire someone pls. It's the current year, pls.
You can blame liq for this. I had both WASD and arrow keys for movement but he suggested I move the main controls to ASDZXC. (That said I'm sure you would have hated whatever control scheme I came up with so...)
-You're delaying my selection until the key animates, what are you even doing with this UI? nothing about it is good. Please let me move through the buttons as fast as I can.
See the first sentence.
-No Enter or Space for selecting menus. Can't say I'm surprised, seems deliberately garbage at this point. And what do you know, it's fucking X. Nope, that's BACK. It's actually C, how did I not realize that.
Yes this is a legit complaint and I'm fixing it. I should have had the option of using 'obvious' keys at lest in the main menu. My bad.
Game:
-Letters appear 1 per 1 second, I'll kill myself before I read it like that, thanks
Yes I went back and checked. Turns out the value I put had been reset when I lost my prefabs some time ago, and I never realized. My bad. That said you can mash the {{{{{{{{{{{{{C}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}ONFIRM BUTTON to fill the line instantly.
-Game looks fantastic and moves smoothly
Thank you. Finally a good thing.
-I'm switching to a controller and it's not any better with the UI
-The menu smoothing is too jarring
-Why can't I quit the menu with B, why start only? That's it I'm not gonna spend more time saying the UI is trash, because I've not seen worse UI implementation even in Jam games. I hope the UI is a literal asset you have not put any thought into it. Drop UI entirely if you have to, don't expose people to this cancer.
-Fucking "Read B". B is {{{{{B}}}}}ACK
See the first sentence.
-Music is nice and relaxing
You're the first to say this...
-If you leave a character in the previous room (you shouln't be able to)
Yesyou should. It's intended behavior and you need to do this further on.
and come back, then the screen transition trigger messes up.
Yeah that's true, I forgot to fix it. Will address asap.
-pls don't do damage if I run into spikes
Why not? They're spikes.
-killing one character feels liberating -- I want them dead -- not good
You spent several paragraphs sperging about UI and you just drop this line and nothing else? please elaborate.
-the area exits aren't clear, highlight or signpost them somehow
I think they're clear enough but I see what you mean.
-those dark rock textures are the most pleasing shit
Thank you.
-on the other hand the cave one is too saturated and makes the player hard to see
True, I kind of rushed the cave room, should have spent more time on the lighting and post process and tweaking the colors.
-managed to press retry in the amazing UI, now the game window is black and my GPU is screaming
Can you elaborate? I've tested that plenty and never had issues with it.
I'm sorry my UI triggered you to the point of making you unable to enjoy or finish my demo.
Cute and fun. We need more Zelda puzzlers. I was able to soft-lock myself by having one of the pair die when they split up but nothing a quick reset wouldn't fix. Is there a way to revive if one of them dies?
Thanks for playing! I was afraid of something like this happening ahah
You can revive your companion by going next to them to 'Rescue' them but if you're separated in different rooms you're screwed. I'm not sure if such a condition should just trigger a game over or what other options I have at the moment. But anyway, I will have to find a solution.
Thanks for the feedback.
This was fun. Maybe the most fun game I've played at this demo day. I enjoyed swapping between the two to solve puzzles, and I liked having an AI witch or AI knight to fight with me pairwise. It's a bit like a co-op game, but without the added duress of socializing.
Actually I quite like the colors. The green is a bit rich but it works well. You don't get to get a close look at the models, which might be your intention, but I would like to zoom in and see who the characters are.
I thought the demo intro message was charming and lovely.
It took me entirely too long realize that it is C to accept a menu option: nothing worked! not Z, X, Enter, Space, nothing! In the end I discovered it was C by just mashing my keyboard and hitting C by accident. You may want to allow Enter to let people open the Controls menu button.
I the menu animation and the level design. The monsters are cute and well thought out, but seem rather benign in that if you just run a bit they'll lose all interest in pursuit. So there isn't much suspense generated.
The music was not outstanding but it was not troublesome either.
Overall, I quite liked it. It seems quite far along, and I anticipate your imminent success.
Pretty neat idea overall. 2 player co op would suit this game well (obviously) if time allows. i look forward to see how this develops :) I understand this is in rough demo stage but here's just a few notes I jotted down while playing if you would like some feedback:
friendly ai stopped moving after a couple of 'retry's. couldnt replicate it
retrying spawns extra bunnies in starting area
camera doesnt reset on retry
navigating item menu glitched out, moving the stick in certain directions wouldnt move
the item selection
flower petal enemy should rotate so it shoots one petal towards target
when right next to evil bunnies, they do not rotate to make an accurate attack swing
they just keep swinging in whatever direction they were in when they closed in
when exiting the 5 crystal room to the bottom left, and then exitting that room back into the crystal room, I got teleported to another part of the game entirely
could sequence break the nail section with either character by running through a 'hole' at the left of the nails
one button that shows all controls at once in a neat list, maybe select, would be nice
after getting hammer, i skipped through the dialogue (xd), so im not really sure how to use it. i tried different buttons but could not find anything
the knight feels pretty good to play but the witch feels a bit clunky
witch blink could use a telegraph of where she will end up
i would prefer no charge time for witch ranged attack
a short direction indicator coming forward out of the witch for her attack would be nice
i would prefer passive mana gain for witch, and replacing the mana gain ability
with an aoe bubble/repulse spell that pushes enemies away. could also be used as a puzzle/environment mechanic to push boulders and the like into slots similar to breath of the wild
Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback. Let me respond to each point:
>friendly ai stopped moving after a couple of 'retry's. couldnt replicate it
odd. will test tomorrow. I admit I didn't run many tests regarding retrying, only as far as checking if everything runs correctly (which I guess it doesn't but still)
>retrying spawns extra bunnies in starting area
a bug I noticed when it was too late to look into, but now I can take it easy and find a solution.
>camera doesnt reset on retry
Noted. I thought I fixed this but I guess I didn't.
>navigating item menu glitched out, moving the stick in certain directions wouldnt move the item selection
I did notice this bug (you were using a controller right?) and fixed it on some menus but not all of them it seems. Will fix.
>flower petal enemy should rotate so it shoots one petal towards target
The current attack and movement is 'as intended' but your idea sounds good too. I might make a variation on the same enemy with a different behavior.
>when right next to evil bunnies, they do not rotate to make an accurate attack swing they just keep swinging in whatever direction they were in when they closed in
True. I forgot to fix that. Will address asap.
>when exiting the 5 crystal room to the bottom left, and then exitting that room back into the crystal room, I got teleported to another part of the game entirely
Fixed, thanks for reporting it.
>could sequence break the nail section with either character by running through a 'hole' at the left of the nails
Same as above (even though it was totally intended haha)
>one button that shows all controls at once in a neat list, maybe select, would be nice
I wanted to add a list o controls in one of the menus but didn't have time. There is a 'controls' page on the main menu.
>after getting hammer, i skipped through the dialogue (xd), so im not really sure how to use it. i tried different buttons but could not find anything
That'll teach you! Jokes aside, press once to lift hammer, press again to pound. Same button as the sword, you just press Select (<) to swap weapons.
>witch blink could use a telegraph of where she will end up
good idea
>i would prefer no charge time for witch ranged attack
there is no charge time! the charged spell is only the more powerful one. the standard attack can be performed instantly, with a quick tap of the attack button.
> a short direction indicator coming forward out of the witch for her attack would be nice
I actually had this, then lost it when I messed with prefabs, and forgot to re-add it. Will fix.
> i would prefer passive mana gain for witch, and replacing the mana gain ability [...]
I've been thinking about that for a while, and you may be right.
Thanks again for the feedback. Oh and yes, co-op is definitely something I would love to add eventually.
* Not sure if it's part of the music or an error, but there's a sound like a single piano key being mashed over and over unceasingly
* Game got stuck loading while trying to do the second pressure plate split (the one after the save point)
* Combat still has no real flow to it