Some assorted feedback. I think the game is generally good, but I think many things could be made snappier and clearer just slightly and the game would improve drastically from it.
- The level select screen blinks the UI when changing the selected level, I found that to be a bit annoying to the eyes.
- In the modules menu, clicking on a slot opens the UI on the right, which makes sense as the slot (frame of reference) is still being displayed on the left. For the turrets UI, this doesn't make a lot of sense; my intuition tells me to press the top left button to go back for one, but also the 3d view of the turret isn't really the same as the slots. Personally, I'd open the gun selection UI over the current UI on the left side, and zoom in on the spot where the turret goes smoothly. Instead of having arrows to switch slots, I'd keep a mini version of the top down view so you can choose which one to switch to, or at the very least I'd smooth the camera transition here too so you can keep track of where you're actually placing the turret (just the slot name being a number really isn't enough to keep track).
- The scrollbar in "missile massacre" is really slow.
- I'm not sure if the missile ammo upgrade values are temp or if I just can't appreciate how 25k is a good price for what seems really minimal.
- I'm not sure why some options on the pause menu have a set of % buttons but map scroll has a slider. Either way it did not seem to affect zooming sensitivity ingame which is far too low.
- The "Menu" button in the pause menu should probably say "exit to menu" or at least be colored red, since it aborts the current mission. Also to my surprise, Reset reset the map and not the settings.
- It seems the stat values for turrets count up really fast when switching from one to another or so; I think just straight up changing the value to the proper one would be better for the sake of comparison (same stats = no visual movement).
- Middle mouse click is generally a terrible input that should not be used; I did not find a way to rebind it. I've had to play with arrow keys for now, but I think you should make it so having the mouse at the screen edge moves the map too, as well as wasd.
- I think more emphasis should be put on the mode switching tutorial, I didn't notice I wasn't in the right mode and played normally anyway.
- The first comms with the Auspicious in the second level left my camera totally out of focus. The second brought it back in place, but I have no clue what went on in the meantime. The effects in that first bit were also quite annoying. Try pixelating just the UI maybe?
- The missile massacre animation is really cool, but I think my camera was completely thrown off afterwards (I think if you're in planning mode).
- Railguns seem to shoot out into outer space every single time, I'm not sure what's going on. I think it would be good if you could see the aiming angle ranges/distance ranges of the guns while holding a key.
- I think camera should snap back to the previous zoom level when switching to target mode than back to planning.
- I don't like that I can only see hp bars while in target mode. Also, clicking on the on-screen target switch prompts is really annoying when I'm just trying to lead some missiles on the enemy.
- All five missions were fun, but I feel like I need something a bit more complex and involved, they all seemed fairly straightforward. The outlaw frontiers mode was that in some regard, but I also have no clue what I'm doing on that one.
- Ship turning feels like it needs some tuning. Sometimes I move my far away move target slightly and the ship just slams the brakes and slows down to a crawl to do a 2º turn, whereas other times I set the target to be more or less perpendicular at a fairly short distance and the ship just goes to cruise speed and spins out into orbit.
- The new game menu for Outlaw frontiers gets cut.
- I don't understand Outlaw frontiers. I hit "Tutorial", but nothing was taught. I didn't even realise my hp carried over until the last level, because I didn't get hit until the previous level, which was a massive spike in difficulty with 10+ ships that got me down to 10% - and I can't seem to find a way to heal outside of cargo container drops. Cool Mariachi cutscene though.
- Outlaw frontier stats seem quite bugged:
As I said at the beginning, I think the game is fun and there's a solid base here, but it's an accessibility hell at the moment. Many of these small tweaks would improve the game drastically. I'm looking forward to the next update!
Thank you for leaving such in depth comments. There are many UI tweaks you in your feedback that could improve the overall experience for sure. Things like the turrets loadout and better tutorials were already mentioned by other people so it is something I will rework. I will try to make them better. Thanks again for playing, I really appreciate it!
- Main menu is a bit confusing. Should have options as well.
- When adding turrets to a ship, it zooms the camera to their position, but makes it difficult to know where on the ship it's being placed. I like the top-down view better, but to get back to it you have to click back and then edit turrets again.
- The depth of field is really ugly in my opinion, but I get why it's there. An option to disable it would be nice. The screen dirt, bloom, sharpening and grain are also very overpowering at the moment. I get what you're going for - like a diegetic "camera" - but with post processing subtlety is really the key.
- I don't really like the camera controls. There needs to be a simple orbit button, or the ability to rotate the camera - unless I'm missing it.
- I like the ship customization - the different turrets and abilities, being able to buy more stuff and upgrade it, etc. For me, that's a large part of the fun of this type of game, and this is a great start. Custom ship name is a nice touch too.
- The combat is pretty interesting, and the gamefeel is pretty good with the camera shake, visuals, and audio.
- I didn't try much of 'Outlaw Frontiers' but it seems like a cool idea. With that and the story mode there will certainly be no shortage of content, which is good.
Overall: Clean up the graphics a bit, make the camera less janky, and you'll have a pretty good game.
Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Some things you mentioned are still being worked on (for example menu options) but still I appreciate your feedback.
- turrets placement view: I also think the top-down overview is useful and I will try to implement a view switching functionality for that
- post processing: I understand different players will have varying opinions on it, there is a toggle to switch it off in the pause menu. the menu itself is still quite early wip
- camera controls: there is lock on (TGT) and panning control (PLN) for the camera, did you have an issue with the gameplay controls?
Thanks for playing! You have good suggestions and some things I didn't realize was a problem. I will definitely improve them and tweak the balance. Note: you can actually control the camera manually in PLN mode with arrow keys or drag
Comments
Some assorted feedback. I think the game is generally good, but I think many things could be made snappier and clearer just slightly and the game would improve drastically from it.
- The level select screen blinks the UI when changing the selected level, I found that to be a bit annoying to the eyes.
- In the modules menu, clicking on a slot opens the UI on the right, which makes sense as the slot (frame of reference) is still being displayed on the left. For the turrets UI, this doesn't make a lot of sense; my intuition tells me to press the top left button to go back for one, but also the 3d view of the turret isn't really the same as the slots. Personally, I'd open the gun selection UI over the current UI on the left side, and zoom in on the spot where the turret goes smoothly. Instead of having arrows to switch slots, I'd keep a mini version of the top down view so you can choose which one to switch to, or at the very least I'd smooth the camera transition here too so you can keep track of where you're actually placing the turret (just the slot name being a number really isn't enough to keep track).
- The scrollbar in "missile massacre" is really slow.
- I'm not sure if the missile ammo upgrade values are temp or if I just can't appreciate how 25k is a good price for what seems really minimal.
- I'm not sure why some options on the pause menu have a set of % buttons but map scroll has a slider. Either way it did not seem to affect zooming sensitivity ingame which is far too low.
- The "Menu" button in the pause menu should probably say "exit to menu" or at least be colored red, since it aborts the current mission. Also to my surprise, Reset reset the map and not the settings.
- It seems the stat values for turrets count up really fast when switching from one to another or so; I think just straight up changing the value to the proper one would be better for the sake of comparison (same stats = no visual movement).
- Middle mouse click is generally a terrible input that should not be used; I did not find a way to rebind it. I've had to play with arrow keys for now, but I think you should make it so having the mouse at the screen edge moves the map too, as well as wasd.
- I think more emphasis should be put on the mode switching tutorial, I didn't notice I wasn't in the right mode and played normally anyway.
- The first comms with the Auspicious in the second level left my camera totally out of focus. The second brought it back in place, but I have no clue what went on in the meantime. The effects in that first bit were also quite annoying. Try pixelating just the UI maybe?
- The missile massacre animation is really cool, but I think my camera was completely thrown off afterwards (I think if you're in planning mode).
- Railguns seem to shoot out into outer space every single time, I'm not sure what's going on. I think it would be good if you could see the aiming angle ranges/distance ranges of the guns while holding a key.
- I think camera should snap back to the previous zoom level when switching to target mode than back to planning.
- I don't like that I can only see hp bars while in target mode. Also, clicking on the on-screen target switch prompts is really annoying when I'm just trying to lead some missiles on the enemy.
- All five missions were fun, but I feel like I need something a bit more complex and involved, they all seemed fairly straightforward. The outlaw frontiers mode was that in some regard, but I also have no clue what I'm doing on that one.
- Ship turning feels like it needs some tuning. Sometimes I move my far away move target slightly and the ship just slams the brakes and slows down to a crawl to do a 2º turn, whereas other times I set the target to be more or less perpendicular at a fairly short distance and the ship just goes to cruise speed and spins out into orbit.
- The new game menu for Outlaw frontiers gets cut.
- I don't understand Outlaw frontiers. I hit "Tutorial", but nothing was taught. I didn't even realise my hp carried over until the last level, because I didn't get hit until the previous level, which was a massive spike in difficulty with 10+ ships that got me down to 10% - and I can't seem to find a way to heal outside of cargo container drops. Cool Mariachi cutscene though.
- Outlaw frontier stats seem quite bugged:
As I said at the beginning, I think the game is fun and there's a solid base here, but it's an accessibility hell at the moment. Many of these small tweaks would improve the game drastically. I'm looking forward to the next update!
Thank you for leaving such in depth comments. There are many UI tweaks you in your feedback that could improve the overall experience for sure. Things like the turrets loadout and better tutorials were already mentioned by other people so it is something I will rework. I will try to make them better. Thanks again for playing, I really appreciate it!
Some initial thoughts:
- Main menu is a bit confusing. Should have options as well.
- When adding turrets to a ship, it zooms the camera to their position, but makes it difficult to know where on the ship it's being placed. I like the top-down view better, but to get back to it you have to click back and then edit turrets again.
- The depth of field is really ugly in my opinion, but I get why it's there. An option to disable it would be nice. The screen dirt, bloom, sharpening and grain are also very overpowering at the moment. I get what you're going for - like a diegetic "camera" - but with post processing subtlety is really the key.
- I don't really like the camera controls. There needs to be a simple orbit button, or the ability to rotate the camera - unless I'm missing it.
- I like the ship customization - the different turrets and abilities, being able to buy more stuff and upgrade it, etc. For me, that's a large part of the fun of this type of game, and this is a great start. Custom ship name is a nice touch too.
- The combat is pretty interesting, and the gamefeel is pretty good with the camera shake, visuals, and audio.
- I didn't try much of 'Outlaw Frontiers' but it seems like a cool idea. With that and the story mode there will certainly be no shortage of content, which is good.
Overall: Clean up the graphics a bit, make the camera less janky, and you'll have a pretty good game.
Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Some things you mentioned are still being worked on (for example menu options) but still I appreciate your feedback.
- turrets placement view: I also think the top-down overview is useful and I will try to implement a view switching functionality for that
- post processing: I understand different players will have varying opinions on it, there is a toggle to switch it off in the pause menu. the menu itself is still quite early wip
- camera controls: there is lock on (TGT) and panning control (PLN) for the camera, did you have an issue with the gameplay controls?
Nice stuff, there is clearly effort being put into this, but some parts of the UI are very clunky and the game is too slow in general
-ESC should work as a return button so I don't have to click the return on the corner of the screen every time
-mouse wheel on the module shop is scrolling VERY slowly, I don't like using drag to scroll
-there should be an alternative way to move the battlefield camera, ASWD would be great, change the target keys to something else.
-a speed up button would be nice, moving this whale of a ship is really slow
Thanks for playing! You have good suggestions and some things I didn't realize was a problem. I will definitely improve them and tweak the balance. Note: you can actually control the camera manually in PLN mode with arrow keys or drag