horrible news. reaching the end of level 2, i was pausing the game to jot down some notes, and inadvertently selected New Game, instinctively thinking it was Resume Game. since there's no saving as far as i can tell, i'm forced back into the first room.
disaster.
this calls for a complete replay tomorrow, but until then, here's my preliminary feedback. i'll update this by replying to this post once i have played again.
>The levels ARE good.
They're inter-connected. They have eastereggs/secrets. They have sidepaths. They have doom closets. They're all great and i see nothing wrong with them. The gimmicks (meathook, conveyor belt, floor that you fall through) are also all great. i honestly think at this point you're aware of this and are just pretending so i wont jizz more about the matter.
If anything, I think the issues some players might have is with the enemy design. There were many sections where my optimal playstyle would be sitting at the room entrance with a pistol shooting stationary goons, who would be hitstunned and couldn't react to me. I think you should take inspiration from something like Serious Sam's first levels. Your key pace-breaking enemies are the charging boys - but the ones you have are far too strong. consider introducing a weaker melee enemy and sprinkle him at the start of the demos to avoid the "sit + shoot with pistol" tactic. Personally, I didn't have this problem since I played before and thus know what do, but i can easily see someone rushing in a room and getting blasted from all sides. you need to ease them a bit
Other small issues would be important objects not having a light near them, causing them to be easily missed. this is true for the shotgun outside the bathroom, and some ammo boxes every now and then.
The ammo is very restrictive, but i managed to beat everything so far with leftover ammo. i'd slightly increase ammo so that weaker players don't have to rely on kick so much.
I only found ONE secret, and that was in level 2. I remember the old ones, but you seem to have shifted those around. I didn't find any of those.
The game is a ton of fun and very juicy. The shotgun is still a blast to use.
please remove NEW GAME from the menu options. replace that with Resume.
once i play again i'll be sure to write more, but i have nothing but praise so far for the changes. keep up the good work and be proud of your levels.
Tried out the linux build: the game is not executable, I had to chmod +x it myself. To be fair this happens with a lot of linux programs. Also the windows/super key didn't work except when paused, which was weird. Seems to work well otherwise.
I think there was some kind of jitter on enemies when moving fast close to them, might have to do with me using a 165 hz screen and possibly their movement going at 60 hz or something.
I wish there was some bigger effect when I hit enemies, the bloody spot is pretty small and hard to see from a distance.
I didn't get very far because I kept running out of bullets. I think I'm just bad at boomer shooters and wasting a lot, but it also kinda sucks to kill so many pistol guys and drop so little ammo.
when i had ammo it felt very much the same in quality to boomer shooters i've played, but no matter how much i conserved i would start to run out and eventually have to run guns blazing into a full room (which lead to some cool moments) as the only way forwards and my loss would feel out of my control.
a few things
the shotgun design and polish is very good
it seems like the player has to aim very accurately to hit, i don't have anything against the design choice but it makes me miss the classic style of being able to fire a pistol down a hallway with a bunch of enemies in knowing i'm hitting them
i wanted to kick open the bathroom doors, just for immersive reasons
i found the secret with the health pack and the poster
aside from the aforementioned running out of ammo and then being railroaded into a busy room, i didnt find the level design bad in any way, other than that the second and third auditorium didn't lead anywhere
This was one of the games I've checked out in previous DDs and was curious to see how it developed. Nice to see that enemies use projectiles instead of hitscan, and have their painstates now implemented as well considering most of them use guns, it makes them a lot more manageable. Only beaten the first level so far, so these are more like first impressions (will go back to check out level 2 later) but there are four things that jumped out to me so far:
- Only had enemies drop ammo fairly rarely and only specific enemies. If pistolers and shotgunners could drop their respective ammo as well (and generally more consistently) I think it would help a lot with the resource issues of running out of ammo mid-level with no pickups left.
- Melee enemies are still a bit brainless as they just charge straight at you. If you look back at Doom, you might notice how Pinkies keep zigzagging in front of the player a lot of the time: granted, this was because of the way their pathfinding was implemented, but in my opinion it made it so that they're a bit more difficult to hit and avoiding them is a matter of movement instead of purely just speed. I assume you're using Unity's native NavMesh Agent, so it could be a bit tricky to implement a similar behavior (I'm still polishing it myself), but I think would make the fights against them a lot more fun.
- Not sure how I feel about the shotgun using two shells per shot. I mean I get it, it's a double barrel, but since that's the only way to spend shotgun shells, it feels redundant and even a bit confusing when you check your ammo in a quick glance. Compare it to doom where apart from the Super Shotgun you still have the regular Shotgun, or Blood where you still shoot one barrel at a time (with both barrel shot as alt-fire).
- This might be already planned, but auto-switching to a gun that you have ammo for when you try to fire a gun that you're empty with would be a nice QoL change.
Still, good improvement so far compared to the previous versions I've played. Keep up the good work!
Got around to beating level two. In general I liked the level design (arcade in level 1 is a nice touch), but the second level is definitely seems to be more fleshed out (no pun intended). The meathook in the beginning was neat little detail, the environmental hazards are shown well with the dead enemies, and the small touches around (like the toilet as the office chair) were charming. The only issues I found is that there's a weird lightmap pixelation in one of the upper corners at the secret room where you find the machine gun in level 1, and the moving sawblade that's on the table on level 2 can only be seen from one side.
I generally had less issue with ammo resource on the second level too, not sure if it's due to starting with more weapons or pickups being more generous in general. And if I can offer you a tip: to deal with the screen shaking in the elevator, you can try parenting the player temporarily under the elevator (or manipulating it's velocityto match the elevator's).
Still missing tons of art, sounds, enemies, guns, etc. Bugs are present, please report them. Balance/difficulty curve might still be a bit sharp. 2nd level is VERY unfinished, sorry. Difficulty "may" be on the high side depending on how skilled you are, as I'm trying to balance it around hard mode. I'll be adding difficulty selection later.
The game should save your progress at the start of level 2. There are almost certainly going to be horrendous bugs that I didn't discover in regards to the save system. If you find any, please let me know.
WASD to move, mouse to look. Left click to shoot, E to open doors and activate switches. 123456 for weapons. Good luck!
Any and all feedback, good or bad is appreciated! Thanks for playing!
If you're having trouble finishing either of the levels, there are a few secrets in each. I don't expect anybody to want to waste time secret-hunting in a poopy unfinished demo like this, so here's the list if you're looking:
Theater:
Past the first door, to the left, there's a poster on the wall. Jump through it to get an assault rifle.
In the room where you get the blue key, there's a small box opposite of the single-toilet bathroom. If you step on it, a door will open, leading you outside to get a power weapon.
Not marked as a secret, but in the bathroom with the sinks and urinals, the last bathroom stall is open. You can jump on the toilets to get into a cove for a health pack.
Meat factory:
Not marked as a secret, but immediately after you spawn, there is a health kit behind you.
Again, not a secret, but after you get picked up by the meat hook, there are 3 doors - a standard door, a door with a switch, and the red key door. Go through the standard door to get some assault rifle ammo, as well as an assault rifle (be warned, this triggers a trap.)
In the 2nd freezer with the hanging legs (this is still at the start of the level), one of them is hanging lower than the others. Press E on it to open a door that leads to a rocket launcher.
In the front lobby, you'll find a vending machine. Activate it to open a door to a bathroom. The bathroom has some goodies and another secret inside.
In the secret bathroom, one of the sinks is darker than the others. Activate it to get another 100pts of bonus health.
In the factory near the end of the level, there is a rocket launcher hidden on one of the staircases.
After the factory, when you get dropped into a room with a bunch of meat grinders, take a right - eventually you'll reach a dead end with a poster saying the level is unfinished, and that there's a secret nearby. Go back into the previous hallway and look for a wall that's slightly discolored. You can walk through it and get more bonus health.
Comments
ahoy Damaskusdev
horrible news. reaching the end of level 2, i was pausing the game to jot down some notes, and inadvertently selected New Game, instinctively thinking it was Resume Game. since there's no saving as far as i can tell, i'm forced back into the first room.
disaster.
this calls for a complete replay tomorrow, but until then, here's my preliminary feedback. i'll update this by replying to this post once i have played again.
>The levels ARE good.
They're inter-connected. They have eastereggs/secrets. They have sidepaths. They have doom closets. They're all great and i see nothing wrong with them. The gimmicks (meathook, conveyor belt, floor that you fall through) are also all great. i honestly think at this point you're aware of this and are just pretending so i wont jizz more about the matter.
If anything, I think the issues some players might have is with the enemy design. There were many sections where my optimal playstyle would be sitting at the room entrance with a pistol shooting stationary goons, who would be hitstunned and couldn't react to me. I think you should take inspiration from something like Serious Sam's first levels. Your key pace-breaking enemies are the charging boys - but the ones you have are far too strong. consider introducing a weaker melee enemy and sprinkle him at the start of the demos to avoid the "sit + shoot with pistol" tactic. Personally, I didn't have this problem since I played before and thus know what do, but i can easily see someone rushing in a room and getting blasted from all sides. you need to ease them a bit
Other small issues would be important objects not having a light near them, causing them to be easily missed. this is true for the shotgun outside the bathroom, and some ammo boxes every now and then.
The ammo is very restrictive, but i managed to beat everything so far with leftover ammo. i'd slightly increase ammo so that weaker players don't have to rely on kick so much.
I only found ONE secret, and that was in level 2. I remember the old ones, but you seem to have shifted those around. I didn't find any of those.
The game is a ton of fun and very juicy. The shotgun is still a blast to use.
please remove NEW GAME from the menu options. replace that with Resume.
once i play again i'll be sure to write more, but i have nothing but praise so far for the changes. keep up the good work and be proud of your levels.
i'm gnot a gnoblin, i'm a gnome
Tried out the linux build: the game is not executable, I had to chmod +x it myself. To be fair this happens with a lot of linux programs. Also the windows/super key didn't work except when paused, which was weird. Seems to work well otherwise.
I think there was some kind of jitter on enemies when moving fast close to them, might have to do with me using a 165 hz screen and possibly their movement going at 60 hz or something.
I wish there was some bigger effect when I hit enemies, the bloody spot is pretty small and hard to see from a distance.
I didn't get very far because I kept running out of bullets. I think I'm just bad at boomer shooters and wasting a lot, but it also kinda sucks to kill so many pistol guys and drop so little ammo.Level design looked good,
when i had ammo it felt very much the same in quality to boomer shooters i've played, but no matter how much i conserved i would start to run out and eventually have to run guns blazing into a full room (which lead to some cool moments) as the only way forwards and my loss would feel out of my control.
a few things
This was one of the games I've checked out in previous DDs and was curious to see how it developed. Nice to see that enemies use projectiles instead of hitscan, and have their painstates now implemented as well considering most of them use guns, it makes them a lot more manageable. Only beaten the first level so far, so these are more like first impressions (will go back to check out level 2 later) but there are four things that jumped out to me so far:
- Only had enemies drop ammo fairly rarely and only specific enemies. If pistolers and shotgunners could drop their respective ammo as well (and generally more consistently) I think it would help a lot with the resource issues of running out of ammo mid-level with no pickups left.
- Melee enemies are still a bit brainless as they just charge straight at you. If you look back at Doom, you might notice how Pinkies keep zigzagging in front of the player a lot of the time: granted, this was because of the way their pathfinding was implemented, but in my opinion it made it so that they're a bit more difficult to hit and avoiding them is a matter of movement instead of purely just speed. I assume you're using Unity's native NavMesh Agent, so it could be a bit tricky to implement a similar behavior (I'm still polishing it myself), but I think would make the fights against them a lot more fun.
- Not sure how I feel about the shotgun using two shells per shot. I mean I get it, it's a double barrel, but since that's the only way to spend shotgun shells, it feels redundant and even a bit confusing when you check your ammo in a quick glance. Compare it to doom where apart from the Super Shotgun you still have the regular Shotgun, or Blood where you still shoot one barrel at a time (with both barrel shot as alt-fire).
- This might be already planned, but auto-switching to a gun that you have ammo for when you try to fire a gun that you're empty with would be a nice QoL change.
Still, good improvement so far compared to the previous versions I've played. Keep up the good work!
Got around to beating level two. In general I liked the level design (arcade in level 1 is a nice touch), but the second level is definitely seems to be more fleshed out (no pun intended). The meathook in the beginning was neat little detail, the environmental hazards are shown well with the dead enemies, and the small touches around (like the toilet as the office chair) were charming. The only issues I found is that there's a weird lightmap pixelation in one of the upper corners at the secret room where you find the machine gun in level 1, and the moving sawblade that's on the table on level 2 can only be seen from one side.
I generally had less issue with ammo resource on the second level too, not sure if it's due to starting with more weapons or pickups being more generous in general. And if I can offer you a tip: to deal with the screen shaking in the elevator, you can try parenting the player temporarily under the elevator (or manipulating it's velocityto match the elevator's).
Still missing tons of art, sounds, enemies, guns, etc. Bugs are present, please report them. Balance/difficulty curve might still be a bit sharp. 2nd level is VERY unfinished, sorry. Difficulty "may" be on the high side depending on how skilled you are, as I'm trying to balance it around hard mode. I'll be adding difficulty selection later.
The game should save your progress at the start of level 2. There are almost certainly going to be horrendous bugs that I didn't discover in regards to the save system. If you find any, please let me know.
WASD to move, mouse to look. Left click to shoot, E to open doors and activate switches. 123456 for weapons. Good luck!
Any and all feedback, good or bad is appreciated! Thanks for playing!
If you're having trouble finishing either of the levels, there are a few secrets in each. I don't expect anybody to want to waste time secret-hunting in a poopy unfinished demo like this, so here's the list if you're looking:
Theater:
Meat factory: