Your Character select Screen has a weird Spellcaster button behidn the start Button. But generally its nice, as long as you ignore the missing Graphics and Placeholders ofcourse.
Alt fire seems useless, and there isn't anything new in Gameplay Terms, apart from the Shops, but those are nice visually. It also doesn't really change a lot over the course of a run, it gets harder with more Enemies and Traps, but thats about it. I still ended up just dodging some Projectiles, or shooting my own to destroy them, walking into a straight view Line to an Enemy and spitting out to Firebolts to take it down, then move onto the next. And Screen still fades into random directions or something, instead of having a nice door Transition. You have it in your Shops, so why not in your Dungeonfloors aswell?
Your Editor seems unchanged from last Time I played aswell, but placing ~50-60 Enemies lags it out to unplayability. I'm assuming it'll lag out much earlier, but I didn't try.
It also lags out when placing a handful of Vases to physics with each other.
I know its not the Game I'd prefer and I'm not your target Audience, but personally I think the Artstyle is nice and the Characterselect+Outside of Dungeon introduction Area are the best Parts of this Game. It could make for a nice comfy Orblike or topdown RPG in general. Again, thats obviously not what your going for tho, so don't feel any need to change Genre or anything, just think about how you could bring that Aesthetic into the Dungeonlevels itself maybe.
> Weird button Can I ask what window resolution you played at? I assume this was happening due to a wider format where the camera distance for the 3d scene is not adjusted vertically but horizontally.
> Alt fire It destroys roots, one of the passive items makes it more combat-ready but it's still in the works somewhat.
> Screen fade Not a priority yet sorry; I still think walking to doors every level would be super tedious (other people have said more for less, so I think it's a matter of expectations).
> Editor Only did some fixes to traps and meadow floors dial, I haven't heard from anyone reporting issues so for now it's solid. Should probably add an enemy count warning at some point but I want players to have the freedom to do whatever.
> Aesthetic The current tilesets are sorta basic, I will be adding more biomes and it's missing key assets to make levels a bit more distinct or not as shapeless.
Thank you for playing! Let me know if you have any further feedback about items specifically, since these are this update's main addition.
played about 40min-hour, got to floor 14 on my 3rd attempt and died to a trap :3
Thought there was no sound at all until I heard exactly one and it scared the shit outta me
Enemy tried to bounce a bullet off the wall behind it, even though I was in line of sight, and killed itself (kinda funny)
Club atm is kinda the worst item, since you can block incoming bullets by spamming your own anyway, maybe if the reflected projectile was super fast/peircing/more damage/AoE or anything it'd be worth it or if enemies had more HP
Laser staff is good, probably the best active item (got a triple kill with it too, which was nice)
Unclear what utility the alt-fire has when everything dies in 1 hit and small projectiles are likely to detonate it early, especially when you can't bounce it (looks cool tho) edit: just noticed it breaks wood walls 2nd edit: weathering tome actually makes it pretty good for a variety of things, without that I pretty much only break walls with it, or if I'm spamming and ran out of energy, since the cast time makes it's kindof unsafe to use 90% of the time
Void sphere is alright, though most of the time I get hit it's because something surprised me, so I don't have the foresight to use it (might be nice if it popped automatically when you'd get hit)
In general, I think ACTIVE defensive items are gonna be less appealing than ACTIVE offensive items. (Passive items are always appealing, sad you can only have one) If the game gets significantly more chaotic later on, active defensive items might be better, but you'd want a surplus of charges so could use it once a level between shops at least.
Alternatively, active defense items that let you play more offensively like 5sec invulnerable or something could be nice
Nitpick: be nice to have a way to read info on something after you pick it up (maybe in the pause menu)
Unclear whether there's any differences between the outfits since the flavor text describes a different person (I assume it's just aesthetic tho)
Final Item Tier list: S- Laser Staff A- Weathered Tome, First Aid B- Energy Bangle, Void Sphere C- Club
(if there were more I didn't get to them)
Environment and Character look great! I'm impressed by all the detail.
And thank you for the item feedback, that is very relevant to me.
Maybe I will speed up casting time with Weathered Tome. I agree club is not very good against basic enemies but I think it works better against Gryllus, specially the sentry ones (I don't know if you saw them). It will hopefully get better as trickier bullets are added in.
Let me know if you have any item ideas! What you say about defense and offense is pretty true too.
Outfits are just outfits! Text is just flair. I will be adding new characters soonish.
Sure! The way I play has me hiding behind cover a lot and poking my head around the corner to fire all 3 of my shots (since some of them will die to enemy bullets) So items that make that easier would appeal to me. (I'm not so good at bouncing my shots) Here's some ideas off the top of my head:
Bullet Speed increase (passive)
Temporary invulnerability/shield so I can charge around a corner safely (active)
shield that blocks the first shot that hits you for a few levels (passive or active)
staff that shoots a bullet that follows the mouse (active) (strong but requires focus)
alt-fire follows the mouse (passive)
staff that calls down a meteor at mouse position (active) (maybe too strong)
Laser sight that shows how your bullets will bounce (passive) (good for unskilled players, useless for people who are good)
shots bounce more than once (passive) (double edged sword)
Shield(s) that orbit the player and block enemy shots (passive or active)
movement speed (passive) (saw someone wanted this, so might be a good compromise as an item)
immunity to traps (passive)
teleport to mouse position (active)
Nova/Explosion that stuns enemies through walls (active)
Here some less good ones
Nova/Explosion on self that knockbacks projectiles like the club but all directions
dodge roll (active) (lol)
shotgun staff (active)
rapid fire staff (active)
staff that shoots a bullet that goes through walls (active) (maybe too strong)
Energy Band, but instead of becoming exhausted, your shots become slightly inaccurate (for a spray and pray playstyle)
Shots curve (passive) (you can curve them around corners or enemy bullets)
normal shots explode (passive)
Alt-fire lights the ground on fire for a decent length of time, maybe still destroys missiles that travel over it (passive)
Also something you might consider if you want to push players to bounce their shots more is an enemy with a laser (like the staff) that only fires when it has direct line-of-sight
The player indicator at the start is even more annoying this time. I know which character is mine when there's only one.
Get rid of the pause at the start of each level. It's not needed. It just breaks the flow of the game. Put the level name in the top left instead.
Add a restart option to the pause menu.
The enemy counter is unnecessary.
It took me a couple seconds to realize the L and R icons in the shop were referring to the mouse buttons and not clicking the sticks on a controller. I've never seen anyone do that before.
I didn't even realize I died the first time it happened. It just kicks you back to the main menu without even telling you why.
Needs a frame rate limit option.
The alt fire shouldn't lock you in place. It can slow down your movement, but it shouldn't stop you completely.
Items you already have shouldn't spawn in the shop.
You enter the dungeon by just walking into the door, but you have to click to leave the shop. Make it consistent.
The hitbox on the secondary shot explosion lingers. Hitboxes for explosions should only last for one frame.
The player's hitbox is too big. It should be slightly smaller than the model.
Bought the book item and my first aid kit disappeared.
The alt fire is still useless in combat even with the book. The speed is barely increase and it just gets shot down by enemies even if you try to aim to their side.
The alt fire projectile explodes when you complete a level; I hope that can't damage you.
If you only have two inventory slots, what are you meant to spend your money on other than health? If you're planning on adding better items that only become available later, then spending money on early items is just a waste of money.
You said you wanted this to be a methodical game that slowly builds up in intensity, but that's undermined by the rogueshite mechanics. Why do you have to suffer through the boring early game to get to the part that's actually challenging every time you die? Instead of a smooth increase in intensity, you just end up repeating the low-medium-intensity parts over and over. It's disrespectful of the player's time, as well. Just make it linear and let me save the goddamn game. You seem to want it to be some kind of puzzle-like type of thing, but like I said last time, there's no incentive to bounce projectiles other than saving yourself from the arduous hike needed to get a direct line of sight. No scoring system, no time limit, no limited movement, no bonuses from bounce kills. Regardless of what your intentions were, at its current state the game is simply a painfully slow shooter, and that's what people will judge it as.
A new build has been uploaded. It fixes item pricing (oops) and makes them more easily accessible in the early shops, as well as demoing it in the tutorial. Info about items added to the menu too.
Really nice art across the board, sad theres no sound yet, looking forward to that.
VFX looks great and animations are good too, very solid presentation. UI is a little boring but it functions and doesn't stand out as bad or anything.
Player movement and enemy movement could be a little faster overall, early game it was nice to have the slow pace but as I got better it became a little tedious. Maybe as you get deeper into the dungeon the player + the enemies can naturally speed up? Making the countdown before each room starts visible might be nice too (a simple circle wiped ui element is probably enough? just so I know when the action starts)
I like what I see but it feels a bit basic for now. With more items + spells and maybe initial character select I can see this being a really good concept, especially if the art remains at this quality.
Oh yeah and I think the walk cycle has foot sliding.
Player movement feels solid to me but my opinion might change based on what content I come up with next. Passive items could help too, but it might throw balance off. The walking animations are totally unfinished so that might be what's giving off that feeling too.
A Wii Tanks roguelike is one of the better ideas I've seen here. The high fantasy theming has allowed you to have far better art than that game, which is especially helpful considering how this is ultimately a pretty casual sort game. But it also creates some issues. It's much easier to sell sluggish movement as a tank than a person. It simply feels wrong to be moving so slow here. I don't know if speeding up too much breaks the formula, but it's worth trying out if you haven't done so already, or otherwise adjusting the presentation in some way with an excuse that feels more intuitive. Moreover, the enemies as fantasy monsters fluff could have been an opportunity to communicate what's unique about their attacks a lot better.
I think right now the speed is well suited for the kind of situations the game puts you in; maybe once I add in more content my opinion will change. It could also be that the currently unfinished movement animations are what causes this feeling too, I know it does a bit for me. Further passive items could also help this.
I'm not sure what you mean about communicating unique attacks - each enemy has their own bullet visual, but of course until you get shot you won't really get a feel for it. At least for now since they're sorta standard, just changing speed and bounces. Later on I'll add more variety in this regard. Did you mean something else?
Thank you for the feedback! If you have any feedback or suggestions about specific items I'd love to hear about that too. Be sure to download the newer version if you give it another go!
Comments
I recorded playing games with commentary, and your game is one of them.
Here's the link to the whole DD50 folder:
https://mega.nz/folder/GclCXISL#gwE9S1kRTbe6amYLH2RiYA
Let me know if you would like a figurine of your character, or enemy in my game.
Your Character select Screen has a weird Spellcaster button behidn the start Button. But generally its nice, as long as you ignore the missing Graphics and Placeholders ofcourse.
Alt fire seems useless, and there isn't anything new in Gameplay Terms, apart from the Shops, but those are nice visually. It also doesn't really change a lot over the course of a run, it gets harder with more Enemies and Traps, but thats about it. I still ended up just dodging some Projectiles, or shooting my own to destroy them, walking into a straight view Line to an Enemy and spitting out to Firebolts to take it down, then move onto the next. And Screen still fades into random directions or something, instead of having a nice door Transition. You have it in your Shops, so why not in your Dungeonfloors aswell?
Your Editor seems unchanged from last Time I played aswell, but placing ~50-60 Enemies lags it out to unplayability. I'm assuming it'll lag out much earlier, but I didn't try.
It also lags out when placing a handful of Vases to physics with each other.
I know its not the Game I'd prefer and I'm not your target Audience, but personally I think the Artstyle is nice and the Characterselect+Outside of Dungeon introduction Area are the best Parts of this Game. It could make for a nice comfy Orblike or topdown RPG in general. Again, thats obviously not what your going for tho, so don't feel any need to change Genre or anything, just think about how you could bring that Aesthetic into the Dungeonlevels itself maybe.
> Weird button
Can I ask what window resolution you played at? I assume this was happening due to a wider format where the camera distance for the 3d scene is not adjusted vertically but horizontally.
> Alt fire
It destroys roots, one of the passive items makes it more combat-ready but it's still in the works somewhat.
> Screen fade
Not a priority yet sorry; I still think walking to doors every level would be super tedious (other people have said more for less, so I think it's a matter of expectations).
> Editor
Only did some fixes to traps and meadow floors dial, I haven't heard from anyone reporting issues so for now it's solid. Should probably add an enemy count warning at some point but I want players to have the freedom to do whatever.
> Aesthetic
The current tilesets are sorta basic, I will be adding more biomes and it's missing key assets to make levels a bit more distinct or not as shapeless.
Thank you for playing! Let me know if you have any further feedback about items specifically, since these are this update's main addition.
2560x1440, you're probably right on the widescreen.
played about 40min-hour, got to floor 14 on my 3rd attempt and died to a trap :3
Thought there was no sound at all until I heard exactly one and it scared the shit outta me
Enemy tried to bounce a bullet off the wall behind it, even though I was in line of sight, and killed itself (kinda funny)
Club atm is kinda the worst item, since you can block incoming bullets by spamming your own anyway, maybe if the reflected projectile was super fast/peircing/more damage/AoE or anything it'd be worth it or if enemies had more HP
Laser staff is good, probably the best active item (got a triple kill with it too, which was nice)
Unclear what utility the alt-fire has when everything dies in 1 hit and small projectiles are likely to detonate it early, especially when you can't bounce it (looks cool tho)
edit: just noticed it breaks wood walls
2nd edit: weathering tome actually makes it pretty good for a variety of things, without that I pretty much only break walls with it, or if I'm spamming and ran out of energy, since the cast time makes it's kindof unsafe to use 90% of the time
Void sphere is alright, though most of the time I get hit it's because something surprised me, so I don't have the foresight to use it (might be nice if it popped automatically when you'd get hit)
In general, I think ACTIVE defensive items are gonna be less appealing than ACTIVE offensive items. (Passive items are always appealing, sad you can only have one) If the game gets significantly more chaotic later on, active defensive items might be better, but you'd want a surplus of charges so could use it once a level between shops at least.
Alternatively, active defense items that let you play more offensively like 5sec invulnerable or something could be nice
Nitpick: be nice to have a way to read info on something after you pick it up (maybe in the pause menu)
Unclear whether there's any differences between the outfits since the flavor text describes a different person (I assume it's just aesthetic tho)
Final Item Tier list:
S- Laser Staff
A- Weathered Tome, First Aid
B- Energy Bangle, Void Sphere
C- Club
(if there were more I didn't get to them)
Environment and Character look great! I'm impressed by all the detail.
Best of luck to you!
Thank you for playing!
And thank you for the item feedback, that is very relevant to me.
Maybe I will speed up casting time with Weathered Tome. I agree club is not very good against basic enemies but I think it works better against Gryllus, specially the sentry ones (I don't know if you saw them). It will hopefully get better as trickier bullets are added in.
Let me know if you have any item ideas! What you say about defense and offense is pretty true too.
Outfits are just outfits! Text is just flair. I will be adding new characters soonish.
Sure! The way I play has me hiding behind cover a lot and poking my head around the corner to fire all 3 of my shots (since some of them will die to enemy bullets) So items that make that easier would appeal to me. (I'm not so good at bouncing my shots)
Here's some ideas off the top of my head:
Here some less good ones
Also something you might consider if you want to push players to bounce their shots more is an enemy with a laser (like the staff) that only fires when it has direct line-of-sight
Thank you!
You said you wanted this to be a methodical game that slowly builds up in intensity, but that's undermined by the rogueshite mechanics. Why do you have to suffer through the boring early game to get to the part that's actually challenging every time you die? Instead of a smooth increase in intensity, you just end up repeating the low-medium-intensity parts over and over. It's disrespectful of the player's time, as well. Just make it linear and let me save the goddamn game. You seem to want it to be some kind of puzzle-like type of thing, but like I said last time, there's no incentive to bounce projectiles other than saving yourself from the arduous hike needed to get a direct line of sight. No scoring system, no time limit, no limited movement, no bonuses from bounce kills. Regardless of what your intentions were, at its current state the game is simply a painfully slow shooter, and that's what people will judge it as.
A new build has been uploaded. It fixes item pricing (oops) and makes them more easily accessible in the early shops, as well as demoing it in the tutorial. Info about items added to the menu too.
Really nice art across the board, sad theres no sound yet, looking forward to that.
VFX looks great and animations are good too, very solid presentation. UI is a little boring but it functions and doesn't stand out as bad or anything.
Player movement and enemy movement could be a little faster overall, early game it was nice to have the slow pace but as I got better it became a little tedious. Maybe as you get deeper into the dungeon the player + the enemies can naturally speed up? Making the countdown before each room starts visible might be nice too (a simple circle wiped ui element is probably enough? just so I know when the action starts)
I like what I see but it feels a bit basic for now. With more items + spells and maybe initial character select I can see this being a really good concept, especially if the art remains at this quality.
Oh yeah and I think the walk cycle has foot sliding.
Thank you for playing!
Player movement feels solid to me but my opinion might change based on what content I come up with next. Passive items could help too, but it might throw balance off. The walking animations are totally unfinished so that might be what's giving off that feeling too.
Thank you for the feedback!
A Wii Tanks roguelike is one of the better ideas I've seen here. The high fantasy theming has allowed you to have far better art than that game, which is especially helpful considering how this is ultimately a pretty casual sort game. But it also creates some issues. It's much easier to sell sluggish movement as a tank than a person. It simply feels wrong to be moving so slow here. I don't know if speeding up too much breaks the formula, but it's worth trying out if you haven't done so already, or otherwise adjusting the presentation in some way with an excuse that feels more intuitive. Moreover, the enemies as fantasy monsters fluff could have been an opportunity to communicate what's unique about their attacks a lot better.
Thank you for playing!
I think right now the speed is well suited for the kind of situations the game puts you in; maybe once I add in more content my opinion will change. It could also be that the currently unfinished movement animations are what causes this feeling too, I know it does a bit for me. Further passive items could also help this.
I'm not sure what you mean about communicating unique attacks - each enemy has their own bullet visual, but of course until you get shot you won't really get a feel for it. At least for now since they're sorta standard, just changing speed and bounces. Later on I'll add more variety in this regard. Did you mean something else?
Thank you for the feedback! If you have any feedback or suggestions about specific items I'd love to hear about that too. Be sure to download the newer version if you give it another go!
Password is agdg. If you own a wiimote and want to use it to play, contact me in the agdg Discord to obtain the GlovePie script.