It's fun I played for some hours, only the hardest mode with Katana.
My complaint which is more of a personal opinion rather than objective criticism is about the power up system. You get forced to choose between a selection at the start but personally I only like some types of weapon so I ended up killing myself until I got one of the weapons I enjoyed playing. The increasing upgrade cost makes it a major disadvantage to switch to a different weapon after you've picked one.
My suggestions are towards allowing the player more freedom to choose a specific weapon or build. They are one of the following, from simple to ideas that could change how the game is played:
Let the player look at upgrades, and choose to cancel and not to pick one. This way they can wait out to see if the weapon they want is offered in the next wave at the cost of being weaker for the current wave. (I could not find a way to cancel upgrades, if there's one and I'm stupid let me know)
Let the player keep the current level/upgrade of the weapon they're using when switching to a new weapon. This way if the player is dealt a "bad hand" at the start they will be forced to play some rounds with a weapon but will have the option to switch later, depending on luck.
Let the player freely swap their weapon+powerups build with a turret, either during the game or during setup. This way if you get a weapon you don't like you can swap with a turret
Other things I'd like to mention is that I found the repair +/-% a bit confusing. I'm not quite sure whether +repair (as in turret repairs more) is good or -repair is good (as in turret needs less repair)
And I don't understand why, on the first level: I get a free turret+turret upgrade is within budget but player upgrade is out of budget As far as I can tell you're handicapping yourself by not picking the turret and it takes more skill so I'd allow the player on the first level to choose between a weapon and forgo the turret (or the upgrade) if they feel like going turret-less just for the fun of it.
Edit: Oh I almost forgot. Esc pauses/unpauses the game but it's also the shortcut in the browser to leave fullscreen. That means that when you pause the game with Esc you exit fullscreen and it becomes impossible to get into fullscreen and unpause the game because the browser will exit fullscreen when you press esc to unpause. So you need to unpause the game and switch to fullcreen with the game unpaused, which can be a problem if you're in the heat of combat.
This can be fixed simply by providing a clickable button to unpause the game or changing the pause key from Esc.
>My suggestions are towards allowing the player more freedom to choose a specific weapon or build.
In general, I think roguelites should really encourage "making the best of what you've got." At least that's my philosophy towards them, so I don't think I want to change much of that other than keeping the upgrade level of weapons when switching them (And maybe even lowering the "upgrade level" by one so the upgrade price isn't permanently higher). If it's easy to scrap together the same super-strong build every time the game gets boring, IMO. This way selecting your upgrades can be more skillful and a bigger influence on your success, so in theory just getting really good at that part will let non-bullet-helly people win. Swapping weapons/builds with turrets is interesting though, I'll consider that. Maybe I'll have that feature unlock in meta-progression so new players aren't overwhelmed with buttons their first time playing.
>Other things I'd like to mention is that I found the repair +/-% a bit confusing. I'm not quite sure whether +repair (as in turret repairs more) is good or -repair is good (as in turret needs less repair)
The wording is deliberately a bit vague because the number does a lot of stuff. You definitely want more, it's both the max "health" of turrets, and repair speed for that turret. On the player it's repair speed for all turrets and repair range. Honestly, the stat isn't working out exactly how I wanted so I've been considering scrapping it. (Ignoring damage items and stacking Repair on the player was way too strong, it's annoying when it turns out low, it doesn't feel good to be forced to pick some up, etc.) Alternatively I might just throw it in a "Helpful Tips" text box somewhere in the game. Alternatively alternatively I'm going to make "good" stats green and "bad" red at some point... Thanks for letting me know it's unclear.
>And I don't understand why, on the first level: I get a free turret+turret upgrade is within budget but player upgrade is out of budget
Since the turrets are the unique, central element of the game I'm trying to push and encourage their use, so that's a subtle way of doing it. If they don't feel like a central element then I'm fucking up and I need to find more ways to tie mechanics into them, hehe.
>Oh I almost forgot. Esc pauses/unpauses the game but it's also the shortcut in the browser to leave fullscreen.
Oh right, I noticed that before and DID forget. I'll fix that up, thanks
Good feedback.
Any thoughts on the difficulty curve? I've been making pretty sweeping changes to it lately, would be really curious to hear how far you got and what difficulties you played. + If it ever felt unfair, or too easy.
Playing on Ultra. Previously I was playing double waves and level 12 was as far as I got. Since you asked about the difficulty I did double waves until about wave 12 then did 1 by one and got to level 20 before I died to some dumb mistakes, Katana wielding Mini-Arker, 3 mortar turrets and 1 fireball
It plays as I'd expect, really hard but fair. Double waves are much more difficult than single ones the balls are the hardest enemy
All right, that seems pretty perfect for where I want the difficulty to be. Ultra might be too easy, although "some hours" might be just enough playtime to justify getting close to beating it. Maybe I'll just add a fourth difficulty that's super crazy instead...
Comments
It's fun I played for some hours, only the hardest mode with Katana.
My complaint which is more of a personal opinion rather than objective criticism is about the power up system.
You get forced to choose between a selection at the start but personally I only like some types of weapon so I ended up killing myself until I got one of the weapons I enjoyed playing. The increasing upgrade cost makes it a major disadvantage to switch to a different weapon after you've picked one.
My suggestions are towards allowing the player more freedom to choose a specific weapon or build. They are one of the following, from simple to ideas that could change how the game is played:
Other things I'd like to mention is that I found the repair +/-% a bit confusing. I'm not quite sure whether +repair (as in turret repairs more) is good or -repair is good (as in turret needs less repair)
And I don't understand why, on the first level: I get a free turret+turret upgrade is within budget but player upgrade is out of budget
As far as I can tell you're handicapping yourself by not picking the turret and it takes more skill so I'd allow the player on the first level to choose between a weapon and forgo the turret (or the upgrade) if they feel like going turret-less just for the fun of it.
Edit: Oh I almost forgot. Esc pauses/unpauses the game but it's also the shortcut in the browser to leave fullscreen.
That means that when you pause the game with Esc you exit fullscreen and it becomes impossible to get into fullscreen and unpause the game because the browser will exit fullscreen when you press esc to unpause. So you need to unpause the game and switch to fullcreen with the game unpaused, which can be a problem if you're in the heat of combat.
This can be fixed simply by providing a clickable button to unpause the game or changing the pause key from Esc.
>My suggestions are towards allowing the player more freedom to choose a specific weapon or build.
In general, I think roguelites should really encourage "making the best of what you've got." At least that's my philosophy towards them, so I don't think I want to change much of that other than keeping the upgrade level of weapons when switching them (And maybe even lowering the "upgrade level" by one so the upgrade price isn't permanently higher). If it's easy to scrap together the same super-strong build every time the game gets boring, IMO. This way selecting your upgrades can be more skillful and a bigger influence on your success, so in theory just getting really good at that part will let non-bullet-helly people win. Swapping weapons/builds with turrets is interesting though, I'll consider that. Maybe I'll have that feature unlock in meta-progression so new players aren't overwhelmed with buttons their first time playing.
>Other things I'd like to mention is that I found the repair +/-% a bit confusing. I'm not quite sure whether +repair (as in turret repairs more) is good or -repair is good (as in turret needs less repair)
The wording is deliberately a bit vague because the number does a lot of stuff. You definitely want more, it's both the max "health" of turrets, and repair speed for that turret. On the player it's repair speed for all turrets and repair range. Honestly, the stat isn't working out exactly how I wanted so I've been considering scrapping it. (Ignoring damage items and stacking Repair on the player was way too strong, it's annoying when it turns out low, it doesn't feel good to be forced to pick some up, etc.) Alternatively I might just throw it in a "Helpful Tips" text box somewhere in the game. Alternatively alternatively I'm going to make "good" stats green and "bad" red at some point... Thanks for letting me know it's unclear.
>And I don't understand why, on the first level: I get a free turret+turret upgrade is within budget but player upgrade is out of budget
Since the turrets are the unique, central element of the game I'm trying to push and encourage their use, so that's a subtle way of doing it. If they don't feel like a central element then I'm fucking up and I need to find more ways to tie mechanics into them, hehe.
>Oh I almost forgot. Esc pauses/unpauses the game but it's also the shortcut in the browser to leave fullscreen.
Oh right, I noticed that before and DID forget. I'll fix that up, thanks
Good feedback.
Any thoughts on the difficulty curve? I've been making pretty sweeping changes to it lately, would be really curious to hear how far you got and what difficulties you played. + If it ever felt unfair, or too easy.
Playing on Ultra. Previously I was playing double waves and level 12 was as far as I got. Since you asked about the difficulty I did double waves until about wave 12 then did 1 by one and got to level 20 before I died to some dumb mistakes, Katana wielding Mini-Arker, 3 mortar turrets and 1 fireball
It plays as I'd expect, really hard but fair. Double waves are much more difficult than single ones the balls are the hardest enemy
All right, that seems pretty perfect for where I want the difficulty to be. Ultra might be too easy, although "some hours" might be just enough playtime to justify getting close to beating it. Maybe I'll just add a fourth difficulty that's super crazy instead...
Thanks a lot for the feedback