I like everything artwise (the new Halo effect when you are at full dakka speed is genius)
I love the mechanics, (great that you can missile ride, dunno if you could already to that last demo)
But I really hate your controls:
This is where your game lives and die. Your idea is great, art is superb, and your level design can be nothing special;
but if I can't control my avatar in a relayable way I can't play this shit
-Hovering feels bad because you need to switch your mouse 180°on a spot,
-Walljumps feels unrelayable maybe because the action window is too short;
-Parrying is better than last time, but still feels bad because you need to position yourself in a very specific way to do it right. If you get shot from above you can't parry (or at least I can't do it) and since your levels are pretty claustrophobic you will get shot from straight above you a lot.
-Spirit bullet should be rethinked as a whole, because a noob can use it only going straight down. With skill you can almost use it left/right, but the problem remains, because the levels are setup to go straight up (casings sea). So, right now this skill feel useless.
I don't think that by design you want ppl to apply themselves to do, for ex, a walljump+hover. This shouldn't be a problem. Like how a running mario can jump a pit in level one, this is the ease of action you need to implement.
I wanna love your game, but the tutorial is enough to make me hate it.
your level design is subpar:
-There is no reason to make the training so claustrophobic,
-There is no reason to make the spirit bullet tutorial in so little space. I know is for letting us know you can do it in little spaces too, but it's fukkin hard to do it, and this is the tutorial for the mechanic! make it at least a 2 step process, first in a setup with a lot of space, then in a enclosed one.
-Why at level one we only have destructible walls for platforms? you have grid platforms, can you at least for level one make a skeleton with grids in a way that we can always climb on something? do you still think it's fun to wait the sea of casing to rise up and let us continue playing? And I wanna make it clear by saying it twice, I like the mechanic by itself, I like the risk reward. But this is level 1. Come on.
In conclusion, my suggestion is to think more about your controls and ease of use as a whole, how hard/easy should be to pilot Brass mecha.
You can dev better level only if you start throwing shit at the wall and designing more levels. You should also try different design philosophies, and see what players like best. (if you wanna get a laugh go see my level design from dd48).
I guess recoil gimmick is unviable in the end. There are new ways to extend the hover, but nothing that would let you switch back and forth (except for dual minigun). Instead of trying to stay in the same spot I usually do smooth movements to the sides to reach anything to gain altitude and bounce right back. That's also where spirit form comes into play. Except for quick dive I didn't really design it around sharp movements, but flowing ones instead.
Wall jump as it is has massive action windows, are you holding direction against or away from wall? It has changed since last time.
Parrying from above would be too OP. That's the one thing I would never change. It does need to cover the diagonals though to feel more reliable without going fast.
Thanks to the stream and your comment yesterday I'm rethinking the spirit form tutorial. Currently it's even more obscure that you can preserve it with wall jumps and use it for evasion, and playing with it in a large horizontal space would be a good introduction.
I do have a more horizontal level but I wasn't confident about releasing it so it's hidden behind instructions in the first comment.
nice. it'd be cool if you had to chase an enemy though a level and shoot through / destroy the doors he closes behind him, like in some sleepy dogs / gta levels where you had to run down some guy who was trying to flee from you, in this case the doors could be like those destroyable blocks
I actually planned to add door "opening" to add personality to the main character. Making a non-scripted chase sequence would be extremely hard, because currently there's a large disparity in playstyles, and even cognitive load is reaching the limits. It would be a perfect fit for one of the antagonists though, so that's worth a try.
Tutorial is nice to have. I like the addition of the ammo belt twirling behind his back when fully revved. Alt tabbing causes the game to 'pause' between two frames it seems, which isn't too bad, except for how the rev sound effect keeps playing, it's a bit annoying. I assume it would occur with other sound effects if alt tabbed while they played. I think I'm finally starting to understand how the bullet mode works. Also the dodging/wall jumps feel nicer. The last tip about being able to maintain a hover by shooting a enemy bellow is cool, important to have that tutorialized because otherwise it isn't that intuitive.
Went into the game proper. A little rough at first, but the tutorial made it easier to adjust to the hectic gameplay. I like the new fall down and get up animation that punishes messing up. Managed to beat the boss first try, not sure if it got easier or if the controls being explained helped just that much. Overall, the game still looks and sounds great. I personally didn't find it too difficult to see every thing on screen per se, it's more like the camera moves so fast sometimes it can take a bit to fully grasp what's coming into your vision.
The last tip about being able to maintain a hover by shooting a enemy bellow is cool, important to have that tutorialized because otherwise it isn't that intuitive.
So I guess the current one doesn't cut it. I will replace the red bubble with a better option.
Managed to beat the boss first try, not sure if it got easier or if the controls being explained helped just that much
If you played the very early version that had no healing crates then it was nerfed a ton. After that I only made it easier to hit with kicks/spirit form/missiles.
it's more like the camera moves so fast sometimes it can take a bit to fully grasp what's coming into your vision.
Could you elaborate? Do you mean platforming upwards, falling, explosion knockback, or aiming around? Time to try out some new smoothing tech.
Guess I interpreted it wrong then? I did figure that you can sort of hover when shooting it to the ledge, though that was abit weird. Also, that tutorial part should be edited a bit. As it is, you can just wall jump on the right side to make it to the ledge. Could probably add an overhang so you have to use the mechanic.
Could you elaborate?
There's falling and going into drill form. Also wall jumping on a bunch of projectiles/enemies consecutively which causes at times high speeds, as well as when you ride a rocket upwards. That said, I suppose a solution could be as some say to make the gameplay easier to read. For example, runner/speedrun games can be very fast obviously, but they are usually easy to read so it's not that bad in conjunction with fast intake of information. Sorry if it's a bit vague, having trouble conveying what I'm thinking.
Sweet, I feel the controls are a lot tighter now. Last time I occasionally had some issues with wall jumps being a bit finicky and not being able to get diagonal spirit working, didn't encounter those issues this time, ascending felt super smooth. Same with the parry kick, I feel there have been some tweaks there since I tried the last demo, works super reliably for me now. Not sure if the level design was adjusted too, it felt easier this time (or maybe I've just got all that Age of Brass supreme skill now).
I hope there's a level that includes some downward or more side movement (even though I suppose the theming is meant to be about ascending), would be super sick to have a level built around using spirit form. Either way, super fun mechanics, feels great when you build up all the momentum and zoom through the enemies while blowing them up.
Thanks! I'm glad the changes worked, although I wish I could resolve it all without adding the up direction controls. The level hasn't changed much so it's probably skill and controls.
I'll see about the downward movement. Pitfalls are compatible with the design, but don't let the plunge to be used intentionally, so I'll have to make new enemies and mechanics instead.
This game looks really cool and feels good to play. The visual clutter that Gorri mentioned is my only real criticism; maybe you could lean on enemy outlines or just simply darken the background debris?
Anyway, I'm glad I downloaded this one. Might even play when I'm bored! Keep it up.
The art is gorgeous, the small touches (like player sprite changing on damage) are really neat, and the whole pile of casings affecting the level is a really cool idea and works generally well.. Beat the boss with barely just some health left.
- While the game looks really good the visual clutter can be a bit too much at times where I wasn't able to clearly see enemy projectiles properly from all the visual effects when things get really busy. - Shooting for movement and shooting at enemies felt like it was at odds to each other at times - after a while I just kept ascending instead of fighting back most of the time, leaving enemies behind because shooting back meant that my mobility goes down and becomes harder to control.
- Shooting for movement and shooting at enemies felt like it was at odds to each other at times - after a while I just kept ascending instead of fighting back most of the time, leaving enemies behind because shooting back meant that my mobility goes down and becomes harder to control.
How much enemy skipping are we talking? Unless the movement/shooting conflict is too obnoxious I'd say it's intentional as long as you aren't just tanking damage. The level even has a few forks and optional segments. Thanks for playing!
I'd say for about the second half of the level I was focusing more on ascending than fighting enemies, but I did try to dodge attacks/projectiles as much as I could (both during the ascent and during the bossfight).
Very fun, I managed to beat the snake boss first try.
It could use some more visual clarity: the enemies, background tiles, foreground tiles and destructible foreground tiles are all a shade of brown and they blend together a little.
Great aesthetics, the brass-piling is particular is neat as hell, and good music too. Would play more.
Tutorial has been added if you've played the earliest demos, and controls are different.
New mechanics have been added compared to later demos (some added to tutorial). Shooting, movement and platforming should feel better.
There's a new weapon to try out (hidden at the start of stage 1).
Sadly no new stages (unless you really want, then type GEDG on the title screen).
Thanks for all the feedback last time. I managed to get my shit together thanks to that, but there are a few points I didn't address yet, like multi monitor support or shell rendering fix.
Comments
Almost a pleasure to play this game again.
I like everything artwise (the new Halo effect when you are at full dakka speed is genius)
I love the mechanics, (great that you can missile ride, dunno if you could already to that last demo)
But I really hate your controls:
This is where your game lives and die. Your idea is great, art is superb, and your level design can be nothing special;
but if I can't control my avatar in a relayable way I can't play this shit
-Hovering feels bad because you need to switch your mouse 180°on a spot,
-Walljumps feels unrelayable maybe because the action window is too short;
-Parrying is better than last time, but still feels bad because you need to position yourself in a very specific way to do it right. If you get shot from above you can't parry (or at least I can't do it) and since your levels are pretty claustrophobic you will get shot from straight above you a lot.
-Spirit bullet should be rethinked as a whole, because a noob can use it only going straight down. With skill you can almost use it left/right, but the problem remains, because the levels are setup to go straight up (casings sea). So, right now this skill feel useless.
I don't think that by design you want ppl to apply themselves to do, for ex, a walljump+hover. This shouldn't be a problem. Like how a running mario can jump a pit in level one, this is the ease of action you need to implement.
I wanna love your game, but the tutorial is enough to make me hate it.
your level design is subpar:
-There is no reason to make the training so claustrophobic,
-There is no reason to make the spirit bullet tutorial in so little space. I know is for letting us know you can do it in little spaces too, but it's fukkin hard to do it, and this is the tutorial for the mechanic! make it at least a 2 step process, first in a setup with a lot of space, then in a enclosed one.
-Why at level one we only have destructible walls for platforms? you have grid platforms, can you at least for level one make a skeleton with grids in a way that we can always climb on something? do you still think it's fun to wait the sea of casing to rise up and let us continue playing? And I wanna make it clear by saying it twice, I like the mechanic by itself, I like the risk reward. But this is level 1. Come on.
In conclusion, my suggestion is to think more about your controls and ease of use as a whole, how hard/easy should be to pilot Brass mecha.
You can dev better level only if you start throwing shit at the wall and designing more levels. You should also try different design philosophies, and see what players like best. (if you wanna get a laugh go see my level design from dd48).
GL
Thanks for playing again.
I guess recoil gimmick is unviable in the end. There are new ways to extend the hover, but nothing that would let you switch back and forth (except for dual minigun). Instead of trying to stay in the same spot I usually do smooth movements to the sides to reach anything to gain altitude and bounce right back. That's also where spirit form comes into play. Except for quick dive I didn't really design it around sharp movements, but flowing ones instead.
Wall jump as it is has massive action windows, are you holding direction against or away from wall? It has changed since last time.
Parrying from above would be too OP. That's the one thing I would never change. It does need to cover the diagonals though to feel more reliable without going fast.
Thanks to the stream and your comment yesterday I'm rethinking the spirit form tutorial. Currently it's even more obscure that you can preserve it with wall jumps and use it for evasion, and playing with it in a large horizontal space would be a good introduction.
I do have a more horizontal level but I wasn't confident about releasing it so it's hidden behind instructions in the first comment.
nice. it'd be cool if you had to chase an enemy though a level and shoot through / destroy the doors he closes behind him, like in some sleepy dogs / gta levels where you had to run down some guy who was trying to flee from you, in this case the doors could be like those destroyable blocks
I actually planned to add door "opening" to add personality to the main character. Making a non-scripted chase sequence would be extremely hard, because currently there's a large disparity in playstyles, and even cognitive load is reaching the limits. It would be a perfect fit for one of the antagonists though, so that's worth a try.
Notes as I play:
Tutorial is nice to have. I like the addition of the ammo belt twirling behind his back when fully revved. Alt tabbing causes the game to 'pause' between two frames it seems, which isn't too bad, except for how the rev sound effect keeps playing, it's a bit annoying. I assume it would occur with other sound effects if alt tabbed while they played. I think I'm finally starting to understand how the bullet mode works. Also the dodging/wall jumps feel nicer. The last tip about being able to maintain a hover by shooting a enemy bellow is cool, important to have that tutorialized because otherwise it isn't that intuitive.
Went into the game proper. A little rough at first, but the tutorial made it easier to adjust to the hectic gameplay. I like the new fall down and get up animation that punishes messing up. Managed to beat the boss first try, not sure if it got easier or if the controls being explained helped just that much. Overall, the game still looks and sounds great. I personally didn't find it too difficult to see every thing on screen per se, it's more like the camera moves so fast sometimes it can take a bit to fully grasp what's coming into your vision.
So I guess the current one doesn't cut it. I will replace the red bubble with a better option.
If you played the very early version that had no healing crates then it was nerfed a ton. After that I only made it easier to hit with kicks/spirit form/missiles.
Could you elaborate? Do you mean platforming upwards, falling, explosion knockback, or aiming around? Time to try out some new smoothing tech.
Thanks for playing!
Guess I interpreted it wrong then? I did figure that you can sort of hover when shooting it to the ledge, though that was abit weird. Also, that tutorial part should be edited a bit. As it is, you can just wall jump on the right side to make it to the ledge. Could probably add an overhang so you have to use the mechanic.
There's falling and going into drill form. Also wall jumping on a bunch of projectiles/enemies consecutively which causes at times high speeds, as well as when you ride a rocket upwards. That said, I suppose a solution could be as some say to make the gameplay easier to read. For example, runner/speedrun games can be very fast obviously, but they are usually easy to read so it's not that bad in conjunction with fast intake of information. Sorry if it's a bit vague, having trouble conveying what I'm thinking.
Game is cool.
the art is AMAZING, sound design too
movement feels good and makes the combat really dynamic.
only complain i have is that it gets a bit hard to see whats happening. there is too much going on screen
overall i like it a lot
Sweet, I feel the controls are a lot tighter now. Last time I occasionally had some issues with wall jumps being a bit finicky and not being able to get diagonal spirit working, didn't encounter those issues this time, ascending felt super smooth. Same with the parry kick, I feel there have been some tweaks there since I tried the last demo, works super reliably for me now. Not sure if the level design was adjusted too, it felt easier this time (or maybe I've just got all that Age of Brass supreme skill now).
I hope there's a level that includes some downward or more side movement (even though I suppose the theming is meant to be about ascending), would be super sick to have a level built around using spirit form. Either way, super fun mechanics, feels great when you build up all the momentum and zoom through the enemies while blowing them up.
Thanks! I'm glad the changes worked, although I wish I could resolve it all without adding the up direction controls. The level hasn't changed much so it's probably skill and controls.
I'll see about the downward movement. Pitfalls are compatible with the design, but don't let the plunge to be used intentionally, so I'll have to make new enemies and mechanics instead.
This game looks really cool and feels good to play. The visual clutter that Gorri mentioned is my only real criticism; maybe you could lean on enemy outlines or just simply darken the background debris?
Anyway, I'm glad I downloaded this one. Might even play when I'm bored! Keep it up.
The art is gorgeous, the small touches (like player sprite changing on damage) are really neat, and the whole pile of casings affecting the level is a really cool idea and works generally well.. Beat the boss with barely just some health left.
- While the game looks really good the visual clutter can be a bit too much at times where I wasn't able to clearly see enemy projectiles properly from all the visual effects when things get really busy.
- Shooting for movement and shooting at enemies felt like it was at odds to each other at times - after a while I just kept ascending instead of fighting back most of the time, leaving enemies behind because shooting back meant that my mobility goes down and becomes harder to control.
How much enemy skipping are we talking? Unless the movement/shooting conflict is too obnoxious I'd say it's intentional as long as you aren't just tanking damage. The level even has a few forks and optional segments. Thanks for playing!
I'd say for about the second half of the level I was focusing more on ascending than fighting enemies, but I did try to dodge attacks/projectiles as much as I could (both during the ascent and during the bossfight).
Thanks. It makes sense, since upper half is rather gimmicky and you can blast through it in seconds anyway.
Very fun, I managed to beat the snake boss first try.
It could use some more visual clarity: the enemies, background tiles, foreground tiles and destructible foreground tiles are all a shade of brown and they blend together a little.
Great aesthetics, the brass-piling is particular is neat as hell, and good music too.
Would play more.
Tutorial has been added if you've played the earliest demos, and controls are different.
New mechanics have been added compared to later demos (some added to tutorial). Shooting, movement and platforming should feel better.
There's a new weapon to try out (hidden at the start of stage 1).
Sadly no new stages (unless you really want, then type GEDG on the title screen).
Thanks for all the feedback last time. I managed to get my shit together thanks to that, but there are a few points I didn't address yet, like multi monitor support or shell rendering fix.