Maybe masteries still need a better explaination, because in a stream we got pretty confused about them.
My only issue with your new demo is the summoner that spawns too randomly, and sometime you need to search for him for too much time. An arrow that points at him or making him spawn very close to you could resolve this.
I can't judge much about bombgirl because is still unfinished. I would like to kick upwards, make bombs explode when kicked to an enemy etc etc
Different builds already works with bombgirl, so gj on our system, it's pretty solid.
ED: in the stream there was a discussion about your chara design, the witch is meant to seem like a psiko or she is just smiling? For what I remember from fiends it seems your normal style, but who knows
Only watched streamers in previous DDs playing your game, first time playing myself.
Since she's new, i tried the bomber elf. Starting with only one placable bomb was a bit rocky, but thankfully she has lots of health. Kicking the bomb felt a bit useless however, even when being able to place more bombs. It seems you can only kick them horizontally? And since they go a long way i rarely hit anyone with it, so i just ran from big blobs of monsters and laid down bombs in my trail. Unlocking more and stronger bombs made it work like a charm.
So prioritized bomb force and number of bombs and noticed that at some point i could always drop a bomb with the main attack animation. That got me wondering: is it really tied to the animation? Because if it is, there is an upper limit to the number of bombs you can drop and any upgrades beyond that become useless.
In the end, clearing the level was super easy. A trail of big kabooms kills everyone i guess. Now add sound effects to both the bombs and the monsters being hit and the dopamine will flow!
I'mma be real with you, chief. I'll admit to real lad stuff right now: I haven't played Vampire Survivors yet. That's it. My feedback thus may come off as completely out of touch with the genre, or the LORD willing, somewhat valuable on the virtue of being unaffected by the expectations set forth by the bullet heaven gold standard; I'm leaving it here either way.
Sweet fireworks. I must say this is pretty much what I expected the VS-like genre to be from the many descriptions and scattered gameplay footage I might have seen through the years. More seasoned anons may mock me for my inexperience or not mind what I'll say at all, but I wouldn't mind investing time into this game as it plays right now if the greater content variety expected of the genre and the QoL features I felt the game was missing were already there. The first of these QoL features could take one of many forms: a pre-run map, a compass, minimap or pronounced landmarks. A great positive in the current HUD is its tidiness. EXP bar on top, health, coins, and timer below. Just the right amount on information, allowing the player to focus their attention on what's going on in the game scene. The game currently plays fine without a mini-map or other orientation tools such as that, which may risk detracting from the experience. However, it's easy getting lost on the map, and one is powerless against this circumstance. During my first runs, I was convinced that aside from being timer-based, enemy spawns also varied by area. Further plays have shown me that this isn't quite the case, but even then, this could well be a feature in the future. Giving the player a way to find their way back to the center of the screen (or elsewhere) would be neat, be it by showing a map of the entire room before a run or in the pause menu so the player could grow familiar with its layout, using recognizable landmarks, or, more discreetly, with a compass pointing at the center of the room, maybe at the press of a key or only in the pause menu. I believe something like this is crucial when the Summoner arrives. I wandered for a good two minutes looking from him in my first run. I knew what to expect from the second run on, so it took less time. Still... The masteries system befuddled me for a few minutes, but I figured it out in the end. I was expecting it to be some permanent RPG-like progression system, but it's more of a bonus picker for the girls with a few special rules in place. I believe the interface could be improved by making it clear which of the skills are available or locked before and after spending a given amount of skill points, and also by showing tooltips when hovering over the skill icons rather than some image you must open and close. I think there's enough space for that on the screen! BTW, there was no Help button on Bomber Girl's page. I bought her final mastery on my second playthrough even though I didn't know its effect. Looking back, considering what the icon looked like, I guess her bombs really were exploding in eight directions during my second playthrough... Having a health bar for the hundreds of enemies onscreen would be jank, obviously, but again, I guess the Summoner and any other future bosses deserve a health bar that's as unintrusive as the EXP meter on the top of the screen, or at the very least, indicators that you're past a certain damage threshold on their sprites. Before I forget, speaking of damage and sprites, the girls need a more conspicuous way of showing they're taking damage. The stage on the demo is very chill with just a regen upgrade or two, but in future content, with increased difficulty, a player may want more feedback on damage other than the tiny flashing sprite in the middle of the massive enemy hordes. The only balancing/gameplay complaints I have are: the Bomber Girl's secondary attack being a bit unresponsive and some issues I spotted with the Ice element. Fun fact: I only noticed there was secondary fire on my second playthrough with the first girl, the third overall. The first time around, I thought: "Bomber Girl would be top-tier if she could chuck the bombs". After discovering Main Girl's ice projectiles, I went back and tested Bomber Girl again. Well... at first I thought I didn't like that the bomb had no friction or that it never blows up on impact, but the real problem is that the kick doesn't connect well with the bomb. You have to hold the button until the animation reaches a certain point and you have to be in a certain position in relation to the bomb when that happens. It all kind of makes timing the bomb's explosion a chore. This may be by design, I know... but there's no reason to use the kick at all instead of just spamming bombs if that's so. My opinion is that allowing the girl to kick bombs she has just placed, without needing to move, or just any bomb her sprite happens to connect with, improves that move by magnitudes. As for the Ice element, it seems underpowered in relation to the other two, at least in my playstyle. I guess the Ice aura might be fine (didn't have many chances to pick it, more on that later), but this is especially apparent in Main Girl's secondary attack. A huge windup only to deal a fraction of the damage the blazing fast Fire skill does. All it needs is a good DMG multiplier. I'm sure you'll find the perfect value for it. :) One more thing: the three elements being Fire, Ice and Lightning shows respect for the classics! Props for going with the definite JRPG elemental trio. I'm all for it. I feel like the 10-minute timer is an improvement over the 30-minute one I hear ascribed to Vampire Survivors. Just as balanced as the HUD. (I've noticed there are two regen bonuses offered by the game: a 0.5/s and a 2/s one. One of these two bonuses has a tooltip that mentions the Ice aura, and I remember getting a prompt to activate the real Ice aura only once. Sus. Try checking if this is unintended behavior.) As a final consideration, want to boost this project's crack potential? Show us the variables. I wanna keep track of what Level my girl is and how many gems she has collected. I wanna check out how many Lightning strikes I have, the size of my flame bullets, my movement speed. The numbers! Show us the numbers! (But always keep the HUD clean. I guess the only thing I'd want to see at all times during play is the character's Level; the rest of the stats can be relegated to the pause screen or to a toggle from the options menu, like The Binding of Isaac's "Found HUD".) Art is peak appeal and rich in personality. Bomber Girl is CUTE and DUMB!! I am utterly powerless here and my words may even be marketing poison; please forgive the insolence and scratch everything I say if you must, but I implore you not to make the future characters ultra coomerbait. Girl #4 is enough. Your art shines bright as it is; it doesn't need to up the ante from there.
Playthrough: 4 runs, 2 of each with the first two girls, so easily 1+ hour, considering the time spent in the menu and fighting the Summoner. Saved 80k coins; will unlock the final two ladies l8r. P.S.: noticed there isn't a save system in place yet. Lost my coins when I closed the game. P.S.2.: noticed the game gives you 10k free coins each time you access the character selection screen. Welp.
Thank you for your extensive review, it was interesting to read the perceptive of someone who hasn't played Vampire Survivors, I know the game need many QoL but I will keep working and adding them as I go further on development. For example, I saw many people having problems finding the summoner, so I will fix that for the next update.
Really like the art. Level is too big and empty, I was lost when the Summoner appeared, needed to get to the corner of the map to get to the center, map or arrow to the boss would be nice.
Love the enemy variety, ghost girls are too slow for them to countered by just looking at them, if they would run as fast as spiders, they would become much more dangerous foe. Would love to read what upgrades do on mouse hover, rather than mouse click. On that note it would be great if you could read what upgrades do you have and how your stats are changed. I didn't felt that the enemies where scaling on the same level with me, I started to over damage all of them too fast. The only time I felt overwhelmed was at last 3 minutes, but then I hit a new power spike and didn't felt a pressure. The witch is really polished, but her shooting mechanic is really wonky, your damage box is lower than your staff so if the enemy comes too close to you, you could start missing at point blank or shooting in completely different direction.
When you exit/finish level, you get 10000 either way. Masteries tree doesn't save after exiting the level and you could stack them even after reset, "Help" button only for the witch girl.
I have double shot and lightning at 0 levelsGreat game nonetheless, would love to see it improve!
-Chose the first character, I was weirded out by how the magic cast point also flips with the character sprite. Also, said flipping will occur even while in the upgrade menu.
-Ghosts are already slow, making them like boos that stop while looking at them doesn't make any sense. Barely a threat.
-Quite easy to snowball. Once I found out that ice pierced, I was able to clear the later waves easy.
Alright VS like I suppose. Controller support is OK, but it sometimes(like alt tabbing) loses focus and then I need to click with the mouse again.
I usually struggle a lot with VS type games so the fact that I beat the game with the witch and bomber girl without dying by focusing on offensive upgrades only should mean that the difficulty can probably be increased. I had a blast though. Minor comment, would be nice if you could see an enemy's silhouette behind pillars.
Difficulty will increase in the future for sure, but I wanna do it bit by bit to make sure I don't screw the balancing from one update to another. Thank you for playing.
it's unclear how using the bombs work, at first i was pressing the mouse repeatedly, when in reality i had to hold it. when i died the game AND the score keeps counting i hope you will add some sfx for using bombs and getting hit next.
SFX is something I didn't focus to much in development because my focus right now is just gameplay stuff. But I must say there is already a sound manager I made in place, that's why there's music and a small sound when you pick gems. If I have finished the others character for the next update, I will add some SFX to the demo next time. Thank you for testing my game.
I have some experience in playing this sort of game in the ero variety, I can see the rudimentals of that sort of game here already so I'll comment on my experience playing through it.
Witchgirl goes a little schizo if you try to strafe and fire at the same time, looking left and right rapidly. Its cute, probably unintentional.
Witchgirl is super basic to the point that I am much happier having a secondary skill than her fireball, because I have to aim and hit and then collect the gem. That's a lot of processes. There could be more interesting upgrades like splitting her fireball into three and shooting in a cone rather than a bigger fireball upgrade to cover for this.
Bombergirl is intersting, I don't see this very often and she feels the exact reverse of Witchgirl, its quite fun to play because the answer to upgrades is always MORE BOMBS and pickup range. I was unsure if +fire added more damage to the bombs until I started stacking it. I get the feeling you can kick bombs, but I never got to pulling it off since I was always laying bombs anyway.
Summoner boss basically asks: Do you have enough AOE? If so, you can strafe him in circles until his summons > your pickup range. Its a good idea that his summons drop gems, though perhaps he could do with a cooldown of sorts as a first boss, like he gets tired after X summons and gives you a window to attack. There's also quite a bit of lag time before summoner finds you, perhaps spawn him a little nearer to the player?
You always get 10k gold when going in and out of the menu, so I tried unlocking the undeveloped characters (laugh). I should also note that it doesn't save your gold progress, which is understandable.
The summoner will be more complex in the future and they will come in different "flavors", I have plan of making some of them cast spells. Glad you liked the bomber girl. Thank you for sharing your experience of playing the game.
I like you recommendations, and I will considered them in the future, like the bombs changing appearance and the arrow pointing to the summoner. Thank you for playing my game.
Cute artstyle, distinct from the pixel look of VS and the other VS themed game. I noticed that holding on to left and right click at the same time makes the green girl glitch out. Might also want to replace the +2 health regen for a lower number since it snowballs quite easily.
Comments
Your game is progressing nicely.
Maybe masteries still need a better explaination, because in a stream we got pretty confused about them.
My only issue with your new demo is the summoner that spawns too randomly, and sometime you need to search for him for too much time. An arrow that points at him or making him spawn very close to you could resolve this.
I can't judge much about bombgirl because is still unfinished. I would like to kick upwards, make bombs explode when kicked to an enemy etc etc
Different builds already works with bombgirl, so gj on our system, it's pretty solid.
ED: in the stream there was a discussion about your chara design, the witch is meant to seem like a psiko or she is just smiling? For what I remember from fiends it seems your normal style, but who knows
Only watched streamers in previous DDs playing your game, first time playing myself.
Since she's new, i tried the bomber elf. Starting with only one placable bomb was a bit rocky, but thankfully she has lots of health. Kicking the bomb felt a bit useless however, even when being able to place more bombs. It seems you can only kick them horizontally? And since they go a long way i rarely hit anyone with it, so i just ran from big blobs of monsters and laid down bombs in my trail. Unlocking more and stronger bombs made it work like a charm.
So prioritized bomb force and number of bombs and noticed that at some point i could always drop a bomb with the main attack animation. That got me wondering: is it really tied to the animation? Because if it is, there is an upper limit to the number of bombs you can drop and any upgrades beyond that become useless.
In the end, clearing the level was super easy. A trail of big kabooms kills everyone i guess. Now add sound effects to both the bombs and the monsters being hit and the dopamine will flow!
Video Feedback: Needs more sound effects upgrades. Not sure where you are in development anyway.
I'mma be real with you, chief. I'll admit to real lad stuff right now: I haven't played Vampire Survivors yet. That's it. My feedback thus may come off as completely out of touch with the genre, or the LORD willing, somewhat valuable on the virtue of being unaffected by the expectations set forth by the bullet heaven gold standard; I'm leaving it here either way.
Sweet fireworks. I must say this is pretty much what I expected the VS-like genre to be from the many descriptions and scattered gameplay footage I might have seen through the years. More seasoned anons may mock me for my inexperience or not mind what I'll say at all, but I wouldn't mind investing time into this game as it plays right now if the greater content variety expected of the genre and the QoL features I felt the game was missing were already there.
The first of these QoL features could take one of many forms: a pre-run map, a compass, minimap or pronounced landmarks. A great positive in the current HUD is its tidiness. EXP bar on top, health, coins, and timer below. Just the right amount on information, allowing the player to focus their attention on what's going on in the game scene. The game currently plays fine without a mini-map or other orientation tools such as that, which may risk detracting from the experience. However, it's easy getting lost on the map, and one is powerless against this circumstance. During my first runs, I was convinced that aside from being timer-based, enemy spawns also varied by area. Further plays have shown me that this isn't quite the case, but even then, this could well be a feature in the future. Giving the player a way to find their way back to the center of the screen (or elsewhere) would be neat, be it by showing a map of the entire room before a run or in the pause menu so the player could grow familiar with its layout, using recognizable landmarks, or, more discreetly, with a compass pointing at the center of the room, maybe at the press of a key or only in the pause menu. I believe something like this is crucial when the Summoner arrives. I wandered for a good two minutes looking from him in my first run. I knew what to expect from the second run on, so it took less time. Still...
The masteries system befuddled me for a few minutes, but I figured it out in the end. I was expecting it to be some permanent RPG-like progression system, but it's more of a bonus picker for the girls with a few special rules in place. I believe the interface could be improved by making it clear which of the skills are available or locked before and after spending a given amount of skill points, and also by showing tooltips when hovering over the skill icons rather than some image you must open and close. I think there's enough space for that on the screen! BTW, there was no Help button on Bomber Girl's page. I bought her final mastery on my second playthrough even though I didn't know its effect. Looking back, considering what the icon looked like, I guess her bombs really were exploding in eight directions during my second playthrough...
Having a health bar for the hundreds of enemies onscreen would be jank, obviously, but again, I guess the Summoner and any other future bosses deserve a health bar that's as unintrusive as the EXP meter on the top of the screen, or at the very least, indicators that you're past a certain damage threshold on their sprites. Before I forget, speaking of damage and sprites, the girls need a more conspicuous way of showing they're taking damage. The stage on the demo is very chill with just a regen upgrade or two, but in future content, with increased difficulty, a player may want more feedback on damage other than the tiny flashing sprite in the middle of the massive enemy hordes.
The only balancing/gameplay complaints I have are: the Bomber Girl's secondary attack being a bit unresponsive and some issues I spotted with the Ice element. Fun fact: I only noticed there was secondary fire on my second playthrough with the first girl, the third overall. The first time around, I thought: "Bomber Girl would be top-tier if she could chuck the bombs". After discovering Main Girl's ice projectiles, I went back and tested Bomber Girl again. Well... at first I thought I didn't like that the bomb had no friction or that it never blows up on impact, but the real problem is that the kick doesn't connect well with the bomb. You have to hold the button until the animation reaches a certain point and you have to be in a certain position in relation to the bomb when that happens. It all kind of makes timing the bomb's explosion a chore. This may be by design, I know... but there's no reason to use the kick at all instead of just spamming bombs if that's so. My opinion is that allowing the girl to kick bombs she has just placed, without needing to move, or just any bomb her sprite happens to connect with, improves that move by magnitudes. As for the Ice element, it seems underpowered in relation to the other two, at least in my playstyle. I guess the Ice aura might be fine (didn't have many chances to pick it, more on that later), but this is especially apparent in Main Girl's secondary attack. A huge windup only to deal a fraction of the damage the blazing fast Fire skill does. All it needs is a good DMG multiplier. I'm sure you'll find the perfect value for it. :)
One more thing: the three elements being Fire, Ice and Lightning shows respect for the classics! Props for going with the definite JRPG elemental trio. I'm all for it.
I feel like the 10-minute timer is an improvement over the 30-minute one I hear ascribed to Vampire Survivors. Just as balanced as the HUD.
(I've noticed there are two regen bonuses offered by the game: a 0.5/s and a 2/s one. One of these two bonuses has a tooltip that mentions the Ice aura, and I remember getting a prompt to activate the real Ice aura only once. Sus. Try checking if this is unintended behavior.)
As a final consideration, want to boost this project's crack potential? Show us the variables. I wanna keep track of what Level my girl is and how many gems she has collected. I wanna check out how many Lightning strikes I have, the size of my flame bullets, my movement speed. The numbers! Show us the numbers! (But always keep the HUD clean. I guess the only thing I'd want to see at all times during play is the character's Level; the rest of the stats can be relegated to the pause screen or to a toggle from the options menu, like The Binding of Isaac's "Found HUD".)
Art is peak appeal and rich in personality. Bomber Girl is CUTE and DUMB!! I am utterly powerless here and my words may even be marketing poison; please forgive the insolence and scratch everything I say if you must, but I implore you not to make the future characters ultra coomerbait. Girl #4 is enough. Your art shines bright as it is; it doesn't need to up the ante from there.
Playthrough: 4 runs, 2 of each with the first two girls, so easily 1+ hour, considering the time spent in the menu and fighting the Summoner. Saved 80k coins; will unlock the final two ladies l8r.
P.S.: noticed there isn't a save system in place yet. Lost my coins when I closed the game.
P.S.2.: noticed the game gives you 10k free coins each time you access the character selection screen. Welp.
Thank you for your extensive review, it was interesting to read the perceptive of someone who hasn't played Vampire Survivors, I know the game need many QoL but I will keep working and adding them as I go further on development. For example, I saw many people having problems finding the summoner, so I will fix that for the next update.
Its really cute and simple game.
Really like the art.
Level is too big and empty, I was lost when the Summoner appeared, needed to get to the corner of the map to get to the center, map or arrow to the boss would be nice.
Love the enemy variety, ghost girls are too slow for them to countered by just looking at them, if they would run as fast as spiders, they would become much more dangerous foe.
Would love to read what upgrades do on mouse hover, rather than mouse click. On that note it would be great if you could read what upgrades do you have and how your stats are changed.
I didn't felt that the enemies where scaling on the same level with me, I started to over damage all of them too fast.
The only time I felt overwhelmed was at last 3 minutes, but then I hit a new power spike and didn't felt a pressure.
The witch is really polished, but her shooting mechanic is really wonky, your damage box is lower than your staff so if the enemy comes too close to you, you could start missing at point blank or shooting in completely different direction.
When you exit/finish level, you get 10000 either way.
Masteries tree doesn't save after exiting the level and you could stack them even after reset, "Help" button only for the witch girl.
Thank you for your feedback, I will keep in mind the points about the ghost girl and the summoner.
-Chose the first character, I was weirded out by how the magic cast point also flips with the character sprite. Also, said flipping will occur even while in the upgrade menu.
-Ghosts are already slow, making them like boos that stop while looking at them doesn't make any sense. Barely a threat.
-Quite easy to snowball. Once I found out that ice pierced, I was able to clear the later waves easy.
Alright VS like I suppose. Controller support is OK, but it sometimes(like alt tabbing) loses focus and then I need to click with the mouse again.
I didn't know the alt tap thing, I will try to fix it. Thank you for playing the demo.
I usually struggle a lot with VS type games so the fact that I beat the game with the witch and bomber girl without dying by focusing on offensive upgrades only should mean that the difficulty can probably be increased. I had a blast though. Minor comment, would be nice if you could see an enemy's silhouette behind pillars.
Difficulty will increase in the future for sure, but I wanna do it bit by bit to make sure I don't screw the balancing from one update to another. Thank you for playing.
it's unclear how using the bombs work, at first i was pressing the mouse repeatedly, when in reality i had to hold it.
when i died the game AND the score keeps counting
i hope you will add some sfx for using bombs and getting hit next.
SFX is something I didn't focus to much in development because my focus right now is just gameplay stuff. But I must say there is already a sound manager I made in place, that's why there's music and a small sound when you pick gems. If I have finished the others character for the next update, I will add some SFX to the demo next time. Thank you for testing my game.
I have some experience in playing this sort of game in the ero variety, I can see the rudimentals of that sort of game here already so I'll comment on my experience playing through it.
Witchgirl goes a little schizo if you try to strafe and fire at the same time, looking left and right rapidly. Its cute, probably unintentional.
Witchgirl is super basic to the point that I am much happier having a secondary skill than her fireball, because I have to aim and hit and then collect the gem. That's a lot of processes. There could be more interesting upgrades like splitting her fireball into three and shooting in a cone rather than a bigger fireball upgrade to cover for this.
Bombergirl is intersting, I don't see this very often and she feels the exact reverse of Witchgirl, its quite fun to play because the answer to upgrades is always MORE BOMBS and pickup range. I was unsure if +fire added more damage to the bombs until I started stacking it. I get the feeling you can kick bombs, but I never got to pulling it off since I was always laying bombs anyway.
Summoner boss basically asks: Do you have enough AOE? If so, you can strafe him in circles until his summons > your pickup range. Its a good idea that his summons drop gems, though perhaps he could do with a cooldown of sorts as a first boss, like he gets tired after X summons and gives you a window to attack. There's also quite a bit of lag time before summoner finds you, perhaps spawn him a little nearer to the player?
You always get 10k gold when going in and out of the menu, so I tried unlocking the undeveloped characters (laugh). I should also note that it doesn't save your gold progress, which is understandable.
Good luck DungeonWatcherdev!
The summoner will be more complex in the future and they will come in different "flavors", I have plan of making some of them cast spells. Glad you liked the bomber girl. Thank you for sharing your experience of playing the game.
Bombgirl a cutie, should be able to kick bombs up and down and not only to the side.
Holding down bomb and kick at the same time creates something funny.
Told you this already, but music is good but could use some different instrumentation.
Enemyvariety is becoming really good, quite like the spiders in particular and that janky movement pattern.
Bombella is a bit harder to play with, which is probably good.
When choosing more bombforce, actual bombs should get slightly bigger.
Once enough bomb force has been acquired, change out the sprites of the bombs to cooler bombs with skulls on them.
Another upgrade for Bombietta could be “quicker explosion” meaning that the bombs blow up earlier.
Eventually this would lead to bombs triggering as soon as you drop them, making her a permanent explosion.
Add an arrow pointing towards the summoner when he spawns. Summoner looks great btw.
I like you recommendations, and I will considered them in the future, like the bombs changing appearance and the arrow pointing to the summoner. Thank you for playing my game.
Cute artstyle, distinct from the pixel look of VS and the other VS themed game. I noticed that holding on to left and right click at the same time makes the green girl glitch out. Might also want to replace the +2 health regen for a lower number since it snowballs quite easily.
I will fix that glicht for sure, it was something I forgot to fix on her code. Thank you playing.