I liked it, models for guns and hand animations are good, I like the level design even if it's a little chaotic, atmosphere is great, but I have some 'thoughts'
-dying enemies are just switching from alive to dead sprites, It'd be nice to have something in between
-2D elements are invisible when standing behind them, buddha statues, pots and probably ammo have this problem
-interesting level design but it suffers from empty rooms/not enough decals. First level starts with a high note, going through the kitchen feels natural, and then we have plenty of same looking corridors. Second level is much better in that regard, but again hospital is just a shell.
-default tommygun guy gets tiring after a while, you need at least two extra variations of that guy, throw him a white hat or a brown jacket, way too many swanky gangsters around there.
-enemy's AI can be cheesed, they should also be a little more active when in range. They either charge you to be closer or stand in place to shoot you. They should pop a shot or two when away as well, when in range they should give you a break once in a while to 'reload' their guns or to reposition themselves.
-some parts of the levels are very dark. So dark it's either turn all of your lights in your room or walk blindly.
-No real options in video settings. Can't increase the brightness, can't decrease th quality of the game. "but why, it's a boomer shooter", right? Well...
- the game doesn't run flawlessly for me. I have stutters and FPS drops in open areas. My gear isn't exactly high end, but it can handle GTA V and Yakuza 0 without issues so it's kind of surprising it slows down in places.
- no secrets. Come on, I wanna secrets in boomer shooters! Hidden switches, destructible walls, alternative ways, elevators. I feel that a second part of a first level should be hidden behind a big painting or a big barrel of wine, so the player feels like he's uncovering a secret organization in the basement of a restaurant. It's not a secret per se, but a nice touch of enviromental storytelling xP
You've got a really cool game on your hands here. Some notes, and things I would like to see:
Muzzle flash is too high. I'm epileptic, and it feels a little seizurific.
The tommy gun feels great to use. Great job.
The pistol is fun, but I'm old and arthritic. I'd like to see a hold-to-fire feature in the future, even if it fires at a rate that's significantly lower than the maximum fire speed.
I'm a big fan of sprites over 3D models in boomie shooties for enemies and pickups, so you get points from me for that. Your enemy sprites have a lot of charm.
More precision on the volume sliders would be nice. Volume 2 is too high, and 1 is too low for my PC, so I had to adjust it in the Windows volume controller.
Due to the combination of the way the AI works, enemy bullet travel speed, the size of the levels and the fact that the pistol has infinite ammo, it's very easy to cheat the AI and just stay out of range while unloading into them. Large groups can also easily be hitstunned simultaneously with how fast the pistol fires. Encounters become pretty trivial because of that.
Level 2 has some really cool stuff going on (I liked the climb to the top of a building on one side of the map to grab a key) but it's pretty easy to get lost in.
I really like the setting.
All in all, great job so far. I hope my bullet list doesn't sound overly negative, because I had a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Felt like the second level is too big. Like - maybe twice the size? Definitely outstayed it's welcome, especially compared to the first level.
The dogs deal too much damage, in my opinion, and too fast. And the flamethrower is not fun to use - feels really underpowered. However I think this can be changed with proper balancing.
Flamer guys don't react if they get shot from far away. Dunno if it's a bug or not.
I really like overall design of this game. It feels cohesive, somehow. Enemy designs are very different and easy to read even if they are far away, which is good for prioritizing targets. So overall - I liked it. Keep it up!
Really surprisingly fun, and the levels have a lot of content
Sound design seriously needs work, but i suspect its still fairly early on with placeholders; repeating noises get grating and multiple enemies having the same hit noises can be confusing in combat
Movement is extremely fun despite being pretty simple, would probably be a lot of fun to speedrun this
It's the first time I try Shangai Gold. Cool game, I think there's unexplored territory with this setting. I assume you are fighting for/against the triads in some capacity because of the night club and all the tuxedo guys.
The main theme and weapon sounds are good, but I think dogs keep barking after death. They need their own death sound like the tuxedo guys. On the topic of feedback, I think it could be more clear when the player is taking damage.
The weapons are standard, but that's fine. I think the flamethrower doesn't stun enemies which makes it really risky but that weapon is bad in every game so designing one must be an uphill battle.
I think the different colored lights to indicate what key is needed in what area is brilliant and the levels have a great flow as a result while also feeling like natural locations. Green hospital, key behind sewer grate, blue tram going around, etc. It's all good. I didn't even check if there was a minimap because I didn't need it.
In the second stage, the open spaces seem to favor the player more than the enemies because you can easily snipe them from afar with the pistol. The same can be done in corners revealing the shortcomings of the AI which is rather unfortunate. Also, it's a bit too dark underwater.
Really liked the theme, would love to see different locations that this setting will provide. Pain stunning is either from any shot (simple gunman) or you can't (dogs, cultists). Would love to not being able to stun whole squad of goons with just a pistol. I liked how good it played, movement, shooting, map layout of 2nd level. Projectiles are fair, yes, but if all enemy's shoot projectile, it feels too easy. (You can make pacifist run in 1st level blindly) Not sure why do you need to always have your weapons visible on the left. I would love to know their ammo count thought
Your shotgun shoots 2 bullets per click, if you have 1 bullet you just cook your shotgun and waste ammo. Stairs from the road to the fountain (black ones) on second level are not climbable. If you jump in a train you fall under it's floor and can't get up (until it stops)
Major step in a good direction, pretty amazed with the scope of progress within last two months. If you continue on the same trajectory you're gonna make it.
Two suggestions - Dogs and the way they work ask for some sort of melee attack, like a kick. Second - If you allow infinite mob generation, you should either have them drop enough ammo, or find another way to obtain it.
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it. I worked my ass off getting this done in time, so I'm happy that it seems to have paid off. A melee key is definitely something I could add. I'm sure the player has a sword tucked away for those close quarters encounters. Mobs aren't actually infinitely respawning as well, but it can sometimes appear that way because of the big map and large aggro distances of the enemies. Could definitely do with some tweaking.
Cool theme, the environments are nice and interesting. There is a possible future vibe getting through here. Big slow bullets are a nice touch from the enemies and look nice visually. Flamethrower-fire looks cool.
Bad stuff:
The main menu music is atrocious, not in how it fits thematically or the melodies, but in how it is mixed, really annoying. Streetsmusic is also bad, but it is not intrusive. The amount of enemies makes it hard to get a closer look at the environments, endless spawning might not be the way to go, it just becomes piles of guys following you.
Gunanimation plays way to quickly. Muzzle flash for tommy gun disappears when continuously shooting, it also plays the shooting sfx when out of ammo if you keep clicking or holding down. I think there being no delay between firing a weapon might be the thing that creates some issues.
Thanks for playing! The muzzle flash not showing is due to it being a one frame animation which won't always show if your frame rate isn't locked. Not too sure how to fix it.
It’s early and you’re probably aware of most of these but here’s my mixed bag of notes:
Need more satisfying bullet impacts, I’d also do gun smoke and consider tracers (more toned down than enemies’).
I’d try toned down enemy tracers, they’re so glowy while also not even casting light.
Pistol is too bad, I’d at least give it first shot full accuracy and/or spread should only increase when rapid firing.
Pistol shoots as fast as you can click, and talking about clicks, hold-to-fire would save a lot of unnecessary burning through mice microswitch endurances.
Headshots should do higher damage (or they already do? couldn’t tell).
Tommygun firing sound when empty.
1.5 GB unzipped seems high, duplicate/unused content? something uncompressed/ too high res/q? Check the build log.
Performance shouldn’t be this “low”. I am getting 70-90 FPS on my toaster but with the way it looks it should be 144 locked easy; Is any of the lighting baked? I saw some (all?) of the lights had dynamic shadows, understandable this early but I wouldn’t stick with that and if I did I’d look into taking more advantage of it. Post processing quality settings probably set too high without noticeable benefit (vs lower) too.
Movie 📸
Scaling of buildings/objects is way off at times but I guess this is intentional?
Second level chugs down to 40 when looking towards the bulk of it, need occlusion+distance culling
Skybox and moonlight don’t match (intentional?)
Second level looked inviting and promising but between the bad framerate and being stuck with the crappy pistol after having aggroed too many enemies I had to cut it short.
I died intentionally just to see what happens, the message is nice but I’d take a restart level button before assuming I’m about to quit and shown the exit, lol
Some of the points I had were already said by the others commenting.
The flamer's projectiles are a bit slow considering how fast you run, maybe they could inherit the player's speed? The shotgun felt great, the tommy gun less so because imo the generic grunts are a little bit too spongy. Not that it was too hard or anything, but it was a little annoying having to wail on them with the pistol. I noticed bullets go through them so they feel less spongy when they're clustered together. The only other annoying part was fighting around ladders.
The boxy 3D environment clashes a little bit with the sprites, but the weird scale is more distracting: the environment is way too big in relation to the enemies and the player. Especially noticeable with the stairs being so steep and the toilet stalls being gigantic. This is more of an issue in the first level, the second one looks better imo.
The first level had the exit open from the start which I think it's a bug because the green key doesn't open anything as far as I can tell. The second level had those cool scripted sequences like the cars unloading grunts and the tram, but it was a bit dispersive, it took me a while to find the green key and the sewers and until I did it felt like I was wandering around aimlessly killing grunts instead of progressing somewhere. Just a me thing tbh, I prefer boomer shooter levels to be a bit more focused. Also the dark parts are too dark, like in the underwater section of the sewer it was hard to see anything idk if I missed a torch feature or something like that.
But yeah it was a fun demo. It doesn't really have any uniqueness when it comes to enemies and weapons, but I guess it's just the early levels so it's forgivable. Will definitely play more next DD!
Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback. I definitely want it to have more uniqueness. Dragons, chinese monsters, a firework weapon, powerup abilities, etc.
It’s really nice and moody. Killing dogs is always funny in games. You can outrange the enemies pretty easily, and even spam the “Tommy-gun” I believe it’s called, but that’s fun. The levels are well designed as well. The theme of the game is really nice. Game’s pretty balanced overall. Had a lot of fun playing the game.
* The visuals seem a bit weird because of the highly detailed environments and "cardboard" style sprites only facing forward. (Not the same as Doom or Duke having low res sprites and "blockier" geometry).
* I did like how picking up the blue key in the bar level lead to additional guys in the previous areas.
* Rooms do feel a bit big and the level design can be a bit confusing.
* The variety of enemies and weapons seems fine and I like the car with guys coming out.
* I can't figure how enemies dropping pickups works. Is it RNG?
* The city level got super confusing by the sewer area: First there was a hole that I had to use crouch to get into and then a swimming area where I couldn't tell where to go. I think stuff like lightning, field of view etc could be improved here.
* I find it strange the game starts with the machinegun when the pistol is usually the "starter" weapon (Specially since it has infinite ammo and there's that issue where if you run out of ammo, the game doesn't automatically switch to one that does).
There are some fun parts here and maybe some comments are me being picky but some stuff does feel weird.
Thanks for playing. The game is definitely in a "weird" stage of development, where nothing is quite certain and ideas are still forming. By next DD, I'll try to have it polished a bit.
I tried playing on Linux over proton but the new level just gives me the HUD on a black screen. I can hear shooting when I click but I can’t see anything.
Yep, that works. It does chug when you look towards the middle of the new level, but I don’t think that’s platform-specific. There’s something funky going on with the mouse sensitivity, feels like there’s an extreme amount of acceleration being applied. If the framerate’s low and I move just a little bit it doesn’t appear to move at all.
Considering that, it’s for the best the enemies don’t do a huge amount of damage because sometimes being dropped into a room or having to deal with the dogs at super-short range it’s really difficult to draw a bead on them.
Something’s weird with the sound device detection on this game, it defaulted to my monitor instead of my headphones despite the latter being the default, odd.
I like the little touch of verticality going up through the buildings to get to the key. The new map in general has a lot of vertical movement which I like, though if you move through it too fast I could see you aggroing most of the enemies in the whole map at once.
I didn’t see the shotgun before I picked it up on the second floor of the building with the green lighting. I saw the shells but wandering around nearby the shotgun just appeared in my hands. I did see the actual pickup in other parts of the level so maybe I got it through the wall or something.
Something’s messing up with the pause menu when I alt-tab. When I tab back in the mouse is invisible.
I was a little worried pulling the lever underground, thinking it might electrocute me being in knee-deep water!
All in all, a good second outing. Looking forward to see what you do for DD56.
Game looks really nice, especially the environments. First level flows nice and has a good pace, was only confused a bit at the end since I picked up the last key but apparently the exit door was already open for me.
Pistol has no cooldown, and is fairly weak which makes it a bit too clicky when you have no ammo, especially with how easy it is to stun and stunlock enemies. Shotgun has no cooldown either, and the pump animation is pretty bad (didn't even notice it was there for a long time). Personally I kinda like the concept of rapid semi-auto shotgun for this game, it's just the pump-action model doesn't communicate that it would work like that. Flamethrower is funky with the fact that you can outrun the projectiles, and desperately needs specific death animation to feel good using it. Picking up items also feel like they don't have much feedback at the moment, I only noticed they have that quiet pickupsound by the second level.
Second level is a lot more open and can be a bit confusing at times. The color-coding of the doors is not great sometimes (for example, the green key is used in the green building, but only in one doors - the other one needs the red key?) Having it hinted with colored lighting is an insteresting solution (definitely helps from a distance to give a clue on where to go) but having the doors themselves some kind of indicator of which key they need could be great. Also the tram needing both a key and having debree blocking it is a bit overkill in my opinion. The sewer section is also not that great, especially the part where you have to go through the underwater tunnel with barely any vision killed the pace a little for me with how many times I ended up turning around by not seeing where I'm going.
The setpieces are nice, going through the tram section is neat and having the car pull up with the guys coming out the first time was really cool, but I feel like it got a bit overused afterwards.
There are some bugs with the street level: the pool/fountain in the middle has solid water, and there's some z-fighting near it at the right of the stairs. I also fell through a couple of stairs during that level, but at least was managed to get out every time.
The game is cool -- Beat both levels. It feels nice to play; the setting is original; the atmosphere is great. I don't like xoomer shooters.
The art direction is alright but like many others have said before the mismatched graphics are the biggest downside to this whole game. This single screenshot sums it up perfectly.
All the assets individually are great, but they don't match at all. It's like a crazy mashup of 4-5 different styles.
Wish I could break bottles by shooting them.
Flamethrower guy is intimidating but doesn't offer much of a challenge compared to the other enemies.
Flamethrower is cool. Really like using that.
Can't climb some steep stairs without jumping.
Tommy gun doesn't hold enough ammo.
Sewers were a bit difficult to get around in. You can't see very well underwater.
The base pistol could use a reload to make it a bit more balanced. As it is now I can just spam it from 10 miles away as an isntant win button.
Thanks for playing. The mismatching art style frustrates me too. Wish there was an easy fix for it. I'm looking forward to the stage where I can take the time and do things like make breakable bottles. If I'm doing that, then the game will be going well.
Played through both levels, some short thoughts on it:
Needs an invert Y axis mouse option, keyrebinding
FoV is a bit low for me, or consider a FoV slider
First level starts a bit odd with an enemy right infront of you
Guns need more impact effects, blood isn't visible enough I think. Sparks when shooting walls etc. I'd like it if your bullets had tracers too.
Scroll wheel should change weapon too
Not that fond of the crosshair
The shadows on the enemies are a bit too weak and can barely be seen, makes the game look flat. I'd even consider removing the realistic shadows and just use circular shadows below their feet.
Regular mook enemies are a bit too bullet spungy. They're also not that interesting to fight; the way they will pathfind single file towards you, maybe put a random chance for them to go into the pain state. It's not really a problem to have a very basic enemy, but it gets a bit dull when they're the majority of enemies you fight and not mixed with many other types of enemies. Could give them some different weapons too to mix it up, wouldn't have to make all new sprites then; like grenades, molotovs, pistols, shotguns, knives, etc.
Feels like you can't carry enough bullets for the tommy gun, the shotgun doesn't have this problem at all in comparison.
Trying to shoot with an empty tommy gun still plays the shoot sound.
Opening the large doors on the first level also teleports you inside for some reason?
My flamethrower disappeared after entering the 2nd level
I like the enemies spawning in, especially when they come at you with the cars.
Furniture in restaurant on 2nd level has no collision
Dogs running around with just the front facing sprite looks pretty goofy
Flamethrower is nice but I think it should set people on fire too, not just the ground
I really didn't like swimming around the sewers when you can't see anything at all, I hugged the floor and walls and fired wildly with the pistol to see anything at all.
Having to shoot apart the wood planks infront of the tram was pretty weird, also I don't know if you could shoot them apart with the pistol? Didn't seem like it.
Enemies don't like stairs and can be cheesed often:
Comments
I liked it, models for guns and hand animations are good, I like the level design even if it's a little chaotic, atmosphere is great, but I have some 'thoughts'
-dying enemies are just switching from alive to dead sprites, It'd be nice to have something in between
-2D elements are invisible when standing behind them, buddha statues, pots and probably ammo have this problem
-interesting level design but it suffers from empty rooms/not enough decals. First level starts with a high note, going through the kitchen feels natural, and then we have plenty of same looking corridors. Second level is much better in that regard, but again hospital is just a shell.
-default tommygun guy gets tiring after a while, you need at least two extra variations of that guy, throw him a white hat or a brown jacket, way too many swanky gangsters around there.
-enemy's AI can be cheesed, they should also be a little more active when in range. They either charge you to be closer or stand in place to shoot you. They should pop a shot or two when away as well, when in range they should give you a break once in a while to 'reload' their guns or to reposition themselves.
-some parts of the levels are very dark. So dark it's either turn all of your lights in your room or walk blindly.
-No real options in video settings. Can't increase the brightness, can't decrease th quality of the game. "but why, it's a boomer shooter", right? Well...
- the game doesn't run flawlessly for me. I have stutters and FPS drops in open areas. My gear isn't exactly high end, but it can handle GTA V and Yakuza 0 without issues so it's kind of surprising it slows down in places.
- no secrets. Come on, I wanna secrets in boomer shooters! Hidden switches, destructible walls, alternative ways, elevators. I feel that a second part of a first level should be hidden behind a big painting or a big barrel of wine, so the player feels like he's uncovering a secret organization in the basement of a restaurant. It's not a secret per se, but a nice touch of enviromental storytelling xP
You've got a really cool game on your hands here. Some notes, and things I would like to see:
All in all, great job so far. I hope my bullet list doesn't sound overly negative, because I had a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Felt like the second level is too big. Like - maybe twice the size? Definitely outstayed it's welcome, especially compared to the first level.
The dogs deal too much damage, in my opinion, and too fast. And the flamethrower is not fun to use - feels really underpowered. However I think this can be changed with proper balancing.
Flamer guys don't react if they get shot from far away. Dunno if it's a bug or not.
I really like overall design of this game. It feels cohesive, somehow. Enemy designs are very different and easy to read even if they are far away, which is good for prioritizing targets. So overall - I liked it. Keep it up!
Really surprisingly fun, and the levels have a lot of content
Sound design seriously needs work, but i suspect its still fairly early on with placeholders; repeating noises get grating and multiple enemies having the same hit noises can be confusing in combat
Movement is extremely fun despite being pretty simple, would probably be a lot of fun to speedrun this
the maze in the second level is kind of miserable
It's the first time I try Shangai Gold. Cool game, I think there's unexplored territory with this setting. I assume you are fighting for/against the triads in some capacity because of the night club and all the tuxedo guys.
The main theme and weapon sounds are good, but I think dogs keep barking after death. They need their own death sound like the tuxedo guys. On the topic of feedback, I think it could be more clear when the player is taking damage.
The weapons are standard, but that's fine. I think the flamethrower doesn't stun enemies which makes it really risky but that weapon is bad in every game so designing one must be an uphill battle.
I think the different colored lights to indicate what key is needed in what area is brilliant and the levels have a great flow as a result while also feeling like natural locations. Green hospital, key behind sewer grate, blue tram going around, etc. It's all good. I didn't even check if there was a minimap because I didn't need it.
In the second stage, the open spaces seem to favor the player more than the enemies because you can easily snipe them from afar with the pistol. The same can be done in corners revealing the shortcomings of the AI which is rather unfortunate. Also, it's a bit too dark underwater.
Great work.
It felt really good.
Really liked the theme, would love to see different locations that this setting will provide.
Pain stunning is either from any shot (simple gunman) or you can't (dogs, cultists). Would love to not being able to stun whole squad of goons with just a pistol.
I liked how good it played, movement, shooting, map layout of 2nd level.
Projectiles are fair, yes, but if all enemy's shoot projectile, it feels too easy. (You can make pacifist run in 1st level blindly)
Not sure why do you need to always have your weapons visible on the left. I would love to know their ammo count thought
Your shotgun shoots 2 bullets per click, if you have 1 bullet you just cook your shotgun and waste ammo.
Stairs from the road to the fountain (black ones) on second level are not climbable.
If you jump in a train you fall under it's floor and can't get up (until it stops)
Very impressed with how this is shaping it. Its fun and I think it looks really good.
I think its a bit easy lost on the Streets level though and some of the rooms in that level are too dark.
Looking forward to seeing more of it.
Thanks so much for playing! Glad you liked it.
Major step in a good direction, pretty amazed with the scope of progress within last two months. If you continue on the same trajectory you're gonna make it.
Two suggestions - Dogs and the way they work ask for some sort of melee attack, like a kick. Second - If you allow infinite mob generation, you should either have them drop enough ammo, or find another way to obtain it.
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it. I worked my ass off getting this done in time, so I'm happy that it seems to have paid off. A melee key is definitely something I could add. I'm sure the player has a sword tucked away for those close quarters encounters. Mobs aren't actually infinitely respawning as well, but it can sometimes appear that way because of the big map and large aggro distances of the enemies. Could definitely do with some tweaking.
Good stuff:
Cool theme, the environments are nice and interesting. There is a possible future vibe getting through here. Big slow bullets are a nice touch from the enemies and look nice visually. Flamethrower-fire looks cool.
Bad stuff:
The main menu music is atrocious, not in how it fits thematically or the melodies, but in how it is mixed, really annoying. Streetsmusic is also bad, but it is not intrusive. The amount of enemies makes it hard to get a closer look at the environments, endless spawning might not be the way to go, it just becomes piles of guys following you.
Gunanimation plays way to quickly. Muzzle flash for tommy gun disappears when continuously shooting, it also plays the shooting sfx when out of ammo if you keep clicking or holding down. I think there being no delay between firing a weapon might be the thing that creates some issues.
Flamethrower sfx needs to be replaced.
Thanks for playing! The muzzle flash not showing is due to it being a one frame animation which won't always show if your frame rate isn't locked. Not too sure how to fix it.
It’s early and you’re probably aware of most of these but here’s my mixed bag of notes:
Some of the points I had were already said by the others commenting.
Thanks for playing! I'll look into all of those things you listed.
Movie 📸
Not bad! It was fun.
The flamer's projectiles are a bit slow considering how fast you run, maybe they could inherit the player's speed?
The shotgun felt great, the tommy gun less so because imo the generic grunts are a little bit too spongy.
Not that it was too hard or anything, but it was a little annoying having to wail on them with the pistol.
I noticed bullets go through them so they feel less spongy when they're clustered together.
The only other annoying part was fighting around ladders.
The boxy 3D environment clashes a little bit with the sprites, but the weird scale is more distracting: the environment is way too big in relation to the enemies and the player.
Especially noticeable with the stairs being so steep and the toilet stalls being gigantic. This is more of an issue in the first level, the second one looks better imo.
The first level had the exit open from the start which I think it's a bug because the green key doesn't open anything as far as I can tell.
The second level had those cool scripted sequences like the cars unloading grunts and the tram, but it was a bit dispersive, it took me a while to find the green key and the sewers and until I did it felt like I was wandering around aimlessly killing grunts instead of progressing somewhere.
Just a me thing tbh, I prefer boomer shooter levels to be a bit more focused.
Also the dark parts are too dark, like in the underwater section of the sewer it was hard to see anything idk if I missed a torch feature or something like that.
But yeah it was a fun demo.
It doesn't really have any uniqueness when it comes to enemies and weapons, but I guess it's just the early levels so it's forgivable.
Will definitely play more next DD!
Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback. I definitely want it to have more uniqueness. Dragons, chinese monsters, a firework weapon, powerup abilities, etc.
It’s really nice and moody. Killing dogs is always funny in games. You can outrange the enemies pretty easily, and even spam the “Tommy-gun” I believe it’s called, but that’s fun. The levels are well designed as well. The theme of the game is really nice. Game’s pretty balanced overall. Had a lot of fun playing the game.
Thank you! Glad you had fun. I think the dogs are the best enemy.
* The visuals seem a bit weird because of the highly detailed environments and "cardboard" style sprites only facing forward. (Not the same as Doom or Duke having low res sprites and "blockier" geometry).
* I did like how picking up the blue key in the bar level lead to additional guys in the previous areas.
* Rooms do feel a bit big and the level design can be a bit confusing.
* The variety of enemies and weapons seems fine and I like the car with guys coming out.
* I can't figure how enemies dropping pickups works. Is it RNG?
* The city level got super confusing by the sewer area: First there was a hole that I had to use crouch to get into and then a swimming area where I couldn't tell where to go. I think stuff like lightning, field of view etc could be improved here.
* I find it strange the game starts with the machinegun when the pistol is usually the "starter" weapon (Specially since it has infinite ammo and there's that issue where if you run out of ammo, the game doesn't automatically switch to one that does).
There are some fun parts here and maybe some comments are me being picky but some stuff does feel weird.
Thanks for playing. The game is definitely in a "weird" stage of development, where nothing is quite certain and ideas are still forming. By next DD, I'll try to have it polished a bit.
I tried playing on Linux over proton but the new level just gives me the HUD on a black screen. I can hear shooting when I click but I can’t see anything.
Sorry about that. I've uploaded a Linux build and hopefully that works. If it does, I'll try to support Linux from now on.
Yep, that works. It does chug when you look towards the middle of the new level, but I don’t think that’s platform-specific. There’s something funky going on with the mouse sensitivity, feels like there’s an extreme amount of acceleration being applied. If the framerate’s low and I move just a little bit it doesn’t appear to move at all.
Considering that, it’s for the best the enemies don’t do a huge amount of damage because sometimes being dropped into a room or having to deal with the dogs at super-short range it’s really difficult to draw a bead on them.
Something’s weird with the sound device detection on this game, it defaulted to my monitor instead of my headphones despite the latter being the default, odd.
I like the little touch of verticality going up through the buildings to get to the key. The new map in general has a lot of vertical movement which I like, though if you move through it too fast I could see you aggroing most of the enemies in the whole map at once.
I didn’t see the shotgun before I picked it up on the second floor of the building with the green lighting. I saw the shells but wandering around nearby the shotgun just appeared in my hands. I did see the actual pickup in other parts of the level so maybe I got it through the wall or something.
Something’s messing up with the pause menu when I alt-tab. When I tab back in the mouse is invisible.
I was a little worried pulling the lever underground, thinking it might electrocute me being in knee-deep water!
All in all, a good second outing. Looking forward to see what you do for DD56.
Game looks really nice, especially the environments. First level flows nice and has a good pace, was only confused a bit at the end since I picked up the last key but apparently the exit door was already open for me.
Pistol has no cooldown, and is fairly weak which makes it a bit too clicky when you have no ammo, especially with how easy it is to stun and stunlock enemies. Shotgun has no cooldown either, and the pump animation is pretty bad (didn't even notice it was there for a long time). Personally I kinda like the concept of rapid semi-auto shotgun for this game, it's just the pump-action model doesn't communicate that it would work like that. Flamethrower is funky with the fact that you can outrun the projectiles, and desperately needs specific death animation to feel good using it. Picking up items also feel like they don't have much feedback at the moment, I only noticed they have that quiet pickupsound by the second level.
Second level is a lot more open and can be a bit confusing at times. The color-coding of the doors is not great sometimes (for example, the green key is used in the green building, but only in one doors - the other one needs the red key?) Having it hinted with colored lighting is an insteresting solution (definitely helps from a distance to give a clue on where to go) but having the doors themselves some kind of indicator of which key they need could be great. Also the tram needing both a key and having debree blocking it is a bit overkill in my opinion. The sewer section is also not that great, especially the part where you have to go through the underwater tunnel with barely any vision killed the pace a little for me with how many times I ended up turning around by not seeing where I'm going.
The setpieces are nice, going through the tram section is neat and having the car pull up with the guys coming out the first time was really cool, but I feel like it got a bit overused afterwards.
There are some bugs with the street level: the pool/fountain in the middle has solid water, and there's some z-fighting near it at the right of the stairs. I also fell through a couple of stairs during that level, but at least was managed to get out every time.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I'll have a look into those things.
The game is cool -- Beat both levels. It feels nice to play; the setting is original; the atmosphere is great. I don't like xoomer shooters.
The art direction is alright but like many others have said before the mismatched graphics are the biggest downside to this whole game. This single screenshot sums it up perfectly.
All the assets individually are great, but they don't match at all. It's like a crazy mashup of 4-5 different styles.
Wish I could break bottles by shooting them.
Flamethrower guy is intimidating but doesn't offer much of a challenge compared to the other enemies.
Flamethrower is cool. Really like using that.
Can't climb some steep stairs without jumping.
Tommy gun doesn't hold enough ammo.
Sewers were a bit difficult to get around in. You can't see very well underwater.
The base pistol could use a reload to make it a bit more balanced. As it is now I can just spam it from 10 miles away as an isntant win button.
Bonus: Floating candlestick
Thanks for playing. The mismatching art style frustrates me too. Wish there was an easy fix for it. I'm looking forward to the stage where I can take the time and do things like make breakable bottles. If I'm doing that, then the game will be going well.
Played through both levels, some short thoughts on it:
https://files.catbox.moe/79pxgw.webm
https://files.catbox.moe/wqwpqk.webm
Thanks so much for playing, and for the great list of suggestions. Many will be implemented.