So much progress since I last played. I mentioned in the stream some of the combat issues I had. There was a few bugs as well regarding spawning in wrong rooms. Can't wait to see more of the game in the future.
That was a really funny glitch. What was happening there was that the movement system "remembered" which direction you were holding by the time the transition to the next level began. Consequently, you were forced to move up into the room against your will.
I enjoyed your stream a lot, and I'll be sure to address the issues you brought up.
A very promising start, the gameplay is already fun despite being so stripped down in terms of content. With that out of the way, here are my findings.
Pits are very unwieldy in this game. The player's fast movement combined with their character being instantly teleported back to the playing field makes the experience jarring, sometimes I didn't immediately notice I had fallen into a pit during combat. You should add a falling animation that takes something like half a second, that way the player can understand what's happening and get a brief moment to think of a gameplan going forward.
You can get jumped before being able to reasonably react when you enter a combat room, specifically when there is an enemy right next to the entrance. I suggest adding some sort of "wake-up" period for the enemies where they can move towards you but not attack. You could also add brief wake-up animations but I find it unlikely for you to do so given the speed of the game.
The game isn't too hard but it could use some balancing, specifically the slime enemies. I, too, was softlocked in the room with endlessly spawning slimes. Despite constantly attacking and using my willpower move on clumped slimes, I could not thin the horde down enough.
I have some other minor nitpicks, most of which were mentioned by other playtesters: there should be a way to restart/quit to menu when you die; attacks dissipate into walls sometimes; there should be prompts for interactables.
Everything else I have to say is positive: the music is awesome, the art is charming, being able to parry melee attacks is cool, and the gameplay is quite replayable. That being said, your environments are super bland. Consider adding some visual flair. All in all, I'm eager for updates. Keep up the good work.
P.S. welcome to the robed mask-wearing protag club :3
Wished attacks dealt a bit of knock back because I'm constantly having to slash and retreat, slash and retreat which is a bit of a pain but the attacks and animations are satisfying.
Knockback is definitely a thing, but if you're slashing at a group of enemies they'll just get knocked back into each other and absorb the force completely. Seems like an issue with the physics engine.
Very promising start! Needs a lot of QoL to really get the flow going though.
A scrub like me will die a lot, so once dead the menu should pop up on its own so you can restart the run. Always having to press escape and do it manually frustrates me more after a while than dying.
Hit confirmation is weird. The sword sounds make it feel satisfying, but the bow doesn't seem to have any indicator if it did damage. Thats not really cool. Guys without a shield gave as much of a response as a shielded dude. Trying enough times, they die however.
Same story with interactive stuff: Some things you just pick up on your own, others you have to press a button for. Opening a hatch with a button is somewhat intuitive enough, but at first i thought i'd just have to step on the hole to progress, like normal doorways to other rooms. At least put button prompts at such things to be clear.
Honestly im not sure how to use the WP meter that builds up. Seems like theres a special ability, but i didn't figure it out. Used melee/ranged attacks all the way.
Anyway, thats probably stuff you already know or others have said, so i wanna add that i really like the art and the music. It just fits the pacing and theres nothing to complain about it at this stage. Build on this and it will become great!
Here are some random notes written as I’m playing. I think this can go far, looking forward to updates.
Could use a textbox with the controls in the (pause) menu at least for demos.
Movement feels too twitchy initially. Another thing that’s off to me, it seems that starting to run is relatively instant, but stopping has some inertia. It’s near impossible to make small adjustments to your position.
The sword attack making you move forward is an odd choice and it’s throwing me off, I’m trying to cancel it out by moving back. I could see it make sense for a charged attack but not the most basic one.
When the sword enemies attack they remain in place (why can’t the player?). Also their range being bigger than the player’s feels unfair and unintuitive.
Attacks (at least the bow) need auto fire. I hate having to spam click in general but especially when I can get the timing off and click before the cooldown.
Not sure what the third item bottom left is supposed to mean. Not sure what WP is (saw an item description later and my current guess is willpower). Oh, pressing Enter (?!?!) activates WP and only for one attack that didn’t seem that helpful.
There need to be more hints about your attacks landing. It’s hard to tell when/if you’re doing damage and hard to track which enemies are lower HP. I can see how no HP bars follows the skill-based philosophy but enemies overlap so often you cannot really keep track of who’s who. I discovered the damage numbers option later and I find it much better like this.
I discovered space to jump quite late, I think you should also be able to jump on the spot even if it’s useless (maybe it could have an use). Also discovered parrying quite late (would be fun if you could parry arrows). Sometimes I think I still take damage even though I hear the parry sound.
I don’t like the slimes as they are now. Too spammy to deal with and the instant untelegraphed damage feels annoying. Don’t get knocked back either. The melee pushing me into them resulting in taking damage is also annoying.
Coins sometimes bug out and hover near the player without being collected.
Not entirely sure about this but sometimes it feels that collisions are inexact. Either hits that should land don’t and attacks that don’t visually touch the player cause damage.
You are meant to activate WP with left shift. I'm not sure why enter is doing it.
All of the controls are listed on the game page, but it looks like more people are downloading straight from the jam. I might patch in a controls screen.
I love this, but I am a big Isaac fan so that is not surprising. Movement speed may be a bit quick, initially, gotta make room for some movement upgrades. Enemies actually have some different behaviours, very nice.
Still, I would add some patternbased enemies, meaning enemies that strictly move in set patterns, such as square or whatever.
Sheild-dudes are interesting, took some time to figure out how to deal with them, which is good.
Run restart should have a command up after you die without having to enter the menu. One map had an exit implied, hit the wall and got a jingle which I suspect means secret room, nothing opened though.
Encountered a room early which may have been unbeatable, slimes spawned/split or however they work more rapidly than I could kill them which created a deadlock, even though I did use the skill move which creates the big flame.
Ah, found another secret room... you have to press E. Should have been able to figure that out.
The music is lovely btw, the graphics are neat but the environments need more variation.
Okay, slimes seem to consistently be unbeatable to me, since they keep increasing quicker than they can be killed. Perhaps there is some trick to this I cannot figure out.
Items do not need descriptions, but a subtext providing flavour or a clue might be cool.
You can dodge over holes... the science, it is real. Missed the inventory initially, the additional flavour is nice.
The slimething does not happen in rooms with big slime, only in the ones with all small.
Got cool lightning bow, then got to impossible slime room ;_;
Might write more, still playing, but I am afraid of losing this comment for any dumb reason. 1 hour in.
Graphics look nice. However, I die almost immediately every time. The movement is extremely fast, so I can't maneuver around enemies. If I fight more than 1 enemy, I don't stand a chance. Can't figure out how the bow works, or maybe I need arrows. I definitely don't have much skill either.
It's a little bit better with the bow. Manage to clear a couple of rooms before dying now. There's clearly a lot of mechanics in the game, but I just die too fast to see how they get used. What might be helpful is to get a few friends to play your game, and just watch how they play. I definitely underestimated the difficulty of my game when I first made it.
Thank you. Though the game is meant to be hard and fast-paced, I do agree that the difficulty curve is overtuned right now. I already have some plans to address it, like slowing down the enemies' attacks. Is there anything else in particular that makes it daunting?
Comments
So much progress since I last played. I mentioned in the stream some of the combat issues I had. There was a few bugs as well regarding spawning in wrong rooms. Can't wait to see more of the game in the future.
That was a really funny glitch. What was happening there was that the movement system "remembered" which direction you were holding by the time the transition to the next level began. Consequently, you were forced to move up into the room against your will.
I enjoyed your stream a lot, and I'll be sure to address the issues you brought up.
Im glad it was an easy fix and glad you liked the stream!
A very promising start, the gameplay is already fun despite being so stripped down in terms of content. With that out of the way, here are my findings.
Pits are very unwieldy in this game. The player's fast movement combined with their character being instantly teleported back to the playing field makes the experience jarring, sometimes I didn't immediately notice I had fallen into a pit during combat. You should add a falling animation that takes something like half a second, that way the player can understand what's happening and get a brief moment to think of a gameplan going forward.
You can get jumped before being able to reasonably react when you enter a combat room, specifically when there is an enemy right next to the entrance. I suggest adding some sort of "wake-up" period for the enemies where they can move towards you but not attack. You could also add brief wake-up animations but I find it unlikely for you to do so given the speed of the game.
The game isn't too hard but it could use some balancing, specifically the slime enemies. I, too, was softlocked in the room with endlessly spawning slimes. Despite constantly attacking and using my willpower move on clumped slimes, I could not thin the horde down enough.
I have some other minor nitpicks, most of which were mentioned by other playtesters: there should be a way to restart/quit to menu when you die; attacks dissipate into walls sometimes; there should be prompts for interactables.
Everything else I have to say is positive: the music is awesome, the art is charming, being able to parry melee attacks is cool, and the gameplay is quite replayable. That being said, your environments are super bland. Consider adding some visual flair. All in all, I'm eager for updates. Keep up the good work.
P.S. welcome to the robed mask-wearing protag club :3
I have been deemed worthy by John Alchemickal
i don't know why, but sometimes pressing space to jump over a pit glitches out and i fall into it.
Can you give a video if possible? When you find a pit, start recording and jump over it repeatedly until you trigger the glitch.
Wished attacks dealt a bit of knock back because I'm constantly having to slash and retreat, slash and retreat which is a bit of a pain but the attacks and animations are satisfying.
Knockback is definitely a thing, but if you're slashing at a group of enemies they'll just get knocked back into each other and absorb the force completely. Seems like an issue with the physics engine.
Very promising start! Needs a lot of QoL to really get the flow going though.
A scrub like me will die a lot, so once dead the menu should pop up on its own so you can restart the run. Always having to press escape and do it manually frustrates me more after a while than dying.
Hit confirmation is weird. The sword sounds make it feel satisfying, but the bow doesn't seem to have any indicator if it did damage. Thats not really cool. Guys without a shield gave as much of a response as a shielded dude. Trying enough times, they die however.
Same story with interactive stuff: Some things you just pick up on your own, others you have to press a button for. Opening a hatch with a button is somewhat intuitive enough, but at first i thought i'd just have to step on the hole to progress, like normal doorways to other rooms. At least put button prompts at such things to be clear.
Honestly im not sure how to use the WP meter that builds up. Seems like theres a special ability, but i didn't figure it out. Used melee/ranged attacks all the way.
Anyway, thats probably stuff you already know or others have said, so i wanna add that i really like the art and the music. It just fits the pacing and theres nothing to complain about it at this stage. Build on this and it will become great!
Here are some random notes written as I’m playing. I think this can go far, looking forward to updates.
Could use a textbox with the controls in the (pause) menu at least for demos.
Movement feels too twitchy initially. Another thing that’s off to me, it seems that starting to run is relatively instant, but stopping has some inertia. It’s near impossible to make small adjustments to your position.
The sword attack making you move forward is an odd choice and it’s throwing me off, I’m trying to cancel it out by moving back. I could see it make sense for a charged attack but not the most basic one.
When the sword enemies attack they remain in place (why can’t the player?). Also their range being bigger than the player’s feels unfair and unintuitive.
Attacks (at least the bow) need auto fire. I hate having to spam click in general but especially when I can get the timing off and click before the cooldown.
Not sure what the third item bottom left is supposed to mean. Not sure what WP is (saw an item description later and my current guess is willpower). Oh, pressing Enter (?!?!) activates WP and only for one attack that didn’t seem that helpful.
There need to be more hints about your attacks landing. It’s hard to tell when/if you’re doing damage and hard to track which enemies are lower HP. I can see how no HP bars follows the skill-based philosophy but enemies overlap so often you cannot really keep track of who’s who. I discovered the damage numbers option later and I find it much better like this.
I discovered space to jump quite late, I think you should also be able to jump on the spot even if it’s useless (maybe it could have an use). Also discovered parrying quite late (would be fun if you could parry arrows). Sometimes I think I still take damage even though I hear the parry sound.
I don’t like the slimes as they are now. Too spammy to deal with and the instant untelegraphed damage feels annoying. Don’t get knocked back either. The melee pushing me into them resulting in taking damage is also annoying.
Coins sometimes bug out and hover near the player without being collected.
Not entirely sure about this but sometimes it feels that collisions are inexact. Either hits that should land don’t and attacks that don’t visually touch the player cause damage.
You are meant to activate WP with left shift. I'm not sure why enter is doing it.
All of the controls are listed on the game page, but it looks like more people are downloading straight from the jam. I might patch in a controls screen.
I love this, but I am a big Isaac fan so that is not surprising. Movement speed may be a bit quick, initially, gotta make room for some movement upgrades. Enemies actually have some different behaviours, very nice.
Still, I would add some patternbased enemies, meaning enemies that strictly move in set patterns, such as square or whatever.
Sheild-dudes are interesting, took some time to figure out how to deal with them, which is good.
Run restart should have a command up after you die without having to enter the menu. One map had an exit implied, hit the wall and got a jingle which I suspect means secret room, nothing opened though.
Encountered a room early which may have been unbeatable, slimes spawned/split or however they work more rapidly than I could kill them which created a deadlock, even though I did use the skill move which creates the big flame.
Ah, found another secret room... you have to press E. Should have been able to figure that out.
The music is lovely btw, the graphics are neat but the environments need more variation.
Okay, slimes seem to consistently be unbeatable to me, since they keep increasing quicker than they can be killed. Perhaps there is some trick to this I cannot figure out.
Items do not need descriptions, but a subtext providing flavour or a clue might be cool.
You can dodge over holes... the science, it is real. Missed the inventory initially, the additional flavour is nice.
The slimething does not happen in rooms with big slime, only in the ones with all small.
Got cool lightning bow, then got to impossible slime room ;_;
Might write more, still playing, but I am afraid of losing this comment for any dumb reason. 1 hour in.
Graphics look nice. However, I die almost immediately every time. The movement is extremely fast, so I can't maneuver around enemies. If I fight more than 1 enemy, I don't stand a chance. Can't figure out how the bow works, or maybe I need arrows. I definitely don't have much skill either.
Hold RMB. Any attacks you input in that state will shoot the bow.
It's a little bit better with the bow. Manage to clear a couple of rooms before dying now. There's clearly a lot of mechanics in the game, but I just die too fast to see how they get used. What might be helpful is to get a few friends to play your game, and just watch how they play. I definitely underestimated the difficulty of my game when I first made it.
Thank you. Though the game is meant to be hard and fast-paced, I do agree that the difficulty curve is overtuned right now. I already have some plans to address it, like slowing down the enemies' attacks. Is there anything else in particular that makes it daunting?
Playing this now, it is not too hard, do not make it easier.