I liked the challenges a lot! I feel the bullet hell part of the game has more importance now which is nice. Random thoughts:
- The companion is cute and I like how it reacts to your actions. Right now I feel his art style clashes a bit with the rest of the game. I believe it has something to do with its shading or maybe its size (it is bigger than the MC, which makes it a bit distracting).
- I hesitated a bit on obtaining the axe powerup in the sewers because I thought having the rolling bomb was better. At the end I think I was right, the axe doesn't shine here and feels like a trap. I believe it would be better to introduce the axe in a room where you have to go up, not down.
- At certain point in the sewer I felt trapped by the flower shooting up through the hole. It is almost a guaranteed damage.
- I entered the challenges with the sword which made a couple of them much easies. You might want to remove held items when a player enters them.
- At some points I felt I was damaged after destroying an enemy. I'm not sure if the enemy existed for a few frames after dying or the explosion hurted me.
With the addition of new challenge levels and such the game feels harder now, but I still managed to beat the final boss in the first try. I wonder what the golden coins will be used for.
I only found one issue where strafing was toggled on and I had to strafe to move normally. I had no unlocks and I have no idea how it happened but dying and respawning solved the issue. Also, slime/plum enemies being able to hurt you with their dying animation is a little unintuitive although they do attack by exploding so maybe I'm just dumb. Why are the knights Templar at war with the plums anyway?
Also, I don't know what's the deal with the cat or what function it provides. I imagine it's intended for communication since it's wearing a headset but it would be cool if it did something in-game too.
I tried the power-ups and I have mixed feelings about them. Removing recoil or gravity also remove some of the uniqueness from the movement. That's also the kind of thing that feels like "stuff that was removed from your original kit so it could be an unlock" territory. Increasing HP is a little boring, but ok because it's so useful.
The bomba related ones are the best because they provide a small reward from timing the screen clear properly and maybe taking a little bit more risk in exchange for a reward.
story spoiler, but not really. You start as a common bot, and when you pick up the golden coin you become a templar. So the first level is your test to become a knight
I only found one issue where strafing was toggled on and I had to strafe to move normally. I had no unlocks and I have no idea how it happened but dying and respawning solved the issue.
noted. the strafing bug seems to be caused by spamming spacebar and shift. the easy solution is to kill a bind, and that will happen when i'll implement rebind
Also, slime/plum enemies being able to hurt you with their dying animation is a little unintuitive although they do attack by exploding so maybe I'm just dumb. Why are the knights Templar at war with the plums anyway?
Another anon noted this, and designwise might be bad to have enemies with death explosions that bypass walls at lv2 (kek). Story spoiler again, but basically they are parasytes, since you are a rookie you deal with low lv stuff (in the beginning)
Also, I don't know what's the deal with the cat or what function it provides. I imagine it's intended for communication since it's wearing a headset but it would be cool if it did something in-game too.
Thanks for noting my pixelshit. I'm working on his combat usefulness
I tried the power-ups and I have mixed feelings about them. Removing recoil or gravity also remove some of the uniqueness from the movement. That's also the kind of thing that feels like "stuff that was removed from your original kit so it could be an unlock" territory. Increasing HP is a little boring, but ok because it's so useful.
I have no knock and no grav beacuse some players asked for it, I totally agree with you, I almost consider them accessibility options.
The bomba related ones are the best because they provide a small reward from timing the screen clear properly and maybe taking a little bit more risk in exchange for a reward.
Thanks for playing and givin a feedback on powerups, man
Destroyed the last of the first boss's adds while it was doing the ram attack and it didn't disable the boss's collision, so I couldn't hit the weak spot.
The sword is too spammable. You never have to dodge anything while you have it.
No idea how you're meant to get past the tall crusher moving horizontally in the crusher challenge.
I'm not liking this dumb-looking thing that's following me around everywhere. It can be distracting when there's a lot going on, too.
Why do you take damage from being near the second boss when it splits? What's supposed to be hurting me?
The placement on those first three enemies in the poke challenge is really cheap. You're given no time to react, so you're guaranteed to die immediately on the first try, and if you wait even a second, they'll have blocked the path. It's pure trial and error.
What was different for the hard mode boss? I didn't notice anything except it having a lot more health.
Oi it's nice to see you again and ofc thanks for replaying
Destroyed the last of the first boss's adds while it was doing the ram attack and it didn't disable the boss's collision, so I couldn't hit the weak spot.
thanks, it happens rarely but it's still a bad bug
The sword is too spammable. You never have to dodge anything while you have it.
yep that's a hard situation. My basic solution (yet to be implemented) is to limit energy storage like curse of the moon, and have powerups to upgrade it.
No idea how you're meant to get past the tall crusher moving horizontally in the crusher challenge.
Some streamers did pass it.
I'm not liking this dumb-looking thing that's following me around everywhere. It can be distracting when there's a lot going on, too.
fair.
Why do you take damage from being near the second boss when it splits? What's supposed to be hurting me?
in the specific: when big cherry splits, it spawns two little cherry and an explosion that damage you in you are in range, also cherry themselves hurt on contact, so you should never go near him in the first place
The placement on those first three enemies in the poke challenge is really cheap. You're given no time to react, so you're guaranteed to die immediately on the first try, and if you wait even a second, they'll have blocked the path. It's pure trial and error.
Fair assestment. it's a gotcha moment, but has a design underlay: you die the first time. And that's ok (I'm also removing lives entirely soon)
For the second try you might think "I'm attacked from below, but I can't atk below, so what?" that's when you should think to bomb and descover that the poke curse makes you die in one hit, but you can still use bomba. Now, not everyone got it. Some just try and retry to dodge those enemies, or lure them out and bypass them. its not my best design but imo is good enough till I'll think something better.
What was different for the hard mode boss? I didn't notice anything except it having a lot more health.
Boss already starts in phase 2 (he can crush)
his movements scale faster
his Options are only the "hard" selection of the total pool he can spawn
Boss options on death spawn a suicide bullet
boss weak phase last 1s less, and that's why he seems to have more health
Btw you have any opinion on the powerups? my tutorial about them was very bad, so you might have missed them entirely.
>in the specific: when big cherry splits, it spawns two little cherry and an explosion that damage you in you are in range, also cherry themselves hurt on contact, so you should never go near him in the first place
The explosion looks identical to the one from your weapon, which doesn't hurt you, and doesn't make any (noticeable) sound. It's hard to even tell it's there. I think I've mentioned the same issue before with the slimes. It can also hurt you through the platform in the center. You should probably add a LoS check.
>Btw you have any opinion on the powerups? my tutorial about them was very bad, so you might have missed them entirely.
I only noticed them after beating it. They're all pretty basic and don't seem like they'd make a huge difference with how easy the game is, so I didn't bother testing them.
I played your demo, I liked the new animation when comes out of a door, the orange companion is cute... but something worth mention, is when I was playing the bomb challenge, there is a part when you need to destroy a horde of those robots, when they explode at the same time, the volume was very very high, specially because I was using headphones, so maybe try lo limit the audio when this situations happen.
y, hitbox is in favor of the player. I forgot to say it in my comment on your game, but you need to think if you want your game to be more like a classic shmup (hitbox is your whole sharkship), or danmaku (hibox is only the sphere cockpit).
lil guy is story related. Maybe i'll make him atk once in a while to help you during missions.
Hey, just tried this for the first time. I am absolute shit at difficult platforming games, but thought this one was quite fun. I like the feel of the movement a lot, and even though I sucked I did not feel like I was fighting the controls at all, which is an accomplishment. The idea of automatically using your jetpack constantly, and being able to lock in your height feels great. It's somewhere between a top down shooter and a platformer.
A few times I just kind of bumrushed some obstacles I was having a tough time with. Which seemed to be a viable strategy, at least early on. I had a lot of fun fighting the enemies, brought me back to MMX a bit.
Comments
Played the whole demo
I liked the challenges a lot! I feel the bullet hell part of the game has more importance now which is nice. Random thoughts:- The companion is cute and I like how it reacts to your actions. Right now I feel his art style clashes a bit with the rest of the game. I believe it has something to do with its shading or maybe its size (it is bigger than the MC, which makes it a bit distracting).
- I hesitated a bit on obtaining the axe powerup in the sewers because I thought having the rolling bomb was better. At the end I think I was right, the axe doesn't shine here and feels like a trap. I believe it would be better to introduce the axe in a room where you have to go up, not down.
- At certain point in the sewer I felt trapped by the flower shooting up through the hole. It is almost a guaranteed damage.
- I entered the challenges with the sword which made a couple of them much easies. You might want to remove held items when a player enters them.
- At some points I felt I was damaged after destroying an enemy. I'm not sure if the enemy existed for a few frames after dying or the explosion hurted me.
DD53 feedback videos:
Demo Day 53 videos of games starting with letters from A – J:
https://mega.nz/folder/DdVwTYAK#ZsxVSpsd5L2yvgaqtcvBsA
Demo Day 53 videos of games starting with letters from K – Z:
https://mega.nz/folder/zBIi2A5T#DE3_eooG3HE-K3XTmpnR0g
I died many times. Enjoy the video.
It's been a while since I last tried RoboTemplar.
With the addition of new challenge levels and such the game feels harder now, but I still managed to beat the final boss in the first try. I wonder what the golden coins will be used for.
I only found one issue where strafing was toggled on and I had to strafe to move normally. I had no unlocks and I have no idea how it happened but dying and respawning solved the issue. Also, slime/plum enemies being able to hurt you with their dying animation is a little unintuitive although they do attack by exploding so maybe I'm just dumb. Why are the knights Templar at war with the plums anyway?
Also, I don't know what's the deal with the cat or what function it provides. I imagine it's intended for communication since it's wearing a headset but it would be cool if it did something in-game too.
I tried the power-ups and I have mixed feelings about them. Removing recoil or gravity also remove some of the uniqueness from the movement. That's also the kind of thing that feels like "stuff that was removed from your original kit so it could be an unlock" territory. Increasing HP is a little boring, but ok because it's so useful.
The bomba related ones are the best because they provide a small reward from timing the screen clear properly and maybe taking a little bit more risk in exchange for a reward.
story spoiler, but not really. You start as a common bot, and when you pick up the golden coin you become a templar. So the first level is your test to become a knight
noted. the strafing bug seems to be caused by spamming spacebar and shift. the easy solution is to kill a bind, and that will happen when i'll implement rebind
Another anon noted this, and designwise might be bad to have enemies with death explosions that bypass walls at lv2 (kek). Story spoiler again, but basically they are parasytes, since you are a rookie you deal with low lv stuff (in the beginning)
Thanks for noting my pixelshit. I'm working on his combat usefulness
I have no knock and no grav beacuse some players asked for it, I totally agree with you, I almost consider them accessibility options.
Thanks for playing and givin a feedback on powerups, man
Oi it's nice to see you again and ofc thanks for replaying
thanks, it happens rarely but it's still a bad bug
yep that's a hard situation. My basic solution (yet to be implemented) is to limit energy storage like curse of the moon, and have powerups to upgrade it.
Some streamers did pass it.
fair.
in the specific: when big cherry splits, it spawns two little cherry and an explosion that damage you in you are in range, also cherry themselves hurt on contact, so you should never go near him in the first place
Fair assestment. it's a gotcha moment, but has a design underlay: you die the first time. And that's ok (I'm also removing lives entirely soon)
For the second try you might think "I'm attacked from below, but I can't atk below, so what?" that's when you should think to bomb and descover that the poke curse makes you die in one hit, but you can still use bomba. Now, not everyone got it. Some just try and retry to dodge those enemies, or lure them out and bypass them. its not my best design but imo is good enough till I'll think something better.
Boss already starts in phase 2 (he can crush)
his movements scale faster
his Options are only the "hard" selection of the total pool he can spawn
Boss options on death spawn a suicide bullet
boss weak phase last 1s less, and that's why he seems to have more health
Btw you have any opinion on the powerups? my tutorial about them was very bad, so you might have missed them entirely.
Thanks again for your review.
>in the specific: when big cherry splits, it spawns two little cherry and an explosion that damage you in you are in range, also cherry themselves hurt on contact, so you should never go near him in the first place
The explosion looks identical to the one from your weapon, which doesn't hurt you, and doesn't make any (noticeable) sound. It's hard to even tell it's there. I think I've mentioned the same issue before with the slimes. It can also hurt you through the platform in the center. You should probably add a LoS check.
>Btw you have any opinion on the powerups? my tutorial about them was very bad, so you might have missed them entirely.
I only noticed them after beating it. They're all pretty basic and don't seem like they'd make a huge difference with how easy the game is, so I didn't bother testing them.
I played your demo, I liked the new animation when comes out of a door, the orange companion is cute... but something worth mention, is when I was playing the bomb challenge, there is a part when you need to destroy a horde of those robots, when they explode at the same time, the volume was very very high, specially because I was using headphones, so maybe try lo limit the audio when this situations happen.
Game has been greately improved from my first try months ago, the boss is tougher, there's another skill and more levels.
Feedback:
- I'm not sure on the hitboxes, its like its in favor of the player and that makes it difficult to predict.
- What does the lil guy do?
Thank you for playing.
y, hitbox is in favor of the player. I forgot to say it in my comment on your game, but you need to think if you want your game to be more like a classic shmup (hitbox is your whole sharkship), or danmaku (hibox is only the sphere cockpit).
lil guy is story related. Maybe i'll make him atk once in a while to help you during missions.
Nice game! Here's some feedback.
Some hud elements appeared offscreen. Probably because I'm on a 16:10 monitor.
I like the orange character's reactions when you do things. However art-wise it doesn't look like it fits with the main character.
There's too many mixels.
My character was stuck strafing, and holding shift made it -not strafe-.
Shooting enemies feels good.
The movement feels stiff. However I understand what you're going for with it. (bullet-hell style?)
Looking forward to see you make progress. Good luck!
Hey, just tried this for the first time. I am absolute shit at difficult platforming games, but thought this one was quite fun. I like the feel of the movement a lot, and even though I sucked I did not feel like I was fighting the controls at all, which is an accomplishment. The idea of automatically using your jetpack constantly, and being able to lock in your height feels great. It's somewhere between a top down shooter and a platformer.
A few times I just kind of bumrushed some obstacles I was having a tough time with. Which seemed to be a viable strategy, at least early on. I had a lot of fun fighting the enemies, brought me back to MMX a bit.
Keep it up, it's solid.