Small amount of difficulty with running the browser version on a potato laptop, but was able to get the idea. I liked the concept of modulating the difficulty as a core gameplay mechanic to advance, it was a nice take on the theme. Could definitely be fun with a bit of polish!
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Dyskolia's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #361 | 2.456 | 2.800 |
| Originality | #424 | 2.105 | 2.400 |
| Fun | #462 | 1.491 | 1.700 |
| Presentation (graphics, audio) | #483 | 1.140 | 1.300 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game represent Mode?
By having the gameMODE be a core part of the gameplay
Comments
Sorry I'm rereading my message and it's confusing to me as well, I'll try to rewrite it (also, I'm sorry if it came across weird or presumptuous, I was trying to suggest stuff I'd look after when touching it up after the jam).
Basically I think that the movement needs some tweaks.
The main issue I've found is the collision between the character and the walls that makes the character go inside the wall to an extent, like it doesn't stop when it touches the wall but goes inside where the wall collider is. This feels really bad when coupled with the movement of the ball, which has momentum added to it because it makes it difficult to properly gauge the spacing and gives this "soft" vibe where you always feel like you're getting inside the wall. It also creates some weird inconsistencies with how bullet go through walls (I'm guessing because of overlapping colliders?).
The other "problem" is the momentum of the ball, and by that I mean the quality that makes the ball accelerate gradually, reach maximum velocity and then slowing down when coming to a stop or changing direction. While I think it's a valid movement on a shooter, I think that given the small space and the sharp turns it just creates this weird pattern of movement where you basically rush into a wall to stop and turn around (because you basically can't make a sharp turn, so you have to basically brake somehow or make a wide circular movement, but there's not enough space for that).
Going from this, I think the colliders should be accurate (I think it's the walls because of the bullets but it could be the ball) and then there's fixes for the rest, like removing the momentum (so that the player can make the sharp turns without stopping) or removing the sharp corners (either with curves or by making the "roads" wider). A fun alternative could be adding a bit of bounce to movement when you touch a wall that allows you to retain momentum, and then you could cut the outer corners on sharp turns to be at an angle (like 45°) so you don't stop when you touch a wall and you keep going your way at the speed you had before entering the curve. Basically anything that makes the exploration feel snappier is good.
I hope I explained myself better, this is ofc just an advice.
I'll extend some things and edit some more:
- I retested it because I thought of a way to see if the "wrong" collider was in the ball or in the wall and now I think it's in the ball (cause even the buttons have the same quality, so I'm guessing the ball collider is a square that sits inside the ball?)
- also about the colliders, if you slam yourself in some walls (for instance after opening the first door you can go in the room you just unlocked and slam the ball on the wall where the now open door is) and then try to run across the wall, you'll sometimes get stopped as if there's a bump in the wall. If you smash into the bump a couple times it disappears, but if you go away from the wall and you again smash into it and try to run it's gonna be there again. Not necessarily in the same spot, there's usually a couple per wall but, but it's gonna be there. This also interacts badly with the momentum, because if you get a bump when you're trying to accelerate back you get stopped again for no reason. It's just negative feedback for the player, mainly.
- if you decide to remove the momentum, you should probably speed up slightly the bullets (the difficulty in maneuvering your character balances out the slowness of the bullets, but if you suddenly can make a U turn without losing speed then the bullets should fly faster)
- another thing I haven't mentioned is the enemy AI. Making a detection system for it that doesn't aggro on the player from the other side of walls could open up some interesting positionings (because they wouldn't be behind the walls waiting for you), but I guess that since they disappear once you change the difficulty and you mostly have to change it to get through doors it probably doesn't matter much. It's worth a thought, I guess.
359 days ago(+1)
Thanks, it's currently 2am so i'll just explain the functioning behind the weird stuff that is collider for the player and lack of aggro system:
-I tried to turn the collider back into a ball later in development but it broke the balls destroying on collision with it for some reason(will probably go back to when working on the post-jam update(which may be a bit late due to going on holiday)).
-I got an aggro system working late in development but wandering felt weird and so did staying still at the time so i ditched it(will probably just turn it into staying still when not having a sightline sight of you)
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