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bio-Synthetica's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall Fun | #1 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Art | #1 | 4.750 | 4.750 |
| Controls / UI | #1 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Sound/Music | #1 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
If you have competed before how has your game changed?
Much shorter demo. New settings, controller support, quality of play updates, and a few additions to combat.
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When I first played the first version of the demo in the previous feedback quest, at first I thought the game was only based on exploration, as you'd get to battle muuuch later. Then I tried an updated version where there was two modes, exploration and battle, and honestly, separating both didn't really convince me. But now, you've found the right balance, well done! It's much faster to get to the first battles as you don't get so side-tracked.
Just as previosuly, I love the art, sound, atmosphere (or atmosfear?) and the story just want to make you know more, what happened to the humans, etc. Oh also playing fully with a controller is absolutely great as far as I'm concerned!
That being said, as mentioned below, maybe introducing combat earlier, in a more basic version, would be ideal, so the shift doesn't feel so sudden. But well, who am I to talk when I have turn-based battles ONLY for the main antagonist in Nobody's Quest xD.
Anyways, great job as always!
First, excellent art, lots of great small details and animations, plus the protagonist robot has this cute charming design, playing around with light/shadows, top notch for a pixel game. The music is also pretty good adding to the horror ambience and there's even nice voice acting!
Now as for the gameplay itself, it felt solid but nothing particularly revolutionary. Gather items, craft upgrades, some memorization/switch puzzles. They felt a bit too basic personally, usually other pixel horror games have more complex puzzles to advance I feel. Although that may be this game's design choice to keep the puzzles more basic than your usual pixel horror game, nice and simple, in which case that's a perfectly valid decision. Speaking of which many horror games have "sudden death" moments when you pick a wrong option or screw up a puzzle, that seemed missing here too for the most part except for the bits where you're trying to escape the Lurker and you'll lose if you run directly into them. But then when there's a puzzle on the escape route, the Lurker will seemingly wait if you screw up said puzzle's resolution, which diminished the horror effect personally. It seemed to be the perfect moment for the Lurker to edge closer and closer every time you fail a puzzle (maybe even slowly approach continuously so the player is on a "timer".
Then as Atas Fun pointed out, there's a significant shift in gameplay when you unlock combat. Suddenly the cute unarmed protagonist robot gets a sword and a gun and a bunch of special abilities along two special resources to manage and can take on the monsters. I think that could've been handled a bit more gradually. First sword, then gun, then special abilities for example. Also the smaller monsters could start showing up earlier, before you get any combat upgrade you need to evade/avoid them. Maybe they're used as roadblocks earlier on, then as you get combat upgrades you can now start exploring those areas.
Related, the protagonist gets triple digit HP right away, when the enemies deal single-digit HP. That leads to the protagonist being slowly but surely worn down over multiple battles. I don't think that's the ideal way of doing things, what many games nowadays do is making characters more frail but giving easy access to some sort of limited replenishable healing item, like Dark Souls flasks (can be used a limited number of times, but refreshes automatically when you respawn/rest). If there's an HP mechanic, it's usually more enjoyable to have an easy way to replenish it a few times rather than seeing a large HP bar slowly withered down.
Also enemies felt a bit too tough for the damage they dealt. It somewhat diminishes the horror aspect if battles becoming slogging matches.
My nitpicks aside, great work overall, this game had clearly a lot of effort and planning put in it, excellent ambience and general presentation, lots of small cute details like the collecting cards, just the combat could feel less grindy and better integrated with the main horror aspect.
Thank you so much for the feedback. So, I need to find a way to showcase that my game is a dark sci-fi adventure and not a "horror" game. I know the artwork makes it appear like it's a horror game, but combat will be a big part. I guess my idea with this game is Dark Souls. It's not "horror" per sa, but has dark/creepy elements.
I'm trying to find a way to introduce combat at the very beginning, but I also like the opening with a bit of mystery and exploration (what's going on here?) before The Lurker chase and combat opens up. However, the plan is to have combat pretty heavy once you reach that point. Combat, explore a bit, scatter in a few puzzles, etc. My idea was you just activated, so you're not "combat ready" and don't realize there's a threat. You encounter Lurker, "Oh no, I need to upgrade" and then go in to wreck stuff LOL Doesn't appear I pulled that off... and need to find a way to introduce combat earlier... but also keep that opening mystery where you need to explore a bit before things are kicked up a notch.
I actually considered showing you can have weapons at the beginning, but your sword and gun get stuck/locked because the ROBO-Unit breaks... so you need to find the Circuit Board to repair and get your weapons. Maybe that'll show players... "Oh, there will be combat in this...?"
Definitely need to find a way to clear up the fact this isn't a horror game, though LOL You're not the first to think it is. I just want it to be dark and creepy... but an adventure game :-) Kinda like a soullike or even Last of Us. Combination of dark themes, action, combat, exploring, puzzles, etc. I just need to balance it better.
Thank you so much for playing and leaving your feedback!!
Oh, so if it's not meant to be an horror game and more of a dark adventure game, then an humble suggestion is to add some friendly/neutral NPCs. Like in the first Dark Souls you have a friendly NPC helping you early on, even if they get killed soon after you soon start finding new friendly/neutral NPCs right after you exit the tutorial area. Similarly last of us has the whole duo protagonist mechanic, they provide emotional support for each other. Horror games usually have solo protagonist because being alone is pretty scary for most humans, and Bio-Synthetica thus feels like that because you start on your own in a seemingly empty world with only automatic machines and message logs, then the first other characters that do talk are pretty clearly up to no good.
IMHO something simple would be that instead of the first room's machines being automatic devices, having them be operated by friendly NPCs that you can chat with a bit, maybe find some human survivors or other scattered robots/AIs that give some feeling of companionship, maybe even some shady merchant willing to trade crafting materials/upgrades. They could also provide the tutorial advice instead of a non-participating narrator. But if the protagonist is all alone in the world against hordes of monsters, then that's gonna feel more towards horror.
I played this game on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1850361813?t=01h15m43s
This is the 2nd time I've played this game. The previous time I didn't get to the combat, and this time I did.
One thing I noticed this round, is that playing with headphones increases the creepiness factor significantly. The last time I played with my speakers and it was creepy - this time it was much creepier!
As always, I love the lore bits sprinkled in the level through audio and written notes. It gives me a Horizon: Zero Dawn feel which I love. The robot is also really cute, and the main reason I played the demo again (esp since I don't usually play horror games).
This time, I got to the really horror bits.. with the voices, and the Lurker. That. was. creepy. Really well done there! The different voices talking etc really added to the vibe. It gave a Gollum kind of feel too. The Lurker was creepy, and I ran as fast as I could to save my little robot.
After I unlocked combat, the game tone felt very different. It went from a creepy horror game, to an RPG game with a scary setting, if that makes sense? Probably there are more horror parts afterwards, but I didn't get there.. I did a bunch of combat with the spitters. I feel like I didn't do very well in combat. After maybe 3 or 4 battles, I was basically dead. Perhaps the game is meant for me to die repeatedly, gain exp, then upgrade? But repair+save respawns the enemies, so that feels like it would have a lot of grind. I would have liked to be able to find lots of repair items along the way, esp at the start, so I wouldn't die, and can keep fighting, repairing, and going on.
As a side note, I liked how, after the robot died, the loading screen has the new robot holding flowers for the old one :)
Overall, really creepy vibe (so great job there) before the combat stuff starts. The game felt radically different with combat enabled, and it felt a little odd, but maybe that's what you were going for? Or maybe horror games are like this.. I don't know how horror games typically are :)