I see what you're going for and i love it, i had #DakkaDakkaMech as one of my 2D game ideas and i'm glad you're doing it.
The fact that the bullets are stacking is fantastic, midway through the boss battle i fell down expecting to be at the start of the boss area but instead i landed softly on my own bullet casings which had filled all the way up to the platforms.
Only critique i can come up with is that the shooting does not feel all that impactful, feels like you're shooting the enemies with a BB gun. Although I'm late trying out your game and I've seen you progress since then.
I've heard people praise the game on streams, but I never checked it out cause I figured that it already had enough feedback. Now that I've played it, I see that they were right, the idea is cool, it looks good(especially the lighting on piles of casings) and it's fun to play. However I wouldn't be me if I didn't find any issues:
Paradoxically enough, shooting itself is not very fun. You need to fire quite a lot of bullets to kill even a single enemy and it forces you to stand on the ground cause if you try it in midair, you're likely to eventually fall down.
What is fun, though, is parrying the shots, but there's no skill involved in it, you just spam jump in midair and the dude will kick all the bullets and enemies flying towards him.
Mountains of brass block your movement, but not enemies, so they will still fly through them or attack you from underneath them. This also kinda goes contrary to the idea of never releasing the trigger, cause you'll just cover everything in casings, including the walkways to the enemies you haven't killed yet, and killing them will become impossible(although I haven't tested the spirit form, maybe it can go through them?).
I never felt the need to use the spirit form, probably because the movement in the level goes upward, so I didn't want to have to climb back up.
Health orbs(?) sometimes get stuck on walls or will move away from the player for some reason.
Overall the game was pretty easy, I managed to beat stage 1 from first attempt, but I guess that was because it's just the beginning, and it'll become harder afterwards?
Thank you! Finally someone says it's easy. Usually people have lots of trouble with the game, while for me it's a cakewalk.
I've heard people praise the game on streams
Really? Maybe my perception was skewed after seeing the first streams go horribly wrong.
Paradoxically enough, shooting itself is not very fun
I get that a lot about shooting, but I'm afraid of encouraging passive spamming. I have a few fixes in mind so I'll try those. Your game inspired me to step up my style counter, so lining up penetrating shots will probably be part of new meta. For midair shooting wall hugging is the way to go right now, or you can grab the prototype weapon bonus for independent hover (by holding W).
What is fun, though, is parrying the shots, but there's no skill involved in it, you just spam jump in midair and the dude will kick all the bullets and enemies flying towards him.
It used to be trickier but I had to simplify it after feedback. I'll try to add failed parry penalties back in.
cause you'll just cover everything in casings, including the walkways to the enemies you haven't killed yet
Except for the enemies attacking from inside part it's intended. The battlefield is constantly changing so it's hard being passive and there are parts designed around it blocking your alternative options if you are slow. And spirit form does dive right in up to some depth.
I wanted to beat the Void Lord but I just couldn't get him! I lose too much health getting to the boss fight.
The piling up bullets is a very cool touch.
Sometimes I would get hurt by projectiles I had no way to see. For example a turret shooting me from below and the turret and projectile never being shown on screen. Or my pile of casings would obscure the attack or enemy. On one hand it's on me to know where the enemies are, on the other hand my natural reaction as a player is to feel like it's unfair.
I tried with gamepad and liked it! Aiming with the right stick felt natural and I only really needed the back buttons to jump and shoot so that works.
I'm curious if other levels will be going upwards like that level is. Sometimes it was frustrating trying to fight and platform my way up at the same time. Platforming is tough because my gun affects my movement, I'm shooting down to float but then I can shoot the platform I want to land on out from under me.
The boss gets destroyed by head kicks and spirit form, while projectile parries and rocket rides deal good damage but they are very hard to land on him right now. With shooting only you better be good at parries.
Sometimes I would get hurt by projectiles I had no way to see
Thanks for reminding me, I still have to change the aggression ranges to match the screen more (right now they spawn in once they are visible, so the problem is only when you backtrack or pass by them), and I have to make drowning enemies get stunlocked. Enemies and projectiles do have a warning arrow indicator when coming from off-screen but I'm a dummy and I probably forgot to UI scale it.
I'm curious if other levels will be going upwards like that level is
Yeah, usually levels will be vertical. I'm experimenting with some twists to ease the pain like stairs layout or zigzagging room segments, but trying to rationalize anything about the level design literally hurts my brain because of how unique the game is - I have to do all the gameplay scenarios and level design research work from ground up.
Long story short, fighting and platforming is supposed to be one and the same, and you can both quickly travel through the level and kill everything instantly at the same time. I have to adjust to be beginner friendly because the disparity with skilled play makes it less enjoyable at the start.
>The gun warming up is a little annoying for platforming sections where it's pretty much required to be fully warmed up to get anywhere, though.
I agree, though it's mostly only a problem while starting since you just want to keep full firing speed all the time except for taking damage.
>I'm not usually a fan of the type of boss where you have to wait and attack but it was done fairly well here
Me too actually, but for some reason I wasn't bothered with it so it stayed that way. I guess the downtime keeps me busy with evading and getting in position for kick/spirit form.
I'm glad you are enjoying the parries. Seems like finally it's easier to learn those, since in the first builds people ignored those and played in the most boring way.
Comments
I see what you're going for and i love it, i had #DakkaDakkaMech as one of my 2D game ideas and i'm glad you're doing it.
The fact that the bullets are stacking is fantastic, midway through the boss battle i fell down expecting to be at the start of the boss area but instead i landed softly on my own bullet casings which had filled all the way up to the platforms.
Only critique i can come up with is that the shooting does not feel all that impactful, feels like you're shooting the enemies with a BB gun. Although I'm late trying out your game and I've seen you progress since then.
Good work, keep it up!
I've heard people praise the game on streams, but I never checked it out cause I figured that it already had enough feedback. Now that I've played it, I see that they were right, the idea is cool, it looks good(especially the lighting on piles of casings) and it's fun to play. However I wouldn't be me if I didn't find any issues:
Thank you! Finally someone says it's easy. Usually people have lots of trouble with the game, while for me it's a cakewalk.
Really? Maybe my perception was skewed after seeing the first streams go horribly wrong.
I get that a lot about shooting, but I'm afraid of encouraging passive spamming. I have a few fixes in mind so I'll try those. Your game inspired me to step up my style counter, so lining up penetrating shots will probably be part of new meta. For midair shooting wall hugging is the way to go right now, or you can grab the prototype weapon bonus for independent hover (by holding W).
It used to be trickier but I had to simplify it after feedback. I'll try to add failed parry penalties back in.
Except for the enemies attacking from inside part it's intended. The battlefield is constantly changing so it's hard being passive and there are parts designed around it blocking your alternative options if you are slow. And spirit form does dive right in up to some depth.
I wanted to beat the Void Lord but I just couldn't get him! I lose too much health getting to the boss fight.
The piling up bullets is a very cool touch.
Sometimes I would get hurt by projectiles I had no way to see. For example a turret shooting me from below and the turret and projectile never being shown on screen. Or my pile of casings would obscure the attack or enemy. On one hand it's on me to know where the enemies are, on the other hand my natural reaction as a player is to feel like it's unfair.
I tried with gamepad and liked it! Aiming with the right stick felt natural and I only really needed the back buttons to jump and shoot so that works.
I'm curious if other levels will be going upwards like that level is. Sometimes it was frustrating trying to fight and platform my way up at the same time. Platforming is tough because my gun affects my movement, I'm shooting down to float but then I can shoot the platform I want to land on out from under me.
Excited to try more levels!
The boss gets destroyed by head kicks and spirit form, while projectile parries and rocket rides deal good damage but they are very hard to land on him right now. With shooting only you better be good at parries.
Thanks for reminding me, I still have to change the aggression ranges to match the screen more (right now they spawn in once they are visible, so the problem is only when you backtrack or pass by them), and I have to make drowning enemies get stunlocked. Enemies and projectiles do have a warning arrow indicator when coming from off-screen but I'm a dummy and I probably forgot to UI scale it.
Yeah, usually levels will be vertical. I'm experimenting with some twists to ease the pain like stairs layout or zigzagging room segments, but trying to rationalize anything about the level design literally hurts my brain because of how unique the game is - I have to do all the gameplay scenarios and level design research work from ground up.
Long story short, fighting and platforming is supposed to be one and the same, and you can both quickly travel through the level and kill everything instantly at the same time. I have to adjust to be beginner friendly because the disparity with skilled play makes it less enjoyable at the start.
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks!
>The gun warming up is a little annoying for platforming sections where it's pretty much required to be fully warmed up to get anywhere, though.
I agree, though it's mostly only a problem while starting since you just want to keep full firing speed all the time except for taking damage.
>I'm not usually a fan of the type of boss where you have to wait and attack but it was done fairly well here
Me too actually, but for some reason I wasn't bothered with it so it stayed that way. I guess the downtime keeps me busy with evading and getting in position for kick/spirit form.
I'm glad you are enjoying the parries. Seems like finally it's easier to learn those, since in the first builds people ignored those and played in the most boring way.