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Notch 8's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #13 | 4.208 | 4.208 |
| Fun | #13 | 3.542 | 3.542 |
| Audio | #14 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Originality | #16 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Overall | #17 | 3.405 | 3.405 |
| Graphics | #21 | 3.417 | 3.417 |
| Controls | #32 | 2.917 | 2.917 |
| Accessibility | #46 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
This game looks very good and it plays very good, apart from the controls at first. Its pretty hard to get into especially with the number keys, as I feel they were backwards) but after playing a bit you can get used to them. It it pretty impressive you managed to jam so many items in the game given the short development time.
Very cool idea, and nice job on implementing all these different items. I can see the RoR inspiration.
However, I feel like some of the time you spent on these could have been better spent on properly introducing the mechanics of the game. I'm guilty of the same, on my first jam we were so infatuated by the gameplay that we forgot to put any menu or tutorial. So nobody played our game :(
Once I read the description I had a bit of fun !
Still, it felt a little pointless. Some kind of progression system, like a boss or more varied enemies, would've been nice. Without points of interest or anything to show that I'm advancing in the game, I didn't really feel like anything was happening. Waves are coming, but that's it. I also didn't understand that the items were upgrades until I read the description.
I hope I don't sound too harsh, I think you've got a nice start that can be expanded upon ! Being able to unlock more and more wagon, and the cahotic fun of having to manage all their cooldowns, is a nice starting point for a fun game. I also like a lot what you're trying to do and your ambitions for this jam
Thanks for taking the time for this detailed feedback. There are a few trends in the feedback that I've seen that definitely echo parts of what you've said and I think are very valid. This is the second game jam I've competed in so I'm still learning to properly scope and timebox things so I can hit the important details you are mentioning (especially menu/tutorial). For example, your point on progression, I think the game as-is was meant to follow the progression of RoR's difficulty curve, but that is too slow for the quick demo-like nature of the game jam. There are 4 different monsters in the game currently, but it would've required a lot more time to play to see them all. I think that is a good lesson learned for me in a game jam is to shorten the time necessary to see all of the aspects of the game, even if a real complete version of the game may be paced slower/differently.
Thanks again for your feedback! I intend to continue working on this game after the jam and I hope I can address your points when I have more time to dedicate to it.
Ok, Proper review:
This s a pretty cool idea. The different carriages having different attack modes and you being confined to a track with only one way to go makes for a different rogue-like feel
The graphics are too small to see on my laptop screen, and fullscreen doesn't seem to scale them, just gives me more tiles. That could be a quick fix maybe.
Most other gameplay elements would be greatly enhanced by having larger sprites I feel.
A bunch of other reviewers have made comments about controls, and maybe there is some finessing to be done there. perhaps put the buttons on screen and make it a totally mouse-driven thing?
Overall tho, a very strong entry that feels like it has all the elements in place and just needs polish.
Doesn't seem to want to run on Mac, tried Chrome and Safari but no joy yet
Ya sorry about that. I believe that is one of the known issues with Godot 4 web exports and macos. The download version for Mac may work, but I'm not sure about that as I wasn't able to test it.
ah, can't believe I missed that. Will try it now!
yep, all works grand
awesome, that is good to know that the dedicated download for Mac does work
Oh! That's cool man! I mean, nice gameplay and nice effects. It's polished and challenging!
I love the aesthetics, it gives me wasteland/alien-planet vibes, very polished, love the loopable music and sounds in general besides being subtle.
This can be expanded a lot, not exactly only "more enemies" which is obvious, but a more roguelike mechanic, different train types (sort of a class like behaviour), choice mechanics like upgrade trees after X experience, or you can choose where to go if you shoot a junction lever where you have two different ways, different biomes.
I don't find much meaning on braking the train, maybe I was missing something about it, the only way I can see it was useful for me is not missing a chest when I have cooldowns.
EDIT - Stuff I forgot to mention but I took note in my head:
I don't think there is a problem with the contrast of the game besides not having much detail, the only way I see you can fix readability is with a closer camera look , but not too close it loses the wasteland aesthetic, maybe introduce fog so you don't have any reason to raise the camera.
Controls are a little bit weird, I don't see how that could be improved, but I like the different options between using A and D or using numbers, if you didn't plan on "expanding" the train, you could use certain button as class buttons, like Q,W,E,R... which have a meaning not just "left and right".
Wow, I really appreciate the amount of time you put in your comment. Thank you so much for this detailed feedback.
On your first point, I completely agree with your thoughts on expandability. I had started to prototype a shield generator car and a laser train, but disabled them before uploading to meet the competition deadline. I love the idea of junctions that you can shoot a lever to choose which path you go down. I think that adds a lot of meaningful choice in how the player progresses, not just coasting on one rail the entire game. It is funny, but if you are able to survive long enough in the current build (~60 minutes) you will reach the extents of the game and reach the null void where the background becomes grey. It is actually kind of a cool feeling going between those two zones, even if it wasn't intentional, so I think your idea of biomes is spot on and definitely something that should be pursued.
You also make a good point about the train braking. Early in development I found it useful so I could not miss an item chest, but as difficulty was tuned more and enemies were added, it became meaningless as you mention. My current build of the game I've actually already replaced it with a 10% self heal that seems to feel a lot better, and helps smooth out some of the difficulty spikes when huge waves are spawned.
With regards to detail/contrast, I'm a programmer by trade so all of the art assets I created were a best effort attempt while trying to minimize the chance someone could notice my drawing errors lol. I think I'm slowly improving, but I definitely recognize I have a lot of room to grow, and a more complete version of the game I would probably want to contract a real artist to replace the assets I had made. I do like the idea of introducing fog, and more particle effects in general would probably help sell the atmosphere while also bounding the camera extents as you mentioned.
On your last point, I had originally planned on having the train be expanded over time, say after every boss fight you could get a new train car added. That obviously was cut for competition reasons, but it is still something I am playing with. Early versions I had actually been testing with trains that were 20 cars long and it felt pretty awesome, but it definitely becomes even more difficult to control. I really do appreciate folks feedback with regards to the control scheme and this is something I am thinking very seriously about to try to resolve.
Wow, the thing about getting out of the map into the null void is awesome, I can see it as an easter egg, a more polished null void (like intentional) that could happen after certain kilometers. Also about the kilometers, maybe there could be more reasons to "brake" or "go fast" than just advance into the game, it will be really hard to stick decisions into a linear setup, but for example there is stuff you can use at your advantage: more difficult as you progress in time (so enemies scale with time like risk of rain 2), that is: unique enemies for each time frame, with modifiers.
Enemies would be the hardest task as you need to consider how many dimensions you have to parameterize, a fact is that how many permutations on that dimension doesn't mean how many unique enemies, so you could make some sort of 5 dimensions for the enemies that makes sense to combine when applied to unique enemies (if you kill them too close they explode and damage your train, enemies that are invulnerable until you kill its minions, etc) those are stuff you can combine with unique enemies.
it can easily fit the "spam enemies" fest and chain reactions, but I think the "bleak" atmosphere is a nice touch.
So your progression system can be based mostly on shooting a lever to change the path gives a lot of intention into the game, but at the same time keeps it linear enough to feel constrained, but that doesn't mean you cannot brainstorm like for example one of the paths leads to a portal at some point, your idea has a lot of expressions to make it progressive, you start on a more "realistic" and wasteland set until you advance into the game, even adding stations to buy stuff.
About the idea of expanding your train, I think this one would be more fitting for a "barotrauma" style, which is having a set of different looking submarines in that case (here would be unique train combinations) each with it's advantages, for example one could be more tanky but slow, others more fast but cannot have a certain weapon (like heavy damage weapons) and how that do an effect on future decisions. Technically you can expand the weapons (like slots) but not the train itself.
Regarding Artstyle I was imagining while playing, a washed palette, sort of 3/4 perspective and not too clean (somewhat noisy), it would be sort of a factorio train for example:
Good luck on this game if you decide on expand it, I would've love to help you on the art direction but I'm just a pixel artist.
Very polished, nice mechanics, it has a lot of potential.
Thanks so much for the kind words and playing!
Had quite a bit of fun with this one. Controls were a little challenging but feel like that might contribute to the level of tension. The amount of upgrades you were able to fold into the game is impressive, definitely added a nice level of progression.
I think a lot of roguelikes live and die by the amount of items available so I tried to pack in as much as I could handle as a one man team in the time frame. I'm glad you enjoyed it and hopefully I can find some good middle ground with the controls based on everyone's feedback.
Interesting mechanic, I feel like it needs something more, I don't know what though, but cool idea. I like the art, reminds me of those old Amiga 500 type of games, audio is great. Cool game
Love it, could definitely play this more. I wish the camera was closer to the train and there was more contrast between the train and the scenario. It felt to far away from the train.
I can definitely understand the need for more contrast between the train and the background. The camera distance also seems like it needs to be a setting so players can adjust it to whatever they feel is comfortable. These are both issues I hadn't really felt myself, but it is extremely valuable to me that I can get this kind of additional perspective to improve the game. Thanks so much for your feedback and glad you had fun!
This is a very interesting game! I feel like it has the potential for something bigger, however the controls are a pretty difficult to get the hang of and the game feels like there is a bit of a lack of control with when you lose. But I still had a lot of fun and it seemed very unique!
Thanks for the kind words. There has definitely be a trend of people having issues with the controls so I will look into that more. After others feedback I did add mouse left/right click control, but I personally prefer keyboard still. If you have any suggestions of preferred control layout I would be interested to know!
As for lack of control on when you lose, I think there is certainly a lot of balancing that needs to be done still. I have played the game a lot obviously, but I can get to 15-30 minutes pretty regularly and sometimes go infinite if I get the right combination of items.
Glad you had fun and thanks again for your feedback. I will take it to heart and try to find ways to improve the game.
I didn't realize at first I could change which gun I was using. I didn't even realize I had accidentally changed it at first I just noticed my abilities changed and didn't know why. Showing the cooldowns of all the turrets at once would be nice. I think the difficulty could ramp up quicker and it would make it more enjoyable. I played for a few minutes and didn't feel threatened and it started to get dull. But roguelikes always have potential so there is a good base here.
Yeah, I had only realized later that I needed to include clearer UI to indicate the ability to switch between cars. I'm glad you were able to figure that out without having to read the game page instructions though. As for the difficulty ramp, I think you are right for a game jam format, it needs to be a little bit quicker to the action. In my playtesting, the real difficulty curve starts to hit hard around 5 minutes in and usually most games end around 10-15 minutes unless you get some OP item combination. Thanks again for playing and I'll think a bit harder on how difficulty should scale for this.
pretty and fun, but I didn't like the controls. It isn't good need to change the position of the hands always, It would be better if I could keep my fingers on top of the keys without changing whenever I go to do a basic action of the game.
For the controls I tried to copy pretty common MMO/Action style games where all your keys are tightly clustered around WASD (+ER). Now that I think about it more though, having the primary/ultimate ability also bound to left/right mouse clicks would have helped a lot so I really appreciate this control feedback. Definitely something I can improve on. In a more complete game, I'd like it to be customizable, but simply didn't have enough time considering I also had my regular full time job responsibilities.
Thanks for playing!
Nice game! I liked the auto aiming system and the multiple abilities.
I'd just like a better way to know what the upgrades I got are (inside the game). Also, maybe some upgrades could unlock some abilities ?
Anyway, liked the style, the gameplay loop and the idea!
Ya, totally agree on having more info on what the items are in game. I actually tried to implement it, but was having some issue with the mouse over of items not activating. I think i didn't layer control nodes correctly or a non-control node parent? Anyways ran out of time :(
Definitely like your idea of unlocking abilities/upgrades too. I had two different train cars (shield and laser) that I wanted to basically add onto the train making it longer over time, but had to focus on the cannon/twin gun just to get them working.
Thanks again for playing!
Really fun, I could be hours playing this.
Thanks! There is definitely a lot of balancing that has to be done for all of the items, the different train car abilities, and enemy difficulty, but I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Really fun game, I don't know if it is because of my monitor size, but the train appears pretty small for me. Very creative idea and awesome sound!
Yep, the train should appear to be pretty small. Mainly I wanted to allow the player to see a lot of the surrounding so they can see enemies approaching. The longer range vision helps in particular with using the skills of the cannon/twin gun car. Thanks for playing!