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9 Dayz's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Visuals(Graphics) | #1 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| User Interface (UI/UX) | #2 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Fun | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Sound/Audio | #3 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
DevLog Link
https://humane-tiger.itch.io/9-dayz/devlog/535787/devlog-improve-my-game-jam-27
Developer Feedback Questions
I am happy about any kind of ideas, thoughts, feedback or criticism. Would like to develop the game further, so your input is very welcome.
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Comments
Great game, great level of complexity and polish, and it was a lot of fun until I encountered a gamebreaking bug in my first combat. ^^;
I was attacking with a knife and was allowed to keep clicking and attacking past my mana emptying, and after killing the zombies in a single turn because of this, the combat failed to exit and thus I was stuck inthe combat with 3 dead enemies who didn't take any actions each turn.
As a side note, I put off combat for a while because I hadn't crafted a weapon, but there seems no way of guaging the enemy zombie card strength relative to your own on a fresh playthrough, I think when you pick up a rock/knife etc or something that can be used in battle the game needs to tell you, OR the game needs to start with a scripted trivial combat like in Pokemon.
The ingame polish and artwork looks really great, and I don't think your capsule art does it justice.. The purple background doesn't match the color pallete in-game and makes it look like some cheap halloween flash game IMHO. I'd definitely also try and get some sort of card/paper aesthetic into the capsule.
Movement was a little bit confusing until I realised W wasn't true north, at which point it made sense. I read your DevLog, and only being able to move one square at a time probably seems to be a good thing to enforce, and the movement control system works very well as is at the moment, so I don't think it really needs redoing as a system as it is exactly what I would expect of the game at the moment.
Wow - thanks a lot for sharing all these many thoughts and in-depths feedback.
Regarding the bug I am so sorry - it must have slipped in on the last day before publish (already fixed it, will publish the new version after voting has ended). If you want to test how combat actually works, you can give this version here a try: http://humane-tiger.com/9dayz/ (choosing "Start Real" is the better option)
You are so right with the game thumbnail / capsule art - I will create another version that is fitting the games art style. As so many things in a Jam it was made in a rush...
Can you please tell me what you mean with that 3rd paragraph ("As a side note, I put off combat for a while because I hadn't crafted a weapon, but ...") ? Maybe it's because fighting zombies is broken in the Jam build, but you can use any inventory item in battle - it doesn't need to be a "true weapon" necessarily. At least, this is, how it is for now. What I am planning is giving most items some "special effect" to raise the variaty and strategic depth in battles. The following concept image is showing that already in a vague manner (for the snack and the stone).
Really enjoyed reading your feedback, thanks again!
Awesome yep combat looks fixed in that build, just had a quick go :D
I just meant I did not rush into combat ASAP because I was on the look out for crafting a weapon, but in the jetty area I decided to combat despite that so I could loot some things. Now I see I actually started with the knife anyway and combat is a lot less scary than I thought, hehe ^^'
Very polished game with nice pen-and-paper aesthetics. Almost feels more like a tabletop game than a video game. Using the items you gather as a card deck during fights is a pretty neat idea. For my taste, it has a little too many different systems going on all at once, but I think that’s just a personal opinion.
I think my biggest gripe with the game right now is that drops are randomized. I could see this either as a complete roguelike or as a completely designed “campaign”, but considering that the game wants to be pretty hard and unforgiving (as far as I understand), the way it is right now just feels very RNG-dependent (not saying it necessarily is, but for a new player who has not yet figured out all the strategies, it definitely seems like that).
While I generally really dig how the UI works, it can feel a little cluttered at times. Also not entirely sure if I like time passing by itself, though I get the reasoning behind it.
Anyway, this may have sounded more negative than intended. I think this is a pretty cool start and I wonder where you’ll take it!
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback. Don't worry, I am all around happy with it. There is so many valuable stuff that gives me reason for some good, deep thinking.
When making decisions, I constantly have some of my favorite games in mind. There is this one in particular, where the world is designed, but the loot is random - it's The Long Dark. But many more factors in that game contribute to such a mix feeling "just right", and 9 Dayz is missing a lot of them. It is indeed intended to be damn hard, but taking TLD as a success model, this game offers different play modes - from something like "let's take a cozy walk in a snowy forest" to a never-ending survival battle ala "oh my god, if I can't start a fire in the next 2 minutes, I am done for sure. oh no! there is a pack of wolfs!" :-D
The cluttered UI... yes. I find no good solution for too many Cards piling up in certain places - game is removing them after a certain distance, and players have to re-discover them. But still - maybe I have to reduce the threshold when a certain amount of Cards is exeeded. Removing the info icons and additional texts is something I want to avoid, that's a personal preference and something I am missing in many games and UIs in general.
And the numerous systems will probably even grow in numbers. Truth is, I am not good with designing clever, neat, minimalistic game mechanics. To me this is the supreme discipline of game design only very few people master. The only way I can work around this lack of skill is by staying on the "real" side. Which means, at one point my game will also offer a fishing mechanic, cooking, luring etc. But all of them will have this Card-based twist, which I hope will bring up some fresh, new variants of these established mechanics.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Really appriciate that!
Amazing polished game. As other people said, the game is kind of stuck when defeating a zombie. But I'm sure you can fix that after the jam. It reminds me of undertale with its "choice" mechanic.
You could add a bomb which kills all zombies around you without a fight. But maybe you already have that. I didn't play for long.
The game feels so finished and polished. Keep it up :)
The bug is already fixed ;-) So typical - moved code to some other place - one small mistake. Boom. Anyways, if you want to play the stable version, I uploaded it here : http://humane-tiger.com/9dayz/
I will give the fighting mechanic some more thoughts - have some ideas, an improvised bomb sounds great. Also thinking about some minigames - like fishing, luring zombies and cooking.
interested :)
Well now that I have acually played it I can say it is really good ! I like the music the art style and the gameplay is pretty intuitive ! well done ^^
Thanks! Anything you would wish to see added or changed? Don't hold back - I am open for any kind of feedback. Game is still in an early stage, and I am hungry for input :-D
Well after seeing your changelog I'm really eager to see the rats and infestation stuff it look cool. And also I find that you loose your weapon pretty fast so maybe buff there durability or add some better weapons that you can only find in houses or cars rarely. I played only an hour so I dont know if you've already done that and I didn't seen it. But yeah even in that stat its a really good game !
Uhhh, I like your suggestions. Let me share a concept I created in the past. It shows how to repair the durability of weapons and also how a prestine version of the axe will look like (I was drawing it already, also have a wrench, baseball bat etc) - finding them in rare places sounds like a great idea to me. So players can craft improvised weapons from basic items they find or they are lucky and loot the really cool stuff.
The art and gameplay is really unique. I like it a lot. I get stuck on the zombie fights after killing them so I would work on that first since it's game breaking. Some more game juice would really bump this up. some card shakes when shooting zombies with the shotgun would be cool.
Thank you for your kind words. Regarding the zombie issue, here is what I did: I published the pre-refactoring version here: http://humane-tiger.com/9dayz/ This version does not include the in-game editor (my goal for the Img27 Jam) - but zombie battles and most other things work just fine (can be played till the end). So if you want to explore the game world including fighting zombies, I recommend playing this version.
I really love what you did but it seems that each time I try to fight zombies, even when the zombie die, I stay locked in the fight menu and can't continue playing. Am I doing something wrong ?
You are doing everything right. I also noticed this issue today. The bug must have slipped in on the day of publish, before that, zombie battle was working just fine. Ayy, I knew after such a big refactoring some bugs will show up, but I was hoping for less severe ones :-/ Anyways, here is what I did: I published the pre-refactoring version here: http://humane-tiger.com/9dayz/ This version does not include the in-game editor (my goal for the Img27 Jam) - but zombie battles and most other things work just fine (can be played till the end). So if you want to explore the game world including fighting zombies, I recommend playing this version.
Thanks I'm going to play it right now and rate you according to the working game
Very cool idea! It took me awhile to see where I was on the map, I actually noticed the trees before I noticed my player character hehe, so perhaps a little effect on the player would make it very clear!
The card design art and the map art is amazing! Really love the style~ Also the UI is superb! I kinda wished I could zoom in and out on the map, also the icons are quite tiny.
Perhaps a little linear tutorial at the start just to learn the basics would really help. Once it started I was a bit overwhelmed hehe.
Really neat idea and keep working on it!
Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your impressions. I was thinking about what you suggest, and you are totally right. All "building" Cards (trees are buildings as well in my object model) are giving feedback when player hovers them - but the "event"/"tutorial" cards do not. That's something I will change - for all of them I can give proper feedback in the games world. Thanks to your feedback, I realised that something is missing here.
The zoom is also a valid point - I also had to remove the fog of war, because of performance issues. I will have a look at both topics later. When the fog is back, it should also be easier to orient yourself in the beginning - only a small portion of the map around the player will be visible then.