From my experience, one key actions games ususally focues more on "how good does it feel to press this key", and this game definitly excels at this perspective. The shake, the blood, the sparks... together they were so harmoic and sitmulating that they kept me playing till the end.
I do, however, want to briefly talk about the hit responses and design language though. As crisp and impactful as it sounds and looks, I would personally suggest a diffent sound and FX to go off when I'm blocking/side-stepping the soldier's attacks. This is because I've never noticed that I had to be blocking them, instead of simply stabbing them at the right time for a parry, which I never noticed to be wrong until compeleting the game and scrolling down. On the contrary, I noticed how the tank holds its shield with hinge in first sight, so I knew what to do with them the moment I saw them, this is a much more successful use of design language to me.
PS: I noticed z-fighting issue with the tank but there's a simple fix to that, which is to simply decrease z-position of the shield by a bit.
But yeah, over all, this is a great experience that distracted me from finishing my reviews before deadline for like half an hour, so I gotta give it a thumbs up. I do regret procrastinating, but I don't regret completing this game.
+ Satisfying sound when blocking and hitting the enemy.
+++ 3 distinct enemy types each with different mechanics. The second and the third type enemy are well designed to punish spamming players.
Some issues I notices:
Sometimes the soldier type enemy can get knocked back close to a dog type enemy. It is very hard to deal with this kind of situation. I also encountered a bug that after I hit the heart tank, it leaves the scene and I am not able to progress afterwards.
Overall great work for a game completely designed and developed in a week. It has a lot of potential to grow.
Thanks for commenting! Getting the three different actions and enemy types down came after like an age of thinking, but from there it was pretty smooth to go from design to implementation. The second two were specifically designed to combat spamming and force closer attention on the game, and I'm glad that came through! Also thanks for the sound comment, all of the juice came together right at the end but I'm pretty proud of it.
The soldier dog issue is definetely present though. I find when a dog comes just behind a soldier and you're able to take both out in one hit, that can be very satisfying. But the soldier's jumpback in particular can be pretty varied depending on the frame you hit him, meaning that the dog can end up in some pretty inopurtune positions. The last round in particular was designed with that fault in mind, but can just be impossible if you don't get the perfecting timing at the start. Finding a way to ensure correct spacing between enemies would be a number 1 priority were I to have more time fleshing the game out. Also thanks for the comment about the heart tank bug, I havn't seen that before and I'll look into it.
Thanks again so much for the feedback! Really useful and actionable stuff, and I'm glad you had fun with the game!
Great work as always. You did a lot with very little, and made a surprisingly very deep rhythm game. You nailed an awesome combination of dark, cartoony, niddhogg-esque aesthetics while also making a really awesome game.
Any criticisms I have are for slightly janky enemy pushes but they actually work perfectly for the aesthetic so honestly I have no complaints :)
Ahhh thanks Nate! I'm glad it connected as a rhythm game to be honest, I was a bit worried it would come off as pure combat with a weird beat thrown in the background. And Nidhogg was definetly on the palette of inspirations, so I'm really glad to hear the aesthetic pulled through.
The enemy pushes are a little jank though. I originally designed them just for the dogs but then sort of ran out of time and just kept them for the rest of the enemies. It was a difficult balance overall to have smooth enemy motion that also stayed in line with the beats, and having some underlying system to control that would likely be the focus were I to return to the project.
Again thanks so much for the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Damn its a good game! It made me scream and smash the keyboard at level 7 8 10!
The graphics and the beats are a good combination. They make the game have the vibe of 1980s arcade! The battle is intense and addictive, make me wanna try it again and again.
If I have to be picky, I would say the hit box still a bit off, especially for the heart and the dog, I am not saying the hit box is wrong, but making it more generous gives more possibilities to the game.
Also, a minor issue, the character and the UI are sometimes clipping.
I see so much potential in this game! Maybe in the future, this will be a complete arcade game. Increase the difficulty more slowly. Right now there is a big jump betweem 6 and 7. And I don't think this game needs procedural generation at all. Every level should be hand tunned and challenging enough, but not impossible.
Thanks so much dude! I'm glad you were able to enjoy and push through the final levels, I certainly didn't make them easy. I was worried the kinda disparate graphics styles along with the rhythmic beats wouldn't manage to mesh, but hearing they worked for you is really great to hear.
Fair comment about the hit boxes though. It was tough to fine tune because the hit box for killing an enemy is the same one they use to kill you, so they had to be both fair to hit while also not too large to kill the player from far away. If I could go back I would likely separate those functions into two hit boxes to resolve it. And thanks for the note about the clipping, that I can hopefully remedy soon.
I like your idea about it being set levels though, the ones in the game were certainly really fun to build. And it would help to address the difficulty curve, which I did make quite steep.
Comments
From my experience, one key actions games ususally focues more on "how good does it feel to press this key", and this game definitly excels at this perspective. The shake, the blood, the sparks... together they were so harmoic and sitmulating that they kept me playing till the end.
I do, however, want to briefly talk about the hit responses and design language though. As crisp and impactful as it sounds and looks, I would personally suggest a diffent sound and FX to go off when I'm blocking/side-stepping the soldier's attacks. This is because I've never noticed that I had to be blocking them, instead of simply stabbing them at the right time for a parry, which I never noticed to be wrong until compeleting the game and scrolling down. On the contrary, I noticed how the tank holds its shield with hinge in first sight, so I knew what to do with them the moment I saw them, this is a much more successful use of design language to me.
PS: I noticed z-fighting issue with the tank but there's a simple fix to that, which is to simply decrease z-position of the shield by a bit.
But yeah, over all, this is a great experience that distracted me from finishing my reviews before deadline for like half an hour, so I gotta give it a thumbs up. I do regret procrastinating, but I don't regret completing this game.
+ 3 different actions for a one button game
+ Satisfying sound when blocking and hitting the enemy.
+++ 3 distinct enemy types each with different mechanics. The second and the third type enemy are well designed to punish spamming players.
Some issues I notices:
Sometimes the soldier type enemy can get knocked back close to a dog type enemy. It is very hard to deal with this kind of situation. I also encountered a bug that after I hit the heart tank, it leaves the scene and I am not able to progress afterwards.
Overall great work for a game completely designed and developed in a week. It has a lot of potential to grow.
Thanks for commenting! Getting the three different actions and enemy types down came after like an age of thinking, but from there it was pretty smooth to go from design to implementation. The second two were specifically designed to combat spamming and force closer attention on the game, and I'm glad that came through! Also thanks for the sound comment, all of the juice came together right at the end but I'm pretty proud of it.
The soldier dog issue is definetely present though. I find when a dog comes just behind a soldier and you're able to take both out in one hit, that can be very satisfying. But the soldier's jumpback in particular can be pretty varied depending on the frame you hit him, meaning that the dog can end up in some pretty inopurtune positions. The last round in particular was designed with that fault in mind, but can just be impossible if you don't get the perfecting timing at the start. Finding a way to ensure correct spacing between enemies would be a number 1 priority were I to have more time fleshing the game out. Also thanks for the comment about the heart tank bug, I havn't seen that before and I'll look into it.
Thanks again so much for the feedback! Really useful and actionable stuff, and I'm glad you had fun with the game!
Great work as always. You did a lot with very little, and made a surprisingly very deep rhythm game. You nailed an awesome combination of dark, cartoony, niddhogg-esque aesthetics while also making a really awesome game.
Any criticisms I have are for slightly janky enemy pushes but they actually work perfectly for the aesthetic so honestly I have no complaints :)
Ahhh thanks Nate! I'm glad it connected as a rhythm game to be honest, I was a bit worried it would come off as pure combat with a weird beat thrown in the background. And Nidhogg was definetly on the palette of inspirations, so I'm really glad to hear the aesthetic pulled through.
The enemy pushes are a little jank though. I originally designed them just for the dogs but then sort of ran out of time and just kept them for the rest of the enemies. It was a difficult balance overall to have smooth enemy motion that also stayed in line with the beats, and having some underlying system to control that would likely be the focus were I to return to the project.
Again thanks so much for the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Damn its a good game! It made me scream and smash the keyboard at level 7 8 10!
The graphics and the beats are a good combination. They make the game have the vibe of 1980s arcade! The battle is intense and addictive, make me wanna try it again and again.
If I have to be picky, I would say the hit box still a bit off, especially for the heart and the dog, I am not saying the hit box is wrong, but making it more generous gives more possibilities to the game.
Also, a minor issue, the character and the UI are sometimes clipping.
I see so much potential in this game! Maybe in the future, this will be a complete arcade game. Increase the difficulty more slowly. Right now there is a big jump betweem 6 and 7. And I don't think this game needs procedural generation at all. Every level should be hand tunned and challenging enough, but not impossible.
More juice, more enemies, and more levels!
Thanks so much dude! I'm glad you were able to enjoy and push through the final levels, I certainly didn't make them easy. I was worried the kinda disparate graphics styles along with the rhythmic beats wouldn't manage to mesh, but hearing they worked for you is really great to hear.
Fair comment about the hit boxes though. It was tough to fine tune because the hit box for killing an enemy is the same one they use to kill you, so they had to be both fair to hit while also not too large to kill the player from far away. If I could go back I would likely separate those functions into two hit boxes to resolve it. And thanks for the note about the clipping, that I can hopefully remedy soon.
I like your idea about it being set levels though, the ones in the game were certainly really fun to build. And it would help to address the difficulty curve, which I did make quite steep.
Thanks for the feedback again!