I have to be honest: I'm struggling to even go through this one. There are simply too many gameplay issues that get in the way. Moving from one camera position to another is incredibly difficult; I often just ended up moving between two of them without being able to go anywhere. Doors are particularly hard to go through. The fact that they close so soon after they open and you have to actually approach them again to reopen them does not help. I would prefer if you could just open them manually and they'd stay open, or if they were just open all the time.
SquishypuffDave suggested using character relative controls to fix the issue with traveling between camera positions, and I agree. I think that tank controls would be better for this game; they get a bad rap, but I think they would be a considerable improvement and would make basic traversal far less frustrating.
Interacting with things by clicking on them has room for improvement as well. I cannot tell whenever my click is actually going to work; having the cursor change shape when I'm over something I can actually click would help with this, including with the textboxes. I struggled to get the interactions for some things like cell signs to even pop up when clicking, and I can't even completely tell what it is I can interact with. I just have to click on something that catches my attention. I will give credit here and say that outstanding details almost always had an interaction tied to them, which was nice. However, the computer interaction in the office is incredibly unclear. I didn't realize that it was even doing anything until I experimented further and realize it was releasing SCP 035.
I'm not even sure if I've reached the end or how much more there is after getting that keycard. The elevator doesn't open, and I can't exactly get SCP 035 to enter any of the other rooms to see if it does anything. The door always closes before he even has a chance to enter. I don't know if this is all you were able to do or if I'm missing something.
I would usually talk about things like the atmosphere and narrative being set here, but my frustrations were the only things on my mind. That being said, I do want to point out what you do well.
Again, you do a good job of making the interactive items in the environments grab attention. Every item that stood out had an interaction, which is a good practice.
You've set up a solid mystery here that genuinely has me curious. A computer monitor with a text-to-speech voice tells me that I'm gonna help it escape and that it has opened several doors... and then I walk out to see something bad is happening. This setup left me with a number of questions while also giving me just enough info to start to speculate, and I like that.
I really hope that my ranting did not come off as rude. I just believe that the gameplay issues are quite prevalent and need to be fixed as soon as possible. I do want to see the narrative here fleshed out some more, but I think that fixing what doesn't work here should take priority.
In any case, I do hope to see this developed and improved further!
thank you!! I love all feedback, getting this much feedback is awesome, thank you for taking the time to write so much!! I really can't tell you how awesome that is, I will be using all feed back to hopefully make a much better over all game
I'm glad that my feedback was received well! I worried that I may have been overly harsh in some parts of my writing. I look forward to seeing the plot of this develop in future iterations and seeing the kinks ironed out.
This game made me wish I had added a category for best music, because whatever that music was was amazing. It really, really added to the atmosphere and I felt informed the whole piece. It was very cool! Creepy. I think we need to know a bit more about the protagonist earlier on to give us a palpable tension in the narrative, though, because this game was ripe for that sort of backstory. I hope you continue with this!
I like the creepy atmosphere. I did have issues with movement between camera views, and it seems that some of the dialogue is not able to be exited (like SCP-035's dialogue) which left me unable to continue after I got the key. Would love to give this another try to see the ending after it's fixed.
I'm always down for an SCP game! The opening has already sold me. So far I've had a bit of trouble with this one though. The camera-relative movement controls are often making me run back and forth between the different camera views. Character-relative movement controls would be a good way to solve this problem, so he can keep walking the direction he's facing regardless of the camera. Also it would be good to have a list of controls. I assume it's just running and jumping, but I worry I might be missing something.
Thank you for playing !! in the future, I definitely plan on fleshing this out much more, so all this feed back is absolutely amazing, and very much appreciated! Next time I'll be sure to place a list of controls in the game, along with hopefully a title screen and much better menu, again, thank you! =)
Comments
I have to be honest: I'm struggling to even go through this one. There are simply too many gameplay issues that get in the way. Moving from one camera position to another is incredibly difficult; I often just ended up moving between two of them without being able to go anywhere. Doors are particularly hard to go through. The fact that they close so soon after they open and you have to actually approach them again to reopen them does not help. I would prefer if you could just open them manually and they'd stay open, or if they were just open all the time.
SquishypuffDave suggested using character relative controls to fix the issue with traveling between camera positions, and I agree. I think that tank controls would be better for this game; they get a bad rap, but I think they would be a considerable improvement and would make basic traversal far less frustrating.
Interacting with things by clicking on them has room for improvement as well. I cannot tell whenever my click is actually going to work; having the cursor change shape when I'm over something I can actually click would help with this, including with the textboxes. I struggled to get the interactions for some things like cell signs to even pop up when clicking, and I can't even completely tell what it is I can interact with. I just have to click on something that catches my attention. I will give credit here and say that outstanding details almost always had an interaction tied to them, which was nice. However, the computer interaction in the office is incredibly unclear. I didn't realize that it was even doing anything until I experimented further and realize it was releasing SCP 035.
I'm not even sure if I've reached the end or how much more there is after getting that keycard. The elevator doesn't open, and I can't exactly get SCP 035 to enter any of the other rooms to see if it does anything. The door always closes before he even has a chance to enter. I don't know if this is all you were able to do or if I'm missing something.
I would usually talk about things like the atmosphere and narrative being set here, but my frustrations were the only things on my mind. That being said, I do want to point out what you do well.
Again, you do a good job of making the interactive items in the environments grab attention. Every item that stood out had an interaction, which is a good practice.
You've set up a solid mystery here that genuinely has me curious. A computer monitor with a text-to-speech voice tells me that I'm gonna help it escape and that it has opened several doors... and then I walk out to see something bad is happening. This setup left me with a number of questions while also giving me just enough info to start to speculate, and I like that.
I really hope that my ranting did not come off as rude. I just believe that the gameplay issues are quite prevalent and need to be fixed as soon as possible. I do want to see the narrative here fleshed out some more, but I think that fixing what doesn't work here should take priority.
In any case, I do hope to see this developed and improved further!
thank you!! I love all feedback, getting this much feedback is awesome, thank you for taking the time to write so much!! I really can't tell you how awesome that is, I will be using all feed back to hopefully make a much better over all game
I'm glad that my feedback was received well! I worried that I may have been overly harsh in some parts of my writing. I look forward to seeing the plot of this develop in future iterations and seeing the kinks ironed out.
This game made me wish I had added a category for best music, because whatever that music was was amazing. It really, really added to the atmosphere and I felt informed the whole piece. It was very cool! Creepy. I think we need to know a bit more about the protagonist earlier on to give us a palpable tension in the narrative, though, because this game was ripe for that sort of backstory. I hope you continue with this!
thank you! I definitely intend on continuing with this project, and love the feed back!
I like the creepy atmosphere. I did have issues with movement between camera views, and it seems that some of the dialogue is not able to be exited (like SCP-035's dialogue) which left me unable to continue after I got the key. Would love to give this another try to see the ending after it's fixed.
I'm always down for an SCP game! The opening has already sold me. So far I've had a bit of trouble with this one though. The camera-relative movement controls are often making me run back and forth between the different camera views. Character-relative movement controls would be a good way to solve this problem, so he can keep walking the direction he's facing regardless of the camera. Also it would be good to have a list of controls. I assume it's just running and jumping, but I worry I might be missing something.
Thank you for playing !! in the future, I definitely plan on fleshing this out much more, so all this feed back is absolutely amazing, and very much appreciated! Next time I'll be sure to place a list of controls in the game, along with hopefully a title screen and much better menu, again, thank you! =)