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Thalassa's itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- Gameplay was very fast, tuning it slower would increase accessibility for newer players. But I don't see why not that speed couldn't be used for higher difficulty zones. AoE of flares seemed too small for illumination. Or would benefit from being thrown ahead instead of dropped from a drone. A dash more zoom-out could benefit the player. The art style was cohesive and complemented each other. Lighting effects were well designed and added to the dark survival style of the game. Controller support would be of good benefit for the player if possible. Point aiming can be quite difficult for this genre of game. Unsure of the ‘execute’ mechanic, downed enemies seemed to never recover and felt like a wasted free action. Lots of collision box movement stops. Player character was often stuck when near enemies and unable to keep moving, unsure if this was a mechanic or bug.
- Looking over your GDD, I was able to follow along with what you had planned very easily. I can easily see how you implemented the theme, and making the character faceless helped with making him feel more like the weapon, like your inspiration Doom Guy. While playing through, I appreciated the fact that you put in settings. A small detail, but a very nice one! I rather enjoyed the music. It kept me on edge while also giving me enough sound queues to know when I attracted somethings attention. I love the setting you chose, and how you set up your game's itch page. Everything tied together very well visually. The gameplay itself was pretty smooth. Though I think at one point I might've gone out of bounds in the lover level on the right side of the map? I was able to get back in by retracing my steps, but the drone's light went completely dark and I could not see anything. Overall a fun little game with wonderful art direction.
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xzEQX8dh25tJJG1e90ycGiE-bw5vACFwXiHTOsyW2Mc/edit?tab=t.0
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
yes
Summarise your game!
Thalassa is a top-down action shooter where you play as an elite operative assigned to shut down a failed underwater government experiment. We wanted players to feel powerful, so we equipped them with cool, easy-to-use guns and a knife for executing enemies. The controls are simple: WASD for movement and the left mouse button for shooting. Other key actions are close to the movement keys for convenience—Q for flares, E to interact, R to reload, and the spacebar for throwing the knife.
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
The player controls an agent—a robotic killer. In the same way Doom Guy is a weapon, the agent is designed as one too. Not only is he a living weapon, but he’s also built to self-destruct, making him a literal weapon as well.
Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?
Nope. Thanks for playing! For us programmers, this was our very first game ever.
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Comments
I enjoyed the vibes of this one. The first time I heard the screams it was creepy and had my hair standing up. The art, ambience, and SFX really make this one. It felt really detailed here so great job on the environment art. Weird cthulu like stuff going on here. Really had to be strategic about my rounds later, especially going against the Bullet Hell enemy. Enemies were dodging my bullets, I 'm not sure I like that feature.
I'll echo some others and say the abominations felt a bit too fast and ended up being more frustrating than scary. I think it's a combo of enemy placement, your light mask (which is great!), and speed of the enemy. I liked SFX informing the player they've been spotted, but in some of the tight corridors it just not enough time. The tension is now lost and instead of it being an oh shit moment it's more of a memorize where all the enemies are in the level deal. Which is a shame, because it really destroys the horror element. In horror you want it to be about the tension of what's around the next corner. I think your light mask helps that. The speed of the enemies and how quick the player dies takes away from it.
The speed of the player felt a bit fast as well. Shooting worked except for the dodging bullets thing.
Overall I think the vibes carry this one.
The zombies feels too fast for me. If they have to be that fast at least let me see where they are before they see me. Hotline miami does that, it lets you plan ahead (remember) and then execute. Here I think the main problem might be the rather limited vision.
I wish that I could restart directly in the level instead of clicking on the button, I died A LOT.
The reload felt a bit too long and it would be even better if it was automatic.
You created something really cool that gave me Alien swarm vibes.
You should consider adding your names to your itch page, just to make anyone know that you made this :)
Congrats you made something fun.
Creepy Vibe, intense action. Got stuck on the first? boss, I wasn't sure if I was actually hurting it or not. Nice job for a first game! You seemed to execute on your vision successfully.
Great mood and menu background was very cool! Gameplay graphics were great. I think this game would benefit much from slightly slowing down movement speeds and giving the player some feel for mass/inertia and using more sound effects. I'd love to hear different sounds for different materials as player moves over them (could be cool mechanic for alarming enemies). Anyways this has much potential I feel. Great game, congrats to the team!
Thanks for the feedback! We kinda ran out of time to do more polish but we'll definitely consider your suggestions.
By far the best ambience and aesthetic I have seen in this jam so far. Camera and player controller felt responsive too which is a huge plus. The game could benefit from a bit more time for the player to respond to threats. One way to achieve this is to keep enemy speed the same but pull the camera back, or you could make is so the enemy pauses before an attack and add some kind of telegraph. The other thing that would improve the game is adding more feedback for enemy hits. When you hit an enemy having a "bounce" or hitflash goes a long way, especially if the projectile passes through the enemy. This is only necessary for enemies that take more then one hit to kill. Really enjoyed the entry!
Thanks so much for streaming our game. I might take a spin on polishing it post-jam with your suggestions.
To anyone reading this, sub to/follow Simpathey on Youtube and Twitch. :)
The art style is fantastic! The gameplay was pretty good even though it was a bit punishing. Great music as well. Only feedback I got is the enemy ai, they loved to spin when I was playing or sometimes get stuck. I would like if the camera was a bit zoomed out, but thats just a nitpick
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the game. 💙
The spinning is caused by the crab mutation as they are not used to walking forward (or at least that's my lore interpretation of it, lol)
Very nice fun game made me go
The game has a nice look but I think it'd play better if the movement speed of the player and the enemies were slowed down. It's very hard to react to them right now. Congrats on your first game! Hope you keep making more!
Thank you very much! As stated in the GDD, we wanted to emulate a Hotline Miami-like feel so the speed was intentional, but we will consider this feedback still.