Wow so that's how it feels to get an essay in the comments! Thanks very much for your time!
To be honest I had the idea for this kind of control scheme for a few weeks, and after I failed to submit my last project I was determined to do what I was in the mood for straight away to save time. As I was making it the limb system kind of appeared and suddenly it fell into place theme-wise. Good suggestions!
- I find level design is what allows a game's mechanics to sing and I definitely need to work on that haha. I was kicking myself after the deadline that I didn't limit the player to the circle of light, easy fix for the pot shots problem. After my last project I also thought I could shove in some kind of style point system for this one to encourage the player to play sub-optimally, but even with double the time things get cut. I found the strategy that works for me for these kind of fast projects is to keep it as dead simple as possible, hence no changes in elevation, obstacles etc. Funnily enough I was surprised how straightforward it was to get that kind of drifting kart motion, wondered whether that would work against it being an FPS but clearly not! The kart track design is a great idea, puts me in mind of something like the on-foot chase in The Good, the Bad, the Weird. Definitely want to work more on that feeling of momentum, flinging yourself etc.
- After playing Devil May Cry 3 I've kinda warmed to the idea of rewarding the player's ability to mash, but a reload should hopefully bring the best of both worlds. And the animations were a total rush job and I should've emphasised more the use of limb shots to create openings.
- (&4.) Those cowpokes really should use their guns, it seems silly that they run around and don't fight back. If they did then the player would have a use for their dodge, and in fact if they angled their heads differently then the player would have to crouch under them to get a shot at their head!
5. This is the first time I really engaged with the selling of the game, not just the making of it. I really should look into putting up gifs, especially when YouTube seems to decide to take down your video and not tell you why haha.
Everyone's destined to eventually lose in this game I'm afraid haha. There used to be a kind of win-state by crashing your game with the amount of cowpokes, but I had to go and be clever and make sure that didn't happen didn't I. I did not expect someone to react to the gameplay this strongly, so this was very encouraging to read!