Good stuff, playing through it was still fun, even with playing the two levels in previous DD. I have to admit, the mix of classic sprite graphics and the high-quality effects felt odd at first, but it grew on me eventually. What stood out with this style is that the environments were rather sparse and the level gemoetry a bit simplistic compared to the presentation. The difficulty for me was rather easy, the only time I got under 50 HP is on the hsip level when I didn't realize at first that enemies can shoot through the doors that can open one-way only.
For the weapons, they're overall nice - the two outliers are the shotgun, which feels really good to use: the sound, the screen shake, the rhyhtm of the animation is perfect - the only thing is that personally I wish the spread was tighter. On the opposite end for the other, I didn't care much for the flamethrower - it doesn't really have much feedback to it, and it doesn't even have specific death animations like Blood. Speaking of though, I love the new powerup, especially that it's triggered manually after being picked up instead of on-pickup.
Below are some bugs, issues and findings I've written down as I played through the demo:
- The tutorial is nice, though a bit handholdy for this genre, so perhaps keep it optional. I'm also not sure it needs the jumping part with the three columns, as the game is not really a platformer and precision jumping didn't came up that much during gameplay.
- The nightclub started after the tutorial level, but after completing it my only option was to go back to the main menu instead of continuing with the next level.
- Was generally missing a text somewhere on the screen that tells you what you picked up
- Would be nice if weapons and ammo carried over between levels.
- On the streets, you can jump out of bounds from the balcony of the building where you pick up the shotgun (jump from the railing to the top of the wall)
- There's a z-fighting at one of the buildings where you jump on the roof:
- The ladder movement doesn't follow the camera: looking down and pressing forward you still climb up.
- The vase in the dragon room in the sewers doesn't follow the camera, you can look behind it.
- The way the lighting disappears when you pick up the keys and you're left in darkness can be jarring when the area doesn't have other lights.
- The tram really needs sound! Also feels like not having an enemy specifically put at the start so it can be ran over is a missed opportunity.
- The lever that overlooks and operates the railway turntable is a bit too high up and doesn't have a good overlook over it - the main reason I know what it did and what to do was because I played the game before.
- The dogs keep barking when they die mid-playing the sound - probably should cut off or have a specific sound when they die.
- In the ship level engine room (with the big horizontal cylinders), if you fal between two cylinders the game makes you juggle like a pingpong ball: probably can be fixed by a small invisible horizontal platform.