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breadpan8 days ago(+1)

The art is great, and the music and sound effects bring the feel of the game out! The wait for nighttime to be over is nice, but a way to skip or fast-forward it would be nice.

I like the combat indicator, but it seems a little large, as I simply was running around spamming the attack button, dying then immediately re-possessing and doing the same thing. The attacks also seem a little slow, as if I was charging up an attack and the enemy wasn’t focused on me, they simply just ran past and easily avoided it.

The enemies move pretty quickly, and with multiple waves and the enemies splitting to hit multiple trees at once, it made the game a little hard, as you’re a lone defender. I noticed some of the enemies bugged outside the map (in the water) and just standing there.

My game crashed (or at least the browser froze) twice while playing the game. On the first time, my possession died and I immediately possessed another enemies that was hitting the tree. I noticed that the tree had a sad face which seemed like it had really low HP, and the enemy was in the middle of an attack. After the attack, the game just froze, but the music kept playing for a little while. Second time round something similar happened, where I was spamming possession and throwing their weapons before running out of energy and having the browser freeze up again.

The difficulty seemed to ramp up pretty quickly, as the first 2 days seemed pretty easy, until the enemies increased a lot, with different weapons and having multiple groups. I’m not sure if this was intended, but when possessing an enemy, attacking, then immediately unpossessing and possessing another enemy, the enemies seem to immediately attack me despite me not hitting them yet.

While I don’t mind the WASD to move the camera, with the mouse hover controlling the spirit, I feel that hovering at the edge of the screen (or close to the edge) should also pan the camera toward that direction. This way it is possible to play the game purely using mouse alone.

It also seems possible for you to permanently keep an enemy throughout the night, by simply keeping them a short distance from the tree, unpossessing to regenerate energy, then possessing them again before they hit the tree. I used the same enemy in Day 1 to clear up to Day 3 before he finally got hit. Not sure if this was intended or not.

The art and music are great for a short prototype, the gameplay seems like it needs a little tweaks to make it feel better. Not sure if there is an end to the game, but perhaps a way to defeat all enemies and win before moving to another forest might be a good addition. Great job for the game jam!

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Survansix7 days ago(+1)

Ah breadpan, you're awesome 🙌

You're making peoples' days doing the write-ups you're doing. Seriously kind stuff.

I've itemised each of your feedback bits and pieces and we'll be working through them systematically to get the gameplay feeling as delicious and crunchy as possible (like a good 🍞).

If I may ask for one more comment - we're building out this prototype into a full game with a campaign, storyline, endless wave mode, more enemy types (torches that start fires, wards that block possession, that kinda thing) - oh and a perk tree for a roguelite vibe. The vision is to "Orcs Must Die" it, if you get my meaning 😅 Could you see yourself paying 20 bucks for something like that? If no, what features would need to be in the game to get you over the line (or what price point)? If yes, what would you be hoping the game delivers on?

Thanks again!

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breadpan7 days ago(+1)

Thank you for the kind words!

I’ll take it as 20 USD is the price. First and foremost, I have never played Orcs must die so I don’t really get the vision, so my opinion will mainly be generally based off other games.

For the current game as it is, the first issue that has to be fixed is the crashes, as that is what stops your game from being played the most.

The most important thing, especially in a paid game is gameplay and content. The gameplay currently seems fine, and as you are adding more enemy types, a storyline, perk trees etc., I don’t really see that as too much of a problem.

But the content seems severely lacking. If you look at other games, for example, one of your inspirations, Ori and the Blind Forest is $19.99 (technically same price as yours) but has close to 10 hours of gameplay content. Some other examples are, Hollow Knight at $14.99 with over 20 hours of gameplay, Hades at $24.99 with over 20 hours of gameplay, Risk of Rain 2 at $24.99 with around 7-8 hours of gameplay, but very replayable.

Most of those games are hours in length, and despite Risk of Rain 2 there being the shortest game, I actually spent the most hours on that due to the replayability. If your game’s pricing point is competing with games like those, it has to have hours of gameplay minimally. The gameplay should also not be fillers, and say, expanding from 10 days of enemy waves to 100 days of enemy waves just to extend playtime, but new areas and mechanics that the players can enjoy.

If you feel the game can’t be as in-depth as those games, I feel it’s better to lower the price, or to spend way more time adding depth to the game. Game Jam games are usually best being really short, so the current game should only be a very small fraction of the full game based on your scope, think in the sense of half of Forgotten Crossroads being Hollow Knight’s prototype.

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Survansix7 days ago(+1)

Ah yeah you're very right, content is key for sure.

Orcs Must Die is a tower-defense / shoot-em-up hybrid, familiar to this (which we realised after we made the game). They encourage replayability quite brilliantly by allowing the player to go through the maps in campaign mode, then play again on harder difficulties, or try an endless mode. There's also a co-op mode, and leaderboards for each mode / difficulty shared with friends, plus global highscores. Then there's a perk tree system that allows you to gradually unlock more skills & traps as you earn more stars for doing well in the levels.

We're also contemplating introducing a light touch of roguelite elements to randomise powerups in the level - something like a "choose a bonus from these options" kinda thing each night, to encourage the player to try different playstyles (e.g. you could play aggressively and focus on possession, play strategically and lay more traps, or focus more on stealth and try to thwart their plans without getting caught). But this definitely requires finetuning.

There's also a reasonably low-hanging fruit of local multiplayer. But on Steam that mightn't count for much (more on console). Online MP is out of scope for the first release, I'd say.

But, assuming we created ~10-15 hours of replayable content, it sounds like you're saying Phantom of the Grove's gameplay is interesting enough and the premise is captivating enough that, sans the bugs, you'd give it a try for $20 USD?

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breadpan7 days ago(+1)

Personally, likely not. As my usual games are mainly survival games, like Subnautica, Ark Survival, The Forest or MMOs like FFXIV Online, so I’m likely not your target audience.

But, I do say that the gameplay is something that players would pay for, it currently is quite simple, but has many ways to expand on like you mentioned a perk tree, campaign more, more enemy types etc. If you are able to put out something interesting that can be played for 10-15 hours, your main concern should be marketing and letting your game be known. Be it reducing the price, so more players get to try it, or releasing a demo of the first few levels, the main priority should be getting your game’s name out there, unless you’re creating something so unique and amazing that players will advertise it themselves.

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Survansix6 days ago(+1)

That's great feedback, thank you so much for your time! Reach out to us if you'd ever like feedback on one of your games. I'm always happy to record myself playing and give live commentary - I find the best way to truly see the heatmap of friction for new players is to watch them play through it.

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