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HiImBarney4 years ago(+1)

Well executed but tough experience!

Summary:

Adherence to Theme 
  • Theme was pack, you did a bold one on the dangers of Smocking and play as a Pack of Cigarettes. Turned it right on it's head in all the right ways! Well done! 
Game Design
  • The controls are servicable, the jump, may be a bit floaty but overall fits the need of this game. This in mind, however I feel like you could've done a better job implementing the shooting. Shooting at mouse comes to mind. Sometimes the enemies where unnecessarily hard to hit, and executing the diagonal shot was a bit of a hassle. (Btw, I noticed you didn't clamp your vector in C#, this is why your diagonal shot moves quicker diagonally than to the sides.)
  • I didn't like the harsh difficulty all to much. One could've done with a way of refilling health or at least more starting points.
  • In the future you can vary this with powerup drops! That would fit quite well. (A chain smoker "machine gun" , Hookah "grenade launcher" or maybe even a time slowing Bong comes to mind. Go wacky with it, it would fit!)
  • Overall good game design, nicely varied and distinctive Enemy types and challenging Gameplay!


Originality
  • A shoot 'em up Platformer, very interesting and unique. Plus points for trying to get a strong point across!
Style
  • Graphics where clear, everything was a bit dark and felt like you wanted to implement a light effect on the cigarette bullets but didn't
  • Anyways, your sprites are distinctive and stand out from the Background, which is very well done. 
  • The Sound effects where great, not too obnoxious or loud like most games on this Jam.
  • The music was ok. Not as catchy as it could've been but also not obtrusive or disruptive of Gameplay. It gets a good pass in my book!
Reply
Battery Smooth4 years ago(+1)

i honestly appreciate a ton the time you spent writing such a descriptive review.

I am very glad you enjoyed most of the things and as far as the negative go, i'll try to elaborate:

  • You are absolutely correct about the diagonal shot, that was the most junky code i've written in a while but with the time limit i just brute forced a working minimum viable product. Also, the shooting controls point you made is something every single one of my buddies that tried it said as well, but  i had already submitted it :/
  • The enemies being unnecessary to hit [im pretty sure you are refering to bone hitbox rotating for the most part] was intended. There are two types of frustrating, bad and good. Think about hitting dodgy enemies in Enter the Gungeon or Binding the Isaac? i would argue that's [good frustrating]. I feel the way i implemented it it feels like you "just miss the shot by a very small size of height" which seems like a bug, so i might have overestimated getting my point across. I feel like this is one of these game design philoshophy things you need a lot of experience with, which i don't have. That is also why you commenting on that as a negative is an immensely useful feedback.
  • As far as difficulty goes, it's king of subjective but i feel you. I also think it's hard to strike a perfect balance between hard and too hard. This is a game jam, so a player is most likely another dev rushing other developer games at about 15-30 minutes each. In such a format, it might have been wise to do something like refill the health but i chose[chose meaning didnt have time xD] to implement a harder iteration.

All in all, thank you for taking the time and enjoying the experience!

Reply
HiImBarney4 years ago

Jeah I mean, every game behaves differently (regarding difficulty)

In normal games (the big ones) like Dark Souls, people overcome frustrating difficulties by the sense of progression etc. This is not a given in a Jam Project where one is happy the game gets played at all, this is why in general to keep the difficulty rather low, or ramp it up slowly, since the player spends not a  lot of time getting accustomed to the controls of the game. In my game there is a walljump that everybody thinks is too hard. If one would replay the game and try the walljump again, they'd find it a lot easier. (At least I did.) This is what I mean by "no time getting accustomed to the controls of the game". In a full title I might make the walljump harder even. In this jam, I could've made it a cutscene that auto plays, which sucks to me, taking control away from the player... But it would've been rated in the game's favor.


When you referred to the bones, I get that, sometimes there should be an enemy that is more difficult to hit.  It's just a problem when you only have 2 hits, before you are out (because usually small agile enemies do less damage), can't  aim freely, and 10 different things try to shoot you on a small screen. I think the problem is not the enemy itself in my mind, but the way he is implemented overall.


And please don't take it too negative, I'm just giving my thoughts on the game, I'm not the be all, end all of Game Design, and I'm very much learning myself.

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