Hi WhatTheWaffle,
Just played your demo, I hope you don't mind me providing my feedback - I think feedback is a really important part of the game development process.
Things Done Well:
- The art style is absolutely beautiful, and clearly the standout element of the game for me.
- This art style is coupled to some equally excellent music which in summation lead to a real sense of depth and immersion with the game's world. In other words the theming is consistent and captivating.
- The idea of the 'Other Side' is a good one and I enjoyed the moments where this was required. Inspired by the 'Upside Down' in 'Stranger Things' perhaps?
Areas for Improvement:
- I feel the 'Other Side' element was drastically underused in the first portion of the game I played, and felt largely optional which is a shame - especially as this is literally the first thing you are taught in the game.
- My monitor's native resolution is 3840 x 1200. Your game detected this and scaled correctly, though this placed some critical GUI prompts for the on boarding / tutorial process in the very extreme lower corner of the display - which I initially missed. Whilst I appreciate this is a somewhat extreme resolution, when I changed to 1920 x 1080 in the games options it removed the GUI HUD entirely, making progress quite challenging. After some guess work it sorted itself out in the next room and no problems thereafter.
- The current demo feels quite repetitive (completing the first area and using the portal stone takes you to a very similar looking area with yet more enemies) each level just feels like a massive series of fetch quests. I appreciate however that your roadmap includes more narrative and story driven elements between stages which I think would go a long way to providing a justification for the onward progress beyond just 'grinding.'
- My gut feel is that the game would play better as a linear RPG without the roguelite elements and procedural generation. I feel the art style, XP system and crafting - if linked to a good story would be more than enough to carry this to success. From a personal perspective a game like this would appeal a lot more to me.
I hope the detailed feedback is useful, I am developing my own game so totally hope you take this in the manner it is intended - to help you make the best game possible!
All the best - Ben.