itch.io

• As an action game

It's good, I like the whole corrupted sector concept, but the AI feels too sluggish. I couldn't understand what the induvidual powers did, either, but used them anyways. Also, the two levels felt identical, with the same enemies and boss. But, I believe you can improve all of these.

• Is the game balanced?

As far as balance goes, the game felt too easy. I rarely lost health. At some points, the sheer number of enemies coupled with the small size of rooms provided some difficulty, but the boss was too easy. (Maybe give him a melee attack too?)

• Easy to keep track of things during combat?

Mostly. Player health and enemy positions were simple to keep track of, but enemy health wasn't as all the enemies bunched up together. Ability cooldowns were fine, but since I didn't know what they did, I just kept cycling them.

As for AI...

I'm not really sure how. Since the rooms are already quite narrow, there's less scope for convincing enemy AI. Maybe you could add extra enemy types, like one that heals other enemies.

For the boss, you should add a melee attack or something. Maybe add boss stages, triggering when health goes below some level.

You should probably go through a few articles on Boss design. Those will help.

Overall, pretty good concept you've got going on. With a little more polish and a few additions, this could be great! Just think it through.

• how well it works as an action game
  • The controls are very responsive so that's good. A variety of enemies would help.
• is the game well balanced in terms of difficulty (too easy or too hard?)
  • I found it pretty easy. I didn't seem to be close to dying at any point.
• is it easy to keep track of things during combat?  esp. health, ability cooldowns, and enemies
  • Everything was pretty clear. It would help if the abilities had names maybe?

• creating convincing enemy AI besides simply chase the player and attack; advice and resources are both appreciated
  • I would recommend reading up on the Finite State Machine pattern. Here for example: https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/finite-state-machines-theory-and-...