Hey Łycha, thanks a lot for the comments. They aren't as harsh as you'd think. Many of these we are aware of and want to address and some are conscious decisions, which will likely keep getting mentioned. We went through an additional art pass for the previous demo level, with added detail, quests and props and we were hoping for a three level demo but our discoveries regarding performance issues of that build led to us deciding the “memorial tower” level needs a complete remake in Hammer editor, instead of Unity’s built in ProBuilder (its use allowed the current demo runs better while being way bigger). Same with the current demo, we hope to add variety to the areas between points of interest, other than hidden goodies. We have no intention of scaling the map down, but filling it with cool stuff – most definitely.
Stuff like the endless train tracks will stay – it’s that artistic touch I don’t want to refuse Snake, the level designer and lead artist. We are happy with people’s reactions to Marie, whether they find her disturbing or cute. Both are intentional. We have received opinions that there are areas in the level that should be blocked off from the player but we decided to embrace our movement and allow people to go wherever they please, with more advanced techniques allowing places that you wouldn’t even expect reachable. You’ll find a small battery or an overpowered gun there, but it’s entirely optional. At the same time, our ambition is for the game to be hard but completable without using the movement tricks but that hasn’t yet been achieved yet. As for ladders, we believe there’s no need for a typical FPS ladder if Marie mantle them like any other object.
Thanks for giving us further chances. We hope that future iterations will address some of your issues, like AI becoming more refined (it’s not really "ally" AI, every NPC uses the same set of behaviours regardless of faction standing – like killing their enemy whether they are concious or not), nitpicks being fixed etc.