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(+1)

I just finished rating your game, and here is my constructive criticism as promised. I think there are a few elements to the game that need to be revised and a few others that need to be embraced. I'm going to start with the things that need to be improved, and move on to the things that should be embraced.

For starters, the game could provide the player with more feedback to let them better interpret what is happening in the game. Things like sound effects, death animations, and highlights are all necessities when it comes to building a game. The player should easily be able to tell what's bad and how much time they have to dodge said bad thing. Yes, the tutorial shows players what to look out for, but you know you have a good system in place when a player can play without looking at the tutorial and know exactly what is bad just by looking at it. For example, most zombie games aren't going to say "Hey, avoid the zombies, and kill them if you can" in the tutorial, because players should be able to work this out for themselves. Changing your colour palette and maybe doing some animations to turn the lines into lasers would do a great job of communicating this to your players.

Speaking of which, you should revise the colour palette that you used in the game. Make sure that every individual element pops with as little effort as possible. Choose maybe 3 or 4 colours that stand out from each other and use them throughout the majority of the game. Purple does not stick out in front of blue, but orange certainly will. A good example of this is SuperHot. They only use 3 colours in the whole game, but that's all you need to identify exactly what you need, what you can interact with, what to avoid, all while having every colour visually distinct so that nothing in the foreground or background is getting confused.

Don't move the camera around like you did in the 3rd phase. It's nauseating. You can add maybe a bit of screen shake and use movement in other ways, but I straight up got a headache trying to play that level. If you really want to keep it, find a better way of doing it so that it has the same effect on the gameplay without being nauseating.

Finally, you should really do more with the player's companion that they are trying to save. I didn't play to completion, because I seriously couldn't handle that 3rd level, so I'm not sure if that character does get a use further on. But if you didn't, it was a serious missed opportunity. Being able to interact with them or use their electricity to fight back could have given a more unique and interesting play style to your game that it could really use to stand out from the other games in this jam. Maybe the player should be forced to stay within a certain distance of the companion to get some kind of bonus. You'll have to do some trial and error to see what works, but having that extra character without incorporating him into the direct gameplay of the game just feels like a wasted opportunity to me.

I hope this feedback helps. If you have any questions, or any concerns, don't be afraid to bring them up :)

(1 edit)

Thank you very much for your deep analysis!

Most of the things I think are due to a fact that I got only 5 days to make this game and I needed to make a lot of compromises to be able to get the game out. Still I am happy that you gave me so many valuable suggestions for improving the game.  :)

The companion currently just drops shields for the player. At first I wanted to go waayy more chaotic with the companion.. You had to control both of the characters at the same time... It was a fun idea but I abandoned it pretty fast because I noticed you would need  extraordinary good reflexes and concentration to be able to master them both. However I did not want to leave another character out completely. At first he just wandered around the screen and blocked balls. I was thinking that it would be to easy so I left that ability out. Instead I made him drop shields...

The rotating level is very short. I encourage you to try again. The next level is more stable (but chaotic in other ways) and after that there will be a boss fight. ;)