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Nothing Exploded3 years ago

I really enjoyed this game (once I managed to get the sensitivity right ;) ). 

I hardly know where to start since there is so much good stuff going on in this!

I really like that you went with a mono-modal system. It was a smart choice especially since a bow is usually more tricky to get the hang of. Though hilariously it did remove some upgrades a few times by mistake because of a mixture of split arrows and ricochets.

I like that you went with the bow instead of the default of using a gun. The pullback, reload and having to lob your shots add some good tension. I like the use of stamina draining while you draw and I like the idea of the trade-off of sprinting vs firing but I think the balance was a bit off because I found it quite frustrating at times.  Another minor gripe is that the 

I like that the gold disappears which creates a push forward momentum to the game instead of hiding and being overly cautious.

The arenas were cool, and I liked the variety you gave with the different biomes. One thing I did notice is that the entrance "door" allows you to cheese the enemies by poking out, shooting, and then hiding. I think the door should just disappear and throw you into the thick of it haha.

I know the shop, upgrades, classes system come from autobattlers but it feels like that set of mechanics should have its own name. I've been quite into those games lately and was wondering which inspired you to add them in? You managed to get a really good breadth of abilities and synergies which is super cool! I imagine it's a tough thing to balance but the randomness definitely helps in that regard.

Honestly, the only the main issue I had was with balance, the shop upgrades needing to get a bit more expensive over time, the enemies getting a bit stronger (and maybe have a bit of archetype variety) but I can imagine that that was more down to lack of time than anything else. I hope you work on this some more. I'd love to see where you go with it :)

Overall I can't believe how much you got done just by yourself. Big props to you!

-Ben

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ashashza3 years ago

Hey Ben! Thanks for such thoughtful feedback, appreciated. 

On the mono-modal interactions... that's partly lazyness and time pressure :P Once I'd got bow physics working it was easier to just make physics buttons and interaction than building out a whole UI and switching to pointer input. Generally I prefer immersive interactions though, so I'm thrilled that came across. Sorry about the accidental upgrade removals ;( 

On bow-vs-gun, I generally don't enjoy violent stuff so lent away from gun. You also technically don't kill the drones with arrows, just knock them... they only die to impacts with the environment. I don't think this is very clear in the current build but I'd want to make that clearer and more meaningful. I also like the sprint vs fire trade-off... and I also don't feel like it's balanced right. I wanted the stamina to be quite limiting initially to make stamina-affecting upgrades more tempting but I'm not sure that worked? I'd be curious to know if you have any thoughts on how to improve balance / feel there?

Oh yea, you're so right on the entrance door! I was pretty concerned that all the challenge would disappear because of it, I didn't get time to address that concern. I considered having bombs spawn after X seconds near the entrance to push the player out ... but your idea of a breakable entrance is great. It makes me think there should be MORE breakable cover in arenas and increasing it's health, size, etc should be an upgrade tree!

On autobattlers I've barely played any, but I tried SNKRX earlier this year and had a great time with that. Immediately felt like that shop & upgrade system was an exciting space to explore. I read an insightful post by the snkrx dev, which I assume you've seen because you're always so on this stuff, one thing that stuck with me is that the "auto" part of the formula is actually a detractor, because it's largely waiting or low interactivity which by definition is less engaging. That felt very true to me and so with this I tried to keep both the "play" and "shop" parts highly interactive. It's a really powerful system and it's so rewarding to see players stop and spend time considering their options in the shop. Two things I'd love to explore more here are:
1) teaching the shop (it's tricky by nature and takes people a while to figure out ... but once they do it's magic!)
2) testing class synergies (during the jam I just kept quickly playing through and seeing how things felt, but I imagine there are smarter ways to explore combinations quickly at higher levels)
Which autobattlers are you enjoying most?

Another good insight on the enemies, I would have loved to get to more type and challenge levels + larger area sizes. 

Again, thanks for taking the time to play and share your thoughts.

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