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Just played the demo on Steam and I loved it! I have some feedback I'd like to give though that I hope you'll take to heart when finishing the game!

Better player feedback for slowing time: I think just slowing down time isn't enough in terms of feedback, and including something like a darkness effect on everything except the player and bullets or a particle effect would be nice.

Adjustments to slowing time: I thought it felt weird that instead of going straight to 50% time, first, time straight up stops, then speeds up to 50%. I think going straight to 50% or lerping from 100% to 50% would both be good options, but it kept throwing me off when time would just completely stop for a second.

Improvements to interacting with things: I realized that I could still interact with things even when I was facing away from them, which resulted in me accidentally interacting with a few things that I didn't mean to, which was annoying when it was a character with a lot of dialogue I had to skip through.

Better bullet colors: I thought the blue bullets were fine, but the green ones often blended into the background for me which made it hard to see them if I wasn't looking for them, and lots of times they would hit me out of nowhere. This was only a real problem in the hotel because of the color of the floor, but I think maybe adding an outline to the bullets or changing the color of the green one would be the best option. I like to do a "squint test" to see if colors work for my games, and if you can't see everything crucial while squinting, then that means you need to adjust your colors. A colorblind mode may also help because I'm a little colorblind which also may be while I was having troubles.

More feedback in general: I noticed there wasn't much feedback in most systems which made interacting with some things feel a little off and overall made the game feel a little unpolished. I noticed a lack of particles which I think would go a long way towards polishing some aspects of the game. I know this is a little vague, but it's more general feedback than specific.

Boss direction indicator toggle: I loved this feature as it made it so much easier to aim in the direction of the boss! However, I think some players may opt to turn it off for a little more challenge. I'm not sure if this is already part of the Masochist Mode or something cause I only played through the Intended Difficulty, but if not, it could also be a part of Masochist Mode.

Shadows/better depth perception: There were lots of times in the game where I was slightly confused about the depth of certain parts of the levels, and I think if there were shadows (maybe part of the sprites, idk how your system works) it would make it a lot easier to tell, plus it would make the world look 10x better and more polished. Without shadows, some things just are "there", and don't feel like they're actually interacting with the world.

Dialogue box changes: I get why the player starts off at NULL when selecting between dialogue options, but personally, I thought it felt weird and more like a bug rather than an intended feature, and it made it hard when I wanted to get through dialogue quickly. Also, I think the player should be able to hit a button like BACKSPACE, ESCAPE, B (on controllers), etc. to select the dialogue option that exits the dialogue if one is present.

And that's it! I think I may have had some more feedback that I forgot about, but those are the main ones I could remember! I would loooooooove to be a beta tester when the game is ready for beta testing, and I hope you take some of this feedback to heart! As a colorblind person, the bullet color changes would be much appreciated! (Or at the very least, a colorblind mode so players can decide for themselves!)

Better player feedback for slowing time

Raising the contrast between the player+enemies+bullets vs. the background is something I've considered, and still might add some time. In the full game bullets do produce sparks when you graze past them, so that might improve the feel somewhat.

I realized that I could still interact with things even when I was facing away from them, which resulted in me accidentally interacting with a few things that I didn't mean to.

I don't entirely understand this one, the button for interacting with things does nothing else, so I'm not sure why you'd be pressing it when facing away from something and expect something else to happen. A related concern is that it's easy to talk to the same NPC again after closing out the dialogue with them. That's something I want to fix.

Better bullet colors

This is something that maybe could be improved, but it's the kind of thing where specific examples would really help me -- there are multiple backgrounds, after-all. It's been a while, but I believe I may have adjusted the colors on the bullets since the demo anyways?

Boss direction indicator toggle

Specifically removing it for masochist isn't something I'm interested in doing, because I think it's the sort of element whose inclusion allows me to ask more of the player in terms of dodging things. But I agree that just having the option to turn it off wouldn't hurt, and that's been a "Nice To Have" todo for a while. Probably something I'll do right before releasing the full game.

Shadows/better depth perception

Yeah, I agree. That's probably the biggest failing the game has in terms of visual readability I think. It's something I've tried to solve mostly through making raised ground use a different tile color, but it could still be better. Painting on shadows is definitely something I should consider, but I'm not sure if I'll have time.

Dialogue Box

This is a probably the most oddly controversial thing in the game, and I've had a lot of people say they do and don't like it. I guess it probably comes down to what one's habits are for advancing text -- I think Vacant Kingdom is set up to help people who sometimes advance through decisions without realizing it.

That being said, I do think I mostly agree with your side these days. I do want to tweak it somehow before the full game is released, probably by defaulting to the first option but delaying selection a bit.

Exiting dialogue with the back button is a good idea, but not essential probably. It's going to be one of those things that I'll do so long as I can think of a way that won't take more than a few hours to add it to everywhere appropriate in the game...


Anyways, thanks for leaving feedback. Noted about beta testing -- i'm not quite ready for that yet, but it shouldn't be too much longer.

Thanks! I'll post some screenshots to explain some of these things in more detail.