Hello! After several attempts at the first level (I could not reach the end, see below), here are some thoughts.
Comments:
- The usual gentle ‘rant’ (in a nice way ;)): the controls are QWERTY and do not map to other keyboards; it is possible to program so that the physical locations of the keys will be taken into account. Nevertheless, you did enable the arrow keys, so I was fine with my AZERTY: phew, I had a lucky escape there, because the game is already hard! X)
- At the beginning, you can go left and fall in a ravine, but this was apparently not expected, as the game continues, including the shooting sounds. Maybe you had not anticipated it was possible to go there? The collisions are a bit buggy, so I guess this makes it harder to control where the player has access to.
- Funny that the die and hearts indicators are shown in the background instead of the foreground. :) (In particular, they appear to be behind the game trees.) Was this on purpose? In general, it can give a nice visual effect, but it can also sometimes result in having the player not see them; this is what happens towards the first witch, for example.
- The scenery is beautiful, including the skulls below the ground (they remind me of Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts, somehow; I see psykraft made a similar observation) and candles. The enemies/characters are also well draw (I especially like the very first enemy, the red tentacled ‘cyclops’).
- Are some sounds mouth-made, especially the one for throwing weapon 1 (the gold sack)? :) I am asking because I have a fondness for this handmade technique.
- It would have been a good idea (I think!) to connect which weapon beats which enemy in some visible way for the player. Otherwise, it is wild guessing (and then experience).
I had trouble identifying which weapon beat the first enemy, and once I had defeated him, since I had to jump to open fire safely, the die had changed numbers! (Although I had the presence of mind to retain what my previous die number was; phew. XD) This makes learning the enemy-number associations tricky.
I am not sure how you decided which weapon was effective against whom; for example, the gold(?) sack defeats the red cyclops, the dog defeats the zombie, and the music notes defeat the witch(?): is there any underlying logic? (Maybe, I could see gold associated to RPGs and their monsters, dogs eating zombie’s members, and the witch had her mouth wide open as if singing.) If not, it is harder to remember. - I also think the mechanic does not play out really well: concretely, when you arrive near some enemy, you just take cover, jump up and down until you get the right weapon, destroy the enemy, and then proceed to the next part of the level.
- Apparently, later enemies require more hits to get vanquished: I had a cyclops not die with my gold sack, and a zombie require two (or three?) dogs. (After some more playing, I reckon you always need either one or three shots.) By the way, I notice the enemies seem to scream when they take damage, which is a good idea to signal to the player that the weapon is effective, but the sound effect is not that noticeable; perhaps not loud enough.
- Possible bug: once I defeated the second copy of the first enemy (ie the rather ball-shaped red cyclops with small tentacles), some kind of grey metal slab fell down one storey, but hovering slowly. (Ah, I had not seen correctly, but I think it may be the heap of dust from the defeated enemy! Anyway, I still wonder if the slow falling motion was anticipated, it did not seem voluntary.)
Another time, I was pushing (involuntarily) the dust from the first enemy, almost surfing on it! XD Not sure whether this is expected or not. - No restart functionality once defeated? It would have been useful to avoid quitting-relaunching the game (once again, the game is difficult and I died often XD).
- I feel you could have made more use of the Monopoly universe; I think it was a good idea to use the ‘Monopoly guy’ in a Dungeons & Dragons context, but you could have used way more references than just the die. I see it as an excellent opportunity for spoofy jokes! :) Like, having a power that has the Monopoly limo run over the enemies on the screen, sending an enemy to prison, and so on.
Or even the standard weapons could have been taken in the Monopoly imagery. - As for gameplay: you can lose very quickly; I think adding invulnerability frames (for a short while after you get hit) could help.
- Possible very little visual bug: I lost, and two dust pictures appeared instead of only one. Another time, it was even three.
- I think the level design sometimes makes things a bit too hard. For example, when I arrived at the bottom of the vertical ‘tunnel’ for the first time, I stumbled right upon a projectile from an enemy located just there, and died immediately!! I had no way to anticipate this.
Or earlier, for the first ‘witch’, it is hard to prepare your weapon properly, because you have to fall and quickly touch the ground, which changes your weapon. - Seeing the giant banknote, it looks like this is the end of the level, but I do not know how to reach it (including using the leftward branches)… ._.
My conclusion is that I am impressed with the visuals, which are very detailed and even gorgeous at least for the landscape, but I must say I am sceptical about the random-weapon mechanic. I also think some revision of how the level is structured could help make the game more enjoyable.
You must have spent an insane amount of time making these graphics, I want to stress that despite my criticisms for some aspects of the game, I do notice they are impressive! :)