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The survival mechanics clash with the current level design. I’m playing a game where the dungeon is designed for me to make progress by attempting one room at a time, yet I respawn far away while being punished for running back to where I was and having a regenerative healing model that rewards loitering around.

Hmmm. I'll admit, I have conflicting opinions about what you're saying. I want the game to have decent survival mechanics that forces the player to think about their actions and doing their best to avoid taking damage, which is why there's permanent injuries. As for the regenerative healing thing, did you use the Ko Salve at all, or just save it for fights? I could see people feeling the need to save it, which isn't my goal. The time pressure thing definitely needs to be made mechanical if I want to keep regeneration around.

The room with the three whip enemies was the hardest thing in the dungeon. A bit strange that it has no reward.

Yeah you're right.

The pipe mechanic, as currently implemented, is awful. There’s not much substance to it puzzle-wise, yet it makes you backtrack back and forth, which is aggravating when you aren’t even allowed to run without capping stamina. There is a clash of gameplay styles here. The concept is interesting, though, as are the various implementations of water in the game.

Hmmm, yeah, I was afraid it was going to end up ultimately cumbersome. Was it too easy, and ultimately annoying once you got your hands on the pipe map?

There are many sequence breaks involving dodging, as you can dodge through most things. I thought some of them were intentional, but then I could skip the entire anor londo roof room and that was clearly not what the game expected me to do.

Truth be told, that's actually intentional. I can see why it wouldn't appear as such though. I'm actually happy you managed to figure that out! In play testing, few people figured out they could dodge over gaps like that.

The giant will cheese itself unprompted by backstepping into the lava. Not sure if intentional.

Also intentional, but maybe not satisfying. He is a pain in the ass to beat in his current state if you can't cheese him, and not everyone is able to figure out they can get him to backstep into the lava, so at least for me as a designer it feels like "outsmarting" the enemy, but I can imagine as a player it might not be satisfying.

The base damage on whip enemies is so low and their annoyance so great that it feels the appropriate strategy is to just let yourself be grabbed while planning your deterministic 180 degrees throw direction, and that’s a bit disappointing. The room with three whip enemies can be cheesed somewhat this way, too, since parts of the edges have no lava.

Hmm, did you ever get hit by their hammer swings? That can actually pack a wallop if you're not careful. Also, did you manage to beat the trio? I know that fight is pretty tricky. If it's not obvious, they're very much designed to be most dangerous in spaces where they can throw you into lava.

I didn’t get to beat the boss, but fighting it was much more fun than navigating the dungeon. Given that there is no save function there is no chance I’m going to do the piping again to get to it in this build.

Yeah, it's understandable you would stop there. I'm happy you got to the boss though! Did you happen to find the hidden camp site that leads directly into the latter half of the dungeon? Thanks for playing so much! I really appreciate it.