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Cool promo image! It caught my eye and made me want to replay the game immediately.

I played two runs until my untimely death. There were a couple of bugs, but nothing terrible. I'll try to review things as they were presented.

I started off and got an SMG early on. The purple cave map feels a lot more constricted than before, but it wasn't too bad.  I just held a corner and pressed left click until there weren't any more demons coming at me. Some got stuck between a rock object and the cave wall, so I needed to hunt them down. I saw a weapon that was almost entirely covered up by the cave walls, only a tiny bit was sticking out . Might need a bigger effect to show players that a gun is on the ground and nearby. If I wasn't attentive, I'da missed it. It was a nice shotgun, but the SMG felt better.

Before I finished the level,  I felt as if the music wasn't matching the game at all. It was a very suspenseful track that played while I was singlehandedly depopulating hordes of baddies. I just ended up playing some of my own music. Playing high bpm rave music actually fit the game better and made it more fun to mow stuff down. While that seems to be the fad as of late (reminds me I guess of Ultrakill and other fast paced shooters with music that has very high BPM), it works well for this game. Perhaps that's something to look into? I'm sure there's some royalty free stuff out there.

Anyway, I leveled up. Clicked the level up button, chose my upgrade, then it brought me back to the same screen giving me the option (greyed out, though) to level up or proceed. I feel as if this is redundant - I leveled up already! After leveling up, I should be immediately sent to the next level instead of confirming whether or not I want to proceed.

The map screen is fun as well, but the symbols aren't obvious or explained. I just picked a triangle and kept going.

Onto level 2, a red level. The layout feels harder since I can't funnel all the enemies, but it wasn't too bad. At some point I just stopped moving and held down left click without any problems, then the level ended. Some purple enemies seen to have pathfinding issues if I'm behind a wall? They just sortof stand there, and will mimic my movements a bit if I'm moving around behind the wall. Shot them anyway, no issue there. I also picked up two different grenade launchers. A normal grenade launcher, works as intended, and a Little Friend (or something like that) gun. Big grenade, short range. I liked that one, felt more unique. Blew my own health away quickly, though. 

Next up, a purple cave level. I was very quickly surrounded, since it felt like there were a lot more enemies than the level was intended for. Didn't have a lot of movement options, since all the tunnels around me were basically filled up from the start. Died there. 

The 'Sh' enemies were fun, spawning some small boys. Felt a bit too bullet spongy though. It might be a good opportunity to introduce a high proiority target, since otherwise I just shoot mindlessly. Perhaps reduce their HP by a lot, and have them spawn enemies MUCH faster (when in range of the player?). Makes the player want to target them first, and gives some tactical incentives instead of Hold LMB to win.

All in all, a few minor bugs, no major issues, had fun shooting. Could use with some minor QoL fixes, mainly having to do with outside the shooting part (level up screen polish, more explanations or incentives on the map screen, etc).

The Score screen showed my score properly on my first playthrough, but was 0 on the 2nd despite making it just as far.

Perhaps some smarter enemy types (or maybe I just died before reaching them)? Some map improvements too, maybe? Although I wouldn't know what to suggest for that one.

Keep it up!

Thanks for playing all the feedback!

Yeah I'm entirely sure about what kind of music I want, but higher tempo would probably be better at least.

Concerning enemy AI, I have been experimenting a bit with smarter AI and with some local collision avoidance but I haven't seen that much benefit to it in the long run. The reason for that is the amount of enemies rise massively the further you get but so does the power of your guns; the enemies will be packed so tightly and die quickly that the behavior of an individual is barely apparent. Giving them more different behaviors though, absolutely. And the reason why you thought some of the purple ones path-finding seems to break is because units can get into different formations that changes how they act. In that instance they're protecting the "scepter" enemies, stands still and shoots, so you have to get through them to kill the shooters. I realize though that it might seem jarring if the same enemies suddenly act different, so maybe it'd be better to have them always act the same and make new ones instead?

The reason for returning after leveling up is that if you have enough runes to afford it you can level up multiple times. Might be changed in the future though. And I know its ugly as sin.

Map symbols not being obvious is a bit by design, although I made the sprites really quickly so I'll change most of them, so you'll have to go to them first to discover what they do. Right now there are 5 different ones: blue cave, red desert, rest point, shop, and boss. A lot more stuff is planned though.

About the spawner enemies; good suggestions, I'm not entirely sure how I want to handle them but I'll probably try yours. But I think they get more interesting in the later levels when there's a lot more enemies, might just remove them from the first levels actually. Also enemies have armor and that one in particular has a high amount, all guns and effects have different amounts of armor piercing so if you used the SMG vs them it'll take a lot of bullets but others can kill them really quick. I know its not obvious at all right now so you might have missed it, but if you hover the cursor over the guns in the UI to the left you can see their stats (AP for armor piercing). And if you stand on top of a dropped gun you'll see its stats after a moment, can also compare stats if you hover at the same time.

I threw in the score at the last minute so I can't say I'm too surprised its bugged somehow, thanks! Tweaking maps and enemies is something I'm expecting do to constantly so I'll look into it all. Hearing thoughts about enemy density and such is good because I think I've been playing so damn much I can't really tell myself - it all feels so easy to me.

But one tip is to use the shield gun when you feel overwhelmed sometimes, it can have a lot of utility. Its short range attack is pretty crappy except for pushing people away, but it can pretty easily destroy walls so you can make new passages if you need to. It also has a secondary fire mode, RMB, that protects you from incoming shots.