Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(1 edit) (+1)

This is an interesting base for a nice comfy owl spotting game. I can see why you switched from realistic graphics at night to low poly visuals at dusk, it does look less like a Slender clone now (though admittedly now I want a realistic night-time camping/hiking game).

For the level design itself I think its currently a bit too small and a bit too sparse. There's large areas with no trees, large areas with no owls (which is admittedly realistic, but in a game about taking pictures of as many owls as possible its kinda boring at the moment). I did like some of the little details like the campsite, the little firefly like particles, and the plank bridges across the water. I think a neat addition would be if you could climb up some of the rocky hills and get up above most of the treeline for a view of the whole lake area. Maybe adding an in-game map either within the world itself as like a hiking trail map or having the player pull one up on the UI could be a good addition once you get far enough along.

I do have much more to say about some of the technical issues.

Controlling the game feels really awkward at the moment, the camera is several feet above the players body, so you're way up in the treeline for the game. In the devlog it mentioned you're thinking about making the game 3D so maybe its intentional but it feels really weird.


The FOV for the photo camera and the player camera don't match, I think it would be much more comfortable if the players base FOV matched up with the FOV of the camera when its fully zoomed out.

The photo camera seems to be a separate camera, overlayed on top of the players base camera. I would suggest using the same Unity camera for both views, or switch between the two cameras. Currently when in photo mode it doubles everything which is really annoying especially with the FOV issue previously mentioned.


Another thing I noticed with the photo camera is that zooming in seems to actually move the camera. I would suggest instead just having the zoom change the FOV of the photo camera. The issue currently is that trying to look around while zoomed in is really wonky and clips through objects in the world.

And speaking of clipping through the world you can currently go off the edge of the map, though I assume this will be addressed later.

Also I saw mention of a counter being implemented but I enver saw any counter in-game. If it shows up after the day is over then I didn't see it, because I hit the esc key thinking it might bring up a pause menu or something and then it exited the game and I was too lazy to try again.

Overall I can definitely see this becoming a nice comfy owl spotting game, but it has some technical issues that I really think need to be ironed out before trying to improve the level itself. As a side note, if you're looking for other examples of nice looking forest/bog environments, maybe look up some gameplay of Northern Journey, I personally find it to be beautiful.

(+1)

Thank you for the feedback! I guess I should've specified in my submission that I'm a level/environment designer and the intention is for this to be more of a block out of a level rather than a demo of a game. For that reason, I'll probably take out the camera feature and switch back to a counter. I didn't have time to finish the camera so, as you can see, it causes a lot of problems. Based on everyone's feedback I think I will expand the terrain, both in size and complexity. I can add some other animals in the "forest" and more owls to encourage exploration. Thanks again!