Hey! Just beat the demo and I have some feedback coming from a combat system designer's perspective.
Windows build: (06/04/2019 EU):
Controls:
- Allow right stick to adjust camera.
- Add inversion options for the camera.
- The roll action during targeting malfunctions more often than not.
- Using a Dualshock, the 'block' button is the pause button?
-> Either blocking isn't accessible or there's no visual feedback for it.
- Add a reset button for bosses, since losing 1 of your 4 hp in the first phase can be a death sentence and killing yourself is unfun.
Octopus boss:
Phase 1:
- The turnaround slam is significantly faster in start-up as well as cooldown lag compared to the basic slam. Additionally, the turnaround part of the attack has more range than the initial slam down, as well as being partially submerged. This makes it extremely frustrating to play around, especially combined with the boss itself moving.
- Sometimes, when standing in front of the boss's eye you're out of reach for normal tentacle slams (inconsistent?).
- When the attack animation starts the tentacle IMMEDIATELY gets a hitbox, this feels unfair since the tentacle is static (either make it constantly have a hitbox or only on the slam)
- Perhaps add some reason for the other 4 tentacles to exist, they feel mostly irrelevant (i.e. make them block the player when they try to circle around, since being cornered is currently pretty irrelevant).
Phase 2:
- The tentacles are surprisingly poor at hitting the player when the player is static
-> Overall this phase could do with some added difficulty, currently you can slash multiple tentacles at once and finish them before they even slam down
Phase 3:
- It seems that the Octopus's snout(?) has a portruding hitbox compared to the rest of the body, this means that when the octopus turns around to slam into another wall, you sometimes get hit when swinging. This feels unfair since he is static and usually static things have no hitboxes so far, but also because the portruding part makes it unexpected, making the only safe option to not attack at all.
- The phase is somewhat boring - If you want to play it safe you also have to consider rocks falling around the Octopus, which means oftentimes you'll just wait out another wall-dash. It's a lot of waiting for a safe opportunity. Perhaps add something to encourage players to stay more active (i.e. Tentacles spawning under the player position periodically, telegraphed by a shadow under the player?).
- Sometimes the rock shadows overlap the Octopus body, this means that when you're slashing him you can randomly get hit without knowing there was even a rock.
- If you end this phase just after the wall has been slammed, the rock falling transitions overlaps the wall slam rocks falling. This creates for an unfair amount of rocks.
- Sometimes the Octopus is outside of the screen and due to the rock pattern you literally can't walk close enough to see him, meaning you can get trapped between rocks and then hit by an offstage Octopus without much chance to react (feels unfair).
Rocks falling:
- The rocks and the octopus/tentacles NEED to have a different color shadow. They also need to both be visible, so don't remove i.e. the Octopus shadow in my opinion.
- The rocks can sometimes fall half outside the level, making the shadow all but invisible.
- The rocks hitboxes are waaaay huger than the shadows, or the players hurtbox is wayyyy huger than the players' shadow.
- Generally I'd stick to two larger waves of falling rocks, keeping track of three waves is rough and sometimes you HAVE to remember which rocks fell first to find a safe place.
Unfortunately due to the roll action malfunctioning in targeting mode I had to clear the boss without targeting at all, which felt like it wasn't how the boss was designed (esp phase 1). He was pretty frustrating to fight and overall felt pretty unfair, mostly due to some execution-related issues outlined above (the core design *was* really cool!). When the players' health is this low, it's important that all interactions feel fair. Losing a single hitpoint to an unseen rock can be extremely frustrating.
I also personally feel like there is not too much depth to the combat in its current state. I'd recommend looking into ways to reward players who go the extra mile. A good example is parrying or other timing based mechanics, which really rewards the players' knowledge, execution, and confidence.