actually just got to watch the Video earlier.
First of all tank you so much for playing! Loved every second of that playthrough. Sadly you stumbled upon quite a few bugs and had some open questions. So let me explain:
That you sometimes can't interact with npc's and campfires is a bug.
1. Progression
Some NPCs are supposed to drop a line to explain what you need to do. This was bugged as well. They will give you recommendations where to walk.
There are 4 key locations;
- opposum boss
- ratking boss
- opposum village
- alpha boss
This was the recommended route we had in mind.
The alpha being the wolf boss in the center and also being the winning condition/end boss.
Ranking and opposum boss are quite clear.
The village at the top was meant to be hard to enter but have some cool items like the "more projectiles" item.
The bosses also had some unique items they would drop. Though we added the items we didn't get to add the loot mechanic. Adding more directional bullets etc.
2. Combat
We did plan the combat to have another mechanic I didn't get done in time. Projectile sizes. Instead of 2 bullets destroying one another enemy bullets need two player bullets to break if equal size. Double if larger size, half if lower. 3 sizes: tiny normal and large. That would have laid more focus on dodging.
Enemies where meant to have more moves. But we had to completely overhaul enemy AI including bosses at 3 am (world saving/respawning broke at 4 am so 1 hour before jam end) . So we didn't get to add more patterns which would have forced the player into a more skilled combat.
Glad you liked it though!
Excited screeching counter: 6x
Holy crap, I did not expect you to make a WHOLE VIDEO ???! WHAT!!! That is crazy, wow, thank you so much!!!! That is such a valuable insight into the player experience of our game, and you certainly discovered a crapton of bugs (some we were awre of, some not).
Gerolmed already elaborated on a lot of the mechanics stuff you pointed out but yeah, unfortunately we could not get all the features in that we wanted. For example the buff when you walk in your own paint sadly didn't get added in time (and afaik caused some performance issues, so let's see if we'll get that figured out).
Some more design oriented points Gerolmed hasn't mentioned: Definitely a lot of missing polish all around. You mentioned the outlines of the world are hard to see - I'll have to agree, a yellow outline instead of a white one would go a long way in that regard. Level layouts need a revamp aswell, so do the NPC dialogues and general level design. The directions weren't clear enough and the goal was confusing, so all stuff that needs to be reworked. Also the boss rooms were supposed to lock you in, I believe we all just collectively forgot about that. xD
But yeh, I'll have to agree with you on all the other points aswell. We'll definitely consider your feedback and pointers at the end, more feedback on enemy hit would have been desirable for sure, but the music and art department was preoccupied with dying unfortunately, so no effects on that end. Olof (our musician) and me definitely want to polish the game up some more though, so once we start finishing things up those will be added for sure.
Overall I want to thank you kindly for taking such an indepth look at our game, and giving such lovely feedback. About the game polish - while we did have a bit of a larger scope than the other Jammers, we also had a much bigger Team. I'm sure if the other games had five people working together on each project they would have left us in the dust haha, but we're lucky enough to be an established group with a common love for game dev :D Overall this Jam experience has been so so lovely, and I would have never expected such an outpoor of love and feedback from the community, and so many great people reaching out to us. Personally it was my first Jam experience, and I think it was a really amazing one. I'm so happy with the product, thank you again <<<333
