- Aesthetic and Art-style -
This game was on my radar, I was looking at the screenshots given by NekOz at discord semi-religiously. The art-style is just top notch. The synth-wave aesthetic felt so cool. 3D models and just the vibe of the game was hilarious personally. I found it very fun to look around and just see all of the madness.
The game had few instances of Z-fighting (specially floor) and some weapon(great axe for example) were just white squares in my inventory but, due to the aesthetic I'm really not sure if it was a bug or intentional.
- Game play -
I really liked the simple fighting mechanic of blocking and attacking. I do wish game was bit more clear about some weapons needing to recharge after attacking(maybe like a progress-bar?). I do have one complaint regarding the fighting mechanics. When you charge your attack it breaks enemies defense, that is fine but, I can't see a reason to not charge my attacks.
Charging attack both dealt considerably more damage and broke enemy's defense pushing them back. Normal attacks on the other hand, can be blocked and even if they are not blocked they deal less damage. Game having a trade -off between charge and normal attacks could make it even more interesting.
A way to heal would've been very nice(If there was I couldn't find it). I find myself on low health after a single encounter and usually just skipped rest of the enemies, since as far as I can tell killing them doesn't really benefit you.
- Audio -
I must admit every sound I've heard felt just in place. Music was also very nice(can I have it as a mp3? I would love to listen to it time to time).
- Overhaul -
I think you peeps did a really good job for a jam. Aside from few bugs(again I'm not sure if they are bugs or not, aesthetic really covers it well) the game was very fun and enjoyable. I would love to see this game expanded on further after the jam.
Viewing post in Deus In Machina jam comments
== ARTSTYLE ==
"I found it very fun to look around and just see all of the madness."
Madness caused by time crunch is fuel for more madness :D
The Moai, UI, 2nd level mix and void level was done in the last three days. This includes modelling, texturing, creating custom shaders (Amplify Shader Editor my beloved!) and experimenting with lighting. Kimu helped out with a couple of models, the most notable being the CRT monitor. Some third party models were altered and used to save time (and are credited in the description, they are all either Public Domain or CC BY 4.0)
The white squares is a bug and I know there is some Z fighting specifically because of the way we did prefabbed rooms for proc gen.
== GAMEPLAY ==
This was our first dungeon crawler ever and we wanted to keep it simple, though we unfortunately did not have much time to actually playtest this when everything finally came together. Combat feels... impotent for the lack of a better word. There is no punch to the attacks. There is no proper anticipation for incoming attacks. And yes, there is no reason to not charge attacks. Imo each action you can do against an enemy should have clear pros and cons. For instance, light attacks could be used to interrupt heavy attacks. In a way, the game feels setup for a rock, paper, scissor combat loop where you have a set of actions that are capable of interacting with each other.
Killing enemies do not give you anything, they act more as obstacles. Healing is something we should have added. But you know, sleep deprived hubris and all that.
One big issue I got with the current proc gen system is that the dungeons are very hit or miss. Sometimes you just walk through one without encountering any loot or enemies. Other times you are FLOODED by enemies. There should of course be some variation in the amount of rooms, loot and enemies, but this ain't it.
== AUDIO ==
I have sent your compliments as a screenshot to Kimusabe and Trish. They did an amazing job.
== OVERHAUL ==
The bugs are most likely bugs. Besides the level 2 mix and GOD, I have not intentionally introduced Z fighting. I personally want to keep working on this game, I think there is a lot of potential in this if it actually got some polish and actual content. But we are already working on polishing another Game Jam game (Ordinary Day in Brackeys Game Jam 2022.2 eyyoooooo) for Steam release. We might do an update doing some rebalancing and fixing the game up a bit, but actually expanding it into a full game has to wait even if the entire team is onboard.
Thanks for leaving a well written comment, we all appreciate it.