Post by osur in The Gun is Good - DEMO jam comments

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i guess i must really suck at these games, because i gave it 4 tries and i usually die on the 5th or so level. overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, i shouldn't have said i'd beat it so long ago. played it about an hour or so, and i did notice some changes with regards to the arsenal from before. i'd say the current one is much more fun since there are now outright silly combinations, which i think you should focus on and expand.

my favorite combination was quadzooka + wild at heart, which would make 3 rockets whiff entirely. it was hilarious. that and wild at heart + the laser weapons. having super silly combinations such as this is what makes games interesting.

some weapons (namely satellite) are still much weaker than before. the difference between getting a super-spreader shotgun (which is really good with wild at heart) and a satellite as your first drop is night and day. i mentioned this before, but perhaps droprates can be tinkered with a bit more, since my run quality was noticeably different depending on what dropped. i could get something that immediately clears rooms without me having to move, vs something like a basic rifle which requires a lot of movement, skill, accuracy, etc

the Nurgling looking enemies are my all time favorites. look at them jump! they're fast as hell too, lovely

the other new enemies, like the plant looking guys and the eyeballs (don't remember if these are new, they feel new to me) are very cool. i especially like the gore for the bigger enemies.

some sounds are a bit weak. the fire laser reminds me more of a printer than a deathray.

some small issues with music in menus. in the main menu, starting pauses the music abruptly instead of some fadeout effect of something.

pausing the game keeps the music, but only in my right ear? thought my headphones broke for a bit there.

otherwise as always, keep up the good work. this is a game that will absolutely sell once released. i'm glad i was able to witness it's journey from squares with letters to where we are today, even if i suck at it.

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SPECXHT1 year ago(+1)

Thanks for playing, I'm sure you'll get to the boss some time! The map is meant to be the first of 2 or 3 areas, so there'd be more bosses if I can get to that point. But having the difficulty at a reasonable level is pretty hard when I've played it so incredibly much myself, I find it too easy now.

i'd say the current one is much more fun since there are now outright silly combinations, which i think you should focus on and expand.my favorite combination was quadzooka + wild at heart, which would make 3 rockets whiff entirely. it was hilarious. that and wild at heart + the laser weapons. having super silly combinations such as this is what makes games interesting.

Yeah you're definitely right about that, there's a million things I'd like to do I just need the find the time to do it heh.

some weapons (namely satellite) are still much weaker than before. the difference between getting a super-spreader shotgun (which is really good with wild at heart) and a satellite as your first drop is night and day. i mentioned this before, but perhaps droprates can be tinkered with a bit more, since my run quality was noticeably different depending on what dropped. i could get something that immediately clears rooms without me having to move, vs something like a basic rifle which requires a lot of movement, skill, accuracy, etc

Always trying to improve the drop rates. I do want a bit of randomness of course, so every run won't start of as easy/hard. But you're probably right that it could be flattened a bit in the early game. Satellite for example is a lot more situationally good, might be better to not have it spawn at all early.

some sounds are a bit weak. the fire laser reminds me more of a printer than a deathray.

Needs changing yeah.

some small issues with music in menus. in the main menu, starting pauses the music abruptly instead of some fadeout effect of something.

I find everything to do with loading stuff really annoying in Unity. It was a quick fix I did because if you didn't mute it the music started lagging, but I'll make it a fade out.

pausing the game keeps the music, but only in my right ear? thought my headphones broke for a bit there.

The short explanation for that is that its playing sounds through a 3rd party library for DOTS (there's no official audio support) which only has 3d sound, so the music is playing and constantly getting shifted to the audio listener. Pausing can cause it to get out of sync. However, music can just as well be played the normal Unity way; it'll be a bit convoluted and annoying with two ways of playing sounds but it might still be better.

Thanks for the encouraging words!

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osur1 year ago

2 weeks later, i'm back

7 or so tries, 1 final level reached, 2-3 2nd to final level

jesus christ it gets tough. i was determined to try and beat it but it seems i'll need more practice. i have a few additional notes - i'm sure a few are outdated, but it doesn't hurt to share

>i switch guns when i empty a magazine if i'm fighting and i don't feel like waiting for the reload. switching back to the empty-mag gun will do the switch, and my character won't react until i click to shoot, at which point he reloads. it would be nice if the game would automatically trigger a reload if i switch on an empty mag gun.

>the devastator trivialized a lot of fighting, probably needs a big nerf

>how does the expendable bazooka work? i can't seem to reload it? is it a one-time shot? if so, i shouldn't still hold on to it.

>some weapons (grenades and short ranged explosives) seem weak. i would swap them out as soon as possible.

>i saw that you are revamping the item comparison UI. it could get confusing trying to compare data, especially since there's a lot of stuff to compare. don't have any ideas for this part, but the ones posted in the thread seem to be an improvement

>i don't like that ammo counter is separate from the ammo-in-mag counter. the issue is that i don't like having to look at multiple things to get a gauge of my current standing. a clearer indication of "you are out of ammo, all that's left is loaded in your mag!" would be nice. perhaps the background color of the "fill" that symbolizes current mag ammo can turn red, or something like that. it's not a pressing issue, but i can imagine someone frantically checking their ammo while fighting a group - every second counts! if you save one glance, that's more time to react in the fight.

>special enemies are underutilized. this refers to the green hoppers and the pink crabmen - you could use more of them

>projectiles are a danger, but it feels wrong that a group of 3 plant dudes on the other side of the map still pose a threat to me by firing their red balls

>the laser (especially the 5-shot star laser) is blinding. hard to see incoming projectiles due to how bright the laser is. perhaps intentional design, but worth pointing out.

>would be nice if there was some indication of level size on the minimap, so i know when i am approaching a map corner. this is an issue for me in the lategame pink maps, where i am trying to circlestrafe and accidentally corner myself.

as i said before, can't wait to see more. i'll beat TGIG.... one day..

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SPECXHT1 year ago(+1)

Hey man thanks for trying it out again! And all feedback is always really appreciated. I haven't actually heard anyone reach the boss, although PATdev was close. Its funny because the game feels way too easy for me now after playing so damn much, so its good to have other players to bring me back to reality.

i switch guns when i empty a magazine if i'm fighting and i don't feel like waiting for the reload. switching back to the empty-mag gun will do the switch

That could probably work.

the devastator trivialized a lot of fighting, probably needs a big nerf

Yeah probably, I wanted to add some really powerful gun that you could find for DD. Its meant to be balanced a bit by having very low armor penetration and high ammo consumption, but I got so many complaints before about high armor enemies being annoying that its not much a factor right now. The balance overall is pretty wonky because its tuned a bit towards being a complete experience for the demo, you get way to many modifications late game imo for example.

>how does the expendable bazooka work? i can't seem to reload it? is it a one-time shot? if so, i shouldn't still hold on to it.

>some weapons (grenades and short ranged explosives) seem weak. i would swap them out as soon as possible.

The expendable bazookas I've realized are a bit confusing yeah, will probably start by changing the name... The exp. bazookas and frag grenades are intended to be a bit more like secondary weapons. They have really fast swap speed and barely any reload, but quite low rate of fire. The idea is that you can very quickly swap to them, shoot, and swap back - but there's not very good feedback especially for the exp. bazookas when the cannot be fired due to rate of fire. You can do some silly stuff like carry 4 frags and constantly swap and throw.

I'm thinking about greatly increasing the amount of guns there are, even if they would be pretty similar - for example a bunch of different SMGs. But not sure yet if it'll be worse or better...

But yeah I am struggling a bit with having the tooltips conveying information and not overwhelming and confusing players, gun swap speed for example isn't shown at all.

>projectiles are a danger, but it feels wrong that a group of 3 plant dudes on the other side of the map still pose a threat to me by firing their red balls

There are much fewer ones on the desert levels now because it was quite bullshitty before. Their main purpose on cave maps is to force the player to move and not camp, but it is possible I have gone a bit overboard with it heh, they should be able to shoot over the entirety of every level now so.

>i don't like that ammo counter is separate from the ammo-in-mag counter. the issue is that i don't like having to look at multiple things to get a gauge of my current standing. a clearer indication of "you are out of ammo, all that's left is loaded in your mag!" would be nice.

I was thinking about that earlier too, I'll try some stuff out.

>the laser (especially the 5-shot star laser) is blinding. hard to see incoming projectiles due to how bright the laser is. perhaps intentional design, but worth pointing out.

Its.. half intentional. It also drains so much ammo that holding the trigger down might not be a great idea. The lasers right now have to much effects going on right now though I think, I'll tone it down.

>would be nice if there was some indication of level size on the minimap, so i know when i am approaching a map corner. this is an issue for me in the lategame pink maps, where i am trying to circlestrafe and accidentally corner myself.

Well the thought behind the radar is just to give you a very quick overview of where enemies and objectives are (they might still be too small on there though apparently), and the camera is pretty zoomed out to give you a wide view. Other than that being able to destroy all walls is meant to give you a bit of an out even if you get cornered, or phasing through enemies with the perk / try to run through while blasting the shield gun.

Its just a bit of a pet peeve of mine I guess with games having you glance at the minimap every second to see some vital information, like playing Battlefield or something and looking where spotted enemies are all the time instead of looking at the actual game. So I don't really have any plans on changing it now, but then again maybe I change my mind.

Thanks again!

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osur1 year ago

>Its just a bit of a pet peeve of mine I guess with games having you glance at the minimap every second to see some vital information, like playing Battlefield or something and looking where spotted enemies are all the time instead of looking at the actual game. So I don't really have any plans on changing it now, but then again maybe I change my mind.

i understand what you mean and it makes sense. i'd keep it as is.

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