Hello.
I saw your comment on FGGS, would you care for honest thoughts about your game?
Hello, You said you wanted feeback and I am here to provide.
Disclaimer:
I only played the first two missions:
Fun gameplay loop
- - It is fun to be pratically invisible during rewind and sneak up on enemies.
- - I like how the timer is a resource because after you have killed someone, that kill is locked into that timestamp and unless you want to go back and kill them again you cannot rewind past that timestamp.
- This is inforced by the fact that you cannot snipe eneimes from across the map, the best way to kill is to get close and shoot which is fun.
However:
- - It's weird how you can win literally every gun fight by rewinding to where the person has not see you yet.
- - I often stand around waiting for the timer to tic up before killing people, because then the kill timestamp is further up and I have more time to work with. Not the most exciting thing to be doing I'll be honest, but it is the dominate strategy so I feel inclined to.
Inprovments:
- Waypoint obscured:
- - In the first mission, the numbers showing the way are blocked by a tutorial text telling you to use your rewind powers. This means you have no idea what to do unless you are rewinding which confused me for the longest time.
* Simply move the UI around.
- Long levels:
- - Levels can take quite a long to beat (second mission took me 30 minutes ) and most of the time I was looking for the last remaining bad guys.
* If there was a way to find eneimes more easily OR if the levels are less open, that would solve the issue. You could also try checkpoints, although that is not so much suited for open levels like the oil plant one.
Suggestions:
- - A UI Element showing the player when they are about to revive an enemy if they rewind any further would be a nice touch. Although this does remove some cool tension as right now the player has to keep track of that themselves. Which is a fun puzzle, but also a chore when coupled with longer levels.
- - Have some missions where you have the timer be in focus. And others where the time ability has a cooldown. I like the idea of time being a resource but right now it does not feel like that's the intention. So I would experiments with a super short level that has a very tight time limit and the player has to carefully plan out a route where they kill everyone without reviving anybody.
To give you a reference point, this would make the game feel like Hitman. You know what will happen at any given moment and it's a matter of setting up the perfect plan and executing it.
Define player experience:
- - I think it's important for you to ask the question "what should the player feel".
The player has a silencer and kills people with just one bullet if up close. That tells me that this is a stealth game. But there is nothing stopping me from playing the game like Hotline Miami, rewinding my mistakes and blazing through the eneimes.
This is acually unappealing.
Of course there is something to be said about giving the player the freedom to explore different solutions and playstyles, but in this case it shows a lack of vision for the game.
Going back to Hitman, that game has ENDLESS potential solutions and sprawling levels. But at the end of the day every player will have the same experience of assasinating and planning out their approach.
I am unsure what experience I was intended to have in your game and that's not a good thing.
* Again, what you can do is play other games and see what makes them fun. Try to dissect your inspirations and I'm sure you will find a unique identity for your game.
I hope I have not been too harsh and I wish you the best of luck with your game development : >